Truth Is One

This Epiphany season begins with the recounting of the visit of the Magi to the young Jesus. Their journey “from the east” occurred at a time unspecified in the only Bible account (Matthew 2:1-12) but within about two years of Jesus’s birth.

The Magi were apparently Persian astrologers, for the ancient term magus refers to priests of the religion of Zoroaster who studied the stars. The traditional understanding of Epiphany, or “manifestation,” is the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles, or non-Israelite nations. The plan of God for Israel was always that, through the family of Abraham, all people would know the blessing of God in a restored creation. The homage of the Magi to Jesus prefigures the extension of the Christian message of new life in Christ to all nations of the earth.

Another theme, however, underlies the account of the quest these “wise men” undertook for the king of the Jews, or Messiah. That motif is the search for truth. It’s to be noted that the Magi were looking for truth in two places: in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the cosmos or starry universe. They didn’t know the location of Messiah’s appearance — they had to ask Herod’s scholars for the details — but they knew the Jewish Scriptures would provide the clue. At the same time it was a cosmic event — the appearance of a star, perhaps a supernova — that alerted them to the significant event that had occurred.

The story of the Magi should remind us that truth is one, wherever we find it. There isn’t one “religious” or “spiritual” truth, and another “natural” or “physical” truth. For the Magi, if something was true it was true in both realms; or, more correctly, there was only one realm of truth regardless of the source. Today we speak of the “supernatural” as a realm of truth beyond the natural, but perhaps that’s a serious error. The distinction wasn’t known in biblical times; if something happened, it happened, period. It might be a “sign,” an unusual or unique occurrence, but it was an event in the realm of human experience like any other happening.

So perhaps what we call the supernatural is only an aspect of the natural that we don’t understand. Scientists deal only with the natural or material, and disavow the so-called “spiritual” as either nonexistent (a philosophy termed “naturalistic reductionism”) or beyond their concern. But then they encounter phenomena that can’t be explained within the parameters of known physical “laws” or conventionalities. Examples are gravity, which no one really understands, or “dark energy,” the bulk of the mass of the universe that can’t be detected electromagnetically but only through its gravitational effects on other phenomena. Another example is the appearance of digital information in the genetic code of the cells of living organisms. The physical universe, which cosmologists, astrophysicists and other scientists study, displays a number of “spooky” features that have thus far defied explanation in terms of the dominant scientific world view of “naturalistic reductionism.”

So the distinction between the “supernatural” and the “natural” appears to be misleading. Yes, truth is one, wherever we encounter it. Christians consider the Holy Scriptures to be the truth; as Jesus prayed, “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). At the same time, as the Magi believed, the cosmos or physical universe also reveals truth to those who study it. Hence there can’t be any fundamental disagreement between what the Bible tells us and what science tells us; if we think we’ve found a discrepancy, it’s only because we’ve failed to understand what is really being said either by Scripture or by the results of scientific inquiry.

The search for knowledge in any direction reveals truths about God and the universe he has created. As the apostle Paul states, “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). We need to undertake a serious project of biblical and scientific under- standing, in order to show that truth is one, regardless of how it comes to us. That’s a challenge for the days and years to come.

Irreducible Complexity

The cells of living organisms contain a tremendous amount of coded information. This information is found not only in the varying sequences of the four “base” molecules in the interlocking coiled strands of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) of the nucleus, but also in other parts of the cell that govern the developing “body plan” of the organism as its cells reproduce. The amount of information in one cell has been compared to that in a large stadium, the seats of which are all stacked with volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

This vast information in the cell was unknown to Charles Darwin when he developed his theory of evolution, the idea that life on earth originated from accidental causes acting on nonliving matter. Darwin believed that this primitive life evolved into various species of plant and animal life through a gradual process of mutation, as slight changes in an organism rendered it more adaptable to its environment and therefore able to reproduce and pass its characteristics to a subsequent generation. In this way, Darwin thought, new species of living things arose from earlier species.

Darwin, however, had no concept of how the information in a cell functions to govern an organism’s development and reproduction. He didn’t realize that any single mutation in a living organism is more likely to render the organism less adaptable to its environment, or even to kill it. In order for an organism’s structure to change in a way that made it more “naturally selectable” for survival, through the production of some useful new feature or trait, a large number of informational mutations (in the DNA or elsewhere in the cell) would have to occur simultaneously and be coordinated with one another. This aspect of cellular structure is what biologists refer to as irreducible complexity. An arm, for example, could not gradually evolve into a wing through a long series of incremental changes, because the intermediate stages of such an evolution would have no useful function and would, most likely, be harmful or fatal to the animal.

The phenomenon of irreducible complexity means that chance, and the passage of time, can’t explain the simultaneous occurrence of the many mutations required to alter the useful function or part of an organism. Chance depends on probability, and probability depends on the number of possible events that could occur over a given period of time. Mathematicians have calculated that not enough events have occurred in the entire history of the universe to create a probability that even the type of small evolutionary change Darwin postulated could occur by chance. Or, as philosopher of science Stephen Meyer puts it, the “probabilistic resources” of the universe are not great enough to allow for the needed informational changes in a cell nucleus to appear simply by accident.

There is only one reasonable explanation for the “irreducible complexity” of the information that governs the development and reproduction of living organisms, and that explanation is that a Mind has designed life and its characteristics, purposely embedding that design in the information coded into the nucleus and other features of the cell. From the tiniest bacterium to the most accomplished human being, only the activity of the Creator can explain the origin of the highly coordinated information without which life could not exist. As the Psalmist exclaims, “Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:16).

Why We Need Rich People

In recent years political agitation in the United States has focused on the widening gap between the wealthy and the underprivileged. An iconic moment occurred during the 2008 presidential campaign when Barack Obama, confronted by “Joe the Plumber,” insisted on the need to “share the wealth.” The “Occupy Wall Street” movement mobilized unemployed people and left-wingers in a protest against excessive corporate and executive wealth.

There is no question that a vast gulf exists between the tiny percentage of American billionaires and the general public, especially those living below the arbitrarily demarcated “poverty line.” Those who have been the beneficiaries of clever and astute business decisions, or the recipients of disproportionate corporate bonuses, have an obligation to “share the wealth” with their fellow citizens in a voluntary and appropriate manner. Throughout American history they have, in fact, done so, from the time when the founders of our nation, in the Declaration of Independence, pledged “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” in support of their vision for new republic.

In the course of our nation’s history, families like the Carnegies, the Mellons, the Rockefellers, and the Dukes have established public libraries, endowed colleges and universities, and set up charitable foundations. This activity continues. Warren Buffet has created multiple foundations to administer his charitable giving; Bill and Melinda Gates have done the same, such as rescuing the Bettman Archive of historic photographs from deterioration in an unsuitable New York City environment and preserving them in an abandoned Pennsylvania coal mine where they could be kept under controlled conditions and digitized.

We all recognize how inappropriate it is when the wealthy hoard their wealth for themselves and fail to give for the benefit of others. Federal income tax returns made public during political campaigns often reveal how some aspirants to high office have ignored this obligation, while others have been generous. We recoil at reports of executives who amass vast sums for themselves while many live in deprivation.

Nevertheless, the idea of simply “spreading the wealth” equally does not work out in practice, for a simple reason: in any successful economy, some people just need to be wealthier than others. For example, poor people don’t hire other people to work for them, or buy the products other people are employed to produce by more well-to-do business owners. For an economy to function, a differential must exist between those who have more and those who have less.

We can illustrate this principle with a glass of ice water. As long as there's a differential between the cold ice and the warmer water, we can see movement. The ice cracks and sputters and dissipates into the water as it absorbs its warmth. But once the ice has all melted there's no visible movement in the glass. This phenomenon illustrates what physicists call the “heat death.” As long as there’s an energy differential between two regions of matter, something can happen. Once the differential is gone through the dissipation of energy, nothing can happen. And, indeed, once this occurs to our space-time universe — and physicists say it will, in untold billions of years — there will be no life, nothing but the “big freeze” of what began in the “big bang.”

For this reason, some people in our economy need to be rich. We speak of “leveling the playing field,” but that doesn’t mean insisting, through legislation or other means, that both teams have equal resources in skill, planning, or brute strength. If that were the case the game would be deadlocked. Who would sit in the bleachers, or in front of the TV screen, to watch a game in which the score was predetermined to be a 0-0 tie? The level playing field simply means that each team has an equal opportunity to excel, as it marshalls its resources and executes its plan. American history is replete with examples of people like George Washington Carver, or now Dr. Benjamin Carson, who have excelled through their own initiative and dedication despite the odds against them. They leveled their own playing field, with God’s guidance, and succeeded. If they, and many others like them, had been made economically equal to everyone else by some government program, they would never have achieved what they achieved. And their achievements have benefited many, including people both wealthier and less well off than they.

So we need rich people, because without them our economy would stagnate into “heat death” just as that of the Soviet Union did. The wealthy person you envy may not be as public-spirited and generous as you would like. But because he or she is there our economy is alive, and you have an opportunity to take part in it.

World Without End?

An astronomer was giving a lecture at a university. During his talk he mentioned that astronomers believe that in four billion years the sun will become so hot that all water on earth will evaporate and life will be impossible. After the lecture a lady rushed anxiously up to the astronomer. “In how many years did you say the earth would become too hot for life?” “About four billion years,” the lecturer replied. “Oh, what a relief!” exclaimed the lady. “I thought you said four million!”

Whether in four million or four billion years, this earth will one day burn up from the sun’s heat, if scientists who study the life cycle of stars like our sun are correct. But this conclusion would have come as no surprise to the apostle Peter, who understood that our planet would eventually run its course.

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief," he wrote, "and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10).

Not only that, but he adds, “the heavens will be kindled and dissolved” (2 Peter 3:12). Astronomers are reaching the conclusion that there appears to be no cosmic force to halt or reverse the expansion of the universe. In fact, an otherwise undetectable “dark energy” seems to be propelling its continued expansion. Thus, astronomers foresee the time when distant galaxies will move so far away from our own that they will become invisible even to high-powered instruments. The universe will “dissolve” into the darkness of space.

But Peter doesn’t stop with this scenario of doom and gloom. Instead, he asks a pointed question: “What sort of persons ought you to be?” Although “heaven and earth” are to become uninhabitable, he states, “we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” — perhaps a renewed universe operating under a different set of the “laws” of physics. Meanwhile, we have a life to live on this planet, a life to be lived according to the Creator’s plan.

Six Ways God Acts in Your Life

God can sometimes appear remote, indifferent to our concerns, uninvolved in our lives. Placing our needs before him in prayer we may wonder whether he hears us at all — or, if he hears us, whether he cares to answer. Of course we understand that “his ways are not our ways” (Isaiah 55:8), and God may have an outcome in mind that differs from the one we envision in our pleading with him. Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to have to deal — day after day, month after month, or year after year — with issues in which we would like to see God acting on our behalf. Or acting at all, period.

Perhaps our problem can be traced to an incomplete idea of who God is. We may have been taught, over the years, that he’s like some gigantic angel hovering in the sky above us just waiting to respond to our plea. If that’s our understanding of God, we’re bound to be disappointed in our appeals to him. When we consider the vast extent of the universe God has created, that picture of God greatly reduces him in size and power. It’s hard to get that sort of mental picture out of our head, but understanding how God works in our lives might depend on replacing that image with a concept of God that’s more “true to life.”

If we came to a different understanding of who God is, how might we be able to perceive his workings in the world in which we live? Here are six possible ways.

1. Through Circumstance. If the Creator is in control of his universe, then we ought to see him at work in what happens in our world even when those events don’t seem good to us. If God has structured the universe, and human life, in such a way that actions lead to consequences, then even harmful events will ultimately have consequences that reveal his action. A culture, for example, that discards values such as responsibility, perseverance, industriousness, generosity, honesty, or respect for human life will eventually degenerate into chaos. This judgment is what the Bible knows as the wrath of God — the inevitable consequence of discounting his pattern for human conduct. Circumstance can be favorable, and in the good things that happen we can see God at work. But we also perceive his working in other types of circumstances, because “God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7).

2. Through Providence. As Jesus pointed out, the nourishing rain and the warming sun fall upon everyone, whether a person seems to deserve them or not (Matthew 5:45). The seasons come and go, seeds spring to life and grow to fruition, birds sing. If the Creator had not tuned his creation to make these things happen, life wouldn’t be possible. The fact that we’ve been placed on this earth with the opportunity to make something of our lives is evidence that God is at work, continuing to sustain and undergird the support structure for human life. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25).

3.Through People. The idea that “God has no hands but ours” is superficial, but it represents a partial truth. When we look for the action of God in our lives, especially in response to prayer, more often than not the answer will come in the form of something another person does to benefit us. What people can do for each other is often God’s instrument for intervention in our lives. And he can work through us, as well, to benefit others. As Paul wrote, “God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

4. Through Miracles. We sometimes pray for miracles, and then are disappointed when no miracle is forthcoming. But miracles do happen, sometimes when people least expect them. While healing in answer to prayer, for example, seems to happen more frequently in parts of the world without modern medical resources, sudden healing also sometimes occurs where physicians are available and have given the most discouraging prognosis. These events are unexplained except through the direct intervention of God, in ways no one understands. Miracles are no substitute for seeking medical care; for that matter, financial miracles are no substitute for wise management of our money. Divine intervention doesn’t come automatically in response to a particular prayer formula; it remains God’s sovereign initiative. Nevertheless miracles do happen, and they reveal God at work.

5. Through Matter. There are four universal interactions that apply to all matter: gravity, electromagnetism, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces. If these interactions, operative since the Creator made this universe, weren’t precisely balanced, nothing would work at all and you wouldn’t be here. In the fact that anything exists we see the operation of God, and his work undergirds all we can experience, even if we think we’re not seeing him at work in any other way. And no life could exist if God had not created the information, in the form of a sequential code, in the nuclei and other parts of living cells to govern an organism’s development and reproduction. Biological science has no reasonable explanation for the improbable existence of this information, which couldn’t have arisen by mere accident; the “probability resources” of the entire universe aren’t sufficient to explain even a fraction of it. This information hidden in the matter of all life is the evident work of a Mind, the mind of God.

6. Through Truth. We might think of truth as an intangible abstraction, something we can’t grab hold of or actually observe at work. But truth is the same as reality; falsehood and unreality are what don’t exist. Truth can be compared with light; light always dispels darkness, which has no defense against it because it isn’t really anything at all. As the Apostle John wrote, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” In the operation of truth we see the working of God, establishing reality in the face of nonexistence. Whether people believe it or not, reality is what it is, and it will eventually prevail over what is not — whatever tries to come against it. Jesus prayed, “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17), and by this Word he meant the voice of God through Holy Scripture, and through Himself as the Word made flesh. As the Apostle Peter wrote (1 Peter 1:25), “The word of the Lord abides for ever,” giving us the assurance that God is acting in our life and experience.

   Though the cause of evil prosper,
   Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
   Though her portion be the scaffold,
   And upon the throne be wrong,
   Yet that scaffold sways the future,
   And, behind the dim unknown,
   Standeth God within the shadow
   Keeping watch above his own.
      —James Russell Lowell, 1845

When Death Comes Too Soon

It came without warning — the email message from the pastor appealing for prayer for a 38-year-old wife and mother in the congregation, who had been rushed to the hospital with what later turned out to be a blood clot in the lung. Within two hours came the news of her passing — news of sobering import for us, for the young woman was related to our own family by marriage.

Imagine the grief of a husband who, having carefully built up a business to support his family, suddenly finds his life partner taken away. Or can you imagine the desolation of a daughter whose mother, only that morning, had been preparing her for a high school homecoming dance she would never attend because of her mother’s death?

I once passed a church bulletin board that read: “I plan to live forever. So far, so good.” But we know that sentiment was meant ironically. Genesis 6:3 promises us a life span of 120 years, which Psalm 90 seems to reduce to eighty years at most. But some good, Bible-believing people never approach even that number, and are taken in the vigor of their prime. Others — even non-believers — linger on into the frailty of old age. It seems there is no equity, no justice in our respective allotment of years.

So we ask, “Why?” How do we understand these things? Christians have long suggested answers to the “why” of sudden, premature death. For example, perhaps God foresaw what was ahead for the younger person’s life and, wishing to spare them additional suffering, took them home to himself. Or perhaps he had a task for that person in the afterlife, and “needed” them there. Of course, the hope of reunion with loved ones in heaven offers comfort to many.

I don’t offer any of these answers here. For some, in the face of the desolation of loss of a loved one, such explanations might seem trite. There is really no glossing over the devastation we feel when someone we cherish and admire is wrenched away without warning. It’s hard enough to face loss when there have been, perhaps, months or years of dealing with life-threatening illness, or when advancing age suggests the possibility of our loved one’s impending demise. But when death seems to come too soon, without preparation, the usual “answers” may not offer the comfort we long for.

How did the mothers of Damascus feel when their children fell victim to the insidious attack of sarin gas? Or how must the Christians of Egypt feel when Islamic terrorism rips apart their families? Through the ages countless people have had to deal with the sudden, premature loss of loved ones through warfare, persecution, accident, or pestilence.

How did Mary of Nazareth feel beholding her son, only thirty-three years of age, being tortured on the cross of Calvary — cut off despite such promise, such wisdom from God, emanating from his young life? How did James and Jude, and their brothers and sisters, feel when their elder brother was taken prematurely from them? Before the resurrection, they had yet to fully understand who he really was, and that “death could not hold him.” Yet, they held on through their grief. For those who remain, life goes on with duties to perform. Mary became, for many Christians, the representative of the faithful church. And James and Jude became authors of parts of the New Testament.

The sudden loss of a loved one has moved some to question God’s existence. If God is good, why did he allow such evil? But if God is not good, why acknowledge him? Atheists have justified their belief in God’s non-existence on the basis of personal tragedies such as debilitating illness, serious injury, or the unexpected and premature death of someone important to them. But we are different. We understand that the existence of a loving God who created this vast universe of 200 billion galaxies, some fourteen billion years old, can hardly depend on what happens to us, for good or ill, on this small planet. If it did, we would be God. But we are not.

Further, we understand that the sudden loss of a loved one can teach us a valuable lesson, even if we can’t understand why such things happen. Confronted with our loss, we realize how petty are many of the things we worry about each day, and how insignificant the issues we argue about with those we live with. We come to understand how precious, and how fragile, are those relationships we have with people we know and love. We realize we can never allow our self-centeredness to erect barriers between us and them, for those bonds that unite us today, which could be severed tomorrow, are too important to jeopardize over trivialities.

Yes, life goes on for those of us who remain. We go forward in hope, even when we can’t make sense of the sadness we face. We may not be granted understanding, but we are given support. As Moses was about to die he proclaimed to Israel, “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27). In the Lord we have “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (1 Corinthians 5:1), as the apostle Paul declared; and he affirmed that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Further, God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

So we go forward in faith, even when we can’t answer the question, “Why?” There is a call of God upon each of us, his children, and faith is doing what God has called us to do. In the midst of our grief, that is enough.

Which Gospel is the “Other Gospel”?

Lately, some prominent evangelical leaders seem to have ramped up their critique of the “health and wealth gospel,” or the so-called “prosperity gospel.” According to their characterization, the proponents of this view — essentially, that God wants his people to be prosperous — have distorted the true gospel that downplays the desire for prosperity. In their view, advocates of the “health and wealth gospel” are teaching “doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). These evangelical critics maintain a long list of television ministries they designate as “false teachers,” and post these lists on the Internet as a warning to anyone tempted to tune in to them. Yes, there are abuses within the ranks of television preachers. But there are abuses of one kind or another within all types of Christian ministry. However, the “prosperity gospel” crowd is singled out for special condemnation.

The phrase “another gospel” occurs in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, where he warns:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel — not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-9).

On the basis of this passage, the evangelical leaders I mentioned are anathematizing Christian preachers who teach the “prosperity gospel.” They believe the message that God wants his people to prosper and be in health is contrary to the gospel Paul received and taught to the churches of Galatia. A teaching contrary to the gospel Paul brought them is seen as “another gospel,” the advocates of which are accursed.

So what was the gospel Paul brought to the Galatian Christians? In his letter he was dealing with some people, often called “Judaizers,” who had been teaching the new Christians of Galatia that in order to be Christians they had to observe the Law of Moses. Exactly why those “Judaizers” took this approach is open to question. Did they believe that following the Law made them more acceptable to God? Probably not; it’s more likely that, since Judaism was a recognized religion within the Roman Empire, Christians could avoid persecution as an unauthorized sect if they remained within the Jewish orbit. Their motives were protective, not reactionary. Paul, however, would have none of that; the Lordship of Christ trumps the lordship of Caesar, and there can’t be any such self-protective compromise.

Paul’s own message, his “gospel,” was the “mystery” Christ had called him to reveal: that “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:3-6). The promise he was referring to is the promise God gave to Abraham, that through his descendents God would bless all nations on earth (Genesis 12:1-3). Those who follow in the faithfulness of Abraham will inherit the blessings enumerated in Deuteronomy 28:1-14, where Moses proclaims that “the LORD will make you abound in prosperity,” and “make you the head, and not the tail” (Deuteronomy 28:11, 13). Unfaithfulness to the Lord, on the other hand, will bring the enactment of the curses (Deuteronomy 28:15-58) in which abject poverty, disease, oppression, and unspeakable horrors will be visited upon the disobedient.

In the light of this promise, and its contrasting warning, Paul writes to the Galatians: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us —for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree’ — that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). That was the gospel Paul brought to the Galatians: the message that the curses of sickness, poverty, and oppression have been borne by Christ on the cross, and are no longer to be the inevitable lot of God-fearing humanity — and that, further- more, Gentiles may enter into the resultant blessings as full members of the renewed body of God’s people, “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16).

It sure looks to me like Paul’s gospel is the “prosperity gospel,” the “health and wealth gospel.” It certainly isn’t the “sickness and poverty gospel” that some evangelical teachers seem to think is the only true message. Yes, Paul admits that there is suffering in the Christian walk, and that while sharing in Christ’s resurrection from the dead we are also to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10). But the sufferings the earliest Christians endured for the sake of Christ were not the sufferings of poverty and sickness. They were the sufferings of persecution by opponents of his message. Jesus, himself, warned that persecutions would come, even in the midst of the “hundredfold” blessings and eternal life that result from faithfulness to him (Mark 10:29-31). But this persecution is not part of the gospel; it is the result of witness to the gospel. There’s a difference between being persecuted because Jesus supposedly wants you to be persecuted, and being persecuted because you’re proclaiming the blessings Jesus wants people to enjoy.

So, to sum up, exactly who is preaching “another gospel” in today’s Christian environment? I suggest that it’s not the advocates of the “health and wealth gospel.” No, it’s the opponents and critics of that gospel who are pushing “another gospel,” and who are in danger of bearing the Lord’s anathema (1 Corinthians 16:22).