Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Florida Inspirational Message Bill Cleared by One Committee

    The Civil Justice & Courts Policy Committee, who ought to know better, has cleared CS/HB 31 with only three negative votes. I’m guessing someone is thinking, “What harm can it do?” I’d suggest a vote against wasting time.

  • Christian Carnival CCCXIX Posted

    … at Thinking Christian.

  • Think Lightly of Wealth and Honor

    From St. John Chrysostom, On the Epistle to the Hebrews 20.5, from Hebrews: Ancient Christian commentary on Scripture, New Testament X p. 167

    Knowing then these things, let us be patient when we suffer evil and forthright in offering kindness.  This is all the stronger if we think lightly of wealth and honor.  He that has stripped himself of those affections is of all people most generous and wealthier even than he who wears the purple.  Do you not see how many evils come through money?  I do not say how many through covetousness, but merely by our attachment to these things.  Just think of one who loses his money and leads a life more wretched than any death.  Why do you grieve, my friend?  Why do you weep if God has delivered you from excessive watching?  Better that you come before God in fear and trembling.  Again, if someone might chain you to a treasure, commanding you to sit there perpetually and to keep watch for other people’s goods, you are grieved, you are disgusted.  But would you, having been bound with these chains, grieve when you yourself are delivered from slavery?

    How do these words compare to the view of wealth in American Christianity?  What would our reaction be if they were preached from the pulpit?  Perhaps outrage, but it’s quite possible that we would just ignore them and go on, as we do so many things.

  • An Inconvenient Truth on Israel and Palestine?

    Brian McLaren links to this article at the Huffington Post. It may be inconvenient, but is it truth? (I guess I need to tell my readers that I often like what Brian McLaren has to say, but then there are these moments.)

    I’m also opposed to those who think Israel is always right. But there is some weird thinking that goes on in deciding who is oppressed and who is the oppressor in various circumstances. Here in America we threw a multi-year temper tantrum after a few thousand deaths. We decided it was alright to invade Iraq over this, which oddly enough had nothing to do with that terrorist attack. I’ll note that the international community generally supported us in Afghanistan, which did have something to do with it, yet quite justifiably (in my opinion) were more reluctant to do so in Iraq.

    Yet Israel is supposed to just take it. Israel’s enemies, in general, negotiate on the basis that Israel has no right to exist at all. Laying aside all arguments over the validity of Zionism, ask yourself whether it is reasonable to expect the Israeli government to negotiate on the basis that it has no right to exist.

    I think there are many things that the Israeli government has done that are not good. I don’t believe our policy must be attached to Israeli policy. We can be independent. I don’t support unilateral extension of settlements. The issue I have here is with making Israel the exclusive bad guys.

    Yet at the same time we need to recognize reality on both sides. Israel faces a much greater terrorist threat than we do, and many of those terrorists would not be satisfied unless Israel ceased to exist. Your actions in your own defense might change if you faced such a threat.

    Just look how ours changed when we faced a proportionally much smaller threat.

  • A Bill to Make Legislators Look Good

    It’s Florida HB 31 (full text – original – committee substitute), and either version of it accomplishes pretty much nothing, thought the original version might have led some school boards to get into legal trouble, something many of them are quite adept at without help.

    I am opposed to officially sponsored religious events, but am in favor of permitting voluntary religious observances when led by students, not people paid by the state. But that is largely constitutional, courts will generally uphold such rules, and thus school boards can take these actions without the benefit of the state legislature making the suggestion.

    So some Florida State House members, including Dave Murzin from my district, are planning to waste time trying to look good with their voters (most of whom do like prayer in schools) by writing a law that will accomplish nothing positive and may well cause additional problems.

    Thanks for your sense of priorities. With the state of Florida having problems with its educational system, I’m sure that taking the time to debate a bill that will leave things pretty much the same will solve so many problems.

  • Two Notes on the Authorship of Hebrews

    The first is an interview at Euangelion with Andrew Pitts regarding his forthcoming essay on Hebrews (in a collection).  It discusses the authorship and proposes Paul as the author, but in a speech rather than a letter, and Luke as stenographer, which he differentiates from an amanuensis.  I didn’t get a completely clear picture of the difference.  In modern English usage a stenographer would have as little freedom in production as would an amanuensis, or so it seems to me.  But that is just a quibble about word choice.  Pitts is clearly proposing that Luke had more to say about the language than would a simple amanuensis.

    I personally find the idea of having both Luke and Paul involved to be a very interesting proposal, though I would tend more toward Luke as the writer (composer) based on things he had learned from Paul, thus explaining some differences in vocabulary and theology.  Ken Schenk comments with some useful notes, and I think Andrew Pitts dismisses his position as a strawman too quickly.

    All of that, of course, is from someone (me!) who really is unconvinced by any hypothesis.  I refuse to go beyond “the author of Hebrews” because I simply don’t think any proposal gets above the background noise level.

    The second post is from J. K. Gayle, who finds Pitts dismissal of the proposal that Priscilla might be the author a bit too quick.  I would agree that other authorship proposals are dealt with rather briefly and summarily in the interview, but it is, after all, a blog post.  I would hope some more effort was made in the book, which I have not read.  Hopefully I’ll lay hands on it when it is released.

    I previously reviewed Ruth Hoppin’s book Priscilla’s Letter and remained totally unconvinced.  I think the problem is evidence and not the desire of some to dismiss one particular author or another.  There simply isn’t enough written evidence for any of the proposals (Barnabas, Apollos, Priscilla, for example) to make a valid judgment. The primary attraction for Luke, I think, is that we have lots of literature with which to compare the book, and Luke demonstrates some of the skills displayed in the text of Hebrews.

    I would be quite delighted to believe that Priscilla wrote the letter, or to believe that the problem was thoroughly solved, but I don’t see that at this point.

  • Augustine on the Need to Know Hebrew and Greek

    … a quote at The Sacred Page.

  • Glenn Beck is Right – He Should Run from Social Justice

    Why? My pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, says it’s because following Jesus in social justice is hard and demanding and might mess up our lifestyes:

    What would happen if we “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everlasting stream” (Amos)? It wouldn’t work out very well for me.

    This one hits us right where it hurts!

  • On Academic Freedom and Denominational Colleges

    No, I’m not talking about my former denomination, the Seventh-Day Adventists. In this case, it’s Erskine College and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

    Let me make clear that I believe a denomination has the right to do what it wants to do with its institutions, always assuming that they uphold existing contracts. For example, if they contract to do one thing and then change their mind, I don’t think they are less liable for their contractual obligations than any other person or business. But apart from that if they want a doctrinally narrow faculty and even student body, that is their prerogative.

    It is also, however, the prerogative of accreditation boards to take all of this into consideration, and outsiders can comment on the resulting educational quality. I would like to add one note, however, which I have gleaned over time. It is possible for informal structures to be as restrictive as formal ones. An academic department or institution can become very narrow without enshrining that narrowness in regulations.

    I make this side-comments to introduce an excellent article on academic freedom, titled The Nature of Academic Freedom, from Tony Mitchell. It’s well worth reading and discussion. So go read it and discuss already!

  • St. John Chrysostom: The Law a Shadow

    I thought this was one of the most beautiful ways I have heard this expressed:

    “For” (he says) “the Law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things”; i.e. not the very reality. For as in painting, so long as one [only] draws the outlines, it is a sort of “shadow” but when one has added the bright paints and laid in the colors, then it becomes “an image.” Something of this kind also was the Law.  (Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews 17.5)

    Again, credit CCEL.