From the forthcoming study guide to Philippians (from my company, Energion Publications), in commenting on Philippians 1:27-30:
Even now in our time, we can take confidence in Paul’s assertion that God is with us and that, in life and death, and celebration and persecution, Christ sustains us. We are resurrection people. But, our lives are also cruciform or cross-shaped. The Risen Jesus is known initially by his wounds, and we too may experience suffering and loss as a result of our relationship with Christ. Still, at the end of the day, integrity, fidelity, and the promise of resurrection life far outweigh any trials of this lifetime.
(Excerpts from this forthcoming study guide are used by permission of the author as I edit the book. If you’re interested in reviewing this book, slated for a July 31 release, e-mail pubs@energion.com.)
After much of what I heard about Paul in school, which was really rather a lot, I think one of the most important things to remember when reading Paul’s letters is that they are letters, and that Paul writes pastorally. He is not writing systematic theology. On the other hand, he is writing theology. He’s just doing it in a pastoral way to address particular situations in churches or with persons.
I’m correctly working through advance copies of the forthcoming study guide to Philippians by Bruce Epperly, which will be part of the Participatory Study Series, with my Sunday School class. Now I love the book of Philippians. In fact, right now it’s one of the books I have recorded for myself in Greek on CD to listen to in my car, and it’s something I really enjoy hearing. There are so many powerful passages for daily Christian living.
If you study just Galatians, you might get the idea that Paul was contentious with very little tolerance for any sorts of differences of opinion. You’d be wrong if you did–well, he’s a bit contentious, true–but you could do so by ignoring the situation and the nature of the issues he’s addressing in that letter.
In Philippians we see another style, in which Paul can even celebrate (with some reservations) those who preach the gospel from bad motives. Let me quote Epperly on this point:
Once again, Paul trusts God to be providentially working through a variety of Christian messages. While Paul would surely fault his opponents for their lack of ecumenical hospitality, he still recognizes that their message may advance the gospel message by bringing people to an experience of the Risen Christ. Now, I must admit this is a tall order. While most of us recognize that unity does not mean uniformity, there are times when we find it difficult to affirm God’s presence in those groups whose beliefs, worship style, ethics, or experiences differ from our own. Could it be that Paul is advocating a “big tent Christianity,” large enough to embrace progressives, moderates, evangelicals, Pentecostals, and conservatives? Could it be that Paul, for whom theology is very important, nevertheless, places experiencing Christ above doctrinal differences?
Now while I might see Paul faulting these opponents for more than a lack of hospitality, I do see much of Paul in Philippians in that paragraph. The situation and the issue tends to drive the letter. Differences in Paul’s theology are generally driven by differences in the churches he’s addressing. His interest is in reaching and guiding people, rather than in expressing a systematic theology.
“Guiding people” and “expressing theology” are not opposed. Paul expresses theology in order to guide people. The pastoral view guides what theology is expressed, where and how.
There’s some controversy about contentious material in chapter three and how it relates to the generally positive and joyful tone of the letter. I see no more conflict here than I do with the belief that Paul could write both Galatians and Philippians, a view which is pretty much unchallenged. At least I know of no serious argument that Paul didn’t write both. The difference is the issues for which Paul is contending.
In other words, there are things worth contending for, and others that are not.
I’ve often said that I think people who become angry when their beliefs questioned are actually less confident of those beliefs, rather than more so. But that’s a pretty broad and inadequate statement, I think.
I was discussing this with my wife recently, and we were wondering why neither of us get annoyed with people who question our faith, when some folks we know do. In an extreme case, I recall talking to a young man at a book show who responded angrily to my book What’s in a Version?. For him, the KJV was the one and only word of God, and you could see the tension creep in at the very thought that anyone might question that fact. As the discussion progressed, it became clear that for him, faith would collapse should this one doctrinal position prove false.
In our discussion, I recalled my own departure from faith after I received my MA. I claimed unbelief, but as I processed things, I eventually (nearly 12 years later) came to the realization that I did, in fact, believe. The belief wasn’t something one would call Christian faith, and it was limited, but having shed most doctrinal positions, I found myself believing still. In exploring that, I returned to some doctrinal positions I had held previously, but not to others.
I think the question here is just what is the object of my faith. If I, like that young man, would find my world unraveling if one could prove that the KJV wasn’t the one and only true word of God, is my faith in God or in the doctrine? Now the KJV-Only position is an extreme example, and I do believe many KJV-Only advocates are guilty of bibliolatry, but it’s very easy, I think, for us to place our personal preferences, and even our correct doctrines, ahead of God.
For example, T. C. Moore suggests that the Gospel is the Messiah and not the doctrine of justification by faith (HT: Political Jesus). While I accept the doctrine of justification by faith (though not with all the definitions some Calvinists place on it), I would agree. The doctrine tells us something about the object of faith. Thus I could be convinced that I had misunderstood something about the doctrine without it making me question my faith in Jesus.
On the other hand, I want to avoid the idea that doctrine, or the content of our beliefs, doesn’t matter. What I believe about Jesus is important, at the same time as I place my faith in Jesus and not in what I believe about Him.
Let me compare this to marriage. I love my wife. I could describe this as adequate. She, and not some one of her attributes, is the object of my love. I know that she is a great organizer, a great caregiver, that she loves and prays for our children and grandchildren, and that if the budget is short she’ll give up something she wants before something that the children, grandchildren, or I would like. It’s important that I know these things about here. They’re true.
But I don’t focus on those things to the neglect of the person. I could be out every night telling people about those things, while neglecting my wife, herself. But more importantly, what happens when she displays weakness? My love doesn’t change. But if what I loved was merely a list of characteristics, it might.
The two elements are a package, but I do believe that if the focus, the object, of our faith and trust is right, we will have much less fear of examining the various things we believe about that person. There is no single string you can pull to make my faith in God disappear.
So pull away at those strands. I’ll enjoy the discussion! Maybe we’ll both learn.
Actually the headline is just hype. I’m not going to say much about them. By the time things settle down to where I think I have something to say, somebody else has already said it. I guess I’m just slow.
Even while the media has begun to take notice of serious doubts about the authenticity of the lead codices, a new story is circulating about the alleged discovery of the nails with which Jesus was crucified. I wonder if they are made of lead and have inscriptions upon them, and had earlier been used to hold Noah’s Ark together.
David Ker has written a book, and it has lots of pictures of hippos in it. Since my very favorite song is “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas,” this means that I truly adore the book. Besides, I’m only about a decade late taking notice of it.
Now I haven’t actually read the book, but I read most of the blog posts that went into it, and I enjoyed them. I have duly downloaded it so I can peruse it in an orderly fashion.
But it was the fact that Jim West called the book “gas from a hippo’s backside” that really made me go and download it. I think, however, that David Ker lied to me (horrors!) and Jim didn’t actually write all that nasty stuff about his book. So I’m truly disappointed. No, that’s not right. Make that impressed!
I always tell my authors that a truly nasty review is great for publicity. But to write one yourself, and credit it to a creatively credible culprit (not to mention creedally correct [see depravity)–that’s genius!
I’m not going to comment directly on the video. Rather, I think it is worthwhile to give my answer to the question asked. What does a woman who is abused do? (Note also that I’m aware there are men who are abused, but the question was not framed in that way.)
My answer is simple: Get out of there and report it. But especially get out of there. Don’t give a physical abuser the opportunity to do more damage.
I am an egalitarian as I have stated on this blog any number of times, yet I won’t criticize complementarian philosophy as natural leading to abuse, as some have done. I treat this issue as a non-essential. Complementarianism is not abuse.
Violent abuse, on the other hand, is a crime and not just something to be dealt with in connection with the church. It remains a crime irrespective of the theological positions of the abuser. I think we’ve had enough cases of church cover-ups. I also cannot see any way in which abusing one’s spouse or one’s children can be justified, or that one ought to endure it. It should be reported.
Many women in such a situation would not feel comfortable taking their case before the church, especially with a husband who might be in a position of authority, or where the church leadership is all male. In such cases again, I would always emphasize getting out of reach of the abuser first, then reporting it either to the authorities or to someone trustworthy who will, in turn, report it to the authorities.
For me the key theological issue here is that abuse violates the divine mandate for marriage. For some it seems to be easy to hear “wives submit to your husbands” (Eph. 5:22) without also hearing “be subject one to another” (Eph. 5:21) and “love your wives as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). How was that again? “As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
That’s the New Testament idea of having authority.
But if four years of college undo 18 years of parenting and religious affiliation, perhaps the faith community’s tenuous hold is the problem, not the particular place outside its bubble where that hold evaporates. Consider the believers we’ve seen in history. With all the persecution that Judaism and Christianity have survived over the centuries, an argument that sites America’s Top 310 Colleges as a first order adversary is hard to credit…. (Source: The Atlantic: Why College Students and Losing Their Religion)
I agree. We tend to blame society for the fact that our young people tend to leave the church around college age. I suspect we’d like to believe that because it means we’re not to blame. We’ve done our best, but it’s just the society. What can we do?
Well, we could try living our faith and inviting our kids to live it with us, rather than trying to work in just the right amount of indoctrination. We could try examining the kinds of ideas they’ll hear about in college, rather than repeating cliches and working our way through bland, unchallenging curriculum. (Can anyone say, “Bring your Bibles?”)
One of my pet peeves is the way “literal” is used in discussing biblical interpretation. The problem is not just that the word has changed meaning; rather, it is now scattered all over the map. “Literal” comes to mean anything from “seriously” to “severely out of context” much more often than it means “literal as opposed to figurative.” Even “literal as opposed to figurative” leaves something to be desired since without a knowledge of just which way something is to be taken, either literally or figuratively, one often can’t tell what is meant.
For example, if I say I don’t take Genesis 1 literally, just what do I mean? For me, Genesis is not narrative history. Having said that, there are many things it could be, and it happens that I take Genesis 1:1-2:4a to be liturgy. There are figurative elements in liturgy, but it is a more specific label.
In any case, in studying Philippians, I came across this note in the Orthodox Study Bible regarding the Greek word leitourgia in 2:17: “Service is literally ‘liturgy.’ …” I hate to beat up on the Orthodox Study Bible so much, especially considering that at the same time as I use it, I’m becoming more and more delighted with the eastern church fathers.
But “service” is not literally “liturgy” nor is leitougia literally “liturgy.” “Liturgy” is merely one gloss one might use, expressing a certain portion of the semantic range of the Greek word. One might say the the word translated “service” is the one from which we derive the English word “liturgy,” though that doesn’t really mean much regarding the meaning of this passage.
So again I will maintain that “literal” is one of the most misused words in biblical interpretation. I’ve suggested before that if I could take one phrase away from conservatives it would be “the Bible clearly teaches.” If I could take one phrase away from liberals it would be “we don’t take that literally.” Neither one advances the discussion.
It’s been awhile since I made a comment regarding the Orthodox Study Bible. In preparing for my study of Philippians with my Sunday School class, I read the OSB notes on the book. Regarding the phrase episkopois kai diakonois in verse 1, it has the following note:
This is the only epistle in which St. Paul includes the clergy, the bishops and deacons, in his address. St. John Chrysostom says this is because it was the clergy in Philippi who collected the funds Paul so badly needed and sent them to him by Epaphroditus. Bishops are the leading presbyters. By the time this letter was written, around AD 63, not only were bishops present in Philippi, but James was presiding over the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13) and tradition reveals that Peter was bishop in Antioch–and later in Rome. … (emphasis in original)
I question whether this isn’t a bit anachronistic for the time period in question, whether one sees Philippians as written in the 55-56 range (with an assumed imprisonment in Ephesus) or in the 61 range.
I note with interest (and some approbation) the New Jerusalem Bible’s rendering: “presiding elders and deacons,” though I think “deacons” sounds more churchy than necessary. The NRSV textual note, “overseers and helpers” has much to commend it as well.
I’m going to have the privilege over the next eight weeks of teaching from the book of Philippians using advance copies of a new study guide. The study guide was written by Dr. Bruce Epperly, and will be released by my company, Energion Publications, in July. This will be the next release in the Participatory Study Series, from which this blog derives its name. I’m going to blog about it as I work through it with my class and present a few extracts and comments.
For the record, I still have a number of things to write from my ongoing blogging about James (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary) and Chronicles (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary). I have a number of notes, but haven’t had time to write any of them up.
I must confess that Philippians is one of my three favorites from the Pauline corpus, the other two being 1 & 2 Corinthians. Yes, I prefer what I regard as the more practical and less theological letters. It’s really a close call, because I really do appreciate the others as well, but I think I have to give those three the edge, and I think that they are often neglected in favor of Pauline theologies developed largely from Galatians and Romans. But that’s another topic!
The Letter to the Philippians is an example of practical theology, in which the church is called to live the faith it affirms. Paul has a strong sense of divine providence. While God does not control or determine every event, nevertheless, “in all things God is working for good.” (Romans 8:28) God is working in the Philippian church and will, through their fidelity, bring God’s good work to fulfillment, a harvest of righteousness. God rules the world through loving affirmation and humility rather than power and violence. Unlike Caesar, Jesus Christ does not seek to “lord it over” creation, but seeks to heal and save broken humanity. Christ’s path of humble service serves as a model for Christian living. Rather than rugged individualism and self-interest, Christians are called to serve one another, willingly sacrificing so that others might flourish.
I think that’s a good description–“practical theology.” Indeed it is! Now “practical” doesn’t mean “shallow.” Nor do I mean that Galatians, for example, isn’t practical. But Philippians is directed to application.
I’m going to give one more short quote from the first lesson:
In proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord, Paul is implicitly placing Jesus ahead of Caesar. Imperial rulers will come and go, but God’s Living Word endures forever.
