I have temporarily disabled my blogrolling.com based blogrolls due to very slow loading. I will look into what can be done. Some blogrolls can probably be restored using another method.
For the moment, however, the site was unusable with those blogrolls enabled.
The Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup has been posted. Thanks to Allan Bevere for his hard work.
I’m doing today what I wish I always had time to do, which is look at a bunch of the posts and pick out some of my own highlights. These don’t coincide with the “Best of the Methodist Blogosphere” that Allan hands out. Usually I latch onto them because they talk about something I’ve been interested in recently. Usually I read them and think about doing a links post. Today I’m going to turn intentions into actions.
Well, thanks to Allan for giving me a list that wasn’t intimidatingly long. I always find wonderful posts in his list, but I rarely manage to give them due credit. I hope some of my readers will enjoy these posts.
In one of the sermons I heard this morning (I attended services at two different churches), the scripture reading was from Ephesians 4:1-12. When Ephesians 4:11 was read, I remembered a discussion I had some time back about whether pastors and teachers here was intended to refer to one group of people. The individual with whom I discussed this found it fairly important. He thought that it would be better that authoritative church teaching be done by the pastor. Others could work under him, but the that would be the authority source.
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers — Ephesians 4:11 (NRSV)
I can see how this might work together with a complementarian view of gender roles, reserving authoritative teaching to the ordained, who would all be male. I have never heard that specific argument made by any actual complentarians, so I don’t know that it is used. There are quite a number of commetators, however, who maintain that either these two groups are the same, or that they are much more closely related than are the other groups in the list.
In looking at it, I would note that Daniel Wallace discusses the matter on page 284 of Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, and maintains that the Greek does not require that these two groups be identical. Nonetheless he also makes the point that they are more closely connected to each other than to the rest of the list. In general I think he makes a good point.
But does Ephesians 4:11 mean that pastor and teacher are the same office in either case? Whether or not we place a great deal of weight on this, it’s an interesting question.
I think the answer lies in the lists of gifts that Paul gives. He speaks of spiritual gifts in three different places, here in Ephesians 4:11, in 1 Corinthians 12 twice, and in Romans 12:6-8. The list is not identical in any two of these places. They are not identical even between 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 and then in verses 28-30. The two lists give a different perspective. I would suggest that there is an important point in these differences.
And this leads me to the reason I wanted to write a blog entry on this. It goes back to something I say repeatedly about Bible study, and most recently about interpreting parables. The key to understanding is finding the right question, and in this case we have to look at the questions Paul is answering in these passages. If you look at the context, not a single one of these passages was written to answer the question “What are the gifts of the Spirit?” Rather, the questions all relate to unity. In 1 Corinthians the primary issue is spiritual pride, and the gifts are used as an example of how all of us, coming from varied backgrounds and with various gifts, are brought together by one Spirit to become the church. In Romans 12 the topic is becoming conformed to Christ rather than to the church, with the issue of unity again key. Similarly in Ephesians 4:1-16, though we tend to stop at verse 12.
What would Paul’s answer be if he was asked just what were the gifts of God’s Spirit? I suspect he would decline to try for an exhaustive list. Rather, we need to look for the simple test. Is this gift useful (and hopefully used) to spread the gospel message and to build the kingdom? If the answer is “yes” it’s a good candidate to be called a spiritual gift. Otherwise, not so much!
Those interested in the situation in [tag]Myanmar[/tag] (formerly Burma) will be interested in this story from ScienceNOW published by the AAAS.
Researchers used high resolution images from commercial satellites to confirm a substantial number of reports of atrocities by the Burmese military.
For those interested in taking action, see the U. S. Campaign for Burma.
I just read two excellent articles on Bible translation, one on a blog, and the other coming to me via e-mail. It seems to be very difficult for people to get an idea of just how language works. The notion that each word has a fixed, eternal, precise meaning just seems to hang on. Learning a foreign language will help, as will reading material from earlier in your own language’s history.
The first article is by fellow Moderate Christian Blogroll member Eddie Sue Arthur [I originally credited this article to Eddie, but it is really by Sue. I apologize deeply for miscrediting it] who asks Can you close the door?. It may seem simple enough, but as Sue will demonstrate, it can be somewhat more complicated than that for Bible translators. Not only do words mean different things at different times and in different places, but they also occur in idiomatic expressions in which the word isn’t unit of meaning at all.
Sue’s article is straightforward and simple, and I recommend it to anyone who is struggling to understand why Bible translation cannot be a more absolute and objective process.
The second article came via the Bible Translation Mailing List which presents an article by Kermit Titrud titled Critique of the English Standard Version and Are Only Some Words of Scripture Breathed Out By God by Wayne Grudem in Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation. Wheaton, Il.: Crossway Books, 2005. (You have to say that title on one breath or it doesn’t count!)
Update: This article is now also available on the Better Bibles Blog.
This article examines translations in the [tag]ESV[/tag] and in [tag]dynamic equivalence[/tag] translations that are criticized by Wayne Grudem. The fundamental issue is the same. Languages are very different and finding equivalent expressions requires effort and often will not look very much like the form of the original at all.
I strongly recommend both of these articles, and for non-specialists especially the first.
The debate about labels is one of the most interesting aspects of the creation-evolution controversy to me, and at the same time one of the most frustrating. Since my primary training is in Biblical languages, and by my own efforts in linguistics, the way words are used simply fascinates me.
There is plenty of influence of the PR efforts, particularly those made on the intelligent design side, but also by those of folks in mainstream science. I’m not writing to complain about this. I think it is a natural thing for those who think they are advocating a true or valid position to try to label themselves and the issues in the most favorable fashion. Often this will seem to them as the most accurate labeling as well. After all, they are presenting a “true” position!
My attention was brought back to this topic a couple of days ago when I read this entry on the Panda’s Thumb which shows that [tag]Bill Dembski[/tag] rejects common descent. I then looked around for some evidence, because I thought I remembered that [tag]Michael Behe[/tag] accepts common descent. And sure enough I found it on Telic Thoughts in an article complaining about the use of terminology:
In reality, it is more accurate to label Behe a theistic evolutionist, as this label would accurately communicate that a) Behe is an evolutionist and b) believes God was involved in the process of evolution. And in fact, this is how most people interpret theistic evolution, as some sort of God-guided process. How most people interpret a label is the most important point.
Akismet has grabbed a few comments again, largely on the Jena 6 issue. If anyone did comment and thought you had been censored, it was inadvertent. Check for your comment now. If it still does not appear, enter it again. I would appreciate a comment on this post letting me know when you commented and on what post in that case.
My comments policy remains as open as I can possibly keep it. I reject obvious spam, and use the Akismet plug-in as my first filter. Otherwise, I only remove comments that I believe cross the line into questionable legality.
A few days ago I added Steve Martin’s blog An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution to my blogroll and subscribed to it’s RSS feed. I have mentioned frequently that there are a number of evangelical Christians who accept evolution, and I’m glad to see more of them involved in the debate.
Today Steve posted a letter from Dr. Richard Colling, which was sent to the Olivet Nazarene University’s newspaper who, not surprisingly, did not publish it. The letter is good reading for those who believe Christian advocates of evolution are not also committed Christians.
Steve’s concluding comment is particularly on point:
This is the kind of testimony that exposes the evolution=atheism lie and the “evolution=compromise slander. It is the credibility of Colling and other deeply committed Christians who uphold the integrity of scripture and the integrity of science, which will ultimately stop Evangelicalisms self-damaging war on evolution. This personal credibility is a much more important factor than any argument from the scientific evidence. It was for me. So Richard, from all of us that have traveled this journey, thanks.
I will continue to watch the feeds and other sources for information on Dr. [tag]Richard Colling[/tag].
Since my step-son John Webb played for their AAA Iowa Cubs this year, I keep close watch on the cubs in general. I just love it when someone provides us with some information we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves:
Were still in the drivers seat, manager Lou Piniella said. Weve just got to start winning some games.
Source: MSNBC.com.
Wow! I’m impressed with his wisdom!
MSNBC.com reports that Mychal Bell has been released on bail. More importantly, the prosecutor is says he will no longer fight the ruling of the appeals court that requires Bell be tried as a juvenile.
This is good news. Now a juvenile court needs to deal with this in an even-handed manner, but one that nonetheless makes it clear beating people up is not acceptable behavior.
My estimate of the DA was not improved by this quote:
“The only way let me stress that the only way that I believe that me or this community has been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community,” Walters said.
“I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened. You can quote me on that.”
Under the circumstances, that has racial overtones in itself.
