Theology for the Masses

Having surveyed the story of God in the Bible, I began to work towards a definition of the gospel. Starting in the Old Testament and moving into the New Testament, I looked at how the Gospels and Acts looked at the gospel. Then we moved into Paul and how he looked at the gospel. Having done that and really tried to expound what I mean by the gospel, I want to conclude this series with a final post that simplifies the gospel definition and speak to the response of faith and repentance to the gospel. Hopefully this series has been helpful to those who have read it because it has been helpful to me in trying to re-articulate the gospel in light of my paradigm shift away from so much of the traditional Protestant justification = forgiveness of sin = gospel. Reading the story of Jesus by Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts, and John has really altered the way I read the New Testament as a whole. Reading the story of Jesus against the backdrop of the story of Israel has changed how I read the Bible as a whole, God’s story of creation and redemption. continue reading…

In my previous post I defined the gospel in terms of how the Gospels and Acts looked at the gospel. That is to say, they viewed the gospel as God fulfilling his promises made to Israel to establish a new creation by his Spirit, ruled by his Servant-King from the house of David, ending Israel’s exile, and drawing the Gentiles out of their pagan darkness into the light of this new Israel in this new creation. God fulfilled these promises by raising up Jesus of Nazareth, who came and took dominion over the present evil age and creation, offered up his life as an atoning sacrifice for his people’s transgression, and was resurrected as the firstfruit of the new Spirit-wrought creation and the king over that new creation.

Now how does the Apostle Paul fit into this picture? When one reads his letters one does not see a lot of talk about a kingdom. He rarely speaks about Jesus earthly life and ministry, his teachings and healings that demonstrated him to be the Spirit-indwelt Servant-King from the stump of Jesse. Paul speaks minimally about the kingdom, though it is not absent from his theology. He talks about the gospel in terms of Jesus’ person, death and resurrection and their meaning. He is combating a certain form of Judaism that requires Gentiles to convert to Judaism to be accepted into the people of God. So how does his battle’s over the meaning of justification and the gospel fit into the picture seen in the gospels? continue reading…

Four hundred years of history transpires between the last promises made by Yahweh to his people and Yahweh’s next move. Yahweh has promised to completely reverse the current world order that his people, Israel, are living in. No longer will they live on a planet that his hostile against them. No longer will the nations rule over them. No longer will they be a nation that is a point of laughter to their neighbors. No longer will they be ruled by a king who leads them astray from blessing and into curse. No longer will they disobey their covenant, and bring upon themselves the wrath of their God. God is going to recreate the world, raise up a Servant-King-Priest who will reign over Israel in this new earth. And Israel will be a light that will draw the Gentiles out of their pagan darkness and back to their Creator. Yahweh has promised and Yahweh is about to deliver. continue reading…

From Julia Esquivel in Threatened with Resurrection: Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan (Elgin: The Brethern Press, 1982), 79-91.  I love how it uses Biblical language and themes to remind us at what price our comfort comes.  I’m thinking hard this holiday season about the intersection between religion, politics, exploitation, and thankfulness.  I pray that we can slow our lives down to the point that we loose our lusts of luxury.

In the third year of the massacres
by Lucas and the other coyotes
against the poor of Guatemala
I was lead by the Spirit into the desert

And on that eve
of Thanksgiving Day
I had a vision of Babylon:

The City sprang forth arrogantly
from an enormous platform
of dirty smoke produced
by motor vehicles, machinery
and contamination from smokestacks.

It was as it all the petroleum
from a violated earth
was being consumed
by the Lords of capital
and was slowly rising
obscuring the face
of the Sun of Justice
and the Ancient of Days

Each day false prophets
invited the inhabitants
of the Unchaste City
to kneel before the idols
of gluttony
money
and death
Idolaters from all nations
were being converted to the American Way of Life

The Spirit told me
in the River of death
flows the blood of many peoples
sacrificed without mercy
and removed a thousand times from their lands
the blood of Kekchis, of Panzos
of blacks from Hati of Guaranis from Paraguay
of the peoples sacrificed for “development”
in the Trans-Amazonic strip
the blood of the Indians’ ancestors
who lived on these lands, of those who
even now are kept hostage in the Great Mountain
and on the Black Hills of Dakota
by the guardians of the beast…

My soul was tortured like this
for three and a half days
and a great weariness weighted upon my breast
I felt the suffering of my people very deeply!

In tears I prostrated myself
and cried out: “Lord, what can i do?
Come to me Lord, I wish to die among my people!
Without strength, I waited for an answer.
After a long silence
and heavy obscurity
The One who sits on the throne
to JUDGE THE NATIONS
spoke in a soft whisper
in the secret recesses of my heart:

You have to denounce their idolatry
in good times and in bad
Force them to hear the truth
for what is impossible to humans
is possible for God.

Christians have historically had problems figuring out how they should relate to the political establishments in which they resided. As seen in an earlier post, Christians have been too eager to align themselves with Liberal Democracies, especially the United States.  In Resident Aliens, Hauerwas and Willimon critique this notion, saying that instead of being Christianity Lite™, Liberal Democracies need war to justify and solidify identity:

“States, particularly liberal democracies are dependent upon war for moral coherence.” [1]

Damn, I think that’s true.  I had previously viewed governments as sometimes morally good, often morally evil, but most of all, morally neutral. And here was an explanation that the best of these governments have a vested interest in unjust violence [2] . [3] Their warning from history is particularly poignant:

“if Caesar can get Christians [in 30’s Germany] to swallow the ‘Ultimate Solution’ and Christians here to embrace the bomb, there is no limit to what we will not do for the modern world.” [4]

A Church that was nuked in Nagasaki.  Where do our allegiances lie?  With the USA, or with God Almighty?

1. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, 1st ed. (Abingdon Press, 1989), 35. [↩]
2. if violence is ever justified [↩]
3. Though, we should expect states to act selfishly. [↩]
4. Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 27. [↩]

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)

I was asked to give a short talk concerning the Rich Young Ruler at the BSU.  The following is the first part of the talk:

(You can listen to the audio here)

Good evening everyone! Welcome to the first night of the “Jesus said WHAT?!” series. Tonight’s topic is Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler. I was kinda scared when the topic was assigned to me because I have not heard a interpretation of the passage that sounded good to me. Either they seemed naïve and unrealistic or they seemed to gloss over Jesus’ challenge. Maybe because this is because I am a rich white male and I like my stuff and don’t like to be challenged OR Maybe this is because I am a snobby seminary student who colors all of Jesus’ sayings with early Christian witness. To tell you the truth, it is really probably a mix of both.

Before we start, let’s get to the text of the matter. I’m gonna start a bit earlier in the passage than usual discussions on the rich young ruler (I’ll tell you why in a second).

Text: Luke 18 (NLT)

So, our passage has three major sections. First, we have Jesus reprimanding the disciples for shooing away the children, culminating with the charge that

“[T]he Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”

Woah, what does that even mean? Entering like a child? That could be our Jesus Said What moment right there!

Then, enter the rich young ruler. He comes up and wants to be in the kingdom too. He says that he is fully living within the Abrahamic/Mosaic covenants, living by all of the laws that God revealed to Moses.

Jesus issues the rich young ruler a challenge. He says if you wanna be in my kingdom, you have to do two things. First, give away all your possessions. Second, Follow me.

Confronted with the action-oriented challenge, the Rich Young RULER sulks away – it was too great of a commitment. Jesus, loving the guy, gives us our second “JESUS SAID WHAT!” moment. He says:

“How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God! ²⁵ In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”

This blows the disciples minds.

They start freaking out. They start to worry, they gotta be saying to themselves, “We gotta come like children, and he rejected this guy? What chance do we have? What did he mean, children? And what about that rich guy? He followed the whole law. Jesus did not deny that. And still he was not worthy enough.”

Peter asks who then can be saved, saying that they have given up everything for Jesus. Jesus responds with our last candidate of “WHAT?!” sayings. Jesus says:

and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, ³⁰ will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.

So, what do we make of all of this?

First, the story about the Children sets the stage. This is about entrance and behavior within the kingdom. Children can’t do anything. One of the Gospels even talks about infants. I got one. Lemme tell you, infants are completely dependent upon their parents for life.

So, Jesus was talking about how you have to come to the kingdom of god like a child – completely dependent upon God. Then this guy comes up and asks to be in it! (The Gospel writers were good at writing Gospels – eh?) He has everything that people of that time (and our time) think is valuable. He was rich. He was young. He has political power – oh how we worship political power in this country! Thus, , the rich man is thematically contrasted with children/kingdom.

As a person with such external security, the Rich Young Ruler already had a savior. His name was Caesar. The Roman Emperors set themselves up as saviors of the world. . It was Caesar that created and sustained the Pax Romana. The Rich were Rich because of Rome’s stability. The Rulers were Rulers because of Rome’s security. He was savior.

How hard it is for the secure to give up their security!

Behavior within the Kingdom of God is no light matter. The gospel is not about liking someone (Jesus) a whole bunch and then getting a get out of Hell free card. No, instead, the Gospel is the proclamation that the Kingdom of God has come! Repent! JESUS IS LORD. (Opening of Mark on the Screen)

What does this mean, Jesus is lord? When we enter into the Kingdom of God, we acknowledge that everything is HIS. We live to serve the King who serves others.

Living in the Kingdom of God means submitting everything to Him. This means everything. All facets of your life. The Rich Young Ruler was Rich and a Ruler.

As I said before, he already had a savior, Caesar.Thus, the Rich Young Ruler would have to give up his allegiance to Caesar and the two things that allegiance provided him – Money and Power. And yet, He. Could. Not. Can we?

The Disciples freaked out when they saw Jesus’ challenge –

²⁶ Those who heard this said, “Then who in the world can be saved?”

²⁷ He replied, “What is impossible for people is possible with God.”

²⁸ Peter said, “We’ve left our homes to follow you.”

²⁹ “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, ³⁰ will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.”

And then Jesus reassures them – they have left their allegiance to this world and given it to Jesus. They are living kingdom lives.

Notice that in response to their freaking out, Jesus tells them not to worry about their own efforts to enter the kingdom but to worry about our response to God’s salvation.

And our response should be to place JESUS AS LORD above our

- Families – do you realize how hard this is – if it comes down to Jesus or your brother – you pick Jesus.

- Wealth

- Governmental allegiance – do you worry about politics more than you worry about the Goals of the Kingdom of God?!

- But most importantly – Self.

Examine your life – what are you holding back from the king?

Let us pray….

WAIT A SECOND! LETS NOT KID OURSELVES

Jesus said WHAT? “Sell all that you have and give it to the poor.” And “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God! ²⁵ In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!

Wait – lets not kid ourselves the secondary theme in this passage is the place of money in the Kingdom of God. Yes, the main theme is attitudes in the kingdom but the theme of MONEY IN THE KINGDOM is not far behind.

As a rich man, the Young Ruler was hoarding his wealth. In a day and age where 95% of the population was living hand-to-mouth, this man was hoarding his wealth.

Today we are taught from birth to hoard wealth. You can’t escape the messages we receive from the media, from advertisements, from our governments, from our Churches, from our families, from our friends, from our selves.

A study was released not long ago which found that the average urban person views an average of 5,000 ads a day. Each one of these ads promise the buyer spiritual, material, and emotional satisfaction though their products.

So, what the world is saying is that [point to screen]

All you need is more.

But God says that: [point to screen]

I AM all that you need.

We are a nation, a people who have been blessed with a wealth that is beyond comprehension.

So how do we react to this ridiculous blessing? Look at the history of Israel as remembered in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, few things upset God more than people hoarding wealth. Listen to the words of Isaiah: [Show Isaiah 3:13-15]

¹³ The Lord takes his place in court
      and presents his case against his people!
¹⁴ The Lord comes forward to pronounce judgment
      on the elders and rulers of his people:
   “You have ruined Israel, my vineyard.
      Your houses are filled with things stolen from the poor.
¹⁵ How dare you crush my people,
      grinding the faces of the poor into the dust?”
      demands the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

When Israel would turn away from the LORD they started to oppress the poor. This would always lead to judgment and foreign rule for Israel. Latter on in Isaiah: [3:16-26]

¹⁶ The Lord says, “Beautiful Zion is haughty:
   craning her elegant neck,
      flirting with her eyes,
   walking with dainty steps,
      tinkling her ankle bracelets.
¹⁷ So the Lord will send scabs on her head;
      the Lord will make beautiful Zion bald.”

¹⁸ On that day of judgment
      the Lord will strip away everything that makes her beautiful…

²⁴ Instead of smelling of sweet perfume, she will stink.
      She will wear a rope for a sash,
      and her elegant hair will fall out.
   She will wear rough burlap instead of rich robes.
      Shame will replace her beauty.
²⁵ The men of the city will be killed with the sword,
      and her warriors will die in battle.
²⁶ The gates of Zion will weep and mourn.
      The city will be like a ravaged woman,
      huddled on the ground.

How the LORD is concerned for the poor! These are societal sins – sins that the structures of the society create and are maintained by all the people that participate in the system. Societal sins are notoriously hard to see while they are happening. They are best viewed in hindsight. One of the best examples of a societal sin is the institution of slavery during the first 100 years in the United States.

This is the kind of thing Isaiah is decrying. Slavery, exploitation of the poor – these are societal sins. God above almost everything else, desires justice for his people – and all people are his people.

What out US? The USA? How just of a society are we? I invite you to join us afterwards to talk about this. I don’t think we are as much as we like to think we are. How much are you, your family, your church, your friends participating in these societal sins? How much am I? Just because you can’t see the oppression does not mean that it is not there, that our corporate actions don’t have repercussions that impact real people.

OK, enough talk about the vague and the invisible. Let’s turn this back to our individual lives. Your life. My Life. Your money. My money. The Bible has a lot of interesting, if not complicated things to say about wealth on the individual level. Lets look at a couple of quick passages that deal with individuals and wealth.

[Proverbs 14:31 and Proverbs 29:7 ]

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,

but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

The righteous care about justice for the poor,

but the wicked have no such concern.

James 5

¹ Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. ² Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. ³ Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. ⁴ Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. ⁵ You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.^{[a] 6} You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

Now, before you say – God hates wealth! Let me say that God does lift up wealth as a blessing to the righteous. God has revealed through the Bible that wealth and blessings do follow from following Him. However, success and prosperity is defined by the created order, not by materieriality.

Wealth is not something to horde, but something to give. The God makes it clear in Proverbs 29:7 that the righteous are to care about the poor.

We are called to live not for the accumulation of wealth and property, but for God and for the flourishing all people. Some of you here came to college to get rich. My advice: Don’t.

Having wealth is not a sin – hoarding it and refusing to help those in need is.

Today billions around the world live hand to mouth. Christians hold most of the world’s wealth.

So… How do we contribute to the solution rather than further the oppression? We have over 75 bright young minds here in this room – I encourage you to seek out a solution – there are many ways that people are helping – seek them out, fill the gap. If you want, join me and a few others downstairs afterwards to talk about how this can be done.

Remember: Our God is a God of Justice. We are his agents in this world. We are stewards of this creation. The poorest among us are of infinite worth. Instead of seeking only our own good – we are commanded to seek theirs as well.

Let us pray.

This is what I have been reading lately:

Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Rev Exp. IVP Academic, 2006.

I’ve had this book for a few years, it is really the best comprehensive work on hermeneutics around.  His Calvinism sometimes gets in the way, but astute readers will be able to ignore it.  I am working from this book in Parkade Baptist CYP’s current Sunday School series on Genre Hermeneutics.

Pierce, Ronald W., Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon D. Fee. Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy. 2nd ed. InterVarsity Press, 2005.

This book is heralded as the egalitarian response to Piper and Gundem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.  I have only had the chance to start a couple of the essays.  They have been pretty good so far.  I’ll talk about it more as I get more into it.

Piper, John. The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Crossway Books, 2007.

Disappointed.  All he did was convince me of Wright’s position.  Other people had built up Piper in my mind as some great exegete/theologian.  Not.the.case.

R, M. Daniel Carroll. Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible. Baker Academic, 2008.

Reading this for one of my classes – looks to be good, but I am only a chapter or two into it.

Stowers, Stanley Kent. Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity. 1st ed. Westminster Press, 1986.

Every student of antiquity and of Paul needs to read this book.  Hands down one of the best books in the field.  I am re-reading it for my class on Letter hermeneutics this Sunday.

Wright, N. T. Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision. IVP Academic, 2009.

Dang.  I can’t talk too highly of this book so far.  I wonder how many critics of Wright will read this book.  If they read it without their systematic glasses on, they might just change their minds. 

The righteousness of God pertains primarily to his faithfulness to his convent with Abraham, not that he seeks his own glory above all else.

To continue in a theme that has become very important to me, I want to look at a couple of psalms and how they understand righteousness and justice. The first text is Psalm 72, specifically Psalm 72:1-7, and I want to understand how this psalmist understands righteousness, the sdq word group. If one is to understand justification from a whole-Bible perspective, then seeing how the sdq word group, or righteousness-language, is employed is key. continue reading…

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.

1. both directly and indirectly [↩]
2. Such as Galatians 5:15-21; Ephesians 4:17-22; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22; James 1:27; James 2:14-18; and James 5:1-16, just to same a couple of sections [↩]

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…

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’d like to direct you all to this article from the New York Times Magazine about Mark Driscoll and the “new Calvinism.” It’s really interesting, and definitely highlights some important issues surrounding both Driscoll and the (relatively) recent Calvinism resurgence.

I find this quote, from the final page of the article, especially interesting:

Nowhere is the connection between Driscoll’s hypermasculinity and his Calvinist theology clearer than in his refusal to tolerate opposition at Mars Hill. The Reformed tradition’s resistance to compromise and emphasis on the purity of the worshipping community has always contained the seeds of authoritarianism: John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness. Mars Hill is not 16th-century Geneva, but Driscoll has little patience for dissent. In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached. John Calvin couldn’t have said it better himself.

 

I’m personally not a very big fan of Driscoll. I think what he’s done on the cultural front is important and interesting…but this article highlights the exact reasons why his hyper-authoritarian militaristic brand of Christianity (and the Calvinist roots behind it) scares me. Any thoughts, comments, reflections?

This post has actually taken a different route than I originally intended. [1] After examining the text, itself, I want to say that I think the Calvinist argument from this text has more legitimacy than I originally thought. However, I cannot affirm the implications of their arguments. I believe Calvinists and Arminians can both affirm the Calvinist reading to some degree, but I believe the implications of said reading is where we will part ways – necessarily.

The text is clear that God intended to ultimately bring about the salvation of Jacob’s house through the selling of Joseph into slavery. This is little different than God using the evil actions of Pilate to bring about the crucifixion of Jesus. In both cases God has a plan in mind and he uses the evil actions of men to work out that plan. The goal is always determined.

However, again, this does not necessarily entail that God determines the evil actions themselves. Notice in our passage, Genesis 50:20, that God has intentions that are his own (to bring about good) and the brothers have intentions all their own (to work evil). That God fully knows their actions and intends to use them to bring about his original plan is not problematic. God intended to have Joseph be the means by which Jacob’s household was saved. And God, possibly, even made Joseph ready to be the savior through suffering. But, the evil actions of Joseph’s brothers are their own and the text never connects God’s determination with their actions.

I truly think this distinction is subtle enough that almost everyone can get on board with it. For those who can’t…

Even if we fully affirm the suggestion that this passage points to God actually ordaining/determining the actions of the brothers, here are some consequences which I think are unavoidable and undesirable.

Necessary, Yet Undesirable, Implications of a Purely Calvinistic Reading of this Text:

First, humans are not to be held responsible for their immoral actions.

Why do I say this? Because in the context of this passage, Joseph’s brothers think Joseph is going to punish them for their evil deeds. But Joseph, in light of his understanding of God’s sovereignty and ultimate purposes of salvation, affirms that they will not be punished. They are not to be held responsible precisely because God was the determiner of their deeds. The responsibility of the human agents, then, is minimized. When God acts deterministically, in this passage, the human agents through whom he acts are not held liable. As Joseph says, “So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” (vs. 21) He will not hold them accountable.

Second, in light of the first point:

If the determinist perspective is true, when a child is molested or a genocide breaks out, not only can we not hold the violators accountable for their actions, but we also must remind the victims that it was God’s action that brought this about and therefore they should not be angry at the oppressors.

These two consequences, to me, are the logical end of using this passage as a starting point for how God universally works. I say, rather, that this passage is an exception which proves the rule and should not be taken as normative.

Determination and What is Normative:

Finally, even if I’m wrong here – and Lord knows I always have the potential for that – there’s a sense in which there is still no need for this text to be normative. That is, it is hermeneutically fallacious to take a single text and make it normative for the way God must always operate. In other words, it is wrong to take a specific statement (especially a contestable one like this!) and universalize it. Both Arminians and Open Theists affirm that God does, in fact, determine certain things (such as the death of Jesus on the cross which happened before the foundation of the world!). But that these things are noted in this way suggests to me that they are not normative. Rather, God’s determinative actions are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Contextually, this means that the extraordinary act of God in saving Jacob’s family meant that He took an extraordinary amount of action in this event. He is demonstrating His providential hand in redemptive history by ensuring that Jacob’s family be saved. Therefore, as Greg Boyd notes, “Under these extraordinary circumstances it should not surprise us to find God involved in extraordinary ways. This text should therefore not be taken as a proof text of how God usually, let alone always, operates.”

Proving Their Point: What Calvinists Need to Textually Demonstrate the Superiority of Their Answer:

In the end, however, I would agree with anyone who says that I did not prove Arminianism from this passage! I have no problem with such a critique. As I said, the Calvinist reading is possible and even likely (on a restricted, localized level). But I believe they are imparting a larger theological/philosophical reading onto this text to come to the conclusion they have. For my part, I think the “text says nothing nearly precise enough to support a particular theory of sovereignty and human freedom to the exclusion of all other competing accounts.” [2]

If Calvinists want to prove their position from this text, to the exclusion of others, they need to provide the following evidence:

They need to provide a text which says explicitly that God caused Joseph’s brothers to have feelings of jealousy (or at least motivated their hearts to have those feelings – i.e. similar to the claims they make about Pharaoh in Exodus).

They need to provide a text which connects the God-determined jealousy with their actions of selling Joseph into slavery.

Demonstrate more clearly the hermeneutical leap from this localized event to a universalized truth

Demonstrate clearly how universalizing this specific story’s truth won’t lead to a lack of accountability for evil actions perpetuated by humans. (I know these Calvinists believe humans are accountable, but I want to know how they get around the lack of accountability in this, their classical text.)

Conclusion:

I actually don’t find the Calvinist reading here all that exegetically wrong. I think their implications from their exegesis, however, are where their errors lie. Did God sovereignly act in the events of Joseph’s brothers? Yes! He intended to bring good out of them. However, this in no way entails 1. That God determined their actions or the evil of their actions, or 2. That, even if he did determine their evil actions, God’s actions here are normative and universal. These are inferences that the text simply does not support. To me, these conclusions come about because of a larger philo-theological framework guiding their interpretation. Indeed, if they took their inferences to the logical conclusion, they end up with no human responsibility – which is exactly what Arminians/Open Theists have been complaining about for years.

In the end, I agree with self-proclaimed Calvinist Walter Brueggemann concerning this text, “This phrase has been endlessly problematic in theological interpretation, as it has lent itself to all kinds of scholastic notions of a blueprint for determinism…[yet] the Old Testament includes no notion of a plan in such a specific and rigid sense.” [3]   In other words, it’s not necessarily that the Calvinist’s exegesis here is lacking, but more that they read too much into this text – whether it be through reading their notions of soft-determinism onto a text which simply can’t bare that weight OR through universalizing a very localized incident.

1. I want to thank Hank over at Think Wink for his helpful response to my original post. I hope here to find some common ground, though, of course, there will always be some disagreement. Hopefully it will become smaller and smaller, though, as we analyze the text. [↩]
2. Walls, Dongell, 150. [↩]
3. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament. 355. I say self-identified b/c Brueggemann has called himself a Calvinist, but I’m not so sure most Calvinists will identify with him. [↩]