Salvation and Godly Rule

The Principle of Hilarity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Works

Lesson: The Principle of Hilarity

Genre: Speech

Track: 48

Dictation Name: RR136Z48

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is from the second epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, chapters 8 and 9. “Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia; how that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves; praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God. Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also. Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. And herein I give my advice: for this is expedient for you, who have begun before, not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: as it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack.

But thanks be to God, which put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you. For indeed he accepted the exhortation; but being more forward, of his own accord he went unto you. And we have sent with him the brother, whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches; and not that only, but who was also chosen of the churches to travel with us with this grace, which is administered by us to the glory of the same Lord, and declaration of your ready mind: avoiding this, that no man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us: providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men. And we have sent with them our brother, whom we have oftentimes proved diligent in many things, but now much more diligent, upon the great confidence which I have in you. Whether any do enquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellowhelper concerning you: or our brethren be enquired of, they are the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ. Wherefore shew ye to them, and before the churches, the proof of your love, and of our boasting on your behalf.

For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you: for I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready: lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting. Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness. But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;) Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; and by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.”

Our subject today is the principle of hilarity, or giving. It is interesting that when St. Paul comes to writing about giving in these two chapters, he does it rather painfully. He takes a long time to lay the groundwork. What was the situation? The first century saw some problems. There were saints in various parts of the Empire who suffered from persecution, who were in distress. There was famine for a time in Palestine and so there was need for emergency relief there. For a variety of reasons, the church had emergency relief campaigns.

Paul was writing to the Corinthians about the fact that there is another collection coming up. There was one last year. They gave generously. He boasted of their readiness to give to other churches, and he is a little troubled now because he suspects that they’re going to feel burdened. He uses an image that is very common in scripture. For example, in Psalm 126:5-6, we read, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” What does this mean?

It has reference to the same thing that another passage of scripture, “casting your bread upon waters,” has reference to; sowing with grain. Casting bread upon waters had reference to rights, and the fact these are in the Psalms, it has reference to a time of famine. Now, in Antiquity, this was not uncommon. In fact, one of the rules of warfare which still survives up to our time is the scorched earth policy. When you go into an area, wipe out all the crops. If you cannot beat the army in the field, defeat them by forcing them to their knees through hunger.

As a result, since the farm areas, the food producing areas were defenseless, they were always the first areas struck in time of war. This meant that the poor farmer who had seen his crops destroyed and had barely managed to survive, and like people in such places, had hoarded somewhere in a hiding place some grains, some food to see him through the year and to give him something to {?}, now faced the time of harvest. Conditions of sowing, and conditions were very bad. So many days to the time of harvest when he could reap that grain, and only so much food left for the family. The seed grain then, as he cast it, meant the difference between life and death. If they kept it and ate it, they would live a few weeks longer. If they did not sow it after the few weeks, there would be no life for them. They would die, and so it was in times of war and in times of disaster, farmers went out to the harvest, or to the sowing, in tears. Normally, it was an occasion for joy, the happy time of the year. Spring, a time of growth, a time of expectation, but now, sowing in tears, and if it were rights{?}, literally casting your bread upon the waters, throwing it away as it were. “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” A man’s future depended on taking the remaining grain and sowing it.

And so, St. Paul refers to this in 2 Corinthians 9:6, “But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” The future we have, in other words, is the future we plan for, either in terms of ourselves or in terms of God.

Now, as St. Paul writes to these people, he makes it clear that I speak not by commandment, but by occasions of the forwardness of the others and to prove the sincerity of your love, which is not a tithe. If it were the tithe, he could command them and tell them, “This is God’s tax, you’ve got to pay.” This was above and over the tithe. And so, he says, “I’m asking you to take a cue from the readiness of others, the forwardness of others, to give, and if possible, to do better.” He sets before them the example of Christ. “Freely ye have received, freely give.” “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” He makes it clear to them that God does not ask them to give what they do not have, nor to be prodigal, but to give and to give generously.

A paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 8:10-15, reads thus, a very free paraphrase. In saying this, “I’m not laying a command upon you. For you have already manifested the spirit and practiced the duty of giving this twelve month past. Complete the offering according to your means, for the willing mind is shown by gifts in accordance of your ability, not by foolish prodigality beyond it. My purpose is not to make others a burden upon you, but to get you to supply what they lack, and then to supply, on occasion, what you lack. Thus acting on the principle of equality illustrated in bestowal of the manna in bygone days, that none should have too much and none too little.” He makes it clear that he would plea just as readily for them with other churches if and when they were in need.

Now, as St. Paul develops his argument for giving in these two chapters, he makes it clear as we have already seen that this is not a question of tithing but of gifts. The tithe is not a gift to God. It is his tax. The gifts, moreover, he says, are not mandatory therefore, but revelatory. They reveal the character of a man. They prove the sincerity of your love, and the test of love, he says, is an action. To pay a tax is one thing, but to be ready to give beyond that is for another. Moreover, he makes it clear further that it is not done out of love of man, but of Christ, for our Lord said, “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Now, St. Paul elsewhere speaks of the necessity of Christians helping one another. He speaks of the law of hospitality. It’s important stop here a moment and go into this. There is the law of the tithe. Then there is the law of hospitality. St. Peter says, “Use hospitality one to another without grudging.” St. Paul says that we are to be hospitable to strangers also. As a matter of fact, in Timothy and Titus, it is declared that church officers are required to be given hospitality and to be known as lovers of so doing. Thus, there is a law of hospitality. There is a law of tithing, but above and over this, a test, giving. Self-protection, self-advancement must give place to the love of Christ and his people. Survival is not the highest law. There is another: God’s law, and there is a law here, St. Paul says, of reward and punishment. In verses 6-11 of the ninth chapter, he begins by saying, “He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully,” so that, he says, there is a law here that’s involved. But God deals with us as we deal to God and to his work.

Therefore, though the giving is as every man purposes in his heart, it is a test. Man is being put to the test by God in such things, and God is seeing whether the man is a man who is ready to get by with just his tax to God, or to give to God as one who indeed loves the Lord. “For the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.” The word cheerful is a very interesting one. It’s one of many words in English which, when the King James Version was written, meant one thing and it has faded over the centuries. Words tend to fade. The Greek word is the word he literally have in English today as hilarious, and this is what cheer and cheerful once meant. “Be of good cheer.” Be hilariously happy, and God days that he loves a cheerful giver. Now, this is not the only statement thereof in the Proverbs. We are told that “He that is cheerful and a giver shall be blessed for he giveth of his bread to the poor.” Then we are hilarious givers, St. Paul says. “God is able,” in the 8th verse of the 9th chapter, “to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”

There are two very interesting words in this passage. First, hilarious, and then sufficiency. The word sufficiency, in the Greek, is literally, autarkes. From autos, self. We have it in automobile, self moving, and arkein, sufficient. Self-sufficient, or self-sufficiency. Now, the word here is an interesting one for another reason. This was the word that the stoics, the anarchists, the Cynics, and others used as their ideal. As a matter of fact, it is coming back into currency today. The anarchists of our time feel that the word anarchism is in bad repute, that it does not express their philosophy, and so there are many like Robert Lafevre and others who insist on calling their philosophy autarky, or autarkia.

Now St. Paul knew the usage of this word, and he chose it deliberately, and he says that here is the ideal of men, and you would have to say, if you are honest, that {?} sinners often want this, too, to be beholden to no man, to be self-sufficient, to be entirely to yourself. This is what you want, is it not? Very well. The way thereto is not the way the anarchists, the Cynics, the Stoics, and others of the hippies of St. Paul’s time, because they had them, had them for a couple of centuries or more as a matter of fact, but the way is through Christ. The Lord loveth a hilarious giver. “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency (all autarkia) in all things, may abound to every good work.” St. Paul’s statement is simply this: The world is God’s world, and the way to sufficiency is not by miserly, niggardly ways, not by Stoic and anarchistic practices, but by hilarious giving. Only as men put their confidence in God and are ready to give to him, he’s made clear previously he’s not talking about beggering yourself, nor about being foolish. He warns them against that, but by being hilarious givers, which means giving generously and enjoying the opportunity to further the work of the Lord, whether it is emergency relief, whether it is to a Christian school, to a church, or to whatever a cause. If you give rejoicing that you can give and further the work of the Lord, God loves a hilarious giver. The world has its dream of autarkia, but this is the way it can be realized.

Scripture does not condemn some of the goals of the world. It condemns the way men visualize them and seek to gain them. Our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, “after all these things do the Gentiles seek, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Paul begins and ends this passage with a reference to sowing in verse 6 and in verse 9, verse 10. Why? The image in the beginning was that a man must sow to reap, and if a man sows sparingly, he’s going to have very little harvest, but if a man sows generously, he shall reap generously. The requirement of giving is not mandatory, but there is a law behind all these things which governs the results. When men sow in terms of the world, the enemy can destroy the seed. Adverse weather can freeze the young shoots, but when men sow in terms of the Lord, as hilarious givers, “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” It’s a startling statement. It’s not one that any man would dare make on his own. It is the word of God. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee for thy word, and we pray that we, in our generation, may sow bountifully and reap bountifully, that we may see a mighty harvest, and that it may redound to thy glory and to our joy and sufficiency in thee. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, first of all, there is no evidence that the length of the year was markedly shorter. The only evidence pointing towards the different length in the year is that at one time, the year was apparently 360 days long. That somewhere in the Old Testament era, there was a dislocation of the orbit of the earth which altered the year by five days. Velikovsky has written extensively on that and there has been some supporting evidence, but five days doesn’t make that much difference in the age of a man. So that, the first thing to say is there isn’t a shred of evidence that was any difference of any substantial sort with regard to the calculation of the year. As far back as we go, we find that men had a very good knowledge of astronomy and an ability to calculate so that their mathematical and their calendar work was excellent, no problem there. As a matter of fact, we know that in the very early centuries, they were able to calculate the exact number of hours over 365 days that a year was so that there were calendar reforms occasionally to reintroduce the days that had accumulated with a few extra hours. We do it now with a Leap Year every four years, and then every few centuries, we jump a few days to catch up with it. This was known in ancient times. They had, therefore, a considerable degree of knowledge.

Then second, one of the most obvious things is that in every country that has any story of the early life of mankind, they speak of man’s longevity. This you find everywhere without exception. Every story of the early years of the earth emphasizes the longevity.

Then third, one mathematician made a curve of the ages of the patriarchs before the flood and of those after the flood, and he found that it was a true curve, that it indicated that this was a natural curve, that there was nothing artificial and manufactured about this, that it had everything of statistical probability in it. I have that article, a copy of it, somewhere. I’ll try to remember to xerox that for you.

So that the idea that there is no validity in it is not true. The curve, the statistical curve does indicate that this is a true curve.

Then fourth, the evidence actually points in the direction, increasingly, that what we have is not an account by Moses in these early chapters, but a collection by Moses of the early records. D.J. Weisman{?}, a British scholar, who wouldn’t necessarily share our point of view, has written a very interesting work in which he points out that the word that is translated “generations,” “These are the generations of,” which we meet in the early chapters of Genesis, is actually, according to all the work he has done in recent years in the Middle East, excavating ancient cuneiform inscriptions, has a different meaning. Its most accurate meaning is, “These are the family chronicles of,” the family records of, so that when in Genesis 5:1 we read, “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” Weisman{?} says that this should be, the last sentence of Genesis 1:1 through 4:26. In other words, everything before that is the record that Adam kept, and when you go on to the next, “These are the generations of,” you have the next family record. Chapter 10, I skipped over some. Chapter 10:1 we have, “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah.” In other words, the preceding is the record they kept of the flood years.

Well, I can’t locate all of them just now, but there are a number of such statements, “These are the generations of,” “These are the family records of.” So, what this clearly points to is that Moses simply took the records that were kept from the beginning of creation, by Adam and by those who followed after him, and the Book of Genesis is simply putting together records from creation. Well, that throws a very different light on these things. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, it would clearly indicate that Adam had some form of preserving records. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Hebrews 5:11-14. “Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Now what St. Paul is here writing is simply this: He’s very disappointed in the people he’s writing to, and he says that there’s a great deal more he could write about this, profound and important things, but they are dull of hearing, which in modern English, they’re dimwitted, and it’s their own fault. It’s not a lack of IQ, it’s because they’re not applying themselves. He said, “You ought to be teachers now, but instead, you need someone to teach you the first principles, the A, B, C’s [that is of the word of God], and you’ve become such as need milk rather than meat.” In other words, you’re like babies at the mother’s breast, you’re back to the very beginning yet. You’re insisting on staying babies all your life, instead of growing up and having a man’s food. For everyone, and he continues then using that imagery, everyone that continues to use milk, or stays with the A, B, C’s, the very elements of the Gospel, is unskillful, or has no experience, that can be rendered, in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. Strong meat belongs to them that are of full age. You don’t give roast beef to a newborn babe. That’s a man’s food. You give milk to those who have to learn the A, B, C’s yet, who have to learn the difference between right and wrong because they’re still newborn babes, they don’t know anything yet. So you give them milk, and he’s telling them, “This is where you are because you have no desire to grow.”

In another passage, in the Greek, the word he uses for these babes, is a Greek word, “idiotes,” which we have in English as idiots, and he is saying in effect that, “You’re idiots because you’re staying as babes, you’re refusing to grow up,” and of course this is, unfortunately, very true in our day when many of the evangelical churches just continue endlessly with a few passages of scripture, endlessly preaching, “Ye must be born again,” which is the A, B, C’s, and not going on to teach them the responsibilities of a Christian. So, St. Paul’s statement here is simply, “Grow up. You’re being dimwitted deliberately. You’re avoiding responsibility. You’re insisting on being permanent children instead of mature adults, and so while I would like to go on and give you some of the strong meat of the Gospel, I am having to rehearse the A, B, C’s for you.” In other words, Paul was very outspoken.

Our time is just about up. One announcement: Now and then some of you ask me to bring a book or something else for you to the meeting, and I dutifully put these in my briefcase and then I forget who asked me to bring them. So, if you ever ask me to bring anything and I forget about it, please remind me, because by the second week I’ve forgotten who asked me and I’m carting them back and forth. So, forgive me for my absentmindedness and don’t hesitate to remind me, if you ask me to bring something and I say about it to you when we meet here.

The other announcement: As a result of a nudging from my family, they say since I announced the news back and forth on the problem here with regard to the crematorium, I certainly should announce that at 8:30 this morning, my daughter, Martha, had a baby girl.

Let’s bow our heads now in prayer.

And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape