WHY DO YOU SAY THAT? (Speaking in Tongues). Blogging through the Articles of Religion #15, part 2.

Article XV - Of Speaking in the Congregation in Such a Tongue as the People Understand

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the primitive church, to have public prayer in the church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people.

It’s not what you say; it’s why you say it.

(Nope.  That wasn’t a typo.)

We are responsible for doing our best to speak the truth and to speak that truth in love.  But no matter how carefully you select your vocabulary somebody is still going to be indignant.  That’s their problem.

Your and my responsibility most acutely rests with the heart, intent, and internal source of the words coming out of our mouths especially, when we claim to be speaking for God.  Which is why the Apostle Paul  spent so much time writing about speaking in tongues.

It’s not what you say; it’s why you say it.

Tongues as we use the term in the church today refers to the miraculous spiritual gift of a language the speaker does not know by birth or training.  Tongues is Holy Spirit speech.   When someone speaks in tongues (or claims to) they profess that every sound coming out of their mouth is the direct unfiltered language of God. 

In Acts 2, on the Day of Pentecost, the disciples spoke in a miraculous language that sounded to every listener like the language of their native country.

Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?” (Acts 2: 7-8)

As the New Testament church grew, many converts experienced speaking in tongues as a mark of Holy Spirit conversion (Acts 10: 44-48;  Acts 19: 5-6).  But Scripture indicates that those later cases didn’t manifest as a universally understood language, but rather as an unknown tongue.  This is what some Christians today call it their “prayer language.”

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.  (1 Corinthians 12: 8-11)

Sometimes everybody around could understand the tongues.  Sometimes they couldn’t.  It sounded strange, but it happened.  Speaking in tongues is a genuine spiritual gift, but it’s not what you say; it’s why you say it.

Speaking in tongues was a spectacular and public spiritual gift; and as happens with things that are public and spectacular, people began abusing and faking it. So, Paul had to remind the church that tongues, like other spiritual gifts was not for every believer.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? (1 Corinthians 12: 29, 30)

The rhetorical answer is: Nope, not everybody.

Not every genuinely saved Christian will speak in tongues. 

It would, of course be nice if every Christian did.  Then we’d have a spectacular and miraculous way to separate true believers from church-attenders.  Paul thought so, too.  But he acknowledged that that just isn’t the way God set it up.

I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification. (1 Corinthians 14: 5)

I wish you all did, but everybody doesn’t.  Now let’s move on.

The 1^st century Christian church in Corinth had the same issue we have in the 21^st century church in America.  It wasn’t wrong that people spoke in tongues, but sometimes they were wrong for WHY people spoke in tongues.

Hence what became the 14^th chapter of 1 Corinthians.

In the hierarchy of spiritual gifts, tongues ranks dead last.  First apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12: 28)  

The Bible says that the church should prefer testable gifts over speaking in tongues.

When someone prophesies time will tell if the prophesy was true or false.  When someone claims the power to heal, it’s pretty easy to confirm or refute.  Teachers and administrators can be tested against texts and performance.  But tongues are easy to counterfeit, impossible to refute, and spectacular to perform.  That’s why speaking tongues has become the centerpiece of much public worship.  That’s why the church elevated speaking in tongues above the other, testable gifts. 

It’s not what you say; it’s why you say it.

God knows that when someone speaks in tongues, it’s impossible to know whether the sounds come from the Holy Ghost or whether they come from the speaker’s imagination. So unique among all the other spiritual gifts, tongues are paired with another unction. 

…he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification (1 Corinthians 14: 5)

Where there are tongues there are supposed to be interpreters.

If not, then you have to question WHY people say they’re speaking in tongues.

But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by revelation, by knowledge, by prophesying, or by teaching? (verse 6)

The Apostle continues with the analogy of a musical instrument and a bugle sounding signals in battle.  If the sound doesn’t make sense to the listener, then what is the point of making the sound?   

So likewise you, unless you utter by the tongue words easy to understand, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. (verse 9)

“Speaking into the air.”  Basically, you’re saying stuff, but WHY?

It’s not what you say; it’s why you say it.

God does not give spiritual gifts for the anointed to impress others with how Holy Ghost powerful they are.  Every spiritual gift is: for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ… (Ephesians 4: 12)

1 Corinthians 14: 11 says that tongues without interpretation creates an insurmountable language barrier between speaker and listener.  Now remember that the purpose of tongues on Pentecost was to cross language barriers not to create one.

Though the church may be enthusiastic (zealous) about the spectacular nature of tongues, enthusiasm isn’t the point.  Edification and the progress of the church are the point.

Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel. (verse 12)

If speaking in tongues with no one to interpret doesn’t educate (edify) the church, then WHY are you speaking in tongues without an interpreter?

How big a deal is speaking in tongues?  When no one is there to interpret:  not very. 

I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.  (verses 18, 19)

In the church today, as in 1^st century Corinth, speaking in tongues has become part of stagecraft.  Shouting out “Alabachashani!” between phrases in a sermon is a technique for drawing out applause and shouts from the faithful.  But God didn’t give the gift of tongues to impress believers.  The Holy Spirit gave tongues to teach (edify) believers and to be a sign (impress and confirm) to UN-believers. 

Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers (verse 22).

When a Christian manifests Holy Spirit speech and another Christian correctly interprets the words from God, then even the most hardened skeptic has to face the reality that something miraculous and spectacular is going on in that church.

WHY should we say it in tongues?  To edify believers and to give unbelievers a sign.

If not for these reasons, then why do we say what we say?

Because we just want to.  I’ve heard people say that when they speak in tongues they can’t help it.   They’re so caught up in the spirit that they have to “let it out.”   Well that must be true.  If it weren’t surely the Lord would have said so. 

If God didn’t want everybody shouting out in their prayer language at once but nobody interpreting,  then the Holy Spirit would have spoken about it to the writers of the Bible.  If the Lord had a problem with a dozen people grabbing the mic because everybody had “a word from the Lord,” then there would be a place in the Scripture where that is explicitly stated. Right?

Absolutely.

How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret.

But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. (1 Corinthians 14: 26-30)

It’s not what you say; it’s why you say it.

Look.  You can tell me that you can’t help it, but I don’t matter. Tell God that you don’t want to do what He told you to do with the gift you say He gave you.

Paul said:  If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. (verse 37)

A congregation that has the gift of tongues should absolutely exercise and honor that gift. But, the Bible clearly requires the church to examine WHY it exercises that gift the way it does. 

Does the church nurture tongues for edification or for show? 

Do tongues give skeptics a sign of God’s reality or a sign of the church’s insanity? 

Where are the interpreters, and why don’t you care?

But maybe I’m just hatin’ on the spiritually gifted.  Maybe the entire 14^th chapter of 1 Corinthians is irrelevant and I’m just trying to quench the spirit because I personally prefer a dry dead worship experience; and you gone praise Him the way you praise Him, anyhow.

Please look up 1 Corinthians 14: 38.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

WHO YOU CALLING LEGALISTIC?

There were no Pharisees in the Old Testament.  So sometime between Malachi and Matthew, the Pharisees emerged as the "contemporary" wing of their religion.  They were the innovators, the highly educated, well-connected, impeccably dressed liberal Jewish theologians of their day.

The Pharisees began as hip, trendy, brand new critics of Jewish tradition.  The Pharisees came out saying that it was time for the Jews to change their centuries old order of service.  They employed the new rhetorical techniques of the Hellenist Greeks to decry how the Jews had allowed Hellenist philosophy to corrupt the purity of Moses’ original intent.

The hip, new perspective on Judaism became popular and in the time of Jesus’s public ministry, the Pharisees were the sect to contend with.  Numerically they probably weren’t the largest party in Judaea, but they and the scribes dominated the ancient equivalent of social media.  The scribes and Pharisees knew how to leverage the power of public debates.  By the time Jesus began His public life, the Pharisaic trend had become the new tradition.

Fashion becomes a trend.  Trend becomes tradition.  What we call “contemporary” is just the new “traditional.”

Today, we think of Pharisees as the embodiment of strict Biblical legalism and literalism.  But that’s not how Jesus saw them.

Consider the exchange in Matthew 15.

The scribes and Pharisees engaged Jesus on their form of social media, public debate. 

Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”  (Matthew 15: 1,2 )

Jesus posted a comment, saying, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (verse 3)

As an example, Jesus pointed out that a strict, literal reading of the 5^th Commandment says, “ ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ “  (verse 4) That’s a pretty harsh, inflexible, legalistic reading of the text, but that was the way Jesus preached the text.

Jesus criticized the Pharisees for taking a much more contemporary, non-condemning, prosperity-centered interpretation. 

In light of the changing social norms and expectations of 1^st Century society in the cosmopolitan Roman Empire, the Pharisees felt it was no longer practical to expect children to quote-unquote honor their parents the same way children in the past had quote-unquote honored their parents.    What was really important was that all people had a loving relationship with God and strong connection to the nexus of Jewish identity--- the Temple.  So, the Pharisees reframed the old idea of family by allowing children to give a gift to the Temple in the name of their parents and thus honor parents by honoring God without the inconvenience of having to literally take care of mama and daddy. (Matthew 15: 5, 6 paraphrased)

Jesus said: Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.  (verse 6)

Compared to the Pharisees, Jesus was way legalistic.  He believed that people in modern society should literally order their lives based on the ancient commands of the Bible.

In John 8, the scribes and Pharisees interrupted Jesus’ Bible study in the Temple by bringing a woman they’d caught in the act of adultery.  Knowing that Roman law prohibited Jews from handing out the death penalty and that stoning a woman in the middle of the Temple in Jerusalem would have created all kinds of trouble, the Phariees and scribes didn’t really want to stone this lady.  It they had, they would’ve done it already.

The Pharisees used the adulterous woman to try to trap Jesus in the only theological “weakness” they thought Jesus had---- His strict, legalistic perspective on the Law.

“Teacher,” they said, “Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him.  (John 8: 5,6)

Jesus didn’t deny the accuracy or relevance of the Law as written.  He did question the authenticity of their motives and methods under the law. 

When they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” (John 8: 7)

The Law literally condemned both the man and the woman caught in adultery.

The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.

 (Leviticus 20: 10). 

The Pharisees had let the man go.

The Law literally prohibited partiality in judgment

You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s (Deuteronomy 1: 17) 

The Pharisees were clearly playing favorites.

The Law literally prohibited using the Jewish justice system for corrupt reasons. 

You shall not pervert justice.

You shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

You shall follow what is altogether just. (Deuteronomy 16: 19-20)

The Pharisees were not legalistic enough.  They picked and chose the parts of the Bible they liked according to what they wanted to do.   

Jesus was a strict whole Bible believing LEGALIST.  And that legalism was why He turned to the accused woman in John 8 and said, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”  (verse 11)

On strict legal grounds, there could be no adultery case without 2 defendants.  Also, the Law strictly required multiple witnesses to even entertain a death-penalty case.

Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.   (Deuteronomy 17: 6)

When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” (John 8: 10)

Did Jesus know that she was guilty?  Of course He did.  But the Law says that there had to be 2 or 3 human witnesses.

Oh, and keep in mind that a strict, literal reading of the Biblical text turns up the word mercy on multiple occasions, in particular as a description of God Himself.

The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.  (Numbers 14: 18)

In God, patience and mercy, judgment and punishment co-exist without contradiction.  And that is why  Jesus, the strict, legalist could say in one breath:  Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.

Conviction of sin according to the Law simultaneous with mercy under the law.

Through Jesus Christ, the law of the Moses is fulfilled and New Testament GRACE is possible.  To reject the eternal truth of the Law is to snatch away the foundation for grace.  And religion without grace is the heart of Pharisaic dysfunction.

Today’s Pharisees are not all in the old, “traditional” denominations.  Some of them are.  But just as many Pharisees lead and attend contemporary, independent, digital, and/or liberal churches.  The mark of a true Pharisees isn’t the title or suffix of their congregation.  The mark of a Pharisees is what Jesus said.

Do your traditions make void the literal Word of God? 

Do you only see half the sin while ignoring the half closest to your own sin?

Do you claim to fulfill the spirit of the Law when you’re really just making up stuff because your lies are more materially profitable?

Do you glory in the act of worship without submitting your life to the conviction and transformation of God?

If so, then sorry, dude.  You’re a Pharisee.

Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.  And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ” ---Jesus, Matthew 15: 7-9

But you don’t have to stay a Pharisee. 

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, but after years of being in church-temple, he finally actually came to Jesus and was born again. (John 3)

Joseph of Arimathae was a Pharisee.  He had genuinely come to faith in Jesus but he didn’t have the courage to stand up against the weight of the Pharisaic traditions in his peer-circle.    But when Joseph stood in the reality of the cross, he found the courage to come out of the closet as one of those crazy disciples who believed in the literal fulfillment of Messianic prophesy.  (John 19: 38)

Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee of Pharisees.  The more he studied the Law, the more Pharisaicly he interpreted the Bible.  Saul was so deep into the Pharisees’ new traditions that he campaigned to eliminate all of the crazy Christians who were going around talking about physical resurrections, and the Divinity of Jesus, and a virgin birth and other such legalistic nonsense.  But when Saul had a real, personal encounter with Jesus, everything changed, even his name.  Saul became Paul, and the rest is New Testament history. (Acts 9)

Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathae, and the Apostle Paul each had to find their own paths out of Pharisaic thought and into the freedom of Christ-like Biblical literalism.

The problem for the church today is not that we read the Bible too literally.  It’s that we don’t read the Bible literally enough.  We all tend to redact the parts that contradict our current traditions.  We need to study the whole thing. 

We need to stop turning away from apparent contradictions.  Instead let’s engage them with faith that says that that God knows what He’s doing and somehow these competing verses fit together, and with the full power of the intellect and resources God has given us.   God speaks in the space where contradictions are reconciled.  And we desperately need to hear what He says.

Remember that the Bible is LITERALLY the Word of God.  And if that makes you sounds extremely legalistic, that’s O.K.    

That’s literally how Jesus sounded to the Pharisees of His day, too.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

YEAH BUT DO THEY UNDERSTAND? Blogging through the Articles of Religion. Article # 15 ,part 1,

Article XV - Of Speaking in the Congregation in Such a Tongue as the People Understand

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the primitive church, to have public prayer in the church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people.

An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?  (Jeremiah 5: 30-31)

There are two reasons to talk: (a) You want to be heard; or (b) you want them to understand.

When you want to be heard, it doesn’t matter that your point has already been made.  You’re still going to stand up and repeat the previous point because it’s your turn to talk and you want to be heard.

When you want to be heard, you choose your words for the sound you like  hearing come out of your mouth.  Your audience may be confused.  You might not make sense. Heck, you might not even understand the meaning of half the words you use.  So what? You sound good.

But there are consequences.

Between the 4^th and 16^th centuries, the Catholic Church outlawed re-translating the Bible from Latin into the local language.  The Church declared it a crime punishable by death for a layperson to own, possess, or read a Bible. It was 1969 before the Catholic Church officially allowed mass to be conducted in a language other than Latin.   For all of those centuries, the Church wanted to be heard, but it didn,t really want the people to understand.

And that is how anti-Semitism became common in a religion founded by Jews.  That’s how doctrines, traditions, superstitions, and atrocities that obviously contradict our own sacred text became so historically celebrated that, we’re still trying to unravel ourselves from their legacy.  Church leaders who wanted to be heard but didn’t want the people to understand are the reason that the Dark Ages were so dark.

As Jesus said to the Pharisees, we commit terrible errors when we don’t know the Bible nor the power of God. (Matthew 22: 29

God wants the people to understand.

In the Old Testament, Ezra the scribe was the leading academic expert on the Law.  In Nehemiah chapter 8, Ezra gave a 3+ hour reading of the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible).  Ezra thought it all needed to be said, but he realized that it would be difficult to understand all at once.

So, the scribe assigned group-teachers to disperse throughout the crowd, read back scriptures during Ezra’s lecture, and make sure that every resident of Jerusalem understood what the Bible said. All of this happened during Ezra’s reading---- in real time.

Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law; and the people stood in their place.  

So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading. (Nehemiah 8: 7, 8)

It’s not that hard to be heard.  It’s takes a lot more effort to make sure that the people understand what they hear.   To make sure that the people understand, you have to give them the same access to the Word that you have.  You have to push them to read, to question, and to not just take your words for it. 

If you believe that you degree or title entitles you to unquestioning obedience, then you think waaaayy too much of yourself, because Jesus didn’t even profess that status.

When a lawyer questioned Jesus, the Lord didn’t respond, “Don’t you know who I am?”  Jesus replied, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”  (Luke 10: 26)

Jesus wanted him to understand.

At 12 years old, Jesus dominated a scholarly discussion with the premier theological minds of the Jewish Temple school.  But, when He went out in the boondocks to teach, he used metaphors about planting and reaping.  When He  taught to urban crowds, he talked about servants working in a master’s house.  When He evangelized fishermen on the Sea of Galliliee, He showed them where to get their biggest catch ever and then talked to them about becoming spiritual fishers of men.

Without condescending to anyone or dumbing down the text, Jesus used language that the people understood.

If at the end of your time on the platform the people can say “He sho’ did preach,” but they can’t say what they learned, then you were heard, but they didn’t understand.

If at the end of your time in the spotlight, the audience is impressed with how smart you are and all that you have done and achieved, but they don't have new information or methods to improve their lives; you were heard, but they don’t understand.

As a member of the congregation-audence, you may prefer to be entertained than to be taught so according to your own desires, because you have itching ears, you heap up for yourselves teachers who turn your ears away from the truth and aside to fables (2 Timothy 4: 4).  But, that's not what God wants for you.

A church that wants to be enabled and entertained but not taught is “a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God.”

God wants His people to understand His Word.  

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  
#Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

SOUL FOOD OR JUNK FOOD

Some foods fill you up, and some foods just give you a temporary sugar rush. But that’s the body.  What about the soul?  How do we discern between the things that truly nourish our spirits and the things that just please for  a moment and then leave us empty?

The prophet Elijah an our Lord Jesus Christ have much to say on that topic. The message is called SOUL FOOD OR JUNK FOOD.

Listen well.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

The podcast is on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anderson-graves-podcast/id918990482

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

THE CURSE OF HAM

I don't present this image as historically accurate.  Frankly it doesn't make biological sense, but it illustrates the traditional perspective.

One of the most diabolical lies read into history and Christianity is the  “Curse of Ham.”

Based on willfully deceptive readings of Genesis chapters 9 & 10, slave traders created a doctrine in which it was God’s will for Africans and their descendants to be enslaved.   

Outside of and inside of the Black community the “Curse of Ham” doctrine still persists.  White preachers still whisper it as a call to save the pitiful Africans. Based on it Black activists try to rewrite our national genealogies.

So let’s just all take a deep breath, and let the Bible speak.

Genesis 9: 20-25, says that after the Great Flood, Noah got drunk and passed out---naked.  (In Noah’s defense, given the stress of watching everybody on the planet die from drowning while being solely responsible for the survival of the human race in the midst of catastrophic climate conditions never before seen on the planet---- getting sloppy drunk once is a little understandable.)

Ham, Noah’s middle child, made fun of his dad to his two brothers.  When Noah woke up and heard about it, he was pissed!  Then he said: “Cursed be Canaan.  A servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.” (Genesis 9: 25)

That’s the curse part.

But do you notice a problem?

An identity problem?

Noah didn’t curse Ham.  Noah cursed CANAAN.

It could have been that Canaan was Ham’s other name, a nickname his dad used when particularly mad--- except that the author of Genesis went out of his way to call Noah’s middle son, Ham, the father of Canaan  (Genesis 9: 22).  Kinda like God wanted to make sure we didn’t confuse Noah’s middle son with Noah’s grandson.

Biblically-speaking, there is no “Curse of Ham.” There is a Curse of Canaan.

Genesis 10:6 says that Ham had 4 sons: Cush, Mizraim [also known as Egypt], Put, and Canaan.

The patriarchs were cousins, and as humanity multiplied and spread, they intermarried and interconnected even more. Nobody today is just one ethnic thing.  But, there are some clear political lines of descent.

Canaan became the patriarch of the Canaanite nations.  You know, all the –ites that Israel displaced when they came into the Promised Land (Genesis 10: 15-19).   The descendants of Cush founded Babylon, Assyria, and the empires of the African interior  (Genesis 10: 7-12).   The African nations most exploited by the Trans-Atlantic slave trade are linked to the line of Cush.  Black Americans are (mainly) descendants of Cush.

So, class, let’s review.

Who made Noah mad?  Ham.

Whom did Noah curse?  Canaan, Ham’s son.

Are African-Americans genealogically linked to Ham? Yes.  Yes, we are.

Are African-Americans from the line of Canaanite nations,  the cursed son of Ham?  NOPE.

God never cursed Black people. Everybody who ever said the enslavement and oppression of Africans and Blacks was God’s will was A LYING LIAR TELLING LIES.

Why would Noah curse the grandson instead of the son who shamed him?  

Noah couldn’t curse Ham.  He didn’t have the authority.

After the Flood waters subsided, God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. (Genesis 9: 1)

Noah’s sons, including Ham, were direct and equal parties with Noah in God’s post-flood covenant.  

Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you (Genesis 9: 8, 9)

God Himself had personally blessed Ham, and what God blesses no man can curse.

Mad and hungover as Noah was, he couldn’t override God.

There is no Curse on Ham.

O.K., think about it historically.

Racists tried to make the “curse” apply to central and southern Africa, but Ham was also the forefather of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and other great empires in the region.  There’s no Genesis curse on them.  Revelations, sure; but not Genesis.

And let’s put the last 500 years of African degradation in perspective. That’s 5 centuries out of 10,000 years, or more.  Depending on whose archaeology you believe, human civilization might be 200,000 years old or 3.4 million years old.  Over the vast majority of that span, Africa and the Middle East where the pinnacle of human achievement.  Ham’s kids did pretty darn well for themselves.

Granddaddy Noah’s curse on Canaan was played out when Israel invaded the Promised Land. 

You shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you (Deuteronomy 20: 17)

But even then, while honoring a patriarch’s promise, God exercised His sovereign mercy.

Remember Rahab.  (Joshua chapter 2)

Jesus, the greatest of all Noah’s descendants, was descended from Rahab, a Canaanite hooker.  (Matthew 1: 5-16)

Yes, I just said that Jesus is also a descendant of Ham.

What God blesses no man can curse.

Perhaps the saddest legacy of the so-called curse of Ham is the self-hate it generated.    Generations of African descendants subconsciously absorbed the lie of Ham’s curse.  Some responded with their own lies in self-defense.  They tried to rewrite Africa into an ethnically Hebrew continent.  The tried to cast off Ham as an ancestor and reframe our history as that of Israelites. 

You don’t have to do all of that.

We don’t have to be someone other than who we are.  The descendants of Africans are the descendants of Ham.  We are not cursed.  As far as Noah was concerned, we were un-cursable.

Anyway, that’s what the Bible says.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

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WHAT WILL YOU... & WHAT WILL I.. (A Lent Message from a special guest blogger)

Today’s guest blogger is Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick.   This entry is used with permission from Bishop Reddick’s Lent Message to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

The late Bishop Joseph Coles impressed me during his episcopal ministry as one who could say a lot with a few words.  (I often wondered if his gift was related to the necessity of him to economize as he adjusted after a stroke early in his episcopal ministry.  Not having observed his preaching as much beforehand, I did not know.) 

          I believe it was a conference teaching session (I’m not sure; memory fails me!) when I heard him say, “Discipline is choosing the greater over the lesser.  That’ what it is:  choosing the greater over the lesser.”

          One day in devotional time, I heard that theme anew when I read Psalm 119, verse 37, in the Revised Standard Version:

Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless;

give me life in your ways.

          I don’t exactly remember why the verse stopped me that day … but it did.  It stopped me and moved me from being “in devotional time” to being “in study time.”  And I began to look up words in English and in Hebrew.  I heard the word “worthless” as two words – “worth less.”  And I heard Bishop Coles’ definition of discipline, and considered the question, “What is worth more?” 

 The result was that “study time” resulted in even greater devotional time … because I wanted to know and choose those things that were worth more.

          The word “choose” is important – at least, for a few moments.  It was important some days ago when I was challenged to find the right message for a worship service led by the East Texas Region ushers.  Of course, I looked at Psalms 84, which includes the words, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”  Yet, the psalm starts with words descriptive of the pull, the magnetism, the joy, and, yes, the fullness and the glory of getting into God’s house – “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord ….”  Amiable is from a Hebrew word that means “lovely, beloved, pleasant.”

          Then I saw that the words translated “I would rather be” (a doorkeeper …) in verse 10 of Psalm 84 are from the word, babar, which can mean, “choosing, distinguishing, proving, trying, selecting.”  Thus, the psalmist is saying, out of a culture where the “tent of God’s presence” existed among other “tents” in Israel’s camp:  “I choose to be in God’s tent rather that in the tents of wicked folk!”  The word “choose” is important; it is highlighted by our conscious actions.

          But those of us who have been disciples just a little while know that we don’t always choose what is good, or what is better, or what is worth more rather than what is worth less. And so, like the psalmist in Psalms 119:37, we pray for God’s help, asking God:

Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless;

give me life in your ways.

In this prayer, a key word is turn (rather than choose).    The Hebrew translated “turn” is abar, and it means, “to move beyond,” or “to move from here to there,” or “to transfer.”  And so the psalmist is praying (and when we recite the psalm, we can also be praying), “Move me, Lord; move me beyond this to that.  Move me beyond what is worth less to that which is worth more”:

-move me from focusing on things that are lesser;

-move me from focusing on things that have little value;

-set my sights on greater things,

-and give me life through your direction.

          Lent is an important personal  time.  For some of us, it is “taking off”:  “What will you give up?” we ask.  But I am wondering if we might also learn to “take on.”  This becomes my new Lenten question:  “What will you … and what will I … take on for Christ?”  

Senior Bishop Lawrence Reddick

Presiding Bishop of The Eighth Episcopal District of

The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church

            Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick III, the 51^st bishop elected in the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, has been presiding bishop of the Eighth Episcopal District since July 2014. 

ww.thecmechurch.org/collegeofbishops/bishoplawrencereddick.htm