Month: March 2023

Suffering: A Family Affair | James 1.2-3

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”
—James 1.2-3

These verses are so rich, it’s going to take more than one post to mine their treasures. A flattened, cursory reading can sound very callous and insensitive to the lived experience of human suffering. However, I think there is a nuanced, sensitive perspective here that deserves sitting with a bit.

“brothers and sisters…”

James knows he is going to say tough things, so he uses this intimate term on the outset. He doesn’t say “children” holding himself above those going through trials, but uses this familial term for peers under the same authority. This shows that no one–not even an apostle, not even the brother of Jesus–is above suffering and trials.

It also reminds us that this letter is not to individuals, but a community. This is a huge key to these verses (and the whole book). The encouragement to “consider it all joy” when we face trials can seem at least insensitive, if not outright abusive, apart from this context.

Suffering should be a community effort. We ought to be close enough to others that we hurt when our spiritual family members hurt. We share the burden to live this verse out. In suffering, not everyone will have the wherewithal to follow all these encouragements, so others step in and make up for what we lack in a given moment.

Others can keep hope on our behalf when we feel hopeless. They can recognize the resilience and endurance growing within us when we have no more to give. They can maintain faith in God’s goodness while we doubt God is there at all. These words are meant to mark a community at all times, not individuals at all times.

Note here that the brother of Jesus calls us his siblings, showing the unity we have as the singular body of Christ. James knows that spiritual family is deeper and more defining than natural, biological family. Blood may be thicker than water, but spirit is thicker still.

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

Family Messiahs & Modern Dispersions | James 1.1

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the dispersion:
Greetings.
—James 1.1

1. “servant” (or “slave”): This is surprising. Traditionally, James is one of the brothers of Jesus (I’ve tried, but I just can’t follow Catholicism in its beliefs of Mary’s perpetual virginity and these being Jesus’ “cousins”). The Gospels tell us that Jesus’ brothers denied Christ as Messiah. They thought he was crazy. What must have happened to James to change his view to be a “slave” of his brother? How easy would it be for any of us to so quickly start seeing our brother or sister as the Son of God through which all things we were created, by which all things are sustained?

2. “dispersion”: All Jews living outside Judea. We can find ourselves in this. God’s people far from where God has promised us to be, trying to figure out how to do this whole “Christianity” thing. This is what the rest of James is about. This whole earth is ours and we wait expectantly for the enemies to be cleared out so we can receive our inheritance. So what does life look like in the tension of awaiting promises for a new home, knowing it’s not yet time, but it will come? What is the first characteristic of this life that James brings up? What does life here look like? The answer is probably in verses 2-4: a life of suffering for the purposes that God has laid out for us.

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

1 Corinthians, Chapter-by-Chapter

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

I wrote another post applying 1 Corinthians to the divisions and differences among Christian groups. I recognize my thesis could be a little controversial, so I wanted to show my work with this survey of the letter to show Paul’s thought on these issues.

The letter is to a church divided, so it’s interesting the Paul begins by grounding them in what unifies them. They are sanctified, exist “in Christ”, are called to be saints, and call on the name of Christ as Lord. (1:1-9). But he pretty quickly gets into the divisions themselves (1:10-17).

He’ll eventually tell us what this gospel is, but first he teaches us how to think about it. Repeatedly, Paul hits hard one main idea: you can’t think about the gospel or Christianity in the same way that you think about other sets of ideas or beliefs. When you do that, Christianity is just going to look like foolishness (1:18-2:16).

But still, Paul never challenges the divisions themselves. He does not seem to think that differing views on even important issues is a challenge to Christianity or “the gospel”, which he puts in a different category than other parts of life and faith. (Ch. 3).

The problem is not what these Christians are believing, but how they are believing it and how that gets translated in their actions and worship.

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Christianities: A Roadblock to Faith?

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

This is part of our youth group Lent and Easter series “Roadblocks and Reasons”, where we discussed Christian belief, the things that make it more difficult, and reasons that can sustain us.

How do we process the diversity of views within Christianity? How can something that claims to be “the” universal truth have so many divisions? What even is Christianity if it changes so frequently?

I think 1 Corinthians has the answer, and here it is:

Different “versions” of Christianity can exist, even with profound disagreements, because there is a “core” to Christianity that is consistent across groups, cultures, language, time, and space. What matters is that we cling to the Resurrection and love each other in spite of those differences.

Let’s see how Paul argues this. (Here’s a deeper dive on the book to show my work.)

1 Corinthians in a nutshell

The letter is written by Paul to a church in chaos, full of deep, substantive divisions around religious teachers, styles, and even different beliefs and practices. (1:10-13).

When Paul lists these group identities, I think we can mentally substitute different Christian denominations, like Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, or Progressive Christians. It’s not an exact comparison, but it can help us get in the right mindset.

If you were Paul, how would you go about addressing such division? For me, I’d probably tell them which faction is more right or which beliefs are most correct. I may tell them disagreement on these things denies our unity in Christ and embarrasses the faith. Others may even be tempted to propose a more watered-down faith that may be more agreeable, but gives little reason to actually believe it.

But Paul does none of that.

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Roadblocks & Reasons: A Life Update & New Series

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

In 2017, I had finished my Masters of Divinity and was preaching, teaching, and leading things at my church on a path towards ordination in my denomination. Some personal crises hit and I stepped back from ministry work to heal, grow, and (hopefully) mature on a number of fronts.

After years of therapy and spiritual direction, a global pandemic, and a church merger (and getting married!), I am stepping back into some ministry work, albeit in a way I never expected: youth ministry.

After some discernment and consideration, I’m now the Interim Youth Director at my church.

When I was initially asked, I admit: it was out of left field. I had never seen myself as the “youth pastor” type, or at least the usual stereotype of the adult man-child with lingering frat boy partier energy, or middle-aged men cosplaying as such. (I know that’s incredibly unfair and not characteristic of the vast majority of youth leaders out there, but it is a type.)

More substantively, I am not the kind of person that has any interest in making Christian faith more palatable, less complicated, or easier. I love making its complexity more comprehensible, but not simplified or “easier”, as if that makes youth more likely to maintain their faith. In fact, I’ve seen the opposite. The less complex and flexible your faith, the more brittle, anxious, and fragile it becomes.

(You can probably already see where this is going.)

The longer I took this train of thought, I felt more and more excitement about cultivating this in youth, how important that mindset and ministry could be, and how well suited I actually was for it.

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