Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament

The Jewish Temple at Elephantine

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, a fellow of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archeological Research in Jerusalem, has written an excellent article on the Jewish Temple at Elephantine. The article was published recently in The Jerusalem Post. The following is an excerpt from the article:

t is not well known that there were two Jewish temples in ancient Egypt. They do not form part of our traditional history, which concentrates on the going down into Egypt and the coming out of it, as based on the Torah accounts, for which there is little or no contemporary corroboration. But the two temples, though well attested by contemporary sources, have received little attention from our tradition.

One of these temples has been known about for nearly 2,000 years from Josephus Flavius and the Talmud, and its site was claimed to have been found just 100 years ago, but it has now been lost again. The other was never known of till just a hundred years ago and its site has only recently been discovered. The first is the Temple of Onias at Leontopolis dating to about 200 BCE, and the second is the Temple of Elephantine dating to 300 years earlier, to about 500 BCE.

******

Two major questions remain. Where had the Jews come from in the sixth century and where did they go after 400 BCE? The simple answer to the first question is that they would have come after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and gone down to Egypt with Jeremiah after the murder of the governor Gedaliah. But Porten thinks they must have come much earlier, at the time when King Manasseh defiled the Jerusalem temple, to be able to find the resources to settle and build a temple well before 525 BCE. We know the shrine existed before the invasion by Cambyses, as the papyri claim that he destroyed many Egyptian temples but not the Jewish one.

I think the Jews came from the Northern Kingdom after the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE. They were first deported to Assyria and then to Babylon, where they were used as mercenaries and later deployed to Egypt. This is supported by the fact that the shrine at Elephantine has strong similarities in layout and dimensions to the Tabernacle that may have stood at Shiloh, and which would have been retained in the folk memory of the Northern Israelites more than the image of the Temple of Jerusalem.

The article is very informative. Read the article by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Elephantine, Jewish Temple

The Mezuzah and the Law

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:15:00 +0000

Can an observant Jew post the mezuzah on the outside door of a condo if building regulations prohibit signs and objects on outside doors?

Read the decision of the Court of Appeals here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Mezuzah

A Plea for Help

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:00:00 +0000

The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York is facing a major financial challenge. The seminary has a $30 million debt and declining denominational support, increased fixed costs, maintenance needs, and decreasing numbers of students.

According to a letter written by the president of the seminary, General Theological Seminary spends about $8 million a year, and brings in about $5 million. The difference is drawn from the institution's dwindling $20 million endowment.

The president has sent a letter to alumni and parishioners saying: "The time to help the General Seminary is now."

The problem faced by General Seminary is the same problem faced by Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, another seminary of the Episcopal Church, this one located in Chicago. On February 20, 2008, the administration of Seabury-Western Seminary decided that it would no longer admit students into their program.

It is sad that the Episcopal Church in the USA is struggling to recruit students to attend their seminaries and that the denomination is not supporting their theological schools with enough funds for them to carry out their mission of preparing men and women for the ministry. In the end, it is the cause of Christ that suffers.

I hope the General Theological Seminary will find the help it needs.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Episcopal Church, General Seminary

The "Third Day" and Gabriel's Revelation

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Much is being written about Gabriel’s Revelation and the mention of resurrection on the third day. I have not written on this controversial tablet yet, but may do so in the future.

James Carroll has a very good perspective on this controversy in a column he wrote for The Boston Globe. The following is an excerpt from his column:

A staple of pulp fiction is the archeological discovery that blows traditional Christian faith out of the water. The mummified corpse of Jesus will do, as will, say, some of kind DNA proof that he had children. It is as if the war between science and religion can be resolved (against religion, natch) by scientific breakthrough.

This conceit trivializes both belief and rationality, but it is based on one of the astounding developments of the modern era: the way in which age-old notions of religious faith have indeed been transformed by inventions of the mind - not only archeology, but also scientific historical criticism.

Today's believers, especially Christians, know more about the authentic origins of their faith than people who lived close to the time of those origins. The latest example of such challenging discovery hit The New York Times front page last week, under the headline "Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate On Messiah and Resurrection."

Read Carroll’s column by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Archaeology, Gabriel’s Revelation, James Carroll

The City of Jericho and Tuberculosis

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:15:00 +0000

Archaeologists and medical researchers are examining human bones found by Kathleen Kenyon at the site of the ancient city of Jericho in order to develop treatments for tuberculosis.

According to a news report published in the Guardian, a group of Israeli, Palestinian, and German researchers, will be using the results of the work of British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon in the old city of Jericho to conduct their research. In her excavations, Kenyon found bones from thousands of humans; some of these bones are 8,000 years old.

When researchers studied these bones, they discovered many of them had lesions, indicating that many of the inhabitants of Jericho suffered from tuberculosis.

In jest, the writer of the news report wrote that the walls of Jericho may have come down, not with a trumpet blast, but with an epidemic of coughing.

Tuberculosis can be a very infectious disease. People become infected with prolonged contact with people who are infected with the disease. The disease can also be transmitted by eating meat if the cattle is infected with TB. In the case of Jericho, one wonders how the disease originated among the city’s population.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Jericho, Tuberculosis

A Sex Curse

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Archaeologists have discovered a lead tablet containing a sex curse. The tablet was found in the old city kingdom of Amathus in Cyprus.

The curse was written in Greek and it reads:

"May your penis hurt when you make love."

I wonder what this guy did to deserved such a curse.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Curse, Sex

The Lambeth Conference: A Division in the Anglican Church?

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:15:00 +0000

On July 16, the leaders of the Anglican community will meet in England for their once-a-decade meeting. One of the main topics to be discussed at the Lambeth Conference will be the issue of homosexuality. It is an issue that may divide the Anglican community. Today, more than half of all Anglicans live in Africa and the African church will play an important role at the Conference.

According to an article published in Newsweek, the African Anglican community sees the issues confronting the Anglican Church from an Old Testament perspective:

Worldwide, more than half of all Anglicans now live in Africa. And in sharp contrast to the relatively liberal Church of England (and its U.S. counterpart, the Episcopal Church) the African Anglicans preach a fervent fundamentalist line steeped in the Old Testament message of a stern, unbending deity.

Such strict orthodoxy plays well in modern Africa. In a time of AIDS, political turmoil, genocidal wars and economic chaos, believers may be seeking not just the comfort of religion but also the certainty that goes with unambiguous moral precepts, according to some religious scholars. If the constant woes of the Israelites as described in the Old Testament are remote to the Anglicans of North America and Britain, they may be grimly familiar to their co-religionists in Rwanda and Nigeria.

The Anglican African community has taken a firm position against the issue of homosexuality. Will their position divide the Anglican community? I do know what will happen at the Lambeth Conference but we must hope for the best. Christians everywhere need to pray for our brothers and sister in the Anglican community as they make important decisions that will affect their work and mission in the world.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Anglican Church

Protection Against the Evil Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:35:00 +0000

The Israel Antiquities Authority has announced that a rare marble discus was found in the antiquities site of Yavne-Yam, next to Palmahim beach. The 2,500 year old marble discus is dated to the fifth-fourth century BCE. This ancient discus was used by sailors to protect ancient ships from the Evil Eye.

Visit the web page of the Israel Antiquities Authority to read the news release and see a picture of the discus and an ancient painting which depicts how such object was used.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Archaeology, Evil Eye

Another Archaeological Fake

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

The Phaistos Disk

The picture above, known as the Phaistos Disk (or Phaistos Disc) is a clay disk that, according to some scholars, comes from the Minoan palace of Phaistos. The Phaistos Disk has been dated to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC). For years, archaeologists have debated the purpose and meaning of the Phaistos Disk.

According to an article published in Times Online, American scholars have declared that the Phaistos Disk is a hoax:

Some say that its 45 mysterious symbols are the words of a 4,000-year-old poem, or perhaps a sacred text. Others contest that they are a magical inscription, a piece of ancient music or the world's oldest example of punctuation.

But now an American scholar believes that the markings on the Phaistos Disc, one of archaeology's most famous unsolved mysteries, mean nothing at all — because the disc is a hoax.

The existence of archaeological fakes is a problem that the scholarly world must deal with from time to time. A thermoluminescence test, a way of dating clay objects, would solve the problem of authenticity. However, Greek authorities have refused to give permission to American scholars to examine the disk.

So, the mystery will continue.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Archaeology, Phaistos Disk

The Serenity Prayer

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:35:00 +0000

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

For many years, this beautiful prayer above, known as “The Serenity Prayer,” was thought to be the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

According to Niebuhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, her father first used this prayer in 1943 in a sermon during a Sunday service at a church in Heath, Massachusetts.

In an article to be published in the Yale Alumni Magazine, Fred R. Shapiro, associate library director and lecturer at Yale Law School, says that forms of the prayer have been used as far back as 1936 and were always used by women.

To read the details of the controversy, click here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Reinhold Niebuhr, Serenity Prayer

Evangelicals and God

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has published a major survey on religious life in America. The survey, U. S. Religious Landscape Survey, was an attempt at understanding the beliefs and practices of religious and non-religious people in the USA. The Pew Forum surveyed 35,000 Americans and compiled the results. A Summary of Key Findings is available free online in PDF format.

In a previous post I looked at a section of the survey and commented on how atheists, agnostics, and secular people responded to the questions about God. In the present post I will discuss evangelicals and their views about God. The survey also deals with the beliefs of mainline churches, black churches, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Orthodox churches. In this post I will only discuss the evangelical churches because of my interest in the evangelical movement in the USA.

The survey provides the following information about evangelicals:

1. Evangelicals view other religions

57% believe that many religions can lead to eternal life
53% believe that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion

2. Evangelicals and God

99% believe in God. Of these:
79% believe in a personal God
13% believe in an impersonal God
7% don’t know

3. Certainty about believing in God

99% believe in God. Of these:
90% absolutely certain
9% less certain

4. Belief in Heaven and Hell

86% believe in heaven
82% believe in hell

5. Prayer and Meditation

92% pray at least weekly
46% meditate at least weekly

The results of the Pew survey deserve careful consideration. Any committed evangelical will look at these numbers and conclude that something is wrong with the conclusions of the survey. As I mentioned in my previous post, these numbers may indicate that the survey was poorly designed and that the results are distorted and do not really reflect the views of those surveyed. It is also possible that questions, methodology in polling, and the sample size of those surveyed also skewed the results. It is even possible that many people misunderstood the intent of the questions.

Take the case of universalism. The survey reports that 57% of evangelicals believe that many religions can lead to eternal life. But, as the Baptist Press reports, many American Protestants believe that the word “religion” can also mean “denominational affiliation.” Thus, Scott McConnell, in the new release published by Baptist Press, said: “But the way they worded their question may have had some impact; many people think of ‘denomination’ when they hear ‘religion,’ so it isn’t that surprising that a Lutheran could think a Methodist would also go to heaven or a Catholic could think that a Protestant would go to heaven.”

The numbers of evangelicals who don’t believe in heaven or hell or in a personal God or who have a tendency toward universalism may reflect a problem in the evangelical movement in the United States: the problem of identity.

Northern Seminary’s Mission Statement says: “Northern Baptist Theological Seminary affirms its evangelical heritage through its commitments to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the authority of Scripture.” So, several years ago, Northern Baptist Seminary adopted a slogan to place the seminary within the evangelical community. Northern Seminary adopted the “Boldly Evangelical” slogan to position the seminary theologically. However, the slogan raised a number of questions. What does it mean to be “boldly evangelical”? Who is an evangelical?

The last question generated a lot of discussion. The late Bob Webber, my colleague here a Northern Seminary, conducted a study to discover what is meant by the word “evangelical.” In what follows, I quote a portion of Bob Webber’s observation on evangelicalism. Webber wrote:

Evangelicalism is characterized by unity and diversity. All evangelicals are unified in their commitment to the Lordship of Christ and to the authority of scripture. But within evangelicalism there is a great diversity. Dallas [Seminary] is dispensational, Calvin [Seminary] is Reformed, Asbury [Seminary] is Wesleyan, Fuller [Seminary] is Church Growth, Associates Biblical Seminary is Mennonite and so on. Then, beyond this denominational diversity, we can identify different streams of evangelicals – the intellectual stream, the mega-church stream, the emergent church stream, the Pentecostal stream and so on.

That is the problem the Pew survey probably never addressed. Who were these evangelicals Pew surveyed? Evangelicals can be Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Pentecostals, Church of Christ, Reformed, and so on. I even know some Catholics who identify themselves as evangelicals.

Within this diversity of denominational affiliation many people can call themselves evangelicals without standing for basic evangelical principles.

The members of the Evangelical Theological Society is a group which calls themselves evangelicals. To join the society, members must subscribe annually to the Doctrinal Basis of the Society. Among the doctrinal statements members must accept, one deals with the Bible and another with the doctrine of God:

The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.

God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory.

Members also must accept the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. I doubt that anyone who signs this doctrinal statement or accepts the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy would deny the existence of God or deny that God is a personal being.

The variety of denominational affiliations within the evangelical movement will certainly skew the results of the survey. Members of the Church of Christ and of the Baptist, Lutheran, and Pentecostal churches may classify themselves as evangelicals but they believe different things and these differences in beliefs probably influenced how the questions in the survey were answered.

One thing about the survey deserves close consideration. According to the survey, 99% of evangelicals believe in God. Although the report emphasizes that the numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding, the survey says that 1% of evangelical do not believe in God. This means that 1% of evangelicals are atheists. This is alarming. Who are these wolves in sheep’s clothing who call themselves evangelicals and yet do not believe in God?

Can an evangelical be an atheist? According to U. S. Religious Landscape Survey, the answer is yes. Amazing!

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Evangelicals, God, Pew Survey

A God Who Suffers - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

To read Part 1 of this post click here.

All these references (the ones mentioned at the end of Part 1) which indicate that God enters into the sufferings of his people are affirmed by the statement of a prophet who spoke out of the experience of exile: “In all their distress he too was distressed. . . . In his love and mercy he redeemed them” (Isaiah 63:9 NIV). An implication of the prophetic words is that Yahweh can and does participate in the suffering of the world, not only as one who causes it, but also as one who is affected by it.

The suffering of God in the Old Testament finds its finest expression in Hosea’s description of God’s heartbroken fatherly anguish over his prodigal child, Israel: “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused” (Hosea 11:8 NIV).

The suffering of God is also expressed in the compassionate longing of a husband who desires reconciliation with his unfaithful wife.

Yahweh feels abandoned by Israel like a husband who is abandoned by his wife. The text reveals God as the one who was injured and offended by his unfaithful wife: “The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites’” (Hosea 3:1 NIV).

It is this picture of a suffering God who is intimately bound to his people which is the central focus of the Old Testament. This view of a God who suffers with, for, and because of his people is expressed throughout the Old Testament, especially in the messages of Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah.

The idea of a suffering God is especially true in the life and ministry of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s personal pain and his compassion for the people find their source in the love of God for Israel. Jeremiah experienced God's pain because of the rebellion of Israel and he tried to convey that reality to the people through his own grief and pain.

The God of the Old Testament is not absent from the world and is not detached from human affairs. God is intimately involved in the world and he chooses to enter into human history. God wills to be with humanity in bad as well as good times: “The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey’” (Exodus 3:7-8 NIV).

As a result of his involvement with his creation, God participates in the misery of humanity. His pain for the world is never the sympathetic view of the uninvolved onlooker, but it is the genuine pain of one who is directly affected by the suffering of those who suffer and who takes upon himself the burden of the people. As Fretheim wrote (p. 39): “God is affected in many ways by what happens on earth.”

The opening speech in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:2-9) deals not with the anger of God, but with the sorrow of God; it deals with the plight of a father who has been abandoned by his children. Isaiah 5:1-7 provides an additional example of the pain of God because of the rebellion of Israel. The “Song of the Vineyard,” reveals the wonderment of God whose care for the vineyard has been of no avail: “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” (Isaiah 5:4). Here, God himself says that he is at a loss trying to explain the rebellion of his people. God’s sorrow rather than the people's tragedy is the theme of this song. God's grief and disappointment are revealed in his being hurt at the thought of having to abandon his vineyard in which he had labored and placed so much hope for good things.

Thus, divine suffering is seen throughout the writings of the prophets and in many other passages of the Old Testament. God’s suffering is seen in his disappointment with Israel:

“What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?” (Jeremiah 2:5 RSV).

“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?” (Hosea 6:4 RSV).

“My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me” (Micah 6:3 NIV).

“Why do these people keep going along their self-destructive path, refusing to turn back, even though I have warned them?” (Jeremiah 8:5).

In trying to explain God’s questions, Fretheim wrote (p. 56): “These questions seem to imply a genuine loss on God’s part as to what might explain the faithlessness of the people.” God’s disappointment with his people gives occasion to these divine laments and expresses his pain at the rebellion of Israel.

God suffers because of his love for Israel. He experiences pain because of their unfaithfulness. God’s suffering teaches us an important lesson about God. Because God loves his people and desires their well-being, God identifies himself with their suffering. This identification of God with his people makes God vulnerable to being hurt, but it is this divine suffering that will motivate Israel to repent and turn to God.

To be continued.

Reference:

Fretheim, Terence. The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

A God Who Suffers - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

In my previous post on the suffering of God, I wrote that the God of the Old Testament is a God who chooses to identify himself with his people in their suffering. The view that God chooses to identify with Israel and enter their history raises an important question: does God suffer with his people? According to the Old Testament perspective, God cannot do otherwise. Yahweh is related to Israel through the covenant established at Sinai. Therefore, he is directly involved with Israel in their misfortunes and their failures.

In his book, What Are They Saying About the Theology of Suffering (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), Lucien Richard summarizes what biblical scholars and theologians have written on the biblical view of suffering. In his summary of Walter Brueggemann’s view on the theology of the pain of God, Lucien wrote: “From within the covenantal relationship with God, Israel senses that its God is not only an enforcer and a legitimator of existing structures, but is also one who embraces Israel’s pain” (p. 16).

By embracing the pain of his people, God’s own self is transformed. God takes on the pain of Israel in his own person because of his compassion for them. E. S. Gerstenberger wrote: “In the Old Testament . . . suffering can be regarded as a means of expiation. A deity has been injured through human misconduct. He becomes angry, strikes back, and brings disaster upon the culprit and his community. But because the deity in principle stands in a friendly, and even familiar, relationship to the sufferer, the suffering will soften the wrath of God. God cannot bear to see his own people in misery; his justifiable indignation is transformed into compassion” (p. 107).

The God of the Old Testament saves and blesses Israel because of this covenantal relationship that is guaranteed by God’s hesed, his faithful love for Israel. Because of this special relationship established with the nation, God is united with his people and participates in their life and their misery. This special relationship is affirmed in the Old Testament in the emotional language of human suffering. As a partner in this relationship, God assumes the function of not only Israel’s God, but also her closest friend, a friend who takes upon himself part of the burden of his suffering friends (cf. John 15:13).

The Old Testament writers describe God’s response to Israel’s sins and rebellions in words that already express within themselves an element of divine suffering. One example is the rebellion of Israel at the occasion of the building of the golden calf in Exodus 32. At Sinai, Israel rebelled against God by being unfaithful to God and by violating the demands of the covenant which required exclusive allegiance to him.

God’s response to Israel’s apostasy was one of indignation. God told Moses: “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation” (Exodus 32:10). Israel had entered into a relationship with Yahweh and now that relationship had been broken. God was affected by Israel’s disloyalty. God’s words to Moses, “Let me alone,” represents God’s desire to suffer grief in isolation.

This language of divine suffering is designed to describe a faith which views God in terms of historical involvement and relatedness with his people. To Israel, God was not an impersonal being nor was he a God that was above and beyond the world. To the contrary, he was a God who was with them (Isaiah 7:14), the Holy One who lived among the people (Hosea 11:9). “For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7). This is the reason Israel ascribed personal characteristics to God, such as love, anger, anguish, patience, jealousy, and joy.

In addition, many other characteristics attributed to God reflect the fact that when God responds to human sin and rebellion, his response also contains the element of divine suffering. When God deals with humanity, God expresses a variety of reactions:

God is jealous: “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14 NIV).

When God punishes, punishment is sometimes done out of a sense of injured honor: “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal” (Ezekiel 5:13 NIV).

God becomes angry and enraged: “How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire?” ( Psalm 79:5 NIV).

God is grieved by human sins: “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Genesis 6:6 NIV).

God changes his mind: “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (Exodus 32:14 NRSV).

God is affected by the suffering of his people: “Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them” (Judges 2:18 RSV).

God cries out like a person in pain: “The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42:13-14 NRSV).

Gerstenberger wrote: “All such affirmations in the Old Testament are deeply rooted in the emotional language of human suffering. ‘Pity’ (e.g., Hos. 2:23) is a new turning toward a beloved person that is rooted in keen anxiety; ‘regret’ (e.g., Gen. 6:6) is the painful concession to have failed in one’s plan. Thus for the Israelite God’s suffering is, strange as it may sound, precisely like human suffering, a bitter experience that injures body and spirit . . . God’s suffering results from the coinciding of human and divine action . . . His pain is the consequence of human misconduct” (p. 100).

To be continued in Part 2

References:

Gerstenberger, E. S. and W. Schrage, Suffering. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1977.

Richard, Lucien. What Are They Saying About the Theology of Suffering. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

Atheists and God

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:00:00 +0000

I was finally able to read the summary of key findings of the U. S. Religious Landscape Survey published by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. My sabbatical research has not allowed me to do much blogging nor extra reading outside my area of research.

The survey conducted by the Pew Forum is a major study on how Americans view religion and how they approach their faith. The survey was taken among 35,000 Americans of all faiths and ideologies in order to ascertain the beliefs and practices of religious and non-religious people.

Both Duane Smith and Iyov have already commented on this survey. I invite you to visit their blogs and read what they have written about the survey. What I want to do here is give my perspective on the survey. My post will be divided into two sections. In the present post I want to comment on what the survey has to say about atheists and God. In an upcoming post I will discuss what the survey has to say about evangelicals and God.

The U. S. Religious Landscape Survey reports the following results:

1. Do you believe in the existence of God?

Atheists:
21% believe in God. Of these:
6% believe in a personal God
12% believe in an impersonal force
3% don’t know

Agnostics:
55% believe in God. Of these:
14% believe in a personal God
36% believe in an impersonal force
5% don’t know

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
66% believe in God. Of these:
20% believe in a personal God
40% believe in an impersonal God
7% don’t know

2. Certainty of Belief in God or Universal Spirit

Atheists:
21% believe in God
8% absolutely certain
13% less certain

Agnostics
55% believe in God
17% absolutely certain
38% less certain

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
66% believe in God
24% absolutely certain
42% less certain

3. Belief in Heaven and Hell

Atheists:
12% believe in Heaven
10% believe in Hell

Agnostics
18% believe in Heaven
12% believe in Hell

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
32% believe in Heaven
23% believe in Hell

4. Prayer and Meditation

Atheists:
10% pray at least weekly
18% meditate at least weekly

Agnostics
18% pray at least weekly
25% meditate at least weekly

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
19% believe in Heaven
22% believe in Hell

These numbers are very revealing. Granted, there may be different ways of understanding these numbers. However these numbers are interpreted, the information they provide is still very revealing. How do we interpret these numbers? In what follows I offer several ways of understanding what the Pew survey says about atheists and God. I believe the same could be said about agnostics and secular people.

First, it is possible, as Iyov has suggested, that the survey was poorly designed and that the results are distorted and do not really reflect the views of those surveyed. Second, it is also possible, as Duane has suggested, that questions, methodology in polling, and the sample size of those surveyed also skewed the results. It is even possible, as Iyov also suggested, that many people “have problems with polysyllabic words.”

All of these possibilities could have influenced the answers of those polled by the Pew Forum. However, I have a different perspective on the results of the survey.

Let us for the moment accept the view that the survey presents reliable information, that the numbers truly confirm the beliefs and practices of those people who were surveyed. If the survey presents reliable information about what Americans believe about religious issues, then, what the survey says about atheists should be taken seriously. This is how I view the answers:

1. It is possible that many atheists pray or meditate regularly. Their prayers would be addressed to some impersonal force considered to be the giver of life, the ground of being, or some manifestation of eastern religious or philosophical idea.

2. Some atheists believe in heaven or hell but not the kind of heaven or hell that is taught by Christianity. One good example is provided by a reader of my blog who is an atheist who said he believed in heaven. He wrote: “I am comfortable with the fact that there is nothing after this, but I do believe in Heaven. Only my heaven is what I'm living everyday I wake up, and when it ends, it was worth it.”

3. It is possible that some atheists and agnostics when confronted with their mortality or when dealing with the issue of death look at the possibility of the existence of God and life after death with more realistic eyes. This is what I believe happened with Robert Ingersoll, “the Great Atheist.” In a speech at the time of the death of his brother, Ingersoll’s eulogy was a wish for the existence of a God, a request for someone who could answer prayer and provide hope after death.

4. The fact that 21% of atheists and 55% of agnostics believe in the existence of God may reflect the different levels in the spectrum of probabilities about the existence of God that Richard Dawkins developed. In this spectrum, there are seven levels of probability concerning the issue whether God exists. At one extreme is Level 1, where strong theists are. Those who are on Level 1 believe 100% that God exists. On the other extreme, Level 7 is where the strong atheists are. A strong atheist is the one who says for a fact that there is no God. Dawkins places himself at Level 6. Those who are on Level 6 say that there is a very low probability that God exists. Those on Level 6 are the people who say they cannot know for sure but think that maybe God does not exist. It is possible that many atheists are at level 5, 4, or even 3. Thus, as the Pew Survey reveals, deep down in their inner being, many atheists believe in God, primarily those who are at different levels in the spectrum of probability.

Finally, what the U. S. Religious Landscape Survey published by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life truly reveals is that there is still hope for atheists.

Next: Evangelicals and God

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Agnostics, Atheists, Pew Survey

The Suffering of God

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:28:00 +0000

Few people today truly know the God of the Old Testament. Most Christians focus their study of Scriptures almost exclusively on the New Testament. For many, the God of the Old Testament is a violent God, a God of wrath, and an evil deity. Consequently, the view of a God who suffers with and because of his people is foreign to many Christians.

One book that has changed the way I perceive the God of the Old Testament is Terence Fretheim’s book, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). Fretheim’s book shows how much Christians have been influenced by Greek philosophy, a philosophy that led the leaders of the early church to adopt the doctrine of the impassibility of God.

The doctrine of the impassibility of God teaches that the God of the Bible is a perfect being and as such he cannot suffer. Since God is a perfect being, he cannot be affected by outside events and thus cannot suffer, for suffering is a sign of imperfection. Today I begin a series of studies that will summarize some of the issues Fretheim raises in his book. Those who have read The Suffering of God will notice how much Fretheim’s views have affected my own views.

The God of the Old Testament is a God who chooses to identify himself with his people in their suffering. There are several passages in the Bible that reveal the pain of God for the sins and disobedience of his people.

The God who in the New Testament suffered in the person of Christ is the same God who in the Old Testament suffered because of the sins of his people. Several Old Testament texts give strong evidence that God experiences suffering. The suffering of God is portrayed in his words and actions. God’s suffering for his people is consistent with his nature as a God who chooses to enter into the history of Israel and establish a genuine relationship with his people.

The God of the Old Testament is known primarily by his role as creator and redeemer. In these two roles, God voluntarily limits himself to a gradual process of creation from the chaos of nothingness to the world in which we live. He is also the God who chooses to be patient with people who are arrogant, stubborn, and disobedient.

The stubbornness and rebellion of Israel are summarized in the words of the Levite prayer: “You warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances, by the observance of which a person shall live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey” (Nehemiah 9:29).

It is this voluntary limiting of God that sets the framework for the concept of God’s suffering. Since the God of the Bible reveals himself to his people in human form (Genesis 18:1-2) and communicates directly with human beings, the people of Israel assumed that God had thought and will, and that he was capable of emotions, anger, and love.

Throughout the Old Testament one can see that the moral evil of the world, the rebellion of human beings, and the disobedience of his people provoke God to anger (Deuteronomy 4:25; Judges 2:12) in the same way his love for them also moves him toward costly sacrifice (Joel 2:13; Hosea 11:1-9). The God of the Bible is a God who carries the burden of his people, who knows the failure of his purpose for them, who sorrows over them with a love that prevails over wrath, and who suffers because of their affliction.

The suffering of God in the Old Testament anticipates the pain and the agony of the Suffering Servant of the New Testament: “It is as if there were a cross unseen, standing on its undiscovered hill, far back in the ages, out of which were sounding always, just the same deep voice of suffering love and patience, that was heard by mortal ears from the sacred hill of Calvary” (H. Wheeler Robinson, Suffering: Human and Divine [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939] 145).

These words express the nature of the God believers find in the Old Testament, the very same loving, caring, hurting God who reveals himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

Israel believed that God was present with the people in their suffering, that their God was a God who understood what the people were going through. Although Israel believed that God was the cause of their suffering, they also believed that God understood their suffering. Divine understanding for them presupposes suffering with them. The God who revealed himself to Israel could not be the personal God of his people without experiencing suffering. Those who do not experience suffering cannot sympathize with the pain and suffering of others (Hebrews 4:15; 5:8). God is a loving and compassionate God and it pains him to see humanity suffer.

According to Fretheim (p. 35), there are two poles for understanding God in the Old Testament. One is that God is a radically transcendent Lord who stands outside the world without acting in the world. This is what he calls the traditional view of God.

The second is the organismic view, a view in which a greater continuity, that is, a greater intimacy between God and the world is discerned. In the organismic view there is a relationship of reciprocity. In other words, the world is not only affected by God, God is also affected by the world, both positively and negatively. God has chosen to be involved in the history of the world and to be limited by it. Therefore, although God is unchangeable in his steadfast love and his salvific will for all creation, God does change in response to the interaction between himself and his creation.

For Israel to have understood God in any other light would have been incompatible with the revelation of God’s character in their history. The people of Israel could not have understood a God who had complete freedom to act in the realm of history but who refused to do so because of a lack of compassion or desire. After all, they had experienced just the opposite in the Exodus.

The belief in the genuine love of God for Israel necessitated, for them, a God who sympathized with his people, not merely superficially recognizing their condition, but actually participating with them in their sufferings. This is how Israel experienced God in Egypt: Exodus 2:24-25.

For God to have seen the affliction of his people, to have heard their cry, and to have known their suffering (Exodus 3:7) required God taking their sorrows into his very being and allowing those sorrows to arouse feelings of compassion and to affect his being in his interactions with them.

Thus, the suffering of God is basic for the proper understanding of the concept of relatedness or relationship which in the Old Testament derives from the concept of the covenant and the understanding of Israel as the chosen people of God. As Israel understood God, the idea of the suffering of God to some extent limited the concept of God’s power. For the relationship between God and Israel to have integrity required God giving up some of his own power and freedom for the sake of the relationship.

To be continued.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

A New Use for the Biblical Archaeology Review

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000

In Australia, drug squad detectives found sachets of the drug speed hidden in hollowed out pages of the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine.

According to the news report, a couple was importing drugs by hiding them in the Biblical Archeology Review, which had its pages cut to form a hollow.

You have to wonder who these people are. Since many bloggers are very critical of BAR, maybe these drug traffickers were bloggers who found a better use for BAR.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: BAR

Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:09:00 +0000

In the latest issue of The Christian Century, Walter Brueggemann, the emeritus professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, has an excellent review of the book Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews by Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

The following is an excerpt from Brueggemann’s review:

In the present volume, Levenson reiterates much of the argument of that earlier book, only now the matter interfaces with Madigan's insistence that resurrection faith is central and nonnegotiable in the Christian tradition as well. The book opens with a recognition of resurrection as a key affirmation of the New Testament, then probes the Old Testament to find the sources of New Testament faith.

The focus in this discussion is on Sheol as a kind of quiet, gray warehouse where the dead go. Contrary to the common scholarly judgment that Sheol is a common destiny for all human persons, Madigan and Levenson make the case that not all the dead go there. Sheol smacks of punishment and is the continuation of an unfulfilled life. The righteous do not go to Sheol but are "enveloped in the blessing of God." Thus this study identifies two theologies in tension, one that sees Sheol as a common human destiny and one that makes an important distinction about the future for those attuned to God:

What happened with the biblical Sheol, it seems to us, is that the affirmation of faith in the omnipotent and rescuing God of Israel, against whom not even the most formidable enemies can ultimately stand, has collided with the brute fact of death. . . . Something had to give. What gave was not the faith in the limitless power of the Rock of Israel and their redeemer. What gave was death. . . . Death would remain universal, but not everyone who died would experience it as a plague. Sheol would remain pestilential, but not everyone who died would go there.

What gave was death! This is the burden of the book. Death had to yield, so say the texts, to the vigorous power of God, who wills life and who gives life marked by justice.

Brueggemann did such a great job in his review that he convinced me that I should buy this book and read it. Visit The Christian Century online and read Brueggemann’s review.

Click here to by the book from Amazon.com.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Resurrection

On Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:28:00 +0000

I will be away for two weeks. My wife and I will be traveling to the Mayan Riviera to enjoy a time of rest and relaxation. I will not be posting to the blog for about two weeks.

My sabbatical project is almost on target. Jeremiah is a fascinating character and his book is rich in imagery. What fascinates me most in the book of Jeremiah is Jeremiah’s struggle with his vocation. Jeremiah was rejected because of his message and he was ostracized because of his insistence that the Lord would not deliver the nation. Jeremiah’s pain and suffering mirrors God’s suffering because of the sins and rebellion of the people. After my return, I hope to write at least one post on the suffering of God in the Old Testament.

Enjoy your summer.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Resurrection of a Biblical Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:13:00 +0000

Science News is reporting that the Judean date palm has been brought back to life from a pit found at Masada. According to the report, the pit from which the plant germinated, is 2,000 years old. The following is an excerpt from the report:

The palm some ancients called the “Tree of Life” has been revived from a 2,000-year sleep, genes and all. In what is now the germination of the oldest known seed, a date pit plucked from ancient rubble at Masada has sprouted, scientists report. The sapling’s genetic fingerprint suggests it is none other than the Judean date palm, a variety referred to in the Bible and long thought extinct.

Like the iceman found in the Alps, this Judean date palm opens a window into the past, comments Paul Gepts, a plant geneticist at the University of California, Davis. “A small window, but a window nonetheless.”

Excavations in the ’60s uncovered five date pits in the Dead Sea region of Israel at Masada — a mesa-top Herodian fortress and, in the first century A.D., the last stronghold of Jews who, as the story goes, chose to fall upon their own swords rather than be slaughtered by the Roman forces surrounding them.

You can also see a picture of the seeds and of the new plant in the National Geographic page.

Date trees currently growing in Israel come from California. If the new plant, called “The Methuselah Tree” because of its age, produces fruit, it will produce dates that are sweeter than other dates and it will be better suited for the dry climate of Israel.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Judean Date Palm, Masada

Father’s Day 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:27:00 +0000

Sunday, June 15 is Father’s Day. This is the day set aside by our society to recognize fathers for the labor of love they do on behalf of their children. To recognize fathers of Father's Day, I am reprinting a post published on December 5, 2005. Happy Father's Day!

The Challenges of Parenthood

There are many genealogies in the Old Testament. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are composed of a series of genealogies. Most people who read the Bible regularly, generally skip these genealogies because they are boring to read.

It is true that a simple list of names may be irrelevant to many, but they display the complicated relationships between distant generations and provide important information about the facts and circumstances that are related to the members of a family.

Although bare names in a genealogy may be insignificant to a casual reader, to an attentive reader genealogies teach important historical lessons and other truths that may not have been intended by the original writer.

The genealogies that appear in the Old Testament, in general, are related to the ancestors of Israel. At times, the names may refer to father and son or they may refer to distant ancestors or different generations. The genealogies served to reinforce the sense of kinship among members of a clan. The genealogies also promoted nationalistic feelings that served to connect an individual with the traditions of the past.

In the genealogy of the kings of Judah that appears below, we learn a great lesson.

“Uzziah was the father of Jotham, Jotham was the father of Ahaz, Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh was the father of Amon and Amon was the father of Josiah” (Matthew 1:9-10).

Uzziah was the father of Jotham: a good king is the father of a good king. This is not unexpected because, generally, a good father will become the father of a good son.

Jotham was the father of Ahaz: a good king becomes the father of an evil king. This is disappointing, for a good father expects his son to be a good son and follow his example.

Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah: an evil king becomes the father of one of the best kings of Judah. Now, that is a blessing because we learn that children do not have to follow the evil ways of their parents.

Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh: one of the best kings of Judah becomes the father of the worst king of Judah. Now, that is a mystery, for how can the goodness of a good father not affect the life of his son? The fact is, that children make their own decisions and choose a life for themselves, even when that life is evil.

Manasseh was the father of Amon: an evil king becomes the father of an evil king. This also is not unexpected, because at times, sons follow the evil example of their fathers.

Amon was the father of Josiah: an evil king becomes the father of the best king of Judah. This clearly shows that children do not have to follow the evil example of their fathers.

There is a lesson that all of us must learn from this genealogy: It is tough being a parent.

As we look at this genealogy, we learn that a person’s relationship with another person in a genealogy may be complicated. For instance, a trait that appears in the life of a man may appear also in the life of his son or grandson. In the same way, the presence of a trait in a child may not be a characteristic that is found in the life of either parent.

One good example of this principle is found in the following quotation from Thomas Fuller, the 17th Century theologian:

Scripture Observation

“Lord, I find the genealogy of my Saviour strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations:

1. Rehoboam begat Abiam; that is, a bad father begat a bad son.
2. Abiam begat Asa; that is, a bad father a good son.
3. Asa begat Jehoshaphat; that is, a good father a good son.
4. Jehoshaphat begat Joram; a good father a bad son.

I see, Lord, from hence that my father’s piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.”

Joy and happiness, disappointment and pain are some of the experiences parents have to face in the rearing of their children. As children grow up, parents take great satisfaction in the accomplishments of their children but they also experience the pains and disappointments that come as the children fail their parents’ expectations. Joy and disappointments come with the agony and the ecstasy of being parents.

Parents hurt when they believe they have failed in their God-given task of bringing their children to love and obey God. Parents hurt when their children reject the moral values or standards they worked hard to instill in the lives of their children.

When crises arrive, parents blame themselves for failing to providing a good education for their children. They judge themselves for their failure and feel guilty because they cannot understand what went wrong. But, in order for them to deal with their sense of failure, they must understand the lesson Ezekiel teaches: “A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own” (Ezekiel 18:20).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Fathers, Genealogies, Thomas Fuller

The Oldest Church in the World: The Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Jordan Church

Monster and Critics has posted several pictures of the cave where the oldest church in the world is located. The above picture is the altar of church at the town of Rehab, Jordan

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Oldest Church

To Baptist or Not to Baptist

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:00:00 +0000

A few days ago, the Washington Post published a report about churches renaming themselves in order to avoid a perceived stigma that the name “Baptist” carries in the mind of some people. The report focuses on the plight of Baptist Temple Church in Alexandria, Virginia.

Baptist Temple is an old congregation, organized more than 100 years ago. In the days when the church was vibrant and prosperous, more than 900 people worshiped in a sanctuary built for 500 people. Now, the church attendance averages about 30 people each Sunday.

The congregation feared that the church was dying. The pastor of the church, Rev. Todd Thomason, believed that the problem facing the church, a problem that had caused the membership to dwindle, was the name of the church.

In trying to understand the reason the church was failing to attract new members, Rev. Thomason worried that “the word ‘Baptist’ had become indelibly tied to the political religious right and that when combined with ‘Temple’ it sounded like a fundamentalist ‘bring out the snakes’ kind of place.”

A few Sundays ago, 37 members came together after the morning service to decide whether to change the name of the church. After the vote was taken and counted, the result was a split decision. By the majority of one member, the church decided to change its name to Commonwealth Baptist Church. As a result of the vote, the church changed its name while maintaining its Baptist identity.

Many churches of different denominations are changing their names in order to attract people who are reluctant to identify themselves with a denomination. As attendance drops steadily in mainline churches, churches are changing their names in order to attract new people, fill the pews, and market themselves to a seeker generation.

But should churches change their names in order to gain more members? Should churches drop the word “Baptist” from their names? To Baptist or not to Baptist? This is the question of the moment. A new name or a generic name will not by itself attract more people to the church. The problem of dwindling attendance is systemic and there is no magic bullet that will solve the problem.

In what follows, I will submit four reasons many churches are unable to bring new people into their membership. These reasons are my own and do not come from any study conducted by a research firm. These reasons are what I think cause churches to dwindle and die. These reasons also reflect my Baptist perspective on this issue. They come out of my congregational church background and the revivalist movement in which I grew up.

The first reason churches are failing to reach more people with the gospel is the lack of spiritual power. Jesus said: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The work of the church cannot be accomplished by human power. The church needs to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish its work. Many churches and many pastors are using gimmicks and programs to attract people to the church, but unless the church is mightily infused with the power of the Spirit, all human efforts will come to nought.

The second reason churches have been unable to reach new people for Christ is because churches have lost their missionary fervor. Jesus said: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Today’s church is not willing to go after people. Jesus expected his disciples to go. In the parable of the great banquet, the master told his servants: “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full” (Luke 14:23).

Instead of going where the people are, churches expect people to come to them. Today’s Christians have lost the fervency of the first disciples, the same fervency that motivated Paul to go “from house to house” preaching the Gospel. Today, only Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons go evangelizing house to house.

The third reason churches are failing to reach a lost world with the good news of Jesus Christ is the lack of costly discipleship in the lives of many Christians. Jesus said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” People want to follow Christ but they refuse to carry a cross. This is cheap grace, the kind of grace that does not please God.

Because of a lack of commitment to the cause of Christ, Christians are willing to conform to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2) and refuse to become involved in evangelism, ministry, and discipleship. They rely on a paid ministry to do the work they were called to do. These are the Christians who are not aware of their vocation in the world: “You are . . . a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” When people fail to declare the praise of God their Creator and of Jesus their Savior, then no one will believe in this wonderful Savior.

The fourth, and I believe the most important, reason churches are not reaching people for Christ and people are not being evangelized is because churches and their members have been afflicted with the plague of universalism, the doctrine that declares that in the end all people will be saved.

For generations, Christians believed the words of Paul: “There is salvation through no one else; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Today we hear from some pulpits that we do not have to evangelize the Hindus, the Moslems, and the Buddhists because they will be saved by their faith. Some believe that their religion is as good as Christianity.

A few years ago Emil Brunner was able to talk about “The Scandal of Christianity.” Today, to many Christians, the scandal of Christianity is the Christian attempt at evangelizing Hindus, the Moslems, and Buddhists. When Christians accept as a fact that unbelievers are not “lost,” they also believe they do not need to be saved. If there are no lost people, why then go after the lost?

Evangelism is almost non-existent in many churches. Among Baptists, there are thousands of churches that each year do not add a single new member to their membership roll. Today, almost 50% of Americans are unchurched and yet, some churches are unable to reach even one of them and bring them to personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Ministers must set the example. It is incumbent for pastors to go out and visit the lost and bring them the good news that Jesus saves. If Sunday after Sunday a preacher preaches the gospel from the pulpit but is unable after 52 Sundays to bring one new person to Christ, that preacher cannot expect the church to grow and the members to become evangelists.

I am not against changing the name of a church and dropping the “Baptist” from its name provided that we do not abandon our religious heritage. Baptists have a rich religious heritage and I am proud to be a Baptist. What we need, however, are Christians who are willing to go out into the world and proclaim from the top of their lungs that Jesus saves. And the task of evangelizing the lost must begin with the pastor.

After Baptist Temple Church changed its name to Commonwealth Baptist Church, the congregation asked their pastor to resign.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Church

Tag: Baptists, Evangelism, Discipleship

The World’s Oldest Church

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:12:00 +0000

The World's Oldest Church

The BBC News is reporting on the church discovered in a cave in Jordan. The BBC is also publishing a picture of the cave that served as the church. The following is an excerpt from the news report:

Archaeologists in Rihab, Jordan, say they have discovered a cave that could be the world's oldest Christian church.

Dating to the period AD33-70, the underground chapel would have served as both a place of worship and a home.

It is claimed that it was originally used by a group of 70 persecuted Christians who fled from Jerusalem.

These early Christians lived and practised their faith in secrecy until the Romans embraced Christianity several hundred years later.

Remains found in the cave

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Oldest Church

Gold and Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Commodity on Line, in a recent article discussing the role of gold in countering inflation, made the following statement:

The purchasing power of gold has not diminished since Biblical times. According to the Old Testament, during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, an ounce of gold bought 350 loaves of bread. Today, an ounce of gold still buys 350 loaves.

It is a fact that in times of economic uncertainties, many people invest in gold as a way of dealing with the unforeseen problems caused by inflation or recession.

It is also a fact that in the ancient past kings and conquerors were fascinated with gold, not only as currency or as a mean of commerce and trade, but for the beauty and splendor it conveyed to its owners.

The above quote taken from Commodity on Line is interesting. First of all, I do not remember any place in the Old Testament where it says that in the days of Nebuchadnezzar an ounce of gold bought 350 loaves of bread. This seems to be one of those occasions where someone cited the Bible without really checking the Bible.

The other statement, that an ounce of gold today buys 350 loaves of bread seems to be correct. Last time I checked, gold was selling at $901.00 an ounce. At that price, one can buy 350 loaves of bread at $2.57 each.

To say, however, that one ounce of gold in the days of Nebuchadnezzar bought 350 loaves of bread, one must assume several things. First, one must assume that the ounce, a unit of weight in the avoirdupois system, once used in the United Kingdom and still used in the U.S. system of weights, was also used in Babylon. Since the Babylonians did not use imperial units, this statement is false.

Second, we must assume that the value of gold has remained stable in its relative value to the price of bread. If this assumption is correct, then we must also assume that the price of gold and the price of bread has remained relatively the same for the past 2,600 years. It is evident that no one can assume that this is true, therefore, the statement above also cannot be proved.

There is a lesson for all of us here. Whenever the Bible is used to prove a point, it is best to avoid generalizations or comparisons which cannot be verified.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bread, Gold, Nebuchadnezzar

The Earliest Christian Church

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Claude Mariottini) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:30:00 +0000

Archaeologists in Jordan have announced that they have discovered a church that probably was first church in the history of Christianity. According to the archaeologists the church was in existence between A. D. 33 and A.D. 70

Read the news report here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminar

Tag: Early Church