Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Craig Blomberg, Reviewed by Louis Markos, Commented by Mike Licona

    … or On the Meaning of Words, Particularly Inerrancy

    There’s a post on First Things titled Ehrman Errant. Now criticizing Ehrman is apparently great sport, and Blomberg has replied to some of the types of criticisms Ehrman presents in a book, which Louis Markos reviews. The reason I mention Mike Licona, a colleague of Markos, is that he makes a comment on precisely the section that led me back around in a circle to the beginning of the piece. As a quick note, I previously reviewed Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus, but  have not read either The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture or Blomberg’s book that is reviewed here. I’m basing my comments strictly on the review and the comments to it.

    The problem, as I see it, is one of language and communication. How do you communicate a message to a particular person in particular circumstances? When we are communicating in a way that might later be read by others, how do we accomplish this. As a simple example, if I want a two-year-old not to fall off the porch, I might try explaining gravity, acceleration rates, and probabilities of various injuries based on the height of the porch and the nature of the ground below. Or, more intelligently, I might just close the door, or say no (and enforce it). In fact, preparing to write this led me to write a humorous (I hope) short story for my fiction blog titled Genesis Wasn’t Written This Way.

    When we start talking about biblical inerrancy, however, we are by nature talking about language. What does the word “inerrancy” mean? How are people going to perceive me if I say I believe in inerrancy? What if I say I don’t? And that, in turn, depends on who you are. If you’re a professor in an evangelical seminary, it seems to me that you understand this term differently than the people in the pews of the United Methodist church I attend. So the question is this: Who am I talking to?

    Let me start from the end. Louis Markos complains about Blomberg’s chapter on gender-neutral language. He says:

    Blomberg, along with the translators of the NRSV, NLT, CEV, and NIV 2011, take it for granted that the convention of using “man” or “mankind” to designate the human race is merely cultural. It is not. It is God himself who originally made the designation: “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created” (Genesis 5:1-2; ESV).

    To which his colleague, Mike Licona objects in the comments:

    … There are some passages that call for a gender neutral translation….

    And the reason, I think, that there are passages that call for a gender neutral translation is that language changes. It is not that we have new discoveries in Hebrew and Greek that mean that we should translate gender references differently. Rather, our usage in English has changed. Markos can quote the ESV, “God created man,” but the word used was not the English “man,” but, of course, the Hebrew adam. That word refers to humanity (in this case), not just the male persons within that broader designation. So the question in translation would be how we refer to humanity today.

    Similarly, consider the Greek adlephoi. It’s a plural and at one time would have been translated “brethren.” For some time, it was translated in that way and it was often understood to refer to the whole congregation, male and female together. But does it mean that to audiences now?

    Some years ago I tested this with a couple of classes I was teaching on translation. The classes broke somewhere between 30 and 40 years of age. Those older than that thought “brethren” referred to the guys. Those younger thought it referred to everyone. I suspect the break point would be younger now as the culture moves.

    Now you can complain about the culture, but nonetheless in those mythical “good old days” people were understanding verses that used the Greek adelphoi, translated as “brethren” to refer to both genders. If you translate that way now, you introduce an inaccuracy, because your audience doesn’t understand it the same way as their ancestors did. You can complain all day that they should. You can wish they would spend more time reading older literature and thus understand this important (to you) point. But they aren’t going to. Now if you want a scriptural admonition to refer to the whole congregation, you need to use something like “brothers and sisters.” Not all instances of adelphoi should be so translated. That depends on the intent of the writer. Who was he referring to?

    I recall a pastor, a good friend, who complained to me about the NRSV because it used “brothers and sisters.” He preferred the RSV, because it kept the traditional language. The next Sunday he was preaching and read a verse from the RSV that included “brothers.” He immediately looked up and said to the congregation, “And that means you sisters too!” His pastoral instinct was better than his translation theory.

    But how does this relate to inerrancy? Inerrancy is, of course, a word, and it has meaning—to people. Meaning apart from meaning to some person or group is meaningless. Somebody understands a meaning. Blomberg is arguing that there are errors in transmission, but they are not critical, they don’t damage the message or the value of the whole. But that is not the same as the absence of errors. It is an absence of important errors. Blomberg’s position isn’t some new thing. It’s pretty standard evangelical theology. If preachers, teachers, and other church leaders made this point from the pulpit or the lectern somewhat more often, we’d probably have less problems with a critic such as Ehrman. But people out there in the pews pretty generally think that “without error” means there are no errors, not that there are no errors that theologians deem important.

    The same thing applies when we criticize others for using “verification system that has only existed for some 250 years” (1st paragraph). This is the verification system and the level of factual and numerical accuracy that people expect these days. If I say, “_____ is without error” they generally assume it is without error as they perceive errors. Yes, there are variations in this, but we actually tend to put words on them. It might not be precisely inaccurate for me to say it’s 80 degrees outside if it’s 78 or 79 degrees. But I’d normally be expected to say “about” if I were to mess with numbers in this way.

    Well, the Bible doesn’t use numbers in the way we moderns expect them to be used, and it’s inappropriate to expect it to. Biblical literature has genre and literary standards and they are those of the time and place when those texts were written. But if you’re going to then label the Bible inerrant, a term that is itself new, you have to specify the standard by which that is measured. (I’m not claiming that the concept, depending on which concept of inerrancy is involved, is new.) So if we’re going to expect people to apply a different standard when determining whether something in the Bible is an error, then we need to make sure they understand the standard.

    There is a tendency amongst scholars now to use words that mean definite things to most hearers, but then to back off and ask to be judged by a different standard. The gospels are not histories in the modern sense. Just so! They aren’t. But if they aren’t histories in the modern sense, then don’t expect to use them as such without having them judged as such. If I claim that Jesus performed miracles (and I do), I can’t say that the reason is simply that they were recorded in inerrant gospels. Why? Because I’ve also just said that those gospels don’t meet modern historical standards. Personally, I think it’s a good thing that they don’t. I think they are much more important than any document that met modern historical standards would be. Not that a modern style history wouldn’t have it’s uses, it just wouldn’t have the same uses as a gospel.

    But I think that we play sleight of hand with the terminology. “The gospels aren’t modern history so you can pretty much accept their view of Jesus without judging them by modern historical standards,” is a philosophical and historical way of having your cake and eating it too. I believe in Jesus, but I do not do so because the gospels demonstrate this in a sense a modern historian could accept.

    One more thing. Someone is bound to suggest to me that I should always apply the definitions used by qualified theologians. Those are the definitions that matter. I think that’s wrong. I don’t communicate with very many trained theologians. I don’t write for them, I’m never invited to speak to them (probably for good reason), so I’m not going to use words that communicate with them but not with the audience I’m actually addressing. For me, because I teach Sunday School classes in a United Methodist church and occasionally speak as a guest at various churches, the appropriate meaning of inerrancy is the one they’re going to hear when I use the term.

     

  • Separating Church from State

    I believe in the separation from church and state. I’m not talking about the principle derived from the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, though I do accept that as well, but rather about a Christian principle. I believe that the more we depend on the power of Caesar to accomplish our goals, the less likely we are to depend on the gospel and the more likely we are to become corrupted. Government power is corrupting, and I think the church should stay away from it.

    Again, I don’t think that church leaders should be excluded from politics, but they should be especially careful to separate their personal political actions from the corporate actions of the church. I, as a member, should be able to handle having a pastor who works for political goals with which I disagree, provided he does not make me a part of his goals without my consent, and provided he is not committing the church to his own views.

    As an aside, nearly every election we have some controversy over churches involved with politics. What are acceptable political activities? Is it an infringement of freedom of religion for the IRS to forbid pastors to do political advocacy from the pulpit? I’ll probably awaken more controversy with this than anything else, but this is why I am ambivalent about church tax exemption. Tax exemption has become a key element of religious liberty in this country. I grew up Seventh-day Adventist, and in every discussion of religion, a bedrock principle was that churches must be tax exempt. “The power to tax is the power to control” was the key phrase.

    But it turns out that the power to define may also be the power to control, and if the government can provide tax exemption to “churches” it must somehow define what is and is not a church. Interestingly, some Christians of my acquaintance think this is obvious. We all know what a church is. But when a more marginal religious group is looking for tax exemption, they may be defined out of it. So is religious freedom for everyone, or just for the people that we think are obviously eligible? Perhaps tax exemption isn’t such a good thing.

    Personally, I don’t want my church doing any of the things that would threaten its tax exempt status, so I have no particular problem. But the fact that certain pastors disagree, and out of their convictions, which I believe they should be free to hold, believe that their religious duty calls for their involvement in politics, what then? That’s when the definition of a church, and of the activities that go with being a church becomes important.

    What do I mean by keeping the church out of politics but keeping individual members involved? I do not mean that Christians should not be involved in politics, whatever their nation. We are citizens of God’s kingdom, but we live in one or another of the kingdoms of this world. Like Nebuchadnezzar, we need to learn that God rules these kingdoms (Daniel 4:17), but he also expects us to live morally within them. I believe that means exercising what personal power we have within them in accordance with our Christian principles.

    I was a bit disturbed at a recent event to be given a voter’s guide. It was given to me by a very nice person, but it told me very clearly how to vote, and the person who gave it to me implied that this was the “Christian” way to do it. I think that is unfortunate. Not that he should not have pursued his political goals. For that I applaud him, even though he and I will likely not be voting the same way on just about anything. No, my objection is to implying that a particular way to vote is the one and only Christian way to approach issues. I’ve encountered churches I might have joined, but have backed off when I found that a particular political posture was so thoroughly assumed that nobody would imagine a Christian could disagree.

    I think the church would be much better served by working to create disciples, and then trusting that those disciples would act in accordance with the principles that they have learned.

  • Replacing Israel and Using Titles

    At church today our pastor (Dr. Wesley Wachob) made a couple of points I’d like to repeat here. They may sound disconnected, but they both derived from the scripture lesson, Matthew 23:1-12.

    The common theme was “remember” as he tied us as a congregation into the history of the people of God. This was tied into All Saints Sunday.

    First, he reminded us, quite corectly, that many of the teachings of Jesus and the Pharisees were quite similar, which explains how frequently Jesus engaged them in debate. In this passage Jesus connects positively with the message. The people of God are connected back in time. He noted that those who claim that the church has replaced the Jewish people commit a grave error (his term). We are not a replacement, but are blessed by being grafted into that line. Jesus is pointing to the connection here.

    Second, he discussed titles. He said some people read this passage as commanding that we eliminate all titkes in the church.  That might not be such a bad idea. But he said it goes deeper, It speaks to our attitude.

    I have been in churches that claimed to be totally led by the Spirit, and to ignore human hierarchy, but at the same time have as rigid a structure in reality as you could imagine. On the other hand I have seen churches with a full list of titled offices where people exhibited humility and servant leadership all the way.

    I think we would do well to do away with titles, but I agree that the reality is more important than the label.

     

     

     

  • Hearing the Word: Testing the Claim

    1893729389I’ve had a rather intense week and haven’t done any blogging, so as I use the extra hour I got as we switched to standard time, I’m going to talk about Sunday School.

    Last week we discussed considerations of hearing. I’m going to include an extract below, with the subheading “Testing the Claim” from that chapter in my book When People Speak for God. But first, I’m going to include some additional comments.

    One of the things that I hear from non-charismatic evangelicals about charismatics is that we tend to get blown about by the “winds” of the various “words from the Lord” that we receive, either directly or through other people. There is a certain validity to this criticism. It’s very easy to claim that God told you something, especially when God told you that someone else should do what you want them to do. It’s amazing how many sides God is on! So it’s important to remind charismatics (and I count myself as one) that we need to test everything. Not everything—in fact, I would suggest very little—of what people claim is coming from God actually does.

    Evangelical Christians, however, have a similar problem with various wild interpretations of scripture. People are people, no matter how they claim to get their authority. So someone can claim to have found a new interpretation of scripture and make every bit as large of changes in the church as someone who claims to have heard from the Lord. This is what I emphasize in my book and in my class: Every claim of divine authority needs to be corporately and individually tested. It doesn’t matter if it’s an announcement that one has heard directly from God or a claim that one has found the one true meaning of a passage of scripture. Test it. In my book I say that the last person who must hear from God is you. None of these sources relieve you personally or your congregation corporately from the search for truth.

    Liberals may be thinking that they are left out of this. (I frequently use charismatic-liberal-evangelical as a sort of triangle. Like any abbreviation it misses a lot, but it can be helpful.) I think the liberal tendency is to find new ideas by reason and then manipulate people by being the most reasonable person in the room.  I have nothing against reason. In fact, I call myself a liberal charismatic. I don’t use that label because I hate labels and want to be confusing, but because first, I believe that God is still speaking, as much as He ever spoke and I believe in testing, and testing involves reason. I think we seek God’s Word whenever we search for truth in whatever field. The physicist studying the laws of the universe using his or her mind and the best tools of science is studying God’s Word. So I’m liberal in the sense that while I believe God is speaking, I also believe that human reason is a way to discover truth and is always involved in testing claims. (I comment further on these labels here.)

    So no matter where you start, test any claim to truth. Here’s the extract:

    I will discuss how one tests such things in more detail later, but there are some key things to look at immediately. It is quite possible for a sincere person to use the claim that God has spoken manipulatively. One warning sign is when someone has argued for a particular course of action and consistently been losing the argument, and then suddenly receives a word from God that they were absolutely right all along, and that the only way the church can receive a blessing is if they will do as that person desires. But there are some other warning signs:

    ✔ The proposed course of action violates ethical or moral
    standards.

    You might be amazed at how frequently this occurs, and how easy it is to rationalize immoral behavior when someone is forcefully claiming that God has ordered it. Some people have claimed that God sanctioned adultery for them on some basis. I know of cases in which someone decided that God had ordered them to spend their rent money on a mission trip, and not pay their rent. If done without the permission of their landlord, that is at least unethical, and should cause one to consider carefully whether God is speaking. Don’t be led into immoral or unethical actions by a voice.

    ✔ “God’s words” come to a person in the course of debate.

    God’s command should generally be complete and straightforward, and shouldn’t require amendment. If “God” keeps coming up with new arguments over the course of the debate, just as an ordinary person would, think again.

    ✔ “God’s words” are presented in a divisive way, or introduce an element of divisiveness.

    Make no mistake, God’s words through prophets do produce negative reactions in those who do not want to obey God. Where divisiveness comes into the discussion is something that also requires discernment and testing. We would not want to reject God’s word on the basis that it made the devil angry! “Words from the Lord” that involve gossip, criticism, a judgmental spirit,
    or cruelty should be rejected.

    ✔ The person who presents God’s word reacts angrily to having that word tested by others.

    When someone is sure that God has spoken and others reject that word, it is appropriate for them to be grieved at that event, but they should welcome discernment and sincere testing, and they should be prepared to live with differences of opinion.

    ✔ “God’s words” deny established scriptural standards.

    Continuing revelation should not reverse what God has already said. The Bible has been tested and accepted by the church, so if you reverse major principles of scriptures, you are likely off track. This doesn’t mean that interpretations cannot be corrected, but soundly interpreted scripture should be upheld.

    How does one respond to a claim to speak for God? It depends on the particular circumstances. If you are in a church where testing is regularly practiced, you already have a path to follow. Hopefully this will end either with acceptance of the word, or a gracious—and I emphasize gracious—rejection with explanation and correction provided to the person who made the claim in the first place. If you cannot graciously respond, even when you reject the word, you likely need to examine yourself. Outside of that atmosphere, when I am not sure that what someone has claimed as a word from God actually is such a word, I will often choose to say simply, “God is going to have to tell me that,” or “That is not what I hear.” If you are not in a congregational setting where there is a commonality of beliefs, responding appropriately to a false word is not so easy. (pp. 87-89, emphasis added)

    I would note that regarding my comment on “denying established scriptural standards” I do not mean that the church cannot change. What I mean is that one person’s word from the Lord can’t turn everything on its head. Acts 15 provides a sort of model, I think, for this kind of change. Changing through corporate discernment may be a much longer process, but until it seems “good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28 NRSV) conversation needs to proceed.

  • Major on the Clear Stuff

    I get disturbed when I see people around me disturbed by the latest Bible mystery, or obscure interpretation of prophecy. These things sell books, and bring in offerings, but I don’t think they produce better followers of Jesus.

    I don’t have a problem with discussing difficult or controversial passages, but the church has been living with new interpretations of prophecy that mean, well, generally that mean that you ought to send money to the person who truly knows.

    I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist church. Practically every year as I grew up there would be a new evangelist in town, or even the same evangelist, who would have figured out how the beasts in Daniel and Revelation really meant something that was happening right now. One favorite was to find communist Russian in Bible prophecy. Of course, there is less interest in that these days. I used to wonder if the preachers thought I wouldn’t remember that the same symbol had definitely meant something completely different the year before.

    But over time I’ve found that people do forget that sort of thing. They forget the previous prophecy or interpretation and move on to the next one. In terms of last day prophecies, Christian history is filled with the failure of the last day foretellers. I have come to the conclusion that God didn’t want us to know precisely what was going to happen at the end of time. I think there’s plenty of good reasons to believe this. What God did want us to know was enough to be ready.

    You don’t need to know the identity of the antichrist. You just need to know what it means to be anti-Christ. (Spend some time in 1 John, not Revelation, to get an idea.) You don’t need to know just when persecution will begin. You just need to know who your Lord is and that you will be faithful. You don’t need to prepare yourself physically for disaster by stockpiling food and survival supplies. You need to be living as the one you claim as Lord lived. He was headed for immediate disaster, and he knew it. Yet he spent his time seeking and saving the lost, not looking to his physical survival.

    We are doing so poorly with the part of the Christian message that is very clear and quite uncontroversial (in theory, at least!) that we really have no business in the trivia.

    Here’s my end time formula:

    4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, … (Philippians 2:4-5, NRSV, via BibleGateway.com)

    Go, read the rest of the passage (Philippians 2:4-11). Or you could read the whole book!

  • Unconscious Traditions Fight Change

    I’ve said quite a few times that I think that the job description we have for a pastor in most churches is ungodly. It’s also inhuman. The pastor can’t do all of that, so many times they fail. Those who succeed do so through extraordinary talents, gifts, and dependence on the grace of God. But it’s very difficult to change.

    That’s because we have a traditional set of responsibilities for a pastor, and usually an additional set for a particular parish or congregation based on the things previous pastors, fondly remembered in their absence, are said to have done. A pastor who fails to accomplish all of these things will likely be accused of not doing his or her job. Many of these traditions are not conscious ones. People simply assume that this is done. Let me give some examples.

    A pastor I invited to speak at a conference had to back out. The reason? He had an out of town wedding he had not expected, and he had made a covenant with his church to be in the pulpit 50 out of the 52 weeks of the year. I do not, of course, want to suggest that the pastor should violate his covenant, but I have to ask why a pastor needs to be the one to preach that often. Of course, it is traditional that we hear only the pastor, or one of the ordained members of the pastoral staff, but why is this?

    On the other hand, recently I have visited the United Church of Christ congregation (a new church plant of theirs) here in Pensacola three times. I have yet to hear the pastor preach. It’s not that he was missing. He was on the front row. But he hears other members of the congregation. I like that. I do hope to hear him preach some day, but he doesn’t feel bound by the tradition that the only time someone else can preach is when the pastor is absent, rarely, of course, and with good excuse!

    Another Methodist church I know of had more than 30 lay speakers, many of them certified lay speakers. You would hear one or two of them preach in a year. If you had lay speakers speak too often, people would think the pastor was lazy. In lay speaker training I was told to expect to speak only rarely, which made me wonder why there was a certification program if the certified speakers were not to speak. I was told this prepared one for more involvement in church leadership. What leadership, nobody said.

    Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, describes a church gathering. Here everyone comes with something, many of them wanting to speak. The problem is not getting activity, but rather controlling an excess of activity. I think that we fail in following 1 Corinthians 12-14 because we don’t have the same problems as the Corinthian church, but we think we do. We should be so blessed as to have the problems of the church in Corinth. Certainly one needs to solve those problems, but they’re easier to solve than apathy and inaction. Our tradition, the unconscious one, puts a big divide between the pew and the platform/pulpit and puts the activity “up” and inactivity” down. We expect information to flow from the pulpit/platform and are silly enough to think it will be absorbed by those in the pews.

    What would happen if we spread things around? What if we heard from one another during the gathering of the saints on Sunday morning? I’d miss being able to hear my pastor on Sunday. I’m blessed to be in a church with multiple services with good speakers all around. Nonetheless, I don’t think they should be the only ones who speak when the saints gather. They need to equip the saints, all the saints, to study, think, and share.

    Another tradition we have is that trained people think and speak about theology, while everybody else shuts up and listens. This probably feeds into the desire to always have the pastor speak. He’s the one who knows theology, after all. And I believe it’s important for the church to have people who have done serious study of theology and biblical studies to bring information into the discussion. But more importantly, the role of these people should be to guide and train the congregation into how to study and learn more for themselves. We have a hierarchy of knowledge as well as a hierarchy of power.

    And it’s not just (or even mostly) people seeking power in the church that make this happen. It’s not that pastors are power hungry. I know many, many pastors who are not. But when they try to get people to become more involved, those people either don’t want to, or they agree to and then don’t put forth the effort. This is again because our unconscious tradition says that people with theological degrees are the ones who should think and talk about theology. It’s a dangerous tradition, and is one of the reasons so many church members can be swayed so easily on so many subjects.

    I was stopped by a church member in the halls of one church who asked me how it was that people who wrote the notes for study Bibles got their ideas. She explained that she kept looking at the notes, and she figured they must be right, because, after all, those who wrote the notes were experts, but she just couldn’t figure out how. Could I explain? She even had an example ready.

    She showed me her example, and quite bluntly, I thought the note completely emasculated one of the parables of Jesus, making it into a feel-good Twinkie rather than a solid serving of Brussels Sprouts. So I asked her, “Are you sure the note is right?” She was astonished! Now this was an educated, professional woman, but she simply hadn’t considered that she could disagree with the experts. I was able to point out that if she had another study Bible, written from a different perspective, the notes might say something different. Then what would she do?

    I think we need to get rid of these “lessers” and “greaters” in our thinking. This is often referred to as hierarchy, and sometimes if we criticize that, we can be viewed as against order. But the problem isn’t leadership. There are those called to lead, though in Christian communities it should be servant-leadership. But in a “nation of priests” there is some sense in which everyone is called to lead, and everyone is called to follow.

    I’m not talking here about church organizational charts. Some of the best servant-leadership I’ve observed was carried out by a United Methodist bishop. The chart may have said authority, and he was in no way afraid to lead, but his actions put Jesus in charge. I know of independent churches who try to erase the lines of hierarchical authority where nonetheless there is a very clear authority structure. It’s just that nobody admits it. I think that’s a sign of how hard it is for us to take responsibility for our calling and look to Jesus. It’s not so much the formal structure. It’s the attitude of those within.

    It’s these unconscious traditions that need to be brought to light, examined, and discarded if necessary. Tradition can be a good thing. It’s the collection of assumptions about what must happen that gets in the way of doing the right thing.

  • Seeking, Dialogue, and an Ecumenical Center

    I’m an advocate of dialogue in everything, certainly including matters of faith. Sometimes, however, dialogue is confused with seeking. There’s nothing wrong with seeking, but it is not identical with dialogue, though they do overlap.

    Dialogue can and should occur between people who do have an idea what they believe. It’s hard to have an exchange about beliefs if you don’t actually have any. This describes an extreme case, however. Seekers are rarely totally without beliefs, and someone seeking dialogue is unlikely to be locked in on everything. But I wanted to start with the contrast.

    For good dialogue to take place, I believe, one needs to identify what one believes and also distinguish between core beliefs, things that anchor you spiritually, and those beliefs that you hold more loosely. Not everything is of equal importance, after all.

    This is the idea of an ecumenical center. That’s not a middle of the road or moderate set of ideas. It doesn’t mean that one is a centrist. It simply means that certain ideas are central to your system of beliefs. In one sense you might say these are the things you’re going to hang onto. But I think it’s more a matter of these are the things that feel secure to you. In fact, you can discuss them without feeling threatened because they are so much a part of you.

    For example, I would place the belief that Jesus has come in the flesh, the incarnation, as my core belief. I talk about everything in those terms. I even talk about my understanding of scripture from that perspective. One can debate this on a chicken and egg basis, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you which came first. It is just central. When someone challenges the incarnation, it doesn’t bother me. That’s something that is firmly founded in my thinking and my spiritual life, reinforced by study and experience.

    I think some people are uncomfortable with dialogue because they believe they can’t have firm beliefs and still dialogue. I disagree. I think having a few firm beliefs is a good starting point for dialogue. It gives you something to say. It may make you a bit more interesting, even!

    Dr. Bob LaRochelle has done a good bit of thinking about this idea of an ecumenical center, thinking in particular about the things that we share between denominations and how that can be a basis for cooperation. He’s one of our Energion Publications authors, and he’ll be talking about this on a Google Hangout on Air tonight, October 21, at 7 PM central time. I invite you to watch this and think about what things are central to you.

  • Prophecy and All Believers

    We had an interesting discussion today in Sunday School. We were discussing the 3rd chapter of my book When People Speak for God,  titled Messengers – God and Prophet. The questions at hand were just what is prophecy, who are God’s messengers (with a side-order of how can you tell) and how does getting a message from God work.

    I started by repeating an important point, I  believe, that prophecy in a biblical sense is not the same as prediction.  I do not deny prediction as a part of prophecy,  but thinking of prophecy as primarily about prediction will provide a distorted view of prophecy. Denying all prediction will distort one’s view as well.

    Further, discernment is always a requirement. A key passage in considering discernment is 1 Kings 22. What lessons one might draw from that story might be quite interesting. But that discernment was needed is quite clear.

    Combining the result of that story with  Jeremiah 42 & 43 and my own observations of life I think that we have a greater problem with doing what should be done after we know what it is, than ever we do with actually discerning what is right and wrong.  The most common question I hear (and ask,  for that matter) is “how do I know what God’s will is?” when the real question should be “how can I put into action what I already know is right?”

    This led us to the question of naming prophets.  Who in the church today might be called a  prophet?

    In the church I think we should be much less about who is in the office of prophet than was the case in Old Testament times,  and much more about all God’s people being prophets, perhaps a fulfillment of Moses’ wish: “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them” (Numbers 11:29).

    I think that this goes well with the idea of the priesthhood of all believers. It is not about finding people to occupy an office of prophet, but rather to recognize this gift when it is received and exercised.

  • Not Looking for the Perfect Church, but …

    Via Allan Bevere I located this interview with Scot McKnight, in which McKnight makes a number of interesting statements. The one that caught my attention most was:

    … A proper kingdom theology leads people to the middle of the church, not away from it. So it makes a difference when church is on the decline and people are saying they are committed to the kingdom but not so much to the church. You can’t have kingdom without church.

    First let me note that I am a very churchy fellow. Except when I was not a (practicing) Christian, I have been a member of a church congregation, and those congregations have largely been deonominational. I’m the sort of person who finds a church in the phone book when traveling on a weekend, and goes and worships with a local congregation. I’m a member of First United Methodist Church of Pensacola, who, I am sure, would rather not be blamed for what I say! First UMC is not a perfect church. I’m sure that can be said of all the First UMC of ____ congregations around. Nonetheless the gospel is preached there, and much good ministry is accomplished.

    Second, Allan Bevere is a friend, and co-editor of the Areopagus Critical Christian Issues Series published by my company, Energion Publications. I like Allan. What’s more, I agree with him on many things, especially what he said about this topic.

    Third, I found very little that I disagree with theologically in Scot McKnight’s comments.

    My problems are largely practical. It’s all well and good to tell people to connect with the church. I’ve been doing that myself. In fact, I find that most people who are struggling spiritually have one thing in common—they’ve lost that connection.

    But here are some of the reasons I’ve heard just recently for not connecting with local churches:

    1. The church lacks convictions. Face it, fellow Methodists (I’ll leave the rest to check their own surroundings), we’re not a church of terribly strong convictions. When I was looking at joining a United Methodist congregation I was told by one pastor that he didn’t care what I believed. If I wanted to “enjoy their fellowship” I could join. I’m not sure whether he wanted me to abstain or lie during the membership vows.
    2. The church has convictions, but people can’t live with those convictions. I’m not referring to any particular issue or any side of any particular issue. I’ve heard this from people across the theological spectrum. Really!
    3. The church is so little oriented toward kingdom work of any variety (any of the five elements to which McKnight refers) that the person doesn’t how he or she could work for both the kingdom and the church.
    4. The church is so fractured, that people have a hard time identifying what is actually Church.
    5. The church behaves as though it is a kingdom in the throes of a civil war.
    6. The king is, at most, a figurehead.

    I could go on, but I won’t.

    I have personally felt elements of all of those things. Of course the kingdom and the church should overlap, but sometimes I feel that the theologians and preachers are hammering the people who are trying to accomplish something for the kingdom, as problematic as that may be outside of the church, while the churches (to be distinguished from Church) continue to fail to make it possible to accomplish much of anything. It often sounds like people should be able to find and identify a good church, one that will truly be part of the kingdom, without any particular guidance. When they get there, the reason they should stay is that they need the church, whether or not it is functioning for them.

    Now I’m sure readers are going to get all tense about the phrase “functioning for them.” I believe that the primary issue in finding a local congregation is discovering the place where, and from which you can best serve Jesus. This is necessary because we don’t have a single church. Paul didn’t write to the Corinthians about our sort of problems, because we’ve gotten much worse. Not only do we have divisions; our divisions are institutionalized. So I have to locate a church congregation where I can be part of the Church, and thus carry on kingdom work. The followers of Cephas, Apollos, Paul, and Christ have separated themselves into different buildings with signs and trademarked logos.

    Once I find this congregation, I’m as likely as not to be pushed into various congregational or denominational programs to make sure that I’m properly socialized to the way that particular congregation does business. I recall being pursued early in my time in the United Methodist Church by folks from the Lay Speaker program. I needed to be certified before I spoke. I needed to coordinate before I spoke anywhere, because I might be seen as representing the UMC. But I wasn’t being invited to speak for Methodism. I had other things going on. Once I’ve checked off the boxes, the congregation wants to make sure I’m doing things for that congregation. Perhaps we should recognize that people gain skills in other churches, other denominations, and even in their secular occupations.

    Now because I am fully convinced of what Allan and Scot are saying, I will find that congregation and I will be a member, and I will make my kingdom work part of Church. What I won’t do is find myself stuck with that congregation or denomination. If I can get together with other parts of the Church irrespective of denomination, I’ll do so. But we get back to “functioning for them.”

    I’m seeing a great deal of hostility to any notion that a person should get something out of church. But the fact is that if you don’t get something out of church, you’re not going to be doing any ministry from church. No, you shouldn’t be self oriented. You should look for a place where you can serve. But a church congregation (and the whole church), should be a place where we serve one another. We give and we receive. And if we don’t receive, we won’t be giving for long, I don’t believe.

    That’s one of the problems with our expectations of pastors. The actual job description for our pastors—I mean what you’d get by following them around and describing what they actually do, not the paperwork lies we use—is both ungodly and stupid. Nobody can do the job. We put men and women into a place where nobody can truly succeed. Those who do succeed at all remold the job. I do not mean to denigrate the many fine pastors I know who are doing wonderful kingdom work from their church congregations. The problem is that we require them to be paragons just in order to succeed. We make every effort to destroy them. That’s the extreme of giving but not receiving.

    (Yes, Jesus said it’s better to give than to receive. But if we have an entire Church of people giving, there will be a lot of receiving going on as well!)

    It isn’t wrong for a couple with children to want to see that the church congregation they join will help them raise and nurture their children. It’s not wrong for a person who is ill to hope to be visited, encouraged, and prayed for. It’s not wrong for missionaries to want a home base that will actively support what they do and who will want to listen to their stories when they return. It is not wrong for the elderly members to expect that they will be helped and respected in their declining years. All of those things involve the congregation “functioning for” various people. If I want to support children’s ministry, the elderly, service to the sick or imprisoned, or engage in social action, why would I join a congregation that shows it’s intention not to do those sorts of things?

    But, object many of my fellow churchy folks, there are good congregations out there. People should be more determined. They should seek out the right congregation. They should find a way to serve! They can start those ministries!

    And here you’re expecting the non-theologically trained, non-church-oriented, ordinary people who just want to get about doing good to fix your church first. If the church is spending 70% or more of its budget just maintaining the machine, why would someone who really cares about the poor, for example, decide to join up and handle the problem before they do what they are called to do? That’s what we ask of many of them. We are dedicated to the buildings, to the structure, to the programs, and to the traditions, so they should come on board and be satisfied with just a tiny percentage of the effort and money of the church going to the sorts of ministry to which they are called.

    I don’t believe that the solution to our church problems will come by persuading this generation that they need to come on board and solve our problems before they can do kingdom work. Those of us who are in the church need to be prepared to be radical. Sometimes one must acquire buildings, but very frequently one must get rid of buildings. If a church is failing, it may well be time to shut it down.

    I’m not opposed to paid staff. But our paid staff should be people who help get the rest of us out doing ministry. For example, I would be very sorry to see a scholar-pastor such as Dr. Wesley Wachob at  my home church in a bi-vocational ministry. I think the best use the church can make of him is in a full-time teaching role. But his job (and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t understand it this way, but don’t blame him for my words!) is to get another 3,000+ of us out there doing ministry, not as paid ministers, but as every member ministers. (Every member in ministry is a good Methodist program. Too bad “every” is such a small number in so many cases.)

    Do I have a solution or is this just a rant? Well, I admit it is somewhat of a rant. But I do believe that each of us who are in the church can make a difference by being different. Have convictions. If you don’t know what they should be, study. Learn. Be prepared to stand aside and see things done differently, even in ways you don’t think will work, as new people come in the door. See the church everywhere believers may be found, and not just in your congregation.

    And for the 21st century in particular, realize that social relations are different now. I hear moaning in church about a decline in people knowing one another as aging church members (and I must admit these aging church members are my age!) talk about how social media is ruining everything. They ought to be in church or at our Sunday School party, but they’re on Facebook. Yes, indeed! They’re on Facebook. And that’s part of their social circle and how they connect. And because I want to be able to connect with the current generation and those between, it’s one of the ways I connect. Many of my closest friends now I met through electronic media, some long before it was called social media or the internet became so universal.

    For example, I met Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. on the CompuServe Religion Forum in the days when I had to dial-up a CompuServe outlet in order to connect. Elgin is now one of my authors. He spoke some years ago at a pastor’s conference I was coordinating. It all started through non-traditional media. It was through Elgin that I met Dave Black, who I now count as one of my closest friends. They’re part of the Church, I am connected to them, and it didn’t start in a church fellowship hall.

    Then there’s Allan Bevere, who I know is committed to the church and is committed, I believe to all the types of ministry I’ve discussed and more. Further, he’s willing to be in the heart of the fray. I met him via blogging. In fact, I think our earliest exchange involved him telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about! We’ve met in real life since, but it all started among the blogs. He, in turn, introduced me to Bob Cornwall, a Disciples pastor in Michigan, who is also one of my authors and the lead editor for a series I publish. My point here is not to invoke these people in support of my views. Rather, I’m pointing out that there’s a whole new way of congregating in the 21st century, and we churchy folks need to get used to it. It may not just be an adjunct to what we consider “real” socializing. It’s more likely a new reality.

    All of these people are in the Church with me, as I see it.

    I don’t think the concept of the church is out of date. The media may change, but the idea is there. What we need to do is truly practice being the body of Christ in whatever place and by whatever means there are at hand. In doing so, we need to be radical, in the sense of pulling up by the root those things that keep us from doing what we need to do. Our theology on the importance of the church won’t bring these people in. I hope it will convince us that we need to get real about the message and practice of the gospel.

  • 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 Structure

    Dave Black commented on the structure of this passage, and I’ve been trying to work with it a bit. I do a loose form of phrasing when I study, in which I break pieces of the passage in some detail at times and leave others less chopped, so to speak.

    This morning, my Sunday School class, always small, was canceled due to absences, so I spent some time chopping! Here’s an image of what I did. This is a large image. If you want to actually read it, you can click on it, but if you have your Greek NT nearby, you should be able to see just the shape.

    1 Thessalonians 1-1-10 Greek

     

    Now I don’t know if this was of any value to you, because it’s just my way of thinking about the structure. You may find it hard to follow. I know there are some phrasing systems that are different.

    Nonetheless, it helped me, though I don’t think it finally answered the questions I had. You might want to read Dave’s post (which I copied to JesusParadigm.com so we’d have a good link!) before this discussion.

    There seemed to be two major questions, first whether 1:2-10 should be divided into two paragraphs (2-5, 6-10) or seen as one, and second whether one could imagine a division of the text that used 1:1-3 as a division.

    As to the second question, I could not see when I first read this how it could be divided in that way. First, there is a clear division, in my view, between 1:1 and 1:2, and second, there is no division that I can see between 1:3 and 1:4. I think eidotes is likely parallel with poioumenoi in modifying eucharistoumen. (Pardon some loose transliteration.)

    As to the first, this results from the e-mail that was sent to Dave, challenging the division between 5 & 6. The most logical reading seems to me to relate verse 6 right back to the thanksgiving of verse one. My blue line on my image above would should the structure if 6-10 is a different paragraph. My red line subordinates it to eidotes in verse 4. I was having a hard time seeing that logic until I had broken this down and bit and read it several times. It could be, but I would lean to making 2-10 a single paragraph and tying verse 6 back to verse 2. Lean, not fall head over heels into.

    I rarely post this sort of stuff. I’m not really an expert, and the epistles are not my normal stomping ground, but one must venture off of comfortable territory at some time or another!

    I do want to call attention to Dave’s article and his post because I think it is unfortunate that so many of the epistles are chopped into pieces in the way they are used in the church. We have our proof texts and our favorite passages, but we don’t read them as a whole. They’re short. You can afford to sit down and read the whole thing. I can afford to sit down and read all of 1 Thessalonians in Greek. It’s fun, and it’s profitable.

    On something this short, I recommend starting a study by reading it 12 times, preferably in different sources. It’s a good time to polish up your Latin or French, or if you’re not into languages, just use a number of English translations. People tell me they’ll get bored reading the same thing 12 times. I haven’t found it to be so. I recall being challenged to try this on the Sermon on the Mount. I promised to stop when I found nothing new. I read it over 30x, and stopped just because I needed to study other scriptures. How can it be boring?

    But even more, we neglect so much of the Pauline material in the Bible. Galatians and Romans are the big things, but I think you won’t understand Paul unless you read other epistles. I think 2 Corinthians is another one that is neglected, and by neglecting it, we miss some of who the apostle Paul was and how he led churches.

    Those are my thoughts instead of teaching Sunday School!

    What do you think?