“Lovingkindness and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
— Psalm 85:10
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Author: David Opderbeck
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Lawyer Recall
Everyone should be aware of this.
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God Showed Up?
This is a preview for Rob Bell’s latest Nooma, “Open.” I watched this on Monday and really enjoyed it. In this clip, Rob voices something that has been bugging me for a while: why do we so often use the phrase “God showed up”? It seems like one of those hip Christianese things we like to say: “man, we’ve been praying about this mission trip, and God really showed up in a big way.”
I feel like a grouchy old man when I hear this. My gut churns a bit, and I think, “what do you mean God showed up? Isn’t God everywhere? Doesn’t He know everything? Is He like Baal or Zeus, off doing his own thing, until our supplications make him finally pay attention and sort of reluctantly do some magic? Are we surprised — like whoa, God, I didn’t think you got the invitation, but you showed up, dude!?”
Ok, I am a grouchy old man. But I do think there’s something subtle here that is good to correct. I feel like we lose something of God’s majesty, wisdom, and mystery when we say something like “God showed up.” I like to think that God is fully there even when it seems to me that He hasn’t shown up. When I pray for my son’s disability to be healed, and it isn’t; when I pray for justice in the world, and there doesn’t seem to be much of it; when I hear a story on the BBC world news about the global sex slave trade and how little can actually be done about it; when I study the Bible in depth and find it to be unruly and untameable, often more of a challenge than a clear guide; when I look at the list of things I hope to accomplish in life and realize that, at age 42, I’ll never succeed in all of it; when I consider the precautions I have to take to avoid giving in to the disease of depression — in all this and more, God doesn’t have to show up, he’s there, just as much as when He opens doors I thought were sealed shut or blesses me with health and success, as He often does.
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A Conspiracy of Silence
RJS writes an excellent post on Jesus Creed about the difficulty, in evangelical circles, of dealing openly with the problems presented by Biblical criticism, archeology and the natural sciences.
I could write about this all day. I think the answer to the question — “is there a conspiracy of silence about ‘problems’ with the Bible” — is yes, no, and sometimes.
Yes — I believe a great many pastors and educators know the problems and keep silent for fear of how their constituencies will react. Look at what happened to Pete Enns and at how his book — a relatively modest proposal in the bigger picture of Biblical scholarship — stirred up a hornet’s nest. There are broods of vipers in the Church who will strike at the first sign of flinching.
No — I believe a significant, significant, significant number of pastors and educators are living in denial about the problems. In the old “battle for the Bible” paradigm, critical methods were seen as prima facie invalid because they approached the Bible from a paradigm of unbelief. The result is that many have steeled themselves against even hearing and testing the claims of Biblical / historic / scientific criticism. They’re pretty sure Answers in Genesis has solved all this, and that’s the end of it.
Sometimes — it seems to me that there are more an more people in evangelical circles willing to take Biblical / historic / scientific criticism seriously. There are at least here and there local church leaders who remain engaged with trends in the academy (I’m blessed to know some personally). And at the same time, there are some GOOD reasons to subject the conclusions of critics to criticism. So-called “scientific exegesis,” all the rage in secular Biblical Studies, excludes a priori any “real” miracles behind any Biblical text, including the bodily resurrection of Jesus (note that this has noting directly to do with the relation of the Bible to the natural sciences — by “scientific” they mean an exegetical method that precludes the supernatural.) To the “scientific” exegetes, N.T. Wright is a fundamentalist — go figure.
The bottom line is that IMHO churches engaging the educated and informed young people of today, especially in a North American context, cannot, cannot continue to keep silent or live in denial and claim to be exercising their missional responsibilities.
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C.S. Lewis on Losing Yourself
The last paragraph in Mere Christianity. Do I ever need to keep learning this, every day:
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away “blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not
given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
Two good quotes (HT: An Alien and a Stranger):
A sense of security with regard to the foundations of faith and life encourages a spirit of relaxation with regard to many other matters. I am sure that an inner insecurity is often responsible for the dogmatism with which some people defend positions which are by their nature incapable of conclusive proof: there may be a feeling that, if those positions are given up, the foundations are in danger. I am sure, too, that a similar insecurity is responsible for the reluctance which some people show to acknowledge a change of mind on matters about which they once expressed themselves publicly: they may fear that their reputation for consistency is imperilled if they do . . . . Ultimately, the Christian’s faith is in a Person: his confession is ‘I know whom I have believed’, not ‘…what I have believed’ . . . . With this sense of liberty one can write freely – which is not the same thing as writing irresponsibly. A Christian will consider the probable effect of his words, whether spoken or written. – F.F. Bruce, In Retrospect: Remembrance of Things Past (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 172-3.
No such conclusions [he is referring to pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic biblical scholarship] are prescribed for members of the Tyndale Fellowship. In such critical cruces, for example, as the codification of the Pentateuch, the composition of Isaiah, the date of Daniel, the sources of the Gospels, or the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles, each of us is free to hold and proclaim the conclusion to which all the available evidence points. Any research worthy of the name, we take it for granted, must necessarily be unfettered. (F. F. Bruce, “The Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research,” The Evangelical Quarterly 19 (1947) 52-61)
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Quotes on Sin
Some good quotes on sin:
“The sinner is therefore someone who goes against nature, and it is the nature of human beings to live rationally. Sin is therefore something which must be regarded as absurd” (Theophylact of Ohrid, Byzantine Archbishop, c. 1000 A.D.)
“It is not a speculation but a description which even the veriest child can understand simply to say of evil in the first instance that it is what God does not will. But to say this is also to say that it is something which He never did nor could will, nor ever will nor can. It is thus that evil is characterized, judged, and condemned in the self-disclosure of the living person of Jesus Christ. As opposition to God, it is that which is simply opposed to His will, and from eternity, in time and to all eternity negated, rejected, condemned and excluded by his will.” (Karl Barth, Curch Dogmatics IV/3, 1:177)
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New Ambient Tune
Here’s a new ambient tune, “Harp,” using a pedal steel virtual instrument I just acquired. Enjoy.
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Evangelicals and the Election
A long string of interesting and disparate posts from the Christianity Today blog.
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First John: Introduction
I love preparing Bible Studies. This “First John” series will publish study materials on the book of 1 John that I’m preparing for use by small groups. Feel free to use them under a Creative Commons attribution-share alike license.
Introduction and Background
Why study 1 John?
St. Augustine (354-430 AD), one of the greatest Christian thinkers in history, said this about 1 John:
This book is very sweet to every healthy Christian heart that savors the bread of God, and it should constantly be in the mind of God’s holy church. But I chose it more particularly because what it specially commends to us is love. The person who possesses the thing which he hears about in this epistle must rejoice when he hears it. His reading will be like oil to a flame. . . . For others, the epistle should be like flame set to firewood; if it was not already burning, the touch of the word may kindle it.[1]
What kind of text is 1 John, and who wrote it?
1 John is an “epistle,” which is simply a Greek word for “letter.” During New Testament times, the Apostles and other leaders wrote letters intended to instruct and encourage local groups of Christians. [2] Some of these letters were recognized by the early Church to contain authoritative “apostolic” teaching – teaching coming directly from the Apostles who were commissioned by Jesus. These authoritative letters are the “epistles” contained in the New Testament.[3]
The writer of 1 John does not identify himself, but the related letters of 2 and 3 John were written by a person who called himself “the elder.”[4] He most likely was the Apostle John, who was an eyewitness to the life of Jesus.[5]
What are the primary concerns of 1 John?
The New Testament epistles are not dry, abstract theological treatises. They were written to address particular problems faced by local churches. 1 John was probably written between 95 and 100 A.D. – about 60 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection – to churches in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) that were being confronted with false teaching about Jesus.
The false teachers likely were promoting ideas that later came to be called “Gnosticism.” The Gnostic teachers denied that Jesus is God. They taught that all matter is evil and that the physical world therefore was not directly created by God. Because they believed the physical world is evil, the Gnostics could not accept the claim that Jesus, a physical person, was God incarnate (in the flesh). Instead, they believed that God possessed the body of Jesus only for a brief time. The Gnostics claimed that they had learned special, secret knowledge from God that was superior to the life and teaching of Jesus.
These false teachers could easily unsettle early groups of Christians. With all of the resources and support available to us Western Christians today, it is difficult to imagine living in a time and place when most of the New Testament was not yet written, local Churches often met in homes and were small and scattered, the official religion was pagan, and the government opposed the Church. The early Christians could easily have become confused by Gnostic teachers who talked about Jesus but whose beliefs and lifestyles were opposed to authentic Christian faith. The author of 1 John wrote to provide clear instruction to these believers about authentic Christian faith and living, and to comfort and reassure Christians about their faith in Jesus as God incarnate.
How do the Concerns of 1 John Relate to Us Today?
As North American Christians living in the 21st Century, we have far more education, freedom, and support available to us than did the people to whom 1 John originally was addressed. Yet, we face many of the same problems. Our popular culture is fascinated with “alternative” explanations of Christianity, such as the “Da Vinci Code” book and movie. Many of these alternative explanations (including the Da Vinci Code) can be traced directly back to Gnosticism and other similar beliefs that deny Jesus is God.
Aside from these very extreme views, there are groups of Christians all over the world who agree that Jesus is God, but who differ in important matters of doctrine and practice. How can we assess whether something is really “Christian?” What are the most basic marks of someone who is a true follower of Jesus? How should we as followers of Jesus think and live? 1 John gives us guidance relating to these questions.
Digging Deeper
This section lists some resources for those who are interested in learning more about some of the issues touched on in the study. These resources are available from the study leader or on the Internet.
High-level discussion of the formation of the “canon” of scripture: Craig Allert, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church’s Future) (Baker Academic 2007).
Detailed discussion of the authorship of 1 John: I. Howard Marshall, New International Commentary on the New Testament, The Epistles of John (Eerdmans 1978) (“NICOT Commentary”).
Culture and History of Asia Minor: Wikipedia entry for “Asia Minor,” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia (Note that Wikipedia can be a good source, but that it should be used with some caution. It is edited by users and is not always completely objective or accurate) and the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for “Asia Minor,” at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01782a.htm (Note that the Catholic Encyclopedia also can be a good source particularly for historical matters, but that it is written from a conservative Roman Catholic perspective. On some issues of doctrine and practice, we might offer a different perspective.)
Various theories about the false teaching addressed in 1 John, see NICOT Commentary, and Peter H. Davids, Douglas J. Moo, Robert W. Yarbrough, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, & 3 John, Jude (Zondervan 2002).
Gnosticism: Wikipedia entry for “Gnosticism,” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism and the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for “Gnosticism,” at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm.
Detailed study of how early Christian doctrine confronted the challenges of Gnosticism and other doctrinal and social questions: Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Univ. of Chicago Press 1975).
[1] Augustine, Ten Homilies on 1 John, Prologue (quoted in Oden, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Vol. XI).
[2] The “Apostles” were some of the first followers of Jesus who were specially commissioned by Jesus to be the leaders and teachers of the early Church.
[3] Because these epistles were recognized as authoritative, they were included in the “canon” of scripture, and so are called “canonical” epistles.
[4] 2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1.
[5] John the Apostle probably also wrote the Gospel of John and perhaps the book of Revelation.