Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • A Couple of Links on the Purpose of the Church

    Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...
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    A few days ago I posted a quote on the purpose of the church, particularly church growth, and between the comments to that post, Twitter, and my RSS reader, I’ve found a few to add to it.

    First, Jimmy Davis, a former student (for one year of Hebrew) and now an associate pastor in Texas, provided a link to his article, When Your Church is Really Parachurch. The critical conclusion:

    Organizations, much like individuals, are prone to have “me-first-hearts” rather than “you-first-hearts.” I am not saying that organization is bad or unnecessary; indeed, it is necessary and good (the first six chapters of Acts describe how the church organized itself as it grew). But the attitude of the church’s pastors, programs, polity, and place toward the church’s people should always be one of “at your service.” As I examine my own experience in the pew and the pastorate I am convinced that though Jesus has called the organization to serve the organism, I and many others have led our churches to have an “organization-first-heart.” Our churches must learn to live the cruciform life of dying to the glory and good of the organization in order to live for the glory of God and the good of people.

    Jimmy has a book coming out soon, Cruciform: Living the Cross-Shaped Life which he says will be released April 1st (no foolin’!). (No, I’m not the publisher on this one!)

    Pastor Steven Furtick (I’m not sure where I gleaned this from), admonishes us to be fishers of men, not keepers of the aquarium. It’s an excellent way to make the point! I have often noted how churches that concentrate on taking care of the people inside tend to diminish. Often in order to properly care for those inside you need to be looking outside.

     

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  • Need a License to be Smart?

    Apparently Kevin Lacy, chief traffic engineer for the North Carolina DOT thinks you do. When a citizens group challenged his decision on a couple of traffic lights, and provided substantiating data they collected and compiled themselves, he said it was “engineering-level work” and reported it to the state licensing board.

    This one speaks for itself, I think. Incredible!

    HT: Dispatches.

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  • Hermeneutical Self-Awareness

    Pete Enns has an interesting article on Cain and Abel on the BioLogos Science and the Sacred web site. As interesting as it is–and I commend the discussion–I was most struck by the final paragraph:

    Pondering these sorts of questions leads to “hermeneutical self-awareness.” Such self-awareness may not lead to the final word about a passage, but it does lead to true humility in interpretation and an encouragement to unity among Christians where they might differ on matters of interpretation.

    That’s an excellent phrase: hermenutical self-awareness. I think we are often much too little aware of how it is we come to particular interpretations. One valuable way to build such awareness is by looking at a variety of attempts to interpret a passage, as Enns does in this post.

  • Nice Note on the Johannine Comma

    This article by Daniel B. Wallace includes some nice material about how the groundwork for textual criticism is done.

  • Life Application Study Bible (NLT) Giveaway

    I have had this on my Participatory Bible Study blog for a few days and so far there is only one entry. Contest ends Monday. Check it out!

  • Keeping Your Greek (or Not)

    Via Dave Black, I came across this review of the book Keep Your Greek: Strategies for Busy People. I’m going to try to get a copy of this book at some point, as I deal with many people who would like to keep some Greek but really haven’t.

    Dave comments:

    In the teaching world we often speak of “outcomes” when we write our syllabi. Here’s what I tell my Greek students: “By the end of the course you should be able to read your Greek New Testament with the use of a lexicon.” Now, many different roads can lead to this outcome. The most important is probably grammar; then comes vocabulary (which unlocks the door to rapid reading). But should students be discouraged from using other helps in their pursuit of this objective — interlinears, for example? Looks like one writer thinks so — that students should “burn their interlinears” (see Mark Stevens’ review of Con Campbell’s book Keeping Your Greek.)

    I respectfully disagree. It is a day of conformity. Individuality is being erased until we all are like eggs in a carton. It is amusing to me to hear people proscribing tools that get students into the text. There is freedom in Christ, and it is unrealistic to think that our graduates will always master the languages to the degree we want them to. I’ve quoted it before, but the words of an old preacher bear repeating:

    Halitosis is better than no breath at all.

    Isn’t that great?

    I must respectfully agree with Dave, though my disagreement with Mark Stevens and the book itself must be very respectful, as I’ve had some nasty things to say about interlinears myself.

    I work largely with people who are either learning Greek for their own use, or who are in great need of keeping their Greek or Hebrew. Their primary need is to keep the tool available for their own use in teaching or sermon preparation. They’re not looking to pass a Greek proficiency exam (though I’ve had the pleasure of helping some people successfully for such), nor are they looking to doctoral studies.

    What they need to do is maintain enough proficiency with the language in general so that they can study specific things they need to study.

    I think there are two elements to this:

    1) Learning Greek or Hebrew as a language in the context of the texts we have available. By this I mean not learning it simply as a set of rules which you can apply to a text, but getting to the point where you see meaning in the text without processing every detail consciously. If you don’t get to that point, maintenance will always be incredibly difficult.

    2) Maintaining exposure to quantities of the language. We don’t remember our English vocabulary because we memorized lists. We remember it because we make use of it. The same thing goes for grammar.

    In order to accomplish these goals, I strongly recommend reader’s lexicons. I was introduced to these by my teacher in third year Greek exegesis class, Sake Kubo, co-editor of A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. These allow reading quantities of text provided you have a minimum vocabulary (words over 50x memorized, which is a good idea in any case), and know enough basic grammar.

    Now when I’m teaching, I don’t like students to use interlinears, but used correctly, I think they can be of benefit. You need to use it to provide quick glosses to let you cover a quantity of the text. Reading quantity gives you context. If you’re getting dependent on the interlinear, then you need to spend some time away from it.

    Don’t use it in your detailed study of a text. The gloss provided by an interlinear is not enough to give you a serious understanding of a particular word or form. The same goes for the Reader’s Lexicon, however. But the either of these tools can help you get an overview of a passage, after which you apply your more detailed study techniques to specific portions as necessary.

    There are two dangers in this, I believe. First, you may get the idea that the interlinear’s gloss is the meaning, and thus become a person who studies in English but cites Greek words. Second, you can become lazy, and never get to the more serious study. But I think you can avoid both of those problems.

    I see the interlinear as a good tool for the fastest reading. The reader’s lexicon is the next level. Following that, you can get into detailed, word-by-word study. Hopefully after that you’ll get to the point that you can burn your interlinear (or give it to some poor soul who is not so far along).

  • Snow

    No, not here in Florida.

    Snow in Ft. Worth!

    That’s our daughter and son-in-law’s front yard near Ft. Worth, Texas. Our granddaughters are enjoying themselves as school is closed.

     

  • On Cutting Spending and Investment

    Rand Paul campaigning in Kentucky.
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    Mark at Pseudo-Polymath links to this post on Rand Paul’s ideas for cutting the budget, using the line: “Someone is forgetting that the left prefers social entitlements to science programs.” I think Mark has a good point, but not the best point.

    This illustrates one of the reasons I oppose across-the-board spending cuts. Some argue–and I understand their point–that since we can’t seem to cut spending point by point, the only way to proceed is with a general spending freeze. I would suggest, rather, that a general spending freeze won’t solve the problem; it just lets us pretend, because after the freeze, we still won’t have the courage to go after the real spending problem, which needs to be done program by program. I don’t see the courage on either side of the aisle to accomplish that mission.

    There are things the government does well, and there are things better done privately. Of the things the government ought to be doing, there are better and worse ways to accomplish those goals. This includes military, security, and law enforcement spending, which Republicans often hold sacred. It includes choosing which moral issues deserve to be enshrined in law and just how much we want to spend enforcing those positions.

    On the other hand, it includes looking at social programs to determine which ones are actually accomplishing their stated goals, not to mention asking whether the stated goals are likely to be accomplished at all.

    Science spending, in the right areas, is particularly important for our future, as is education spending. We could save huge amounts in social spending if we had a better educational system. How much of reforming our educational system involves spending more money, versus changing the structure or spending our money more intelligently, is another issue.

    Right now I’d merely like to suggest that if we want to both shrink the deficit and grow the economy we will need to look carefully at spending point by point. A freeze, unless it is immediately followed by such a reevaluation won’t do the job. And people on all sides of the aisle will need to be prepared to sacrifice things they love, especially if careful evaluation shows their favorite programs aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

    I like to suggest specifics, which the politicians rarely do. I’d also like to congratulate Rand Paul on giving specifics, even though I disagree with some of them, for the same reason. Amongst the things we need to ditch I would include almost all of public campaign financing. I don’t think it has made politics any cleaner. It certainly hasn’t made it more civil. It has only made it more costly. Add that to the suggestions I made earlier. There are more!

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  • Sabre-Tooth Campaign Finance Laws

    I think this is an excellent example of laws addressing problems that are out of date in ways that make little sense. (With due apologies to the book The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, which is old, but an excellent read.)

  • Should We Evangelize Uncontacted Indigenous Tribes?

    I couldn’t think of a better headline than the one Allan Bevere used in his post asking this question. I think it’s a good question. I’m closing comments here. Comment there, or on your own blog with a link.