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Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue “prepositional truth” by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.
Actress and entertainer Shirley Maclaine has always followed her own path.
Born in 1934 – and named for child sensation Shirley Temple – she is one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Growing up in Virginia, she played on a boys’ baseball team, setting the record for most home runs. At first she wowed audiences with her dancing. Then her acting career – which now exceeds 70 years – began piling up awards, including an Oscar, an Emmy, and multiple Golden Globes.
She wrote bestsellers, became a political activist, and fell in love with a number of her leading men.
Along the way, she also became an enthusiastic advocate for alternative spiritualities associated with the New Age movement of the late 20th century.
Maclaine claims multiple reincarnations. She recalls growing up in Atlantis as the sibling of a 35,000-year-old spirit named Ramtha, and (as a Moorish girl) curing the Roman Emperor Constantine of impotence. She has a long-running interest in UFOs, and has reported firsthand encounters with extraterrestrials.
Once, as Johnny Carson’s guest on The Tonight Show, she acknowledged her divine nature – a claim consistent with the thinking of many New Agers. In the TV adaptation of her book Out On a Limb, she stands on a beach, facing the sea, shouting, “I am God! I am God!”
While it’s hard to pin down what we might call New Age “theology,” one of the movement’s enduring ideas is the spiritual authority of the self.
You are in God. God is in you. You yourself, for all intents and purposes, are God. Maclaine ultimately came to peace with the notion that everything that happens – including earthquakes, plane crashes, and wars – happens because she personally allows such things to happen.
Where do New Agers find support for such ideas?
The short answer is “everywhere” – from private visions to organized religion to angelic mentors to personal spirit guides to memories of past lives.
And, of course, from the Bible – or so they believe. Which brings us to what appears, at first glance, to be a New Age prooftext right in the middle of the Gospel of Luke – along with what can only be described as the most controversial preposition in the teaching of Jesus.
We read in Luke 17:20-21, “Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, “Here it is,” or “There it is,” because the kingdom of God is ENTOS you.’”
ENTOS appears only twice in the New Testament. In Matthew 23:26, Jesus rails at the “blind Pharisees” for caring more about what is outside a drinking cup than what is inside.
“Inside” or “within” is, in fact, is the most typical rendering of ENTOS. The King James Version of 1611 – which quickly became, for many people, “the real Bible” – famously rendered Luke 17:21, “the kingdom of God is within you.”
That translation has proved to be a bonanza for New Agers and fans of Eastern spirituality. “You see, it’s right there: God’s kingdom is a universal internal reality. Jesus himself says so.”
Pantheism – the traditional notion, often associated with Hinduism, that God is everything and everything is God – as well as panentheism – the more contemporary teaching that God can be found within every living thing – both seem to find support in this text.
But there’s a good reason for rejecting “within” as the best translation of ENTOS in Luke 17.
Jesus is dialoguing about the kingdom of God with his primary spiritual opponents, the Pharisees. It would be strange indeed if he said – concerning these self-confident, self-righteous, self-appointed Guardians of God’s Truth – “By the way, the kingdom is within you” – that is, within the very hearts that he routinely judged as seriously distant from the heart of God.
There are other ways to translate ENTOS, however. And one of them seems to fit this context as easily as Cinderella’s foot slid into a certain glass slipper.
The Pharisees were preoccupied with the visible inauguration of God’s reign on Earth. “Exactly how is the kingdom going to show up?” they ask Jesus.
Jesus replies that the kingdom isn’t going to appear with fireworks and festivities – despite the fact that a number of rabbis were teaching that God’s rule would suddenly and dramatically break into history, led by a messianic strongman who would set everything right.
“In fact,” Jesus says, “the kingdom is already here. You just don’t see it.”
As he puts it, “the kingdom of God is ENTOS you – it is in your midst or among you.” Picture Jesus encircled by Pharisees. Where is this kingdom? they ask. Right here, he replies. When the kingdom comes, everyone will finally see the King, right? Well, take a good, long look. The King you’ve been waiting for all these years is standing right here in front of you.
Yes, we’re putting words into Jesus’ mouth.
But this scenario is not only consistent with everything else we read in the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) but is embraced by the majority of contemporary scholars and translators.
ENTOS reminds us that we can stumble into needless trouble whenever we insist that Greek words have only one meaning.
Shirley Maclaine, meanwhile, continues to pursue her journey of self-discovery at age 91 – which actually might help us recall a well-worn riddle:
What’s the difference between you and God?
God doesn’t think he’s you.