I Believe in the Communion of Saints

“Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won…”
—Samuel J. Stone, “The Church’s One Foundation”

The confession known as the “Apostles’ Creed” is one of the most ancient statements of faith in Western Christendom. It originated in the first or second century A.D. and developed into its present form by about 700, and it is now held in common by Roman Catholics, Western-Rite Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians and the Continental Reformed, Methodists, many Baptists, and others.

Not only is the Apostles’ Creed itself a signpost to unity among different denominations of Christians, but it also contains a ringing testimony to the unity of Christ’s people. Like most ancient Christian confessions of faith, the Creed is divided into three main sections—one on the Father, one on the Son, and one on the Holy Spirit. The third section begins: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints.” Now, we know that the Spirit is the third Person of the Holy Trinity, the breath of God the Father and the gift of the Son. And given our heritage of covenantal theology, the Church is not foreign to our thinking. But what is this “communion of saints,” and what do we mean when we say that we believe in it?

The words that make up this phrase are not hard to grasp. “Communion” is the Greek koinōnia, “having or being in common,” a word that is often translated as “fellowship” or “sharing.” “Saints” are simply “holy ones,” that is, people who are set apart (the root meaning of “holy” or “saint”) as God’s own. Basically, the communion of saints is fellowship with the holy ones, sharing together with all God’s people. A simple concept—but when we understand the true meaning of fellowship and of holiness, the implications are profound, and the consequences stretch to eternity.

Let us begin at the beginning. Having communion or fellowship with the saints must always start with God Himself, the Holy One. What is said about Christ in Hebrews is a true description of the Triune God: He is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26). God is glorious, supreme above His creation and absolutely free of all defilement of sin. He is His own being, eternally existing of Himself and not dependent on anyone else. All goodness and rightness are ultimately defined by Him without need for any other standard above or beside Him. He is who He is, an eternally burning flame of love and light that illuminates the whole universe and consumes anything that stands opposed to it. All this is what we mean when we confess that God is holy.

But the attribute of holiness is not limited to God alone. It is His both to have and to give, and He gives it to whom He chooses. He once set free the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, in order for them to be “a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). He told them, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). The apostle Peter quotes the same words to the New Testament people of God (1 Peter 1:16), agreeing with the words of Paul that Christians are “called as saints” (Romans 1:7). Being God’s people means being people who love what He loves, who hate what He hates, who seek what He seeks. In this life no Christian is yet completely holy, but every Christian is called to total holiness and is led by God to become what He intends. It is for this reason that we who live the Christian life (with all our remaining weaknesses and doubts) are described in Scripture as “holy.” That is, Christians all over the world—whether old or young, wise or immature, sophisticated or simple, black or white or yellow or brown—are every one of us “saints” in God’s eyes.

Now if Christians who still struggle with the trials of earthly life are saints and holy to the Lord, how much more is this true of those who have completed their work here and gone on into His presence! “He who has died has been freed [literally, ‘justified’] from sin,” writes Paul (Romans 6:7). Whoever dies in the Lord gets the best of all worlds—they are freed from their sins and yet still able to practice righteousness; they rest from their labors and yet the fruit of their good deeds follows them (Revelation 14:13); and best yet, they die to this world only to live with the Lord and await the fulfillment of life in the Resurrection (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1-10).

For all of the reasons just given, Christians throughout history have given great honor to those who went before us. We know by faith that we are in Christ, but they already see His face and experience gloriously what we still know only dimly and long for. And yet we have the same Lord and the same salvation as they; we share with them the same hope of resurrected glory; and we are joined together with them in the life of God the Trinity. Therefore we know that we belong to them and they to us. Everything they have is already ours by faith and in hope. While their past example points the way for us to follow, we are motivated to righteousness in the present by knowing that they surround us as a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).

In fact, it was in just this way that the creedal phrase “communion of saints” was originally understood. The early Christians suffered severe persecutions that included the loss of many of their friends. It was especially important for them to know that those saints who had already finished the race were present with them constantly through their common Lord, Jesus. Christians who faced everything from ridicule to martyrdom for their faith could look to those who had already “fallen asleep” as examples, as forerunners, as fathers and mothers in the Way, as partakers together with them of the constant stream of life that flows from God.

In these more secular and earth-bound times, we need to pay attention to the real fellowship we have with Christians who have finished their earthly life. We are not to worship them, because after all they are still only our fellow servants, and worship is due to God alone (see Revelation 19:10). But we ought to honor and respect them, learn about their lives and seek to imitate them as they imitated Christ. We know that just as we are joined to them in the “communion of saints,” they also are joined to us. The future of the holy Church that they worked to build up during their time on earth is now in our hands. The full fruitfulness of their past labors depends on our faithfulness in the present to carry on their work—and we will pass it on to those who will come after us.

While our communion with all the saints binds us closely to past believers, it also has profound meaning for the present life of Christians. John’s Gospel records the Lord Jesus speaking again and again about the need for unity among His followers on earth. The unity of God’s flock was a key part of Jesus’ own mission: “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16). Love for one another would be the essential mark of Christ’s disciples (John 13:35). God has declared that He will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 48:11), but He gave it to His own Son who is the exact representation of Himself—and the Son gave glory to His disciples. Yet He did not lose any glory in giving it away, because the purpose of the gift was to join all of them together with one another and with the Father and the Son, in a perfect unity that would prove to the world that Jesus was sent by God (John 17:22-23).

This divine glory is what we share in here and now—not only with our brothers and sisters who have gone on to their eternal reward, but also with those who struggle together with us in this world. The Apostle Paul (whom we are told to imitate, as he imitated Christ) was one who knew the communion of the saints as a living reality. He wrestled daily and hourly in prayer for the Christian people who were so dear to him. His concern was not only for those he knew, but also for those who had never seen his face in the flesh (Colossians 2:1). His very life was tied up with the Thessalonian believers’ steadfastness in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:8). Whenever any Christian was weak, he felt it in himself; any stumble by a fellow believer, and he himself was burning up (2 Corinthians 11:29).

The communion of saints means that no Christian is exempt from fellowship with any other Christian. The public actions of Christian leaders, from the Pope of Rome to charismatic televangelists and from Chinese house-church pastors to the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, reflect on all Christians everywhere. On the local level, a well-educated and wealthy church that glories in its own theological attainments but turns up its nose at the simpler brethren down the street is just as much a disgrace to the Gospel as a church that denies the foreknowledge of God or the deity of Christ—perhaps more so, because it adds hypocrisy to all its other sins.

If you truly love the Lord, and know that the church is His body, how can you be detached from the life of all the Lord’s people? Can you be satisfied with anything less than the intense agonies of Paul, in prayer for the churches and in labor with them until they are fully formed in Christ? Can you do anything other than remember the prisoners, as if you yourselves were chained with them (Hebrews 13:3)? Can you ignore the Holy Spirit’s voice telling you to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15)? In this age of information, how can you not seek to know about—and uphold with your prayers and resources—your fellow Christians in Africa, in Asia, in Australia and the Pacific islands, in Europe, in Latin America, in the Middle East?

We are in fact joined to all who are in Christ—past and present, near and far, old and young, of all tribes and languages and cultures. Let us devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the communion of saints, to know and honor our fathers in the faith, to love and serve the Christians of today, and so to glorify God in His Church as it expands throughout the world.

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The Gift of Suffering

“Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.”
—Philippians 1:27-29

The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christians is one of the most profound ironies not only in the Bible, but in the whole history of the human soul. Held fast in a Roman prison, uncertain if he would ever get out alive, Paul penned this letter saturated with peace and joy. He urged his friends not to be afraid of the very real enemies that they faced. Even though persecution and suffering had already come upon the Philippians and could be expected to get worse, they were to rejoice! Why? Because just as their faith in Christ had been granted to them as a gift from God, so also their suffering was a gift. Their choice to receive it from God’s hand, without fear, was a sign that all opposition to them would fail—but that they themselves would be saved.

Christians who lived (like these Philippians) in the first century after Christ could expect to receive severe and very visible persecution for their profession of faith. Many were actually put to death, following in their Lord’s footsteps as they went to execution. The deacon Stephen was stoned to death by enraged Jews in Jerusalem; James, John’s brother, was killed with the sword; and according to ancient Christian tradition, all of the Twelve Apostles except John were eventually martyred for their confessed faith in Christ. The early Church produced too many martyrs to count—men, women, and children who were faithful to the point of death (cf. Revelation 2:10). Alongside these believers who died for their faith, there were many more who were imprisoned, forced out of their homes and livelihoods, and subjected to other kinds of hardships.

Throughout history, there have been many places and times in which Christians have been forced to suffer just like our first-century forefathers. But there have also been times and places where Christians live in relative peace. We Christians of North America who live in the twenty-first century have a life of astonishing ease and comfort, in comparison with many of those who went before us. How should we respond when we read words like Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians quoted above? What should we do when we hear the even more striking words, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12)? Here Paul is making it sound as though every godly Christian is a suffering Christian! And how are we to react to the Apostle Peter’s words in 1 Peter 4:1, “Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin”? Here it sounds as if we are to positively choose suffering and seek it out—that suffering is the preferred way for us both to imitate Christ’s example and to be free from sin.

The words of Scripture are true, of course. However, even though suffering for Christ’s sake is a common experience to godly Christians of all times and places, the appearance of that suffering can be very different. We may consider the history of just one country, Egypt, as an illustration of the great range of persecutions that Christians have suffered over time. John Mark—the writer of the “Gospel according to Mark” and the first Christian bishop of Alexandria—suffered a martyr’s death when worshipers of the old Egyptian gods had him dragged behind horses through the streets of the city. Three centuries later, Mark’s successor Athanasius the Great suffered a lesser but still very real persecution, being exiled five times from Alexandria because he affirmed the deity of Christ against the Arian heretics. Samuel the Confessor, an Egyptian Christian who lived in the seventh century, was tortured for his faith both by agents of the Byzantine emperor and by sun-worshiping Berbers. In recent years, some Coptic Christians living in Islamic Egypt have suffered exile from their homes like Athanasius, physical abuse like Samuel, and in a few cases, even death like Mark. Yet for the most part they have experienced less obvious kinds of persecution: being denied a job because they are Christians, or being subjected to the spite and ridicule of others who think they are inferior. All of these kinds of suffering, from simple annoyance and harassment up to and including martyrdom, are joined together as a testimony to the perseverance and faith of the Church in Egypt throughout history.

We must never deny the importance of those Christian heroes who are called to give up their lives, or at least suffer physical torture, for the sake of the Gospel. And yet the experience of suffering that most of us face as Christians in the West is closer to that of our modern Egyptian brothers than to what the ancient ones experienced. Very few of us are called to lay down our lives or go into exile for the Gospel; many more are called to lose respect or social status, or perhaps a job opportunity with its accompanying income, if we resist compromising our faith.

For any Christian reading this paper, the questions to be asked are simple. Do you ever experience some kind of suffering—ridicule, exclusion from social circles, verbal abuse, loss of opportunity, or other hard circumstances—because of your faithfulness in living as a follower of Christ? If so, how ought you to respond to it? If not, why not? The Bible does not teach that persecution and suffering will be constant for Christians, nor does it tell us some arbitrary level to which a person must be persecuted before he can be regarded as truly godly. But if you never experience suffering of any kind for your faith, is your obedience to God really as consistent as it ought to be? Are you compromising with worldliness in your actions, speech, or even thoughts (which shape the rest of a person) and so avoiding persecution because you’re really not so different from the non-believers around you? Or are you hiding the fact that you’re a Christian, trying to “fly under the radar” rather than face the responsibility of living as a servant of God in the middle of an ungodly workplace, extended family, or social network?

While the questions to be asked are simple and hard-hitting, the choices to be made are not always clear-cut. I once went into a job interview carrying a book with a cross symbol prominently displayed on the cover; it was a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions that I had brought to read while waiting for the interview to start. The interviewer noticed the book and felt called upon to give me a warning: I would be free to read these kinds of books and practice my faith however I wanted on my own time, but I ought not to bring these things directly into my work or be pushy about them with customers. Christians who face situations like this one need to respond, like Daniel, with wisdom and tact (Daniel 2:14). Employers, relatives, and others who set limitations on our visible practice of our faith may simply be trying to preserve external harmony between us and them. Employers are concerned that we not become deadbeat employees who abuse work hours to advance our own “spiritual” purposes. Likewise, family members who do not share our faith in Christ may prefer to stay away from arguments over religion. We need to find ways to honor their sincere concerns, make a good-faith effort to avoid unprofitable talk and actions in the name of Christ, and still maintain a Christian testimony that is both peaceable and courageous. In other words, if we do eventually find ourselves suffering for what we do and say, that suffering had better be for the right reasons.

The Apostle Peter warns that not all of the suffering of Christians is worthy of praise. Christians may suffer for all the things that people of the world suffer for (murder, theft, unethical actions, meddling in other people’s business) and be worse off after their suffering, not better (1 Peter 4:15). On the other hand, if you are truly suffering for the sake of righteousness, several other factors must be in place. First, you have sanctified the Lord God in your heart, that is, acknowledged Him as holy and devoted yourself to Him. Second, you are ready to answer those who ask you about the source of your hope. (It’s true that Paul predicted persecution for the godly, but this is the other side of the same coin. If you never experience suffering, you have reason to ask whether you are truly living for God as you ought. But you should be asking that same question if you find that you are not filled with an inner hope, one that makes even pagans take notice.) Last but not least—in fact, Peter places this point first—if you are really suffering for righteousness, you are blessed for what you suffer. (1 Peter 3:14-15) If your suffering is for doing wrong, there is no blessing from God in it; but if it is truly for the sake of righteousness, you will know that God is with you and will vindicate you—even if you do not see this triumphant result for a long time.

Now at last we return to the second of the puzzling exhortations about suffering that we considered earlier. This one also comes from Peter: “Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (1 Peter 4:1). We have seen that suffering comes in many different forms, but in one way or another should be expected by every godly Christian. Well, then, a choice to be godly is a choice to suffer; and a choice to suffer for godliness is a choice for what should be every Christian’s greatest desire: to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus. If you set your mind to be godly, you are also placing yourself on the path of suffering. But rejoice! When in this way you choose to suffer for the sake of Christ, you are also putting the greatest distance possible between yourself and sin. Once you are so devoted to righteousness that you suffer for it, what place does the negation of righteousness have any more in your life? And once your mind is set on godliness and your body is imprinted with righteous suffering, you can know for certain that God is at work in you to conform you into the image of His Son.

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Mercy Children's Home, and more from Myanmar

Doug Jones posted some new photos from Myanmar: the Mercy Children's Home, and a look at the kinds of transportation Pastor Naing Thang used to visit churches in the north... Wow!

CREC Friends in Myanmar

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, R.I.P. (1918-2008)

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, the courageous Russian writer and intellectual, died today at the age of 89.

Solzhenitsyn was best known for Arkhipelag GULag, in English "The Gulag Archipelago," his exposé of the Russian prison system that was first published in Paris in 1973. He was also awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature for his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and similar writings.

Already banned from the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn became increasingly controversial in the West after his 1978 commencement address at Harvard, "A World Split Apart." In this speech he argued that liberty and culture were in decline in the West, and could not be revived unless God was again acknowledged and secular humanism rejected.

Solzhenitsyn's statement of these themes reached its fullest expression in his 1983 Templeton Address, which will serve as a fitting monument to him: "Men Have Forgotten God."

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For August: Psalm 47

(translated from the Hebrew by Jeffrey Moss)

Of the Choir Director. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.

All peoples, clap your hands!
Raise a shout to God with a resounding voice!
For Yahweh Most High is feared,
a great king over the whole earth.
He subdues peoples under us,
nations under our feet;
He chooses our inheritance for us,
the majesty of Jacob, whom He loves. selah

God has gone up with shouting,
Yahweh with the sounding of a trumpet!
Sing the praises of God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
For the King of the whole earth is God;
sing a song of contemplation.
God has taken up His reign over the Gentiles;
God has taken His seat upon the throne of His holiness.
The nobles of the peoples have gathered,
the people of Abraham’s God.
For to God belong the sovereigns of the earth;
He is greatly exalted!

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The church in north Myanmar

Here are photos from Pastor Naing Thang's visit to several Reformed (CREC) churches in the north of Myanmar (Burma).

What a joy to see the Body of Christ gathered at the ends of the earth!

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Beards

“It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual ‘taste’. This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. The aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy, and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females — and there is more in that than you might suppose….”
—C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

What’s so important about beards? Why do men grow them, why do some men shave them, and does it matter? And why in the world would C. S. Lewis, in his fictional account of the secret life of demons, include some women’s dislike for beards as one of the demonic success stories?

Let us begin at the very beginning. “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them…. The LORD God formed man [Adam] of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being…. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said:

“‘This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.’

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 1:27; 2:7, 20b-24).

So mankind—both male and female—is created in the image of God. For this reason, men and women are equal in dignity and honor. Yet there are differences also. Adam was created first, from the dust; Eve was formed later out of Adam’s side. Adam was commissioned to work, and Eve to help him in his work. While man and woman are equal before God, they are different in their roles toward each other.

Because men and women were created to hold different positions in human society, God has ordained certain physical and societal differences between them. Obviously, men are distinguished from women by their different body shape and reproductive function. But in addition to this, God prohibited women from wearing what pertains to a man, and men from wearing women’s clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5). He decreed that a man or a woman should not take the position of the other in sexual relations, under penalty of death (Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:26-32). And by specifying of bishops and elders that such a man should be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6), He restricted the leadership of the church to men, even while linking the salvation of women to childbearing (1 Timothy 2:15)—a role that a man cannot perform.

And besides all these things, God gave to men (generally speaking) the ability to grow a beard.

There is no Biblical requirement that men should be bearded, or that they must wear some kind of facial hair. Yet a beard is one of the natural features that God has given men to distinguish themselves as men and not women. In fact, while beards are mentioned infrequently in the Bible, this seems to be only because it was generally assumed that men would wear them. We are told specifically that King David (1 Samuel 21:13), General Amasa (2 Samuel 20:9), Ezekiel the prophet (Ezekiel 5:1), and Ezra the priest (Ezra 9:3) were bearded men. Psalm 133 compares unity among brothers to the precious anointing oil running down into the beard of the high priest Aaron, who is one of the most important Old Testament foreshadowings of Christ. It is noteworthy that the Hebrew word for “beard” (zāqān) is closely related to the word for “elder” (zāqēn), which helps to illustrate the symbolic value of the beard as a mark of honor and wisdom.

On the other hand, there are only ten Biblical references to shaving the beard, and every one of them is related to either disease, idolatry, judgement for sin, or deep mourning. Consider the list that follows:

1. If a man has a skin disease, he is supposed to shave himself as part of the process of quarantining the potential leprosy (Leviticus 13:29-34).

2. A leper who is healed is to shave his entire head as part of the cleansing ritual (Leviticus 14:9), since his hair and beard were associated with the leprosy that he had before.

3. God prohibited cutting off the edges of the beard (Leviticus 19:27), a practice which was connected with idolatrous pagan worship, just like making cuts in the skin (1 Kings 18:28).

4. Priests, because they were holy to the Lord, were especially forbidden to shave the edges of their beards (Leviticus 21:5).

5. The Ammonite king Hanun seized David's messengers and shaved off half of their beards (along with cutting off half of their robes) as a way to especially humiliate them. David graciously told them to stay in Jericho until their beards grew back, so that they would not be exposed to public shame (2 Samuel 10:4-5). In the Greek translation of this passage, it says that the men were “dishonored” (the verb is atimazō), and the Apostle Paul uses the same root word to say in 1 Corinthians 11:14 that long hair is a “dishonor” (atimia, noun) to a man. Comparing these two passages, both a shaven face and long hair are considered to be dishonorable for men, because they go against what is natural to them and obscure the distinction between men and women.

6. Isaiah describes the coming judgement on Israel metaphorically by saying that the king of Assyria would cut off their beards and also shave their heads and their legs (Isaiah 7:20).

7. Isaiah says that in the coming destruction of Moab, the Moabites would shave their heads and cut off their beards—as a sign of either judgement or deep mourning, or both (Isaiah 15:1-2).

8. Eighty men came to Mizpah with their beards shaved off, their clothes torn, and their bodies cut, to show their profound grief over the ruin of Judah by the Babylonians (Jeremiah 41:5).

9. Jeremiah also prophesies that the men of Moab would have bald heads, clipped beards, cuts on their hands, and sackcloth on their bodies, because of the coming judgement (Jeremiah 48:37).

10. Ezekiel was to shave his head and beard as a sign of the destruction of the people of Jerusalem for their wickedness and rebellion (Ezekiel 5:1-5). (Similarly, Ezra pulled out some of his beard and tore his clothes as a sign of deep mourning over apostasy among the Israelites, Ezra 9:3.)

Along with all of these references to beards, there is Isaiah’s prophecy of the sufferings of Jesus. He speaks of three ways in which Christ’s enemies dishonored Him: they beat Him, they spit in His face, and they plucked out His beard (Isaiah 50:6).


Thus a consistent pattern emerges in the Bible’s references to beards: For men, wearing a beard tends to be a mark of honor and even of wisdom. On the other hand, shaving of the beard is mentioned only in connection with malignant diseases, idolatrous rituals that were banned in Israel, destructive judgements, great disgrace, or deep mourning. Whatever we may think of it in our day, in the Bible it was normal for men to have hair on their faces—and whenever they deviated from this pattern, something was deeply wrong.

Throughout the centuries, much Christian writing and tradition has preserved the same positive attitude about beards on men. Only a few examples from the Church Fathers and the time of the Reformation will be given here. St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c. 215) wrote of beards as an important God-given distinction between men and women: “How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them!…For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He adorned man like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest—a sign of strength and rule.” St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) added, “The beard must not be plucked. ‘You shall not deface the figure of your beard,’” citing Leviticus 19:27 as his authority. The fourth-century “Apostolic Constitutions,” which had great authority in the formation of church law, also quotes Leviticus when it urges, “Men may not destroy the hair of their beards and unnaturally change the form of a man. For the Law says, ‘You shall not deface your beards.’ For God the Creator has made this decent for women, but has determined that it is unsuitable for men.”

When the Western or “Catholic” Church split from the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054, they condemned the East for many things, including having non-celibate clergy who wore beards. The two issues were apparently connected. Roman Catholic clergy took vows of celibacy and also were clean-shaven, rejecting the beard because of its association with male sexuality. On the other hand, many of the leading Protestant Reformers grew long beards at the same time that they rejected clerical celibacy and other church traditions that they viewed as unscriptural. (And although William Shakespeare does not exactly speak for the whole of English Protestantism, he does have Beatrice say in Much Ado about Nothing, “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.”)


It would be wrong to say that for men to be clean-shaven is sinful or wicked. However, God has generally designed men’s faces to grow hair. When a society like our own prefers to have men’s facial hair shaved off, it shows that it does not value masculine honor, since it removes one of the natural marks distinguishing men from women. It is as if either idolatry, shame, illness, or judgement—the Biblical situations in which we see men being shaved—has become the norm for our culture.

Some people may object that Christian men ought to have an agreeable appearance, and a beard detracts from that. In part, this objection is based on worldly preferences that are not founded in Biblical teaching; in fact, the desire to conform to secular standards of attractiveness is sometimes condemned in the Bible when it goes against deeper standards of modesty and beauty (see 1 Corinthians 11:3-16; 1 Timothy 2:9-10; 1 Peter 3:3). However, there is some truth in the objection as well. Trimming or shaping one’s beard, choosing to wear different styles of beards or mustaches, or going clean-shaven when there are strong external reasons for it, are all very acceptable style choices for Christian men. But as we make these choices, we ought to remember that godless Western culture has a deep-seated resentment against men who are masculine (along with women who are feminine). Christian men should always be watchful to do what we can to resist that trend, showing by our appearance as well as our behavior that we honor the role God has given to us as men.

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Poetry: Rich Mullins, "Calling Out Your Name"

The American singer-songwriter Rich Mullins (1955-1997) composed a body of songs that were generally contemporary in their style, but often timeless in the depth of their content. His rhapsodies about the praises of God in nature are poetry in their own right, sometimes calling to mind the work of such earlier authors as Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Calling Out Your Name
by Rich Mullins

Psalm 19:1-6, Psalm 65:5-13

Well the moon moved past Nebraska
And spilled laughter on them cold Dakota Hills
And angels danced on Jacob's stairs
Yeah, they danced on Jacob's stairs
There is this silence in the Badlands
And over Kansas the whole universe was stilled
By the whisper of a prayer
The whisper of a prayer

And the single hawk bursts into flight
And in the east the whole horizon is in flames
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name

I can feel the earth tremble
Beneath the rumbling of the buffalo hooves
And the fury in the pheasant's wings
And there's fury in a pheasant's wings
It tells me the Lord is in His temple
And there is still a faith that can make the mountains move
And a love that can make the heavens ring
And I've seen love make heaven ring

Where the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name

From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever 'til you see
What time may never know
What time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this old world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope
To run wild with the hope

The hope that this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song not sung in vain
And I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name

And I know this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song not sung in vain
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And with the prairies I am calling out Your name

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The Trinity and the Bible

One of several thoughts that arose during a discussion with Patrick (Pak Wa) Yau over his postings on "The Fake Four-God Bible".

The doctrine that God is Trinity, three Persons in one divine Being, helps us both to trust the Bible and have hope that we can understand it.

God the Father is the source of the Bible. He is the Giver of the Word. The trustworthiness of the Bible rests on His authority.

God the Son illuminates the Bible. Without Jesus, it would have been very difficult for us to hear and understand God's Word. But in Him, God has become one of us so that we have a person to match with that Voice. The Bible is illuminated by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, by the way He lived and talked when He was with us on earth.

God the Spirit interprets the Bible. If it were not for the Holy Spirit, true explanation of the Bible's teachings would be beyond us. But Jesus promised to send His Spirit to be with us, so that we would understand the things that God has spoken to us. The presence of the Spirit in the Church makes it possible for us to know that we are interpreting God's Word rightly, because the Spirit of the same God is with us teaching us how to read it. The right interpretation of the Bible flows from submission to the Spirit of God, who is present among us and lives in us.

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Poetry: St. John of the Cross

San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross, 1542-1591) composed some of the most beautiful poetry of love for God that has ever been written.

Here is his "Cantar del alma que se huelga de conocer a Dios por fe" (Song of the soul that rejoices in knowing God by faith), in Spanish and with an English translation from Carmelite.com.

Qué bien sé yo la fonte que mane y corre,
aunque es de noche.

1. Aquella eterna fonte está escondida,
que bien sé yo do tiene su manida,
aunque es de noche.

2. Su origen no lo sé, pues no le tiene,
mas sé que todo origen de ella tiene,
aunque es de noche.

3. Sé que no puede ser cosa tan bella,
y que cielos y tierra beben de ella,
aunque es de noche.

4. Bien sé que suelo en ella no se halla,
y que ninguno puede vadealla,
aunque es de noche.

5. Su claridad nunca es oscurecida,
y sé que toda luz de ella es venida,
aunque es de noche.

6. Sé ser tan caudalosos sus corrientes.
que infiernos, cielos riegan y las gentes,
aunque es de noche.

7. El corriente que nace de esta fuente
bien sé que es tan capaz y omnipotente,
aunque es de noche.

8. El corriente que de estas dos procede
sé que ninguna de ellas le precede,
aunque es de noche.

9. Aquesta eterna fonte está escondida
en este vivo pan por darnos vida,
aunque es de noche.

10. Aquí se está llamando a las criaturas,
y de esta agua se hartan, aunque a oscuras
porque es de noche.

11. Aquesta viva fuente que deseo,
en este pan de vida yo la veo,
aunque es de noche.


For I know well the spring that flows and runs,
although it is night.

1. That eternal spring is hidden,
for I know well where it has its rise,
although it is night.

2. I do not know its origin, nor has it one,
but I know that every origin has come from it,
although it is night.

3. I know that nothing else is so beautiful,
and that the heavens and the earth drink there,
although it is night.

4. I know well that it is bottomless
and no one is able to cross it,
although it is night.

5. Its clarity is never darkened,
and I know that every light has come from it,
although it is night.

6. I know that its streams are so brimming
they water the lands of hell, the heavens, and earth,
although it is night.

7. I know well the stream that flows from this spring
is mighty in compass and power,
although it is night.

8. I know the stream proceeding from these two,
that neither of them in fact precedes it,
although it is night.

9. This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life's sake,
although it is night.

10. It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst, although in darkness,
because it is night.

11. This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night.

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