Christ Taught About Human Shortfalls Not Sin

Mat 6:14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
Mat 6:15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Again, today's Christianity emphasizes the idea that Christ taught about sin and forgiveness. This focus makes Christ's role as a redeemer and savior from sin so important. While I don't necessarily argue with the theology here, but Christ's words in the Greek do not seem to support the view, at least as we hear it today. These lines, following immediately after the Lord's Prayer, are a good example.

While these lines in English use the familiar formula of forgiveness and "trespasses," the Greek words used have a very different flavor. First, to give English translations their due, none of them use the term "sin" here for "trespasses." Other terms used are "offenses" or "transgressions." In the original Greek, the term is paraptoma, which literally means "falling beside" (or lying side by side). It is used to mean going off the right path, or, more specifically, stumbling off that path. It is also used to indicate a gramatical mistake. It doesn't mean violating laws or boundaries as you might think from the English words use to translate it. It describes a shortcoming or shortfall (to get to a similar root) than it does sin.

"Sin" in the NT is translated from hamartanô, which means "to miss the mark," "to fail in one's purpose," "to err," "to be mistaken," and "to neglect."

In Greek, the word not used in the Bible, the word that precisely means "sins" is alitros, which means "sins," "sinner," and "sinful." It is impossible that the authors of the NT didn't know this word. All other Greek words based on the idea of sin are relate to it--alitria (sinfulness), alitêrios (sinning), aleitês (sinner) and even, this is funny, alêtheia (sincerity).

There is a similar problem with the word translated as "forgive." The NT authors use Greek word is aphiemi, which is an extremely common word in Greek (unlike many of the key words used to capture Christ's words). Aphiemi does not mean forgive or anything like it. Greek has a dozen words for "forgive" including didomi, a word Matthew has used before to mean "giving to God." Aphiemi means to send forth, discharge, to divorce, get rid of, and so on.

So Christ is not talking about forgiving sins here, even though that is the way we might hear these verses preached in most churches. He is teaching us not to shun or send away those who fall short because God does not send us away when we fall short. When people fall by the way (which to my mind doesn't bring to mind evil people as much as it does alcoholics, drug addicts, and people like that), we shouldn't turn our backs on them.

Modern Christianity teaches loving the sinner while hating the sin, which is very close to this idea. However, in practical terms, Christianity has often excluded those who fell short from the community. Would the Puritans have practiced shunning if they read the Bible in the original Greek instead of English translation?

Again, the larger lesson here is that we are on earth to perfect ourselves. We perfect ourselves by emulating God. We treat others, not just as we would have them treat us, but as God treats us. In our personal practices, we leave it for God to judge others, which--in this life at least--he seems to do very generously.

Christ Asks Early in the Gospels to avoid His Trial

Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

One of the things that has always confused me is why the last phrase, "For thine is..." appears in some Bible versions and not others. We will leave that to the historians. My interest is language. Here we have some interesting stuff.

First, the word translated as "temptation" is peirasmos, which literally means a trial with a secondary meaning of worry. Again, sin is not the central issue here. It is the trials and tribulations that all human suffer. Paul referred to his bodily condition as a trial or test using this word, clearly referring to some type of infirmity. Certainly temptations are one form of such trials, but the phase is asking to be preserved from all such trial.

This is especially interesting because Christ himself was the perfect example for someone who accepted the ultimate such trial.

I also like the world used for "deliver," which is rhoumai, which means rescue or deliver, but in the specific sense of "drawing to oneself." So this prayer asks God to rescue us from evil (poneros, hardships) by drawing us to him. So Christ is portraying hardship as being cause by our distance for God. This distance, however, is necessary to give us freedom of choice.

Christ Sees the Universe as a Network of Unpaid Debts

Mat 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

This the word "debts" is sometimes translated as "sins" or "trespasses" the original Greek, opheilema, has only one meaning, that which is owed. The word used for "debtors" is its close relative, opheiletes, which means a person who owes a debt or one who is under a bond. A person under a bond was almost a slave until the debt was pay.

Modern Christianity prefers to overlook the very business-like language that Christ used to describe life. But not only did Christ talk about suing people in court, tax collectors, and discussing our heavenly reward in terms of wages, but he explicitly says that we should put our duty to other people a higher priority than what we feel we own God. There is a clear pattern here of Christ being concerned with the economics of our relationships. More to the point, he turns those economics on their head. He then equates them to our relationship to God.

First, he turns economics on its head. Debts are meant to be repaid. They are not meant to be forgiven. However, here Christ points out that the most important debt of all, the debt that we owe God for our very lives, cannot be repaid. He has forgiven us that debt.

Christianity, for various historical reasons, has become obsessed with sin. Forgiveness is immediately connected with man's sinful nature, which is why this line is so often mistranslated. However, here, the first time mentions forgiveness in the Gospels. The context is clearly forgiving a debt, not forgiving sin.

Full disclosure, I personally have always had a problem with the "original sin" hypothesis of humanity's fall. Instead, from my reading of the Gospels and my own sense of awareness, I believe in an "original debt." We all owe God because we cannot compensate him for our lives. We don't owe this debt because we sinned. We owe this debt because we are alive. It is woven into the fabric of our existence.

Again, Christ is consistent in his parent/child metaphor of God/us. If we are to grow to become what God intended for us, an image of him, we must emulate him. Since God doesn't ask us to replay our debt to him. We should not ask others to repay their debts to us.

Note that this is the only mention of human relationships in the Lord's Prayer, the central prayer in Christianity, is this one. Think about it. Christ reduces our relationship with God to a debt and our relationships with our fellow humans to a series of debts. This viewpoint is quite revolutionary on its own. How many of us would understand our lives better if we say everything in term of all the gifts we have been given that we can never repay.

The Mystery of Christ's Daily Bread

Mat 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread.

Here, we confront one of the mysteries of the gospels. The word translated as "daily" is epiousios, which is only used in the Gospels, once here in Matthew and again in Luke's version of the Lord's prayer. It is thought to mean "sufficient for this day" but it takes a fair about of work to parse it to get to that meaning. It looks like it might be related to epiousa, which means "to come on, to approach" and is translated in the Bible as "next" and "next day."

It is one of those words to lead us to think that both Matthew and Luke used a common Greek source for Christ's words. I wish the people who publish the Hebraic Roots Version of the Bible, who maintain that the original Greek was based upon many Hebrew words offered a good word here, but they don't. They come up with "continual" as a translation, but they don't explain how or why. I will bet money there is some word, maybe Aramaic or Hebrew that is the real base for this word.

A more typical word for "daily" would be hêmerousios from Hemera, the goddess of the day. "Hemero-" is a common prefix meaning a day's supply of something. It is also the presumed base for the term used for "this day"semeron, which means this very day or today.

Words, aside, Christ clearly says that we should ask God for our nourishment, but this is more than physical nourishment. The first mention of bread in the Gospels is Christ saying that we do not live be bread alone. Among the last mentions is Christ offering bread to his disciples as his flesh. The transformation of seeds, to wheat, to flour, to bread, to flesh, to spirit is one of the overarching themes of the Gospels. It is one of Christ's prime examples of the type of evolution he describes.

When Christ instructs us to ask the father for our bread, we are clearly asking for more than what we need to sustain physical life. We are asking for what sustains spiritual life as well.

According to Christ, Heaven and Earth are Both Evolving

Mat 6:10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as in heaven.

In the last post, we pointed out how, according to Christ, only God is tue "being." Everything else, both heaven and earth, is "becoming.

In this verse, Christ made the second part of this idea explicit. The word translated as "done" (from "your will be done") is ginomai, which means "to become" not "to do." A literal translation of this phrase would be "Your will is becoming [real] on earth and in heaven."
(Note: the "as" in the common translation that indicates that God's will is more manifest in heave, is simply wrong. In Greek, the word is kai, which is "and.") The tense of the verb is not the past, or the perfect, indicating something completed. It is the "aorist" tense (I am not making this up!), which indicates activities begun or finished or continuing at a certain point. The important thing is that action in the aorist tense cannot be said to take place specifically in either the past, present, or future, kind of like God.

Those who read the Bible to literally and say it doesn't allow for evolution, certainly aren't reading it the way I do. I think physically evolution is a relatively minor issue compared to spiritual becoming, which is one of the main focuses of Christ's teaching. Since Christ doesn't teach that there is a big separation between the spiritual and physical, physical change might be assumed.

However, what I find more intriguing is this whole idea of evolution in heaven. Certainly this has a physical side (after all, stars continue to explode, black hole collapse, and perhaps even new star and planets form). However, Christ also indicates that it has its spiritual site. as well. He doesn't describe heaven as a static reward, but a place where we continue to evolve. This infers the presence of time in heaven, since becoming requires a before and after. This is okay with me, because I don't think I am advanced enough to be conscious without the parsing of time.

Also interesting here is the word used for God's will, thelema, which means what one wishes or has determined shall be done. It also means a desire or a choice. So both earth and heaven reflect what God wishes, chooses, and has determined will happen. Where is free will in this? Assumable, even our choices are part of God's choices, if not individually, in the sum of the whole. This line is the first mention of God's plan for us both individually and for the universe as a whole.

The Father, His Heaven, and His Name

Mat 6:9 Therefore you should pray like this: Our Father who is in heaven, Holy is your name.

There are enough ideas in this one line to fill a book.

First, we have the idea that God is our Father. We are (in some way) like God, and he, like any parent, wants us to mature to be even more like Him. We have written about this idea extensively in other posts (one here). This is one of Christ's central messages, but one which mainstream Christianity doesn't really discuss in detail.

If God is all powerful and good, why does he allow evil and suffering in the world? If you can see the world as a father, you know why. Without pain and suffering, there is no learning and growth. If our knowledge was perfect, we would have no free will. If our decisions didn't have consequences, our choices would be meaningless. God allows suffering so that we can grow and become more like Him. A life of pure bliss where our decisions were meaningless and we had nothing to learn would make us more like a vegetable. Would any parent put their child on a life-long heroin IV so that the child would experience nothing but pleasure? In doing so, that parent would be depriving the child of living a life. And what is more precious than the challenge of life?

The idea that there is a heaven is also powerful. Earth is different than heaven because God is hidden here. Only that fact that God is hidden gives us freedom of choice. The continual presence of an all-knowing God allows you less freedom that a child has when he or she is with a parent. By creating earth, God lets us go out on our own and make our own decisions. Without that separation, we could never make mistakes and learn. However, even is more than a separation, it is a promise of reunion.

Finally, we have the most difficult line I have found in the Gospels. "Holy" or "hallowed" is your name. The Greek word use is hagiazo, from hagos, meaning that which creates awe or more simply, an awful thing. Hagiazo generally means "devoted to the gods." In a good sense, this can mean holy or sacred, but it also mean accursed. Another way to think about this word is that it describes something set apart only for God. This is why many devote people won't write or speak the name of J-h-v-.

Why is God's name set apart, both holy and cursed?

To understand this, we have to wonder at the meaning of God's name. As you might imagine, I am more interested in meaning than I am pronunciation or spelling. The name used in the Bible, however you say it, has a specific meaning. It means "the Existing One." It is taken from God's first words to Moses, "I am that am." Now, we can take this name to mean "the only God that really exists." We can think of it more deeply as, "the only Existing One." In this version, God is the only thing that really exists and everything else is but a reflection of God's existence.

However, my personal interpretation is that God is the thing that "exists" in the sense that God is stable. Everything else is in a state of becoming. God is the only form of being. The rest of the universe (including heaven, interestingly enough) is becoming.

This idea brings us back to the fatherhood of God and the nature of heaven and earth.

Why Pray if God Already Knows What You Need?

Mat 6:8 Do not be like them: for your Father knows what things you have need before you ask him.

Why do we need to pray? Here Christ is telling us that prayer is not something we need to do to pass information. It isn't communication because God already knows what is in our hearts. What is it then?

Elsewhere Christ says that God created the Sabbath for man. Here, he is saying something similar about prayer. We don't pray because God needs praise. We don't pray because God needs to know how we feel. We pray because we need to pray. God doesn't need to hear what we want to say to him. We need to hear what we have to say to him.

Our prayers change us. Not just as a form of hynotism (which would be the same as repeating the babble of the pagans), but as a form of awareness and confession of our situation.

Christ is telling us that without prayer we don't really think about our situation. We don't really think about what we are doing. The purpose of prayer is to put our lives into perspective. When we are addressing God, we are forced to do that. We are forced to think about where is real in our lives and important. Prayer centers us.

Babbling Prayers like the Pagans

Mat 6:7 But when you pray, do not repeat babble like the heathens [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for the volume of their words.

There is a wealth of ideas here that gets over looked, both in the ancient Greek and in translation.

Starting with the Greek, I love the word battologeo that gets translated as "repeat babble" and comes from the word battos, which describes a stammer, meaning literally the word of a stammer. I also love the word polulogia, translated as "volume of words" but which sounds like a polution of words. (Similar to logodiarroia which means a flux of words but makes me think of word diarrhea.) These are great words!

Conceptually, however, what Christ is saying about prayer is that prayer isn't the repeating of some verbal formula. This statement is interesting because the Lord's Prayer soon follows, perhaps the most repeated prayed in history. As an adult, as I began to pray again, I started by repeating the Lord's prayer in the way that Christ advises against: the simple repeating of words.

As we master prayer, we discover that every real prayer is unique. There are millions of ways to say the Lord's Prayer when you are thinking about the meaning of the prayer and what you are trying to communicate to God at a specific moment in time. The meaning of the prayer changes from year to year, especially as you study Christ's words. For example, if you know that Christ also describes the Father as "in hiding" as well as "in heaven," you naturally think about the hidden nature of heaven as you pray the word. This leads to thoughts about the difference between heaven and earth and the nature of freedom.

However, avoiding simply repeating the words gets harder the longer the prayer formula. For example, I sometimes want to pray for an hour or so and use the rosary to try and keep me focused. The challenge of such forms is to move forward with each prayer repetition and very few prayers have the complexity of the Lord's Prayer to sustain progress over a period of time.

In my heart, I know that true prayer uses none of these formula's. It is simply talking to God in our hearts. We carry on a constant dialogue in our thoughts. Our goal should be simply to dedicated as much of that to God as possible. In other words, our thoughts should be a constant prayer. If we are thinking about it, we should be praying about it and the two are not mutually exclusinve.

How the Church Gets in the Way of Godliness

Mat 6:5 And when you pray, you should not be as the hypocrites [are]: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Truly I tell you, They have their reward.
Mat 6:6 But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to you Father who is hidden; and your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly.

There is a lot of good stuff here, but the most interesting is the phrase, "Father who is hidden." In Greek, this phrase is identical to the more common phrase, "Father who is in heaven." The only difference is that word kruptos, concealed or hidden, replaces ouranos, meaning heaven or the universe. This equating heaven with the hidden in provacative. The faithful believe that much of the universe is hidden while materialists believe that the universe is only what we see. Materialists hold to this view despite the fact that modern physics incrasingly paints a true universe that cannot be directly perceived any more than heaven can be perceived.

Secondly, the perscription against public prayer seems a pretty major departure from Christian practice of public prayer. Personally, I have never been comfortable with public prayer and even am uncomfortable with saying grace in public. To me, it appears too much show and not enough go. As Christ says, God hears us in private. Why are we making a show of it unless we are doing it for social rather than religious purposes?

The truth is that much of modern Christianity is a social organization as much as it is a religious one. There is nothing wrong with this. Social organizations truly based on Christ's teachings cannot be as bad that work against Christianity. However, according to Christ there are inherent flaws with any social organization starting with the fact that they work on imperfect information.

The question that I wonder about the role of the Church in Christianity. The Church sees its role is central in spreading Christian teaching and that view clearly started with St. Paul. However, the Church it does seem that the larger and more powerful the Church is, the more it becomes a distraction standing between the individual and God. This is especially true as church members start acting for social rewards rather than spiritual ones. This is the whole point of this section of Christ's words. Religious leaders might be more faithful to Christ teaching people to read the Gospel and act on Christ's words in their private lives. Instead, too often they teach support of the Church instead of the sincere practice of prayer.

God is hidden. Does this mean that all prayer and all faith should be hidden as well?

What Only God Knows

Mat 6:3 When you give charity, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing:
Mat 6:4 Your charity should be in secret: and your Father who see in secret himself shall reward you openly.

In part, this statement continues Christ's logic separating social justice from divine justice. The key difference is that God knows what every person thinks or does in secret. Human society is based on imperfect public information. Imperfect knowledge results in imperfect decisions and imperfect justice. God's judgment is based on perfect knowledge and therefore is always going to be different from society's judgments. Working to gain social prestige is flawed because that judgment is based upon flawed knowledge.

For the term "reward," a different term is used here that earlier in the Gospel. Instead of misthos, the word used in apodidomi. Misthos means simply payment for work. Apodidomi means selling something you own, repaying a debt, discharging a duty, or restoring something taken. The idea is restoring a balance. So the reward we get for doing good works is not just payment for the work. It is a balancing of accounts between ourselves and God.

Most religions, including Christianity, recognize that we humans cannot control God. God does as God desires based on knowledge we can never have. However, Christ consistently uses terms regarding God's reward that infers that God owes us something for our right behavior. However, this idea of "balancing the book" may come even closer to what Christ was talking about.

Christ saw the natural operation of the world as the result of God's will. When he talks about God rewarding us for our behavior, he is talking about something that happens naturally given the way that God constructed the universe. It isn't a special action any more than the conservation of energy is a special action. This balancing is simply a matter of how the universe works the operation of God's natural law.

When we perform a good act and do not seek social compensation, the result is that we grow. Christ said that we are rewarded by this growth, but this reward isn't a special act of God's grace. It is the order of things. We cannot help be come closer to our own perfection when we do what is right for the right reasons. The right reasons are defined specifically as not doing it for social reward.

Heavenly versus Earthly Reward

Mat 6:2 Therefore when you give charity, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have praise of men. Truly I tell you, They have been paid their reward.

Christ sees a clear difference between our social relationships and our relationship with God. Through his teachings, he works to devalue social values because they distract us from eternal values.

In this verse, Christ focuses on the social value of fame. When we "sound a trumpet," we want others to notice us. We are looking for approval, not from those who know us, from the crowd, from society. This is one of the many areas where Christ makes it clear that there is a difference between private personal relationships, which are important, and broad social recognition, which Christ teachs in unimportant.

(Aside: I wonder if the slang terms of "trumpeting accomplishments" or "blowing your own horn" come from the Bible. Or was the practice of salpizo, the Greek term sounding horns, such a common event throughout the ages that it came down to us from actual practice. Of course, today we have television instead of horns, but the principle is the same.)

We have pointed out before that the word Christ uses for reward, misthos, means payment for work. Here, that point is made more clearly adding the word apecho, which is a business term that means being having been "paid in full."

So charity is clearly work that we are paid for. However, we can only get paid once for this type of work. If we are paid by others, that is, by society, we are not paid by God. Society pays in the currency of fame. God pays in the currency of spiritual development.

Does Christ teach that society is evil? Is society evil? Only in the sense that social rewards compete for our attention with spiritual awards. We usually think of Christ as battling between the material and spiritual, but more often than not, Christ teaches us that the real temptation is social, living our lives to gain recognition and approvel from strangers. This is completely consistent with Christ's other mentions of society, for example, his teachings about the use of courts.