Shrewd Manager Parable of the Unjust Steward

Contemporaries: Jesus, Essenes (Children/Light), Jewish: Pharisees, Sadducees

NOTE To READER: It has been pointed out to me that this study is long on detail and short on brevity. If you just want to see my major point(s), I suggest reading my movie review of "Tower Heist", then come back here for elaboration if needed.

The KJV's Luke 16 chapter heading is The Parable of the Dishonest Steward, sometimes also called the unfaithful or unjust Steward. In the NIV the chapter heading calls him a shrewd manager.

I must shake my head when hearing (1 Timothy 3:4--NIV) the word manage as what a leader of the church must do. I know the word rule from my KJV Bible well enough.

What's the difference? one might ask. Well, for comparison, if leading a church is similar enough to leading a family then we know scripturally a man leading his wife parallels Christ leading the church. A real good example of a man ruling his body, ruling the government, is FDR who had polio but kept his body in subjection in order to perform his office. Is there not a difference between a head ruling a paralyzed body and a head managing one.

Take Christopher Reeves the actor who portrayed the man of steel able to leap tall buildings. He got thrown from a horse, paralyzed from the neck down, and had to settle for managing his paralysis. He did more than manage; he ruled his body.

One of the best examples of ruling a paralyzed society was how Jesus addressed the Essenes (known back then as "children of light") who were paralyzed in their use of money (they called it "mammon of unrighteousness") which they would not traffic in. His parable so cuts to the quick that I would say He more than manages the economically out-of-touch group; he rules them.

I don't mean to bore my reader with a lengthy web page, but a haste to write briefly carries an unwarranted shortcut by referring to the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16) as if the average Christian has it under his belt. I checked the library books on parables and found they all said the same thing, that this is the most difficult parable of Jesus in all of Christianity, so I don't think I'd be insulting my reader's intelligence to explain it, although, to be sure, I won't explain the parable per se, but its setting, after which the parable explains itself. Jesus had a way of hitting the nail right on the head with his parables, and I do believe his audience at the time had no difficulty understanding what He was getting at.

Unfortunately I've been unable to locate the book explaining this parable in the library , the book I was after, so I'll quote a second-best study I got off the internet and go from there. The study starts out great and only falls flat when it comes to an eternal application.

The unjust steward.⁴²¹
April 19th, 2002
        Received by H.R.
        Cuenca, Ecuador.
My dear brother:
    When people preach religion, precepts for living together, what you should do or what you should leave alone, naturally they are confronted on many occasions with practical questions on "real life." This also happened in the case of Jesus.
    One day, when in the course of a sermon the topic of righteousness was addressed, the Master told a parable, which today constitutes a big problem for people. This parable is considered the most difficult to understand or interpret in the New Testament, contained in chapter 16 of the Gospel according to Luke.
    Jesus said:

"Once there was a rich man whose agent was reported to him to be mismanaging his property. So he summoned him and said, 'What's this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your stewardship — you're not fit to manage my household any longer.'"

    So far, we do not know whether this accusation is justified or false, but it is clear that the manager really fears for his work.

"At this the agent said to himself, 'What am I going to do now that my employer is taking away the management from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I can't sink to begging. Ah, I know what I'll do so that when I lose my position people will welcome me into their homes!'"

    Here it is worthwhile explaining that the owners of the large landed properties did not live on their estates in the country, but in the big cities, often even outside Palestine. From time to time, they visited their large landed estates in order to check how they were run.
    In the Palestinian countryside, an awful poverty reigned. Many deprived people leased land parcels to cultivate them, but instead of getting out of their poverty, their debts increased steadily, and in extreme cases, as a last recourse, they sold themselves as slaves to their landowners for an agreed upon period of time. In other cases, their debts were transferred to their children, and they had to work the lands of the rich people, without hope of ever being able to overcome their dependence.

"So he sent for each one of his master's debtors. 'How much do you owe my master?' he said to the first.

'A hundred barrels of oil,' he replied. 'Here,' replied the agent, 'take your bill, sit down, hurry up and write in fifty.'

Then he said to another, 'And what's the size of your debt?' 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. 'Take your bill,' said the agent, 'and write in eight hundred.'"

    And here, let us take a look on what is happening at that instant: Two debtors, who have no possibility of paying their debts in money, had agreed upon paying the value in kind. That was something very common in that time. But let us investigate the amount of debt:
    The first one said: "A hundred barrels of oil," olive oil, of course. And of course, he did not say barrels, but "bath," a Hebrew measure corresponding to more or less 40 liters, or 10 gallons, each. Therefore, the poor man owed his landowner the quantity of 1000 gallons of olive oil, corresponding to the annual crop of between 100 and 200 mature trees. An enormous quantity!
    The second man said: "A thousand bushels of wheat." He used the word "a hundred kor," indicating a measure of between 6 and 7 bushels or 220 litres, each. Therefore, he owed 22,000 litres or 650 bushels of wheat, perhaps ten metric tons, or in that time, the annual crop of between 10 and 15 hectares. He certainly could not even consider owning a parcel of such dimensions for cultivating.
    In both cases, the weight of the debt squashed the poor peasant.
    But why does the manager reduce the debt from 100 to 50 barrels of oil and from 100 to 80 kor of wheat?
    And now comes the key point of the story. The Mosaic Law prohibited Jews to charge interest for their loans, at least in those cases where the loan-taker was also Jewish. That norm is very clearly established in the Old Testament, and for that reason it was also prohibited for Christians, in the Middle Ages, to charge interest.
    But in reality, nobody cared about this norm, and everybody charged an interest rate even above the effective norm in the Roman Empire, that is to say, an interest rate of above 20%.
    For wheat, because of its more stable price, the amount of interest was fixed at 25%. For olive oil, with a price that fluctuated widely, they used to recharge an interest of up to 100%, fatal for an agrarian society, where the maximum interest should not go beyond 5%. And those amounts are exactly what the administrator reduced.
    The peasants and merchants, who listened to Jesus' speech, understood very well what he was speaking of.
    And Jesus continued:

"Now the master praised this rascally agent because he had been so careful for his own future. For the children of this world are considerably more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries than the children of light."

    This is a seemingly enigmatic sentence. It is commonly not understood by people. How can the owner praise an unjust steward, one who even caused him damage? Well, because in fact he did not cause him damage, but rather simply reduced the amount of usury prohibited by the law. Therefore, he made friends with the poor people, with whom he would have to live together in the future, and his master could not sue him. Such cunning caused the landowner's admiration.
    Here it is worthwhile to indicate another detail: The Greek text does not speak literally of an unjust steward, but of "µ ," that is, of the "administrator of unrighteousness." And this would be a much more appropriate translation, although the traditional translation of the text is also formally correct.
    Now, who are the children of light? It is the denomination which the Essenes had given themselves. They lived, generally, in closed and isolated communities, without much contact with their neighbors, without sharing their spirituality, without benefiting others, and without being able to expect anything in turn from their neighbors.

"Now my advice to you is to use 'money', tainted as it is, to make yourselves friends, so that when it comes to an end, they may welcome you into the homes of eternity."

    This sentence is also very controversial. What does he mean with it? Exactly what the administrator had done: To reduce debts, to alleviate the life of the poor. Not to charge in excess, and if they have done it, to return the money charged in excess. This is a quite modern admonition, don't you think? Jesus did not speak of "homes," but of huts, the miserable huts, where the poor lived. Because wealth does not last forever, and when this happens, the poor will welcome them in their homes, which do last. Because, as you know well, the adjective which is commonly translated as "eternal," in fact, does not mean this, but "durable," "which persists for an epoch."
    In later times, some church officials judged the Master's words inappropriate, and they tried to change them. There are still manuscripts where we can see that the verb had been manipulated in this passage, so that it would say: "so that when you come to your end, they may welcome you into the homes of eternity," shifting the social criticism (which could have been used against the feudal church) to the afterlife.
    And Jesus said:

"The man who is faithful in the little things will be faithful in the big things, and the man who cheats in the little things will cheat in the big things too. So that if you are not fit to be trusted to deal with the wicked wealth of this world, who will trust you with the true riches? And if you are not trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. He is bound to hate one and love the other, or give his loyalty to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and the power of money at the same time."

    This needs no comment.
    So you see, my dear brother, it is not so difficult to interpret this parable. It teaches us not to take advantage of our neighbors, to charge what is just, to return the unjustly earned money, simply to live a righteous life in harmony with God's Laws.
    The problem with the interpretation of this parable arises when one wants to give it forcefully a highly religious meaning, and it simply does not have such a meaning. It is pure social criticism. The allusion of the parable is not to God, etc. And people in that time understood it exactly as I have explained it to you.
    Perhaps you have wondered why the Padgett messages do not dedicate one single word to this parable: It is because it has nothing to do with Jesus' central teaching, Divine Love and soul transformation. It is not a parable of the category of "the leaven in the batch of dough," or the "mustard seed," etc. It is a teaching about living together, or "natural love," if you want to put it this way.
    We have come to the end of our exposition. It is time to say goodbye.
    I hope this message may serve to clarify a difficult passage in the Bible. In the same chapter of Luke, there is another example of Jesus' social criticism. But of that, we will speak on another occasion.
    God bless you,
    Your brother in the spirit,
    Judas

If my reader wants to read a (fictional) dynamic similar to the Lord's parable of the unjust steward, I strongly recommend chapter 2 of Mitch Silver, In Secret Service from which I offer this excerpt:

A month after what has come to be known in Irish Hell's Kitchen as the "Rising of the Moon River," Callan's life has changed a little. Not only is he still living it, which is a surprise to him, he's become a neighborhood hero.
    Because while Peaches was flushing Sheehan, he and O-Bop were taking a black felt-tip pen to Matty's little black book and literally settling some debts. They had a great ... time—eliminating some entries, reducing others, maintaining the ones they figured would give them the most swag.
    It's fat times in the Kitchen.
    Callan and O-Bop set themselves up in the Liffey Pub like they own it, which if you look caarefully at the black book, they sort of do. People come in and practically kiss their rings, either they're so grateful they're off the hook with Matty or they're so scared they're still on the hook with the boys ...

—Mitch Silver, In Secret Service⁴²²

However, I think that in fact Jesus did have an eternal application in mind, and that the obscure fragment the new version used is the one that got it wrong, and so did the teacher. But up to that point the study is quite informative. Let's take his statement: "Now, who are the children of light? It is the denomination which the Essenes had given themselves" at face value and assume Jesus may have in fact been addressing the Essenes. They were contemporary with Him, and he didn't spare other religious groups like the Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees in his critiques and parables, so why should the Essenes get off? Well, who were the Essenes?

History and the Essenes⁴²³

Classical Authors on the Essenes

Pliny on the Essenes

By the western shores [of the Dead Sea], but away from their harmful effects, live a solitary people, the Essenes, wonderful besides all others in the world, being without any women and renouncing all sexual desire, having no money, and with only palm trees as companions. Their assembly is born again day by day from the multitudes, tired of life and the vicissitudes of fortune, that crowd thither for their manner of living. So, for thousands of ages--strange to say--a people, in which no one is born, is eternal, so fruitful for them is the repentance of others for their life! Lying below (infra) these was the town of En Gedi, once second only to Jerusalem in fertility and groves of palm trees, but now like the other, a ruin. After that (inde), Masada, a castle on a crag, itself not far from the Dead Sea, is the end of Judaea. Natural History 5:18:73

Pliny's statement that the Essenes existed so long because they benefited from "the repentance of others for their life," links them directly with Jesus and John the Baptist who required people's repentance.
    ...
    Pliny's "thousands of ages" is an exaggeration but one which might suggest an association between this community and a much older one. Josephus, who gives us the most complete account of the Essenes, puts the rise of the community in the previous century, during the first century BC. It might also however come from a misunderstanding of his source. Thus, Pliny's choice of words is noteworthy because he uses expressions typical of an Essene or protoChristian community like "assembly," "born again" and "repentance," and even speaks of them being "eternal," a likely misunderstanding by Pliny of a source which said their expectation was eternal life. This might have led to the confusion about the "thousands of ages." Joseph Amusin thinks the reference to an eternal people comes from descriptions of themselves (CD 7:6;19:1-2;20:22) as people who "live for a thousand generations." Joseph M Baumgarten has also noted, in 4Q502, blessings "in the midst of an eternal people." Otherwise, most translators astonishingly do not make anything of these obvious parallels in their ignorance, their search for literary variation or their deliberate attempts to mislead.
    ...
    If Pliny indicated relative altitude when he wrote "below", the Essene community was in the hills behind En Gedi from the Dead Sea but there is no sign of any such community there, other than traces of about twenty simple huts discovered early in 1998. Yizhar Hirschfeld, an Israeli archaeologist, found in these hills, twenty small plain rectangular huts, each large enough to house one man, which had been inhabited in the first and second centuries. The huts were too small to be houses and were really simple monk's cells. Their situation fits Pliny's geographical description, but Pliny's description of the numbers of people crowding to the site prove that it is too small to be the one he is describing. This will have been one of the wilderness camps of the Essenes, alone too small to have been a community worth noting by Pliny.

Philo on the Essenes.

Another account of the Essenes by Philo of Alexandria (born in Alexandria in 20 BC and died about 60 AD; probably an Essenian Jew himself) written about 20 AD broadly matches Josephus's but sometimes he disagrees and occasionally adds something new. Thus he says that only mature men were admitted. He agrees with Josephus that the Essenes lived all over Judaea but maintains that they preferred to live in villages not towns. They avoided towns because of the contagion of evils rife within them. The sick and elderly were cared for--the scrolls tell us that the infirm and the sick were already spiritually saved under the guardianship of the angels of holiness.
    Josephus tells us they practise husbandry but Philo enlarges saying they are farmers, shepherds, cowherds, beekeepers, artisans and craftsmen, but they did not make weapons, would not engage in commerce and were no sailors. They rejected slavery, believing brotherhood to be the natural relationship of men but that it had been spoiled by covetousness. Though they read a great deal they were not interested in philosophy in general but only morals. They ignored the weather and never used it as an excuse not to work. They returned from work rejoicing, as if they had been partying all day. Contentment of mind they regarded as the greatest of riches. They make no instruments of war. They repudiate every inducement to covetousness. None are held as slaves, but all are free, and serve each other. They are instructed in piety and holiness, righteousness, economy, etc. They are guided by a threefold rule: love of God, love of virtue, and love of mankind. Of their love of God they give innumerable demonstrations, which is found in their constant and unalterable holiness throughout the whole of their lives, their avoidance of oaths and falsehoods, and their firm belief that God is the source of all good, but of nothing evil. Of their love of virtue they give proof in their contempt for money, fame, and pleasures, their continence, easy satisfying of their wants, their simplicity, modesty, etc. Their love of man is proved by their benevolence and equality, and their having all things in common, which is beyond all deception. They reverence and take care of the aged, as children do their parents. They do not lay up treasures of gold or silver but provide themselves only with the necessities of life. Paul afterwards, in the same spirit, advises: Having food and raiment, therewith be content. Note also the threefold rule of the Essenes. Christians like to think that the great revelation that came to the world via Christ was love but here we find it is the central belief of an old Jewish sect, and curiously, one which Jesus shows every indication of having been a member of. Philo: Every Virtuous Man is Free 12:75
    Palestine and Syria too are not barren of exemplary wisdom and virtue, which countries no slight portion of that most populous nation of the Jews inhabits. There is a portion of those people called Essenes, in number somewhat more than four thousand in my opinion, who derive their name from their piety, though not according to any accurate form of the Greek dialect, because they are above all men devoted to the service of God, not sacrificing living animals, but studying rather to preserve their own minds in a state of holiness and purity.
    These men, in the first place, live in villages, avoiding all cities on account of the habitual lawlessness of those who inhabit them, well knowing that such a moral disease is contracted from the associations with wicked men, just as a real disease might be from an impure atmosphere, and that this would stamp an incurable evil on their souls. Of these men, some cultivating the earth, and others devoting themselves to those arts which are the result of peace, benefit both themselves and all those who come into contact with them, not storing up treasures of silver and of gold, nor acquiring vast sections of the earth out of a desire for ample revenues, but providing all things which are requisite for the natural purpose of life.
    For they alone of almost all men having been originally poor and destitute, and that too rather from their own habits and ways of life than from any real deficiency of good fortune, are nevertheless accounted very rich, judging contentment and frugality to be in great abundance, as in truth they are. Among those men you will find no makers of arrows, or javelins, or swords, or helmets, or breastplates, or shields, no makers of arms or any employment whatever connected with war, or even to any of those occupations even in peace which are easily perverted to wicked purposes, for they are utterly ignorant of all traffic, and of all commercial dealings, and of all navigation, but they repudiate and keep aloof from everything which can possibly afford any inducement to covetousness.
    Least of all is a single slave found among them, but they are all free, aiding one another with a reciprocal interchange of good offices, and they condemn masters, not only as unjust, inasmuch as they corrupt the very principles of equality, but likewise as impious, because they destroy the laws of nature, which generated them all equally, and brought them up like a mother, as if they were legitimate brethren, not in name only, but in reality and truth. But in their view this natural relationship of all men to one another has been thrown into disorder by designing covetousness, continually wishing to surpass others in good fortune, and which has therefore engendered alienation instead of affection, and hatred instead of friendship.
    And leaving the logical part of philosophy, as in no respect necessary for the acquisition of virtue, to the word- catchers, and the natural part, as being too sublime for human nature to master, to those who love to converse about high objects (except indeed so far as such a study takes in the contemplation of the existence of God and of the creation of the universe), they devote all their attention to the moral part of philosophy, using as instructors the laws of their country which it would have been impossible for human mind to devise without divine inspiration.
    Now these laws they are taught at other times, indeed, but most especially on the seventh day, for the seventh day is accounted sacred, on which they abstain from all other employments, and frequent their synagogues, as they called these places,and there they sit according to their age in classes, the younger sitting under the elder, and listening with eager attention in becoming order.
    Then one, indeed, takes up the holy volume and reads from it, and another of the men of the greatest experience comes forward and explains what is not very intelligible, for a great many precepts are delivered in enigmatical modes of expression, and allegorically, as the old fashion was, and thus the people are taught piety, and holiness, and justice and economy, and the science of regulating the state, and the knowledge of such things as are naturally good, or bad, or indifferent, and to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong, using a threefold variety of definitions, and rules, and criteria, namely, love of God, love of virtue, and love of mankind. Accordingly, the sacred volumes present an infinite number of instances of the disposition devoted to the love of God, and of a continued and uninterrupted purity throughout the whole life, of a careful avoidance of oaths and of falsehood, and of a strict adherence to the principle of looking on the Deity as the cause of everything which is good and nothing of which is evil. They also furnish us with many proofs of a love of virtue, such as abstinence from all covetousness of money, from ambition, from indulgence of pleasures, temperance, endurance, and also moderation, simplicity, good temper, the absence of pride, obedience to the laws, steadiness, and everything of that kind; and, lastly, they bring forward as proofs of the love of mankind, goodwill, equality beyond all power of description, and fellowship, about which it is not unreasonable to say a few words.
    In the first place, then, there is no one who has a house so absolutely his own private property, that it does not in some sense also belong to everyone. For besides that they all dwell together in companies, the house is open to all those of the same nations, who come to them from other quarters. Then there is one magazine among them all, their expenses are all in common, since they all eat in messes, for there is no other people among which you can find a common use for the same house, a common adoption of one mode of living, and a common use of the same table more thoroughly established in fact than among this tribe--and is not this very natural?
    For whatever they, after having been working during the day, receive for their wages, that they do not retain as their own, but bring it into a common stock, and give any advantage that is to be derived from it to all who desire to avail themselves of it. And those who are sick are not neglected because they are unable to contribute to the common stock, inasmuch as the tribe have in their public stock a means of supplying their necessities and aiding their weakness, so that from their ample means they support them liberally and abundantly, and they cherish respect for their elders, and honour them and care for them, just as parents are honoured and cared for by their loving children, being supported by them in all abundance both by their personal exertions and by innumerable contrivances.
    Such diligent practices of virtue does philosophy, unconnected with any superfluous care of examining into Greek names render men, proposing to them as necessary exercises to train them towards its attainment, all praiseworthy actions by which a freedom, which can never be enslaved, is firmly established.

Philo: Hypothetica 11:1

1. Multitudes of his disciples has the lawgiver trained for the life of fellowship. These people are called Essenes, a name awarded to them doubtless in recognition of their holiness. They live in many cities of Judea and in many villages and grouped in great societies of many members.
2. Their persuasion is not based on birth, for birth is not a descriptive mark of voluntary associations, but on their zeal for virtue and desire to promote brotherly love.
3. Thus no Essene is a mere child nor even a stripling or newly bearded, since the characters of such are unstable with a waywardness corresponding to the immaturity of their age, but full grown and already verging on old age, no longer carried under by the tide of the body nor led by the passions, but enjoying the veritable, the only real freedom.
4. This freedom is attested by their life. None of them allows himself to have any private property, either house or slave or estate or cattle or any of the other things which are amassed and abundantly procured by wealth, but they put everything together into the public stock and enjoy the benefit of them all in common.
5. They live together formed into clubs, bands of comradeship with common meals, and never cease to conduct all their affairs to serve the general weal.
6. But they have various occupations at which they labour with untiring application and never plead cold or heat or any of the violent changes in the atmosphere as an excuse. Before the sun is risen they betake themselves to their familiar tasks and only when it sets force themselves to return, for they delight in them as much as do those who are entered for gymnastic competitions.
7. For they consider that the exercises which they practice whatever they may be are more valuable to life, more pleasant to soul and body and more lasting than those of the athlete in as much as they can still be plied with vigour when that of the body is past its prime.
8. Some of them labour on the land skilled in sowing and planting, some as heardsmen taking charge of every kind of cattle and some superintend the swarms of bees.
9. Others work at the handicrafts to avoid the sufferings which are forced upon us by our indispensable requirements and shrink from no innocent way of getting a livelihood.
10. Each branch when it has received the wages of these so different occupations give it to one person who has been appointed the treasurer. He takes it and at once buys what is necessary and provides food in abundance and anything else which human life requires.
11. Thus having each day a common life and a common table they are content with the same conditions, lovers of frugality who shun expensive luxury as a disease of both body and soul.
12. And not only is their table in common but their clothing also. For in winter they have a stock of stout coats ready and in summer cheap vests, a so that he who wishes may easily take any garment he likes, since what one has is held to belong to all and conversely what all have one has.
13. Again if anyone is sick he is nursed at the common expense and tended with care and thoughtfulness by all. The old men too even if they are childless are treated as parents of a not merely numerous but very filial family and regularly close their life with an exceedingly prosperous and comfortable old age; so many are those who give them precedence and honour as their due and minister to them as a duty voluntarily and deliberately accepted rather than enforced by nature.
14. Furthermore they eschew marriage because they clearly discern it to be the sole or the principal danger to the maintenance of the communal life, as well as because they particularly practice continence. For no Essene takes a wife, because a wife is a selfish creature, excessively jealous and an adept at beguiling the morals of her husband and seducing him by her continued impostures.
15. For by the fawning talk which she practices and the other ways in which she plays her part like an actress on the stage she first ensnares the sight and hearing, and when these subjects as it were have been duped she cajoles the sovereign mind.
16. And if children come, filled with the spirit of arrogance and bold speaking she gives utterance with more audacious hardihood to things which before she hinted covertly and under disguise, and casting off all shame she compels him to commit actions which are all hostile to the life of fellowship.
17. For he who is either fast bound in the love lures of his wife or under the stress of nature making his children his first care ceases to be the same to others and unconsciously has become a different man and has passed from freedom into slavery.
18. Such then is the life of the Essenes, a life so highly to be prized that not only commoners but also great kings look upon them with admiration and amazement, and the approbation and honours which they give add further veneration to their venerable name.

Josephus on The Essenes

Josephus suggests he was initiated into the Essene brotherhood so one assumes he knows what he is talking about. In his two famous books the Jewish War and the Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus, describes in some detail the cult ignored in the gospels--the Essenes.
    He agreed that the Essenes, all Jews by birth, did not marry though they were not against marriage in principle--they realized it was necessary for the continuation of mankind--but propagated the sect by adopting other people's children. Another order of Essenes accepted marriage though maintaining strict rules about intercourse. There were about 4000 Essenes altogether, constituting a closely knit brotherhood with similarities to the Pythagoreans, devotees of Orpheus. They regarded pleasure as evil and disciplined themselves in continence and self control. They wore white garments just as did the priests.
    In the Quran the followers of Jesus--the Nasrani-- were called the people in white. The Manichaeans who derived from the Mandaeans--or Nasoraeans--followers of John the Baptist were called white robes. All took their habit of wearing white from their ultimate founders, the Essenes, who called themselves Lebanon, which means white, because they habitually wore sparklingly white robes of fine linen.
    Essenes loved each other more than others, renounced riches (they were the Poor) and kept no servants, ministering to one another, eating only the simplest food and wearing their clothes and shoes to shreds. They held their goods in common yielding their possessions to the order when they joined and contributing all their earnings. Failure to do this was a grave dishonesty and was severely punished. In return they received all that they needed. Their lives were fully regulated by guardians or bishops who directed their daily duties leaving them able to do only two things of their own free will--to assist those in need and to show mercy, the pre-eminent characteristics of the Nazarenes of the gospels.
    They settled in all towns in Palestine living apart in organized communities based on a centre where they congregated for meals. When travelling, they never needed to carry anything with them except weapons to protect themselves against robbers because wherever they lived someone was appointed to look after visitors--they offered hospitality to any visiting brother Essene just as if he were part of the family. There was no commerce between them, everything being given willingly to brothers who had need, once the guardian approved.
    ...
    Their judgements were just, not being passed by a court of less than a hundred, and usually permanent. If anyone was guilty of sin he was cast out eating only grass since he could accept no succour from anyone without the permission of the guardian and thus he wasted away to die of starvation. Excommunication therefore meant death because no Essene would forgo his vows even though excommunicated. In practice the community accepted them again when they felt they had been punished enough. They obeyed their elders and accepted majority decisions.
    ...
    While in the act of defecating they wrapped themselves with their white robe so that they did not offend, not simply other people because their toilets were well away from habitation, but the divine rays of light. Afterwards they washed themselves thoroughly.
    ...
    They believed in an immortal soul locked in a corruptible body. The body was a prison for the soul which rejoiced when freed of it. This sounds like a contradiction of the Pharisaic, and presumably Christian ideas, of resurrection--the resurrection of the physical body. However some scroll fragments use the bones passage of Ezekiel to signify resurrection which seems to imply physical resurrection.
    ...
    Josephus: Jewish War (Whiston) 2:8:2-13

3. These men are despisers of riches, and so very communicative as raises our admiration. Nor is there any one to be found among them who hath more than another; for it is a law among them, that those who come to them must let what they have be common to the whole order, -- insomuch that among them all there is no appearance of poverty, or excess of riches, but every one's possessions are intermingled with every other's possessions, and so there is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren. ...
4. They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city and if any of their sect come from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own, and they go in to such as they never knew before, as if they had been ever so long acquainted with them. For which reason they carry nothing at all with them when they travel into remote parts, though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves. Accordingly, there is, in every city where they live, one appointed particularly to take care of strangers, and to provide garments and other necessaries for them. But the habit and management of their bodies is such as children use who are in fear of their masters. Nor do they allow of the change of clothing or of shoes till be first torn to pieces, or worn out by time. Nor do they either buy or sell any thing to one another, but every one of them gives what he hath to him that wanteth it, and receives from him again in lieu of it what may be convenient for himself, and although there be no requital made, they are fully allowed to take what they want of whomsoever they please.
8. But for those that are caught in any heinous sins, they cast them out of their society, and he who is thus separated from them does often die after a miserable manner, for as he is bound by the oath he hath taken, and by the customs he hath been engaged in, he is not at liberty to partake of that food that he meets with elsewhere, but is forced to eat grass, and to famish his body with hunger, till he perish. For which reason they receive many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient punishment for the sins they had been guilty of.
13. Moreover, there is another order of Essenes who agree with the rest as to their way of living, and customs, and laws, but differ from them in the point of marriage, as thinking that by not marrying they cut off the principal part of human life, which is the prospect of succession. Nay, rather, that if all men should be of the same opinion, the whole race of mankind would fail. However, they try their spouses for three years, and if they find that they have their natural purgations thrice, as trials that they are likely to be fruitful, they then actually marry them. But they do not use to accompany with their wives when they are with child, as a demonstration that they do not marry out of regard to pleasure, but for the sake of posterity. Now the women go into the baths with some of their garments on, as the men do with somewhat girded about them. And these are the customs of this order of Essenes.

    Though the Essenes are admitted by Josephus not to swear vows, they are described as doing so at their initiation. Obviously there is no contradiction, the initial vows being to God are all that are needed. Thereafter the Essene should tell only the truth so no further swearing on oath is necessary. In Matthew's gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:34-37), Jesus has exactly the same rule for his converts. "Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."
    James in his epistle (James 5:12), possibly one of the earliest books of the New Testament, has exactly the same advice:
    "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation."
    The Jerusalem Church, of which James, the brother of Jesus, was the head, was an Essene community in Jerusalem. It is natural that both he and Jesus, as Essenes, would teach the same rule on swearing.

10. ... They are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their diet. Nay, as I think, by means of the regular course of life they observe also. They contemn the miseries of life, and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind. And as for death, if it will be for their glory, they esteem it better than living always and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again.

The Essenes were a group "having no money", "in their contempt for money", "as abstinence from all covetousness of money", "would not engage in commerce", "None of them allows himself to have any private property, either house or slave or estate or cattle or any of the other things which are amassed and abundantly procured by wealth, but they put everything together into the public stock and enjoy the benefit of them all in common." (see above, references 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8)). Furthermore, "they are farmers, shepherds, cowherds, beekeepers, artisans and craftsmen, but they did not make weapons, would not engage in commerce [emphasis added] and were no sailors"; "Among those men you will find no makers of arrows, or javelins, or swords, or helmets, or breastplates, or shields, no makers of arms or any employment whatever connected with war, or even to any of those occupations even in peace which are easily perverted to wicked purposes, for they are utterly ignorant of all traffic, and of all commercial dealings [emphasis added], and of all navigation, but they repudiate and keep aloof from everything which can possibly afford any inducement to covetousness" ,"renounced riches" , "These men are despisers of riches" , "Nor do they either buy or sell any thing to one another, but every one of them gives what he hath to him that wanteth it, and receives from him again in lieu of it what may be convenient for himself, and although there be no requital made, they are fully allowed to take what they want of whomsoever they please" (see above, references 1, 2).

The study I could not find gives the detail that in their contempt for money, the Essenes ("children of light"--Luke) would not even use the coin-of-the-realm but referred to it as "mammon of unrighteousness," the term Jesus used in the parable in Luke. That is where the expression derives from, the Essenes.

The means by which the friends are to be made is indicated in the phrase ek tou mamona tes adikias. The noun mamonas, which is from Aramaic, occurs in the NT only four times, all on the lips of Jesus (here, 16:11, 13, and Matthew 6:24 [the latter two verses are parallels]). Although the etymology of the word is uncertain, its frequent use in the literature of the rabbis and of Qumran [emphasis added] makes it clear that it means material possessions, property in the sense of movable effects, especially money.⁴²⁴ Mammon is money in the widest sense, possessions of all kinds, wealth in any form. The derogatory sense which the word eventually acquired in Judaism is recognizable in Jesus' own use of it. This sense is particularly clear in the present verse where mamonas is qualified by the phrase tes adikias. ... Here, as in v. 8, the noun adikia in the genitive is used as an adjective and the expression can be translated "unrighteous mammon." While interpreters generally agree on the construction itself, "the big question," to use Krämer's words, is what Jesus meant by this unusual expression. ... ¶One explanation of Jesus' use of the expression "unrighteous mammon" emphasizes the unrighteousness and injustice often associated with the acquisition of wealth.

--Dennis J. Ireland, Stewardship and The Kingdom of God An Historical, Exegetical, and Contextual study of the Parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16:1-13⁴²⁵

This uncommon use of the phrase was in fact the regular use of the Essenes as attested by their Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran.

In CDVI.15 amid allusions to 'separating from the Sons of the Pit' and the 'Nazarite'-rooted language of

keeping away from (lehinnazer) polluted Evil Riches ... and from the Riches of the Temple ... and (from) robbing the Poor (Ebionim).

In the newer fragments of the Damascus Document from Cave 4 (4Q266), this language is also found in the First Column in the instrudtions 'to the Sons of Light' 'to keep away from the Paths' (again lehinnazer) probably 'of Evil' ...

—Robert Eisenman, The New Testament Code⁴²⁶

The Essenes thought money was evil—and Jesus seems to agree more or less—, and they wouldn't use it, use the coin of the realm, calling it "unrighteous mammon." Jesus' parable uses the greater wisdom of the children of this world in providing for their temporal future to set an example for the Essenes to follow for their eternal one. The idea is that the poor who are our neighbors will be better off if the righteous engage in honest commerce with them rather than exempt themselves from that activity, and that the active love of neighbor is a proper preparation for eternity.

Now to see the eternal aspect from the perspective of the Essenes, recall what their fellowship consists of: "the Essenes lived all over Judæa but Josephus maintains that they preferred to live in villages not towns" , "there is no one who has a house so absolutely his own private property, that it does not in some sense also belong to everyone. For besides that they all dwell together in companies, the house is open to all those of the same nations, who come to them from other quarters" , "They live in many cities of Judea and in many villages and grouped in great societies of many members" , "They live together formed into clubs, bands of comradeship with common meals, and never cease to conduct all their affairs to serve the general weal", "When travelling, they never needed to carry anything with them except weapons to protect themselves against robbers because wherever they lived someone was appointed to look after visitors--they offered hospitality to any visiting brother Essene just as if he were part of the family" , "so very communicative as raises our admiration" , "They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city and if any of their sect come from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own, and they go in to such as they never knew before, as if they had been ever so long acquainted with them" (see references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 above). The Essenes regarded the welcoming into one another's houses as the essence of Christian fellowship and so that would naturally be a metaphor for an eternal reward just as we sing in our hymns about the mansion Christ is preparing for us, individualized as we are in our culture.

Let's look at what metaphor they would use for eternal punishment. "Their judgements were just, not being passed by a court of less than a hundred, and usually permanent. If anyone was guilty of sin he was cast out eating only grass since he could accept no succour from anyone without the permission of the guardian and thus he wasted away to die of starvation. Excommunication therefore meant death because no Essene would forgo his vows even though excommunicated. In practice the community accepted them again when they felt they had been punished enough. They obeyed their elders and accepted majority decisions" , "But for those that are caught in any heinous sins, they cast them out of their society, and he who is thus separated from them does often die after a miserable manner, for as he is bound by the oath he hath taken, and by the customs he hath been engaged in, he is not at liberty to partake of that food that he meets with elsewhere, but is forced to eat grass, and to famish his body with hunger, till he perish. For which reason they receive many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient punishment for the sins they had been guilty of" (see above, references 1, 2).

I would say that in Jesus' parable the position of the steward who lost his job and can't provide for himself is readily recognizable to the Essene as a metaphor for a place of punishment. Therefore the up and coming situation where the man no longer has his stewardship and will either find himself warmly accepted into people's houses or else in a situation where he is unable to provide his basic needs, that to the Essene is the metaphor for entering the afterlife where he can no longer deal with money--no more stewardship--and will either find himself in the good place or the bad place. The sin of omission, not making friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, not becoming involved at all, even honestly, in the economy of this society, would more likely prepare him for the bad than the good.

Here, let me give you an illustration. On Saturdays I'd been going to a free lunch a Christian group holds in the park. Some Saturdays they cannot get the location, so I always carry a little money in case they're not there, so I can go to Taco Time and buy a couple tacos, and sometimes I'll have a soda with a girlfriend.

Well, one Saturday I got to the park to find the group was not there. Instead there was some kind of Mexican fiesta going on, with various food booths set up all around. I was about to head off to Taco Time to get my tacos when it occurred to me that there were tacos for sale here. I could afford it and it looked like the vendors were on the poor homemade side with good product and few customers. I would help them out.

So I went to a taco booth and ordered two tacos. The price was marked at $1.00 which I took to be $1.50 marked down to $1.00. But I only got back $2 change from a $5 bill, and they explained that the price was $1.50 marked up from $1.00. Okay.

Since I was their customer, they invited me to sit in their chair (they had only one chair). I had a hard time getting permission to leave, even to go buy a beverage which I needed to drown the hot sauce. They sure wanted their customer to feel welcome.

The booth that sold beverages had all these homemade concoctions for a dollar each and soda for 75¢. Rather than demean their wares buy buying a soda, I bought some Mexican lemonade for $1.00.

As I was eating my lunch, someone with the band decided to test the microphone saying, "¡Gloria Dios!" It was a Christian group, and I mumbled along praises to God.

My point here is that if I had tried to jew them down to a dollar for a taco and then passed up their good Mexican beverages for a cheap soda, then I might not have been offered the only seat in the place, let alone have felt an impetus to praise God with them. Nor would I have felt the same had I gone off to do my own thing for lunch. I think Christ's parable of the unjust steward teaches us to use money--the mammon of unrighteousness--in a worthy way that benefits our poor neighbors if we would expect to be joining the faithful praising God in eternity.

Okay, if we've started to understand the parable, perhaps we can expand its applications. When I was chief engineer for a country radio station, one of the job requirements for all the employees was we had to develop an appreciation for the format; it didn't have to be our favorite, but we had to appreciate it. One of the songs I had to learn to appreciate was:

          He was an old-time cowboy, don't you understand.
          His eyes were sharp as razor blades, his face was leather tan.
          His toes were pointed inward from a-hangin' on a horse.
          He was an old philosopher, of course.

          He was so thin I swear you could have used him for a whip.
          He had to drink a beer to keep his britches on his hips.
          I knew I had to ask him about the mysteries of life.
          He spit between his boots and he replied,

          "It's faster horses, younger women,
          Older whiskey, more money."

          ...

          I told him I was a poet, I was lookin' for the truth,
          I do not care for horses, whiskey, women or the loot.
          I said I was a writer, my soul was all on fire.
          He looked at me an' he said, "You are a liar."

          chorus

          Well, I was disillusioned, if I say the least.
          I grabbed him by the collar and I jerked him to his feet.
          There was something cold and shiny layin' by my head,
          So I started to believe the things he said.

          "It's faster horses, younger women,
          Older whiskey, more money."

          Well, my poet days are over and I'm back to being me
          As I enjoy the peace and comfort of reality.
          ...

          etc. 

The cowboy was "an old philosopher, of course." Compare him to the poet who "was lookin' for the truth," who would be more like the Essenes: "they devote all their attention to the moral part of philosophy." The poet "does not care for horses, whiskey, women or the loot" as the Essenes have "proof in their contempt for money, fame, and pleasures, their continence, easy satisfying of their wants, their simplicity, modesty, etc."

Obviously, the cowboy and the poet have come into conflict with their philosophies, just as did Jesus and the Essenes. And what do we see happen? "There was something cold and shiny layin' by my head,/So I started to believe the things he said," which is sort of the language the Essenes are used to: "they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment," Of course, the "something cold and shiny" here represents the parable of Jesus that convinced them, hit the nail on the head.

The point of the parable is, "It's faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money." But these are exactly the categories with which Christians have to learn to come to terms in order to best love their neighbors in this world--"reality"--in preparation for the next.

"Faster horses." Our beasts of burden, technology. Do Christians have to drive horse-and-buggies but not cars?

"Younger women." Are our Christian sisters allowed to wear makeup at all? What about when they start getting old and need just a touch of maintenance? Are the unsaved going to want to join us if they see us driving slow cars with ugly women in them?

Are we allowed to take pleasure in our women? The Essenes, "they eschew marriage" , "Another order of Essenes accepted marriage though maintaining strict rules about intercourse ... They regarded pleasure as evil and disciplined themselves in continence and self control" , "there is another order of Essenes who agree with the rest as to their way of living, and customs, and laws, but differ from them in the point of marriage, as thinking that by not marrying they cut off the principal part of human life, which is the prospect of succession. Nay, rather, that if all men should be of the same opinion, the whole race of mankind would fail. However, they try their spouses for three years, and if they find that they have their natural purgations thrice, as trials that they are likely to be fruitful, they then actually marry them. But they do not use to accompany with their wives when they are with child, as a demonstration that they do not marry out of regard to pleasure, but for the sake of posterity" (see above, references 1, 2, 3.)

"Older whiskey." Whiskey is supposed to age to mellowness in order to be palatable. There is some debate on whether a Christian may drink socially and I don't want to get into that. The general category here is aesthetics, and I don't see how a wooden or squeamish Bible like the American standard is the way to go.

"More money." That's the main thrust of the shrewd manager parable of the unjust steward, to actually use the mammon of unrighteousness, etc.

There are two areas where I see modern versions faulty in taking after the Essenes. The first is where some Bibles like the American Standard are too squeamish to translate the phrase "pisseth against a wall" (1 Samuel 25:22,34; 1 Kings 14:10, 16:11, 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8). The Essenes, "While in the act of defecating they wrapped themselves with their white robe so that they did not offend, not simply other people because their toilets were well away from habitation, but the divine rays of light. Afterwards they washed themselves thoroughly."

The second is the Essenes are squeamish about male-female relations to the point that they won't have sex with their wives when they are pregnant, because it's only for procreation. The NIV is so squeamish about sexual sin that it won't properly translate fornication, but will let it read "sexual immorality." Sexual immorality is relative and means different things to different people while fornication is illegal sexual activity, plain and simple. If our Bibles do not tell us not to fornicate, but only not to be sexually immoral, then who defines what that sexual immorality is? The Schools?

Or how about Ann Landers? Will she rightly define sexual morality for us?

Virginity⁴²⁸ Through the years some of my ideas have changed. Virginity is one of the subjects about which I have done some rethinking. Twenty-five years ago [from the 70's] I held the firm conviction that a girl should hang on to her virginity until marriage or death--whichever came first. I no longer believe this.

I am still opposed to high school sex since I believe very few girls under eighteen years of age are emotionally equipped to handle a sexual relationship. If, however, the girl who goes on to college (or to work), is mature and has her head together, meets someone with whom she becomes emotionally involved, and there is a genuine sense of mutual caring, respect and commitment, it seems to me that a physical relationship would not be inappropriate. In fact, for a young, in-love couple nearing twenty years of age not to express their feelings in this way would be somewhat unusual, if not unnatural.

I think the New International version dangerously skirts the issue when it substitutes "sexual immorality" for the word fornication and leaves it up to us to figure out what that means.

Me, I take the opposite approach. "I will readily affirm,/"It's faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money." See, I used to be in Christian communes that were altogether too much like the Essenes: discouraged marriage, nobody had or used money, all lived together, etc., but at some point I was confronted by the song, the word of God--parable--, and/or common sense, and I got to figuring that I'm better prepared for eternity if I interact down here in ways that will help people, especially poor people, in ways that concern them down here.

I helped start the Oregon Country (erstwhile Renaissance) Fair which is a mecca for hippies. Hippies highly esteem the body, and while I am not for youthful lusts, hippiedom is found in God's answer in Job, so a hippie fair is fair game. It's sure appreciated by a lot of people.

I helped start the Oregon Ballroom Dance Club. The other Friday there was a man there to learn the waltz for his daughter's wedding, and a physicist who said one of the best decisions of his life was to learn to dance.

In an alley off of Saturday Market a jug band was playing for a small audience. When they struck up a hillbilly waltz I asked a girl to dance. I had to show her the moves starting with the proper dance position.

I've also helped Eugene Folkdancers keep running along. Of course, folk dancing--including Israeli folk dancing--is more appreciated by Christians than some other forms.

A PLEA FOR DANCING⁴²⁹

Lately there has been a great deal of unfavorable criticism directed against the modern dances. There have been newspaper articles condemning the "latest dance fads" as immoral and degrading. There have been speeches and lectures against "shaking and twisting of the body into weird, outlandish contortions." There have been vigorous crusades against dance halls. And all because a few ill-bred, fun-loving, carefree young people wrongly interpreted the new dances in their own way and gave to the steps the vulgar abandon appropriate only to the cheap vaudeville stage or the low dance hall.

Dancing, even the shoulder-shaking, oscillating dancing of to-day, is really not intended to be vulgar or immoral at all, despite the crusades of the anti-immorality dancing committees! What is dancing, after all, if not the expression of one's ideals and emotions? It is only the man or woman with a vulgar mind, with base ideals, who will give a vulgar interpretation to a dance of any kind. But the essentially fine girl, the really well-bred man, the people who, by their poise and dignity have earned for America the envied title of "Republic of the Aristocrats"--they dance these latest creations for the sheer joy of the dance itself, reveling in its newness, enjoying the novelty of its "different" steps, seeing nothing in its slow undulations or brisk little steps, but art--a "jazzy" art, to be sure, but still the beautiful art of dancing.

And so we plead--let the younger generation enjoy its giddy waltzes and brisk-paced fox-trots and fancy new dances just as grandmother, when she was young, was allowed to enjoy the minuet and the slow waltz. They are different, yes, and rather hard to accept after the dignified dances of not so long ago. But they are picturesque, to say the least, and artistic. The gracefully-swaying bodies, keeping step in perfect harmony to the tunes of the newer symphony orchestras, are delightful to watch; and in good society, young men and women can always be trusted to deport themselves with utter grace and poise.

The minuet was decidedly graceful. The old German waltz with its dreamy, haunting melody was beautiful as it was enjoyable. But they have been relegated into the days of hoop skirts and powdered wigs. To-day the "jazzy" dances are in vogue, and society in its lowest and highest circles is finding intense pleasure in the whirling, swirling dances decreed by fashion as her favorites. Why complain? Perhaps in another year or two, these giddy-paced dances will be "out of style" and in their stead will be solemn, slow dances more graceful and stately than even the minuet of yore.

Now, it may have looked askew, me an older gentleman dancing with a girl with body piercings and punk hair style, but one woman took a picture of us saying it demonstrated peace--evidently because we were two different ages dancing together. I suppose at times it may seem I am taking the "younger woman" bit too far, but so long as it isn't youthful lusts, I'm on good ground.

I figured that if I were married I would actually enjoy my wife, not consider her just a vehicle for procreation, so why not enjoy women in this time of learning how to relate to them before marriage.

My point here is that I am in such a different place from these new translations that they cannot really minister to me. If they are so squeamish about one's bodily functions and women, how do I know they are not also squeamish about, say, the subject of baptism? Jesus talked about behaving credibly with the world's wealth before being entrusted with true riches, so if a Bible cannot handle these mundane subjects, how can I trust it with the spiritual ones? (Sorry it took me so long to make the point.)

I see in my reliable KJV where (I Kings 14:10, 16:11, 21:21, II Kings 9:8) reference is made to sprinkling a little piss against a wall, but it doesn't happen in the American Standard. If sprinkling can be left out in one place, why couldn't it be left out in another? So how do I not know from the ASV that perhaps sprinkling is allowed rather than just full immersion, but it got left out in the translation?

The King James Version makes many references specifically prohibiting fornication where in the NIV the prohibition is just against the relative "sexual immorality." If I can let man define what is sexual immorality, maybe man should be allowed to define baptism too.

I'm not saying I think that way, only that what is clear in the KJV isn't so in the NIV or ASV. If the modern versions can be vague about what I can and cannot do with my body in other areas, how do I know they clearly want me to immerse my body all the way under in water baptism?

People get upset with the KJV because of all the thee's and thou's. Those pronouns do get used a lot, so let's look at a reaction to another word used overmuch by politicians.

In any convention, the adjective heard most often is great. If entertainers are provided, they may be described as wonderful, even if nobody listens to them, which is usually what happens. Everything else is great. If a wonderful entertainer is to sing "O Sole Mio," it is a great song, and the wonderful entertainer gives a great performance. If a display of great friendship kindles a glow in somebody's heart, it is a great glow. The convention is a great gathering.
    Even the clergymen who pray at the beginning and end of each session are great. On the second day of the Democratic convention of 1968, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii introduced Billy Graham:
    "It is my privilege and honor⁴³⁰ to call upon a great American, a great theologian, a great religious leader, to invoke the divine blessings."
    No politician will put in an appearance without being heralded as great, and those of middle age and older have a better than even chance of being called statesmen as well. And anybody who presents anybody else to the convention will be overwhelmed by his great good fortune in doing so. The ideal introduction was delivered in 1960 by the Democratic national chairman, Paul Butler, for the keynote speaker, Senator Frank Church of Idaho. Butler had a great pleasure and privilege, plus great pleasure and personal pride, in presenting a great American who was a great, able, and outstanding member of a great deliberative body.
    In 1968, at Miami Beach, after the mayor, Jay Dermer, had somewhat puzzlingly announced that he was there to "extend our heart and our heartbeat" to the delegates, the Republicans had a bout of baton passing. Senator George Murphy of California introduced from "the great state of Tennessee" Senator Howard Baker, who introduced "one of America's greatest public servants," Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, who presented from "the great state of Wyoming" Senator Clifford Hansen, who introduced to "the great convention of 1968" from "the great state of Oregon" Senator Mark Hatfield, for whom it was "a great pleasure" to introduce "a great person," Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, who introduced from "the great middle-western state of Michigan" Senator Robert Griffin, who being last had nobody to introduce and remained silent.
    At the Republican convention in Chicago in 1960 it fell to Mayor Daley, who though a Democrat was the host mayor, to make it clear at the outset that great would not be slighted and tradition would be upheld. Daley therefore referred to the great city, that being Chicago; the great year, that being 1960, the only year available to him at the time; the great convention city, again Chicago; our great country; the great convention, that being the one that nominated Abraham Lincoln a hundred years earlier; a great country, the United States; these great centers, the local urban communities; the great central cities of our nation, which include Chicago; our great beach, the beach of Lake Michigan; and a great people, this being the American people.
    This great speech by Chicago's great mayor lasted two minutes and drew great applause.
    In 1968 Daley was addressing his own party, but it made no noticeable difference. He spoke of the Democrats' great chairman, John Bailey of Connecticut; Illinois's great governor, Samuel Shapiro; and the great political gathering that was taking place in one of the greatest neighborhoods of Chicago--his.
    He pointed out that Americans had created more great cities than any other nation in history, that 1968 was a great time of change, that the United States was a great country.
    Shapiro followed. He told the delegates that Chicago was a great city. He mentioned Illinois's tradition of having great governors, described the Democrats as the greatest force for unity in America and the greatest force for progress, order, and justice, called the United States the greatest nation in the history of the world, and ventured the prediction that men the convention nominated would be great Democrats.
    Soon after Mayor Daley's 1960 speech, Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota presented a gavel to the convention chairman, Senator Morton of Kentucky. Mundt inexplicably missed the opportunity to call it a great gavel, but he recovered and pointed out that it had been made by a professor at South Dakota's great agricultural college. Mundt then demonstrated how dangerous it is for convention speakers to leave the well-trodden ways. He told Morton that the gavel was massive in size, although massive does not describe size but solidity of composition, and that it was made of endurable maple, although maple furniture, while popular, is not everyone's favorite, and it was surely for Senator Morton to say whether he wished to endure it.

—Edwin Newman, Strictly Speaking⁴³¹

Yes, great may get a lot of use, but the substitute of massive in size leaves a lot to be desired. According to my dictionary⁴³² the definition reads:

    massive, adj. 1. big and heavy; large and solid; bulky.

Then we come to Barnabas in the NT.

BARNABAS, SON OF CONSOLATION⁴³³
...

Conclusion

1. Encouragement, comfort & persuasion - These are the hallmarks of consolation. He gave these to others thru his maturity of faith, his examples & his teaching.
2. When these qualities are put into our lives, w/ Barnabas, we will be "sons of consolation."

But in the NIV we see just the half of it as "son of exhortation," not the included comfort.

"Mundt then demonstrated how dangerous it is for convention speakers to leave the well-trodden ways." That's nothing unique to political conventions.

Disturbance of formulas.⁴³⁴

§ 11. From what I have said it will of course be understood that I see no sufficient present [1859] reasons for a new translation, or even for a revision, of the authorized version of the Bible; but there are certain considerations, distinct from the question of the merits of that version, which ought to be suggested. The moral and intellectual nature of man has few more difficult practical problems to resolve than that of following the golden mean between passion for novelty and an ultra-conservative attachment to the time-honoured and the old. Both extremes are inherently, perhaps equally, mischievous, but the love of innovation is the more dangerous, because the future is more uncertain than the past, and because the irreverent and thoughtless wantonness of an hour may destroy that which only the slow and painful labour of years or of centuries can rebuild. The elements which enter into the formation of public opinion on great questions of Church and State are so very numerous, and their mutual relations and influences are so obscure, that it is difficult to control and impossible to predict the course of that opinion. In free states, ecclesiastical and political institutions are of themselves in so mutable a condition, that any voluntary infusion of disturbing ingredients is generally quite superfluous, and under most circumstances not a little hazardous. Intimately connected with the changes of opinion on these great subjects are the changes constantly going on in language, and which so many circumstances in modern society are accelerating with such startling rapidity. Fluctuations in language are not merely a consequence, they are yet more truly an indication of and a cause of corresponding fluctuations in moral and intellectual action. Whoever substitutes for an old word of well-understood signification a new vocable or phrase, unsettles, with the formulas into which it enters, the opinions of those who have habitually clothed their convictions in those stereotyped forms, and thus introduces, first doubt, and then departure from long received and acknowledged truth. Experience has taught jurists that in the revision or amendment of statutes, and in sanctioning and adopting by legislative enactment current principles of unwritten law, it is a matter of the first importance to employ a phraseology whose precise import has been fixed by a long course of judicial decisions; and it has been found impossible in practice to change the language of the law, for the purpose of either modernizing or making it otherwise more definite, familiar, or intelligible, without at the same time changing the law itself. Words and ideas are so inseparably connected, they become in a sense connatural, that we cannot change the one without modifying the other. Every man who knows his own language finds the modernization of an old author substantially a new book. It is not, as is often pretended, a putting of old thoughts into a new dress. It is the substitution of a new thought more or less divergent from the original type. Language is not the dress of thought; it is its living expression, and it controls both the physiognomy and the organization of the idea it utters.
    A new translation of the Bible, therefore, or an essential modification of the existing version, is substantially a new book, a new Bible, another revelation; and the authors of such an enterprise are assuming no less a responsibility than that of disturbing, not the formulas only, but the faith of centuries. Nothing but a solemn conviction of the absolute necessity of such a measure can justify a step involving consequences so serious, and there are but two grounds on which the attempt to change what millions regard as the very Words of Life can be defended. These grounds, of course, are, first, the incorrectness of the received version, and secondly, such a change in the language of ordinary life as removes it so far from the dialect of that version that it is no longer intelligible without an amount of special philological study out of the reach of the masses who participate in the universal instruction of the age.

The idea of traditional is staying on that "well-trodden way." For Bible reading it means using the King James Version whose sacred dialect can be traced back through Tyndale and Wycliffe at least as far back as the 1300's. Oh, you can leave the well trodden ways by incorporating modern singing into a service still using the good old KJV and still rightly call it a contemporary service, but you can't rightly call a service traditional by singing a few traditional hymns but then using modern English Bibles, at least not in my opinion.

The problem of trying to change new version use to traditional in an ongoing pseudo-traditional service reminds me of Rush Limbaugh's best illustration of the number one political problem in America:

Why We Have Government Gridlock⁴³⁵
The major political problem in this country is that there is a disconnect between the results of presidential and congressional elections. The real debate about where this country should be headed takes place every four years when we vote for president. In [at least three recent] elections, the people of this country have indicated in landslides that they want conservative leadership in Washington.
    But Congress is not elected on that basis. Congressional elections don't concern ideology of the nation as a whole, but are about issues in individual districts. Members of Congress try to steer their elections away from national issues and focus instead on their individual talents and their ability to bring pork back to the home district. Most people elect a congressman because he will be good in hunting down Aunt Millie's social security check or bringing a water project home. Congressmen have become so good at dragging goodies home that most members have convinced voters that they have to return them to office or the goodies will stop.
    Members of Congress are elected primarily on the basis of local concerns, but when they get to Washington they experience a mad power rush and you see things like Jim Wright acting like another secretary of State as he negotiates with the Sandinistas. In 1985, Jim Wright, David Bonier, the current House Democratic whip, and several other members signed a "Dear Comandante" letter to Daniel Ortega in which they practically begged him to make some gesture towards peace that they could use to block the Reagan administration's policy of arming the Contras. That's not what the Constitution intended when it made the President the commander-in-chief.
    Congress isn't supposed to set day-to-day policy in our system of government--particularly not in the area of foreign policy. It is supposed to write laws that have broad application and that lay down the parameters within which the President can carry out his policies. Instead, Congress has done its level best to impede the actions of every President we've elected since 1980. They have ignored the people's will on countless occasions and dismissed the fact that the voters have endorsed conservative policies in three presidential elections. People are not fools when it comes to electing a President. People know that that election is a defining one. They study the candidates and they care about their decisions. They don't do that very often with elections for Congress. That is because people's loyalties are torn between their concern for their districts and their concern for the national interest. The best illustration of this is a phone call I received from a guy in Pensacola, Florida, who was faced with a huge dilemma in his 1990 congressional election. The incumbent was a liberal Democrat, well placed on several key committees. The conservative challenger represented the values and morality the caller believed in and wanted to see more of in Washington. But there was a slight problem. Pensacola has a huge naval base and there was a big battle raging over where a large aircraft carrier was to be based. Would it remain in Pensacola or be transferred to a port in Texas? An aircraft carrier based in your port means a terrific economic boost for your community. The caller feared that the conservative challenger, as a freshman Republican, would not have the clout of the incumbent liberal and would therefore lose the aircraft carrier to the more experienced representatives from Texas, who also would have more seniority than a newly elected republican. This is a classic explanation of why people elect a President of one party and a congressman from another. And why gridlock then ensues.

Americans decided on conservative leadership for such and such terms. We somehow decided to instigate a traditional service in church. There are lower level decisions which made our government liberal nonetheless, and similarly there are lower level decisions that make our supposed traditional service somewhat contemporary.

Pensacola has a huge boost to its economy from the aircraft carrier based there. The liberal congressman has the clout to keep it there; a conservative congressman might not. Do the conservative voters keep the liberal or elect the liberal?

There are a lot of people in the traditional service who read these updated Bible versions. It's probably better that they read these Bibles than some other books. It's a boost that they are reading some Bible. Do we change over to the King James Version and risk them not being willing to follow along? Or to we keep using a modern translation in a traditional service?

Ronald Reagan was a man who often chose principle over political expediency, but even he had to yield to political expediency on occasion.

Let's see what difference the KJV would have made in that one sermon. Here is the passage used.

Acts  16:	King James Version	New International Version
25	And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.	About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
26	And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.	Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose.
27	And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.	The jailor woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.
28	But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.	But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here!"
29	Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,	¶ The jailor called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
30	And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?	He then brought them out and asked, "Men, what must I do to be saved?"
31	And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.	¶ They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved----you and your household."
32	And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.	Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
33	And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.	At that hour of the night the jailor took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.
34	And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.	The jailor brought them into his house and set a meal before them, and the whole family was filled with joy, because they had come to believe in God.

Okay, first of all, the King James Version would not have been hard to understand. It reads very easy. Furthermore, it has the flavor of an old respected text (older whiskey) which the NIV doesn't.

The only word that has really changed its usage is house (vs. 31, 32), but even that is easy to understand in its context.

    home 2. Home--house. Writers careful of their words use house for a building, home for a house looked at as the seat of a person's living.⁴³⁶

---

house 2. people living in a house; household.⁴³⁷

Okay, somebody may be tripped up a little with house meaning household, but I doubt it, at least not the people who come to a traditional service.

That newer use of the word house should be weighed against the change of thou to you in verse 31. The word thou is singular in the King James dialect, while our modern you can be either singular or plural. The question is asked in verse 30, "what must I do to be saved?" and the answer (KJV vs. 31), "Believe [thou--understood, singular] on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou [singular] shalt be saved, and thy house."

My study Bible⁴³⁸ explains the ending to the verse:

    16:31 ... (3) the rich Jewish tradition which assumes that what the head of the family did would be followed by the members.
"..., and thy house."

Leaving us to figure out that exact meaning by tradition without spelling it out in detail is entirely consistent with the writing back then.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS AFFECTED BY THE ART OF PRINTING

§ 3. Mode of reading among the ancients: ancient habits of thought.⁴³⁹

But the ancient habits of thought were wholly irreconcilable with inconsecutive, discontinuous style of relation or discussion and expression so prevalent in our time. Sententious, indeed, and highly elliptical the classical writers often were, but the thoughts were nevertheless consequent, and logically connected, though some links of the chain might be left to the reader's sagacity to supply.

Okay, but look what happens when it gets translated with a modern you which can be either singular or plural: (Vs. 31, NIV) "Believe [you--singular, understood in answer to question in the singular] in the Lord Jesus, and you [either singular or plural depending on the rest of the context] will be saved----you and your household [making the prior you plural as including you-singular-and your household]." There actually are some Christians (I've heard their hopeful testimonies) who believe that once one member of a family gets saved, God will hound the rest of the family until they do also--guaranteed--, even in our individualistic society. Changing a dialect to one which is less precise on the number of the pronoun you affects the perceived doctrinal content of this passage at least.

In the sermon in question the preacher said that the jailer's use of "sirs" (vs. 30) was actually "lords" in the Greek. Since sirs is also a title of respect, I don't let the difference bother me too much. In the NIV the word was men which is not so respectful these days, and seems to have been an important enough distinction for the preacher to have switched over to the KJV "sirs" in this instance. Why not just read it all from the King James then?

Finally, we come to how soon after belief one is to be baptized. The example here is (vs. 30) "straightway"--KJV--or "immediately"--NIV. My dictionary⁴⁴⁰ defines:

    straightway, adv., at once; immediately.

In fact the King James Version uses immediately in verse 26, "immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed," while the NIV uses at once, "At once all the prison doors flew open, ..." These three words get used interchangeably.

However, we should consider:

    Perfect synonyms are extremely rare.⁴⁴¹

---

    A synonym is a word of nearly the same meaning as another. ... There are very few pairs of interchangeable words.⁴⁴²

Straightway has the feeling of going directly from point a to point b with no stops along the way. Immediately, is after all, a five syllable word, so if one goes through a process of stages to get baptized immediately, who can blame him? And at once is somewhat passive. If I am going to get baptized at once, that could well mean once the building is open; I'm not going to bother the janitor with a phone call beforehand.

Maybe I'm being too picky here. Personally, I'd rather just stick to the King James Version and not worry about it, which is my suggestion, at least for the traditional service.

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• KJV vs NIV
• Bibles in a traditional church service
• Holy Spirit
  • History of Pentecost
  • Descent of the Holy Spirit
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  • Charismatic Gifts
  • He or She
  • Sexism and Preaching
  • That which is perfect
• Barnabas
  • Who was Barnabas?
  • What did the wise man say to each?
  • Paul and Barnabas Diverged
• Romans 14 sermon
• The gambler's options
• Ananias and Sapphira
• Speak the Native Language
• St. Thomas's recorded saying of Jesus
• Stories that grab us
• Old Fashioned Christians
• NIV Application Comments
• Intelligent women face glass ceiling.
• Ephesians 5:22-23
  • Pronouns: thee, thou, thy
  • 17th century English
  • Priesthood of all Believers | Causes of Corruption New Testament text
• Shewd Manager Parable of the unjust steward. |
  Contemporaries: Jesus, Essenes (Children of Light), Jewish: Pharisees, Sadducees
• Language and Woman's Place.
• Faith comes by hearing God's word.
• JEHOVAH name of God
• The Ascent of Man > Altruism
• Scrabble dictionary rule
• The Amplified Bible
• Bible Samson Story
• Envy, one of the seven deadly sins.
• Last will be first.
• The heat of the day.
• Theology of Sacraments.
• Fulton J. Sheen
• 5 Love Languages
• Acts 20:22
• Day and Night
• Written Text/Oral Tradition as history.
• Hebrews 13:4 | Sexual immorality
• 1 John 5:7-8
• NOTES: www.bibles.n7nz.org/niv/notes.htm Copy notes for references to citations when you copy any of these pages.