Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: New Testament

  • Yet More Hebrews and Old Testament-New Testament Continuity

    One of the things I love about both blogging and publishing is the number of interesting and capable people I get to interact with. It’s something I’ve missed since graduate school days—the opportunity to run my ideas up against people who can really challenge them.

    Dave Black has written some commentary on this matter of continuity between the Old and New Testaments. I’ve extracted the relevant entry from his blog and reposted it to JesusParadigm.com. (For those who don’t know, Dave’s blog doesn’t provide a way to link to a particular entry.) If you haven’t, read Dave’s notes. There is a great deal there. I intend to respond to the matter of who I publish over on the Energion Publications blog. (I’ll add a link here once I’ve done that.)

    I think Dave and I are quite close to agreement, though I do think we have some difference of emphasis. Perhaps his is a more radical approach, and I think the parallel to ecclesiology and the Anabaptist movement as opposed to the more traditional reformers. In fact, labeling them “more traditional” may summarize the whole issue. This does not, of course, tell us who is right. I think my difference with Dave here would be that I allow for more variation for time, place, and culture. I think that is in one sense a minor difference, but not truly insignificant.

    The problem with radical reformation is that it may get derailed in practice. As I read Scripture, God has always led his people with some consideration for their starting point. I’ll say a bit more on this in a later paragraph regarding the study of Torah. So the perfect, or even the “better” becomes the enemy of the good. I see this in my own church. I can look from one angle and say, “There is so much wrong with this church.” (Some might note as a problem that it has Henry Neufeld as a member!) But if I look from another angle, there is so much that is going right in the church, including the fact that the gospel is being preached there regularly. What do I want to reform and when do I want to reform it? Of course, the reality is that I have very little to say on that. The pastoral staff and the church council do most of that work, and I’m involved in neither group.

    But there is a problem with the “gradual change” folks as well, and I think the reformation provides examples of this. Gradual change often becomes stagnation. We don’t become more Christlike on a continuing basis, but instead become, in our own eyes, more Christ-like than our neighbors and then hang out there, or even begin deteriorating from that point. I think that if you look at the energy and focus of the Methodist movement during John Wesley’s lifetime and then at the United Methodist Church now, you don’t see progress.

    But how does this relate to the Old Testament/New Testament continuity or discontinuity?

    To steal a phrase from Paul: Much in every way!

    I see the progress from the Old Testament to the New as one of moving to the next chapter of a book, one that we, as Christians, see as the climactic chapter. So there is a substantive change as we enter into the final phase, the solution of the whole mystery, the resolution of the conflict. That is very different. But at the same time, we should not say that previous chapters were bad because they weren’t providing the whole solution. Rather, those chapters led up to the final chapter. They provided the clues. They provided the background. the seeds of the conclusion were planted there.

    The priesthood of all believers, for example, is foreshadowed in Exodus 19:6, but it is a strong New Testament concept. The latter verses of Exodus 20 (after the giving of the 10 commandments) tell us something of why. The people were afraid and didn’t want god speaking directly to them. There was comfort in having Moses and Aaron handle that part for them. There was comfort in having a priesthood. I suspect that the priesthood of all believers frightens us now for the same reason. We share the same human failings as the people around Mt. Sinai. We’d like something solid and comfortable that doesn’t tell us things that are upsetting. They turned to the golden calf. We turn to our denominational structures. “We’re Methodists,” I’m told, “We don’t do things like that.” It’s the same avoidance.

    Hebrews uses Jeremiah 31:31-34 which foreshadows the same idea. From looking at these texts in their place in the story, I began to see certain of the texts not as a destination, so much as a road map leading forward. The author of Hebrews taps into that road map and proposes to draw the path forward and say something about the destination. But everyone knowing the Lord is something that looks good on paper, or when spoken by the prophet. Just don’t make anyone implement it. Or is it not the same attitude that is displayed when someone says, “Please just tell me what this means! Don’t go into all those details!”

    There is a tendency to think of the professional class of pastors keeping the people away from their priesthood. And there are doubtless times and places where that is what’s going on. But I see more of a refusal to take that much responsibility for our own souls, our own calling, and our own decision making. Because of the priesthood of all believers the failings of the church are my failings. I do not get to blame this on others. Jesus has called me. I do not have permission to blame it on the paid pastor.

    But God’s ideal for Israel, expressed in many of the very passages quoted in Hebrews, was the same. It was for all to know God for themselves. This is one of the things I have learned in studying about what Christians call the “ceremonial law.” It was a teaching tool. It was not God’s intention to leave the priesthood in the hands of the few. It was God’s intention to eventually have a nation of priests.

    Is there discontinuity? Yes, but it is the discontinuity of turning back to the ideal, to what God had planned all along. It is radical in the extent to which it is not radical.

    Dave asked how much we differ. I think not that much on the Old Testament/New Testament discontinuity, though I am ready to have this view adjusted. On the nature of reform and how to carry it out, perhaps we differ a bit more.

    I’ll have to write some more about ecclesiology. That might get us to the more serious differences.

     

     

  • The Old Testament in Hebrews – An Example

    I’ve been reading Isaiah through this year following the readings outlined for the Facebook group Greek Isaiah in a Year. This is actually my second time (mostly) through Isaiah in the LXX, though last time I stopped ten chapters short. When I saw this reading plan, I had to decide between finishing my previous start or doing it again, and I chose to do it again.

    In my reading this week I came to Isaiah 35:3, “Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees” (NRSV). Hebrews 12:12 doubtless alludes to this particular passage, and reading it again in context, I found that it strengthens a conviction I already had, that the author of Hebrews assumes he can draw in the context of his allusions into his argument.

    Interpreters often make the assumption that New Testament writers are taking texts completely without regard to context, and sometimes this is absolutely correct. In many cases this is simply a New Testament writer, steeped in Old Testament language, making use of that language in his particular case. Sometimes, I believe, it is using a different understanding of inspiration and a different approach to interpretation than we do, but that is another topic. But in some cases, I think the usage is quite intentional, and there are a number of examples in Hebrews.

    In this case Isaiah is speaking to a similar situation to the one in which the readers of Hebrews would have found themselves: in trouble, needing endurance, needing to be assured that God would be faithful, with redemption near. Isaiah 35 is a beautiful passage of scripture, made even more beautiful by the largely unremitting gloom and doom of the preceding passages. But this admonition is part of a passage of encouragement and joy, not one of rebuke.

    Consider:

    The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
    the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
    like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly,
    and rejoice with joy and singing.

    The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
    the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
    They shall see the glory of the Lord,
    the majesty of our God.

    3 Strengthen the weak hands,
    and make firm the feeble knees.
    4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
    “Be strong, do not fear!
    Here is your God.
    He will come with vengeance,
    with terrible recompense.
    He will come and save you. (Isaiah 35:1-4, NRSV)

    Doubtless a writer whose text fairly drips with allusions to Hebrew scriptures, and whose audience must have been used to such text, was not unaware of the source of his text, nor did he use it unintentionally. This passage, in its own way, states the message of Hebrews.

    One of the dangers of using quotations from the book of Hebrews is simply that it is so easy to read the text out of context. Even quoting longer passages can miss the point. Hebrews 6 is frequently quoted as gloom and doom, but the author is confident that the negative implications do not apply to his audience.

    This is often read as a “buck up and get to work” passage, and certainly we are called upon to remain faithful, to wait for our salvation with confidence. But this isn’t a “you better get to work because that’s what God requires” passage. It’s encouragement.

    What’s the difference? Throughout Hebrews we find the call to be faithful. Why should we be faithful? Because God is faithful. How can we be faithful? By means of God’s faithfulness. I’m not going to quote a single text here, but rather suggest reading the book with that in mind. Look for the passages. (I’m thinking of creating a color coded text to make some of these points, but that will be some time.)

    A good example of this, however, is Hebrews 11. Many people have noticed the difference between the description of these people in Hebrews 11 as opposed to their story in the Old Testament. Moses, for example, leaves Egypt “not fearing the wrath of the king” (11:27), whereas in Exodus he is very afraid (2:14). This is the “faith view” or even better, the view from the perspective of God’s faithfulness.

    Hebrews is not a call for us to do lots of stuff so we can attain our reward. It is a call into God’s faithfulness which will, in turn, produce our faithfulness.

     

  • Reading the Bible Chronologically

    A number of bloggers have responded to Marcus Borg’s article at the Huffington Post on reading the New Testament chronologically. Responses include Gaudete Theology, Bill Heroman, and Philip J. Long. I’d suggest reading those responses before reading my few comments.

    Here are some points that struck me:

    1. Borg contends that there is a trajectory of conformity to the culture. The earliest materials are radical while the later items have accommodated. I’m wondering how much this would differ from simply the fact that early Christians found themselves having to continue living in the empire, and that there would be more questions to answer about culture. In other words, if Jesus or Paul were to answer enough questions from people living from day to day, they might appear less radical than the distilled essence we get from them now.
    2. The New Testament, as a “book,” is the creation and possession of the church. I happen to believe that it is God’s creation through the medium of the church, but nonetheless without the church there is no New Testament. At a minimum, we need to recognize that reading it in a way so substantially different from the way the church created it will result in seeing a different picture.
    3. The historian may want to see the individual documents and read a history. I have great sympathy with than enterprise, but as I noted in point #2 the reading becomes different.
    4. If one postulates a different chronology, the book changes again. For example, folks like William R. Farmer and David Alan Black don’t accept Markan priority. While I am not fully convinced of this position myself, I do believe they have each, in very different ways, poked some serious holes in the consensus view.
    5. Viewing the gospels as products of the church rather than formative of it seems to privilege the written word above the oral at a time when that probably was not the case. In other words, the stories of Jesus told in the gospels were likely formative, and because of that became part of the written record. The gospel writers didn’t choose which stories to record in a vacuum. They were aware of which stories were more influential.
    6. I think #5 holds whether the gospels were written by eyewitnesses or not. Eyewitnesses will have been telling the stories for decades before writing them down. What was formative for the church would be in the gospels because of that, if nothing else.

    Obviously, I’m not recording well-researched and supported theories. I’m just noting some questions and observations.

     

  • Of Evangelism, Missions and Other Bad Words

    The tragedy of the American church is that we have the greatest resources ever in the history of Christianity and for the most part we’re sitting on them, doing nothing. When we are doing something, most of what we do is for ourselves.

    The question, I’m told, is what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. A close second is how we motivate people to go into action and do whatever it is we should be doing.

    But I think that’s the wrong question. If we’re going to be Christians, we know what we’re supposed to be doing, and it falls somewhere amongst the bad words I use in the title. The gospel commission in Matthew tells us to go and make disciples. It is repeated elsewhere in the New Testament in different words, but the essentials remain.

    This is why I continue to insist on using the words “evangelism” and “missions” no matter how bad they may sound to some people. I’ve been told that I will turn people off by doing so. I’m well aware that there have been many things done under the heading of these words that have likely driven people away from Christ rather than drawn them to him.

    There have been missionaries who spread a “gospel” of American culture rather than the Gospel of Jesus. There are been those who were very destructive to those with whom they came in contact. I’ve seen the occasional distant look, or heard the silence when I tell people my parents were missionaries. But I can tell you that my parents carried medical care and the love of Christ where they went, not American culture. The word (“missions” or “missionary”) is not the problem.

    Similarly I continue to use the word evangelism, proclamation of the Good News. There have been many whose “good news” was that the hearer should come to my church, follow the norms of my “church culture,” and pay tithes into the church budget, thus avoiding hell. But that isn’t the Gospel, and we know it, whatever we may practice.

    I have had a number of conversations with pastors who told me their churches looked good on paper. They had the right numbers. But at the same time, these pastors told me, things were not going well. The church wasn’t carrying out its mission. People were not becoming active.

    There’s a great debate amongst Christian scholars as to whether missions should consist mostly of care for the physical needs of people or whether it should be primarily about their spiritual needs. The big problem here is that the debate is often conducted between people who are actually doing neither one. More importantly they represent groups and denominations who, in overwhelming numbers, are doing neither.

    I would like to suggest that we don’t need a change of words. I want to say we need a change in the way we understand those words, and that our understanding should turn back to scripture. But that would be to get back into the very same debate. What I really think we need to do is replace the words with actions.

    We often think we need to straighten out our beliefs first, and then base our actions on right beliefs. I believe that in many cases this process needs to be reversed. Obey the obvious commands, and the more obscure ones will begin to fall into place.

    I was showing a pastor from overseas around the Pensacola area. He was a very activist evangelist in his homeland. He had planted many churches. He had built orphanages and schools. He had carried out both the mandates of caring for people’s physical needs and also addressed their spiritual needs. As we were driving he suddenly said to me: “You know, Henry, how you can hear the voice of God more often?” “How?” I asked. “Just obey what you’ve already heard and you’ll hear more from God.”

    I think that could apply to following the commands of God received through Scripture. How can I learn more of God? Act on what I have already learned.

    That isn’t a command for pastors, teachers, or for those who own publishing companies. It’s a command for all Christians. I often tell people that all Christians are witnesses. The question is what type of witness you’ll be. Will you be a good witness or a bad one. Even if you just warm a pew you are a witness. The testimony you give in that case is that Jesus is really not that important, and can be ignored by people who have serious things to do.

    To be a missionary you have to go. It may be a few feet. It may be a few thousand miles. If you’re a missionary, you’re also going to be an evangelist. You’ll be proclaiming good news. It’s a commission you get when you accept Christ in the first place. If you’re part of the church, you’re called.

    Will You Join the Cause of Global Missions?Because of this, I’m delighted that my company, Energion Publications, has just released a new book, Will You Join the Cause of Global Missions? by David Alan Black. I try to write a few notes on each book I publish. I view my business as a ministry, and there is a reason for the manuscripts I choose to publish, a reason beyond whether I think I can sell them. In this case I wanted to give some of my own thoughts on missions before discussing the book.

    For this book I’ve worked closely with the author and planned the way we’d publish and market it to make sure we can offer it for the lowest price possible, especially in quantity. It’s just 32 pages including front and back matter. Quantity prices at Energion Direct get this down to $3.24 each if you’re ordering 50 or more copies. (I’ll tell you why you want to order in quantity below.) But right at the moment you can beat that price through B&N, which is still (February 9, 2012) offering the book for just $2.57.

    Why do I emphasize the price? Because we’ve pared this price to the bone to make the book as accessible as possible. Over the next few days watch for a Kindle edition, and we’ll follow that shortly with one for the Nook. The Kindle edition will be sold for just 99¢.

    So why buy this book in quantity?

    To put it simply, this isn’t a book for you to read and put on your shelf. It’s a challenge to action, and it’s a tool for Christians to use in leading other Christians to become active. Let me quote a few lines:

    “If churches in America were truly committed to the Great Commission, it would show in a lifestyle that matches our response to a lost and dying world” (8).

    “The most important principle to keep in mind is to employ material things for the kingdom of God rather than for ourselves” (9)

    “Kingdom Christians have found the pearl of great price. Like Jesus, they refuse to separate doctrine from practice, word from power” (10).

    “Under God’s great grace, we are called to be one with one another. What can create this kind of community? Community cannot be preached. It can only be practiced and the place to start is with oneself” (16).

    Now those are little snippets taken out of the context of a carefully planned presentation, but I think they give a taste.

    But the book ends in an unusual way. It asks you, the reader, to sign on the dotted line. Will you join the cause of global missions? If so there is a specific commitment, and a place to sign and date your commitment.

    Dave is a Baptist, and I’m a Methodist. I’m sure someone will find something “Baptist” about this book and point it out to me. That will be an excellent sign that they haven’t gotten the point. There is nothing in the commitment requested in this book that I, as a Methodist should not already be committed to. Dave doesn’t tell you in this book just what mix of social, physical, and spiritual you’re supposed to try for.  The Holy Spirit will guide you in that. And I’m convinced that, as that visiting pastor once told me, if you obey the clear things you already know, other things will become much clearer.

    This isn’t about denominations or the numbers on church rolls. It’s not about the amount of money in the offering plate. I believe all of those things will be impacted by our obedience to the gospel commission, but I believe it is dangerous to make material things the goal. This is about being sent into the world as the Father sent His Son.

    If you need a copy of this book to evaluate, let me know. If you’d like a copy to review, let me know that as well.

    But above all, act on what you know.

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  • Free New Testament Commentary Ebooks

    The regular Kindle prices are great, but Baker is offering selected commentaries free for one day on Jan. 9 (past, alas!), Jan. 16, and Jan 23. Today’s is on James. More at Evangelical Textual Criticism.

  • This Headline Says It All

    Tithing Hits Record Low; Churches Spend More to Make Congregants Happy.

    While I don’t believe tithing is a command binding on Christians, my problem is not that it would demand too much, but rather that it demands too little, does so in the wrong way, and for the wrong reasons. But that’s another topic.

    And I can’t resist noting that the word “tithing” used to refer to giving 10%, not 2.38%, though I know the word has changed meaning. Still, if you’re going to call it a biblical command, it might be better to stick with the biblical meaning, or a close approximation.

     

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  • On Publishing Philippians: A Participatory Study Guide

    Philippians: A Participatory Study GuideThis post will contain reflections both on the recently released Philippians study guide and the series of which it is a part. I generally write such reflections after each book my company releases. So be warned—there are products discussed here!

    When I first created this blog I was the only author in the participatory study series. Making a book series grow and sell usually requires a great vision pursued relentlessly. This series, on the other hand, has grown and substantially improved its original vision.

    When I first wrote To the Hebrews: A Participatory Study Guide and Revelation: A Participatory Study Guide, I didn’t feel any great optimism that I could break into a very competitive market. People write Bible study guides all the time. Quality varies dramatically, and often the best sellers are those written by people with famous names.

    What I wanted was a system that brought together biblical scholarship, spiritual disciplines, accessibility to lay people, and a somewhat ecumenical approach. I must specify that my view of ecumenism is not homogenization, but rather a willingness to engage in respectful give and take and especially to look at multiple traditions when choosing sources and study materials.

    I wrote those two books myself, and I had an upcoming class in mind with each one. You can see by the design of the books that this was early in my own publishing experience. From the point of view of developing the company, I needed titles. With the process we use, I can produce study guides for my own use quite economically. My thought was that if these guides sold successfully it would be great, but I wouldn’t count on it, and I would put my efforts into finding authors with manuscripts of their own, not ones following a plan I had designed.

    In the event, not only have I taught from them myself more times than expected, but I’ve seen them sell quite a few more copies than I had thought possible. No, they aren’t threatening to be on anyone’s best seller lists, but they have definitely exceeded my initial expectations.

    A few years after I had released those first two guides Geoffrey Lentz approached me with  a study outline from the book of Luke. Geoffrey had invited me to teach one of his classes from my guide to Hebrews, and he liked the outline of the method, but also the proposed freedom for working within the framework. I liked his outline and his idea, and the result was The Gospel According to Saint Luke: A Participatory Study Guide.

    Geoffrey really rounded out the idea of the series by improving the presentation and tying the method more closely with lectio divina. He at first proposed including both a discussion of lectio divina and the introduction to the method that I had produced, but once I looked at his connections, I suggested we work together to combine the two. Participatory study and lectio divina are not identical; participatory study provides more of an emphasis on resources and critical questions, yet the two work together very well.

    Once I saw the completed study guide to Luke, I knew immediately that if I could find any more authors for the series, I would present that volume as the guide to how we would structure study guides.

    After Luke, Geoffrey and I got together and wrote Learning and Living Scripture: An Introduction to the Participatory Study Method. In that book, Geoffrey’s more pastoral concern and my more technical emphasis combine and lay out the method along with exercises.

    Since then we’ve introduced Ephesians: A Participatory Study Guide, by Bob Cornwall and most recently Philippians: A Participatory Study Guide by Bruce Epperly. Each new author has brought something unexpected to the method and to the particular book they present. I don’t want to describe one book or another as “best.” (I do plan to revise my two volumes to incorporate some features in layout and presentation learned from later volumes.)

    I had wondered just how well someone could take the basic framework and yet use their own gifts and emphases in producing an effective guide. I couldn’t have been more pleased when I read the following sentence in Bruce Epperly’s preface to Philippians: “Henry provided a vision for this study and gave me permission to work out the details in a way congruent with my gifts as a pastor, teacher, and spiritual guide.”

    This was not so much pleasing as a pat on the back, though I admit to being delighted when my work is appreciated. More than that, it indicates that someone whose gifts differ dramatically from my own was able to exercise those gifts within this framework and produce what is truly an exceptional study guide. I’ve gotten some comments from people who wonder about one statement or another. Bruce is a progressive theologian and an adventurous theological writer. But nobody has said it doesn’t challenge them to press boldly on toward the mark.

    I look at the way the series is developing—and there are several more volumes either in progress or in preliminary negotiations—and I’m truly amazed. I wish I could say I envisioned the quality of the people who would submit proposals for inclusion in the series, almost all of them with doctoral degrees and considerable experience teaching. I wish I could say I’d envisioned what’s happening to the series—but I’m delighted that the result is better than I ever imagined.

    I encourage you to take a look at this latest study guide. Not only will it challenge you to take a more serious look at the content of Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, it will challenge you to take what you learn seriously and apply it in your own spiritual life. Each lesson starts by asking you to open yourself to the Spirit in some way and concludes by challenging you to carry what the Spirit has done out of the church or classroom and out into the world.

    I have been very pleased to publish every book I have published since I started Energion Publications, and I don’t want to take anything away from those books. Yet my heart is in getting the people in our church pews, not to mention those who rarely show up there, to learn the joy of exploring the scriptures while listening to the Spirit. Thus Philippians: A Participatory Study Guide will always have a special place in my heart. It does an extraordinary job of accomplishing that mission.

    There are review and evaluation copies of all the participatory study guides available, If you’re interested, e-mail me with the reason you want one, and I’ll take care of it.

  • In Which I Make Two Intemperate Remarks

    I was talking to a friend the other day. Our main topic was church and the way it was done. In the course of our conversation I discussed what I feel is the 1 Corinthians 14 church, you know, the one Paul was trying to correct. (I discuss what I think about it in my post The Problem with 1 Corinthians 14 Worship.) I was also discussing handling of incorrect statements in church, whether these are off-the-wall interpretations of Bible passages, or people claiming to speak a prophetic word that is truly not from God.

    In summary, I believe the Corinthian church was active and alive, and everyone came in with a message. There would be multiple messages given to the group, and there would be discussion. I believe the New Testament model would be for people to speak and then for others to affirm or correct as necessary. I acknowledge the problems, and in our conversation I mentioned how many friends of mine who are pastors are not too happy with my view. They’d prefer to check the message before anyone hears it, so none are led astray, and they’d also prefer not to have to affirm or correct any statement in a public setting.

    I acknowledge that I am not a pastor and thus may be less sensitive to these problems. I also know that telling someone they are actually wrong in a public place is very much against our cultural norms. We really prefer to keep the face of things happy and affirming, and take care of any questions out of sight. But I don’t think a church modeled after the ideal presented in 1 Corinthians 14 (and elsewhere in the NT) can function in that way.

    In our discussion, this brought forth my first intemperate statement. After we’d discussed these points, and both agreed about the difficulty of accomplishing this, I said: “It had better be possible. If not, my life work thus far has been in vain.”

    It was out of my mouth before it passed through my brain. But it has stuck with me, and I haven’t found much reason to back off of it. To me, the church, if it is to be the body of Christ, must have input coming from everyone, and must have everyone involved. We are all baptized into the same Spirit (read all of 1 Corinthians 12-14 to get this picture), and we all have gifts. These gifts are to come together. That, to me, is church. If church doesn’t work, I have truly been wasting my time.

    I would note that I don’t mean spreading people’s private issues and problems in public, where they can be kept private. I don’t mean gossip and tale bearing. I mean every member involved in the theological thinking and practical visioning of the church body on a regular and constant basis.

    What do you think? How intemperate was I?

    Then there was the second intemperate statement, which needs more qualification on further thought. My friend asked me which seminary I would recommend a young person go to in preparation for Methodist ministry. My intemperate answer? “I wouldn’t.”

    Yet there are things I like about various seminaries. My problem here is that I don’t like the professional education approach to preparation for pastoring. In fact, I don’t like it much for anything at all. I think our educational system is well-designed to prepare people to live in the 19th century. it’s not completely incapable of preparing people for the 20th century, but it’s not fully equipped for that task. Unfortunately, none of us have the option to live in either of those centuries.

    I may really stun my friends in educational institutions, but I think the traditional university is a surviving fossil. It’s going to go away over time, or at least become a very minor factor. The reason is that technology and information is developing too fast for one to dedicate a certain percentage of one’s life to going to school, then assume education is complete, except for an occasional refresher in some continuing education program.

    We’re going to need to find a way to work and further our education simultaneously. We’re also going to want to benefit from scholars from around the world in any educational program, not just those who happen to be in the local area. This is a long subject, and I’m sure people will be very annoyed as things progress. There is already a great deal of prejudice against distance learning. Some of this comes from growing pains. Some of it is completely unjustified. Note to critics: You need to do more than point to problems with distance/online learning. You need to realize the imperfections of resident learning as well.

    So again, how intemperate was I?

     

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  • The Worship Service is Worship Too

    Some time ago I read a post by Arthur Sido on The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia titled What is Worship? and I’ve been intending to respond ever since. The problem is that the topic brings up so many different issues that it threatens to become an incredibly long blog post. Those of you who have read this blog before know that wordiness is my besetting sin!

    So I’m going to try to give a few thoughts and I’ll write about details later if it seems the thing to do. I will obviously fail to cover all my ground. I’d suggest you read Arthur Sido’s post first. I’m not going to respond point by point. In fact, I consider most of his suggestions excellent, even though I take a different approach to the texts. Instead I’m going to just put forward a few ideas about worship, and particularly about the relationship of the Old Testament to the New on this topic.

    Before I get to the question of how much of what the Old Testament says about worship applies to the church let me comment on the definition of the word “worship.” One problem is that worship can mean different things in different places. I first encountered this problem talking to people who thought only part of the church service was worship. They would refer to the musical portion as “worship” and would complain that they had not been allowed enough time to worship at a particular service because too many other things took place. Worship would generally be defined in those conversations as the portions of the service that particularly engaged the emotions.

    We might see this as something similar to the biblical phrase “bow down and worship.” It’s a particular act of worship. I don’t have a problem with this special definition, so long as we realize what’s happening. You can define one piece of the worship service as “worship” and the rest as, well, something else, and lose the the broader meaning of worship. I recall some people who started to make a large distinction between “praise music” and “worship music” and had particular times for these things. Again, one can appropriately make a distinction between the word “praise” and the word “worship” in particular contexts, but that doesn’t mean that’s all of worship.

    On the other side, we have those who see the worship service strictly in terms of conveying certain facts. There is no expectation of poetry and emotional engagement in the service. The preference is for a few songs to kind of set off the time of preaching, the proclamation of the word. For these people the point of a church gathering is to get educated.

    Most people, of course, fall somewhere between these points. I think all fall short of the best concept of a service of worship. And no, I don’t have a problem using a term that is not explicitly used in the New Testament. In fact, I find the argument that something was not mentioned in the New Testament and thus must not be something we should do or believe to be one of the worst arguments. But that is another subject.

    Yet it is important to understand that worship can be broadened to cover everything that we do in life. I have learned a great deal of this while studying the book of Leviticus (read some of my notes on Leviticus), and also the rest of the Pentateuch. The overarching theme, I would suggest, is that God wants to bring everything into the realm of the sacred. We make some things sacred; God wants to sanctify everything. We make some places holy; God wants a holy world. We set aside sacred time; God claims rule of all time.

    The scriptural bookends for this view are found in Exodus 19:6 “You will be a kingdom of priests to me, a holy nation …” and then in 1 Peter 2:9, which alludes back to Exodus. What happened in between? Well, things didn’t happen that well at Sinai. God couldn’t make Israel a nation of priests and chose instead a priestly family, and the tribe of Levi to serve the temple. Instead of a holy nation we had a holy shrine.

    But the rituals of Leviticus see God moving into our profane spaces and trying to make them holy. The direction in which God is leading people is away from the scattered bits and pieces of “holy” and to a holy, consecrated life. I call this one of the trajectories of scripture that helps us understand how various texts apply, in this case texts related to worship.

    There are two commonly accepted ideas about how we apply Old Testament texts to the church. On the one hand there are those who think that if it isn’t restated in the New Testament, it doesn’t apply. There are others who believe it applies unless it was explicitly changed in the New Testament. As usual, these extremes don’t happen that often in practice, and there are certainly other views, but those provide the general outline.

    I would suggest instead that the Old Testament applies to the church wherever it does so based on the principles espoused in the text. We do not offer animal sacrifices in the church, but it is not simply because the New Testament says that was to end. Rather, the New Testament says that was to end because it’s function was completed. We can discover whether the function was completed by asking whether the situation that called for a particular activity, ritual, or law still applies in the time of the church. I would suggest that this question often needs to be answered differently for different people or groups.

    What does this mean for worship? I think it will suggest that it means that worship services are worship too. Those who think we worship only in the worship service should come to realize that obeying is better than sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22), while those who think the worship service is unimportant should spend some time with those Old Testament passages that speak to the importance of ritual in engaging us with God.

    I think there is a great difference between individual needs. While worship is about God, it is about people worshiping God, and that worship experience means different things to different people. But there is that corporate need to worship together. Leave off either the acts specifically directed to God, or acts of service to others (which should be directed to God as well),  and one’s spiritual life will be unbalanced. (One can learn a great deal about worship from 1 Corinthians 12-14, especially 14.)

    Thus my title: It’s not “The Worship Service is Worship,” but “The Worship Service is Worship Too.”

    I can certainly see a number of lines of discussion I haven’t followed and perhaps should have, but I think I’ll wait to respond to comments–or until I again feel it’s a good idea to follow up.

     

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  • Dave Black: Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek

    David Alan Black has posted a new essay, Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek.  The majority are books I have read and/or are on my shelves, but there are a couple that are just on my “need to read this list” and a couple more I’m going to add.

    I note that when I teach Greek classes locally, usually to a couple of people at a time, I use the #1 and #2 books on his list.  I know that as one of his publishers I should perhaps use one of his books as my text, but I will plead historical reasons–I picked the textbooks before I was his publisher!

    If I might underline a couple of books on his list:  #5. Peter Cotterell and Max Turner, Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation, and Dave’s related book, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek: A Survey of Basic Concepts and Applications. I take a small risk in recommending books I haven’t personally read. My introduction to linguistics started with my graduate advisor, Dr. Leona Running at Andrews University, and continued with some graduate work in linguistics at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle. Those linguistics classes did more for my understanding of translation and exegesis than did many of my exegesis classes.

    I always spend time talking about linguistics with my Greek or Hebrew students.  It makes a great deal of difference to how valuable one’s technical language knowledge will be.  When I studied Greek, I found that even syntax was neglected to some extent.

    Finally, #10. Rodney Decker, Koine Greek Reader: Selections from the New Testament, Septuagint, and Early Christian Writers.  In particular note the “Septuagint” and “Early Christian Writers.”  In my opinion, if your reading is limited to the New Testament, you cannot claim to really understand New Testament Greek.  I include the LXX in my regular reading, and I’m including more and more literature from the early church.  It will be well worth your while to do so.