Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • The Ministry of Complaining

    I once preached a sermon by that title, and my main point was simply that complaining can be a valuable activity. We need people who notice things that are wrong and are willing to point them out. We need critics. I was reminded of that sermon today when I read the post Clergy Haters from Adventures in Revland.

    There are indeed people who are just going to complain. If you’re a pastor, and new members show up tearing down their previous pastor, beware! In some cases they may have an honest complaint and you may do better. But more often than not, the complainer is going to keep on complaining, only now it will be about you.

    I recall coding a small program together with one of the toughest critics I have ever known. We were doing some simulation. I would propose an algorithm, and he would shoot it down. I’d modify it and he’d explain why it just wouldn’t work. From time to time he had suggestions, but he was rarely satisfied even with his own suggestions. I would finally propose something that was close enough, based on both our input, and once he was that close he would polish it off. I must note that he was the better programmer of the two of us. His criticism, however, was one of two most critical elements for the project.

    But complaining is rarely a ministry. Some might even complain (!) about my use of the word “complain” in this context. But I rather like the effect, so words are just going to have to mean what I want them to, nothing more, nothing less, for the duration of this post! Why is it that pointing out faults and failings is viewed so negatively?

    When I have a manuscript to edit and proofread, I will pay people to read and mark the errors in the manuscript. They’re really useful people: proofreaders. What they do is point out faults and failings, much like complainers do.

    So what’s the difference between those folks and the ones you don’t really want in your church or business?

    When I was younger, I was always told that there was a difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism. Constructive criticism, I was told, involves having a solution to suggest to the problem, and not just pointing it out and leaving it at that.

    I’ve had a problem with that for years. I can call the power company and point out that the electricity is off without having any idea what to do about it. As an editor, I can point out a section in a manuscript that is unclear, without necessarily giving the proper wording. In fact, in practice how I approach that depends on the particular author. For one person I might rewrite the passage and let them accept or reject it. For another I might just say, “This is unclear. You might want to work on it a bit.” It just depends on what gets creative juices flowing.

    [For those who are wondering, I have neither proofreaders nor editors for this blog. All unclear passages are the product of my own arguably slightly deranged mind.]

    But I’ve found something better to distinguish complaining as a vice and complaining as a ministry: The person(s) to whom you present your complaint.

    In my sermon I held up the “blue book” which was our church directory. I opened it to the section that listed the committee chairs and members. I pointed out that there were people who were charged with the various ministries and activities of the church. “To make your complaints into a ministry,” I told the congregation, “you first have to take them to the right people.”

    You see, I had a great example handy. I had been leading a Bible study group. The chair of the Staff-Parish Relations committee attended because she was interested in joining. (For my non-Methodist readers, replace “Staff-Parish Relations Committee” with whatever group of people deals with the staffing of your church and interfaces between the paid staff and the members.) A massive complaint session broke out in the study group. I can’t even remember what brought it on, but it was something in the passage we were studying that the group members felt applied to their church. They were pretty negative.

    After a bit I pointed out that we had the SPR chair in the room, and perhaps they should address their comments to her. Now in case you’re thinking that the complaint session broke out because she was there, it turned out that nobody else knew she was the SPR chair. I will provide the excuse that she had only been in that position for a couple of months, but still…

    She immediately said that if they had suggestions or complaints that she would be willing to write them down and deal with them. She already had a pen and paper out and was ready to write. But she pointed out that they had yet to provide her with anything specific that she could actually address. She asked for the specifics or offered to meet with anyone who needed to present something in a private setting.

    Silence descended on the room. So far as I know, no appointments resulted from the meeting. You see, those folks wanted to complain, but they were much less anxious to sit down with someone who was ready to hear them and ready to take action. One problem was that they weren’t very clear on what was bothering them. But I think there was also the simple fact that it’s easy to complain in general to people in general, but when you start complaining to the person with the power, you’re putting yourself on the line.

    I don’t want to downplay the usefulness of combining your complaint with positive comments on things that deserve them and with suggested solutions. But you should also be ready to have your suggestions set aside for ideas brought by others.

    I must tell one other story here about taking suggestions and complains. I once discussed the worship service at my church with my pastor over lunch. We were discussing how to improve a particular service, and grabbing a convenient napkin and pen I outlined five ideas I had. There were things I didn’t like about the service and these were ideas to improve it.

    The pastor implemented changes, five for five. Each change was recognizably related to one of my suggestions, but each had been modified and, I must say, substantially improved. They fit better into the worship setting and connected with the members better than what I had suggested. Basically, that pastor took seed from what I said and grew something much better. The congregation started thanking the pastor for the improved service.

    What did he do then? He gave me credit for the whole thing! If you’re a pastor or a leader and you want to improve the “ministry of complaint” in your church, organization, or business, try that approach.

    Turning complaint into a ministry requires courage. One of the things my wife and I determined shortly after we got married was that we weren’t going to answer for each other when we write, speak, or teach. You many wonder why not. Do we not support one another in our respective ministries and calling? Indeed we do! Are we embarrassed by what one or the other teaches? Well, occasionally, but that’s usually because we’re telling stories on one another. More than one weekend seminar at which we both spoke has been generously seasoned with stories of our courtship!

    But we discovered quite early that in places where people wanted to complain, certain folks would come to me to discuss what Jody had to say. It sometimes happened the other way, but it may be a comment on church culture that it was more likely someone was coming to me. In general, it wasn’t clarification they wanted. The undertone was that I needed to straighten my wife out on some point.

    I should note here that one doesn’t straighten my wife out. She’s actually quite teachable, but you better line your ducks up in a row and get them quacking in unison. Then she’ll straighten herself out once she’s fully convinced. But at the same time each of us is quite capable of responding to questions put directly to us. As soon as I perceived that there were people who thought they could tell me that my wife was wrong and that I’d somehow go and take their complaint to her, I made it my policy to simply say, “If you have a question about what Jody said (or wrote) go ask her.” Nobody who first came to me ever has gone on to take their question to her.

    We were having a discussion about that the other night and it brought me to this point of courage. Can you take your complaint to the actual person you want to complain about? Can you explain it to them? Sometimes there are privacy issues. Sometimes there are issues of retaliation. But most of the time, especially when the complaint is about a pastor, I think there are simply courage issues. The complainer wants to get someone else to do the hard work of telling the pastor he’s wrong about something, not to mention avoiding the embarrassment of finding out it wasn’t the pastor who was wrong, but rather the complainer.

    To be a ministry, your complaint needs to be honest, it needs to be brought to the right person, and you need to bring it with the right attitude. It’s a shock, but the complainer could, in fact, be wrong. At the same time, an honest complaint needs to be heard and dealt with. A little bit of courage to face the person against whom one has a complaint will go a long way in improving your own success, and that of your organization.

  • The Early Cleansing (John 2:13-25/Lent 3B)

    As I have mentioned before, I like to check out gospel passages with Darrell Bock’s notes in Jesus According to Scripture in order to see the best possible options for reconciling the various stories.  In this case, I don’t find the results very promising.

    The only possible way to reconcile the synoptic tradition, with a cleansing at the end that starts the final conflict and passion week with John, who has this as the first act of his ministry is to posit two separate cleansings.  This requires Bock (pp. 426-430) to argue that the first cleansing of the temple might simply have resulted in a warning, and the furor would have died down in two years.  In addition, he assumes that the witnesses at the trial of Jesus who don’t get the “rebuild this temple” saying quite right may well have been remembering something from some time before, rather than merely a week.

    But anyone who has tried to get a story of a current event, even on the same day, has probably experienced the differences in the way people remember things, even minutes or hours from the event, much less a week.  Further, I think Bock severely underestimates the likely results of the sorts of actions Jesus took here.  When they end at the cross, the result is essentially natural.  Stir up rebellion, annoy both the Romans and the Jewish leadership in a major way, and you end up in trouble.

    Further, the story in John seems to assume that there is something of a crowd already following Jesus, even though this is his first public act in the gospel, not counting turning water to wine at Cana which was apparently at a friend’s house.  The story refers to signs which were causing people to follow Jesus, even though no such signs have occurred, again assuming that the Cana wedding was a private event.  (Bock notes these issues.  I just don’t think he gives them enough weight.)

    But the biggest problem is theological, I think.  In the synoptic gospels Jesus is presented more tentatively–slowly and naturally.  While we have increasing knowledge on the part of the disciples in John as well, the presentation of Jesus, who he is, and what he is about to do starts with a bang.  This passage presents an interesting “bang!”

    After being roped into his first miracle by his mother, Jesus essentially announces that he has eschatological authority and is greater than the temple in no uncertain terms.  Historical probability would suggest that he couldn’t do this and then visit the temple a couple more times as John portrays, without bringing down the wrath of the crowd.  But John is less interested in that kind of chronological and historical issue.  For him, Jesus is the one in control from start to finish.  He comes, ministers, and dies, all in triumph.  People may be in doubt, the disciples may not understand, but Jesus is in control.

    Compare John 18:1-11 and Luke 22:39-53.  Bock says:  “In sum, John appears to have chosen to supplement what already was known with additional detail, regardless of the more difficult question of whether or not he worked with the Synoptics in this section.”  But I would say that this is a minor issue.  There is summary, and then there is a different picture.  John presents a different picture–the triumphant Jesus, carrying out God’s plan with full knowledge.  I have no problem with the event being the same.  In fact, it must be.  But the portrayal is not designed to present us with the details of “what actually happened.”  Rather, John is portraying a particular, divine view of who Jesus was through what he tells and what he does not.

    This triumphal approach fits well with John 2:13-25, and in fact with the whole book of John.  One could almost title the gospel of John “Jesus in Charge.”  There are many other characteristics of the book–more theology, longer sermons, more discussion–but the thread of Jesus the divine savior doing what God set out for him predominates.  There is no room here for asking for this cup to pass from him (Luke 22:42).

    I believe this is an important theme in scripture.  We saw it in Romans 4:13-25 as opposed to the description in Genesis 17 (notes here).  In Romans Abraham is the example of faith.  In Genesis, he falls down and laughs (Gen. 17:17).  Think about it!  In these stories as told later from the faith perspective, the participants come out much better than they did in the original story.

    When God tells the story of your life seen through the lens of his grace, you too will look much better than a detailed historical telling would actually look.  I think this is one of the blessings of the multiple pictures of Jesus in the gospels.

  • Christian Carnival CCLXVII Posted

    … at Christ’s Bridge.

  • Is the Cross Still Foolish? (1 Cor 1:18-25/Lent 3B)

    Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (Translation and Notes)

    After around 2000 years of preaching, whole nations that have claimed to be Christian, serious Bible study by well-qualified scholars, and plenty of examples to work from, does the cross still look like foolishness?

    I have answer, “Yes, in every way!”

    There is an element lacking in our modern culture that Paul could assume.  The vast majority of Paul’s audience would acknowledge the need to find something better, to seek after wisdom, to try to become better people.  One might even say, “to be saved.”  There was a similar general acknowledgement that people weren’t right and that they weren’t attaining righteousness.  Of course there were always individuals who pridefully proclaimed their mastery as there are today, but the public would instinctively reject them.

    Today, I think, we are fast losing both the notion that greatness, “rightness”, or wisdom are things to be earnestly sought, and at the same time we are losing the sense that we are deeply in need of salvation, both in the sense of God’s rescue from this world, and in the sense of spiritual healing.  We’re losing the sense of greatness, and at the same time our sense of how far we fall short of greatness.

    A survey conducted by The Barna Group, reported in The Christian Post, found that less than 1% of 18-23 year olds hold a Biblical worldview.  Now I’m personally not that happy with the adjective “Biblical” as it gets used in such a variety of ways, but Barna avoids this problem by defining it as follows:

    A biblical worldview, as defined by the Barna study, is believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.

    The key problem?  The young people don’t believe in absolute moral truth any more.  Now some negative answers might result from misunderstanding.  I’m often accused of not believing in absolute truth when I note that we are not really capable of absolute knowledge.  But there is a great difference between claiming that absolute truth does not exist, and being aware of one’s limitations in seeking such truth.

    For example, I believe in God, but I don’t believe I can know God absolutely.  I even teach what I call the doctrine of infinite ignorance.  God is infinite and thus there is an infinite amount to know about him.  My knowledge is finite.  Infinite – any finite amount is still infinite.  So I always remain infinitely ignorant of God.  Now here’s the problem with that doctrine.  For me, it’s one of my great motivators to keep on looking.  I know I haven’t attained, and that means there is always more studying and more thinking to be done.  For some others, however, it means you might as well not try because you’ll never succeed.

    But if we handle our life issues in that manner we will never get anything done.  I was talking to one of the authors whose book I’m editing right now.  I pointed out to him that when we produce advance copies in a few days there will be errors in them.  We then have time to do more work to make the final copy as good as we possibly can.  I also pointed out that such final copies are never perfect; inevitably I find an error after release that is embarrassing.  So should I bother with proofreading?  I will never attain perfection!

    If I decide that proofreading is no good because perfection is beyond me, then I will be a horrible publisher and will never get any better.  But if I keep pursuing perfection, the actual books will be better and better, and will be much more useful to my readers than raw manuscripts.

    Similarly if in college I decided that because a perfect paper could not be attained I must not bother to try, what would happen?  Many an ‘A’ might become an ‘F’, and I would learn much less.

    I believe it is similar in morality.  We do not and cannot make perfect decisions on moral issues every time.  We don’t have a final answer to all moral questions.  Because we emphasize this point, (post-)modern people are deciding that there’s no point in bothering to debate moral issues and make decisions.  Everyone’s moral view must be essentially equal, since none of us are perfect.

    I think it’s fairly easy to dismiss such a view.  We may not agree on all aspects of the right to life for embryos or unborn human beings. The terminology itself slants the debate.  If I say “abortion” rather than “killing an unborn human being” I have already biased the debate.  If I say “terminate a pregnancy” it’s different from “killing a child.”  If I say “destroy an embryo” it’s different than saying “put an end to a potential human being.”  But if you ask if it would be moral for someone to kill you and take your money for any reason, people will generally find agreement quite quickly.*

    You can always find some sort of issue on which people can generally agree.  Does that not suggest that discussion of moral issues has value?  While we might fall far short of universal agreement on what is truly morally right, by continuing the pursuit we gain enormous benefits.  Reductio ad absurdum is not always a bad thing, and moral relativism is quite susceptible to it.

    Now what does this have to do with the foolishness of the cross?

    If we think there are no moral standards, we tend also to think that there is no bad spirituality or good spirituality, just whatever spirituality I happen to want.  We are not sinners in need of salvation, we are not spiritually wretched, seeking healing.  We are in one spiritual state which is OK, though perhaps restlessly we might like to change to another spiritual state which will also be OK.  Who’s to judge?

    Not only is God’s method foolishness to us in this post-modern age, we can’t comprehend the very need for it.  If having God die on the cross in the person of Jesus is foolish when looked at as a means of salvation, of solving a serious and intractable problem, how much more foolish does it look to those who are OK and believe their situation cannot and should not be judged?

    To this generation, I fear, the cross has passed from foolishness to incomprehensibility.  We need to reclaim the ability to make moral judgments, to realize our failings, and thus to look for a solution.  Once we reclaim that, perhaps the cross will look foolish, but at least we will want what it claims to accomplish.

    *I am indebted here both to Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. in his book Christianity and Secularism, chapter 7, “Is Christianity Relevant?” especially pages 174-177.  For the example, I’m indebted to my professor Dr. Alden Thompson author of Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? who notes that young people do not, at the core actually believe all morality is relative.  He finds that he can always shake them up simply by using examples that apply the theory to them personally.  There is a strong sense of right and wrong covered up by the certainty that there isn’t.  This latter is an encouraging point.

  • 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (Lent 3B)

    It’s getting to the point where I’m not certain I haven’t posted something on this passage before.  I have a draft translation of all of 1 Corinthians on my totally free Bible translation project.  It’s a very drafty translation, so herewith a few corrections and some notes, which hopefully I’ll get entered into the main database soon.

    18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is God’s power. 19For it is written:

    I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the intelligence of the intelligent I will set aside.

    20Who is wise? Who is a scribe? Who is a debater of this age? Has not God make the wisdom of the world foolishness? 21For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,but to us who are being saved it is God’s power. For since in the wisdom of the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God to save those who believe through the foolisness of proclamation. 22And since the Jews ask for a sign, and the Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we, for our part, preach Christ crucified, a scandal to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks, 24But to those who are called, Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power and wisdom of God. 25Because foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of humanity, and the weakness of God is stronger than the strength of humanity.

    Notes:

    There are no substantial textual issues in this passage.

    18 – I have chosen “message” to translate “logos.”  There is always an issue of just what to emphasize in translating this word since nothing in English gets the full and/or precise force.  But in this case it is the very basic message of the cross itself that is foolish.  It doesn’t make sense to human wisdom and understanding.

    20 – I always find it interesting when this verse is used to defend human stupidity.  Too often we assume that because God has made the world’s wisdom foolishness, whatever wisdom we may come up with is obviously divine wisdom.  But the message is quite specific.  We couldn’t save ourselves and somehow God did it through the incarnation and by dying on the cross.  It is not an answer any of us would have come up with on our own.

    21 – “Proclamation” here is the famous theological word “kerygma.”  It is another piece of the foolishness of God’s plan that he lets it accomplish its task through humans proclaiming or preaching the message.  Or perhaps it might be better to say that he ordains it to be that way.  I am very frequently challenged to explain why God chooses to use human beings with human failings to bring his logos, his message to people.  I don’t think I ever satisfy those who question.  I have my ideas, but it’s another aspect of the foolishness of God’s way.

    22 – Whatever we think of the method and the message it is greater than anything of human invention.

  • God is in Creation (Psalm 19/Lent 3B)

    I have always loved Psalm 19, and I also regard it as a unified Psalm even though it is divided into two parts.  Those two parts, however, convey a unified central message.  God is the creator and this is why he is also the lawgiver.

    In the ten commandments, also part of this week’s reading, God addresses Israel and starts by saying who he is and what his claim is on them in particular.  This is one reason that it is important to remember that the ten commandments were not initially addressed universally, but rather specifically to the Israelites who were fleeing Egypt.  God addresses them and announces that he is the God who has freed them.  That is the basis for that particular piece of legislation.  But while “the” Torah, or the first five books of the Bible, is addressed to Jews, “Torah” (instruction in general) is addressed to everyone.  I would read “Torah” in Psalm 19 as this wider instruction.

    So why is God the one who can give Torah to the entire world, indeed, the entire universe?  Because he is the creator, and creation tells us of him.  If we were to address a “ten commandments” to the world, it might begin “I am your God, who created everything, and specifically created you.”

    But as Christians we hear the “brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” in a very special way.  Jesus has brought each and every one of us out of our own spiritual house of bondage, and led us to this place, wherever “this place” may be.  So he can address us much as he does the Israelites in combining these two passages:  “I’m both your creator and your redeemer.”

    In the study Bibles I read on this passage this morning, often a fairly random selection, I was met with a contrast.  The Orthodox Study Bible reads Psalm 19 as an incarnational Psalm.

    Psalm 18 [OSB follows LXX numbering] reveals God the Word (the End, v. 1) becoming Man in the womb of the most holy Mother of God.  For on His Nativity, all creation bore witness to the glory of God revealed in His Incarnation (vv. 1-5). … (p. 693 on Psalm 18, emphasis in the original)

    Now my first reaction is that this Psalm is not about incarnation at all.  It’s about how all creation reveals God at any time and place, not in a particular instance.  But my second thought is that the incarnation isn’t “a particular instance.”  It is the ultimate representation of who God is and how he works.  The limited reflection I see of God in sun, moon, stars, trees, flowers, and animals, to mention just a few things, is made fully clear in the incarnation.

    So it is not inappropriate to treat Psalm 19 as an incarnational Psalm, though I think the Psalmist was thinking about those ordinary reflections of God in creation.  I think it is also possible for us to undervalue what we can learn of God in the natural world.  If God is the creator, as I believe he is, then what is created and how it is created tell us something about God.  I find this an uncomfortable thought from time to time, but my comfort does not seem to be shared by the Biblical writers.

    In modern Christian theology we tend to emphasize how God’s reflection in nature and his image in humankind have been diminished through sin.  Is it not possible that we spend so much time talking about how diminished it is that we fail to see how strongly God’s light still shines?

     

  • Leviticus 6:8-13

    Baker takes a series of short sections here, and I’m not grouping them into any larger passage, because I’m under some pressure and these short sections are working for me right now.

    Let me note also that while the electronic edition of Rahlf’s LXX that I’m using today (GnomeSword) follows the English verse divisions, the print edition of Rahlf’s follows the Hebrew division.  So the passage there is 6:1-6.

    The idea of having a fire from sacrifice going on 24 hours a day doesn’t sound much like modern worship, but there are really two key elements in this passage that I think can be applied to modern worship:

    1. The fire burns continuously.  Three times in the LXX text we read that it is never to go out.
    2. There is a continuing ritual for keeping it clean.  There is care taken in carrying out this command as with every other one in Leviticus.

    There appears to be an error in the notes of the Orthodox Study Bible, which bases the notes on the English verses, and thus the notes on our passage for today indicate they are about 6:9.  But they are interesting, and connect this daily sacrifice with the continual offering of Christ in heaven.  The continuous worship provides an “open door for uninterrupted worship of God and fellowship with Him” only now this is through the sacrifice of Jesus.

    Milgrom adds an interesting note.  With Baker, I have emphasized the continual worship, and I think this is an important point.  But Milgrom points out:

    … The sacrifices offered up at the inauguration of the public cult were consumed miraculously by a divine fire (9:24), and it is this fire which is not allowed to die out so that all subsequent sacrifices might claim divine acceptance… (p. 389, emphasis in original)

    This raises another point to me for the modern church.  How careful are we with the spiritual fires that God lights?  We have waves of revival and then for various reasons we let them die out or treat them with contempt.  There’s a “fire” that was lit in Christianity back with Jesus and then at Pentecost.  But we often neglect one end or the other, either the connection back to that original flame, or the need to keep it actively burning in our modern world.  Both are necessary to keep up the continuing fire.

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

    Milgrom – Milgrom, Jacob.  Anchor Bible:  Leviticus 1-16.

    Baker – Leviticus portion written by David H. Baker, of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

    Chapter 6 deals with sacrifices for sins that appear to be quite deliberate.

  • The Ten Commandments in a Secular Society (Lent 3B/Ex. 20:1-17)

    I find it very interesting to watch the way Christians handle the ten commandments. On the one hand, they have become an icon of our Christian culture, so that nobody wants to claim that they don’t keep them. They’re regarded as a foundational and basic icon, so we keep trying to make them the firm foundation of something, even if we’re not sure what. Indeed, many Christians are certain they keep all the commandmenst, but are not sure just what those commandments actually are.

    The problem is that very few, if any Christians keep the commandments in the way that they were intended.  I grew up as a Seventh-Day Adventist.  Adventists have one of the best claims to actually keep the commandments, yet still they are somewhat less strict than Orthodox Jews would be, and probably less strict than ancient Israelite priests would have been.  Most importantly, we probably all fail through the use of religious imagery.  Our use of pictures of Jesus, for example, would have looked much too much like idolatry to that early generation.

    I think it is important to remember that the ten commandments were given to a group of Israelites escaping slavery and beginning to learn about God.  If you read the Pentateuch carefully–something few Christians do–you’ll find that the ten commandments are quite fundamental, but they are neither the constitution of the government of Israel, nor are they designed to express a fundamental moral law in a broad sense.  Those elements are scattered through the Pentateuch, and are reflected in the ten commandments.  Of those two elements, the fundamentals of morality are most reflected, while the constitution of the nation is reflected only in the key statement of the theocracy.  How this functions is left for other places.

    Thus from the start, the ten commandments cannot directly provide the foundation for a secular government.  Rather, they provide a moral foundation for living well.  This moral foundation is set in a particular set of cultural circumstances.

    Now some will think I’m trying to diminish the value of the ten commandments or dismiss them in this way.  But recognizing what something actually is, and also what it is not is not to dismiss it.  Rather, it provides us an opportunity to apply it successfully.  Christians worship on Sunday, for example.  Why?  I frequently hear this expressed as “keeping the fourth commandment.”  But the fourth commandment doesn’t tell you that.  It doesn’t say you should go to church on Sunday.  It doesn’t even say you should go to church–or even the Synagogue–on Saturday.  What it tells you to do is to rest and refrain from labor on the seventh day.

    I used “you” there, but that is another point of understanding.  The fourth commandment was first expressed to those Israelites.  It is quite proper to ask just how it applies to you and me as opposed to them.  One starting place is to note that, by connection with creation, the fourth commandment expresses God’s sovereignty over time.  That means over your time–over all your time!

    The earlier commandments express exclusive worship of one God, and ask us not to misrepresent that one God.  (I’m not going to expand on this today, but I might later in the week.)  This orders that we don’t portray God as an idol.  When I read the ten commandments in their historical context, I know this means that the Israelites are not to make idols and bow down to them.  One reason is that God is much bigger than this.  In your normal temple of the ancient near east when you got to the inner sanctum you would find an image of the God.  In Israel’s temple, you found an empty space.  God could not be so portrayed.

    Might this say something about some of our confident systematic theologies?  I’m not calling systematic theology idolatry.  But overconfidence in one’s theology might well be idolatry.

    But finally, when we try to portray the ten commandments as a sort of constitution, we show that we either don’t know what a constitution is, or we don’t know what the ten commandments are.  The basic law of Israel was already established at the time.  God is in charge.  Period.  Over time we see different ways of that rulership being expressed, and the elements of a constitution do occur in the Pentateuch.  But only that one element is expressed in the ten commandments, and that one element is not an element of a secular constitution.

    At the same time, it can be the fundamental moral statement of God’s people living in a secular society, and in fact I would suggest it should be.  But first we’re going to have to know what it actually is.  Let me suggest something:  Narrow the principle, then broaden the application.  Try to find the key to what is being taught in the commandment, defined narrowly.  Extract the basic principle(s) from it.  Then apply it broadly.

    God is in charge of time.  There is one authority in the universe, not many.  The family is a fundamental unit.  Those are things we can use in life, as God’s people living in a secular society.

    Note: I’m presenting a series on this topic on my Participatory Bible Study Blog, starting here.

  • Sources and Repetition (Genesis 17/Lent2B)

    In dealing with source criticism there are two broad questions for the Biblical exegete, as opposed to the actual source critic.  The first is whether there are identifiable sources at all, or at least in any substantial sense, and the second is how important these sources are for exegesis.  Though I’m not going to go into detail here, for me it is very clear that there are, in fact, extended sources in the Pentateuch, and I’ll go along with the identification of the Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deteronomist sources.  I’m a little more hesitant on identifying a Holiness source in what used to be regarded as Priestly material, but there is some pretty good evidence for it.

    One of the places we identify such sources is in stories that repeat.  For example, why do we have Abraham’s call in Genesis 12, a presentation of the covenant in Genesis 15, and another covenant story in Genesis 17.  Much of the data in the latter two especially overlap.  Without sources, we may look either to advancing revelation of the covenant, or to repetition for purposes of teaching.  The covenant might indeed be forgotten.  Such explanations are quite workable for much material, and if the repetition of the covenant was the only source of evidence, it would not be adequate to present sources.

    But in fact we do have some differences in these stories.  I’m indebted to Gerhard von Rad in his Genesis commentary, pages 197-203 for much of the following.  The major difference is the focus of the Priestly source on theology.  The Yahwist tends to focus on Abraham’s human situation.  For the priests the major concern was God, what he was going to do for Abraham and what his ultimate purpose was.  Note that in Genesis 15 we have several verses of Abraham talking.  He enters into conversation with God, and part of God’s assurance of the covenant results from Abraham’s fear.  In Genesis 17, God speaks, Abraham falls on his face (v.3), and God continues speaking and pretty much takes up the rest of the chapter.  Abraham finally gets involved again when he pleads for Ishmael in verse 18.

    I think there is a good likelihood that we have two sources relating essentially the same experience.  You may differ–demonstrating my conclusion would go well beyond the space I intend to use here.  But the second question is just how much does knowing about the sources, if you accept them, help you in understanding the passage?

    I find a little bit of help in knowing who’s telling the story each time.  The Yahwist is a great teller of folk tales, and he and his sort likely entertained people around the campfires of early Israel.  They are telling a human story, and it is more story than history.  They ignore chronology and deep theological questions for the most part.  The priests like to keep things straight.  They’re more interested in God than in people, and they’re more interested in historical details, such as chronology.

    But in the end, while it’s important to realize that there are two stories, and that their perspective is different, you can get the same emphasis whether you see them as two incidents reported by the same narrator or as the result of different sources.  We can tell the story of God’s interaction with us and with our community from the perspective of people, or from our best try for a divine perspective, yet it still is the story of God with us.  We may have one incident told twice, giving us a more complete picture, or we may have two incidents in which God gave Abraham a bigger picture.

    The result is similar, and its available to the student who takes the time to look back and forth, to gather in all the elements of the context, and ask just why such a thing may be there.

     

  • The Confession and other Gospels (Mark 8:31-38/Lent 2B)

    Some of my readers who know that I employ historical-critical methodologies in my Bible study may be surprised to know that one of my most useful books on the gospels is Darrel Bock’s Jesus according to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels.

    There is a simple reason for this.  I believe that before you can properly understand a critical view of a passage, you have to understand the passage in relation to others, and know how it has been interpreted in the past.  Many people reject views of scripture without understanding them.  They reject chronologies based on the early geneaologies of Genesis 5 & 11, but have often never read them.  On the other hand, people reject source theories of the Pentateuch without actually being able to state the theories themselves.  In the gospels, many reject a reconciling approach to the various synoptic passages without every trying to do it.

    Now in the end, I think the reconciliation of these passages tends to fail.  There’s no complete reconstruction that is actually historically probable, even if one allows miracles.  At the same time there are two benefits at least to checking out how passages are reconciled.  First, the church has used this approach for centuries, and it’s worthwhile understanding how it was done.  Second, attempting reconciliation helps fill out the complete picture of how a set of passages can relate.  Before you have done that, you are on questionable ground if you choose a particular understanding of the history of the passage in question.

    So having spent that much time on why I want to do this occasionally, what does Bock have to say about this passage?

    There are two elements that I’d like to mention. To get all the details you’ll need the book as he outlines the items where Matthew, Mark, and Luke differ on this passage. These differences are not that great.

    The first issue is the authenticity of the story. For many historical Jesus scholars, it is a basic criterion of authenticity that Jesus never claims to be the Messiah during his lifetime. I think this is not so much a criterion as a conclusion, and it is a conclusion that is questionable at best. So I wouldn’t reject the authenticity of this saying on that basis. It clearly comes from a single source, i.e. all three gospels are working from the same material.

    Bock notes three reasons to regard this as authentic (p. 232):

    1. There is already a pattern of response that shows opposition. I would note that this indicates that Jesus was something more than an innocuous teacher; he roused opposition.
    2. There is the precendent of John the Baptist. In other words, it is not unreasonable for Jesus to expect that such a fate might await him if he continued his activity.
    3. The prediction itself presents an ambiguity. If you were creating a prediction after the fact, would you not make it a bit more ironclad?

    While none of Bock’s reasons for regarding this as authentic are absolutely conclusive, they are suggestive, and again tend to make me question the certainty with which some scholars maintain that Jesus never made such a claim but that it was made for him after the fact.

    The second area of interest is in the prediction that some there would not taste death. Bock points out the differences in the predictions. Mark says “the kingdom of God has come with power.” Luke simply says “the kingdom,” while Matthew says “Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” There is ambiguity here as well, though I think most hearers would interpret this as saying that there might be suffering now, but eventually the son of man would come in his kingdom. The disciples would have heard it as an early inkling that there would be a second appearing. There must be some other way to handle the meaning of the passage, such as the conditional nature of prophecy (Jonah, Jeremiah 18).