Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Scot McKnight on Walton on Genesis 1

    Scot McKnight has started an 18 part discussion of John Walton’s book The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Even though I have not yet read Dr. Walton’s book, I can tell you that this is a very important discussion for Christians and that I expect much value just from reading online discussions.

    This first installment, referring to chapter one of the book, examines the claim that Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology and that God spoke to the Israelites using their knowledge of cosmology. Incidentally I have been arguing this since I was in college, and it is hardly original with me. It takes a long time for this sort of thing to penetrate from theological schools to popular level books.

    To summarize:

    “God communicated his revelation to his immediate audience terms they understood” (17). … [page # refers to book page #-HN]

    Just so. That sentence could be considered the critical and central point of my own view of inspiration. That is why I can see something in scripture that is clearly wrong–according to our understanding of the data–and yet not say it’s wrong. It was right at the time and it is right for us now, because God intends us to read as a community that continues in time, and thus we are asked to understand both the human audience (both prophet and people) and the Divine Speaker.

    I would note one thing here, which is that simply seeing Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology doesn’t settle all issues in the origins debate. I’ll be interested to see what transpires in further chapters. What I have found most tricky is dealing with the fall and redemption.

    I’m very eager to see the rest of this discussion and to get my hands on Walton’s book.

  • Popular Exegesis – Cutting the Knot

    David Ker at Lingamish has started a series in which he looks for ways to bypass the Grammatical-Historical approach to Bible study and look for ways that would allow more people to get involved in the study.

    To quote:

    … In fact, GHI [Grammatical-Historical Interpretation-HN] rather than illuminating the texts almost always results in muddying the waters and leaving us less certain about the “original intended meaning,” (OIM). What GHI fails to address is the need for intuitive and populist ways to arrive at Scriptural meaning leading to appropriate localized applications….

    It’s a bit ironic for me that he begins his series just as I am starting to follow Scot McKnight’s series on John Walton’s book on Genesis (see my initial notes on my threads blog).  This discussion of Genesis 1 illustrates what I would see as a clear case in which approaching the text without some context in terms of ancient literature in which to understand it would result in an incorrect understanding.

    Having expressed my skepticism, however, I intend to follow David’s posts rather closely as I would like to get hold of any light he can shed on ways that people can reasonably and accurately study the Bible for themselves without excessive dependence on others.  By dependence on others I don’t mean a proper dependence in terms of getting facts from those who have researched them, but rather the dependence that says, “A scholar says it means X so it <em>must</em> mean X.”

    David is certainly pointing at a very real problem.  My tendency is to believe the problem won’t be solved unless the believers in the pew decide to spend more time on their Bibles.  But I’m willing to hear any shortcut that doesn’t result in each person coming out with an individual opinion without good checks on that opinion.

  • 2 Corinthians – The Importance of the Story

    I’m reading Frank J. Matera’s fine commentary on 2 Corinthians, and today was reading about Paul’s recitation of his history with the Corinthians as the basis for what  he was about to teach them.  I warn you that this post is only partially about 2 Corinthians.  It is more broadly about the importance of seeing the stories involved in each passage of scripture.

    The word “story” gets used a great deal when talking about Biblical interpretation these days.  I want to be careful in explaining how I am using it here.  I am not suggesting that we each have a story (though we do) and that any story is equally valid.  Rather, I’m suggesting that the story of God’s revelation is important in understanding scripture overall, and that the particular stories of prophets, apostles, and audiences are critically important in understanding and applying passages effectively.

    More than one story can intersect as well.  In both letters to the Corinthians we can look at a story of God revealing himself to the believers in Corinth, using the apostle Paul and others in doing so.  There is the story of Paul living out his life as an apostle of Jesus Christ.  There is a story of preservation in that this content is made available to us.  Finally, there is a story of God bringing his word to me and to you in our particular circumstances.

    This doesn’t mean that just any story will do and that we must give equal credence to all stories.  In fact, paying close attention to the stories will bring us to a more focused view of the meaning of various passages.

    No commentator that I know of ignores the story of Paul’s interactions with the Corinthians.  I have previously enjoyed Gordon Fee’s commentary on 1 Corinthians, which I regard as the best single-volume, pastor accessible commentary I have ever read.  Fee is very concerned with Paul’s story as indeed he must be.  Similarly Matera is very conscious of that continued story in the commentary I’m currently reading.  I bring these two together, because both relate the story in such a way as to preserve the unity and the coherence of both letters.

    In 2 Corinthians, the story helps us see some important elements of being a servant who proclaims God’s word.  Paul can sound quite boastful as he defends his own ministry and integrity.  He is quite conscious of the problem as he writes, but nonetheless he knows that his integrity, his calling, and his reliability are inextricably linked to the proclamation of his gospel.

    This second letter, or more likely fourth letter assuming we’re missing two, teaches that the gospel manifests itself not merely in a set of beliefs, but also in a life.  It is especially important for those chosen to proclaim the gospel to display the gospel in their lives.

    I think 2 Corinthians is particularly susceptible to being mined for theological quotes, because the letter as a whole is difficult, yet it so obviously contains many theological gems.  But we may miss the emphasis of those gems by pulling them out of their setting.

    Let me illustrate this from 1 Corinthians, which I think is also very subject to quote mining.  Chapter 12 is frequently used in charismatic circles as a chapter about gifts.  The emphasis is on determining just what each gift means and what the person having that gift will be able to do.  But Paul is not primarily attempting to catalog gifts.  His concern is with the source of these gifts and how they are to be used.  He’s telling the church in Corinth that the gifts that they have are to be used in unity under the authority of the one Spirit.

    Chapter 13 is a beautiful chapter, but frequently those talking about gifts and worship skip straight over it to get to chapter 14 where we’re talking about nuts and bolts again–fun stuff!  But Paul didn’t just let his mind wander into some special spiritual realm in order to write chapter 13.  Read it carefully with chapters 12  and 14, and you’ll see how Paul’s definition of love is also a way to describe how one uses God’s gifts under God’s Spirit.  It connects closely with what precedes and follows it.

    Note here that in narrowing he focus from a general treatise on gifts to a discussion of the source and purpose of those gifts, we also broaden the discussion to cover Christian behavior in general.  Chapter 12 provides a pattern for using any and all of our gifts, talents, and resources, and then chapter 13 names that “love” and expands on just what it means.

    Chapter 14, in turn, is frequently mined for quotes to apply to almost any worship setting, but the fact is that most of our churches do not have a worship service like the one in Corinth that they need to bring into line with God’s Spirit.  Be honest now!  How many churches can say that at their worship services, “each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation” (1 Corinthians 14:26 ESV)?

    Yet I’ve heard verse 40 (“decently and in order”) used to argue that one can’t make any change in the bulletin at all, or that nobody other than the pastor and designated readers should speak.

    Getting into the pastoral situation in which Paul finds himself would help us apply this properly.  Perhaps we should move our focus from verse 40, as important as that is, and look more at verse 26.  When we actually have two or more people wanting to speak at once, then we could try working on some of the other verses.  Right now, most of the churches I visit are singularly short on “lessons” and “revelations” not to mention the rest.

    To return to 2 Corinthians, I am getting the feeling that God is challenging me through Paul’s experience to make myself a better example of the gospel that I claim to teach.

    But watch out even there, because 2 Corinthians also tells us about God using the weak.  How to I make myself a better example?  I let God use my weaknesses.  The gospel, after all, is about grace, not about my strength or brilliance.

  • Biblical Studies Carnival Posted

    … at and by Jim West (Funhouse Edition).

  • How to Accomplish God’s Will

    This is my second thought today from John 6:24-35, the gospel passage from Proper 13B.  It’s a tightly packed passage!

    In verses 28-29 Jesus says:

    28They said to him, “What do we need to do to perform God’s works?” 29Jesus answered, “This is God’s work:  That you put your trust [or believe] in the one who sent him.

    My company just released The Jesus Paradigm by Dr. David Alan Black.  This is a book about discipleship and the ministry we need to do as Christians.  One of the questions I have heard most frequently about it is that with so much about doing, how is it that Christians are supposed to do.  What happened to faith?

    Well, one very Biblical answer is that faith is working.  Perhaps if people studied John more, it would help mediate between the positions of Paul and James.  Paul is talking about the uselessness of works apart from faith.  James talks about the uselessness of faith without works.  Jesus here tells us that faith is works.

    Now this may sound heretical to many, but the fact is that we’ve departed from the teaching of Jesus on this.  There is no sense in reading what Jesus has to say that Christians are going to sit around believing stuff.  The sense is that belief is a profoundly life-altering thing.  Putting one’s trust in Jesus is not easy or trivial.  If you put your trust in Jesus, then he will change everything about you.

    This is the answer to how we can do the work of disciples–we put our trust in Jesus and he works in us.  At the risk of sounding too commercial, let me mention the title of another book that I publish–Disciples:  Jesus With Us.  Discipleship is you following Jesus in one sense, but in another it’s Jesus in you, following Jesus.

     

  • Eating the Bread – Missing the Sign

    Our gospel passage (John 6:24-35) for Proper 13B is pretty tightly packed, so I’m going to write a couple of short articles about it this morning.  I’ve thought about many things as I was reading this passage, but I won’t have time to write about them all.

    First of all, as I read this morning, I’m using the Greek and Hebrew Reader’s Bible, which presents the text along with lexical information, including morphology.  I will have some comments on this resource as a tool later today on my Participatory Bible Study Blog.  (I’ll correct that link to point to the specific post as soon as I get the notes written.)

    In verse 26 Jesus tells the people that they believed not because they saw the sign but because they ate the bread.  I believe many people would regard those as the same thing, and this results in a continuing misunderstanding of the role of miracles in the church and in the world.  There’s a tendency to believe that seeing something that appears to be a miracle is simply a way to make people believe that God exists.  If you’ve seen the miraculous event, you’ve seen the “sign.”

    But Jesus here points to a different reality.  Jesus didn’t produce bread for people to eat simply because he wanted some bread.  He had another purpose, a deeper purpose.  It was quite possible to witness what we would call a miracle, and at the same time miss the point entirely.

    In modern times, particularly in charismatic or pentecostal churches, we expect God to work miracles on a constant basis to alter the physical reality of our lives.  (Note that I use “we” here because I tend charismatic.)  Then we complain when God doesn’t do what we think he should.  But God doesn’t perform miracles for the sole purpose of altering physical reality.  We’re living in the big miracle, the very universe, and then we complain when God allows (or causes) his universe to function consistently.

    When a miracle comes, we are thankful for the physical result, but do we see the sign?  Do we see the work that God is wanting to perform in our lives?  Do we even use the results of God’s actions to build God’s kingdom?

    The people who ate the bread began to think of Jesus as a good source of physical bread.  And God is the source of physical bread.  But the way God normally wants you to get physical bread is by following the patterns he has laid out in the universe and growing it.  This bread was to point people to Jesus himself, as the bread of life.

    Thought question:  In what ways can we “eat the bread” but fail to see the sign in our lives today?

     

  • A Different Look at Seeker Sensitivity

    Doug Rea says all churches should be seeker sensitive, but who is seeking?

  • John Meunier Asks an Excellent Question

    … here.

  • A Look at Reader’s Version of Greek and Hebrew Bible

    A few days ago I found the Reader’s Version of Greek and Hebrew Bible (HT: Tim Ricchuitti), and while I think it is a good tool, I greet such tools with mixed emotions and I would like to point out some excellent uses for it, as well as some not-so-excellent uses.

    Much too often students see learning Greek and Hebrew (or any other language) as ending when one can use the proper reference tools to manage to gloss a text in the source languages.  I recognize that for many, that is really as far as you’re going to go.  That level of ability will allow you to read commentaries based on the source texts more effectively and to understand discussions of various translation and exegetical issues better.  It does not, however, constitute understanding the language in question.

    Such understanding comes through a combination of studying the various aspects (morphology, grammar, syntax, and so forth, not to exclude rhetorical issues), and becoming comfortable reading the text–lots of text.  (Speaking and hearing are also very valuable wherever possible.)  To use myself as an example, I can read most Biblical texts without reference works at hand.  Normally I don’t do so–I tend to check and recheck options, because I may be simply filling in a gloss from memory rather than understanding the word or expression.  By contrast, I “read” Syriac like many folks with a couple years of Greek read Greek–with all references open and painstaking work.  I’m not sorry I spent the time getting my Syriac to this point.  It allows me to check textual references, for example, but I would not really call it “reading.”

    One of my Greek teachers, with whom I spent a couple of pleasant years reading New Testament epistles, was Dr. Sakae Kubo, who also edited the Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.  Dr. Kubo would emphasize to us what we should and should not do with this tool.  Its purpose was to allow us to read larger quantities of Greek, not to substitute for learning vocabulary.  And believe me, Dr. Kubo could make you wish you’d memorized your vocabulary should you choose the path of laziness!  (There is now a New Reader’s Lexicon.)

    This online tool extends the vocabulary concept to grammar, giving a reader the opportunity to either check his basic knowledge of morphology or to cheat himself of the value of truly becoming proficient.  Knowing the basics of a languages morphology is even more important, in a sense, than simply knowing vocabulary, because it impacts how you understand every word.  So again, this morphology (or the morphology you find in your Logos or other Bible study software) is again a mixed blessing.  It can either help you become more proficient or it can cripple you and become a crutch.

    The difference will be a matter of discipline.  Do you become dependent? Do you force yourself to actually learn once you correct yourself according to such a tool?  Only you can make sure you get the right things from a tool such as this.

    There are several different modes of reading that I believe are of value to a student of Biblical languages, or of any language you are trying to learn to read:

    1.  Rapid reading.  This is important for true vocabulary building as well as for building your proficiency.  It allows you to see how words relate to one another and how ideas are expressed in a particular language.  The person who works his way through a passage looking up one word at a time and consulting charts for morphology will miss this level.  Further, I believe vocabulary will always remain difficult to memorize if one has never seen it in context.  I combined extended reading in Hebrew with memorization of all words that occurred more than 5 times in the Hebrew Bible.  I don’t regret one moment spent on either activity.  Indeed there are times when I wish I’d pushed it further when I was younger!

    2.  Study. In this case, rather than considering a passage read because you think you have basically “got it” you dig in study details and recheck things that you think you might know.  I know that even after writing a study guide to the book of Hebrews, for example, I still like to read a passage with all references handy.  You never know when someone else’s passing comment will give you a new insight.  This is what you practice in the early stages of Greek class.  Hopefully you will become much more effective at it over time.

    3.  Memorization. I’ve seen only a few people recommend this.  I suspect more would like to, but they know people react negatively to memorization, especially in a foreign language.  My first and second year Greek teacher at Walla Walla College (now university), Lucille Knapp, required a few verses of memorization of all students.  You should have heard the complaints!  But it was a tremendous blessing.  I’ve continued the practice, though there are only a few passages that are at the top of my memory.  I tend to go to memorizing something new rather than reviewing the old.  But even so, reviewing old passages will bring them back pretty quickly.  In the meantime, I find that vocabulary items and phraseology in those passages come to mind as I read elsewhere, even after I’m pretty sure I couldn’t simply recite the entire passage.

    As I said earlier, the key here is to use tools such as this to drive your learning rather than to substitute for it.  Unfortunately, having both taught Greek and Hebrew (infrequently) and tutored students, I have found that many don’t have that discipline.  My warning here is that if you don’t, you’ll make this into a crutch.

  • Steve Hill on 1 Samuel 12 (Pr 13B)

    This is Steve Hill on David and Bathsheba, challenging us all …