Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • On Character, Discontent, and the Old Testament

    I have somewhat of a tradition of reflecting somewhere on my blogs about books I am about to publish. So today I want to look at Allan R. Bevere’s new book The Character of Our Discontent.

    Allan is a primarily New Testament trained preacher who has decided to take on some major passages in the Old Testament in preaching to his congregation. In turn, he has collected them to share with others.

    My friend Alden Thompson, who is author of Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?, also from my company, generally leads off weekends of discussion of the Old Testament with a litany of the reasons that people don’t like the Old Testament. He then takes a look at the Old Testament in the New, and especially in the teachings of Jesus and then he’ll say something like: “So you may not like the Old Testament, but Jesus did!” Now he says it so nicely that nobody is offended, but he certainly catches people’s attention.

    I specialized in Hebrew and ancient near eastern literature, so I tend to lean toward the Old Testament in my own study and teaching. But amongst those who teach outside the seminary, that is all too rare.

    I had a conversation just days before I accepted this manuscript for publication. A pastor with many years of experience lamented the lack of collections of good sermons, sermons that could provide an example to new preachers. I had to agree with him. In my experience, many people end up as pastors with much too limited knowledge and experience in some of the basics. I think preaching is better taught in most seminaries than subjects such as prayer, spiritual gifts, or even church management, but nonetheless there is a great value in having more material that covers some of the basics. So I found this combination irresistible, even though sermon collections often have poor track records for sales.

    There are two values in this collection that I want to emphasize. First, these sermons introduce some Old Testament characters and situations in a way that is easy to understand. They are worth reading on their own. This book isn’t heavy reading. You could read one of these sermons for a quite reasonable devotional. Second, they provide examples for people who may be afraid to start preaching from the Old Testament because they didn’t specialize in it. Now these are not sermons that come from hasty or light preparation. What they are is solid sermons that come from a non-specialist who put in the time to produce a good sermon on each topic.

    The presentation is easy to follow. The illustrations are good and to the point. You’ll find yourself directed to some good resources as you read. Allan doesn’t try to solve all the problems of Old Testament interpretation. What he does is apply some of the principles and lessons of these passages to the people found in the pews today.

    I’ve mentioned some books that I agonized over before publishing. I’ve even had some I expected would offend some folks. I didn’t have to agonize over this one. I was certain almost from the start that I was going to publish it. Oh, it might offend you in some places, though if so I’d take it as conviction. Some of those Old Testament characters provide quite a challenge to our very un-heavenly way of life here in the American church.

    So if you’ve been neglecting the Old Testament, here’s a chance to remedy that situation. My wife tells me that she feels that before she started getting involved in reading and studying the Old Testament she feels she was missing out on half the power God had for her in his Word.

    Or, as Dave Black said in commenting on the release of The Character of Our Discontent:

    An Old Testament-neglecting Christian is a contradiction in terms.

  • Do You Deserve a Light or a Heavy Beating?

    I’ve probably mentioned a few times that I studied under Dr. Alden Thompson at Walla Walla University (then WWC).  He’s the one who taught me Hebrew, though actually I joined his class in the second year, and also introduced me to Aramaic.  But more importantly, he introduced me to what I believe is a very constructive way of dealing with Bible difficulties.

    He’s just written a book, Beyond Common Ground: Why Liberals and Conservatives Need Each Other which pulls together many of the things I’ve heard him teach over the years.

    I’ll get around to referencing some of those on this blog as I have time, but today I just want to share a video put out by the publisher in which Alden discusses how he goes about understanding some passages from Luke. Now Alden is an Old Testament scholar (PhD, University of Edinburgh), but his passion is for Bible study amongst the laity.

    I’m delighted this little book has been published. My major regret is that it may be neglected because it is published by Pacific Press, a Seventh-day Adventist publisher. Though it was written to help address conflicts within that denomination, the ideas are applicable elsewhere as well. I’ve heard Alden teach some of this material to rooms filled with United Methodists, for example.

    Alden Thompson is also the author of Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? which my company publishes, besides being one of my teachers, so perhaps I am not fully free of bias.

    Nah. This book is good!

  • Fantasy in Death – and Reality

    I recently read J. D. Robb’s Fantasy in Death and enjoyed the advanced technology.  I told my wife when we had both read it that I felt that some of the technology described was at least possible and might well happen sooner than later.

    Well, it’s not nearly that type of capability–we’re still a long way from that, but we’re moving down the path.  Today in my gizmag e-mail I got an article on the Third Space FPS gaming vest that lets you feel the gaming action.

    Time marches on … sometimes faster than we want it to.

     

  • What Allegiance Comes First

    Dr. Bob Cornwall posts his sermon today, on Acts 5:27-32, dealing with an issue that is quite controversial in the American church, though I think it should not be: Where is my first allegiance as a Christian?

    He tells stories of early Christian martyrs and refers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He concludes:

    Peter is asking us the question: To whom do you owe your allegiance? Can we say with Peter, and with all due respect to the laws of this country: “[I] must obey God rather than human authority.” Am I willing to count myself among those early Christians who left the council and “rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name?”

    It’s worth reading the whole thing.

    What is your first allegiance?

  • Gov. Crist Vetoes Merit Pay and Tenure Bill

    You can find the full story in the Florida Times-Union.

    I am a supporter of merit pay, but in this case merit pay was tied to test results, which makes me much less happy. Even though I think pay should be based on merit everywhere, one must measure the merit in some realistic manner. I don’t think the FCAT does that. So despite my early support, I’m actually glad this one fails. (You can see some ambivalence in the way I wrote that first post, but you can call it a flip-flop if you want.)

  • Adrian Warnock on the Doctrine of Scripture

    And as you might expect, I’m disagreeing with him. In introducing a post urging people to read Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology (not a bad idea), he says:

    There is no more foundational subject than the doctrine of Scripture. All the current theological arguments that are causing such disruption in the Church today stem from a lack of confidence in the authority of Scripture. …

    Now the first part of that statement is pretty obvious and quite foundational. I don’t think we can be Christian and talk about being Christian without dealing with the doctrine of scripture. However far you may end up away from regarding scripture as foundational, you’re going to have to deal with this doctrine.

    As it happens, I believe that scripture is foundational, and whatever we believe must be rooted in it. Not only our doctrine of scripture, but also our hermeneutic that is derived from that basic doctrine is critical in how we will understand and live our faith. I would like to see us discuss this more.

    But the second sentence is quite problematic, and I think represents one of the greatest barriers to sound dialog within orthodox Christianity today. Let me quote it again:

    All the current theological arguments that are causing such disruption in the Church today stem from a lack of confidence in the authority of Scripture.

    Um, not so much. Now there are people who lack confidence in scripture, and this can lead them to many odd views, views which fall outside of reasonable definitions of the bounds of Christianity. There are also people who express (at least) great confidence in scripture but who show no great ability to actually discover what it’s saying.

    Yes, there are certain disputes which results from differences in various people’s confidence in scripture, but I don’t think they are the major ones, and I especially don’t think they are the bulk of those that are debated within orthodox Christianity.

    Let’s illustrate with a point I’ve debated (indirectly via blog post) with Adrian before, penal substitutionary atonement. For Adrian, nothing less than viewing penal substitution as the meaning of atonement is adequate.

    I believe that penal substitution does occur in scripture, but that it is one of a number of metaphors, all of which are required for an understanding of the atonement. I believe this, not because I lack confidence in scripture, but because I am confident that a full scriptural understanding of the atonement requires much more than penal substitution. Like every other finite description, using penal substitution exclusively or even to diminish other views, especially in my view christus victor, diminishes our understanding of the atonement.

    From the evidence of reading Adrian’s blogging over several years, I’m certain that penal substitution is a “current theological argument” and is “causing disruption” and thus I must exclude it from any list of those based on a lack of confidence in scripture.

    I think I made my best statement on this in my post from last Easter, Atonement: The Error Adrian Warnock and Giles Fraser Share.

    I see a similar type of issue in the debates over creation and evolution and certain major figures in reformed Old Testament studies, such as Peter Enns, Bruce Waltke, and Tremper Longman. I think it would be ridiculous to assert that these three men lack confidence in scripture, yet they are in the middle of a theological controversy. The difference is not confidence but the way in which they understand scripture.

    In connection with this I appreciated Jeremy Pierce’s recent post, Arguments Against Old Earth, in which he reclaims the term “creationism” for any set of beliefs that God created the universe. I am a creationist, because I believe in God the creator. I do want to debate a bit about Jeremy’s categories, though they are really quite good. That’s for another post.

    In summary I would say that the problem in most theological debates within Christianity is not confidence but understanding. There is an element here where one’s hermeneutics make the decision, but in a number of cases, such as understanding 2 Corinthians 5 an imputed righteousness, I think often the hermeneutics are similar, but the application is different. Confidence, however, is not part of the problem.

    (Note: I have not yet read, but I do intend to read Adrian’s book Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything.)

  • More on Florida HB31 and Inspirational Messages

    I wrote about this before, and commented that it seemed to accomplish nothing–nothing, that is, except to possibly encourage some school boards to tangle with the federal courts.

    That version, however, has been replaced in committee. I’m going to do something I don’t usually do, and put in a “tear line” so this won’t get too long, as I intend to quote both versions of the bill in full:

    (more…)

  • Florida May Remove Church-State Separation from Its Constitution

    SJR 2550 was passed out of the Senate Judiciary committee today. It would remove the provision that prohibits state money being spent “directly or indirectly to aid any church, sect or religious denomination.” It would also prohibit discriminating against someone who wanted to spend state program money they receive at a religious institution, such as a school.

    I’m guessing quite a number of things this might make legal under Florida law would still fail in federal court, but thus far Florida’s efforts at voucher programs paying for religious schools has failed at the state level.

    The official summary of the bill as filed reads:

    2 A joint resolution proposing an amendment to Section 3
    3 of Article I of the State Constitution to provide that
    4 an individual may not be barred from participating in
    5 any public program because of choosing to use public
    6 benefits at a religious provider and to delete a
    7 prohibition against using public revenues in aid of
    8 any church, sect, or religious denomination or any
    9 sectarian institution.

    You can find more information on the bill here.

    A similar bill has been filed in the Florida House of Representatives, HJR 1399. The house version is different in wording, but I’m not sure what the legal result would be.

    This would have to go on the ballot in November, as it is a constitutional amendment.

    (HT: Post on Politics)

  • Orbiting the Hairball

    United Methodist district superintendent (Grand Rapids District) Laurie Haller takes a cue from a book on surviving in a corporate environment to make some suggestions for United Methodist leadership in her post Orbiting the UMC Hairball 4-12-10.

    Amongst other things she notes:

    The whispered truth is that The United Methodist Church suppresses creativity and genius in favor of the status quo. We want to tame entrepreneurs because we don’t know what to make of them. When they do wildly successful ministry, we remain suspicious of anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into the “image” of a United Methodist. Even when such leaders bear luscious fruit, we’re still threatened because the fruit looks more like oranges than typical West Michigan United Methodist apples.

    I’d call it a focus on making United Methodists rather than Christians. I recall a meeting at which my wife was discussing materials. The book in front of her was produced by Baptists. A dedicated Methodist in the room was afraid that we shouldn’t put this in front of the members, saying, “This is a Methodist church, and as long as we have that cross and flame on the sign in front we should present Methodist curriculum.” Amongst the complaints about the book? It had too much Jesus. (No, I haven’t figured out precisely what that means!)

    Surely our Methodist congregations are secure enough in their faith that it won’t be threatened by a bit of Baptist curriculum!

    Rev. Haller suggests that we learn to orbit the UMC hairball rather than getting sucked into its growing gravity. She has a number of suggestions for how to do so. I think these suggestions are generally good, though rather incomplete.

    Somewhere in there we’re going to have to recover our passion for the gospel itself or any method we use will go nowhere. I’m not suspecting that Rev. Haller would deny that, but it’s something I like to emphasize. If we can once get people listening to the Holy Spirit, God can move things along. (Not to mention it’s God who will get them listening in the first place!)

  • Seventh-day Adventists and Women in Ministry

    Well, really only some Seventh-day Adventists, in particular, Pastor Doug Batchelor and the Amazing Facts ministry versus the Southeastern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. As a former SDA, I still keep track of SDA doings, in this case through the Spectrum blog, and what interested me was the role reversal.

    We frequently see more liberal members of a denomination trying to bring women into ministry, while the church structure stands opposed. In this case, we have a conservative member arguing against women in ministry, and eliciting a response from the official church, in this case the conference. I believe the issue would be more controversial at the general church levels.

    The arguments, however, are based on much the same material as they are elsewhere.

    Here’s the video (warning: this is a more than 1 hour video):

    (I note that the Amazing Facts web site does not make it terribly clear that it’s an SDA ministry. I regard Seventh-day Adventists as fellow Christians who differ on some points of doctrine, but remain within orthodoxy as I understand it. I deplore a tendency to try to preach without identifying oneself. If you’re not part of a denomination, you don’t need to so identify. If you are, however, it seems dishonest to me to obscure the fact. As an example, the introduction to the video says this is coming from “Sacramento Central Church,” but if you research further, that is Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. I understand the prejudice that they are trying to avoid, but I nonetheless think it would be better to be open.)

    The response from the conference can be found here. You can find a summary on the Spectrum blog, but essentially they take issue with his presentation, his relationship to church authority, his biblical exegesis, and his logic.

    My reason for posting this here is simply to show how the controversies in some smaller denominations are very similar to the ones we face in some of our larger ones. Perhaps if shared agreements don’t lead to dialog, shared disagreements could.