Of Prophets and Mysteries

Last week, we looked at six lessons about how God communicates directly with Wo/Mankind, derived from two stories in the Book of Jacob: The story of the stairway to heaven, and the story of Jacob’s wrestling with God at the brook Jabok. 

Today, we want to talk about prophets in the context of Jesus’s promise to send us prophets, teachers, and sages (Matthew 23:34.)

We have in the past looked at the characteristics of a prophet. What should we expect from a prophet? And we’ve asked ourselves the question: Who needs a prophet anyway? And where have all the prophets gone? 

Still to be considered is whether a faith group can even exist without a prophet. How many years can a faith group go without an update from a prophet? In the case of our Seventh-Day Adventist Church I don’t have to remind you that Ellen White died in 1915, more than a century ago. 

Jesus promised that he would send us prophets and teachers and sages. Amos tells us: 

Certainly the Lord God does nothing
Unless He reveals His secret plan
To His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7) 

So the question is: What are the secrets of God? Why does God have secrets? And why does he keep secrets from us? Why does he feel the need to share the secrets now with the prophets? And why through the prophets? 

The New Testament refers to the secrets of God as divine mysteries, some of which, we are told, have been hidden since the foundation of the world. The greatest mystery—the mystery from which all other mysteries spring—is the mystery found in Jesus Christ Himself:

Beyond question, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh,
 Was vindicated in the Spirit,
 Seen by angels,
 Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
 Taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

Adam and Eve’s transgression in eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the quintessence of humanity’s burning desire for knowledge. We want to know everything. It is this desire that caused the Fall and it might be argued that the root of all evil is the desire for knowledge. 

We simply don’t like not knowing. It seems we dislike not knowing so much that we would rather make things up than admit our ignorance, and religions and churches throughout the ages have been more than willing to satisfy our desire with purported knowledge presented as immutable truths supported by Scripture. It’s puzzling to see so many different truths, so many different answers, offered by so many different faith groups. 

The Bible is full of mystery, which makes it more a book of questions than a book of answers. The Greek word mysterion (μυστήριον) appears 28 times in the New Testament. Although it sounds like and is translated as mysteries, it denotes not a whodunit but rather a truth revealed, a truth previously unknown or not comprehended. Jesus referred repeatedly to a “truth revealed” and talked about it in the context of spiritual maturity: 

 At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and have revealed them to infants. (Matthew 11:25)

In short, the secret—the mystery revealed—is something that can be understood by spiritually innocent babes but not by the supposedly spiritually sophisticated and wise and intelligent. The apostle Paul emphasized that the relation of mystery was linked to the preaching, the message, and the ministry of Jesus: 

 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now has been disclosed, and through the Scriptures of the prophets, in accordance with the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith;… (Romans 16:25-26) 

Paul also emphasized our inability to fathom the mystery of God himself, the inaccessibility of God’s hidden wisdom. 

 …but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard,

 And which have not entered the human heart, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:7-9)

Mystery, it seems, matters. It mattered to Jesus, it mattered to Paul, it matters to you and it matters to me. It matters a great deal. 

Altogether, there are four great mysteries which have been revealed by Jesus and others through the Scriptures. These mysteries, whose meaning all people on the earth have sought since the beginning of time, are as follows:

1. The mystery of godliness. What is the origin and purpose of good? 

2. The mystery of iniquity. What is the origin and purpose of evil? 

3. The mystery of the ubiquity of God’s grace. Whose God is he? Who owns God? 

4. The mystery of the transforming power of grace. What does grace do to us? How does grace change us in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye? 

Today we’re going to look at the first mystery: The mystery of godliness. 

The mystery of godliness was not understood before Jesus revealed it. It is essentially a mystery about the source of goodness. Paul wrote:

 Beyond question, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

Goodness, then, seems to be the root of, and to be found in, godliness. The concept that God is good spans the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. In the first chapter of Genesis, the goodness of God is inherent in the creative power and is manifest again and again: God created light and saw that it was good; he created dry land, and that was good; he brought forth vegetation and that was good; he placed the sun and moon and the stars in the expanse of the heavens and that was good; he created the great sea monsters and every living creature, and they were good; and he made the beasts of the earth after its kind and the cattle and so forth, and they were good. And in conclusion, God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

The final biblical reference to God’s creative power is given in the book of Revelation. It is the story of recreation:  

 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)

The act of creation, of making something new, seems central to godliness. It seems central to the goodness of God. So too does the act of healing, of renewing, of recreating, which was at the heart of the ministry of Jesus: 

 You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil,… (Acts 10:38) 

Jesus used the metaphor of fruit also to reveal that goodness is also synonymous with truth: 

 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-20)

But the most important parameter of goodness was established when a rich young ruler asked Jesus: 

 “Teacher, what good thing shall I do so that I may obtain eternal life?” And He [Jesus] said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” Then he *said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false testimony; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man *said to Him, “All these I have kept; what am I still lacking?” Jesus said to him, “If you want to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property. (Matthew 19:16-22)

It’s a tall order for a young man—or any of us used to wealth and power—to give it all up, but Jesus never compromised on this principle. In the Sermon on the Mount, he emphasized:

 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness far surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) 

This is the key point: He was alluding to the accepted definition of righteousness as the keeping of the law. He gave the essential meaning, the true definition, of the equivalent concepts of goodness and godliness and righteousness and truth. To the rich young ruler: Give up all worldly things and follow Jesus. Keeping to the letter of the law may or may not be a necessary condition for righteousness, but is certainly not sufficient on its own, according to Jesus. 

This is the truth revealed about the mystery of godliness, about the goodness of God. It reinforces the necessity for mystery itself, as distinct from laws and commandments. 

In a long series of illustrations in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus contrasted law-keeping with the mystery of goodness. For example, he said: 

 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be answerable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court;…” (Matthew 5:21-22)

He made similar statements concerning adultery, the making of vows, the retribution of justice of the Old Testament, and so forth. He sought to replace the prevalent view of law-keeping with diametrically opposed concepts such as loving one’s enemy and turning the other cheek rather than demanding an eye for an eye. And in case this wasn’t clear enough, he nailed it by concluding: 

 Therefore you shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48).

In other words, goodness is divine, goodness is God. Yet to people of all faiths, goodness is usually defined in terms of personal piety: How much does one give in alms? How diligently does one pray? How often does one attend church, synagogue, mosque, temple, and so on? Jesus said that not only should you not judge the goodness of others on this flimsy basis—you should not judge yourself on that basis either. It’s the wrong measure. 

He did not dismiss personal piety entirely but as a measure of goodness, he clearly relegated it:

 “Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 

 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, so that they will be praised by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charitable giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 

 “And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” (Matthew 6:1-5) 

Like Isaiah, Jesus placed the fast in a completely different context from that which it persists in being commonly supposed even today. Instead of a show of personal privation and with its trappings of sackcloth and ashes, one’s focus should rather be on reaching out to those who are oppressed: 

Is it a fast like this that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself?
 Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed
 And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed?
 Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?  Is this not the fast that I choose:
To release the bonds of wickedness,
 To undo the ropes of the yoke,
 And to let the oppressed go free,
And break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:5-6)

Again, it’s very clear. The definition of goodness that emerges from this and from the story of the rich young ruler has more to do with following Jesus by practicing the fruit of the Spirit—that is to say, love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. “Against these things, there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22) 

“Practicing the fruit of the Spirit” means caring for others: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,” and so forth (Matthew 25). It has nothing to do with personal piety or staying within the law. Judgment and goodness are centered upon community, not upon the individual. 

Thus, the mystery of godliness: Truth and righteousness matters far more than conformity to laws and commandments. Even Moses, the law-giver who handed down the law and the Commandments from God, could not help asking God to reveal some of his mystery. He asked the question that we all want to ask: “Let me know your ways, that I may know you.” (Exodus 33:12) 

God did not deny Moses his request directly. Instead, he said he would make his ways available to Moses by accompanying him: “My presence shall go before you [Exodus 33:14] and I will give you rest.’ Moses then asked the favor we all want of God: “Make me and mine your favorites” [Exodus 33:15]. “If your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here,” he said, “for how then can it be known that I have found favor in your sight—I and your people? Is it not by your going with us so that we, I and your people, may be distinguished from all other people who are upon the face of the earth?” 

Moses then asked the another common request of small-minded humankind: Show me how powerful you are—show me your glory (Exodus 33:18). God’s reply is remarkable: “I myself,” he said, “will make my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you and I’ll be gracious to whom I’ll be gracious, I will show compassion on whom I’ll show compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face for no man can see me and live.” Then he said: “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33)

There are many interesting things about this response, starting with the anthropomorphism of a God with hands and a face and a back. There’s the metaphor of being cradled in the hands of God for protection. But most interesting of all is that God allowed Moses to see his goodness. It is interesting because Jesus revealed that what we can know about God—the mystery of godliness that can be revealed—comes from knowing and seeing goodness. 

Much is written and said about all of the evil in the world. Some days we feel overcome with evil. (Next week, we’re planning to look at the mystery of iniquity, the mystery of evil.) But is there really more good in the world than there is evil? Not a tragedy passes but goodness is demonstrated: First responders rushing toward a collapsing World Trade Center to rescue the injured, people helping people in floods and earthquakes. In natural disasters of all types, goodness is continuously on display. The mystery of godliness—the mystery of goodness—is also seen in manmade destruction and disasters as well. In war and mass shootings, motor vehicle accidents, we see people stopping to help, lending a hand, demonstrating goodness. 

Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian, has written an evidence-based book on the mystery of goodness—about how, from the beginning of civilization, the historical record is full of evidence of God’s goodness being demonstrated between one man and another. It’s titled Humankind: A Hopeful History.

Here is paragraph from the fly-leaf: 

 If there’s one belief that is uniting the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it’s the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It is a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From the writings of Macchiavelli to Hobbs, Freud to Pinker, the roots of the belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self interest.

But what, he asks, if it isn’t true? International bestseller Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting out to prove that we are hardwired for kindness, geared toward cooperation rather than competition, and more inclined to trust rather than to distrust one another. In fact, this instinct has a firm evolutionary basis, going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. In almost every tragedy and every disaster some people will put their lives in danger to help strangers. Is this not a revelation of goodness? Is this a revelation of God? Can you really represent the hands and the heart of God? Is the only way that most people will ever get to see God through your and my acts of love and compassion for one another?

It seems that although sometimes God does intervene in the world in a direct and supernatural way, his modus operandi seems to be to operate and reveal Himself through us. To see the mystery that matters most, it may be that you simply need to look into the mirror. 

What, then, is the origin of goodness? Can we be good without God? Is it a truth revealed? Is it a mystery that there is more good in the world than there is evil? That goodness is next to godliness? And is it a mystery—a truth revealed—that the only way people will see God is through your goodness? We so want knowledge in order to understand, to be righteous, and to possess truth. But the truth revealed is that God desires goodness, not knowledge. 

God’s glory is revealed in our goodness. As it was for Moses, what we see of God is found in goodness. What are your thoughts on the secrets of God, on this first mystery, this truth revealed—the mystery of goodness, the mystery of godliness, and your and my role in revealing God’s secrets? Do we have a prophetic role to demonstrate God’s goodness? Are we called to be priests of goodness? 

David: The basis for believing that there is more goodness in the world is simply reflected in the logic of existence. Evil is destructive. Goodness is creative. If evil were to prevail, we would not have an earth, we would not have a growing population. For all its ills and all its faults, to me that is sufficient evidence that there is much more goodness in the world than there is evil.

Donald: Back in school—first or second grade, I remember we had cards saying: Be kind, Be good. So are we taught to be good, or is good innate within us? If evil ran rampant, then we would self-destruct. But that hasn’t transpired (though if you watch the news, you would think that it has!) The news overwhelmingly (it seems to me) presents evil and selfishness and greed and lust and all the rest of it. 

By dwelling on that, we tend to think that’s the way we are. But when it comes right down to it, we will help our neighbor to the point where we will almost give up our own being, I think. My question is, were we trained to be good or are we good? Were we taught to be good in school? My mother taught me to be good. Was that necessary?

C-J: I think inherently, for the species to survive we have to work cooperatively. The other part is that when people are denied the most basic things, if they are a part of that equation, they become broken and they lack the capacity to trust, or to rely on something else. “I’ll take your food before I wait for you to give it to me.” So I think that’s the issue. 

And we do need to be trained. I think its inherent, to take only what you need. And I think there’s the cooperative component that this book alludes to, in order to survive as a species, because we will, by the nature of time, not be able to always have enough if there’s a famine and things like that. But that goes back to trust. In spirit beings, it begins with God. God is our source of provision.

Kiran: The idea that God desires not knowledge but goodness is controversial. Take our church: You have to have intelligent faith, you need to have the knowledge, and then you have to have experience. So knowledge is a pretty serious concept. If you go to a Pentecostal church nobody cares about doctrine. And we also know that in this church you have to follow the Bible, follow the Ten Commandments, follow the spirit of the prophecy. Most of it is about knowledge. 

But if you say “God is goodness” then there is no exclusivity to the Adventist church or the Catholic Church or any other church. A person with no religion can be good. Muslims can be good. Some Middle Eastern countries are very hospitable. Some places in India are very hospitable. So there are no boundaries here—no creed, nothing. If you exercise good—the source of which is God—and exercise that good consistently throughout your life, that’s it. 

Now I see why Revelation talks of a sea of people. It makes sense: They are from all different countries and all different ethnicities. They cannot be all Adventists, they cannot be all Catholics, but they’re there because they used the source of goodness and exercised it and overcame the evil. This is very controversial. 

Carolyn: I feel like we are in a war zone—good versus evil. But when God created man, his one comment was: “And it was good.” And therefore we do have the goodness. But all of a sudden, the dynamics changed when sin entered the Garden of Eden, and therefore we do have a constant play between good and evil. But I think initially we had the basic goodness. No matter where we are in the world, it was put into all of us when God created us.

Bryan: I would tend to agree with that. I think human beings in general are born good. Babies are good. We’re born good, but in a lot of instances, I think, we are taught to be evil. Children are taught hatred, they’re taught bigotry, they’re taught the things that separate human beings one from another. A lot of those things are learned behaviors—racism and so on. Evil, I think, a lot of times is learned. 

But think of the human characteristics of good and evil as muscle: When you exercise a muscle it gets stronger. So if you exercise good, or you exercise evil, that one gets stronger and has more influence than the other. As you grow up you learn to exercise one over the other and the one you exercise most becomes dominant. I think we’re born good in general, and we learn evil. As adults, we can rationalize which one we want to exercise and which one will overcome the other.

Donald: I agree with that, certainly. What causes evil is an interesting thing to ponder. You can learn to want to steal if you have nothing. I don’t know if that would be considered evil in the mind of the person doing the stealing just to survive. Probably for the majority of us, if not all of us here today, for some reason, as we mature, it seems that we want to have well defined guardrails. We want to define “This is right, this is the way I do it.” And that gets tighter and tighter and tighter. 

We talked a little bit about the role of a prophet. Was Mrs. White necessary for me to understand God? Perhaps she enhanced my understanding of God but beyond that what she did was to define what ultimately became a church organization, which is putting guardrails around everything and saying this is right and that’s wrong. “Just read the book and you’ll find out.” 

I agree with Brian. We learn evil probably to protect ourselves and put walls around this and say, “Okay, everybody behave this way inside this space, and we’re all good to go.” We’ve barely looked over the fence.

David: I would respectfully beg to disagree that we learn evil. We are born with the ability to discriminate good and evil—the result of eating the fruit. It’s clear from the Scriptures quoted by Don in his introduction that we certainly do know goodness when we see it, therefore we also know evil when we see it. It’s something we’re born with. We’re born with the Holy Spirit, but also with a little devil inside us, but good—the Holy Spirit–is ascendant, God is supreme, so God will win out in the end.

We learn to do bad things and we can suppress our goodness, our Holy Spirit, and we often do. Jesus was angry with the Pharisees. I would have been angry with them too. I would say: “You know what’s good and what’s bad. You know what you’re doing is is wrong. You know it, and that makes me darned angry.” 

We don’t learn evil; we know it pretty well when we’re born.

C-J: I think that it’s always about the relationship. We’re talking about our relationship with God and with each other, meaning humanity. Part of the process requires a common language and the meaning that’s going to be attributed to that language. And then the relationship evolves out of place and time. But if the individual becomes broken through trauma…. In lots of ways trauma comes to us and the intensity of that trauma and how long it’s sustained informs and transforms the same as love. If the trauma is severe enough, the brain gets rewired. 

So if you live in a war zone, literally, where every day you fear for your life and there’s excessive noise of bombs going off and you watch people you love die, it leaves you in a different place. But God tells us that we should know who we are in him in that relationship. We are who we are, and I am what God says I am, not what somebody else says I am. 

And that goes back to you were created with love and goodness. That’s your core, and if you can find your way back to that core, and know that you are never alone, and that you are loved greatly, and that you can be safe in the shelter, even in a lion’s den, even while you’re being denied, and this is but a moment in time. If we know who we truly are in God, some people not just endure, but out of that adversity, they thrive. It’s rare, but I think that’s when they know who they are in God, and they understand that kindness is essential for the survival of the species.

Reinhard: I agree. When Wo/Man was created, they were good by nature, but I think nurture is the determining factor here. The sin that entered the world tempered the goodness of human beings. But looking at human history, until about 1500 years after the seven days of creation, no family was safe, because all people knew wickedness and God regretted having created humans. The next phase was when God gave the commandments—the moral law—to straighten up the human act, the behavior of human beings. Jesus also tried to clean up the practice. 

So to me, by nature we are good, but it depends on the people who raise and surround us. I think we here are lucky because we came from people who fear God and came to know God. I think we all feel blessed because of that. We need to maintain that goodness, behave according to the Ten Commandments, stay close to God, and thereby stay strong. 

Otherwise, in today’s world, the temptation to stray from God’s Word is going to cause a lot of problems, especially to people who don’t know God. People are sometimes very arrogant or egoistic, which taints our relationship with God and with our fellow wo/man. Only with God’s law and his commandments in our heart, and through the help of the Holy Spirit, can we be good people.

C-J: In all ancient and the most basic cultures, tribal communities, there are rules. Some of them are based in myth and fear (usually fear). To keep order, there must be a rule of law. The Bible is just a compilation. Go back to Hammurabi’s laws, many of which are built out of the relationships and what they saw in nature. They looked at other animals, and how even wild animals have rules—within territories, within family structures, such as when a male animal will have to leave the herd in order to protect the rest of the herd so the young can fully mature and become independent, and the process starts again: They come in to mate, they leave. 

But I think cultures, indigenous cultures, ancient indigenous cultures, looked at both: They looked at the needs of the community and they looked at nature around them. Their myths and stories teach the very young kids about what they see as they play, how the wind moves and bends a tree without breaking it. Compromise. Brother and sister cubs living together, and the mother breaking them up when the playing becomes fighting. We teach them through stories. 

I go back to what we I think we all believe: If God says it is good, it is good. But we’ve been broken. We have believed lies, and we have been broken.

Donald: So what’s our intrigue with evil? There is a fair amount of content on TV that is plain old evil. I guess we feel comfortable in the safe environment of our own homes to watch it. It’s only on a screen. There’s something about human beings’ intrigue with evil—murder mysteries and so on. The opposite of that is the Hallmark Channel, which has a huge following. But some of us look at it and go “Ugh!” .

Why can’t we drive by an accident without gawking? We’re intrigued with evil, it seems to me,… or sin.

C-J: It’s brain chemistry, fight or flight, the endorphins that are dumped, the very pleasurable rush of excitement. It’s brain chemistry in the deepest part of our brain. So I don’t think of it in terms of evil. I think of it in terms of how that chemistry changes our perception of a moment in time. Why does a drug addict choose the first time to use? Why does a person who watches porn choose the first time to engage? Why does a person kill for the first time? They all have the same result in terms of what happens in the brain.

God says to guard what we look at, to put on the helmet, the breastplate, to girdle ourselves, to remember those guardrails, to stay in community where there’s like-mindedness, to recognize the vulnerability of humanity, and to seek the truth, which is relationship with God.

David: I think we’re maybe making this too complicated. Think back to the Good Samaritan. The easy thing to do was to walk past the guy in lying in the street in a pool of blood, to press on to Jerusalem where you had important business to attend to. The hard thing was to stop and help the guy. 

And that’s why we do evil: Because it is easy. Good is difficult. 

Robin: I think our question is unanswerable by anybody (except God when we see him.) Once the Fall happened, we know now that disobedience comes easier to us. So then my question is, as Connie said: Is it a matter of brain chemistry that has been inherited? Did our DNA change? What explanation is there? 

C-J: DNA does change. We know through science today that with trauma in the womb the chemistry that is in the mother impacts the genome. When I saw that report, I’m like, wow, the genome is impacted by exposure to the environment! The genome is impacted through disease! So of course there’s an evolution of how our body is able to survive and in what environment it does it more easily. 

In the people who walked by the victim in the parable had made a decision—that muscle memory was already in place. “That person has nothing to offer me. He’s a Samaritan. We all know about the Samaritans. Keep it moving.” That was practiced over and over again, and we can become desensitized to hurting others. So I do think it’s complex. I do think that it’s knowledge and accountability that God holds us to, and that we should hold ourselves personally before God and others. 

You do need to be aware of not just your language and what your experience is, but the other people’s language and their experience. I cannot help another person if I don’t truly have a visceral understanding of their experience before they explain it to me, because they’re already traumatized. When they say “I haven’t eaten” we go, “Oh, yeah, I know what it means to be hungry and can’t wait to get that burger” but to not eat for three days is greatly different. To be sleeping on a sidewalk, maybe on top of a piece of cardboard, is very different than “I’m tired.” You can’t sleep peacefully if you’re on a sidewalk, you’re extremely exposed and vulnerable. The list is long. 

So until we are able to not just empathize, but truly take on that other person, we cannot help to heal them or truly be an instrument in God’s hand. You must be able to say what God says to us: “Go in and be a healer, a restorer, be my witness, be my testimony of grace.” It’s an incredible journey when we walk with God saying “I expect to be transformed.” Because that’s what God does. He’s in the business of transformation and grace. When we truly allow that to take place in us then we can be the instrument in God’s hand for those that we walk by, but God says “Stop, I have something up around the corner that I want you to do, and I have prepared you for that. Be humble, Be loving, be my witness.” It’s profound.

Kiran: In the Samaritan parable, the first two people focused on their relationship with God. They didn’t want to mess their relationship with God by touching the victim and becoming unclean. So the focus was on themselves. But for the Samaritan, it was about the victim. So how can we be good? We are good when we take care of others. If I only keep taking care of myself, I’m not good. 

So I think it is very simple. Evil is just looking after myself and goodness is looking after others. Jesus did not talk about the Good Samaritan’s religious practice. He was walking by, saw somebody in need, and practiced what is supposed to be the essence of religion, while the other two people who were supposed—with all the knowledge that they had—to show kindness, focused on themselves. 

So it is simple. When we exercise goodness, the source of goodness is from God. We are fulfilling what he wants us to do.

Don: How radical is the mystery that if you’re looking for goodness you have to look at how you treat others rather than at your own personal piety? That seems like a radical mystery to me.

C-J: I don’t think piety comes into it. If you are in relationship with God, by definition you have to be humble. It’s not about “I can’t touch that or I become unclean, literally and spiritually.” The humility of God is what Jesus said on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Anonymous: I want to praise God for the revelation. I found the subject today to be like a confirmation from God, because only recently it finally dawned on me what it means to glorify God. What is the glory of God? We use the word very commonly, especially when we pray for someone to get healed—we say “Lord, heal them for your glory.” It was on my mind for a while before God revealed to me (and for that I praise God) that the goodness of God is his glory. 

Probably God led me to see this because I experienced so much goodness of God that I became speechless and could only express my thankfulness with tears, my heart flooded with good words and praise. This revelation was very radical to me. It shed light on many subjects in the Bible. Truly, the goodness of God is his glory, just as in God’s conversation with Moses. When he said: “I’ll show you my goodness” he was showing him his glory, just as Moses asked. 

It’s really very deep, and I thank God for it.

Don: Next week we’ll add the mystery of iniquity, and that’ll bring us to a discussion of good versus evil, which we may find at once puzzling, disturbing, and enlightening.

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