Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Evangelical Myth: Be as uneducated as children

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There exist several mythologies in evangelicalism. One of these mythologies is that thinking about the Bible is bad. Bertrand Russel cites this myth and this interpretation of the following scripture as one of the many reasons for rejecting the gospel. One passage of Scripture that is utilized in the myth to follow is Matthew 18:1-5:

In that very moment, the disciples came to Jesus saying, “Then, who is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens?” Then, calling to himself a child, he stood him in their midst and he said, “Truly am I telling you that unless you turn and become as children, you will not, under any circumstances, enter into the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore, if any should humble himself as this child, this one is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens.” Also, if any should receive (show hospitality to) one such as this child in my name, this one receives me.” (Matthew 18:1-5 author’s translation)

  1. The Myth
    I wish that I could find an example of this in a book or a sermon, but I have to go with anecdotal evidence. Almost every time I ask somebody what they think Matthew 18:1-5 means, they reply, “To trust God without question, like a child,” “to obey Jesus without thinking about it,” or “to obey everything you read in the Bible.” The problem is that this passage does not actually say any of those three things. Not only that, but the very experience of obedience used (that of a child) is not even realistic to the experience of any parent or teacher. Also, the myth comes up when I challenge Christians to read a commentary (even an old one designed for devotions), read a book by C.S. Lewis, learn a Biblical language (that’s a big ask), or read a simpler writer like A.W. Tozer. The response is usually, “I just want to keep things simple, like Jesus says about accepting things like a child.” Admittedly, Jesus does thank God as one point for revealing the gospel to the simple and childlike over against the wise and scribally gifted of the age (Matthew 11:26-30), but the context there is that Christians should learn from Jesus as the giver of true wisdom. Jesus’ statement there is not an indictment of study and knowledge, but an indictment of the arrogant dismissals of Jesus’ ministry by the scribes whose ideologies and actions he challenged. Nevertheless, the myth persists. Christians shouldn’t read or think about Scripture, their faith, or the world because Jesus wants us to be like children, and children, after all, don’t know stuff, invent things, or do Calculus (neither do most people by the way).
  2. Reasons this interpretation does not make sense:
    1. Children ask questions all the time.
      Really, they love knowing things until being smart feels uncool in junior high. One of the most annoying things that children do is ask too many questions when you’re trying to do or explain something very simple to them. The gospel of Luke even says that Jesus was this way: “And it happened that after three days, they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers and listening to them and inquiring of them. All who heard were impressed by his intelligence and his responses.” (Luke 2:46-47 author’s translation) Now, we’re often amazed at the questions of children because they’re clever though mistaken in their assumptions and observations. The teachers were impressed for different reasons, but they weren’t surprised that Jesus had questions and responses to their own questions. They were amazed at the quality of his questions and answers. In personal experience, we also know that children do not always or perhaps even often “simply obey” without either disobeying or asking questions about meaning (‘why’) and procedure (‘how’). Christians are, of course, supposed to ask those questions.
    2. Christians are commanded all over the New Testament to think.
      If we, as Christians rightly do, assume some type of unity of thought in the Canon of the New Testament, then these commands to think might be thematic of Christian living at any stage of history. Thus, if one passage of the New Testament seems to radically contradict the rest, then we should question our interpretation of it. Here are four examples of commands to think in the New Testament (randomly drawn from memory):

      1. be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:1)
      2. love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30)
      3. be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16)
      4. Think over what I am saying and the Lord will give you understanding. (2 Timothy 2:7)
    3. Recent and ancient commentaries say the passage means something else:
      1. John Nolland (recent)
        Though the words of challenge are directed to the disciples, we are not to understand that they are being treated as not having yet undergone this vital reorientation (they have come in humility to Jesus to have their questions answered); sustaining the new orientation and becoming aware of its implications for life are, however, ongoing challenges.1
      2. St. Jerome (ancient)
        And he said. Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. He does not enjoin on the Apostles the age, but the innocence of infants, which they have by virtue of their years, but to which these might attain by striving; that they should be children in malice, not in understanding. As though He had said, As this child, whom I set before you as a pattern, is not obstinate in anger, when injured does not bear it in mind, has no emotion at the sight of a fair woman, does not think one thing while he speaks another; so ye, unless ye have the like innocence and purity of mind, shall not be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven.2
      3. A.T. Robertson (last 150 years)
        Except ye turn, and become as little children. Jesus applies the object lesson to the disciples. The spirit of envy will prevent entrance into the Kingdom of heaven at all. There will then be no need for dispute about preëminence. It is a sharp rebuke. Jesus does not stop to explain about the true idea of the kingdom. He wishes rather to kill the spirit of jealousy. A child is gentle, humble, trustful. Cf. Mk. 10:15 on a later occasion.3
      4. Cornelius Lapide (somewhat ancient)
        Converted, i.e., from this emulation and ambition of yours, which is at least a venial sin, and therefore an impediment to entrance into the kingdom of Heaven.        As little children: for, speaking generally, they do not envy others, nor covet precedence, but are simple, humble, innocent, and candid. I say generally, for S. Augustine (Confess. l. 1, c. 7) testifies that he had seen an infant at its mother’s breasts growing pale with envy, because he saw his twin brother sucking at the same breasts. 4
      5. Calvin (somewhat ancient)
        Whosoever shall humble himself like this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. This is intended to guard us against supposing that we degrade ourselves in any measure by freely surrendering every kind of distinction. And hence we may obtain a short definition of humility. That man is truly humble who neither claims any personal merit in the sight of God, nor proudly despises brethren, or aims at being thought superior to them, but reckons it enough that he is one of the members of Christ, and desires nothing more than that the Head alone should be exalted.5

Robertson includes the idea of trust, but notes that the chief idea is of being a child who is not obsessed with status, but rather is lowly in the social system. One commenter I excluded, Hilary of Poiters, includes the idea of listening to what you’re told but only in the context of learning to love, refusing to hate, showing honor to the lowly, and living a life in imitation of Jesus. So the main idea has been preached for quite some time that becoming as a child means to stop vying for social status. This is exactly what the passage is about if read in context. “Who is the greatest Jesus? You said Peter is the rock, you said we’re all sons at the temple, you took Peter, James, and John alone to pray at the mountain…who do you like the most?” Jesus answered, “You cannot even be my disciple (enter the kingdom), unless you get over that attitude.” Later on, the same question is answered with this phrase, “Whoever wishes to be great must become a servant to all.”

Conclusion

The myth that evangelicals buy into, that intentional ignorance and cognitive cobwebs are good, is in the teeth of several lines of evidence. Jesus wants Christians to be humble. He wants them to avoid making live decisions solely for status, but he does not want his disciples to check their minds at the door, and at home, and at work, and when we read (or don’t read) scripture.

1 Nolland John, “Preface,” in The Gospel of Matthew: a Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 732.
2 Saint Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected Out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Matthew, vol. 1 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841), 622–623.
3 A. T. Robertson, Commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911), 200.
4 Cornelius à Lapide, The Great Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide: S. Matthew’s Gospel—Chaps. 10 to 21, trans. Thomas W. Mossman, vol. 2, Fourth Edition. (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1908), 282.
5 John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 333.

Reasons Modern Books on the Christian Life are Bad

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I don’t want to just be a content aggregator. Those things are fairly awful, so I’ll quote some content from this post and add my own. The author wrote about nine reasons that modern books on the Christian life are bad. Here are two of them:

3. Drawing on illustrations that apply to only 0.01% of people won’t help anyone.

4. Do I really need to have sectarianism and branding/marketing ever before me?

Some books that really failed miserably on number 3 included Radical by Dave Platt and The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. The stuff in Radical was decent, but it was a book about how to obey Jesus and hardly did a command of his appear, but there was a one year plan for becoming a radical that no woman with merely a mite could afford. Were his five things good (go to a foreign country for a mission trip, pray for a country daily, start giving regularly to a cause, read the Bible in a year, be involved in a mega church…he called it a multiplying community)? I’ll give him 3. Pray for a country and its missionaries daily is excellent counsel. Read the Bible in a year. I’d say try reading the New Testament every month for a year, then try the Old. Even better, read the Bible with a pastor who will help you understand how to read it. Giving regularly to a cause is plausible if you’re financially stable (not in debt nor buying unhealthy food to survive).

Although I’m not too sure which books are so loaded with sectarianism today, I do note that so much of ancient Christian literature had a very Jesus focused literary flavor that is hard to find in much modern fare. C.S. Lewis noted this in Introduction to On the Incarnation:

In the days when I still hated Christianity, I learned to recognise, like some all too familiar smell, that almost unvarying something which met me, now in Puritan Bunyan, now in Anglican Hooker, now in Thomist Dante. It was there (honeyed and floral) in Francois de Sales; it was there (grave and homely) in Spenser and Walton; it was there (grim but manful) in Pascal and Johnson; there again, with a mild, frightening, Paradisial flavour, in Vaughan and Boehme and Traherne. In the urban sobriety of the eighteenth century one was not safe – Law and Butler were two lions in the path. The supposed “Paganism” of the Elizabethans could not keep it out; it lay in wait where a man might have supposed himself safest, in the very centre of The Faerie Queene and the Arcadia. It was, of course, varied; and yet – after all – so unmistakably the same; recognisable, not to be evaded, the odour which is death to us until we allow it to become life: “An air that kills From yon far country blows.”

 

I would actually say that one of the main reasons they are bad is how much they focus on sensationalism or sentimentalism. Everything is about feelings and experiences in so many Christian books and so little is about settled knowledge with which to interpret and gauge experience that very little head way can be made for many Christians. I used to work at a coffee shop where fighter pilots would talk about running game (picking up easy lays) at a local mega-church’s small group meetings. I later read this church’s small group manual and the whole mission of the small groups in the church is to make sure that participants are on board with the lead pastor’s vision for the church with appropriate relationships and meaningful experiences. There is very little about knowing what Scripture says, knowing what Jesus taught, knowing the Father of Jesus Christ, etc. Such knowledge, and there is such knowledge available to those who seek it, is no longer a priority in evangelical culture today. Our churches and, sadly enough, our experiences are impoverished for it.

Science, apparent nonsense, and the gift of conciousness.

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I apologize to the authors of the journal article interacted with in case I have characterized their work falsely in anyway.

The Science
Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist, has written a great deal about several topics (social exclusion, masculinity, eros, will power, etc). He co-wrote an article about consciousness titled, “Conscious thought does not guide moment-to-moment actions–it serves social and cultural functions.”* The title is essentially the conclusion, which I have included below:

The findings suggest that conscious thought affects behavior indirectly, by integrating information across time and from culture, so that multiple alternative behaviors—particularly socially adaptive ones—can be considered and an optimal action selected.

We conclude that most or all of human behavior is likely a product of conscious and unconscious processes working together. The private daydreams, fantasies, and counterfactual thoughts that pervade everyday life are far from being a feckless epiphenomenon. We see these processes as the place where the unconscious mind assembles ideas so as to reach new conclusions about how best to behave, or what outcomes to pursue or avoid. Rather than directly controlling action, conscious thought provides the input from these kinds of mental simulations to the executive. Conscious thought offers insights about the past and future, socially shared information, and cultural rules. Without it, the complex forms of social and cultural coordination that define human life would not be possible. (p, 45)

The Apparent Nonsense

What this means is that, rather than being a mechanism for governing what I am doing right now, my consciousness is actually a mechanism for helping me determine how to act within my culture and without it, I would not only not be able to take part in my culture, but there would be no human culture. The problem with this conclusion is that it is precisely a restatement of what consciousness is in everybody’s experience. In this respect it is like saying, “after our research, we determined that rain is not so much water falling from the sky as it is the result of water evaporating and then condensing in the presence of specific pressure, vapor density, and temperature.” Most people do, indeed consciously sort out human culture. Defining consciousness solely in these terms though requires that culture be logically prior to consciousness. But, as far as I can tell, culture is created by consciousness except in the most basic forms (ant colonies).

Here’s why I only called the conclusion apparent nonsense. In the context of modern social psychology, such obvious conclusions probably do need to be argued for, explained, and repeated. We do live in an age when consciousness is thought to be explained thoroughly by Daniel Dennett, after all.

The Gift of Consciousness

One of the most bizarre things if you would just take a moment to think about it is this: the majority of the matter around you right now is not conscious. It has no idea what is happening and neither do you. I remember when Richard Dawkins would  talk about the “ubiquitous weirdness of the Bible.” Sure, any ancient collection of books will be weird. But, it is perhaps weirder that I, or you for that matter, are thinking about and experiencing anything at all. Even in the context of Freudian thought, the Ego, Super Ego, and Id are still part of the one experience of consciousness. This is so strange.

I can think about, not only of the thoughts of Baumeister (who wrote the article I read), but I can think about my thinking about them as I write about my thinking about them. You can too! But, weirdly enough, my thoughts are still not reducible to your own or his own. Just because I read those letters does not mean I understood  them aright (I think I did) or that I had the same brain states as the author(s) or other readers.

The conscious mind is, despite metaphors to the contrary, utterly unlike a computer (which runs off of software created by conscious minds and does so in the exact same way under the same conditions every, single, time). Consciousness, in an undeveloped Christian view, is a gift. In this respect, you are not only utterly unlike a computer but you are, because your consciousness is unique to you, utterly distinct from every other human (though you’re exactly human just like they are).  Two computers with the same software and the same input are distinct computers, but they are running exactly the same way. Twin humans, as similar as they are, despite nearly identical upbringing, have entirely unique consciousnesses. Changing out the hard drives of the two computers would change nothing except serial numbers. Changing out the consciousnesses of two twins is inconceivable precisely because their conscious experience is utterly distinct.

We possess the gift of consciousness. From a Christian perspective, God is, in a manner of speaking an infinite act of consciousness. Any matter which has consciousness, in that respect, participates in God (just like matter which has beauty, being, knowledge, or goodness).** That being said, Baumeister’s comments on what functions consciousness has in human well being are telling (numeration of paragraphs is my own):

  1. We propose that conscious thought is particularly useful for allowing people to consider multiple possible actions or outcomes. This is evident in counterfactual thinking. People often cannot help but reflect on how they might have behaved differently in the past. Such thinking can inspire new, improved strategies for later behavior (Epstude and Roese, 2008).
  2. Consideration of alternative actions is also apparent in self-regulation and decision making. Hofmann et al. (2009) noted that explicit preferences and automatic impulses are often in conflict, and that explicit preferences are likely to guide behavior when people are free to reflect. In contrast, when conscious reflection is hindered, people are more impulsive ( Ward and Mann, 2000 )and more likely to yield to external influences ( Westling et al., 2006 ). Conscious thought thus promotes adopting non-automatic forms of responding.
  3. Pursuit of alternative responses is evident as well in sports. In almost every popular sport, researchers have found that the mental rehearsal of motor skills is nearly as beneficial for performance as physical practice (Druckman and Swets, 1988; Driskellet al., 1994). Thus, conscious mental practice improves skilled performance. (pp 45)

I invite you to consider that what you see in those three paragraphs is so obvious that we often fail to marvel at it. You’re made of the same stuff as rocks and rivers (people like to feel good that they’re made of star dust, but stars experience nothing they are just as mentally inert as fossilized piece of dinosaur toenail or an earth worm pod). Yet, you can consider what might have been, what could be, and what you would rather experience right now! I’m sure you can consider such a large amount of could-have-been circumstances that they would be infinite if you had the time to keep thinking.

Look at paragraph 2! When conscious reflection is hindered, people become more impulsive. But that does not just mean when they become distracted. In this article, it is argued that consciousness often does not help do things in the moment (so much of life is reflexive). Consciousness and moments of reflection help you to plan not to be a fool in the future. We live in a culture of nearly infinite distraction. We waste our consciousness, (with which we can imagine things like infinite lines, wizards with magic dragons, obsess over a crush we just developed, like when I first met my wife,  perform differential equations with extreme rigor, or contemplate God), on so many intrusions that we become unable to be responsible agents at all.

I hope that this fairly obvious conclusion of a great deal of research is able to restore some wonder to your life. If it happens to also give you a more rigorous understanding of the biological function of consciousness, I suppose that’s cool too. But most importantly, be conscious. We were created to be awake to the creation as well as to God. It is foolishness to let cultivated creation so distract us from the brute facts of our own awakeness, the strangeness of everything, and the even greater strangeness of other minds that we just become automatons tossed to and fro by every machination of invention and technology.

*Masicampo, E. J., Baumeister, R. F., Morsella, E., & Poehlman, T. (2013). Conscious thought does not guide moment-to-moment actions–it serves social and cultural functions. Frontiers In Psychology, 41-5.

**On a side note: not all things participate in God in equal ways. Paul notes that all living things live, and move, and have their being in God, just before telling his audience to repent because they are, apparently, not participating in the moral life of God.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor and Time Management

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One of the things in life that is often most difficult for people is using their 24 hours well. I’ve been trying to learn to use my time more wisely. One of my biggest distractions is a sense of listlessness. I just sit and idle because I’m “bored.” Boredom is an interesting topic in itself. Is it a result of being physical bodies, but with minds that are irreducible to physical processes? Is it because we’re in an industrial/technological era, therefore so much of our time is spent on things that do not contribute to our survival? Who knows? The point of this is time management in the context of the kingdom of God. Bishop Jeremy Taylor wrote a book entitled, “Holy Living” in the 1600s. He states that there are three means to be employed in learning to live as a Christian: management of time, practicing God’s presence, and holy intentions (or planning in advance to do good). His 23 rules for care of the time are fairly standard for Christian cases of conscience in his era, but they are exceptional today:

1. In the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to his service; and at night, also let him close thine eyes: and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time beyond the needs and conveniences of nature; and sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes, when he is coming forth from his chambers of the east.

3. Let all the intervals or void spaces of time be employed in prayers, reading, meditating, works of nature, recreation, charity, friendliness and neighbourhood, and means of spiritual and corporal health; ever remembering so to work in our calling, as not to neglect the work of our high calling; but to begin and end the day with God, with such forms of devotion as shall be proper to our necessities.

17. Set apart some portions of every day for more solemn devotion and religious employment, which be severe in observing: and if variety of employment, or prudent affairs, or civil society, press upon you, yet so order thy rule, that the necessary parts of it be not omitted; and though just occasions may make our prayers shorter, yet let nothing but a violent, sudden, and impatient necessity, make thee, upon any one day, wholly to omit thy morning and evening devotions; which if you be forced to make very short, you may supply and lengthen with ejaculations and short retirements in the day-time, in the midst of your employment or of your company.

 

These are only 3 of his quite helpful counsels. It is especially important to note that he does not recommend going full-desert father and abusing the body by sleep deprivation. He also recommends physical exercise as an appropriate way to spend time. It should be noted though that he does say that spending too much time at sport is like eating a meal of sauces or having clothes made only of fringes. I think he’s right, but most disagree with me. Rule 17 is interesting. He says that no matter ones employment, time should be set aside for prayer. He even recommends being severe on oneself to make it happen. This makes sense. If prayer has any efficacy in the Christian life (or if it doesn’t but Christianity is true and Jesus says to pray), then it is a moral imperative to spend time in daily prayer. The fact is that many of us consider everything else to be more urgent and more important than prayer. Thus, we skip it. I hope that Taylor’s rules have a useful effect upon you.

 

More on Weights and Training

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As my previous post indicated 1 Rep Max indicators seem to produce fishy results as far as I’m concerned. This week I managed 265 for 20 reps in one set. According to a 1-RM calculator, I should be able to squat 441 for a single rep. By next week, if I can do 275 for 20 reps, I’ll be able, purportedly, to do 458. The evidence against this level of strength is clear. I can only squat 315 for a few sets of 3. Now, I don’t use a belt or squat shoes. I also have a genetic bone disorder that puts me at certain disadvantages in the weight room.

As a theorized, my body seems to be geared towards a form of endurance at high levels of effort and very quick recovery up to a point. For instance, I can do a set of fifty squat jumps, rest a couple of minutes and do a second set. Similarly, running a mile is an awful chore. But I can run several 40 yard dashes with a few seconds in between without feeling particularly tired. On a similar note,bike ride to work always has my legs burning when I’m only half-way there (it isn’t far). I suppose the explanation for this is in the fiber type distribution in my body. I’d attribute it to my training, but for months I’ve been training in low rep ranges (though I was injured) and making snail pace progress. By contrast, I decreased the weight, increased the reps to 20 reps per set and have made progress up to a weight that was challenging for me in low rep ranges in recent history. Perhaps as I end this brief foray into 20 rep squats to give myself a break from going heavy every work out, I’ll discover how much progress I can make at low rep ranges without an injury.

The Didache, a Book Review, and the Christian Life

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There is an early Christian document called known as, “The Didache. (did-ah-kay)” I read about it in high school and read it and discussed with my Roman Catholic friend Gilbert all those years ago. It has intrigued me ever since. My interest in it back then was arguing with Gilbert about baptism. My interest in it now is two fold:

  1. it gives insight into how we should understand the four gospels (as well as the rest of the New Testament)
  2. and it thus gives insight into how the early Christians understood how to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

I recently came across a book at Half-Price titled, The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary. The author is Aaron Milavec, an apparent polymath. He’s a computer programmer, professor, SBL chair, and more obviously author. Any how the book review is below

The Good

The book does not really have a specific argument to outline, but there is one overriding concern throughout. Milavec takes as a working hypothesis (based upon the best translation of the Greek word διδαχη) that the Didache was written (and orally transmitted), not just as a series of rules, but as a balanced book of pastoral guidance for early Christian disciple-makers. He recommends translating the word διδαχη as “training” or “apprenticing.” Dallas Willard would be pleased. I certainly am. This has implications for how we read the gospels, of course. The commands of Jesus are something that people had to be taught, over time, how to do. Not just memorized and tried and failed at a few times (the resultative infinitive in Matthew 28:19 shows that the gospels wanted people to be ‘trained how to do everything which I [Jesus] have commanded you’).

Milavec tests the pastoral hypothesis by treating it as an assumption in various interpretive situations throughout pages 39-88. The hypothesis is pretty much proven by the coherence it gives to the text.

Milavec’s translation, which stands alongside the Greek text is also an excellent resource for devotional reading (there is no textual apparatus).

Milavec also notes that regardless of the date writing, the emphasis on orality in the Didache indicates that it was originally a memorized oral tradition. Keeping this in mind, the material in the Didache, antedates the gospels and the letters of Paul. I personally would say that Robinson’s arguments about a 40-60ad date for the writing of the Didache make the most sense.

The Bad

The book is meant to be an introduction to non-specialists. I’m not sure that it could be. Maybe if non-specialists means, “people who went to a Bible college and majored in whatever and minored in Bible.”

Milavec also makes some decent arguments that Didache 16:5 (“they will be saved by the Accursed One himself”) is referring, not to Jesus as the one who was hung upon a tree, but to the judgment of God, as an accursed event. I disagree. I think that the early Christian milieu had a greater focus on the atonement and the salvific nature of Jesus than Milavec’s argument presupposes (see McKnight Jesus and His Death). Refusing to capture the significance of The Didache’s obsession with relaying the training from Jesus correctly (the way of life rather than of death) allows one to see the rest of the book without reference to the early Christian impression of Jesus’ significance as a unique representative of God whose death effected atonement.

Conclusion

I recommend the book for anybody interested in the Didache. I also recommend the book to those who know a bit about first century history and who are interested in being a disciple of Jesus. It will help them to see how and why early Christian literature was written and collected. Particularly it will help the read to see that by and large the purpose of much early Christian literature was training people to live a certain way. Christianity has gotten more and more away from the notion that theology (the right understanding of God) was meant to support the lifestyle which is based upon the will of the God who is known through Jesus Christ.