This new resource from the Faraday Institute looks like it will be outstanding.
Category: Theology
David Gushee, one of my favorite evangelical thinkers, writes a provocative piece in USA Today on the challenge he thinks Sarah Palin’s nomination to Vice President poses for conservative evangelicals (HT: Euangelion).
I’m not sure Gushee completely hits the mark concerning church leadership. As others note, gender roles and authority in the sphere of church polity is not necessarily the same question as gender roles and authority in the sphere of civil government. However, Gushee is right, I think, that the arguments many “complementarians” make are rooted in what they understand as the order of creation, which extends to the church, the family, and presumably, to the other significant sphere of influence in society, the civil government.
In fact, one of the key reasons complementarians hold that 1 Timothy 2:11-12 is normative for the entire Church age, rather than a limited cultural prohibition (such as, say, the repeated New Testament injunction that women should cover their heads during worship, which almost all evangelicals ignore) is that verses 13-15 refer directly to the order of creation of man and woman and to the woman’s role in the Fall. This suggests, according to complementarians, that there is something inherent in the nature of “male” and “female” that establishes different (but complementary, not “superior” and “inferior”) social roles.
I won’t try to untangle all the impossibly difficult exegetical and hermeneutical issues the “complementarian vs. egalitarian” debate raises, but Gushee’s questions seem fair, particularly these:
- If you agree that God can call a woman to serve as president, does this have any implications for your views on women’s leadership in church life? Would you be willing to vote for a qualified woman to serve as pastor of your church? If not, why not?
- Do you believe that Palin is under the authority of her husband as head of the family? If so, would this authority spill over into her role as vice president?
The second question I quote above seems particularly dicey for complimentarians. You might sidestep the first question by noting the distinctive spheres of governance represented by Church and State, but there’s no getting around the sphere of governance represented by the family.
Categories
Text(s) of Scripture
This is another entry in our Text(s) of Scripture series. Our text is Luke 1:1-4:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Thom: Eyewitness is immensely important to the creation and explanation of our Scriptures. If may people have seen something, something must have happened, to paraphrase N.T. Wright. What David touches on with the term certainty I will not tackle here, other than to say that as someone who looks at linguistics/literature/philosophy/theology in a postmodern or postfoundational way, I try to think of certainty as a glass half full instead of a glass half empty. To allude to David’s own blog, we see through a glass darkly—the importance being that we see amazing things, not that sometimes they are obscure or blurry.
The Scriptures are an amazing storybook, a chronicled, multi-genre attempt at telling and retelling the wonderful story of God. This is what Luke is doing here, as he has gone to investigate, articulate, meditate, and create the story of God.
Luke created his gospel. He did it with the help of the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, but Luke was in control. He took up the pen, he investigated, he meditated, and then he made an orderly account for all lovers of God to enjoy. The key here is “orderly,” for it denotes the creational aspect of “good news” making. Luke is the writer, who with the help of a brooding Spirit, (re-)creates the Word. Gospel writing is right out of Genesis, as John alludes to in the introduction of his Gospel. The Holy Spirit is hovering over Luke’s writing as he forms it to be the beginning, the Word.
We are all servents of the Word. We enter into the economy of God with some certainty, much certainty even, yet there comes a time when we doubt or have much doubt. Then what may help us in times of darkness but the light of Christ, the Word, the spoken Story of the cosmos. Luke retells that story, not that we should “know” it academically, as is the status quo of Christendom today. Luke wants us to do something different with our knowledge. He wants us to follow in his footsteps and become storytellers ourselves. Just as the accounts of our Scriptures were handed down to us by those who from the first eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, so we too should take Luke’s accounts and hand them down ourselves through service, worship, and sacrament. We are all co-tellers and co-hearers of God’s story. We truly stand in a long line of believers, playing an immense game of Telephone. Except this time the message is not garbled. It comes out clean, pure, and true. Listen to it, the words handed down to Luke, who now hands them to us, and you will know that it is good.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
David: This passage is very interesting and important for the relationship between the Bible and epistemology. Luke’s use of the word “certainty” here serves as a touchstone for many who argue that the Bible serves as a source of objective, unerring certainty for human knowledge claims. Many emerging / postmodern / missional Christians, in contrast, are uncomfortable with, if not sometimes hostile to, any claims to objective certainty, as well as to an understanding of the Bible that makes the Bible primarily a source of objectively certain propositional statements.
I believe this is an important question for nurturing the faith of young people in the Church and for presenting the faith to those outside the Church in our pluralistic world. I hope I can do a longer series of posts on this, but for now, here is my summary.
In a nutshell, I think this passage establishes the Gospel of Luke, and at least the synoptic Gospels generally, as testimonial witnesses that secure the experience of faith in Christ. I do not, however, think this passage bears all the weight that some conservative evangelicals might want to place on it. I say this for two key reasons: (1) the Lukan passage does not itself suggest that it applies outside the context of the particular contents of the Gospel of Luke as communicated to Theophilus; (2) the Lukan passage, though strong in its language, must be understood in its literary context as the formal greeting of a Hellenistic text addressed to a patron; (3) other epistemological passages in scripture stress the provisional and limited nature of human knowledge even when enlightened by the gospel (e.g., many of the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, 1 Cor. 13:12); and (4) yet other epistemological passages in scripture stress that the ultimate ground of certainty / assurance is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, not an external criterion of truthfulness.
At the same time, contrary perhaps to some voices in the emerging church movement, I do think this passage suggest an important “objective” testimonial role for the Gospels and for scripture in general. Without the Lukan witness to the fact that scripture encodes the community’s testimonial witness about Jesus, it is too easy for our faith to become merely existential. The super-existentialism of Schleiermacher, I think, is a key element in “liberal” theology’s eventual serious problems with even central affirmations of the faith, such as the uniqueness of Christ. Faith is existential in that the primary witness to faith is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, but this faith is not merely ephemeral – it is grounded, anchored, or made secure (terms that reflect the root meaning of the Greek word asphelia that is translated “certainty”) in the recorded testimony of scripture, particularly the apostolic testimony about Jesus. The scriptural witness here, I think, plays a confirmatory, solidifying role, which differs from but compliments the initiating, primary role played by the Holy Spirit.
A little excursus: It’s interesting to note Luke’s other use of the word translated “certainty” in the NIV, asphelia, in Acts 5:23. It refers to the doors of a jail in which the apostles were held being “securely” locked. The word is also used in the LXX, sometimes to refer to physical “safety” (Deut. 12:10), “security” for a debt (e.g. Prov. 11:15), or “sound” or secure judgment (Prov. 8:14). As a lawyer, the LXX usage in Prov. 11:15 intrigues me. Posting security for a debt does not create the debt. The debt is created through some primary relationship between the creditor and debtor (for example, a contract to pay a certain amount at a future date for services rendered). Posting security ensures that the debt will be satisfied – if the debtor does not pay, the creditor may exercise its right to obtain the value of the security interest. The security interest gives the creditor assurance that it can enter into the transaction with the debtor without losing its investment. In a somewhat analogous way, I see the deposit of faith instantiated in the relationship between the believer and God, through Christ, initiated and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit, with scripture as the stable instrument recorded to secure the relationship.
Categories
Christians and "The Culture"
Once in a while, the Introduction of a book has me shouting “yes” right from the start. Such is the case with Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. This paragraph in particular stated some things I have been thinking for a long time:
We talk about ‘the culture’ even though culture is always cultures, plural: full of diversity, variety and history. We talk about ‘engaging,’ ‘impacting’ and ‘transforming the culture’ when in fact the people who most carefully study culture tend to stress instead how much we are transformed by it. If we are to be at all responsible agents in the midst of culture, we need to learn new ways of speaking about what we are doing.
Yes!! When I hear or read about “the culture,” it is like nails on a blackboard to me. We don’t inhabit “the culture”; we constitute and are part of many varied cultures, even within the seemingly homogenous world of middle class America. My friend who is a graduate student, another friend who is a contractor, another who is a doctor, and myself as a law professor, all are white (or maybe white, Asian, African-American, and other) middle class guys in suburbia, all worship at similar kinds of churches, but all participate in diverse cultures relating to our different family and professional experiences.
Crouch continues:
The worst thing we could do is follow that familiar advice to ‘pray as if it all depended on God, and work as if it all depended on you.’ Rather, we need to become people who work as if it all depends on God — because it does, and because that is the best possible news. We work for, indeed work in the life and power of, a gracious and infinitely resourceful Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. And we know ourselves well enough that the thought that it might in fact all depend on us would drive us straight to fasting and trembling prayer.
Yes again! I’m looking forward to chewing over this one.
This is one of those amazing things. I’ve been thinking a bit lately about what Biblical “faith” means, how it contrasts with “doubt,” and how these concepts tie together in connection with the way we understand the Bible. Literally moments after praying for some wisdom about this, I thought of checking the Conn-versation blog, and lo and behold — there is a post from a week ago on this very topic. I reproduce that post below, to be chewed on when I have more time:
Over the past year, as I have been posting, lurking, and chiming in here at Conn-versation, and reading and occasionally commenting on Art Boulet’s personal blog, I have continually found myself brought back to the question of what Christian faith really is.
The Bible has a good bit to say on the subject, but it’s really a New Testament concept. The OT explicitly addresses faithfulness, but it’s usually in the context of a quality of Yahweh and the desired quality of his people. The aspect of belief and trust that we typically mean when we talk about faith makes its first appearance in the gospels. Jesus observes faith in the people he encounters, and tends to evaluate it on a quantitative scale: little or great. He seems to be addressing their specific willingness to trust in him personally to accomplish in-real-time salvific acts, manifest most often in healing and life-restoration miracles, which then serve as object lessons pointing to his greater purpose. For the most part, it’s not until the epistles that we get a fuller-blown explication of faith as belief and trust in the person and work of Christ for salvation and eternal life.
In light of this, what does it then mean when we talk about hanging on to faith or losing faith as we ask questions of the Bible? It has occurred to me that conservative reformed Christians have worked hard to ensure that faith is so underpinned by certainties that – well – it doesn’t require all that much faith. To be one of the people of Yahweh requires faith in Jesus, which requires faith in the Bible, which believers can trust completely because the church has doctrinally declared to be inerrant, wholly trustworthy, and perfect down to its very words. Start asking too many untidy questions of the Conn-versation sort, and the whole system, it would seem, is at risk of collapsing, bringing the faith of the faithful along with it.
This is where I’ve had difficulty. Does my faith in the Jesus of the gospels really hinge on Genesis 5 being literally true, as opposed to an Israelite retooling and repurposing of the Sumerian kings list? On insisting as true that Samson was a historic figure and his deeds were accomplished as recorded or that David wrote the Psalms bearing his name? On intentionally burying my understanding of the very different looks of Jeremiah in the MT and the LXX in favor of one Jeremiah only? If these things are equivocal, must it follow that Jesus is equivocal?
Faith requires an element of trust in the absence of concrete proof. It is, as the writer of Hebrews puts it, “the conviction of things not seen.” Given that, to what extent does the church’s admittedly well-intended insistence on the perfection of Scripture as a bedrock of faith begin to work at cross-purposes with trusting in things not seen? It strikes me as requiring a greater measure of faith to go with the kind of Bible we’ve actually got than the kind of Bible we may have at one time thought we had, or the kind that arch-conservatives continue to insist we must have. Is there room for the Holy Spirit to infuse the believer’s soul with the truth of the gospel resulting in faith even when Genesis 1-11 is understood to be literature rather than history?
I think it’s time for some reflections on exactly what we as Christian believers mean when we say we have faith. Is the Bible we have, the one that God in some mysterious way caused to be written, assembled, translated, and passed down by generation after generation of Christians, robust enough to withstand detailed secular and academic scrutiny and still contribute to the creation and growth of faithful believers in the person and work of Jesus to salvation? If it’s not, what are we really saying? Is it, as the conservatives would argue, that God is less than fully God? Or, is it, as I have begun to think, that our faith is less than the faith that Jesus himself commended? Or, is it something else? What do you think?
Here’s a nice excerpt from Michael Barram’s article “Located Questions for a Missional Hermeneutic“:
The Bible itself illustrates the importance of questions in understanding the character and mission of God in the world. Questions punctuate critical turning points in Scripture, in many cases providing the opportunity for a deeper understanding and appropriation of God’s purposes and intentions. Moses asks whom he should say has sent him to Egypt, leading to God’s self-identification and eventual liberative action on behalf of those enslaved by Pharaoh (Exodus 3:13). Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord calling out, “Whom shall I send?,” leading to the prophet’s commission (Isaiah 6:8). Micah clarifies God’s expectations regarding human conduct when he asks, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). Upon hearing John the Baptist’s call for a repentance exemplified by “worthy fruit,” Luke describes the crowds, tax collectors, and even soldiers asking the pivotal, potentially life-changing question, “What should we do?” (Luke 3:10, 12, 14). Mark’s Gospel reaches its climax as Jesus asks the disciples not merely what others say about him, but more importantly, who do they say that he is? (Mark 8:29). According to John’s Gospel, Nathaniel and Pilate both articulate fundamental questions that ironically point to the very heart of Jesus’ identity and mission. Nathaniel asks, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46). The obvious answer for John’s readers is “absolutely!” Likewise, Pilate’s frustrated query, “What is truth?” (John 18:38), seems particularly poignant near the end of a Gospel that repeatedly describes Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit in terms of truth. Over and over again, Paul uses a variety of rhetorical questions in his letters to further his primary line of reasoning and to expose erroneous perceptions regarding the implications of his gospel (e.g., Rom 6:1, 15; 7:7).
We could go on to passage after passage in which various questions lead to crucial insights, refreshed priorities, and more faithful discipleship. Indeed, the Bible suggests that seemingly innocuous, inarticulate, and even half-baked questions can prove to be remarkably important. Consider, for example, the lawyer’s surprise in Luke’s Gospel when he has heard Jesus’ response to his question, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). Or how about the confusion and disappointment the apostles must have felt at the beginning of Acts, when they asked, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Jesus’ answer demonstrates that human expectations are far smaller and more provincial than anything God has in store, even as he clarifies the apostles’ missional calling as witnesses (Acts 1:7-8). It is tempting to suggest that a fairly complete and compelling portrayal of the missio Dei could be written by focusing on biblical passages that feature question marks!
Perhaps more than anything else, a missional hermeneutic should be characterized by the relentless articulation of critical questions.
This is the third in the “Text(s) of Scripture” series between Thomas and yours truly.
Our present text is Psalm 18:31:
As for God, his way is perfect;
the word of the LORD is flawless.
He is a shield
for all who take refuge in him.
Thom:
This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the LORD proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
“Prove It!”
That’s what a nine year old says to another nine year old when a boast has been made or a bluff is waiting to be called. Even if something is proven, the person who is right still might need to take refuge from the more powerful or the bully. Spun out into a cosmic game of good versus evil, where spears are being thrown at harp players and prophetic words seem weak when confronted with the sword, proving right over might seems impossible.
In this psalm of David, he is declaring once again that the word of the LORD proves itself true, because it has been witnessed in his own life. He has seen God’s prophecy and law prove its worthiness and perfection. He has seen his life spared. He has seen the wisdom of the Proverbs play itself out in real life. He has heard God’s true prophets say “this is the word of the LORD” and then seen the fulfillment of this word.
God’s word is his covenant to us. It is his agreement, his oath, his desire, focus, and pleasure. He speaks and the earth shakes. He speaks and Creation becomes. He delights in the fulfillment of his Word, the heirs of his coming kingdom.
Christians live on the dawn of the last days. We have seen the light cusp the horizon, and we prepare for the sunrise. But it hasn’t come yet.
But it has! Christ is risen each Easter morn, in each soul that follows his way, in each mouth that is fed, heart warmed, cold body clothed, and orphan adopted. His Word, though tempted and suffering, even death on a cross, has been proven. It was the same in the time of David. It will be the same forevermore, until the Kingdom dawns.
Dave:
What does it mean that the “word of the Lord is flawless?” I think this is a kind of relational, experiential term: God’s ways are perfect and his “word” is “tested” or “tried and true” — a more accurate translation of the Hebrew here than “flawless” (the Hebrew root refers to the purification and smelting of precious metals).
David here is referring specifically to the benefits of keeping the Torah, the Law. He claims in verses 18-24, for example, that
For I have kept the ways of the LORD,
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all His ordinances were before me,
And I did not put away His statutes from me.
I was also blameless with Him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.
Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in His eyes.
David celebrates his fidelity to Torah and attributes his success over his enemies to superior keeping of Torah. In fact, this Psalm is recorded essentially verbatim in 2 Samuel 22, after David has consolidated his rule over Israel after bloody conflict with Saul and civil war against his own son, Absalom.
David’s claim to be “blameless,” however, is something of a rhetorical and literary device. In fact, David repeatedly violated God’s law in serious ways. Absalom was the son of David’s unlawful tryst with Bathsheba, which David tried to cover up through the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah (2 Samuel 11-12). As another example, David took a census of Israel, which he later acknowledged to be sinful, and which resulted in a judgment of pestilence against Israel (this census was sinful probably because it involved increased taxation, conscription and forced labor) (2 Sam. 24). David, who ultimately repents for his violations of the Law, is “blameless” only in comparison to those who disregard the Law entirely.
The claim here, then, is that those who follow God’s ways will not be disappointed. There is also an implied lesson, I think, that when we fail to follow God’s ways we should turn back to Him and that He will receive us.
God’s “word” — His Law — His definition of the “good life” — is “tried and true.” Many heroes of the faith — even highly flawed heroes such as David — have listened to God’s word and have found God to be faithful. And many others have obstinately turned aside from God’s ways, to their ultimate destruction.
So is this passage a proof text for a particular doctrine of scripture? Yes and no, I think. Yes, in that God’s precepts and commands, which fundamentally concern appropriate respect for God, self, and others, always lead to a “true” life for those who follow them. No, I humbly submit, in that it isn’t really connected to our modern meticulously phrased, logically systematic statements about how the human and divine aspects of scripture as a whole relate to each other in general, or about how scripture “measures up” to modern ideas of historiography.
This is the second in the Text(s) of Scripture series between Thomas and myself. Our text is Luke 3:1-3:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Thom: There is no other way around it. This passage necessitates a different understanding of “word of God” than as a synonym for the Bible. Putting aside the fact that John calls Christ the Word, here in this passage the word of God travelling to John in the desert cannot be interpreted as an autobiographical testimony (the Bible talking about itself).
There is a spiritual, or better yet “Holy Spiritual” aspect to the Word of God travelling. The word of God is travelling, on the mood, a rushing wind—pushing John out into the desert and filling his mouth with the traditional Jewish prophetic decleration: repent!
The word of God is active here, it is spiltting sould and spirit, calling people to repent, to go out into the desert to remove themselves from the patterns of the world. To die. To be planted in the baptismal water and rise up again as a new creation.
The word of God is moving John around the country as the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters at the dawn of Creation. This prophecy is creational, calling people to a new Eden, a new way to live.
A bound book made by a scribe did not grow legs and arms and push John out into the desert with super-book strength. The word of God came from outside the “word of God.” Wait, no, that is a bad way to look at this. One way is not proper, the other mystical or “other.” Instead, the word of God is just that: the word of God.
It is written on paper.
It is written on our hearts.
And sometimes it comes to us, and speaks to us, and lets us know our calling. Our calling into the desert, our calling into new creation, our calling into the kingdom.
Dave: What jumps out at me in this passage is that the “word of God” moves “to” John the Baptist. In the Greek, the preposition translated “to” here is “epi,” which means “on” or “upon.” So John is waiting in the desert and the “word of God” seizes him. He is filled, perhaps suddenly and noticeably, with something that causes him to get up and preach.
It’s also interesting that “word of God” here is “rhema Theou,” not the “logos ton Theou” of Hebrews 4:12 (our previous text). Why “rhema” — an utterance or topic, often of command or dispute — rather than “logos,” a “word” with its Johanine implications of the divine essence / Christ? Well, I lack the scholarly chops to say anything definitive about that, but perhaps it’s significant that Luke uses a forceful term for “word.” The “word of God” here animates and compels John. It is time for action. John is seized by an imperative from God that compels him to preach.
This can remind us, I think, that the “word of God” is transformative. I’m very tempted here to say something Barthian: the “word of God” is only really the “word of God” when it is transforming the Christian community and the world. Maybe I’d nuance that a bit: the “word of God” must transform us if it is to function in and through us as God desires. The “word of God” has not “come upon” us when we extract a list of propositions from the Biblical texts, nor can any such list of propositions transform the world. Rather, the “word of God” has “come upon” us when it causes us to repent and to call others to repentance from the violence and death of sin to the peace and life of righteousness (right-ness) in Christ.
This is the first post in the “Text(s) of Scripture” series in conjunction with Thomas at Everyday Liturgy.
Our first text is Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Exegetical note: It is difficult from the context to determine what “ho logos ton theou,” “the word of God,” means in this context. The immediate context seems to refer to the gospel, and warns that the gospel must be received in faith for the promise of a “Sabbath rest” to become effective for the hearer. Some commentators therefore suggest “the word of God” here refers specifically to the gospel; others identify it with Christ, the “Logos” of John 1, though this is not a typical Pauline usage; and still others identify it with revelation generally, including all of the scriptures.
Reflections:
Dave: What does it mean for a text to be “living and active?” I’m reminded of current debates in the United States about whether our Constitution is a “living” document. There is lots of unfortunate political baggage around this concept, but it seems obvious to me that the Constitution is a living document, whatever approach one takes to its interpretation. The Constitution must continually be applied to circumstances the framers never could have anticipated, such as the scope of free speech rights on the Internet. And the Constitution continually judges our polity and praxis, forcing us to consider again and again whether “we the people” are living up to our formative ideals. There is a hermeneutical spiral in the interpretation and application of the Constitution, as we move from the original context to the contemporary challenges and back again.
The Bible is a sort of constitution for the Church, and it is “living and active” in a manner similar to the U.S. Constitution. The community governed by the Biblical constitution – the Church – must continually apply the principles reflected in the text to new circumstances the human writers could never have imagined. How do we respond to ethical challenges posed by new technologies, such as in vitro fertilization? What kind of community should we become in a global village networked on a scale inconceivable in the first century? And the Biblical constitution continually judges the polity and praxis of the Church, cutting through our cultural baggage and hypocrisy and asking whether we truly are loving God and neighbor fully.
Yet the Bible is “living and active” in ways that cannot be claimed for a legal text like the Constitution because this “word” is uniquely “of God.” The God who speaks this “word” is the triune God, who became incarnate in the Son and who speaks in and to the Church in the Spirit. The “text” of the “logos ton Theou” is not merely a set of signs that signify discrete legal-regulative principles in the manner of a Constitution. It is rather the signification of the presence of the triune God who continually transforms the community of faith.
Thom: There is a sense here that the author is intentionally linking the “word of God” or gospel to Creation. The Sabbath rest is a signifier of judgment or completion, for only when Creation was good and complete did God rest. The actional quality of the “word of God” is the sense that it moves beyond the text to stir hearts to adhere to the gospel message. Here, the gospel or “word of God” finds its truest sense as the way that a person is judged once he or she has completed the task at hand: to live a life based on the “word of God.” I do not take “word of God” to be inclusive of Scripture here, but instead to be the fullness of God’s prophetic action in the world, whether through the words of Scripture, the words of his servants, prophets, or kings (especially the true King, Christ). The statement that follows our quote is “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Thus, the “word of God” is substance to which we must give account. There are troubling and awesome prospects in this: that we cannot enter the rest of God unless we live the living Word. This is not a justification by works (alone), for the author clarifies in the previous section “for we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as those who have fallen short of it did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed entered that rest.” The intersection of Word and Creation is evident in that Christ, the first fruits of the new creation, enables the faithful to enter into a Sabbath rest. The Word of God, the voice that called Creation into existence has been completing the work of rest since the creation of the world. Therefore, the “word of God” is thus a prophetic message, one of prayer, Scripture, prophecy, judgment, and action, that calls people out of the patterns of this world and into the Sabbath rest of God.
I’m putting together some materials for a small group that will be studying 1 John. Here’s a wonderful quote from Augustine, found in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume that includes the Johanine epistles:
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 choose 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.