This is a continuation of my notes on 3 John for the preaching class I’m taking. The Call to Action in 3 John is fairly clear in the text (3 John 1:11 ESV).

Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God [Table].

The Greek verb translated do…imitate and imitate in both contrasting halves of the statement—Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good—is one occurrence of μιμοῦ, a 2^nd person singular form of μιμέομαι in the present tense and imperative mood: “to imitate, emulate, follow, use as a model.” But how should I approach the next sentence?

It reminds me of a relatively well-known Nietzsche quote: “I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.”¹ Glenn Nicholls, a self-described Nietzschean Psychotherapist, explained:

The death of God is the death of all foundational thinking. When God died grammar died, and yet because of a firm faith (mostly not seen as faith) both remain because we are unable or unwilling to come up with something better that would allow us to move on…Grammar has filled our God-shaped hole and while we still have faith in grammar we can not come to terms with the death of foundations.

Grammar has a primary and secondary function. The primary function structures reality…

[Nietzsche] uses Descartes’ statement, ‘I think therefore I am’ to illustrate the primary function. Nietzsche points out that even the first word of the statement requires faith. To say ‘I’ is to believe ‘I’ exists and is constant. ‘I think…’ requires the belief that ‘I’ is an agent of thought. It has seduced us into conceding the dualism of cause and effect that says there is a thinker doing the thinking. These are just some among many values inherent in grammar…

Grammar is a form of theology: a justification by faith.²

Another writer, William Eaton, approached it a slight bit differently:

My understanding of this sentence has been that belief in God is fundamentally belief that there is a logic to the universe and that this latter belief is also reflected in our attachment to lesser logics or organizing systems. Until we recognize the arbitrariness of grammar and the meaninglessness of its usefulness, we have not faced up to the arbitrariness and meaninglessness of existence. Or so Nietzsche proposed, with his signature combination of rage and playfulness.³

How do I approach Whoever does good? I can’t refrain from forming opinions in English: I expect an indefinite pronoun, Whoever, a 3^rd person singular form of the verb “to do,” does, and a noun or adjective in the accusative case as the verb’s direct object, good. What I find, however, is ὁ ἀγαθοποιῶν: no pronoun, no verb and no noun or adjective. The singular article ὁ is in the nominative case and ἀγαθοποιῶν is a singular participle of the verb ἀγαθοποιέω in the present tense and nominative case. A nominative participle functions more like a noun than a verb, though a present participle does refer to now. Technically:

A participle is considered a “verbal adjective”. It is often a word that ends with an “-ing” in English (such as “speaking,” “having,” or “seeing”). It can be used as an adjective, in that it can modify a noun (or substitute as a noun), or it can be used as an adverb and further explain or define the action of a verb.

For example:
Adjectival use: “The coming One will come and will not delay.” Heb 10:37
Adverbial use: “But speaking truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things.” Eph 4:15⁴

This particular “verbal adjective” is called “a ‘substantive’ to take the place of a noun.”⁵ In other words—Whoever does good—functions as a somewhat awkward and potentially misleading noun, the subject of this clause. But consider the other options the ESV translators had at their disposal: 1) The do-gooder: “an earnest often naive humanitarian or reformer”⁶ or 2) The good doer: “an animal that with normal care produces or develops especially well.”⁷ (“The good-doing” or “The doing-good” do not appear yet in dictionaries.)

I consider Whoever does good a “somewhat awkward” translation of ὁ ἀγαθοποιῶν because I find it difficult to hear a word string, consisting of an indefinite pronoun, a verb and a noun or adjective, as a ‘substantive’ verbal adjective functioning as the noun “Whoever-does-good.” And in a religious culture formed and nurtured by expository preaching that difficulty is amplified.

A few quotes from Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon⁸ by Bryan Chapell follow:

John A. Broadus, the father of modern expository preaching…concludes that in an expository sermon, “the application of the sermon [e.g., “the call to action” as the human response to the fallen condition focus] is not merely an appendage to the discussion or a subordinate part of it, but is the main thing to be done.”⁹

Exposition does not merely involve the transmission of biblical information. It also demands establishment of the biblical basis for an action or a belief that God requires of his people.¹⁰

Experienced [expository] preachers also try to avoid using passive verbs and negative wording in main points.⁴⁹ Homiletics instructors refer to this as taking out the be’s (i.e., passive being verbs) and the not’s. This is done first because application clauses worded with passive verbs do not exhort people to do anything…¹¹

This bias against passive being verbs (which becomes a preference for action verbs to be performed by people) can shift one’s attention away from the actual verb—ἐστιν (ESV: is), a 3^rd person singular form of εἰμί in the present tense and indicative mood—to the ‘substantive’ verbal adjective functioning as a noun simply because it sounds more like something to do: Whoever does good. That shift in focus misses the real action of the clause—ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν (“from God exists”)—even as it shifts attention away from the works of God (“Whoever-does-good from God exists”) to the works of people (“the one who does good becomes¹² from God”).

A visiting Pastor—who was actually a former Pastor and now is a sort of Pastor of Pastors in an urban ministry—related the following story about that ministry:

So this is a group of networking the networkers, and we’re like, “what can we do together.” These are all guys that…do what I do and they want to see the body come together, and out of that—you see this when you watch the news, there’s a murder all the time, right? People get shot. And one of the Pastors here…he had a lady get shot outside of his church—baby in the backseat. The car rolls down the street, hits his church building, real gently. Here is this Pastor now with a lady who’s passed and a little baby. And he reached out to his faith community: where are my colleagues from my other churches, what can we do with this pain? And he found out, I really don’t have anybody; I don’t have any relationships.

And so we said, you know what? What if the church will be the first to knock at the door of someone who lost a loved one, and said, “We’re here to tell you that God loves you?” So we did that by God’s grace.

And I still remember, we said, does this even work, to see white guys show up, six-three, blonde hair, blue eyes? I mean, that might be the end of—who-knows-what. My girls were a little worried about all the adventures Daddy’s on every now and then. And this would be one of them.

So, I remember being at the home of a father who just lost his fifteen-year-old daughter. And we had a plate of fettuccine and a couple of gift cards, and he knew we were coming. And we said, “We just want to pray with you.” And he started to weep. And he said, “I was about to do something stupid” (which means retaliate, a lot of this is perpetual), “and God sent you here today to show me the power of love.”

This is a beautiful example of working out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-16 ESV).

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure [Table].

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world [Table], holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

To understand this “beautiful example” as something accomplished by God’s willing (τὸ θέλειν) and God’s working (τὸ ἐνεργεῖν), both the desire and the effort,¹³ probably requires some interpretation (as well as some faith).

And one of the Pastors here…he had a lady get shot outside of his church—baby in the backseat. The car rolls down the street, hits his church building, real gently.

The clause “he had a lady get shot outside of his church” doesn’t actually mean that this particular Pastor hired a contract killer or in some other way orchestrated a woman’s murder outside of his church. It means that God brought the murder of this particular woman to this particular Pastor’s attention. The key words are “real gently.” Had the woman’s car done significant damage to the church building, other concerns might have taken precedence. This interpretation of these word strings is corroborated by the very next word string:

Here is this Pastor now with a lady who’s passed and a little baby.

One assumes, that the “proper authorities” were summoned and that they dealt with the immediate issues, not that this Pastor was left “holding the bag” for the care of this woman’s remains and a living child (not to mention a bloodied, damaged vehicle). Still, such a dramatic and immediate presentation made this particular issue difficult, if not impossible, to put out of mind.

And he reached out to his faith community: where are my colleagues from my other churches, what can we do with this pain? And he found out, I really don’t have anybody; I don’t have any relationships.

The religious institution to which this particular church and Pastor owed its name was unresponsive to this particular issue; so this particular Pastor turned apparently to a “renegade” band, “a group of networking the networkers,” who owed their individual names to many different religious institutions.

And so we [this is a group of networking the networkers, and we’re like, “what can we do together.” These are all guys that…do what I do and they want to see the body come together] said, you know what? What if the church will be the first to knock at the door of someone who lost a loved one, and said, “We’re here to tell you that God loves you?”

Granted, this sounds like any other human institution with money to burn, a solution looking for a problem, grasping at whatever straw might make them look good enough to secure more funding, but I am willing to believe that this particular group has not yet fully metastasized as a merely human institution. I am willing to believe that this particular solution to this particular problem and the people who carried it to fruition ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν (“from God exists”) for two reasons.

First, is the doers’ approbation and ascription: “So we did that by God’s grace” (e.g., Whoever does good is from God).¹⁴ Second, is the prophetic utterance of the one who received God’s grace: “God sent you here today to show me the power of love.” Perhaps, a third thing is worth mentioning. The teen-age daughters who worried about the adventures their six-three, blonde hair, blue-eyed Daddy embarked on were black, sitting in the front row before me. Daddy and Mommy are both white. There’s a story there and, frankly, I don’t know it. But I can surmise that this particular white man was especially prepared by God to “show up” at “the home of a [black] father who just lost his fifteen-year-old daughter.”

This “beautiful example” goes awry if one pays too much attention to what “Whoever-does-good” did:

What if the church will be the first to knock at the door of someone who lost a loved one, and said, “We’re here to tell you that God loves you?”…And we had a plate of fettuccine and a couple of gift cards, and he knew we were coming. And we said, “We just want to pray with you.”

Then one begins to organize, routinize and institutionalize the grace of God, both to will and to work for his good pleasure,¹⁵ with applications derived from what was done:

Representatives of the church should:

1. 1. – be first to knock at the door of someone who lost a loved one.
   2. – inform the bereaved of their impending visit.
   3. – bring a plate of fettuccine and a couple of gift cards.
   4. – say: “We’re here to tell you that God loves you.”
   5. – pray with the bereaved.

If these applications become the rule of a nascent Do-Gooder Ministry, the Good Doers of this nascent Do-Gooder Ministry have taken one giant step away from the certainty of “Whoever-does-good from God exists” to the more wishful thinking of “Whoever-obeys-our-rule becomes from God.” I believe wholeheartedly that God is so gracious He plays along with this for a time, at least until the fully mature Do-Gooder Institution expels Him entirely in favor of its own ways and means.

In 1636, after some 17,000 Puritans had migrated to New England, Harvard was founded in anticipation of the need for training clergy for the new commonwealth…by vote of the Great and General Court, the governing legislative body of colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original Thirteen Colonies.¹⁶

Now I consider Mr. Eaton’s description of his father relative to Nietzsche’s father, “a Lutheran pastor^[16] and former teacher.”¹⁷

Nietzsche’s father was a pastor. My father has been a sort of atheist pastor. A professor descended from New England Puritans, he has been obsessed with how people should behave, the most rational social policies. By virtuous comportment and gardening, woodworking, drawing, piano-playing he has striven relentlessly to prove that he for one is among the divinely elected. But he has had no use for the word God and has scorned organized religion, the Roman Catholic Church in particular. (Part of the last wave of the so-called Enlightenment, he would not have my sisters or I study Latin—the “dead language” of the Church.)¹⁸

Does Mr. Eaton’s description of his father resemble the certainty of “Whoever-does-good from God exists” or the more wishful thinking of “Whoever-obeys-our-rule becomes from God” or the final stage of human organization, routinization and institutionalization once God has left the building? I ask the the same question about Saul’s (aka Paul’s) description of himself (Philippians 3:4b-6):

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless [Table].

And I ask the same question about myself when I tried to love like God by turning Paul’s description of love into rules I set out to obey in (by means of) the flesh. This drives me back to the text: Ἀγαπητέ, μὴ μιμοῦ τὸ κακὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀγαθόν. And here all three questions resolve to one: What is τὸ ἀγαθόν (“the good”)?

So now I’ll ask what I should have asked in the beginning of this essay: How does Jesus relate to ἀγαθόν?

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? [Table] So, every healthy (ἀγαθὸν) tree bears good fruit, but the diseased (τὸ δὲ σαπρὸν) tree bears bad fruit. A healthy (ἀγαθὸν) tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased (σαπρὸν) tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits [Table].¹⁹

Here, regarding fruit trees as an analogy for recognizing τῶν ψευδοπροφητῶν (ESV: false prophets), ἀγαθὸν (ESV: healthy) was contrasted, δὲ (ESV: but), to τὸ σαπρὸν (ESV: the diseased) tree which καρποὺς πονηροὺς ποιεῖ (ESV: bears bad fruit). The ἀγαθὸν, healthy tree bears good fruit, καρποὺς καλοὺς ποιεῖ.

So, “Man is the Measure of All Things”?²⁰ I remember turning up my nose at the sour fruit my mother made into delicious pies. Perhaps, “Woman is the measure of all things” would be more apt, certainly more in keeping with the zeitgeist of the times. Joshua J. Mark wrote in an article on World History Encyclopedia online:

Protagoras of Abdera (l.c. 485-415 BCE) is most famous for his claim that “Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not” (DK 80B1) usually rendered simply as “Man is the Measure of All Things”. Along these same lines, he also maintained that, if there were gods – as the Greeks, of course, believed – there was no way of knowing what they were like or what they might want from humanity by way of service and worship…

Protagoras lived and worked in ancient Athens as a sophist, a highly paid teacher of the upper class youth of the city, who instructed his pupils in how to speak well and, especially, how to win court cases. Athens was particularly litigious and law suits were common; knowing how to turn a jury to side with one’s claims was a highly prized skill and, it seems, Protagoras was very good at this.²¹

Mr. Mark explained, “Almost all of what we know of Protagoras comes from Plato, who completely rejected his relativism and, although Plato may be presenting a highly prejudicial view of the man, his work remains the primary sources modern day scholars have to work with.”²² Then he quoted an example of Socrates’ dialectical method: “In the dialogue of the Theatetus, Plato argues against Protagoras’ view through his central character of Socrates delivering the following criticism:”

If what each man believes to be true through sensation is true for him – and no man can judge of another’s experience better than the man himself, and no man is in a better position to consider whether another’s opinion is true or false than the man himself, but…each man is to have his own opinions for himself alone, and all of them are to be right and true – then how, my friend, was Protagoras so wise that he should consider himself worthy to teach others and for huge fees? And how are we so ignorant that we should go to school to him, if each of us is the measure of his own wisdom? (161B)

Jesus continued to describe the ἀγαθὸν (ESV: healthy) tree as one that cannot, οὐ δύναται, bear, ποιεῖν, bad, πονηροὺς, fruit, καρποὺς. Is this a definitional statement? Woman—the owner of a fruit tree in this case, as the measure of all things—defines a healthy (ἀγαθὸν) fruit tree as one that cannot make bad (πονηροὺς) fruit? Or, is this actual knowledge about fruit trees from the Maker of fruit trees? The answers to these questions are yes and yes and yes. I’ll consider the last first:

God’s assessment of the fruit trees He created is טֽוֹב (ṭôḇ) in Hebrew, which was translated καλόν in Greek in the Septuagint. Both adjectives καλόν (good) and καλοὺς (good) are forms of καλός. Yes, Jesus described “actual knowledge about fruit trees from the Maker of fruit trees.”

And yes, Jesus’ statement is definitional: every healthy (ἀγαθὸν) tree bears good (καλοὺς) fruit; A healthy (ἀγαθὸν) tree cannot bear bad (πονηροὺς) fruit by definition. Why? A tree that bears bad fruit is σαπρὸν (ESV: diseased). More to the point it no longer ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν (“from God exists”); it is not as He made it: טֽוֹב (ṭôḇ) in Hebrew, καλόν in Greek, good in English translation.

And yes, woman—as the measure of all things—is in complete agreement with God’s definition of a healthy (ἀγαθὸν) fruit tree as one that cannot make bad (πονηροὺς) fruit. If the women of the household, whether slave or free, with all their God-given cleverness and creativity (or their gregarious “consultations” with other women of other households), could not make something delicious out of the fruit of a given fruit tree, it was no longer a fruit tree. It was firewood.

Granted, Jesus’ purpose in his saying was to martial all of this insight to determine if a given prophet ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν (“from God exists”). I’ll pick this up in another essay.