A Practical Man

A man devoid of faith, like Judas, needs something to sustain him, to nourish his emotional life, and most men in this position boast of their practical side. Judas was practical.

--Jim Bishop, The Day Christ Died, p. 88

This book was written in 1957, and I read it almost 30 years ago. This is the one line in the entire book that has stuck with me over the years.

I'm rereading the book this week, and I still like the comment about Judas. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I do pride myself on my practicality. Keeping things in order and under control does in some way nourish my emotional life.

There's no sin in being practical. The entire book of Proverbs certainly recommends it. The problem comes when practicality takes the place of faith. And that happens often in my prayer life. I tend to ask only for that which, in my eyes, has a reasonable expectation of happening, something whose means of fulfillment I can map out, "if only God will give a little nudge here and here."

I'm guessing a person of faith will focus more on what God can do than on what is practical, feasible, and doable. Certainly, He who creates ex nihilo will have a few tricks up His sleeve!

A practical man can simulate service to the Master without ever actually having to relate to Him. A practical man takes initiative and leads to where he thinks things should go, maybe along the way asking the Master to endorse the effort. A man of faith meets with the Master and receives instructions, then follows.

Judas was a practical man.

Good & Useful? Or Useful, but not Good?

[D]oubtless Judas took part in this Galilean mission, and, for aught we know to the contrary, was as successful as his fellow-disciples in casting out devils. Graceless men may for a season be employed as agents in promoting the work of grace in the hearts of others. Usefulness does not necessarily imply goodness, according to the teaching of Christ Himself.

- A.B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 108

The Man With Two Minds

What kind of man was Judas? According to A.B. Bruce,

Supposing Judas to have been chosen to the apostleship on the ground of apparent fitness, what manner of man would that imply? A vulgar, conscious hypocrite, seeking some mean by-end, while professedly aiming at a higher? Not necessarily; not probably. Rather such an one as Jesus indirectly described Judas to be when He made the reflection: "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." The false disciple was a sentimental, plausible, self-deceived pietist, who knew and approved the good, though not conscientiously practicing it; one who, in aesthetic feeling, in fancy, and in intellect, had affinities for the noble and the holy, while in will and in conduct he was the slave of base, selfish passions; one who, in the last resource, would always put self uppermost, yet could zealously devote himself to well-doing when personal interests were not compromised--in short, what the Apostle James calls a two-minded man [James 1.8].

In thus describing Judas, we draw not the picture of a solitary monster. Men of such a type are by no means so rare as some may imagine. History, sacred and profane, supplies numerous examples of them, playing an important part in human affairs. Balaam, who had the vision of a prophet and the soul of a miser, was such a man. Robespierre, the evil genius of the French Revolution, was another. The man who sent thousands to the guillotine had in his younger days resigned his office as a provincial judge, because it was against his conscience to pronounce sentence of death on a culprit found guilty of a capital offence. A third example, more remarkable than either, may be found in the famous Greek Alcibiades, who, to unbounded ambition, unscrupulousness, and licentiousness, united a warm attachment to the greatest and best of the Greeks. The man who in after years betrayed the cause of his native city, and went over to the side of her enemies, was in his youth an enthusiastic admirer and disciple of Socrates.

[In the footnote about James 1.8, which refers to a "double-minded man, unstable in all he does," Bruce says this means] a man with two minds; not one real, the other feigned, but with two minds both real so far as they go, only the wrong mind strongest, and ultimately prevailing.

--A.B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 371

This passage helps me understand how Judas could be Judas. Or how I can be Judas.

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday commemorates the evening of:

• The Last Supper


• Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet


• The Upper Room discourse


• The institution of the Eucharist (Communion, for my Methodist friends; Lord's Table, for the Presbyterians)

It's also the evening when Judas betrays his master and Peter denies knowing him at all.

Our mental picture of the arrest is usually something like this:

But if we had been there, I think it would have felt more like this: