Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Being United Methodist: Identity and Purpose

    One of the problems with having a sign in front of your church, and particularly a denominational identity, is that it produces certain expectations in people who may considering entering your property and visiting your church for an event or a worship service. Now some of you may not think this is a problem–you want an identity. That’s good! But consider these question: Is the expectation created by your label realistic? Is it what people will find when they enter? Are you willing to stand by that purpose even if they choose another church?

    This discussion could apply to any denomination, I think, and also to many non-denominational congregations. But my experience is with entering a United Methodist local church. I’ve discussed parts of this experience several times before, but rather than link to a scattered set of sources, let me just highlight the relevant points of my own experience.

    I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, and completed my MA degree in Biblical Languages at the Andrews University Graduate School in conjunction with the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. Then I left the SDA church and all churches for 12 years. I started my path back into the church at a United Methodist congregation. One of the first things I asked for was a definitive statement of United Methodist doctrine. I wanted to know what I was getting into. So the pastor of that church gave me a copy of the United Methodist discipline. Don’t groan! Considering the way I presented my question to him, he had no choice.

    I read the early pages of the discipline, the doctrinal standards and the explanations. I questioned elements of the social principles, but based on that reading I thought I could get along in a United Methodist congregation. I was naive enough to believe that Methodists actually had some idea of what was contained in their own doctrinal statement, but more on that in a moment.

    I attended two different United Methodist congregations off and on, and also went to small group Bible studies in both. When I had decided to rejoin the church, and specifically one of those two congregations I went to the pastors and discussed it. The first pastor told me that I would be welcome in his church no matter what. I explained that while I had been baptized, I had been out of the church for some years and wanted to acknowledge that. “We don’t care about that,” he said. “We just want you to enjoy our fellowship.” There was no discussion of my beliefs in any way. I’m not sure he had ever heard me affirm that I believed in God, though he knew I read Greek. I can testify that the two are not equivalent.

    The second pastor sat down and asked me what I believed about Jesus. What a difference! We had a serious conversation. I even contested points with him. But at the end he knew that I did, in fact, believe in Jesus and was ready to accept me into membership. I joined the second congregation.

    I suspect that the first pastor did not want to offend me by suggesting anything in particular I had to do. But by doing so he made me ask myself why I would join his congregation. What was the purpose? If it was merely to “enjoy fellowship” that wasn’t sufficient to me. By being open to all, I think he made the church seem to be unimportant and of little use.

    Even in the church I did join, however, there was disappointment. I read about the doctrine of Christian perfection, one of those Wesleyan doctrines with which I have a certain amount of trouble. I read Wesley’s A Plain Account of Christian Perfection amongst other things in order to clarify what Wesley taught on the matter. When I discussed that with the pastor he asked me to teach a class for the entire church on the topic. Now I had grown up in the SDA church and heard about John Wesley all my life. Imagine my amazement when I found that not one single member in that class was even aware that there was a doctrine of Christian perfection and that it was listed in the doctrinal standards of their denomination.

    I can’t really speak of what goes on in the broader denomination. I’m a small picture man. But I do see this in congregations. If you try to be all things to all people, you can easily wind up being nothing at all. Those who know me and read any of what I write will know that I’m not calling for tense, lengthy, doctrinal standards. But I am calling for knowing our identity and purpose at the congregational level. United Methodists should go out to that cross and flame symbol and ask themselves whether it is false labeling. Are people going to experience the the incaranational love and revelation of Jesus Christ and the fire of the Holy Spirit in your church? Is it an expectation of all or most of the members? Don’t suspect me of forcing a particular definition of each of these elements. I’m not. What I’m wondering is whether you could answer that question, whether you’re church member or pastor, in an intelligible way. If I was joining your church, would you say that you just wanted me to enjoy your fellowship, or would there be expectations of service, an identity to assume, and a purpose to support?

    My pastor (Gonzalez UMC) when he arrived at the beginning of a building program for a “family life center,” made certain that the name was changed to “community life center.” The name makes a difference, he told me. We need to be a church that reaches out to our community and makes a difference. There’s one piece of the identity. If you don’t want to reach the community, you’re going to have many moments of discomfort at our church. It gets more detailed than that, but I’m not writing to tell you what your purpose should be in detail.

    What I’m trying to say here is that when we get so open that we lose identity, we also give up any reason for anyone to enthusiastically support us. People don’t support an organization with any enthusiasm because of what it’s not. They support it for what it is. If you don’t know the purpose of your church, whether you’re church leader, member, or pastor, you will find it difficult to grow.

    As a final note, I think this is an area in which Christian liberals and moderates have failed in particular. We too often either define ourselves, or fail to define ourselves by what we are not, and then try to keep from offending anyone on any side.

    On the one hand I can define myself as a person who does not believe in the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, who does not accept a literal seven day creation week, who rejects penal substitutionary atonement as the true meaning of the atonement, and who rejects male only church leadership. But what a dull litany that is!

    I’d prefer to be known as a person who believes that God has gifted us through his Spirit with the testimony of persons and communities of faith who have experienced him in real and special ways, who believes that God works mightily through the reliable fundamental laws of the universe he created to produce near-infinite variety, who sees the atonement as so broad and deep that it requires many metaphors just to scratch the surface, and who believes that God gifts all of his children in wonderful ways for a variety of roles in the church.

    And frankly, I’m happy with that latter identity. If you want to openly discuss those issues, welcome to fun and fellowship. But if you want to put down those who don’t believe the Bible is inerrant, or demand that all recognize just one metaphor of atonement, or make the women of the church feel as if they are not merely different than, but less than–well, go find another fellowship! I will, if I find myself in a congregation that wants to behave in that way.

    It’s not a matter of writing people out of the kingdom of heaven, or refusing to discuss with them or deal with them. It’s a matter of bringing together a congregation that can produce a coherent witness to the love of God in their lives.

    (I wrote some on a related topic on the Pacesetters Bible School news blog.)

  • Biblical Languages: Balancing Fast Reading and Slow Study

    Continuing my suggestions for maintaining Biblical languages skills, I want to discuss briefly the balance between fast reading and the more serious, detailed, grammatical study.

    Most students who make an effort to maintain their Biblical languages skill–and unfortunately small percentage in my experience–set out on each passage of scripture to study the text as though preparing to face the professor’s interrogation. Some of you may have had relaxed Greek or Hebrew teachers. I had one in undergraduate Greek and one who covered both Hebrew and Aramaic when I was in graduate school who had high expectations of what you should know about the text. I remember quite clearly the day in Aramaic reading when I had correctly parsed a verb form, and then the professor asked me what it would be in a completely different stem, person, and number.

    If you’ve had that type of learning experience with any of the Biblical languages, you may have gotten into the habit of lingering over each and every word until you hope you know every detail. There is a place for that, and when I’m teaching, I will sometimes ask questions like that especially of students who tend to neglect details. But let me point out that you didn’t learn English that way, assuming it’s your native tongue. Instead, you were exposed to a great deal of the language and absorbed quite a bit of vocabulary and structure before you studied it more formally.

    Most people will face discouragement in their study of the Biblical languages if they proceed at the slow pace required to study out every form in detail. That is why I recommend dividing your time between some serious study, and a program of faster reading. Faster reading will require good tools, such as Bible software of various types, reader’s lexicons (Greek or Hebrew), analytical lexicons (Greek and Hebrew). These are not tools that most Biblical languages teachers will encourage you to use for class, but they will help you cover more ground and expose yourself to more of the language. Accompany these with good English versions, and your reading speed will improve.

    Each person will have a different balance between these two parts of study, depending on your own personality and your goals. If you eventually want to be able to debate serious grammatical issues, you need to lean more and more to serious, detailed study. If you’d like to read devotionally, spend more time building your own speed.

  • Rick Mansfield on the ESV

    Rick Mansfield has made an excellent post on the controversy with the ESV. He makes a number of excellent points, but I’d like to quote one paragraph from near the end:

    My contention is not with the ESV. But I do have great problems with the inaccurate rhetoric that I often hear from proponents and endorsers of this translation. I have favorite translations, and I have written about a number of them on this blog. While I talk of their qualities that I like and appropriate uses for them, I go out of my way to try to do so without needlessly putting down other versions of the Bible. I’ve probably been harder on the ESV on this blog than on any translation, but usually it’s been in a context of addressing the audacious and often fallacious claims made for it by ESV supporters. This idea that literalness equals greater accuracy or literalness equals greater faithfulness to the original text is pure nonsense if the rendering is so literal that the author’s intent and meaning is unintelligible to readers and hearers. Antiquated vocabulary and sentence structure do not give a translation greater authority–it merely limits readership in an contemporary setting.

    I actually have very little against the ESV. It does have some awkward readings, but none of them are things that make it hard for me to use. I’ve recommended it to pastors who are uncomfortable with some of the gender-accurate (which they will call gender-inclusive) language in the NRSV. It provides an option to avoid the archaic language used in the RSV for prayer, and still keep to that general tradition.

    But it is currently being pushed forward by some people almost as a new “one true version” and this is more than questionable, it’s potentially dangerous. I too have my favorite versions, but no single version becomes the standard. The particular reasons used in support of the ESV are often inaccurate as well.

  • Rounding Up the Moderate Christian Blogroll

    Well, here I go again. These are a bit irregular, but I do like to call attention to particular post. As usual the blogs are listed in the order they appears on the aggregator when I displayed it, except that my own blogs are listed at the end. Most blogs have only one post listed, but I may list more than one where they are of particular interest. This post will be cross-posted on the Pacesetters Bible School Newsletter and Threads from Henry’s Web. This one’s going to be a bit briefer than normal, so if I get the point wrong, be sure to comment. I know you will anyhow!

    Peter Kirk and I have already linked to one another quite a bit on the ESV and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s explanation of the theological basis for its use at Mars Hill Church. Peter has also written something more favorable to Driscoll regarding God’s “maleness” as metaphor.

    Donny Prater is talking about his son’s reaction to the power rangers.

    Allan Casilao is Celebrating Marriage.

    Jay Voorhees reports on a gathering of Methobloggers at The Internet is our Parish.

    Jedidiah at Everyday Liturgy is still meditating on the wonder of the incarnation.

    Donny Pauling explains to us how his house has become a God Den.

    Bill Vernick thinks a number of regulations that government claims are to protect us are perhaps less beneficial than one might wish in Is the Cart Before the Horse?.

    Kievas Fargo reflects on the first week of the New Year, and rejoices that his church is recognizing that prayer should be at the center of everything they do.

    Molly has joined the discussion of literal translation and also some of the gender language involved, and considering she says some nice things about my own posts I really had to link to it!

    Eddie Arthur was glad to hear an old song, but while he has “no objection to people having the liberty to proclaim any sort of lifestyle or religion they want” he is concerned that Christians also be able to freely express their views.

    The Pen of the Wayfarer tells us about the Martyrdom of Polycarp.

    gavin richardson reports on the internet is our parish conference in this a several more posts.

    Bruce Alderman has started bringing us his principles of interpretation.

    My own time has been occupied bringing reports of the new by-laws adopted at the November annual board meeting for Pacesetters Bible School, and calling for nominations from Pacesetters members for the Bible Pacesetter Award, now to be given annually. On Threads from Henry’s Web, I jumped into the discussion of theology and the ESV, pretty much with both feet, and I added something to that debate on my Participatory Bible Study Blog. Finally, on the Jevlir Caravansary, I provided a brief note on the Lord Meren Mysteries by Lynda S. Robinson, and which are set in ancient Egypt.

  • Maintaining and Improving Biblical Languages Skills

    This post is for a rather limited subset of what (I hope) my audience is here–those who have some knowledge of Biblical Greek, Hebrew, or both. Tragically, many seminary students learn a little bit of Greek or Hebrew but not enough to really put to use, and then they spend the rest of the career (or at least the next couple of weeks) forgetting what they learned. There are two common results–either a pastor/teacher who presents inaccurate information about Biblical languages in teaching, or one who simply leaves out Biblical languages in study altogether. In the former case we have the tragedy of misinformation confidently presented by an authority figure. In the latter, we have the waste of seminary and seminarian time and money.

    I’m going to post a few short entries here about maintaing and improving your Biblical languages skills. Most of these suggestions are equally applicable to both Hebrew and Greek, or even to Aramaic if you have it. Specific tools, of course, will generally apply to one or the other.

    My first general suggestion is simply that you continue to read material in the Biblical language that you studied. There are several things that tend to prevent students from doing this. You may be overwhelmed and disgusted, and never want to see the material again. You may feel that you can’t really read, so what’s the use in trying. You may decide to try, but set excessively ambitious goals.

    So at the first level, let me suggest just making the opportunity to see some Greek several times a week. (I’m going to use “Greek” here for convenience, but this applies equally well to Hebrew.) There are a number of tools to help you do this. Bible software these days, from e-Sword to the source language texts from the NeXt Bible or Logos Bible Software include tools to take you quickly to the lexical entry on various Greek words. Your teacher probably told you not to do this while you were initially learning, but you’re out of class now, and the problem is maintaining and building. These tools allow you to see more Greek text.

    Then there’s the ultimate crib sheet–a good Bible version. I normally recommend dynamic equivalence translations, but for this purpose you will want a literal translation like the ESV, NRSV, or NASB. These are again available in the various software packages I’ve mentioned.

    If you don’t have the Bible software, take your Greek New Testament and get the Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Again, this is a tool you wouldn’t be encouraged to use during first year Greek, but you’re away from the seminary now and trying to maintain your Greek.

    There are some other tools that can help, including grammars, but I’m going to discuss them in a later post. The idea here is that no matter how badly your Greek has faded, you can work your way through a passage. (You will, of course, need to refresh the alphabet.) Don’t be afraid even to just accept the translation in whatever English version you’re using if you don’t understand the material from the text. In later posts I’ll give you suggestions for getting beyond this, but for now you just want to dip your toes in the water.

    At this point don’t get too ambitious. If you can only manage one verse per day, do that. You may have heard of folks who read a chapter each of Greek and Hebrew every day. I read three or four of each besides whatever I read for current research projects. But I’ve been doing this for quite a few years, and I left seminary with five years of Greek and four of Hebrew to which I’ve now added nearly 25 years of reading on my own. Don’t get tangled up with grand goals. Be content to read a verse at a time, and do so several times per week.

    In later posts I’ll discuss solving grammatical issues, reference grammars, building vocabulary, and getting the immediate blessing for your devotional life and your teaching.

  • Man, Mankind, or People – Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 6:5-8

    On my Threads blog I comment on Pastor Mark Driscoll’s theological basis for using the ESV at Mars Hill Church. In that article Driscoll makes a special point of the translation of the Hebrew “‘adam” in Genesis 1:27 by the NRSV and NLT:

    Translations such as the New Revised Standard accommodate this by wrongly translating “male and female” in Genesis 1:27 as the androgynous “humankind.” The New Living Bible translates it as the genderless “people.”

    I commented in that previous post on this point, quoting the NRSV translation which does include the words “male and female” but which translates the Hebrew “‘adam” with “humankind” where the ESV uses the word “man.”

    Now I can see no indication that there is any special emphasis put on the masculine by the use of “‘adam” in Genesis 1:27. In fact, the verse is a clear case of both male and female being included in the definition of the word “‘adam.”

    But I wonder if Driscoll and other critics of the NRSV, NLT and many other versions who use this translation of “‘adam” think the same thing about Genesis 6:5-8:

    5 Now the Lord observed the extent of the people’s wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart. 7 And the Lord said, “I will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I will destroy [one instance of “‘adam” not directly translated] all the animals and birds, too. I am sorry I ever made them.” 8 But Noah found favor with the Lord. — Genesis 6:5-8 (NLT, emphasis mine)

    I’ve bolded each case of a translation of the word “‘adam.”

    Now my question is this: Is there a particular masculine component here as well? Was God much more angry at the men than at the women? Did he determine to destroy the men, and wipe out the women as a side-effect?

    Note: For more on translation methods, see also posts by Wayne Leman, Richard Rhodes and Peter Kirk. These were all posted since my initial post over on my Threads blog.

  • Mars Hill or Planet Mars

    Peter Kirk has weighed in on the subject of my previous post in his post Mars Hill Church: on a different Planet?

    He says:

    I have looked at the original text (well, a scholarly edition of the Greek text) of Romans 3:24 and cannot find the word “justification” there. There are no English words, only Greek ones. In fact this word is not in any of the translations Driscoll quotes, but I guess he is referring to the word “justified”.

    I guess I wasn’t the only one to see the problem there! All of Peter’s post is well worth reading.

  • The Impossibility of Verbal Plenary Translation

    I have heard many good things about Mars Hill Church in Seattle, despite some theological disagreements (with whom do I not have such disagreements?) so I was disappointed to receive the following via e-mail from a friend: Theological reasons for why Mars Hill preaches out of the ESV.

    This isn’t intended as an attack on the ESV. I put the slogan “the best Bible version is one you read.” If you find your Bible reading life lighting up when you read the ESV, then by all means use it for reading and study. If the carefully gender accurate language of such versions as the NRSV grates on your nerves, then by all means use it, but admit that it’s because of your language tastes, and not because of theology. If you’re reading the ESV because you think it is theologically more correct, or because it more accurately and clearly conveys the message of scripture to the populace in general, then I urge you to think again.

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  • Welcome Newest Moderate Christian Blogroll Member

    I have just added adventures in mercy to the Moderate Christian Blogroll and Aggregator.

    Stop by and say hello, comment, trackback, whatever. While you’re at it, check out the following posts that caught my eye:

    Happy blogging!

  • Pat Robertson and the Meaning of Prophetic

    One of the dividing lines in Christian churches today is over the gifts of the Holy Spirit. While speaking in tongues gets most of the attention, the gift of prophecy is a close second. In terms of its potential to tear a church apart, it comes out ahead of tongues, I think. Currently there seem to be two major approaches. First, there are those who refuse to allow anything like prophecy, seeing safety in simple denial, while on the other hand we have many churches in which just about anyone who claims to speak words from God is at least tolerated.

    There is also a strong tendency not to want to say anything in opposition to anyone specific who claims to be a prophet, often under the idea that one should, like David, never speak against God’s anointed. The difficulty here is that one has to question the precise type of anointing and calling of someone who peddles nonsense as the word of God.

    Let me clarify quickly what I mean here by prophetic. There is a general popular sense of “prophetic” as a message that predicts the future. On the other hand, there is a religious or spiritual sense of prophetic that deals with correction and challenge to a group of people. A “prophetic voice” might call a community to greater social action, for example. The Biblical prophetic movement combined aspects of both. I would suggest, in fact, that you will find little or no prediction in Biblical prophecy that is intended simply to satisfy curiosity or to provide information about the future as its purpose. Rather, when a prophet speaks of the future he does so to challenge the community or individual to some form of action, or to rebuke or correct.

    Both of these aspects are tied together by the affirmation of the prophet that he speaks for God, and by the acceptance of the audience that he does so. Prophets did face rejection, but only rarely was this rejection based on the assumption that the prophet was false. The sense in which I’m using the word “prophetic” prophetic here includes those three elements: challenge or rebuke, prediction or promise, and an affirmation of divine guidance or content.

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