Purpose of Pastors and churches (little 'c')

The purpose of a pastor, whether he or she works with adults, children, or youth, is to equip church members to do the work of the Kingdom of God (Ephesians 4:12). Specifically, the purpose of gathering together at church each week is to prepare believers to go out and be the Church in their daily lives outside of the church building. The work of the Kingdom of God can happen on the weekends in a church building … but it is supposed to grow, spread, and build outside of the church walls during the week. If a church congregation focuses on building itself and not the Kingdom, it is simply either a social club or an insular self-help group. Demographic research shows that what most people look for in a church is recreation. Accordingly, many churches (believe it or not) attempt to accommodate, often to the point where recreation and entertainment becomes an end unto itself. This is the worst case scenario. Only slightly better is the pastor and church that focuses on the spiritual (i.e. the moral) life of members but provide no direction for that personal growth. Remember: in this age, the primary purpose of being moral, of being Christ-like, is to do the work of the Kingdom of God. It may be a cliché, but too often liberal Christians want to pursue Kingdom goals without the morality, while conservative Christians want to pursue morality with limited Kingdom goals. You cannot separate morality from Kingdom purposes. The Kingdom without morality is self-defeating. Morality without the Kingdom is purposeless. You need both. Pastors and churches are there to prepare you to do both.

The Parables of the Talents/Minas - Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-27

Most people have long supposed that Biblical parables that speak of a king going away and coming back again are to be read without question as meaning Jesus going away (in death, resurrection, and exaltation), leaving the Church with spiritual gifts and tasks to perform, and then coming back a long time later to see how they’ve been getting on.

In truth, these parables, in their first century context, were about Yahweh going away at the time of the Exile, having left the Jews with the Torah and the vocation to be the light of the world, and Yahweh now returning.

Jesus saw the coming of Yahweh back to Zion as an event so intimately bound up in his own ministry and its immediately climax that he could speak of the one in terms of the other. 

Brief Info on Elders/Pastors/Bishops

This week I sent a woman a research paper I wrote a decade ago about the various Scriptural basis for women’s complete engagement in the church. In doing so, I was reminded about the function of pastors in a church.

In the Bible, the terms “elder”, “pastor”, and “bishop” are used interchangeably referring to the same function of use in the church (Acts 20:17,28-30; Titus 1:5-9; 1 Peter 5:1-3). The qualifications and work are identical. The purpose of an elder/pastor/bishop is to teach and mentor younger believers in the faith (1 Tim 3:2; 4:13; 5:17; 2 Tim 3:13-17; 4:2; Titus 1:7, 9; 1 Peter 5:1-2) so that the latter can become fully functioning members of the Kingdom of God. In this way, every mature believer teaching sound doctrine can be an elder/pastor/bishop to a younger (less mature) believer. In this way, every Sunday School teacher (teaching children all the way to adults) is a an elder/pastor/bishop.

Here is a bit of controversy: elders/pastors/bishops have no authority over other believers (Matthew 20:25-26; 1 Timothy 2:12; 1 Peter 5:2-3). When in seminary, I used to receive howls of protests from future pastors when I would make the argument that pastors are not supposed to have authority over other believers. I would point to the above Scriptures and several others to no avail. Usually, I would ask them “what authority do elders/pastors/bishops then have?”

Going back to my research paper, I noted that women can be elders/pastors/overseers (1 Timonthy 5:2; Titus 2:3), deacons (Romans 16:1; 1 Timothy 3:11), prophets (Exodus 15:20; Judges 4:4; 2 Kings 22:14; Isaiah 8:3; Luke 2:36), and apostles (Romans 16:7).

Specifically, with regards to being an elder/pastor/bishop, elder women have the same responsibility and purpose as their male counterparts: to mentor young believers in the faith (Titus 2:3-5).

Reading Hamlet: Fatal Flaws

I finished reading Hamlet Friday night. I don’t think there is too much novel to say about this play that hasn’t been said countless times before (I could revolutionize your thinking of the Henriad, though). However, I still maintain my opinion of the past 20 years that the character of Hamlet does not have a fatal flaw. I argued this with my high school English teacher and then again with my university professors. Generally, the idea is that the play Hamlet conforms to the classical forms of Greek tragedy as expressed in Aristotle’s Poetics, including the necessity of the harmartia, the error or fatal flaw that, in the thinking of Dante, moves the hero to act in a way that moves the plot towards its tragic end, enabling the audience to experience Catharsis. Shakespeare employs this classical device with the jealousy of Othello, the ambition of Macbeth, and the pleasure as a dynamic of power of Antony and Cleopatra. Nevertheless, I maintain that such classical forms begin to breakdown when it comes to Hamlet. Perhaps, the theoretical Ur-Hamlet contained a harmartia, but subsequent re-writes by Shakespeare (some of which is evident between the First Quarto and First Folio) may have been eliminated as he continued to reexamine his work. The most popular theory is that Hamlet suffers from indecisiveness which leads to a delay of justice. In this view, Hamlet waits to long to seek his revenge upon Claudius. Instead of immediately believing the Ghost’s accusations, Hamlet searches for proof. Having found proof, Hamlet doesn’t immediately attack Claudius when the latter is vulnerable at prayer. Accordingly, if Hamlet had killed Claudius outright – even during prayer – he would have avoided disaster. I’ve never bought this theory. Certainly Hamlet is unsure about the truthfulness of the ghost but he decisively decides to find proof in a specifically planned ruse that successfully verifies what the ghost told Hamlet. One could fault Hamlet for not wanting to kill Claudius at prayer … but this is one episode that is never again remarked upon and does not spring from a pattern of behavior. Hamlet specifically and decisively avoids killing Claudius at prayer so the latter will not go to heaven at death. In every move he makes, Hamlet thinks about what his options are, what his questions are, debates within himself, and then proceeds along a predetermined plan to solve his problems. And most of the time his decisions are correct. The one grave mistake he makes is the impulsive killing of Polonius who is hiding behind a curtain. Hamlet, in the midst of a heated exchange with his mother, angrily thinks the figure hiding in the room is Claudius and kills him. The mistaken killing of Polonius leads to Hamlet’s exile, the death of Ophelia, the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and almost every other major character. But even in this major error, Hamlet acts decisively. In fact, he acts impulsively, without thinking, completely out of his normal character, and kills the wrong man. What then can we say about Hamlet’s fatal flaw? That he once acted out of character? That sort of flies in the face of the whole idea of a character’s fatal flaw. I think the complexity of Hamlet’s character and that of the play itself goes far beyond the traditional constraints of classical forms of tragedy.

Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon, by Tom Stoppard: A Review

Yesterday, in between long bouts of sleeping, I finished reading the novel Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon, by Tom Stoppard. Stoppard is one of my favorite writers and, in my opinion, the greatest currently living. Lord Malquist is his first and only novel written in 1966 before he began writing the plays and film scripts for which he became renowned. The book has been in and out of print for the past 50 years and, naturally, is considered and oddity in Stoppard’s oeuvre. I’ve had a copy of the book for a couple of years now but only started reading it recently.

Despite being written in the mid-sixties, the book is quite like Stoppard’s “lighter” works from the seventies. There is no overall philosophical point to the work like his more “serious” plays … the book is just a lot of fun. Sure, there are a lot of witty asides about literature, politics, relationships, and religion, but nothing tying it altogether as a cohesive work. This is not a criticism, only a description. Stoppard’s On the Razzle has no meaningful point at all, but it’s a masterpiece and the funniest play ever written.

Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon is set around the day of Churchill’s funeral and is about a man, named Moon, who is hired to be the biographer of the ninth Lord of Malquist (the Boswell to Malquist’s Johnson). Moon is something of a radical who keeps a ticking bomb on his person waiting for someone in society to offend him enough to use it. Lord Malquist is a dandified effete who has a pet lion (banned from the Ritz), drives around in an 18^th century carriage, and is at the end of his financial rope.

Also thrown in are two cowboys in constant warfare throughout London, the frustrated servants of Malquist, a general, a donkey, the wives of the two main characters, and an anarchist out for revenge.

My favorite character is an Irishman who believes himself to be The Risen Christ. Any other author would use such a character to make fun of Jesus or the Christian Faith. Stoppard does neither. This character, though clearly delusional, is quite serious about the part and is doing his best to behave accordingly. The other characters, of course, realize he is mad but either don’t want to hurt his feelings or (in Malquist’s case) are just as mad as he is. Some of the best lines and most poignantly funny moments come from The Risen Christ.

I really didn’t know what to expect from this lone, mostly out-of print, Stoppard novel so my expectations were actually pretty low. That was a good thing because I came away pleasantly surprised.

The Resurrected Body

One of the oddities of the Resurrection of the Jesus was the body that Jesus now had.

It was indeed a physical body that could be touched (Matthew 28:9; Luke 24:39) and could touch things (Luke 24:30; John 21:13). He could breathe (John 20:22) and he could eat (Luke 24:41-43; John 21:12-15). It was a physical body in every sense that one can imagine. Indeed, it was the very same body that Jesus had before he was resurrected. We know this from the fact that it had the scars of the crucifixion (Luke 24:39; John 20:20, 27).

Yet, while it was the same body, it was also a changed body. The people who knew him best did not always recognize him at first (Luke 24:15-31; John 20:4). The body was able to appear and disappear (Luke 24:31, 36; John 20:19, 26).

This was not simply a resuscitated corpse (John 11:44) but a complete retranslation of the same body in a new context. This is something that had never happened before and has yet to happen again.

Interestingly enough, in the pre-modern world, particularly among the Greco-Romans, the idea of disembodied ghosts was not an unbelievable idea. However, the concept of a resurrected physical body was considered complete nonsense by those  within the Greek worldview (Acts 17:18, 32). The idea that humans are holistic beings in which body and spirit are indivisible is a Hebrew concept. The body does not have a soul; the body is a soul (נֶפֶשׁ nephesh; ψυχή psyche).

The importance of this for Christians is that while everyone dies and both body and spirit afre destroyed and "sleep" in the earth, one day all believers will be resurrected (both body and spirit) into glorified bodies like Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:52; 2 Corinthians 3:18). This is why Jesus is referred to as the first fruits of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20, 23).

The Book of J: A Review

I just finished re-reading The Book of J, by Harold Bloom (translated by David Rosenberg). The books of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) are comprised a four primary sources, usually designated by the letters J, E, D, and P. J stands for Jahweh or Yahweh because this source uses the name of Yahweh for God, while the E source uses Elohim for God. The J-Writer’s material starts in Genesis 2 and covers parts of the rest of Genesis, parts of Exodus and Numbers, and minute parts of Deuteronomy.

The Book of J, by Bloom and Rosenberg, is an attempt to isolate just the J material and organize it as its originally-intended, self-contained work.

Rosenberg, as translator, more or less succeeds. He brings out the books Ancient Near Eastern qualities. The reads more like an early 20^th century translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh than the New International Version or even the New American Standard. One thing that I greatly appreciate is the attempts to indicate the puns and wordplay in the original Hebrew. This doesn’t make for smooth reading but it does highlight the J-Writer’s talents as an author.

(I say “author” even though the commentator, Harold Bloom, frequently mentions his theory that the J-Writer was a woman.)

Other than Luke, the J-Writer is probably the greatest of the Biblical writers (Deutero-Isaiah, the author of Job, and the author of Judges is also up there). He had an enormous God-given talent for characterization, epic-writing, plot development, wordplay, and the arrangement of the historical material. He also had a profound reverence for Yahweh and a thorough understanding for how God was using the children of Abraham to bless the whole world and renew Creation.

Purely as literature, J’s work is an amazing achievement. He puts great characterization within the framework of an epic backdrop of history, intermixed with funny, tragic, and poignant scenes. Here Yahweh physically interacts with people, historic figures go from highs to lows to highs, angels and “gods” interact with humans, we have the intimacy of personal meals around the fire and the cataclysmic destruction of cities an armies. It’s sort of like the Hebrew version of The Lord of the Rings.

The portrayal of Yahweh is probably the best in the Bible. In the J source, Yahweh physically walks around with his people, making Man out of mud with his hands, enjoying a meal with Abraham, and personally burying Moses. Here Yahweh’s sense of humor is often on display. He jokes with his people, points out irony, and makes puns (On a side note: this is why I believe the pun is the highest form of humor and not the lowest). We also see Yahweh’s profound sense of justice for both his people and the injustices innocent people suffer everywhere, even if those people worship other gods. And even in the midst of his wrath at the injustices done, Yahweh shows both grace and patience, even to the most evil of people. You can see where Jesus got it from.

Some of the funniest (most disturbing?) parts of the book are the ways in which the J-Writer highlights the faults of Israel’s neighbors (the Edomites, the Moabites, and the Ammonites) by focusing on the sins and stupidity of their ancestors. Sure, he does it to Israel too … but he’s a little bit rougher on the distant relatives. Not very culturally sensitive based upon the contemporary notions in post-modernity … but if you have a problem with it … take it up with the J’s Editor.

I would not recommend the commentary in the second half of the book to too many people. Harold Bloom is a phenomenal literary critic with keen insights into literature but he doesn’t understand religion. Every time he has delved into realms of faith and practice it’s laughable. The Book of J is no exception. Read the commentary for the literary insights and skip over the inept attempts to talk about the ancient Yahweh-worship among the Israelites.

Three Reasons for the Resurrection

1)      Jesus was vindicated. When God raised Jesus from the dead, it proved that God supported Jesus’ message and claims. It proved Jesus’ claims to be a prophet of God and the Messiah. It proved his claims of the coming of the Kingdom of God, the return of God to Zion, and the imminent judgment of Israel by God via destruction by Rome.

2)      Death and Evil were defeated. The Resurrection proved that evil and death could do their worst on Jesus and his followers but that God would ultimately prevail. Death cannot hold Jesus.

3)      New Creation inaugurated. The Resurrection of Jesus was evidence that God was fulfilling his promise to save the world and resurrect his followers into unperishable bodies. Jesus was the “first fruits” of that promise.

Three Arguments for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus

1)      Hundreds of people were witnesses to the resurrection, many of them known historical personages, writing their accounts contemporaneously.

2)      Saul of Tarsus was a well-known zealot and persecutor of the followers of Jesus, who denied the resurrection and used violence in an attempt to squash the nascent Christian movement. His experience of seeing the resurrected Jesus on his journey to Damascus was the cause of this immediate conversion to Christianity. This historical episode is well-founded and by various sources, including three by Saul (now Paul) himself.

3)      The third argument is based on the cultural expectation of the Messiah to which Jesus made his claim and his followers agreed. For a century prior to Jesus and a century following, many individuals made claims to be the Messiah. The three qualifications of a Messiah were as follows: sit on the throne of David, rebuild the Temple, and defeat Israel’s enemies. Yet, every single one of them died by some form or another, usually by Rome, disproving to everyone, particularly, their followers, that they were not the Messiah. A dead Messiah was a failed Messiah. It would be something of a historical anomaly for people to say, “You know that guy who was killed by the Romans … maybe he was the Messiah.” That doesn’t make historic sense. In Jesus case, there had to have been something that superseded the basic disqualification of being put to death by Rome.

Here are Four Primary Theological Reasons Why Jesus Was Crucified.

1)      Jesus as prophet was performing a prophetic act predicting the destruction of Israel by Rome if Israel did not repent its current mode of being the people of God.

2)      God saw Jesus sinless and selfless obedience unto death as a pleasing act of love and devotion. Therefore, endorsing both his message, his means, and his claim to be the Messiah, God raised Jesus from the dead.

3)      In an act of grace, God chose to resurrect all who repent and follow Jesus, declaring that he would identify all such people with the sinless, self-less, obedient live and death of Jesus.

4)      Jesus intended his followers to use his life, message, and obedient death as an example of what true discipleship and true humanity is like.

Sin vs. Sin-Offering: A Note on 2 Corinthians 5:21

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Something worth noting about this verse. In some of your Bibles you might see a footnote attached to the second use of “sin” in this verse. This is because the the traditional interpretation of the second use of “sin” (harmatia) had usually been translated as “sin”, but now is now more frequently translated as “sin-offering”.

The Greek word harmartia (ἁμαρτία) is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint or LXX) for the Hebrew word chatta'ath (חַטָּאָת) which can be translated as both “sin” and “sin-offering”. The ancient Israelites used chatta'ath for both words. Only context makes the distinction.

A good example of this is found in Leviticus 4:3. “If the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord a bull without defect as a sin offering (chatta'ath) for the sin (chatta'ath) he has committed.”

Again, context is the only way to discern whether the writer is referring to sin or sin-offering.

With regards to 2 Corinthians 5:21, the context suggests that “sin-offering” would be a better translation/interpretation of harmatia.

First, there are a several passages in the Bible that refer to Christ in sacrificial/offering terms

(e.g., Rom. 8:3; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 9:26; 10:12).

Second, it seems unlikely that anyone, let alone Jesus, could become sin. Sin is something one commits. Even the word “sinful” refers to the amount of sin one commits, not that one has sin abounding in them. One commits adultery; one is not adultery itself. One commits thievery; one is not thievery itself. Jesus never sinned so he is not sinful, let alone sin itself.

It seems more likely that Paul intended his audience to understand Jesus in this verse as a sin-offering. Jesus offered himself to God as a sin-less representative of Man willing to sacrifice himself for others.

The 1953 Iranian "Coup"

I’ve seen a couple of instances in the news recently about how in 1953, the United States “engineered a coup, crushing a moment of democracy in Iran”. As a student of history, allow me to explain what occurred.

Mohammad Mosaddegh was duly elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1951. One of his first acts was to seize the assets of foreign oil companies in Iran. His domestic policies began to drive the Iranian economy into the ground. He became highly unpopular. He thus convinced the Iranian Parliament to grant him emergency powers. He thus began to jail his political opponents. At the same time, Mosaddegh started an alliance with the Soviet Union which led to Iranian communists infiltrating the military, attacking Mossaddegh opponents, and stifling political dissent. Eventually, the Iranian Communist Party became Mosaddegh’s foot-soldiers. As his popularity continued to plummet and members of his own party began resigning in mass from Parliament, Mosaddegh rigged an election referendum that dissolved Parliament. He then assumed complete dictatorial power over Iran. The Shah (the ruling monarch) attempted to use his constitutional authority to have Mossaddegh removed from power. Instead, Mossaddegh ignored the Shah’s constitutional authority (and thus the Iranian Constitution) and began arresting Shah supporters. The Shah himself was forced to flee to Iraq. Now dictator over all of Iran but having his supporters reduced to only Soviet-backed communists, Mossaddegh sent his foot soldiers out to arrest more political opponents and beat back the growing national protests against his dictatorial rule. Fearing that Iran was about to completely fall into the Soviet bloc with another communist dictator as supreme leader, the U.S. approached the Shah and loyal military leaders and helped organize and support the move that eventually led to Mosaddegh’s removal from power.

This is how the U.S. “engineered a coup, crushing a moment of democracy in Iran”.

Jesus' Prophecy of the Temple

Let’s dig into Jesus’ “Cleansing of the Temple”. During his final week before crucifixion in Jerusalem, Jesus went to the Temple, the place where God resides (the Shekhinah), and began overturning the money-changing tables. He then said, “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” (Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46)

Jesus’ words were actually quotes from two Old Testament prophecies. The first is from Isaiah 56:7.

“Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”

This verse is from a prophetic oracle about God bringing together Gentiles, foreigners, eunuchs, and outcasts from all the world, from all nations, to worship him, not excluding anyone because of their ethnicity or station in life.

The second is from Jeremiah 7:11.

“Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the Lord.”

If you read the entire prophetic oracle of Jeremiah 7, you learn that it’s about God preparing to bring down judgment upon the whole of Judah for its sins against God and man. This prophecy was fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE.

Put together with his actions to temporarily halt the legitimate business of the Temple, it seems that Jesus’ intention was to enact a prophetic oracle announcing God’s imminent judgment upon the Temple itself and Israel in general. This prophecy was fulfilled with the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.

Eli, Elijah, and Confusion over the Crucifixion

While on the cross, Jesus was heard to cry out, "Eli Eli lama sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34)

Many of those who hear Jesus say this mistakenly believe that he is crying out for Elijah (Eli – Elijah). This source of linguistic confusion is why the gospels record what Jesus says in the original Aramaic before giving the Greek translation.

The reason that the gospel writers include this anecdote of confusion in the crucifixion narrative is to highlight the real confusion that is taking place. Throughout this whole episode, everyone is completely misunderstanding what is happening to Jesus.

Jesus has been identifying himself as a prophet from God and proclaiming a specific prophecy about the immanence of the Kingdom of God and approaching judgment. Now that he has been arrested and crucified it looks like God has abandoned him and he is being punished. The comments by people in Matthew 27, Mark 15, and Luke 23 indicate that this is the general opinion.

And at first appearance, Jesus’ cry of "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34) seems to indicate. In fact, Jesus is quoting the first line of Psalm 22. This particular psalm is about a man who is under tremendous suffering at it looks like God has completely abandoned him (vv. 1-23). However, in verse 24, the poem takes a dramatic turn:

“For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither has he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.”

The whole point of this psalm is that even though it looks like God has abandoned/punished the person afflicted, the truth is actually the complete opposite. God has not forsaken the sufferer.

So when Jesus alludes to Psalm 22, he is indicating that even though it looks as if God is abandoning/punishing Jesus, the truth is that God is there with him in his suffering and will vindicate the afflicted.

“Let his blood be on us and our children.”

In Matthew 27:24-25, when Pilate tells the crowd calling for Jesus’ crucifixion that “this man’s blood … is your responsibility,” the people answer, “Let his blood be on us and our children.”

Some people throughout history have used this verse as an excuse to legitimize their anti-Semitism. Their thinking here is that this verse teaches that this small crowd of Jews in Jerusalem 2000 years ago was accepting responsibility (i.e., blame) for the death of Christ in the name of all Jews everywhere for two millennia and onward.

The idea is nonsense but some people unfamiliar with Christianity and the Bible still believe that’s what these verses are trying to convey. I’m sure the very Jewish gospel writer, Matthew, would be surprised to learn of this interpretation.

I think a better interpretation is that Matthew the irony of the situation. While this small group of Jews who have been persuaded by the chief priests and elders to call for Jesus’ death is taking personal responsibility for that death, they are unwittingly calling for the cleansing, sacrificial blood of Christ to be upon them (1 Cor. 10:16; Eph. 2:13; Heb. 9:14, 10:19; 1 Pet 1:2, 19; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5, 7:14, 12:11).

What they intended as a curse, God turned it into a blessing.

Best Albums of the Year 2014

Best Albums of the Year 2014

Rock or Bust (2014) - AC/DC

Straight Up (1971) - Badfinger

Morning Phase (2014) - Beck

Turn Blue (2014) - The Black Keys

Sonic Highways (2014) - Foo Fighters

Vu de l'extérieur (1973) - Serge Gainsbourg

Granicus (1973) - Granicus

Preservation Act 1 (1973) - The Kinks

Endless River (2014) - Pink Floyd

Primus & the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble (2014) - Primus

John Henry (1994) - They Might Be Giants

Songs of Innocence (2014) - U2 [Not sure how this got here. I just went to iTunes and suddenly this album appeared in my Best Albums of the Year list.]

The Best Album of the Year goes to Beck for Morning Phase.

R. N. Whybray's Isaiah 40-66 (The New Century Bible Commentary)

I finished reading R. N. Whybray's  commentary on Deutero-Isaiah (40-66) tonight. It was an enjoyable work, particularly technical with some good analyses of Deutero-Isaiah theology. It was very much the type of work one expects The New Century Bible Commentary series (The Anchor Bible Commentary Series is still the overall best).

Deutero-Isaiah is one of the most important works in the Bible and one of the deepest. Written during the time of the Israelite exile in Babylon, Deutero-Isaiah's purpose is to announce to those in exile that Yahweh has not forgotten them. Indeed, the prophet announces that Yahweh is about to free them from Babylonian captivity through his servant, Cyrus, and send them back to their homeland. It's at this point that the prophet reveals the full scope of Yahweh's plan. Not only is God going to redeem Israel but he is going to redeem the whole world through Israel, bringing Gentiles into God's people, bringing in the poor and outcasts, and reversing the Fall of Man, reversing the curse upon creation, and establishing a New Creation. This is the presentation of the great sweep of God's original plan and here, at Israel's lowest point, the whole purpose Yahweh's promise to Abraham and the purpose of Israel is made known.

I had only two major problems with Whybray's book. First, he argues the case for chapters 56-66 being the work of separate post-Exilic author. This is a popular viewpoint among scholars but I am still unconvinced. In fact, having read Whybray's presentation of the evidence I am even more convinced at the flimsiness of the position. Secondly, Whybray argues that the Suffering Servant of Deutero-Isaiah refers to Deutero-Isaiah himself. I think his argument here is pretty shallow and contorted. Traditional scholarship has identified the Suffering Servant as a personification of Israel. I think this traditional view is the correct one and even Whybray has to argue for conjectured interpolations into the manuscript to argue his position. These are theoretical interpolations not found in the LXX or the Dead Sea Scrolls and do not break the meter of the poetry.

Still, despite these two objections, I was pleased with the overall thrust of the work, most of its individual parts, and the historical-cultural insights it taught me about Deutero-Isaiah.

Thought Processes and Leadership in the Kingdom of God [A Fragment of an Uncompleted Article]

[A few months ago, a seminary friend asked me to write an article for his blog. I wrote the following, but, even after four separate attempts, I couldn't come up with a satisfactory conclusion. I ended up writing something else but in a similar vein. However, I think there are some good nuggets in here despite its fragmentary form.]

"One thing I learned from my father is to try to think as the people around you think." - Michael Corleone, The Godfather II

"He puts himself in the man's place, having first gauged his intelligence. Then he imagines how he himself would have proceeded in similar circumstances." - Dr. John Watson, The Musgrave Ritual (Granada - 1986), explaining Sherlock Holmes' method

I love both of these two quotes because I think they encapsulate something fundamental about practical life.

Certainly, I think every individual is more than the sum of his or her parts. As Reinhold Niebuhr noted, the human being is finite but is conscious of the limits and contours of his/her finiteness. Because of this knowledge, he/she can aspire beyond that finiteness, though never reaching beyond it. But because of this aspiration to infinity, humans have the ability to explore their finiteness in a way beyond the capability of other species. We can diverge from our predetermined paths. We can rise above our base instincts. We can self-examine ourselves and our lives. We can know that we know. We can actually pull ourselves out of our context (at least partially) and grasp the eternal truth in which our context must ultimately submit.

However, such an ability can only be exercised through submission, humbleness, wisdom through fear, knowing we know nothing, and the recognition of our own finiteness in the face of infinity. And that takes willful purpose. That involves the realization and recognition of the culture, context, and patterns of our existence, the analyzing of culture etc., and the choice to deviate. Unfortunately, most people never realize there is anything beyond their context. Therefore, people nevertheless tend to follow regular patterns of thought and behavior because it is the most natural thing for them to do.

So ... if you can work out a person's pattern, their personality, background, worldview, belief system, character, major life experiences, influences, etc., then you can begin to ascertain how someone thinks and then how that person behaves in different situations. Once you've gauged the person's thought processes, their behaviors, and even  their modus operandi, then you can make predictions about how they will think and react to a given circumstance.

For the Christian, the importance of knowing thought processes is how to positively engage an individual for the strategic purposes of the Kingdom of God.

God Wins

One of the things about the Christian Faith is the option to look at the universe, creation, and history from a wide perspective. I'm reminded of an episode of the BBC murder mystery show Inspector Lewis in which a Oxford professor who studied the Greek classics admitted his unconcern with the trivial details of day-to-day life because he thought in terms of thousand year eras. For the Christian, God created the universe some 13 billion years ago. He began creating the earth 4 billion years ago. He created man at some point and then inaugurated the salvation of this world some 4,000 years ago with the calling of Abraham. It was only some 2,000 years ago that the Kingdom of God came, breaking into history, in the person and work of Jesus and his Church. And as Jesus proved at his resurrection: God wins. New creation is coming. The thorns and thistles that cycle through our lives and the up and downs that cycle through our world that can seem so relevant to our existence are really just blips in the overall working out of God's plan for the salvation of his creation. As Christians, we are called to do good works for the Kingdom of God, seeking God's guidance in how to best do so. If we ask him, he'll give it. It is in the confidence of God's victory and in the assurance of the hope of God's ultimate justice that we place our faith. God wins. Everything else we do is the working out of that ultimate cosmic salvation in the tasks and mission that God in Christ gives us. All anxiety and worry should just fall away. God wins. A wider perspective of creation and history should cause one to throw their sufferings and anxieties on God and trust in his salvific work. God wins.

Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology

The other day I finished reading Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology. Charles L. Campbell (Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Hans Frei's Postliberal TheologyEssentially, the book is an exploration of the thought, teaching, and context of Frei's use of narrative preaching.The context seems to be the reemergence of biblical preaching by mainline denomination liberals as their move away from subjective religious experience and back towards the centrality of Jesus and the meta-narrative told through the Scriptures. During the 1960s, liberal preachers began to abandon neo-orthodoxy in favor of a more private spirituality and a secular politics, both completely divorced from the Christ event.

Much of the book - literary interpretations of the Bible, the meta-narrative of the Scriptures, refocus on neo-orthodoxy - is "old hat" to me. My studies of Kierkegaard, Mullins, Barth, Brunner, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Moody, Stagg, Buber, and Wright taught me all this long ago. But it is nice to see liberal Christians starting to get it right to some degree.

The most interesting aspect of this book for me was the examination of how people become "Christians" culturally and how they come to believe what they believe. Essentially, the thesis here is that becoming a "Christian" is a process of socialization or enculturation within a particular cultural-linguistic community. One doesn't become a "Christian" by having a "religious experience" but by learning the particular language and set of practices inherent in Christianity, a denomination, and a particular faith tradition. Furthermore, people learn the "meaning" of a scriptural teaching and their way of "interpreting" Scripture by adopting the cultural practices of their faith community, not by drawing upon the sensus literalis.  All of this is really about the practical process of how individuals and community arrive at Biblical interpretation and theology, regardless of accuracy. All of this can be quite depressing to the learned Christian but it really seems to be the way the majority "Christianize" themselves in practice.

Frei is said to argue that the function of the gospels is to render the identity of Jesus. I find this highly questionable but probably only overstated.

I greatly appreciated Frei's assessment that Jesus enacted the way of God in the world as an embodiment of the reign of God. I think this is right on the money. This dips slightly into some of the deeper areas of Scriptural studies involving Jesus self-understanding and prophetic vocation.

I really don't think there are any deeper aspects of Scripture studies than the theology of Job, Roman 1, Deutero-Isaiah, and Jesus' personal understanding of his prophetic vocation.

The book is fairly technical and might be of some interest to preachers. However, it's probably more interesting to those who study preaching. And though I think most evangelicals would find this book uninteresting, liberal and more progressive Christians would find the more practical homiletic parts very useful.

"Judge not ..."

Sometimes when one points out that a particular behavior is contrary to God's will, others will condemn that pronouncement by citing the first part of  Jesus' teaching in Matthew 7, saying, "Judge not".

The people in this context that cite this statement interpret it to mean that one must never judge another person's behavior to be wrong. I am under no delusion that anyone who does so is actually attempting to offer Scriptural wisdom  - they simply don't like being told that a particular behavior is wrong and they are looking for the easiest way to deflect their guilt.

Obviously, we make judgments about behavior every day. Judges and juries are supposed to do it. Jesus in John 7:24 is quoted as saying, "Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

Indeed, Telling someone that it is wrong to judge is actually judging someone and their behavior. Therefore, under the "never-tell-anyone-they-are wrong" interpretation, it is wrong to tell someone to "judge not". It's hypocrisy.

Again, I know that no one who cites "judge not" in the above manner is really concerned with the meaning of Jesus' teaching and the inner-contradictions of their misinterpretations - they just don't like the guilt of being told they're wrong.

Let's actually look at "judge not" in its context.

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" (Matt7:1-5).

As the context makes perfectly clear, the purpose of pointing out the sin in someone's life is to help that person remove it. It's not simply the proclamation of error but the call to turn towards a more authentic way of living. For someone to be upset that someone is attempting to guide them towards the removal of serious error in their life is like going to a doctor with breathing problems and becoming angry when he suggests the cure.

"Mr. Smith, you need to stop smoking. It's damaging your health." "'Judge not lest ye be judged!'" "Uh, but I don't smoke." "'Physician, heal thyself!'" "Actually, I'm a general prac-" "'"Shut the heck up," thus sayeth the Lord!'"

Jesus is saying that one cannot help remove the sin from someone's life if they are engaging in that sin as well. You can't help someone with their drunkenness if you are a drunk. You can't help someone with their lying if you are a liar. You can't help someone with their immorality if you also engage in immorality. You can't help someone with their hypocritical use of "judge not" if you are hypocritically using "judge not."

1-3 John (The IVP New Testament Commentary Series), by Marianne Meye Thompson

This weekend, I finished reading Marianne Meye Thompson's commentary on the Epistles of  John for The IVP New Testament Series. Thompson is probably one of the best female Biblical scholars in the world today and certainly one of the best when it comes to the Johannine works. I've read many of her works and conversed with her through email in my early days of seminary when I was leaning towards Johannine studies. I subsequently followed Lucan studies.

I think it is really necessary for the Christian interested in 1-3 John to read good commentaries upon the subject. John frequently writes in general, universal, absolutist, and dichotomous manner which can cause the faithful reader to make thought applications not intended by the author.

A good commentary will help the reader put some of the more stringent statements of John in context, both the context of the letters, the situation in which the letters were written, and within the overall Johnannine corpus. This is what Thompson does in her book.

1-3 John continues to be even more relevant today with its focus on love, truth, fellowship, division, and discipleship. With so much of the North American church adopting new, pseudo-definitions of what it means to love, hate, and pursue the truth, it's important for those followers of Jesus who still have their feet planted in the mission of the church to adequately relate to those other members of the church.

Here is one of my two favorite quotes from the commentary:

"Sacrificial love that models itself after Jesus' example does not enable the destructive behavior of others, but encourages them in actions that lead to love and life, and to healing and wholeness."

Telling the Grand Story to Our Children

We all love good stories. From the earliest cave sketchings to the latest award winning movie and TV show, there seems to be something intrinsic that God put into human nature to want to tell and hear great stories about life and learning. From an early age we are told nursery rhymes and fairy tales and learn all about the adventures of great heroes and heroines. When we go to school we hear the stories of great kings and queens and about the Founding Fathers of our country and the great men and women who shaped American history. These stories are important to tell as they ground children in the American experience and provide points of reference and context for how students are to interpret the contemporary world. All nations, all movements, all people groups have grand stories about themselves and their history that are used to orientate and educate their children and explain to them their culture's identity and worldview.

One of the chief characteristics of our contemporary world and its currently fashionable philosophies is an incredulity towards such grand stories, based upon the belief that they are created and reinforced by power structures seeking self-validation and are therefore untrustworthy. Personally, I am not necessarily adverse to this critique of grand cultural stories insofar as it rightly addresses the issue of stories told by a group of people in order to legitimize a particular worldview or privilege. Our world is full of people and cultures attempting to justify worldviews and ways of life contrary to God's expectations. However, I do believe that grand stories are fundamentally useful and should not be dismissed offhand but rather critiqued on the basis of how close they correspond to God's revealed Word. Nevertheless, grand stories are too often used for social and epistemic validation and are the driving force buttressing a particularly cherished worldview.

Christianity, of course, has its own grand story told through the Bible, the person of Jesus, and the Gospel message. However, the important difference between the Christian story and most others is that instead of a grand story propping up a worldview, Christianity is a story in search of a worldview. It's a complete reversal of the way much of the world acts. Christianity already has a definitive, over-arching story to be told and understood; it's not telling new stories in order to validate a pre-existing social order or conception. At most, Christians are continually re-examining the established story in hopes of creating a worldview and social order that corresponds with the narrative.

This is why telling the grand story of God's redeeming work to our children is so central to establishing  a proper worldview for Kingdom work. Without a proper foundation in a proper, grand story, children will develop other worldviews (usually unauthentic, self-serving worldviews) and then seek the stories, the narratives, and the "truths" that seem to best validate that worldview. The worldview is now buttressing one's sinful, self-serving nature. Ultimately, all false stories crack and eventually crumble when unavoidably confronted with reality, casting doubt upon the worldview and threatening an individual's self-validating conception. This is why the book of Proverbs teaches parents to train children in the way they should so they will not depart from it when they are older (22:6). This is why the Israelites continually told the story of God redeeming them from slavery. We must firmly immerse our children in the Biblical narrative to prepare them for effective, God-honoring lives when they grow older - lives that develop a Christian worldview of authentic, self-giving values.

Here are some important ways we as parents can do so:

·         Get your child an age-appropriate Bible. There are great children's and learner's Bibles available that focus on the stories of the Bible and teach fundamental principles of the Faith.

·         Read these stories to your children every night. Most good early learning Bibles offer brief synopsis of the stories that can be read in a matter of minutes and can supplement what other stories you read to your child.

·         Find your children videos that tell Bible stories. I'm a huge fan of Veggie Tales. I don't think anyone does Children's Ministry better than Bob and Larry. Those videos teach great Bible stories and other Scriptural lessons in fun, inventive ways that appeal to both children and parents.

·         Get your child involved in a Preschool and Elementary program that . Bethany's Children's Ministry offers a great curriculum that is narrative based. Over the course of your child's involvement in our weekend services, he or she will learn all the major stories of the Bible in order from Genesis to Revelation. Our curriculum, The Gospel Project, is the perfect way of enriching a child's understanding of the story of God's redemptive work in history through Israel and Jesus.

·         Get your child involved in an AWANA program. This is a wonderful program that teaches Bible stories and Scripture memorization in a fun and entertaining way.

 

Children must be fully inculcated with the story of God's saving work through Christ in history, both in the individual stories of the Bible and the sweeping narrative of the Gospel message.

Without it, our children become divorced from the foundation of life, unable to comprehend a worldview that grows effective, God-honoring lifestyles. Without it, as adults, they are tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching that comes from deceitful people. With it, our children grow into authentic, realized human beings, firmly established in reality and prepared for lives of moral and mental exceptionalism.

 

Resurrection, Religion, and the Fear of Death

I've often hear people espouse the theory that humanity created religion in order to deal with the concept of death. This theory goes that people feared the finality of death and conjured up the idea of an afterlife in order to avoid confronting reality. This theory is probably not without some merit. I am sure there are plenty of people in this world who embrace religion merely to escape this fear.

Based upon their burial practices, there is some evidence that the Neanderthals may have believed in an afterlife. Certainly, the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Canaanite religions believed in a spiritual place after death.

Interestingly enough, the Hebrews and ancient Israelites actually did not believe in an afterlife until after the time of the Babylonian Exile (539 BCE). Up until this later era, general Israelite conceptions of death held that the body was created from dust and naturally returned to dust. The body was considered holistic, not being divided into body and spirit but as a unified materialistic substance. A body didn't have a soul (nephesh); a body was a soul. Therefore, the body, created by God originally from nothing, returned to nothing at death. There was no spirit world to which the immortal body was delivered. Sheol was the representation of the grave, a final resting place for all people in dust.

It is not until after the Exile that a resurrection from the dead began to appear in common Jewish religion. It seems that the Jews began to read Exilic Bible passages about Yahweh's promise to reform the nation of Israel from exile (Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37) as a promise of resurrection of the body from death. This was later picked up by Daniel and 2 Maccabees. By the time of Jesus, the vast majority of Jews believed in a resurrection of the dead.

Resurrection of the dead, of course, is vastly different from other religious ideas of an afterlife. Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans believed that the body died and the spirit continued on in some immaterial, spiritual plane of existence. The Greeks in particular believed that the spirit was an immortal form that existed prior to bodily life and continued after bodily death. The spirit was said to be indestructible and thus continued on. This is a far cry from the idea of the creator god, Yahweh, who brings everything into existence out of nothing. The Jews believed that Yahweh would one day bring back to life all of the materials that made up a person, recreating out of dust the body and spirit of man. This seems to have been a unique view among the ancient world. The Greco-Roman worldview found the idea of a resurrection of the body to be foolish, both religiously and philosophically.

Naturally, the concept of the resurrection of the dead remained a matter of faith and theory for the first several centuries of its existence. It wasn't until around the year 30 CE with the resurrection of Jesus that it was proved that, yes, resurrection of the dead was the creator god's intended purpose for humanity.

So the ancient worshippers of Yahweh (the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) did not embrace religion in order to deal with any fear of death in hopes of an afterlife. In terms of mortality, their adherence to a monotheistic, creator god, one who creates out of nothing, was of almost stoic acceptance to a supreme being whose authority to create and utterly destroy was strictly a divine prerogative.

Thankfully, that prerogative is to recreate and offer the resurrection of the body to those willing to accept it.