Theology for the Masses

Note: This is my first crack at this and it is rough and incomplete.  Also, I whipped this up at 1am after a long, long day.  So be gentle.  I am limited to 1000-1200 words of commentary.  I’m taking some chances with gender and scripture, so think of those areas as an exploration rather than… something else.

Section I – Preamble

We hold the below to be our best understanding of the reality of God, God’s relation to creation, actions within history, and our relation to both the rest of creation and to God. We draw upon the following for our formulations: the Spirit of God speaking through the Scriptures, the wisdom of our fore-parents, the best thinkers of our day, and our communal experience. We recognize that this statement is contextual and need not be universal and may even be wrong. If so, we welcome and humbly scrutinize any criticism as we pursue God and God’s will. This statement of faith will consist of statements which are commented upon in the footnotes.

Section II – The Nature and Relation of God.

We believe in one God who is love[1] and therefore internally and externally communal.[2]

And that this God transcends gender but relates in culturally engendered ways.[3] This God relates to itself and others

1. through the person of the Father, Almighty, judge, and maker of heaven and earth,
2. and through the Logos, [4] the only begotten Son, fully incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth,[5]
3. and through the Paraclete,[6] the Holy Mother,[7] which dwells within the members of Christ’s body and guides them through the Bible.[8]

Section III – Creation

We believe in the material and spiritual creation of all that is by God.[9]

And that there is a plan, purpose, and order to creation and that this plan, purpose, and order were disrupted by sin, rendering the whole of creation alienated from God, introducing chaos, decay, and death.[10]

Section IV – Humanity

We believe that humanity was created by God and imbued with the image of God and charged by God to care for creation in God’s stead.[11]

And that we sinned and continue to sin against God, creation, and one another, marring Shalom and separating ourselves from God, creation, one another, and from spiritual life.

And that humanity was created not to live alone, but as flourishing members of a community.[12]

And that those who accept the grace of God are crafted into the Body of Christ, made citizens of the Kingdom of God, and receive spiritual life anew.[13]

Section V – Scripture

We believe that Scripture consists of the Protestant canon.[14]

And we consider it to be human compositions[15] which were co-opted by God and breathed through by God so that it is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2Ti 3:16 NRS)[16]

And that it is the sole record of God’s revelation in literary form. [17] This message will always need to be translated by the help of the Paraclete into each culture it encounters.[18] In that way, it is subjective.[19] It is objective in that it describes the world as God wills it to be.[20]

Section VI – Redemption

In line with sections III and IV, we loudly proclaim a cosmic no! to the present state of ourselves and the universe. Accordingly, we believe that Jesus’ work on the cross is the means through which he will redeem all of creation.[21] This is happening in part now, but will only be finished at the Parousia. We look to the past for the pristine state, to the original Shalom as that which will be restored.[22] Yet, we also look forward to when heaven and earth will be created anew and heaven will descend upon earth.[23]

And that his begun with the victory of the Resurrection, continues through the present time, and will only be completed at the Parousia. Empowered by the Paraclete, we are agents of the reclamation of both sinful creatures and sin-smashed creation, as image bearers, until Christ finishes the work at the end of this age.

[1] “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1Jo 4:8 NRS)

[2] As love, God must have an object and subject of his loving and since it is dependent upon nothing, there must be plurality within the Godhead. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 195)

[3] God has no sex, save for the humanity of Jesus. God does relate to us in ways that are culturally gendered. He contains both genders, “for male and female he created them, (Gen 1:27 NET)” and so we speak of God as genderful, rather than genderless. God the Father relates to us as in traditionally constructed masculine ways. He creates us, protects us, rebukes us, and loves us. God the Son is sexually male, but genderly neutral. He carries both masculine and feminine attributes as commonly seen in cultures. He is Lord, but also Wonderful Counselor. It is noteworthy that Jesus was sometimes depicted with feminine features in Antique and Late Antique art precisely because of his traditionally feminine traits. (Jensen 2000, 124-128) The Paraclete relates to us as a mother, less as Lord, ruler, and protector, but more as a comforter, and intimate guide. See note 7 for my drawing from Christian traditions on this matter. Furthermore, to emphasize the relational aspect of the trinity, I will use he and she to refer to actions as persons and it to describe unified actions. This is more to underscore the relational nature of the members of the Trinity than anything else.

[4] “In [the] beginning was the Logos and the Logos was beside the God and God was the Logos.” Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. (Joh 1:1 NA27)

[5] "And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us…” (Joh 1:14a YLT)

[6] Just as we take Logos from the Greek in John 1:1, we take Paraclete from it as well later on in John. We are reminded most often of John 14, which is as near as you can get to a Trinitarian statement: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.” (Joh 14:16 NLT)

[7] I follow both Origen of Alexandria and early Syriac Christians which sometimes described or approvingly quoted works which described the Paraclete as the Divine Mother. (Rogers 2009, 119)

[8] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 64-68)

[9] In [the] beginning God created heaven and earth. “in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (Gen 1:1 VUO)

[10] Where there was Shalom, there is now decay, death, violence. The climax of Genesis’ opening creation poem ends with God creating rest on the 7^th day. This rest can be seen as all of history bundled up in this day (see Hebrews 4 for the Future Rest) or as the completion and establishment of harmony in creation and with God, the pristine state which sin marred in the next few chapters of Genesis, the return to which history aspires. (Wirzba 2006, chap. 1-2)

[11] “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27 NET) As image bearers, we rule and cultivate creation in God’s place. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 199) See Gen 1:28 and 2:15 for a scriptural basis.

[12] We were not created as individuals plucked from the void and twisting in the wind. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 203). Instead, we are social animals, who construct, find meaning, and live in community. By community, I refer to Toennies’ idea of Gemeinshaft instead of Gesellshaft. Gemeinshaft refers to “relationships encompassing human beings as full personalities rather than single aspects or roles of human beings,” to which Gesellshaft refers. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 211) This is a by-product of living within God’s design, not an end in and of itself.

[13] Called out of the rebelling masses of humanity are those who respond to the call of God to accept the gift of grace which is offered by Jesus and made possible through his work on the cross, which is the apex of history. Those that respond to the seed of faith are grafted into the body of Christ which is his bride. This body extends temporally from the past, through the present, and into the future, and geographically throughout the whole world. For the seed metaphor, see Luke 8:11-15; for the basis of grace and the cross, see John 3:16 and Col 2:14.

[14] We have no scriptural basis, no manuscript basis, and no scientific basis for this claim. It rests solely upon our faith in the Spirit guiding our historical spiritual community. It was not delivered to us on plates of gold; it came into being through much struggle, trepidation, and time. We listen to other Christian works such as the Catholic Apocrypha, popular Christian devotional and academic works, and even ancient Christian non-canonical texts (such as the Acts of Mar Andrew and Mar Matthias) for human and divine wisdom, but hold the Canon over and above all these as the only set of works co-opted by God as his instrument of communication.

[15] We rebel against the notion that God is the initial crafter of these texts.

[16] We cling onto usefulness and deny the practice of using it as the fourth member of the trinity, as God incarnate.

[17] As such, we elevate it above all other texts and base our construction of the world upon our readings of it. Insofar as worlds are constructed by the language and categories as socio-cultural worlds, the Paraclete creates the Christian world through the melding of the revealed biblical stage and the present and local cultural stage.(Grenz and Franke 2001, 75)

[18]Additionally, it was produced within a specific geo/cultural-historical context and must be translated into each successive and adjacent context by aid of the Paraclete. The Paraclete enhances our ability to read the Bible and understand its overarching narrative and to craft and translate it into our interpretive frameworks. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 81)

[19] Though subjectivity in this sense is not of the same sort that plagues Christian apologists in their nightmares and writings; it is truth in context.

[20] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 272)

[21] “[A]nd through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.” (Col 1:20 NLT)

[22] See Hebrews 4, especially Hebrews 4:9: ‘So then, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God;” (Heb 4:9 NRS)

[23] Consider “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” (Rev 21:1-2 NLT) This will fulfill Jesus’ prayer to God that “May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. (Mat 6:10 NLT)

Anyone know of good sources for Roman rhetorical strategies?  I cam across these three resources that might be of help.  I have come across a primer of the subject in ESF’s commentary on the Apocalypse of John that I am working my way through.

1. R. Dean Anderson, Ancient rhetorical theory and Paul (Peeters Publishers, 1999).
2. Justin T. Gleeson, Rediscovering Rhetoric (Federation Press, 2008).
3. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Gerhard A. Krodel, Revelation (Fortress Press, 1991).
4. Donald Lemen Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman education (Columbia University Press, 1957).

Today’s translated verse of the day is John 3:36:

Greek:

ὁ πιστεύων εἰς τὸν υἱὸν ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον· ὁ δὲ ἀπειθῶν τῷ υἱῷ οὐκ ὅψεται ζωὴν, ἀλλ’ ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ μένει ἐπ’ αὐτόν.

Verbal Greek:

hah     pisteu-own     ice    ton    eh-ksei    zow-ayn,     hah     deh     ah-pei-thown     ouk    oh-pseh-tai    zow-ayn,    ahll    hay     hor-gay     τou    the-ou     meh-nei     ehpi     au-tohn.

Literal English:

the one believing into the son has life eternally; but the one disbeliving in the son will not see life, but the wrath of the God remaining upon himself.

Speaking English:

The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but instead will see the wrath of God remaining on himself.

“Just the text, M’am, nothin’ but the text.”  - R.R.Reno :: Recovering the Bible

With these words, R.R. Reno, founder of the Brazo’s Commentary project, hits upon the fundamental contribution of biblical scholarship and its fundamental flaw.  In divorcing a wholistic theology from the study of biblical texts we have unearthed a gigantic mound of new data to process.  We have recovered Paul, we have rediscovered Jewish attitudes on a plethora of subjects, all of which had been lost  2,000 years due to Christologizing and systematizing everything.  With our constant interpretation and reinterpretation with each generation, we built an ossified onion shell around the original context.  Biblical studies has cracked open this steaming shell and allowed us to peer into the distant past with the hopes of understanding “the meaning in the original context.” 

Then, in the hopes of not repeating past… “mistakes,”  they stop everyone in their tracks, and shout – “You shall not pass!” (lest you put words into the author’s mouths).  As Reno says:

We can point to many remarkable intellectual achievements in modern biblical scholarship, some of service to the Church. But on the whole the results have been disastrous. The “meaning in the original context” approach has made the Old Testament into the Hebrew Bible. To read forward to fulfillment in Christ is the unforgivable sin of modern biblical scholarship.

There is tremendous value in the above.  As a separate discipline, their hesitation is needed; as keepers of good method and great results, their work should be foundational to theologians.

On the other side of the coin, we have theologians who do an amazing job lifting out the overarching story of God out of our sundry scriptures.  There is narrative, there is parenesis, there is apocalypse… there is even some history thrown in there too.  The good theologian links these distant points of scripture with little wormwholes, crafting doctrine and translating it into the language of today. 

However, they sometimes approach scripture with creeds in hand, placing their polarizing filters over the text and interpreting today in light of yesterday’s interpretation instead of the text itself.  Their greatest accomplishment is their greatest folly, traditional interpretations become their foundation.  Luther’s theology [1] of the 1500’s is the only method of looking at the scriptures, or the background of the Scottish Enlightenment is the only philosophical framework to be applied to the scriptures [2]   – another layer of onion.  As Reno puts it:

We should not be terribly surprised by the tendency to push Scripture into the background. Theologians are in the business of making arguments, and the rough and ready variety of Scripture can seem unpleasantly unstable. We want sharply drawn truth-claims to feed into our syllogisms. We find conceptual clarity in doctrine, and the upshot is a temptation to neglect Scripture. Furthermore, in the abstract realm of concepts we can formulate pallid, pseudo-orthodox notions such as “Incarnational worldview,” or “sacramental imagination,” or “Trinitarian ethos,” and thus convince ourselves that our capitulations to the latest intellectual fashions are really grand theological achievements.

This tension between the two disciplines is inherent in the nature of their endeavors.  I both sympathize and are frustrated with both sides.  As person who applied to both theological and biblical studies programs and will soon have to choose between the two, I can really empathize with Reno.   I think that theology must be primarily informed by a good biblical studies background.  However, there is so much to learn, so much to consider.  As I lamented over at Hank’s, my theology is stunted (purposely) while I try to sort out the basics. 

R.R. Reno does an excellent job of navigating this divide and imploring the need for this wall to be torn town and replaced with a bridge.  I highly recommend reading this thoughtful and respectful editorial.

R.R.Reno :: Recovering the Bible

1. and political and social setting which tremendously influenced his theology [↩]
2. I don’t want to pick on any particular tradition as they are all guilty of it, I am most familiar with the reformed and restorationist branches of theology [↩]

Love this quote:

But don’t build your church on what you’re not

via Who Cares What You’re Not? – Craig G.

We conservatives gotta be careful that we don’t define ourselves as what we are not, but rather as what we are, cives regni dei. [1]

1. citizens of the kingdom of God [↩]

Religion Overthrowing Heresy and Hatred by Legros the Younger

I know I ask this ‘bout once a year, but what do you do with the category of “heresy?”  I keep wondering about the distinction between someone having a wrong doctrine and someone being cut off from fellowship and naming by other Christians.

On the one hand, I think my reformed sisters (and brothers) are wrong about a great many of things. This wrongness that I assign to them (and them to me) cuts deep, it pertains to matters as important as the nature of God and the process of salvation.  But I still name them Christians and fellowship with them as much as they allow (which can vary greatly, let me tell you). 

On the other hand, I think of some of my Latter-Day Saints brothers (and sisters) are wrong about a great many things.  This wrongness that I assign to them (and them to me) cuts deep; it pertains to matters as important as the nature of God and the process of salvation.  Because of this, I refuse to name them Christians (unless I am talking about how they self-identify) and fellowship with them in terms of our common humanity and not on the basis of a shared faith.

I’ll name the one set of wrongness “heresy” and the other I’ll brand “disagreements."  These may seem to be obvious examples, but where do you draw the line between them?  I’m not interested in dead men’s formulations being quoted ad nauseum,  I wanna hear about how you all deal with such things on the ground, in real life. 

Also, I get the sense that Christians, here and throughout time, have been quick to name, reject, and delegitimize views different than our own, as if they no longer had anything meaningful to say to us.  Do you get this sense?  Is it just me?  I am reminded of countless blog posts, conversations, readings of Church fathers, and Christian columnists summarily dismissing an idea, movement, or everything a figure had to say on the basis of a boxed, wrapped, and delivered heresy that we assign to them.  I will recognize the value of striving for truth and truth alone, but I wonder how useful this approach is – or when this approach is useful and when it is counter-productive to the growing of the kingdom of God.

When we stifle opposing voices, we turn them off and turn them away.  Our truth cannot be conquered by a lie and it need not worry itself (nor do we need to worry ourselves) concerning this.  Additionally, it may just be the case that people with certain wrong views can teach me a great deal – maybe it is God’s will for me do learn from them.  But it can’t happen if I reject them wholesale.  Additionally, if we set ourselves up as a community that ostracizes at the hint of dissenting, then we risk stifling doubt and risk cast people who might have such doubt along their journey towards the Father out, thereby alienating them from God’s community. 

Anyway, this is just some ramblings from a tired person who can afford to question such things at the moment.  What do you do with such things? 

To all the Christian Pacifists out there – How do you interpret Romans 13:1-7, especially verse 4?

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.

For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing.  Pay to all what is due them– taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. (NRSV)

I read this and I see a justification for violence, an avenger (ἔκδικος) that uses the sword (μάχαιπαν), by the state as God’s agent of punishment on Earth.  I’ve only glanced around at this, but ἔκδικος, from ἐκδικία, the word for vengeance, is the word for and avenger or punisher.  It only shows up elsewhere in Paul’s writings as an avenger of wrongs in 1 Thessalonians 4:6 where Paul is warning against exploiting other Christians because the Lord is an avenger of wrongs.  Μάχαιπαν, the word for sword, shows up both literally, such as in Acts 16:27, and figuratively, such as in Ephesians 6:17.  Also, worthy of noting, is that Rome was a perpetrator of all kinds of evil, and yet, Paul is still giving this advice.  Oppressive governments, through their physical acts of violence, are being called agents of God’s justice in the world.  Furthermore, the act of resisting these governments will incur God’s judgement!  What are we to do with this?  Is this a case of the religion of Jesus being pitted against the religion of Paul? The closest parallel I can think of is Matthew 22:15-22 – the whole “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” thing – which seems to be in agreement with the above.  But then again how do we unify those teachings with the Sermon on the Mount?  Do we just not worry about the government and work solely through the Kingdom of God for justice in this world? (which is what I lead towards)

Additionally, as a historian, I see this section of Romans as Paul pleading for the Christians there and throughout time to not make themselves a target for Roman persecution thereby giving this fledging movement a chance at surviving.

What about you?  I am curious as to how other’s view this.  Is Paul giving in?  Is he being sneaky?  Should Christian pacifists be cool with governments, even oppressive ones, meting out punishments on God’s behalf in this world?  I am really interested in how some of our self-proclaimed Pacifists, such as Dave, Tom, JR, and Scott, deal with this.

These may or may not be distinctively Christian, but they have in some way helped me grow in my faith.

Dr. Peter Enns (yes the doctor who got into so much hot water this past spring over inerrancy and inspiration etc.) gives this definition to inerrancy,

I affirm that I am committed to the Bible’s inerrancy as a function of its divine origin. If I may offer a thumbnail definition, the Bible as it is is without error because the Bible as it is is God’s Word.

Before you respond to this definition, read the rest of the post to get more of a context for the statement. But I am interested to hear responses to this topic.

Inerrancy

When, or at what point, do you break fellowship?

When does “not comprising” win over “be of one body?”

When do you break fellowship?

When was the last time you describe your relationship with God as a "personal" one?

A recent article I read last week pointed out that when it comes to a personal relationship with Jesus:

As far as the Bible is concerned, this doctrine is simply made up by evangelical Christian theologians.

The article seems to be a response to something Rick Warren wrote.  The author then goes on to debunk the doctrine by quoting some Bible verses (I don’t know if the author is quoting Rick Warren or making his own apologia).  In any case,  the verses used are totally not something I would have thought of using and I don’t know how one would use them to defend the idea of a personal relationship with God. 

John 15: 1-13 | John 10:1-16 | Revelation 3:20 | Revelation 19: 7-9 | Revelation 19: 17-21

With that said, I thought it was worth a discussion here at MassTheo. 

If you believe in a personal relationship with God, how do you define it?  What Bible verses would you use to back up this doctrine or teaching?

p.s. the original article is from an atheist site so I don’t want to link to it from here unless you want me to. 

I, like a lot of the Christian side of the blogosphere, have taken more than a fleeting interest in the Enns/Westminster controversy.

For a run down of what the hub-ub is all about, check out Kingdom People :: The Peter Enns Controversy:

1. Enns has been criticized for emphasizing the human nature of Scripture over against the divine.
2. Enns has written that the first chapters of Genesis are firmly grounded in ancient myth, which he defines as “an ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins in the form of stories.”
3. Enns claims that Scripture is inspired and inerrant, however the way he describes Scripture seems to counter that belief.
4. Enns does not seek to harmonize seemingly-contradictory parts of Scripture because he believes the diversity of Scripture is complementary.
5. Enns rejects the idea of objective unbiased historiography.

Here is an exchange between Paul Helm and Enns about Helm’s review of Enns’ book.

• Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns Review by Paul Helm
• A Response to Paul Helm’s Review of Inspiration and Incarnation
• Analysis Extra: ‘Inspiration and Incarnation’ one more time

Here is an interesting (and instructive) review of Helm’s review by Cdero’s Weblog entitled Bible Monopoly. Here are the central tenets of Bible Monopoly:

* An unwillingness to deal with the plural complexity of interpretation
* A failure to wrestle with the difficult matters of Biblical scholarship
* A failure to see the provisional nature of scripture
* An obsession with turning honest interaction with extra Biblical data into an evil foe of orthodoxy
* A tendency to use past theologians (the one’s they agree with) as the standard of Biblical interpretation

To say on top of what people are saying about this situation, check out Google’s Blogsearch and Technorati’s watchlist.

Westminster Theological Seminary Suspended Professor Peter Enns effective at the end of this school year and will take steps to terminate his employment because of a book he wrote back in 2005 entitled Inspiration and Incarnation (review), which calls into question more conservative models of scripture while remaining wholly “[apologetic] and assum[ing] an evangelical faith in scripture from the outset.” [1]

Christianity Today has a write up on the suspension :Westminster Theological Seminary Suspends Peter Enns.

What do you think about the suspension? I know we have bloggers and readers that range from each end of the conservative to liberal spectrum when it comes to the verbal inspiration of scripture.

IMHO I don’t think that he should have been suspended at all, but then again, I tend to lean towards academic freedom and exploratory hypothetical theology which is left up to the students and readers to discern. I have not been in a position of power where Jesus’ words about causing one of these to stumble really apply as it would as being dean of a seminary. However, our view of scripture is not without its problems and it sounds like Enns has taken an honest and subtle look at the problem… and he is punished for it. Now, it is highly likely that this controversy will only boost his employability and sales of his book (my copy is on its way right now), but he now has to move his family, tear up his roots in a community, and evangelicals get a black eye from our own hand.

All of this reminds me about the unnecessary perils of venturing into the academic realm of evangelicalism. I want to be an evangelical scholar. We, as a community, are in desperate need of good scholarship if we are to both remain relevant and respected (listened to). But, if I teach or even consider that which is out of line, I am out of a job and perhaps blacklisted amongst the communities I wish/am called to serve. All of a sudden teaching at a small liberal arts college does not seem all that bad.

1. see the linked book review [↩]

Here is a link to an excellent discussion of the whole debate on NPP and justification in Paul. Do enjoy this fascinating post.

I am curious about what the authors here might think of Dr. Ben Witherington’s comments on the New Perspective on Paul. Is this a good middle ground between the two sides?

Here is the article: The New Perspective on Paul and the Law– Reviewed

Should we hold Biblish as sacred? More importantly, do we hold Biblish as sacred? Over at He is Sufficient ElShaddai Edwards takes up this question in response to Kevin P. Edgecomb’s who argued the following in response to John Hobbins talking about the nature of the English used in the CEV and NLT.

Edgecomb argues that “it is the responsibility of the keepers of the tradition of the text” to explain through good exegesis those expressions and phrases that make little sense in the new culture the text finds itself. As such, it is incumbent on translators to keep such phrases as “way of all the earth”, “gathered to his fathers”, and “pearls before swine” in their translations and for pastors and teachers to explain these idioms to the laity.

It is Edwards’ contention that this is foolhardy because it sacrifices the meaning of the text for the artificial divinity of the Hebrew (and I would add the Graeco-Roman) culture. He argues that if the Bible is meant for all nations and all peoples, then why should we translate it “in “sacred language”, set apart from the normal linguistic rules of a receiver’s language?” Edwards concludes his post by claiming the following.

Yet translating the text within the intracultural context of the receiver language doesn’t seem “a dereliction of duty” to me; indeed, it seems an even more sacred presentation of God’s Word that allows the Holy Spirit even more intimacy within those who hear and understand the call and claims of the Cross.

I am inclined to agree with him – and I would include highly theologized terms such as propitiation. The NT was not written in high Greek but instead was written in the common vernacular and should be translated as such.