Sermon on Genesis 11:27-12:5, Galatians 3:6-9

pic from here

A sermon by yours truly, can be listened to here.  About 30 mins long, preached on the 25th July at Manurewa Baptist Church.  Can also be downloaded from here.  Texts: Gen 11:27-12:5, Gal 3:6-9.

Key concepts: the identity of God's people, whakapapa, introductions, pregnancy, faith, the gospel

BTW for non NZ listeners whakapapa ("wh" sounds "f") is a Maori word/concept which denotes ancestry, lineage, stories of identity and history.  See here for more details.

Jesus is Lord of the Bible Too

Continuing to reflect on differences between Christianity and Islam (for background see previous post) I've been struck by the fact that although Christians often say that they "start with the Bible" they really don't.  At least, most of them don't, and those that do are usually a little unhinged.  This is because the Christian faith starts for most of us with an encounter of Christ through his Spirit and/or through his community and/or through his word.  We are not called as Christians primarily to submit to a book, however inspired, but to submit to Christ.  It is not that Muslims submit to a book, per se, but their submission to Allah is controlled and completed by their adherence to the Q'ran.  That is because the Q'ran was written to codify a religion, in Muslim belief dictated by the angel Gabriel to Mohammed.  In many ways while there might have been muslims, there was no religion of Islam until the Q'ran was written to codify it (I realise that the Q'ran was received over time, but the essence of what I say is, I hope, correct.  If it is not please correct me).

But because Christianity, while "a religion of the book," is first and formost a religion of a person: Jesus the Christ, it is more than possible to be a Christian without knowing or having access to the Bible.  Indeed, many Christians throughout history and even today had and have no access to the scriptures.  The New Testament was collected subsequent to the emergence of Christianity, and most of the documents it contains are not self consciously intended as scripture.  The works that comprise the New Testament were collected and recognised only on the basis of their adherence to an unwritten "rule of faith," that is the oral testimnoy and teaching of the apostolic and sub-apostolic church about Christ.

So here is another fundamental contrast in Islamic and Christian approaches to their scriptures.  For the Muslim Mohammed was the receiver of the the Q'ran, and consequently the greatest and seal of all the prophets.  But Christ did not give Christians the Bible, it was written about him, to testify to him.  Mohammed's authority came from the Q'ran as Allah's dictated word.  But, in Christian belief, Jesus does not derive his authority from the scripture but the other way round.  Scripture is only authorative as and in that it testifies to Christ.  This is important and true, for Christians, not just of the New Testament, but of the Old also.  For when Christ talks of fulfilling scripture, or the NT describes ways in which he does, it is not meant that the OT has prescribed who and what Jesus must do to be the Christ, but rather it describes the one who is to come, whose reality gives shape to all creation and the whole story of God's salvation.

And here we, the Christians, might start an argument for Jesus' divinity (and from there the Trinity), because it is the very shape of scripture that testifies that Jesus was not just a man who happened to fit the necessary mould to be the Christ, but that the whole of God's work of salvation, starting with God's promises to Abraham, has been moulded around Jesus Christ, predicated on his reality.  Jesus Christ did not come into being to complete the plan.  The plan came into being to express the reality of Jesus Christ.

Let me know what you think :-)

Deepak Chopra gets caught in his own tangled web of relativism

He's the guy on the left, and something of a new age guru type, in case you haven't heard of him. We can all say things we regret in the heat of the moment, but I think this is fair to share because the fact he doesn't get the joke demonstrates that he cannot apply his own logic to his own beliefs.

Virtue Can Cause Atheism Too

With all the recent excitement about a book to argue the thesis that sin can be a cause of atheism us believers need to not get too excited.  It is worth remembering that, while some manifestly have turned away from faith because of moral failure, others have turned away from faith because they were too moral to accept what they felt their faith demanded of them, whether in terms of action, attitude, or belief. 

Not only that but moral failure is often a catalyst for people to find faith as they come face to face with their own moral bankruptcy and seek redemption.  However, a church that is full of judgmentalism will succeed in creating atheists both through moral failure and moral virtue and will also prevent those seeking redemption from finding it there.  That is why the Lord told us to take the plank (judgmentalism) out of our own eye before we dare to address the dust in the eye of another.

Faith in or of Jesus?

The subjective/objective genetive debate has kicked off again recently as Steve responds (here, then here) to Loren.  Independent of that conversation James Gregory reviews two articles from a rather tasty looking book on the subject.

The debate simply centres around an ambiguity in the Greek when Paul talks about the "faith (of) Christ" it is not clear (purely in terms of grammar) whether he means Christ is the object of that faith, i.e. that he is the one in whom we have faith, or that he is the subject of the faith, i.e. he is the one who has shown faith(fulness).  Loren thinks the objective reading is nonsense, and Steve disagrees.  James Gregory finds the objective reading presented better in the book he reviews, but I suspect that he might feel the subjective reading would be a stronger case if argued rightly.

Because grammatical indicators cannot solve the problem, it has to be solved by exegesis.  Which is fun but time consuming.  And that is my excuse for not having an opinion on the matter yet.  One interesting idea that comes through in the review is the possibility that Paul uses a "plenary genitive," i.e. at that he intends both meanings.  Probably the key passage to think this one through is Gal 2:15-21.  Read it through with each possibility in mind, keep an open mind, and see which you think makes the most sense in context.

¹⁵"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by (the) faith in/of Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by (the) faith in/of Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.  ¹⁷"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

PS. Steve also has a great post on this subject in Heb 11:1.  I know it is your favourite verse, so check it out!

How to be convinced the Bible is God's word...

An awesome quote shamelessly stolen from here:

"No one believes that God speaks through his Word until they hear it. And no argument can convince the unbeliever apart from the work of the Spirit. "Faith comes by what is heard," writes Paul, "and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ" (Rom. 10:17, RSV). And it is the preaching of Christ - the testimony of faith that is there beyond our human words a transcendent word - it is that alone which can awaken and renew the church".

E. Achtemeier, 'The Canon as the Voice of the Living God,' in Reclaiming the Bible for the Church, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 122-23.

The Unexamined Faith

Over at Paul Windsor's blog we've been discussing the pros and cons of Christian celebrities, in the sporting world in particular. Now we wont get into that here and now, but the discussion prompted me to look a little closer at the story of Jonathan Edwards the British Triple Jump World Record holder and Olympic Gold winner. Reading an article about it from last years Times I was hit by one detail in particular. It seems as though Edwards who was raised in a devout family, had a conversion experience, and was a deeply committed Christian until after his athletics career, only lost his faith the first time he seriously questioned it, at the age of 40. Edwards who had toured churches in Britain, preaching the gospel and exhorting others to faith, suddenly comes out with:

When you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God.

The tragedy is not that someone should lose their faith, but that the first time they come across any reason for doubting, the faith that sustained them for so long it is immediately jettisoned as make-believe. he says:

I was so preoccupied with training and competing that I did not have the time or emotional inclination to question my beliefs. Sport is simple, with simple goals and a simple lifestyle. I was quite happy in a world populated by my family and close friends, people who shared my belief system.

It seems to me that Edwards faith must have been so rigid and so complete in its construction that the moment one part looks like its could be pulled loose he abandons the whole thing completely. Interestingly the new found scepticism towards his lifelong faith is not applied to his doubts. There is no sense in the Times interview that there is any other rational way to approach the subject, or that the assumptions of materialism should ever be doubted. Edwards states that

Once you start asking yourself questions like, ‘How do I really know there is a God?’ you are already on the path to unbelief.

But this is not true. A faith that acknowledges doubt, that is honest about difficult questions is not a faith that is heading for unbelief. On the contrary, a faith that never questions that cannot change, or admit it was wrong about something, that accepts everything without discussion, is only one step away from atheism because it has no way to grow or adjust. Its completeness and rigidity give the illusion of stability but are in fact just one good shake away from total collapse. This is why churches should be places for discussion and conversation not dogma and lines drawn in the sand. Making disciples is not about conforming people to a set of beliefs or theological system but about teaching them to ask questions and to develop their own real, growing, and meaningful relationship with the reality that transcends the universe, God. This is why when you choose your heroes, pick people not for the certainty they display, but for the way they have been able and willing to change. Not for their faith to a belief that has never been tested but for their willingness to be tested and listen to the questions that they can't answer straight away. Socrates famously said that 'the unexamined life is not worth living,' I quite agree, but would go further and say the unexamined faith is no faith at all, just a superstition awaiting destruction by the next unexpected turn life takes.

When I came to NZ my faith was at a crossroads. Working in pastoral ministry had given me lots of questions that i hadn't had the time or resources to explore. By taking the time out to study and probe these doubts and issues, I knew I was taking a risk, but I also knew that if God was worth believing in at all, God could handle both my doubting and answer my questions. This is why theological education is so important for those in Christian leadership, an enthusiastic but shallow faith wont last the long haul, I know because I was finished after five years. But a faith that is always learning and growing has no reason to ever crumble, because doubts are not there to destroy but are catalysts for greater honesty, depth and humility in your walk with God.