Crushing Satan's Head - 3

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. (Romans 16:20)

And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded. (Genesis 3:15 BBE)

I have been thinking more about this issue of what this word crush means in this verse. I talked with my sister some about it last night and insights keep coming out into the open more and more. And as I look at it again this morning I notice its connections to more of the surrounding context as well.

I still believe that this verse in Romans is a direct allusion to this verse from Genesis. But the prophecy from Genesis given to our first parents just after they brought the curse of sin into our world was primarily a reference to Jesus. Most agree that it was Jesus who's head was bruised or wounded for our sake's and that it is Jesus who will finally eliminate Satan and all of his rebellion as represented by a fatal wound to the head.

What is not so clear in most people's minds is just how Jesus will go about crushing Satan's head under His foot. But there is another clue for this found in the Psalms.

The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet." (Psalms 110:1)

One thing I want to point out in this text is the method that Jesus depends on to accomplish getting His enemies under His feet. Notice that it is a promise from His Father that is made to Him, not something that He takes upon Himself to accomplish. Now, couple that with the fact that Jesus and the Father are in perfect unity and are no different than each other in character and you find yourself in very interesting territory.

The point I want to emphasize is, the example that Jesus came to reveal to us as to how to live is the example of living in complete dependence on another higher power without resorting to depending on our own will or resources to accomplish our goals. This is the most difficult part of living as a Christian for us to swallow and it was even a struggle for the Son of God when faced with the final battle with Satan just before His crucifixion.

And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done." (Luke 22:41-42)

Jesus not only taught the important principle of non-resistance but He lived it out in His own life as well. What does this have to do with crushing Satan under our feet? Take a closer look at the context here in Romans 16.

Paul has just finished telling us to turn away from those who are trying to attract us to themselves through flattering speech and smooth talking. But what is likely to happen after it becomes clear to them that you are not going to follow their suggestions or come under their influence? How are they going to respond after you turn away from them?

Well, in my experience what is very likely to follow is bitter accusations, false representations of your motives and character and all sorts of recriminations designed to intimidate you into rethinking your rejection of their advances on you. And what does the name Satan mean anyway? It means the accuser – that's what it means.

The bruising of Jesus was not primarily because His body was abused and tortured, beaten, whipped and crucified. The bruising that caused the most pain to Jesus was the internal agony beyond comprehension that our sins and our rejection of God's love for us brought to His heart.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5 NRSV)

But the amazing fact that occurred by Jesus going through this immense wounding which was prophesied as bruising His heel, was the unmasking of Satan's counterfeit system constructed on lies about God that has been fabricated and promoted for many ages. When Jesus acted out the perfect love and compassion and forgiveness that ever emanates from the heart of the Godhead, the reaction of rage, resentment, and repulsion on the part of sinful humanity and all the demonic forces of hell made it perfectly clear to all the intelligent beings in the universe the true diabolic nature of Satan's kingdom. No more was there any doubt about their allegiance and no more was there the slightest trace of sympathy for any of his assertions and accusations against God. In the light of calvary Satan was completely crushed in the minds of all the heavenly beings.

But the same is not yet true of human beings who do not have the same perspective of the war that the rest of the universe is privileged to have at this time. Humanity has yet to comprehend the true nature of this immense war of deception that has gone on for so long and is ever growing in intensity. But this will not remain the situation for much longer. God is arranging events and guiding history so that very soon the maturity of evil will come to its climax but at the same time the maturity of righteousness will also come to a climax in the lives of everyone who fully submits to being led by the Holy Spirit.

So, how is it going to happen that Satan will be crushed under our feet? And why does Paul say it will be our feet and not just Jesus' feet? And also, what is the right reason we should even want this to occur?

I think we need to be extremely cautious at this point that we do not get sidetracked by our religious paradigms that can easily cause us to misunderstand God's ways. If we think with delight about Satan being crushed under our feet because of a sense of bitterness against him or a desire for revenge, we are likely tainted with motives that do not yet resonate with the motives that filled the heart of Jesus. We need to keep firmly in mind the true character of God and the consistent ways that He always deals with His opponents. He never uses force and is never arbitrary, yet He is also never at a disadvantage. So within these parameters, how is Satan going to be crushed under our feet?

What seems to be emerging here is that Satan will be crushed using the very same tactic that Jesus used when Satan was crushed under His feet at calvary. That is why it is of supreme importance that we get all of our cues about how God intends for us to relate to sin and sinners by looking to the example and spirit of Jesus when He was viciously attacked and abused in the worst way. Because the only way that Satan will ever be crushed under our feet is not by our using force or even fighting him with lots of help from God but by being filled with the very same spirit that motivated Jesus when He overcame.

If we take a very close, heartfelt look at the way Jesus related to everyone during the last hours of His life on earth we will see evidence of continuous forgiveness, compassion, patience, and most of all respect for every person's freedom to choose what they want to do without any coercion from Him. This is the part that was so amazing to one person who was intimately involved in that whole scene that he later wrote, and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. (1 Peter 2:23-24)

When I become so enamored, convicted and transformed by a deep, heart-based comprehension of what Jesus really experienced in order to reveal to me the heart of the Father and the truth about God; when this really sinks in so thoroughly that my own responses to abuse and attacks by sinners reflects this same spirit of trust in God without retaliation or bitterness, then Satan's control over me will be crushed and his designs against me will be thwarted for all eternity. At last Satan will indeed be crushed under my feet, for my life and heart will be so filled with the presence of Jesus that I will fully share in His victory over our mutual, mortal enemy.

In the process of having Satan crushed under our feet we will quite likely also experience the wounding of our own heel. And given the example of Jesus that could mean a lot of pain even to the point of giving up our earthly life in the process. Jesus also made many statements to this effect in His teachings while here on earth. But He also made it clear that those who chose to be willing to be wounded for the sake of God even to the point of death will find that they have made a choice that will actually result in receiving the eternal life. And this life will have dimensions and proportions far beyond anything we can now even dream of or imagine. While we may experience the pain of being wounded, the life we receive in exchange will make it seem insignificant by comparison.

But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. (Revelation 12:11 NRSV)

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Crushing Satan's Head - 2

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. (Romans 16:20)

As I come back and look at this verse again I begin to see even more of the complexity and awesome beauty of God's character and His ways. The more I learn about the real truth of what God is like the more exciting and insightful the Words of God become and pulse with life for me. The seeming contradictions that so often confuse Christians become much more clear when we have a more elevated view of what God is really like.

The first part of this verse can appear at first to be an oxymoron. How can it be that a God who is designated by the adjective peace accomplish the crushing of His enemy? Does He stop using peace temporarily while He crushes Satan or is there something else going on here that is easy to overlook? And why does it say that Satan will be crushed under our feet? I always thought that Psalms prophesied that the enemy would be put under Jesus' feet.

In my last writing I dwelt upon the connection between the first and last part of this verse. The grace of Jesus with me is very important to the crushing of Satan under my feet. And likewise, I also strongly believe that this word peace, just like the word grace, is a crucial part of the means that have to be used to accomplish this end. Otherwise if I attempt to use any other way to overcome Satan in my life I am stepping outside of God's ways and the results will be something very different – likely the crushing of me under Satan's oppression.

There is one extremely important truth that has come to my attention over the past few years that has helped me to understand many other things. That is the crucial fact that God never, ever uses compulsory force to accomplish His ways in the hearts of men and women. Any use of force to compel the conscience is guaranteed to be a counterfeit of Satan masquerading as religion.

I realize that taking this option away from Christianity creates a vacuum in our theories that stirs up consternation in the minds of many. But faced with this truth we are then confronted with a choice: we can either get defensive about our cherished beliefs in a God who sometimes employs the weapons and means of His adversary to His own advantage, or we can humble ourselves and seek to learn God's ways and accept His Spirit of peace.

I have been reading a book off and on for several months now called Overcoming God's Way which is a Biblical exploration of the belief in nonresistance. I have found it to be very close in many ways to what God has been teaching me over a number of years. And what God asks His people to do is never in conflict with the ways that God conducts His own affairs. What it is reinforcing in my mind is the consistency of God's ways and the superior power inherent in using peaceful means to overcome sin, both in our own lives and in the world in which we live.

When I let go of the option of force to get my way – or to impose God's way for that matter – it is very easy to become frightened and feel very vulnerable. But that is not a bad thing, the vulnerable part that is. Vulnerability is something that Christians have too often downplayed and marginalized and even viewed as something to be avoided. We as humans do not want to go there in our minds. We want to feel confident and self-assured and feel like we have it all together. Feeling vulnerable generally triggers a quick reaction of scrambling to find out what is wrong with ourselves. So the assumption that we are operating on is that when we feel vulnerable then something must be wrong with our lives or our relationship with God.

But in the teachings of Jesus this does not seem to hold water. If we are to take His words seriously it seems to me like we should get over our fear of feeling vulnerable and instead should use that feeling as an intense motivation to cling closer to God and trust in His promises to be with us, not scramble to shore up our facades and run from our fears. Jesus told Paul very plainly that it was in our weakness that His strength is made perfect. So why is it that we continue to avoid looking weak or vulnerable if we want to come into harmony with the ways of God?

It is assumed too often that vulnerability is a bad weakness that must somehow be overcome. It is assumed that when attacked we should defend ourselves. It is assumed that peace is a synonym of being comfortable and without any struggles or trials. But the reality is that we are to have the peace of God to envelop our souls and to keep our hearts safe in the midst of conflicts and trials. Peace and grace are the most important ingredients that the heart needs to live successfully through our conflicts with evil, not to avoid conflict.

I can see more clearly all the time how confused and twisted my assumptions have been about nearly every phrase and word in religion. It is becoming more difficult to communicate effectively using religious words and clichés because their real meanings have been usurped and diverted to mean something different. The whole system of counterfeit religion is constructed on these alternative meanings and our whole Christian life has often been based on these false meanings as well.

The more I have learned the true meaning of each word and phrase used by the Bible the more consistent and incredible is the truth and clarity of the bigger picture as I piece these words back together with their new (but really older and more original) meanings. As I do that it now becomes much easier to begin to grasp how it could be that a God of peace could accomplish the crushing of Satan under my feet. For God's ways of winning this terrible conflict with evil is not to stoop to using Satan's ways of fighting but to use the truth about His character that has never changed from eternity.

The way that God is going to win, and the way everyone who aligns themselves with God will also win, is to carefully stick unswervingly to God's methods that reflect the real truth about God. It is peace that overcomes because it is the lack of peace that causes the conflict to start with. It is grace that we must have to win over evil, not compulsion or force, for it is the lack of grace that started all the trouble with sin in the first place.

What does it mean when it says that Satan will be crushed? This word conjures up images associated with force right away in our thinking. But we must be extremely careful not to infuse our own assumptions into the language of the Bible. It is much wiser to allow the Word to explain itself and to be consistent with the real truths about God that He has already been revealing to us. I am not going to attempt a quick and simplistic answer to this question right here. But one thing I am rather confident of is that it does not involve the kinds of crushing that we typically prefer.

If there is one thing that God has emphasized to my mind and heart over the past few years it is that He will win this conflict with evil without resorting to changing His character or personality to accomplish that end. God will win without compromising His heart of perfect love and goodness. And the closer we get to His heart and accept His ways of viewing reality, the easier it becomes for us to see the perfect harmony in all His words and the illustrations He uses to convey the truths of reality to our minds.

Father, I need much more of Your spirit of peace in my life. I realize sometimes how my communications are hindered by my lack of true peace. My words take on an edge that discredits Your truths I am trying to share because my spirit is not completely at rest and peace. Father, I need much deeper infusions of Your grace to transform my spirit and my life so that those around me can see Your reflection and beauty more clearly instead of the edge of unresolved bitterness within me. Fill me right now with Your peace and Your grace so that Satan and all his schemes and designs against me will be crushed. Thank-you for the victory that is guaranteed through Your grace.

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Crushing Satan's Head

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. (Romans 16:20)

And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded. (Genesis 3:15 BBE)

In my Bible the translators arrange the text in such a way as to indicate a new paragraph starting with the words The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. But the more I think about this in the context the more I believe that it directly relates to the first part of the verse.

The imagery that God uses many times in relating to us how sin will be eliminated is often very violent. As a consequence we too often fall into assumptions that paint God as one who uses force and coercion to get His way. But I have been learning over the past few years that God has the wonderful luxury of not needing to resort to the ways and means of His enemy to accomplish His purposes. He is so infinitely wise and resourceful and His goodness is so effective that He has no need to lower Himself to such activities.

However, in order to communicate with fallen humans in ways that we can relate to and comprehend to some extent, he uses our language and imagery that is subject to misinterpretation if we are not careful to know His heart and be in tune with His Spirit. For I believe that until it is all said and done, the final results may look very much like God causes much of the violence in this great battle, but in fact it is sin itself that brings on and produces all the damage, pain and death that is seen.

In today's verses I see the seeds of this truth once again. Does God crush the head of Satan by overwhelming force and coercion? Does God stoop to fight His battles using the tools of His worst enemy and employing means that in fact would betray a weakness in His original arrangement before sin entered? Does God ever get desperate because He is committed to being consistent in His dealings with His created beings while His enemy gets to constantly shift positions and use deceptions and intrigue to maneuver to get his goals? How does God really go about crushing the head of His enemy without resorting to force and violating other's free will?

I believe that answer is clearly spelled out in the last half of this verse. It is the grace of God as revealed in the life, death and example of Jesus that is the greatest weapon that God uses to overcome evil. Not only will grace and love ultimately come out on top after all of Satan's schemes have been exposed as the frauds that they are, but grace and truth will be the effective inoculation that will prevent sin from ever occurring again throughout eternity.

While I was thinking about this, a verse came to my mind that suddenly takes on new life. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. (Titus 2:11) Salvation is God's answer to the challenge of sin in this universe. But when I took a look at the context of this verse which is verses 9-14, I am amazed at just how it is that grace overcomes sin and crushes the head of the serpent. For this text is right in the middle of a passage of instructions to slaves who have become Christians and how they should act.

Jesus came to earth to show us how to live as a humble servant, not how to make ourselves more powerful or better than others. Jesus came to reveal grace and truth and what that looks like when lived out in a humble human life. And the fact of the matter is that the more this grace is revealed in the lives of all who accept His Spirit and allow His principles to be worked out in their own lives, the more the kingdom of Satan is undermined and draws closer to complete collapse.

The head of the serpent is where all of the ideas and schemes of sin originated and continue to be produced to this day. But God does not counter force with force in trying to neutralize sin in His universe, He reveals grace, forgiveness, compassion and all the attributes of perfection that He has been accused of lacking by Satan. It is the revelation of the glory of God – His character – that crushes all the lies and deceptions that emanate from the head of Satan. And as our hearts become more filled with this same grace and our lives exhibit the perfect beauty and love of our Master, the whole facade that Satan has dreamed up will come crashing down on his own head and all that he was worked for millennia to accomplish will melt into emptiness.

Jesus, I ask for Your grace to be with me today and for all the rest of my life. Cause me to demonstrate Your grace through my words, my spirit, all of my communications and my relationships. Teach me to trust in the power of Your grace to overcome all sin instead of resorting to trying to use force or fear to overcome. Teach me Your ways. I thank You for answering my prayer, for showing me more of Your grace and truth, for providing such a perfect salvation to restore me to wholeness and oneness with You.

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Holy Kissing - 2

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. (Romans 16:16-17)

I don't think that I will be able to uncover all that is in this verse, at least right now. I am sure that God is going to be showing me things about this for a long time to come. But I still want to see more of what is here in the context that will give me clues as to better understand it and how to apply it profitably to my own life.

As I look it over again this morning I notice the contrast between the first and last phrases that I highlighted here. The first one is an instruction to embrace others with acceptance, love, and brotherly affection. The Greek word for greet actually means to embrace and the Greek word for kiss is closely related to the word phileo which is one of the kinds of love which humans enjoy – brotherly love. This is the kind of love that is most commonly found in healthy family relationships, siblings that care about each other and look out for and defend each other.

So in this context what I see here is that Paul is telling us to greet each other in the body of Christ in just the same way and with the same or more affection that we would greet our family members if we were to attend a family reunion. Of course that conjures up different things for different people since many families have a lot of tensions and suspicions and unresolved grudges that need to be dealt with before they would qualify to fit this description. But I think most people could think of pictures of family members reuniting after long periods of separation and joyfully embracing, hugging and kissing each other without fear of going overboard or becoming improperly emotionally involved in the wrong way with those they are greeting.

I think that the real problem arises when a person has been so starved of affection and real family-type love in their life that any experience of open affection awakens in them an intense, even unbalanced desire to ratchet it up to a more intense level of intimacy very quickly. This is a need that often is the root of addictions, the craving of unfulfilled desires. This is often mistaken by those around them as a sign of moral weakness or even evil intentions on the part of the person. But in fact it is really a symptom of a heart that is damaged, suppressed or so dry from lack of normal doses of affection and affirmation that it wants to overdose whenever there is an encounter that opens that inner need. To attach shame and condemnation to the damage already present is to further alienate that soul from the family of God and is not reflective of the way God relates to us.

What I see in these verses is a contrast between the way we should relate to each other in the family of God and the way the world tries to fake living as family. The people described in verses 17 and 18 try very hard to appear loving and gracious and attractive with their words and smooth talking, but their spirit is subtly divisive and their compliments are really flattery. But they are so convincing in their persuasive demeanor and make others feel so good that it is not obvious that there is deception involved that is designed to exploit the deep hunger of the heart.

This is where the real danger lies. When a person who is starved for genuine affection encounters another person who seems to meet that deep need and then responds with unusual intensity, the strong potential exists for a relationship that can quickly move into something much different than brotherly, family-like love. This creates a situation where the heart will eventually be further wounded while it was only seeking to receive the nourishment that it so desperately craves. It can set up a relationship that can easily turn into exploitation instead of healthy heart bonding and Paul is warning us to be aware of this danger and to turn away from such subtle deceivers.

When Paul says that the greetings and kisses we use when coming together should be holy, it is helpful to remember what the real meaning of the word holy is. My ideas of holiness for most of my life was like most others, thinking that it had something to do with great piety, almost stern religiosity, strict behavior control or something along that line. But a few years ago I heard a wonderful explanation that radically changed my thinking on this word and helped to make much more sense out of everything that is referred to as holy. It is a meaning that can be derived by carefully studying the context as it is used throughout the Bible and also some careful research into the roots of the word in the original languages.

Holy primarily means that someone or something is exclusively dedicated to something or someone else. Holiness makes no sense in and of itself because it requires an object toward which it is devoted. So anytime you see the word holy you have to realize that there must also be a reason, an outside target to which it points. In the context of how it is most often used in the Scriptures, the object toward which this dedication is pointing is usually God.

Holy is actually very similar to the word whole or wholly. In the New Testament God is cultivating a family of people who are supposed to be holy to God, wholly dedicated to God, just as the nation of Israel was supposed to His representative during the Old Testament era but failed to fulfill most of the time. Those who accept the invitation to become an integral part of the family of God are committing themselves to being dedicated totally and exclusively for the use of God, to be led by the Spirit of God and to no longer serve themselves and the desires of their flesh. They no longer are to look to the world and those around them to meet their deepest needs and cravings but are learning to trust God implicitly for everything they need and desire. They are to become bonded and knitted at the heart level into the family of God and to express God's feelings and disposition towards everyone else in that family.

In this context, when people who are all dedicated unreservedly to God for His use and are learning to depend on Him completely for all of their desires, when these people meet each other, the affections and greetings that they give each other will have no danger of spiraling into something selfish and exploitative. They will see each other through the eyes of heaven and if a person is heart-starved for affection they will be drawn into a healing, growing community that will teach them how to mature and grow into healthy, love-bonded relationships with others. They will not shamed or criticized for their weaknesses and vulnerabilities but will be cared for and nurtured and protected.

Our greatest danger does not lie in expressing open affection towards each other in the family of God nearly so much as in the encounters we are sure to have with those who appear to be Christians but have not given themselves unreservedly to God in holy devotion. These are people who are trying to mix two kingdoms and think they can get the best from both while playing one off against the other. These are the people who will seriously damage the reputation of God through professing to be His chosen ones while following the cravings of their own fleshly lusts.

The true family members of God are devoted to Him so totally that they could be described as looking like slaves. But to not be holy devoted to God in this level of commitment is to actually remain a slave to our own flesh which in turn is subtly manipulated and controlled by demonic influences set on infiltrating and undermining the family bonds that God is knitting together for His glory. It is really a lack of holiness in its true meaning that causes these people to become so dangerous at the heart level. They have not given over their own hearts and affections to God exclusively and so they become a liability and a source of danger within the family of God.

The sad part is that they may appear to be so Christian in their words and actions that the hearts of those who are still vulnerable from unresolved damage and wounds are susceptible to being easily deceived and drawn into following them. Flattery has little affect on a person who is secure in their relationship with God and whose heart is resting in His love. But it has great potential for seducing those who are immature in their faith, who are newer in their experience and who need the nurturing and protection of a loving, healthy, holy family. They can easily be drawn into the glowing promises that such false-hearted Christians have to offer and they can quickly become involved in activities, beliefs and emotional attachments designed to feed into their sense of emptiness inside.

What is really sad is that this often takes on the form of strict religious activities and organizations that promise to satisfy the cravings for wholeness and holiness. It plays on mistaken ideas of what holiness really is and leads many to believe that they must work very hard to get their characters perfect so that God will accept them and save them in heaven. These kind of attractions can be so deceiving because they look so religious and pious and feel so right. But they only lead down a path that ultimately leaves the heart even drier and more empty than it was before because it does not connect the heart with the only real Source of life that exists.

There is, of course, other variations of smooth talkers who can easily mislead hungry souls into other paths that promise to fill our deepest longings for love. There are many paths of deception that lead in many different directions. But there is only one path to life and that is connecting our heart to the heart of God from which we can receive everything we were created to need for thriving and growing and maturing.

I know that I have a great deal of growing to do myself in this area. I have areas of emptiness in my own heart that make me vulnerable to those who have flattering words and demeanor designed to draw my affections away from God. I realize that I do not have very many healthy bonds of phileo love with people in the family of God as I wish I enjoyed, and that sets me up as a potential target for pseudo-Christians with schemes to fit my particular hungers.

But what I really desire is to connect more closely with real Christians and learn what real family bonds look and feel like. I want to enjoy the affections and family unity and trust that God wants me to enjoy while living a life of total devotion and loyalty to Him. I also want to learn to be a person who can provide that safe contact for others who are hungering for healthy bonds of affection. I ask God to dwell in me and grow me into more maturity and balance so that I can be a safe channel for Him to use to draw others into close relationship to His own heart.

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Holy Kissing - 1

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. (Romans 16:16)

I can well remember when I was a teenager thinking that this verse was one of my potential favorites. I had an inclination to try to use this verse as a means of reminding those in power that their prohibitions against expressions of open affection between young people were out of line with the words of God expressed in the Bible and that we should be allowed to kiss whenever and whomever we wanted to greet in the name of God.

Of course there were too many obstacles and far too much opposing logic that I never attempted such an argument except maybe in the privacy of my room with friends who were like-minded as me. And then there was always this problem of the word “holy” inserted in the text that we knew would be used to shoot down any such propositions if we were to make such a claim.

In addition to knowing that the adults in charge of our lives would never even consider buying into such logic, it was also pretty realistic that most all of the girls (we had our preferences of gender after all) that we might want to greet in “obedience” to these words would likely react with less than enthusiasm should they ever be confronted in such an affectionate way. And beyond all of these problems the final argument that drained all the authority out of this verse for us, the argument that was sure to arise was that this was simply a cultural practice that has long since disappeared and no longer applies to us today. (Sounds a lot like what many people claim about the law of God.)

So each time I came across this verse I knew that I would have to reluctantly give up all my ambitions and desires to greet my “friends” with a kiss, holy or otherwise, without getting myself into a great deal of trouble. I had to relegate this verse to the rest of the problematic verses that simply could not be explained within the context of the traditions that controlled our lives and our religion. And even though our leaders and teachers insisted that “every word of the Bible is true”, somehow this verse was supposed to be less true at its face value than most of the others.

Well, here I am back at the same text but in a much different state of affairs, much older and much more inclined to reexamine the traditions of the elders. Does that mean that I can now revive my hopes of being able to freely kiss others whenever I greet them? Does that mean if I can figure out how to satisfy this qualifier of the word “holy” that I can then indulge my latent desires to show more affection to others than what is commonly acceptable? Am I now willing to risk getting my reputation into deep trouble by claiming exemption to my religious society's inhibitions by claiming the Word of God as my excuse for satisfying me needs for affection? That still makes me quite uncomfortable and I really think there is something much deeper here.

What I do find inside of me as I choose to meditate on this verse is that I am still not completely satisfied with the typical explanations used to explain away this verse by most religious people. And while I am aware of the pitfalls of uninhibited expressions of affection to whomever I feel inclined, even if it stops at just kissing them, I still sense in my spirit that there is something here important that I am still missing. I can't subscribe to the argument that this is now obsolete because of a change in culture; I never have been able to swallow that argument satisfactorily. And while I realize that this text could easily be abused and misused to justify activities that could quickly lead to emotional troubles and improper attachments that would dishonor the name of Jesus, I think that there may be something very important here that I might learn that could bless my life if I listen carefully and humbly to what the Spirit might have waiting for those who are honest and open and hungry for truth.

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