Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Mysterious Dance of Love

...is a far better title than the one John Piper came up with for this otherwise wonderful post on 1 Corinthians 7:3-5.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Exercise in critiquing your culture #1

First watch this video

Then read Philipians 4:12

Then have a deep thought...

The JR translation of 1 Cor 6:12-20

OK so here is a translation I have done as part of my work on my thesis. This passage doesn't actually use 'the body of Christ' explicitly as a metaphor for the church (and neither does the nest one I will do). However I will be arguing that that metaphor is implicit in these verses. Compare it to your usual translation and let me know what you think. Translation is part science and part art, and doing this has made me realise just how hard the translation process is, it seems like every decision you make highlights one feature of the original text but obscures another, so you have to decide which features you think need to be prominent and which are permissible to obscure. Obviously the danger here for me is that I am highlighting the parts which support my thesis. Happily, I'm sure my supervisor will shoot me down in due course if that is the case! The parts in quotes are thought to be the Corinthian church's justifications for the actions that Paul is taking issue with.

1 Cor 6:12-20
“There are no rules for me,” but not everything is to your benefit. “There are no rules for me,” but I will not be ruled by anything. “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, and both will be destroyed by God.” But the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. For God has raised the Lord and through his power he will raise us. Don’t you know that your bodies are Christ’s body-parts? Then should I remove one of Christ’s body-parts and make it the body-part of a whore? No way! Don’t you know that when you join with a whore you are one body with her? For it is said: “The two will be one flesh.” But when you join with the Lord you are one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality! All sin a man might do is outside the body except the sexually immoral man who sins against his own body. Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (in you!) which you have from God, and you are not yours. For the price has been paid for you, so you must praise God in your body.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Paul's double barrelled shotgun

I tried to duck, but there was no way to avoid the hits...

"May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

by which the world has been crucified to me,

and I to the world."

- Galatians 6:14

Monday, April 27, 2009

NT Wright on the call to holiness for God's people

"The major theme which marks out Paul's theology of God's people as renewed by the Spirit is the renewed call to holiness. It is a holiness not defined by Torah [OT law], and yet in much of what Paul says he can draw upon Torah for outline guidance... It is, as the prophets always wanted, a holiness which comes from the heart; and it is a holiness which ought to make the pagan nations see who the living God really is. It is in other words, not simply a matter of 'now you are saved, this is how to behave'; it is a matter of the genuine humanness envisaged as God's will for Israel being attained through the Spirit by God's renewed people. It is summed up well at the start of Romans 12, in the appeal for self-offering and transformation trough the renewal of the mind, resulting in the mutual upbuilding of those who, though many, are one body in the messiah."

[Source: N.T. Wright, Paul in fresh perspective, Fortress 2005, p124]

How to pray when you are on reality TV

I was watching The Amazing Race last night and was reminded of a thought I often have when watching American reality TV (which I try not to do too much, but I am only human). Here's the thing, it really really bugs me when people in a competition pray for God's help to win, or even just not to lose. It is just plain ridiculous, and if God did help you it would be cheating.
Here is how you should pray:

Heavenly Father,
Your name is holy help me not to profane it or take it in vain today
You kingdom is coming, help me not to do anything on TV that will hinder that
Your will be done, so I recognise that may or may not include me winning this competition
Thank you for giving me not only my daily bread but the extreme luxury of being on reality TV and doing wasteful and pointless activities for the entertainment of the privileged few
Lead me out of temptation, but when the opportunity does arise (as after all I know it will.. this is what reality TV is all about) help me not to do anything really stupid that I will regret later
And deliver me from the manifest evil of treating the people I meet and interact with as mere pawns in my game, help me to remember these people live here and I am their guest and that I am commanded to love my neighbour as myself
For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory and may mine be the sense of perspective I should get from praying that
Amen

Sunday, April 26, 2009

The faith journey of Matt McMurray

I am always interested in different people's faith journeys. I am especially intrigued by the interplay of our circumstances and those experiences which we perceive to be revelation that lift us out of or transform our circumstances. Matt is an old friend of mine from university, but reading this on his blog today I found out a number of things I didn't know about him. Most interesting for me is the way he since found his way to a very 'traditional' form of Christianity. In some ways this reflects Phil's journey related elswhere on this blog, in other ways it is very different.

I was also very touched by his experience of finding a role model in Jesus as a fatherless teenager, and a father in God as a man.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

sorry couldn't resist


Rocking around the Christmas tree

And while we're on the subject of the Earth probably being a little older than 6 thousand years or so... check out this book review of a book that I spotted in the shops the other day, it starts like this:

"Saying that The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth by Davis A. Young and Ralph F. Stearley (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008) is probably the best book of its kind would not be saying enough, since there really is no other book of its kind: a treatment of the varied and overwhelmingly consistent evidence for the antiquity of our planet, written by Evangelical Christians with the aim of not only making the scientific case for the age of the Earth, but also helping conservative Christian readers navigate the issues of theology and Biblical interpretation that go along with such a conclusion, and all the while pointing out the difficulties and at times dishonesty of the young-earth creationist position."

ooooh!

Evangelicals and Evolution

Here is a blog which I was following a little last year in which an Evangelical Christian argues the case for and works out the consequences of accepting the modern theory of evolution. Although I do think this is a very important issue it is not one I feel I have the time to get stuck into at the moment. However I bring this to your attention as the author of the blog has just compiled the last two years of blogging and contributions to the blog into 5 ebooks which are available free from links on the blog. Titles rather enticingly include : 'evolution and original sin' and 'the social psychology of the origins debate.' Enjoy :-)

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.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Interpreting Narrative

"It is a general maxim of hermeneutics that God's Word is to be found in the intent of scripture. This is an especially crucial matter to the hermeneutics of historical narratives. It is one thing for the historian to include an event because it serves the greater purpose of his work and yet another to thing for the interpreter to take that incident as having teaching value apart from the historian's larger intent... This does not mean that what is incidental is false, nor that it has no theological value; it does mean that God's Word for us for us in that narrative is primarily related to what it was intended to teach."

[From the oldie but goodie How to read the Bible for all it's worth by Fee and Stuart, 1982, p98-99. Although I see on Amazon there is now a 2003 edition available]

Truth and meaning...

Chris Tilling recently wrote "However, while we may agree on certain propositions being true, what matters is what they mean."

Which is an excellent point. A Biblical example for me is Malachi 3:6 "I the Lord do not change..." This is a very clear proposition straight from the mouth of God on what God's nature is. But what does it mean? Does it mean that God never does anything, as any action is a change from inaction surely? But that cannot be right, see Genesis 2:2 for example. Does it mean that God cannot change his mind because he sees all things, including the future, and therefor his mind has always been made up because he was always going to do what he was always going to do? This is often the argument made from this verse in relation to open theology. But if we read the verse in context (shock horror) we find that God is not talking about either of those but God's own propensity to show mercy to Israel: "... and so you the descendents of Jacob, are not yet completely lost."

So the proposition that God does not change is true
But what it means is that God continues to show mercy to his people when they repent: "Turn back to me and I will turn to you." (Mal 3:7)

No room at the inn?

Don't you just love it when you start reading a book and before the first chapter is over you are already having to make major pradigm shifts?! Well Kenneth Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes has done just that and promises much much more to come.

To summarise, too briefly, an excellent scholarly and Biblical argument: the traditional western Christian understanding of Joseph and Mary being refused 'a room at the inn' (Luke 2:1-7) and Jesus being born in a cold dirty stable in Bethlehem is total hogwash and based on a 3rd century novel written about Jesus by a Greek who did not understand Middle Eastern culture.

Instead we should understand that both Joseph and Mary would have been assured of a warm reception in Bethlehem because they both had family in the area and because of the middle eastern culture of hospitality. That most village homes would keep their animals inside at night to guard against theft and to provide heat. They would be in a fenced off area of the large family room. That the word usually translated 'inn' is only translated that way because of this tradition that has sprung up and should be better translated 'guest room' as some village houses would have such a room for guests (cf Luke 22:10-12). And so Jesus, although born in very humble circumstances, was in fact welcomed into the world by the hospitality of the residents of Bethlehem, not left out in the cold.

Time to re-write all your Christmas plays! :-)

Monday, April 20, 2009

What sort of stories are the Gospels?

"Much in current Western scientific mentality has been tempted to deny the status of 'fact' (and so of truth) to everything not demonstrable in test-tubes or provable by 'verification'. This instinctive reductionism of many contemporary philosophers sadly prevents them from reckoning with the historical meaning of faith and the deep inter-relation of both event, and mystery.

Let us take help from a parable. November 22 (Texas). 1963. Suppose I say: "A man with a rifle from a warehouse window shot and killed another man in a passing car." Every word here is true (assuming we accept the Warren Commission). But how bleak and meager the facts are - so sparse as to be almost no fact at all. But suppose I go further and say: "The President of the United States was assassinated." This is more deeply factual because it is more fully related. the victim is identified, the killing is told as political, and the perspective is truer. But we are still a long way from the meaning of the tragedy. Let us attempt a further statement: "Men everywhere felt that they had looked into the abyss of evil and people wept in the streets."

The third statement tugs at the heart. It is true with a different sort of truth. It presupposes what the others state, but goes beyond into dimensions that begin to satisfy the nature of the fearful things that happened. Without something like that third story the event would remain concealed in part-told obscurity so remote as to be, in measure, false.

Now let us set the Gospels, and the whole New Testament in the light of this parable. Clearly they are the third kind of statement, deeply involving heart and mind in a confession of experienced meaning - meaning tied ultimately to history and event. That is the way it is with Jesus - not neutrality, bare record, empty chronology, but living participation and heart involvement. For Jesus' story, like all significant history, cannot be told without belonging with the telling in mind and soul.

Christian faith is fact, but it is not bare fact; it is poetry. but not imagination. Like the arch which grows stronger precisely by dint of the weight you place upon it, so the story of the Gospels bears, with reassuring strength, the devotion of the centuries to Jesus as the Christ. What is music, asked Walt Whitman, but what awakens within you when you listen to the instrument? And Jesus is the music of the reality of God, and faith is what awakens when we harken."

[Kenneth Cragg, "Who is Jesus Christ?" An unpublished sermon preached by Bishop Cragg at All saints Episcopal Cathedral, Cairo, Egypt on Sunday, Jan 16, 1977 - Source Kenneth Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes, IVP 2008, p19-20]

Friday, April 17, 2009

A question about 1 Thessalonians

OK, here's a good one, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 5:1-11 do we have two seperate events being described or just one? This isn't as easy as you might think, so have a look and let me know what you do think and why :-)

BTW this is for everyone whether you consider yourself a Bible student or not, I'm really interested in how this reads to others...

Two vids to chew on

Well, I found this and thought it was pretty funny and kind of cool, which led me to this which I really liked as it made me rethink the whole way we do Christianity... isn't so much of our problem in living the new life caused by our failure to be properly dead to the old one?

And yes I know the blog has been a little neglected of late, I am intended to get back on track... just as soon as I sort my life out :-)

Monday, April 6, 2009

If Jesus had had facebook?

Check this out!

A sweet creative take on the passion story for the internet age. Someone has done a lot of work here.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Ben Witherington on Worship

Nice post here by Ben witherington (the third!!!) on the subject of worship in the New Testament.

I do wonder if he is drawing a lot of conclusions from a little data but on the whole very interesting.

I especially like his point about the way the NT always tries to use the most exalted language it can when praising God and this critiques those (contemporary) songs which tend to be a bit buddy buddy, or even lovey dovey! Let me know what you think :-)

Jesus treats the Syrophoenecian Woman as a Disciple

[This is an extract from my essay "Breaking Bread: The Power of Hospitality in the Gospel of Mark" which you can read in full and ...