Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Squaring the Wesleyan Quadrilateral

    One of the things that originally attracted me to the United Methodist Church was the quadrilateral, in the form in which it is presented in the discipline. Since becoming a member I have found out that most members of United Methodist congregations have no idea what this is, that some members use the quadrilateral to justify just about anything, and that others seem to want to eviscerate it or simply replace it with a more standard “sola scriptura” stance.

    First let me clarify a couple of points. I’m not here trying to figure out what Wesley meant by his comments on the elements of the quadrilateral; I’m simply looking at how I see them functioning today. Second, I’m using “sola scriptura” in the more popular sense that tends to cut the scriptures off from tradition and experience, and to downplay the role of reason in interpretation. I realize that more sophisticated theologians do not make these errors, but in the pews, “Bible alone” tends in this direction. I do believe that both the label and the attached rhetoric have tended toward this imbalance in the pews, so I don’t hold the theological sophisticates guiltless on this point.

    For those who don’t know, the quadrilateral supposes the use of scripture, tradition, experience, and reason in the formation of doctrine. Because many people have driven truckloads of manure through the supposed filter of this method and called it doctrine, others have tried to modify the quadrilateral. One particular explanation is that the quadrilateral is not an equilateral, but that scripture is the longer line. This is a well-intentioned effort to test more United Methodist doctrine by the standards of scripture, but I think it is neither precisely correct, nor is it adequate to the task. In effect, it pushes people toward a “sola scriptura” stance, but doesn’t clarify the position of the other three elements, other than to give them a smaller and subordinate role.

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  • Hebrews 2:5-9: Lower than the Angels

    I’m finally getting back to my series on Hebrews. I apologize for the delay. I will also be posting new entries soon in the series on Isaiah 24-27 and Genesis, where we will be going to chapter 6. In the meantime . . .

    I’m taking a very short piece of a passage for this entry to try to keep things at a workable length. I will tie this into the larger message of chapter 2, which deals with Jesus as an appropriate savior because he is like us as humans. We’ve already looked at part of this in discussing the human and divine aspects of the priesthood of Jesus.

    5Now it was not to angels that he {God} subjected the world to come, which we are discussing. 6Rather, somewhere it is affirmed:

    “What is man that you remember him,
    or the son of man that you are concerned with him?
    7You made him lower than the angels for a little while;
    You crowned him with glory and honor.
    8You placed everything in subjection under his feet.”
    [Psalm 8:5-7 LXX]

    Now in subjecting everything to him, he leaves nothing that is not subject. Yet now we do not yet see everything subject to him. 9But in the phrase “a little while less than the angels” we see Jesus, through the suffering of death, “crowned with glory and honor,” in order that by the grace of God he might taste death on behalf of everyone. — Hebrews 2:5-9 (TFBV)

    Let me outline the message first, and then discuss a couple of interesting problems. Having established in chapter 1 that Jesus is greater than the angels, our author is about to tell us that Jesus is (or was) lower than the angels. You could do worse than to take as your outline Philippians 2:5-11. Jesus is first greater than the angels, then God made him lower “for a little while” and then after that he is crowned with glory and honor. While the sequence is not established here, in both cases “crowned with glory and honor” is inextricably linked with being temporarily made lower than the angels, i.e. a human in all ways.

    Our author gets the words for this from Psalm 8. Now if you have a couple of different translations, or if you know both Greek and Hebrew, you may encounter an interesting problem. The NASB, for example, reads “a little lower than God” in Psalm 8:5. Obviously this wording is not in agreement with our author’s use of the passage. While the NIV uses “heavenly beings,” which will work with “angels” as quoted in our passage, but they still translate “a little lower.”

    In order to make his point, our author needs the reading of the LXX, which is the Bible he’s using. There the Greek word bracu, which can mean “for a little while.” Only in the particular translation that he is using is does this passage mean what he needs it to mean. Indeed, though there may be an alternate reading in some undiscovered Hebrew manuscript, this is not a probable translation of the Hebrew text as we have it.

    There are two elements of difference. First, does the verse mean “a little” or “for a little while.” Does this speak of someone who, for a period of time, became lower than the angels, or does it speak of someone who is, by nature, a little bit lower. Second, is it “angels” or “God”?

    The Hebrew word here is “elohim” which is plural in form, but may be singular of plural in meaning. I think that it is rarely correct to translate this as “divine beings” or angels. It refers to the gods of various nations in many cases, and one could use “divine beings” in that case, but that is to conceal the normal intent of the authors which is to specify that they were thought of as gods by their worshippers, but were not so regarded by the Israelites. Thus I prefer the NASB and NRSV translation of this passage.

    As for “a little while” as opposed to “a little bit” the only evidence in favor of this reading for the Hebrew passage is the translation from the LXX. This does not mean that it is impossible, simply that we seem to have no good evidence for it. In addition, in the context of Psalm 8, time does not seem to be in view. The subject is humanity and its place in creation. God made human beings a little bit lower than himself, and crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all of creation (on earth) to them.

    For translators, this presents a problem. Do you harmonize the passages? Do you present a footnote informing people in the two places? Some people do call for harmonization, but most translators would not consider that ethical. It would be a lie–concealing the actual statements of scripture in order to protect people from knowledge of a scriptural difficulty.

    Personally, I don’t regard the author of Hebrews as presenting us with an exegesis of Psalm 8, but is rather using the wording and epanding it into his own point. It’s a different look at the words. If the passage depends on an exegesis of the Psalm, then we would truly be in trouble, but the wording itself works wonderfully with his subject.

    But is there a further theological connection? I think that there is. Human beings were originally created a little lower than God, and in becoming our redeemer Jesus became our representative. This is one of the aspects of our extended discussion of the priesthood. As such we see a tie here between the creation and the incarnation. God emptied himself into his own creation, making himself in some sense subject to the laws of the physical universe, and even to the choices made by the creatures he created. As I go back to Genesis 6, we will see that God can be grieved by his creation.

    In the same way that he created humanity in the first place, God placed himself in the same state as humanity, with the final result that both Jesus, our priest, and all of humanity might be crowned with glory and honor.

  • Translation and Knowing God

    Paul at Grace rant . . . what? says he has gotten back to reading his Greek New Testament. I congratulate him on this spiritual discipline, and I do believe studying the Bible in its original languages can be a spiritual discipline, but I do think some of his additional thoughts deserve some reconsideration.

    He says:

    The trend in scripture translation is to make it more accessible. For example, The Message, The New Living Translation, and the New Century Versions all purport to render the scriptures in a more affable format. I use these translations often in sermon preparation, but I have begun wondering if this really is a good way to digest the scriptures. I mean, isn’t God worthy of us really struggling to find the meaning of the words on the page? . . .

    There are some serious problems here, I think. I have a great respect for study of the scriptures in the original languages. I took both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biblical and cognate languages. There is much to be gained from deep study of the Bible, and the effort that is required to read it in the source languages helps one get into those spiritual depths. But at the same time, the Bible was not inaccessible to the people who first received it. When the New Testament was written in Greek, Greek was the common language. It was the accessible language, much like the English languages that Paul mentions in his quote.

    And while there are some variations, such as Hebrews and Luke-Acts, the New Testament is largely written in everyday language, not complex language.

    And shouldn’t we too know that thousands of Greek manuscripts offer divergent phrasing on nearly every passage in the New Testament? Oh, and isn’t it noteworthy that the Greek language’s vocabulary is much more complex and that translators have to make very important theological decisions about which word they think is the correct word from a Greek word that may or may not be the original word?

    It is quite true that it’s valuable to know all of these things. But it’s also important to know that this complexity is not merely a feature of Greek; there are always variations to deal with in translation from one language to another. It’s not that Greek is more complex than English, though an argument might be made that it is, it is that English and Greek express things differently. Greek was not complicated to people who grew up speaking it. Certainly translators have many theological issues to decide as they translate–to translate is to interpret–but those decisions can be aided by context and by reading multiple English translations.

    But the level of work involved in understanding it is a function of time, and not one of the text. In other words, reading the Bible in Greek requires additional work today, and that is a good spiritual discipline, but it is not a function of the Bible itself.

    I think that the struggle of knowing God is very real, but it is not a matter of struggling to understand the words of scripture. Making the scriptures more accessible doesn’t remove the struggle of knowing God, it just opens the door to more people to get involved in trying to know God. Because of translations they can do so with the same ease as early Christians could, because they can access the information in their own language.

    By all means use the discipline of studying the Bible in Greek or Hebrew if you know those languages, but realize that it is simply a discipline for you; language is not a barrier God intended between people and the word.

  • Red-Letter Christians

    Matt Friedman has a column on Agape Press, and links to it from his blog. In it, he complains of Christians, in his words members of “the Evangelical left” who call themselves red-letter Christians. The name is derived from the practice of some Bible editions that put the words of Jesus in red.

    To Friedman, the main reason for them to do this is apparently to avoid certain topics that are discussed in more detail in the parts of scripture that are not in red. To quote him:

    One wonders, of course, if the real reason they have decided to use Scripture this way is that Jesus never actually uses the terms “homosexual” and “abortion.” The Red-Letter designation ostensibly frees these passionate lefties from the issues they despise the most and the texts that more directly address them.

    My question is equally direct. Do many conservative Christians (I know that it is not all conservatives) dislike the idea of the red-letter Christians because it emphasizes the texts that “more directly address them?” Is it because they would like to replace “Blessed are the poor in spirit” with “Blessed are the spiritually satisfied,” and “Blessed are those who are persecuted” with “Blessed are those who fight for their own rights while ignoring the rights of others?”

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  • Lying by Format

    In yesterday’s mail I got a political ad. With Florida’s primary just a few days away, that’s not unusual, but this one was particularly interesting. On the front it reads “Republican Voter Guide” with the admonition under it “Vote September 5th.” Now a reasonable person might conclude that one is going to find a guide to the available Republican candidates for the various offices. That would be pretty useless to me, seeing as I’m an independent.

    But being the generally curious sort I opened the ad to see what was on the inside. There we have two columns, comparing just two candidates, and doing so in such a way as to make the candidate on the left column (who ironically claims to be more right wing) look good and the candidate on the right look bad. They go so far as to use a grainy black and white picture for the opponent, and a nice color picture for the candidate they support. (The two candidates are both Republicans seeking a place on the November ballot running for Chief Financial Officer of the state of Florida. Why CFO is an elected position probably doesn’t bear examining.)

    My question is why such ads work. I’m not a voter in the Republican primary, but I certainly will vote in the November election, and there’s one candidate who has a serious negative mark against his name for the general election, simply because I know he lied. I don’t think that’s too strong a word. A “voters guide” is generally understood to be a listing of candidates with a comparison of their positions on a selected list of positions. Christian Coalition guides have been challenged for using a much less blatant selection of topics than this, and in addition we have the visual portrayal.

    Well, the answer to my question is that we, the voters, simply don’t take responsibility and don’t hold politicians accountable for their behavior. Such an ad should result in the candidate getting a nice checkmark in the “liar” column for every voter who received it, and in this case I mean liar above and beyond the average for politicians.

  • Faith, Medicine, and Choice

    MSNBC.com has an interesting article today on medical practices and faith. The general title belies the content which is almost exclusively about clinics that do not offer birth control, sterilizations, in-vitro fertilization, or abortions.

    According to the article there is a growing trend. The article notes:

    The number of “NFP-only” practices is unknown, but an Ohio-based Web site promoting them has a registry of nearly 500 doctors who have pledged to practice this way. Most are obstetrician-gynecologists and family practitioners.

    Some medical ethicists have a problem with this practice, and the story reports a number of women who have been annoyed when such practices refused to offer certain services. Other ethicists believe that if the advertising is clear, then the practice is acceptable. The story quoted one annoyed patient as follows:

    “It caught me completely off guard,” said Elizabeth Dotts, 25, who had a similar experience in Birmingham. “I felt like he was judging me and putting pressure on me. . . . I am the patient. I am the client. It should have been about me — what I needed. Not what he needed or believed.”

    And here’s where I have a problem. Provided there is no false advertising, and information on the doctor’s practices are available, I think the patient should be responsible for choosing a doctor that is appropriate. I realize here that people often miss notices, not just in the fine print, but even on large signs in the office. They are focused on something else. But I think people who are focused on something else need to take responsibility for what you get. You don’t see the “we don’t do contraception” notice in the office, go to another one.

    Now don’t make any mistake. I personally do not agree with the position that these doctors are taking. I do have a problem with the individual quoted in the story who felt it would be unethical to refer the patient to a physician who would take care of them as they desire. I would also expect ethically that they should inform patients clearly of what their beliefs are, what they will do, and what they won’t, giving the patient an opportunity to choose a different doctor. With all of that, however, I would leave primary responsibility on the patient to make a selection based on their desires and their choices.

    This position stems from my broader position that people should be able to make any business relationship they desire, provided fraud or other deception is not involved, and I believe this should be true even in medical care. The final responsibility for your health is yours, and it is not possible to protect you from all negative experiences with medical practitioners. Plan on problems. Investigate your health care provider. Make an informed choice. Even if you do not encounter a doctor whose faith stance causes him to refuse you the kind of treatment you want, let me assure you that you will encounter physicians out there whose care you should avoid.

    Doctors should inform, but to make that work, patients should demand the information and refuse to settle for less. If, in the end, that means you change doctors, then it’s time for a change.

  • Worship that Builds

    Peter Kirk has a post on one of my favorite topics, order in worship, titled God is not a God of disorder but of peace. I want to call attention to a couple of points in his post.

    First, on the context of the passage from which his title was taken, he says:

    It seems to me that this verse gives a general principle, which here is being applied specifically to gatherings of the church but can be applied more widely. I don’t think the specific application here is only to prophecy, but to everything described in verses 26 to 32. Indeed the point is basically to support the last part of verse 26, “Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.” (TNIV). Thus it does apply to “untoward” manifestations of any kind, but of course that depends on exactly what is considered “untoward”.

    This is a good point, because Paul is talking about order in the worship service throughout 1 Corinthians 14. We tend to pick the verses from that chapter that best suit our own style of worship. Those who speak in tongues have one set of verses that talk about positive aspects; those who prefer not emphasize the verses that speak against it. But in order to understand the entire chapter, one needs to realize that the whole question here is what activities will be constructive, or building, in a worship service.

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  • Design, Direction, and Evolution

    Over on The Panda’s Thumb a number of writers are reviewing the new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. I haven’t read the book. I should, but I probably won’t get to it for two or three months. In the meantime, you can always read the book itself and the Panda’s Thumb reviews.

    A key issue in the debate about evolution and intelligent design, especially as it relates to Christianity, is the issue of direction in nature. Is there a purpose in nature, and is that purpose designed by God? If designed, how was it designed? Answers to those questions from ID advocates have varied. Some would claim that a theistic evolutionist such as myself is simply a closet ID supporter who refuses to admit it. Others would find the notion of a theistic evolutionist repugnant. A key to this question is the issue of direction.

    Quoting from the Panda’s Thumb review on chapter 1:

    “[There] is a fundamental conflict here [but] it is not between religion and science, or even between Christianity and evolution, but between traditional Christianity and Darwinism. Although the latter may allow for the existence of a deity, [that deity would not be] the God of traditional Christianity” (p. 173). Darwinism differs from evolution because it explains “the origin of not just one or a few species, but all species after the first

  • Goals in Bible Study

    Very frequently in life, once you find out the right question to ask, the answer becomes obvious. You can waste a great deal of your time trying to find the answer to the wrong question. In Bible study, this is even more true. The question(s) you take into your study will frequently determine the answers you take back out. You can even force the text to answer questions it was never intended to answer, and if you do so, you’ll find that you are getting unreliable answers.

    I maintain in my study guide on Revelation, that one of our problems in understanding Revelation is the questions we bring to the problem. We go in expecting it to tell us the precise sequence, geography, and dating of events, and we come out with many different answers. I suggest that if God desired to inform us, through John’s vision, about the precise sequence of events in the end times, then he failed miserably. Since I don’t think God fails to accomplish what he intends, I tend to start looking for a different intention.

    There is one key question, however, that I’d like to address right now is for whom you study the Bible. Are you looking for the things that talk to the other guy, or are you looking for things that address you in your need and your condition?

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  • Christian Carnival #137

    Christian Carnival #137 has been posted at Brain Cramps for God. Though I’ve never submitted anything to this carnival I started following it a few weeks ago and it’s an excellent place to track what’s going on in the Christian blogosphere.

    Have fun!