What are interested when it comes to theology? Are those the things you do well or have a passion to do well?
Well, what about your theological disinterests? What do they say about you? Are they areas of growth, are they areas of sin?
What about the communities of which you are apart?
The folks over at Wired worked up the following maps purporting to visualize the density of the seven deadly sins among our united states. Their methodology is… interesting to say the least. I’ll let you head over there to see how they went about graphing the most slippery of deviations from God’s will.
You know that book I picked up the other day? The one that lead me to write frankly concerning community? As I am skipping around in it, I am finding that she has some good things to say about the theologies of flourishing and natality. I feel pretty comfortable with a theology of flourishing, and consider it to be what the author of Hebrews was talking about at the turn of 5 into chapter 6. We see reflections of it in the parable of the vine in John and in Zechariah 9:16-17:
16 On that day the Lord their God will rescue his people,
just as a shepherd rescues his sheep.
They will sparkle in his land
like jewels in a crown.
17 How wonderful and beautiful they will be!
The young men will thrive on abundant grain,
and the young women will flourish on new wine.
Jantzen, in Becoming Divine, wants to replace the masculine, escapist, and individualistic theology of salvation with the feminine, living, communal, theology of flourishing. Here she is as wrong as those who focus exclusively on theologies of salvation. Just as God contains both the male and the female, we need to hold theologies of salvation and flourishing in tandem.
We see it in the verse in Zechariah: after God saves his people, he wants them to flourish. How exciting and hopeful is such a theology! Salvation theology is the life-giving infants’ milk of Hebrews. Theology of flourishing comes after, it is the meat and potatoes of our adulthood. Now that the danger of sin has passed, God frees us to be who He wanted us to be.
When we loose sight of the dangers of sin, we lapse into selfishness, pride, forgetfulness (of God), and participate in oppression. [1] People tend to reemphasize the danger when people slip into those modes of be-ing, forgetting that there is no condemnation in Christ and that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, the seal of our salvation. 
Instead, I propose that when the danger of sin passes, we should then concern ourselves with growth instead of danger as a motivating tool. When we focus on growth, we focus on flourishing. And you can’t flourish apart from that which God has for you. You can’t flourish individualistically, either. We are a part of the vine. If one of the branches is sick, we are sick; if one of the branches is suffering, we are suffering. Most importantly, I can’t flourish by exploiting you.
We see all of the above in the various admonishments and advice given in the letters of the New Testament. [2] We are made to seek and glorify God. We are made to be creative and live in harmonious communities. We are made to be righteous. We are made to bring the light of God to the world. We are made to flourish.
As for natality? I’m just starting to read about it. But, Jantzen is right that we often don’t reflect upon theologies of birth but obsess over theologies of death.
Article Series - Easter Peace |
Before moving on in the narrative of the Bible, I want to look at new creation, union with Christ, and how they play into Obtaining the shalom that was forfeited by Adam. Adam rebelled against the creator I AM in the garden of Eden. A curse was placed upon Adam and his posterity. I AM then set up a community, a kingdom, called Israel. But this community failed to bring back shalom. A king was promised by I AM who would come and restore peace to I AM’s creation. I AM fulfilled this promise, many centuries later, in the person of Jesus Christ. He was that king who purchased shalom by his death and resurrection here on earth. For humanity to gain back that peace we saw that humanity must submit themselves to Jesus and trust wholly in what he did to achieve peace. I AM unites that believer to Jesus so that they can take part in the new community centered around a new covenant and exist in shalom. Before we move on from this pause in the action, I want to look at new creation and the role it plays here in humanity and the created order returning to shalom. continue reading…
Article Series - Easter Peace |
The King came…and died…and was raised from the grave.
Having died the most gruesome death and lying lifeless in the grave for days, Jesus rose to life and walked out of the tomb. He was indeed king, king over all life. But what had Jesus done, what was accomplished in dying and rising from the dead? What does it have to do with the need to get shalom back? The question needs to be addressed to make sense of it all. Jesus demonstrated he was the coming king who was to speak peace to the nations, whose kingdom was to extend from sea to sea. But how does he bring back shalom? continue reading…
Article Series - Easter Peace |
Humanity has rebelled against their maker and creator, I AM. I AM has therefore cursed his entire creation by taking away shalom, the universe in that state where everything is as it should be. The created order is thrown into chaos and misery. Sin and death reign supreme over I AM’s creation now that shalom is gone. Yet I AM did not abandon his creation to its abysmal failure and self-destructing sinful rebellion against him. He gracious entered into the world and created a community through which shalom is restored. A sacrificial system in put into action, with a priesthood and temple/tabernacle to facilitate it, to atone for the rebellion of the people and re-establish communion between I AM and humanity, and the members of the community. Laws were enacted to facilitate proper relationship of I AM and the people within the community, including amongst themselves. The people were taught how to relate to I AM and to each other. The poor and oppressed were cared for. Now let us see if this worked. continue reading…
Article Series - Easter Peace |
Shalom, “peace,” has been rejected by humanity in the actions of Adam and Eve. Their choice was to seize the rewards of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to be like God, and crafty like the serpent (There is a pun running through the narrative of the fall, where “crafty” and “naked” are distinguished by vowel-pointing, that though Adam and Eve wanted to be arum/crafty or wise they were still left arummim/naked). The rejection of I AM took away from us peace. Peace with God, peace with fellow humans (e.g. Cain and Abel and the people of earth before the flood as well as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah), and peace with nature and the created order (e.g. physical death, natural disasters, disease etc.) was all forfeit. So the question is how does humanity get back shalom? How is everything return to what it is supposed to be, the way I AM made it to be? In one word: grace. continue reading…
I have never taken up a “read through the Bible in a year ” plan until this year. To aid in my reading, I picked up the NLT’s 24/7. It is arranged by day so that you always know what you need read on a given day. The daily readings are arranged in a narrative-chronological order. Thus, I have been spending a lot of time in Genesis, with some excursions into Chronicles.
The nice thing about this product from the NLT is that there are nice margins where one can take notes. This is actually what sold me on the product. Accordingly, I have been writing notes and reflections in the margins of this useful little product.
I have tried to not get caught up in the details of the texts, but to focus and meditate upon the purposes of the passages at hand, to get a sense of what the writer(s) were trying to convey
Much of my notes in Genesis have been noting all of etiological moments. This is why X is such, that is why Z came to be. A great example of this is Genesis 10:6-20, the account of Ham and the origin of Babylon, Assyria, the Canaanites, Hittites, etcetera.
Something else that struck me, besides all of the etiology, was God’s pleading with Cain to master his sin in Genesis 4:6-7.
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
There are several things stick out in this passage. Firstly, I like the intimate relationship the Lord has here with Cain. In the middle of Cain’s frustration with the rejected sacrifice, God pleads with him to do the right thing. Hope is given to Cain, that though Cain is burning with anger and jealousy, wanting the favor of another, he can still have righteousness – but only if he chooses to do so.
What hope, what responsibility is afforded to Cain here by God in his pleadings?
When God is talking with Cain about his anger, God couches his language in terms of Cain’s freedom of the will. Similarly, God describes sin mastering Cain in terms of potentiality, not actuality. The two verses end with God pleading with Cain to actively master sin and deny its power over him.
Because of my reformed friends, I constantly run my readings through a reformed filter, just as I run them through a churches of Christ filter. I cannot imagine reading this through a reformed, TULIPed theology. Perhaps it is possible, I just can’t conceive of it. God just does not describe humanity and sin with total depravity and unconditional election in mind.
Anyway, these aren’t researched thoughts, just some initial impressions
Sin never becomes a quality or even a substance. Sin is and remains an act.
— Emil Brunner
Similarly, Love is only mediated through actions, never sentiment nor well-wishes. The coming and sacrifice of Christ is the greatest act of Love shown to this world since the Maker made it with His making.
If we wish to love, if we wish not to sin – action must be the language we in which we speak and silence; the Word of the Lord must be our grammar.
I was checking out Romans 3:9 today for a school project, and I noticed that most of the translations speak of “being under the power of sin.” However, all I see is “ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν εἶαι” or “being under sin.” Does anyone know the justification of NRSV, ESV, NLT and others adding “power”? [1]
I wanted to write a post on how some movies can provide spiritual edification for us, despite their origins from Hollywood. Like any great art, God has provided us with the medium of film which carries with it beauty, catharsis, sublimity, and powerful emotional realizations that would be difficult to replicate in other mediums of art.
Right now, I am re-watching There Will Be Blood, the masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson, and, in my humble opinion, the best film of last year. For those who have not seen this movie, Daniel Day-Lewis gives a perfect performance as Daniel Plainview, an oil-man at the turn of the century who wants nothing more than wealth and power, and who descends into madness getting exactly that. The film has been called “Biblical” by many critics, and rightly so. There is a feel to this movie that is both epic, and yet very personal; and it is this “personal side” of the movie that kept me in much tension, and left me extremely moved in the end. Throughout the movie, you are asking yourself, “Who is this guy?”, “What is he going to do?”, and “What won’t he do?” I think that the brilliance of this film is that these questions should be asked of ourselves. We are truly no better than Daniel Plainview, for the sinful nature that drives his choices and ambitions is the same nature the drives all of us. For example, consider this dialogue between Plainview and his brother Henry:
Plainview: Are you an angry man, Henry? 
Henry Brands: About what?
Plainview: Are you envious? Do you get envious?
Henry Brands: I don’t think so. No.
Plainview: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Henry Brands: That part of me is gone… working and not succeeding- all my failures has left me… I just don’t… care.
Plainview: Well, if it’s in me, it’s in you. (emphasis mine) There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.
Henry Brands: What will you do about your boy?
Plainview: I don’t know. Maybe it will change. Does your sound come back to you? I don’t know. Maybe no one knows that. A doctor might not know that.
Henry Brands: Where is his mother?
Plainview: I don’t want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I’ve built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry… to have you here gives me a second breath. I can’t keep doing this on my own with these… people.
[laughs] (courtesy of IMBD)
Even Plainview knows that this nature is pervasive throughout all people; none of us is exempted. Even though Henry is done with “that part of him,” “that part of him” is not done with him, and Plainview knows this. For me, there is the Gospel here. Though many do not know Christ and the grace that He bestows, many know Man and the awfulness that Man is capable of. This should lead us to a humility about ourselves, and a fervor to further the Good News of Jesus Christ.
What do you guys think? Do you know of movies that has made you feel that way? For those that have seen TWBB, did you see this too in the film?
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