American Heretics

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:46:00 +0000

"...prayer, thanksgiving, and joy go together in a kind of indissoluble union." Gordon Fee commenting on Philippians 1:3-8.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Preaching on Ephesians 2:11-13, John Calvin asserts that what Paul says of the Ephesian Gentile converts "would not be suitable at all points for our days" since "we have been baptized in our infancy." For the Genevans to apply St. Paul's exhortation to "remember that you which were sometime called Gentiles in the flesh... were at that time without Christ..." they should first remember that their ancestors were, in fact, unbaptized pagans. Then, of course, they can remember that they themselves had not always lived according to their baptisms.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:18:00 +0000

After giving a brief analysis of Eph. 2:11-22 and before his exegesis, Charles Hodge, in A Commentary on the Letter to the Ephesians, felt the need to explain Paul's unequivocal statements in Ephesians about salvation and the Church in light of the biblical doctrine of election. He writes,

"As, however, the Scriptures always speak of men according to their profession, calling those who profess faith, believers, and those who confess Christ, Christians; so they speak of the visible church as the true church, and predicate of the former what is true only of the latter." (124)

To me this is a judicious way of putting it and should sound familiar to anyone who has read John Murray's essay on the extra-biblical character of the distinction of the visible and invisible church. I would only add that since Paul felt free to write and preach this way, so should we. I don't think it is necessary to hide from the implications of the doctrine of election. But I also don't feel compelled to qualify every biblical promise to the people of God. In other words, I don't want to take away from the promise of God in baptism by bringing up the reality of apostasy every time I baptize someone. I once heard a pastor ask the question after baptizing a child, "Is this little one a Christian now?" And then he proceeded to go through the possibilities. Better to say yes and if the baptized ever renounces his or her baptism, or it becomes necessary to warn the baptized person of the danger of sin, to remind a person that not all Israel is Israel. Who, at a wedding reception, would approach the happy bride or groom and plant a seed of doubt about whether the new spouse is sincere in, or will remain faithful to, his or her vows in the future?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:50:00 +0000

New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson writes about the character of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians:

"In contrast to other Pauline letters, however, the 'good news' is placed within the framework of a cosmic battle... Human alienation from God is expressed as enslavement to forces fighting God, and manifested in hostility toward, and alienation from, fellow human beings. The prime example of this hostility is the division of humanity into 'two races,' the historical competition between Jew and Gentile.

The 'good news' in Ephesians announces God's work as a reversal of this state of cosmic-historical hostility. God has revealed his mysterious plan to reconcile all reality, bringing about harmony between God and humans and therefore establishing the possibility of unity among humans themselves. The agent of this reconciliation is the Messiah [he is our peace]...The sign of this reconciliation is the church."

The Writings of the New Testament, 413.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:49:00 +0000

There is a multi-layered and, I think, fascinating relationship between the Jerusalem temple, Jesus' body, and the Church (and we could add, the Pauline conception of the New Creation). At different places in the NT Jesus' body is referred to as or associated with the temple. Paul repeatedly calls the Church Jesus' body and also the temple or house of God. One aspect of the relationship between Jesus' physical body and the temple that should be pointed out is that both were appointed by him to be torn down. The Church is God's rebuilt temple/resurrected Body, a temple/body not made with hands. These theological associations underscore the cosmic significance of the church and should help us to better grasp the seriousness of our getting along with one another in the Church. Paul's ubiquitous exhortations for the churches to live in harmony with one another can't be interpreted without this thicker biblical theological perspectve or they will sound (to me) like so many urgings to be nice.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:56:00 +0000

“The task of ministry is to lead the congregation as a whole in a mission to the community as a whole, to claim its whole public life, as well as the personal lives of all its people, for God’s rule. It means equipping all the members of the congregation to understand and fulfill their several roles in this mission through their faithfulness in their daily work. It means training and equipping them to be active followers of Jesus in his assault on the principalities and powers which he disarmed on the cross. And it means sustaining them in bearing the cost of that warfare . . .

[The minister] is not like a general who sits at headquarters and sends his troops into battle. He goes at their head and takes the brunt of the enemy attack. He enables and encourages them by leading them, not just by telling them. In this picture, the words of Jesus have quite a different force. They all find their meaning in the central keyword, ‘follow me.’”

--Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:15:00 +0000

C.S. Lewis on attending church:

"My own experience is that when I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn't go to the churches and Gospel Halls; and then later I found that it was the only way of flying your flag; and, of course, I found that this meant being a target... If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can't do it without going to Church. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit." God in the Dock, pp. 61-62.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:35:00 +0000

The Meaning of Christmas

"He performs the 'alchemy' that melts down human nature and infuses it into God." --Joseph Ratzinger

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:41:00 +0000

Sounds Familyre Records is posting free downloadable songs from their second annual Christmas album. They also re-posted last year's project.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:57:00 +0000

"...the [American] churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean that the churches that have absolute congregational control. Now, in the 17th and 18th centuries there was a kind of Protestantism that said 'If you could only get rid of the Bishop then you'd be a true Christian.' Well, you might get rid of the Bishop and get the local Ku Klux Klan leader."

--Reinhold Niebuhr in this 1958 TV interview with Mike Wallace

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:47:00 +0000

In Deuteronomy 23:15-16 returning a runaway slave to his or her master is prohibited.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:14:00 +0000

Christians are well aware of the Old Testament Feasts that were brought into the New Testament and given full meaning (e.g. Passover, the Feast of Weeks). But the Feast of Trumpets got left behind and its almost sad to me. I would enjoy a "day to blow the trumpets."

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:33:00 +0000

In Andrew Murray's classic devotional book Humility he defines biblical humility
over against the popular conception of humility as self-abasement. Christian humility recognizes two realities at once: by virtue of our creatureliness we are 'nothing' (that is, not God, ex nihilo) but it must go further in recognizing that as such God may be all in and through us. This union with God is accomplished in the work of Christ and the Spirit.

The failure of the children of Israel at Kadesh Barnea recounted in Numbers 13-14 illustrates this kind of true humility, and its lack, very well. The conflicting reports of the spies demonstrated two kinds of humility, one biblical, the other false. The majority reported that while the land "flowed with milk and honey" the inhabitants were "very strong, and the cities are fortified and very large, and besides we saw the descendants of Anak there... We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them." Their assessment was simple and might even be confused with a humble response to these harrowing realities "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are."

The minority report of Caleb saw these same giants in the land but recommended a different course of action: "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it." On the surface this short speech might seem to come from a certain hubris on Caleb's part. He did not even couch his recommendation in pious platitudes. But Caleb's is the humble response to the Israelites' circumstances. The reality that God's promise of victory was truly theirs was entirely owned by Caleb so that he could make such a bold assertion without equivocation. For Caleb, God was with them, God had promised, what else was there to consider? In the children of God, humility sometimes look like presumption. But it is not presumption when the foundation for their action is the unmistakable clarity of God's Word of promise to them, coupled with the ever-present Spirit of God within them.

The humility of Caleb and the hubris of the majority is finally revealed in the final act of this moment of Israel's history. After rebuking the majority for their unbelief and cursing them to a death in the wilderness, they presumed to go into Canaan anyway. Their act of heroism was foolish, as Caleb and Moses warned, because the LORD was not with them any longer. They were doomed to defeat.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Some more Macro-Thematic Movements:

Out of Nothing I Called My Son (Genesis 1-2)
Out of Eden I Cast My Son (Genesis 3-11)
Out of Ur/Egypt I Called My Son (Genesis 12-50)
Out of Egypt I Called My Son (Exodus-Deuteronomy)
Reclaiming Eden (Joshua-2 Chronicles; Job-Ecclesiastes)
Out of Eden I Cast my Son [Into Ur and Egypt] (Esther; Isaiah-Zephaniah)
Out of Ur I Called My Son (Ezra-Nehemiah)
Reclaiming Eden (Ezra-Nehemiah; Haggai-Malachi)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:31:00 +0000

Leviticus on Original Sin:

"If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the LORD by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it--in any of all the things people do and sin thereby--if he has sinned and realized his guilt...he shall restore it in full and add a fifth to it...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:45:00 +0000

An Outline of Exodus:

EXODUS: OUT OF EGYPT, THROUGH THE WILDERNESS TO MT. SINAI—THE NEW CREATION OF A COVENANTED NATION FOR GOD, OR GETTING BACK TO EDEN

The LORD Delivers His People Out of Egypt (1-15a)
I. The Plight and the Players (1-2)
II. A Fiery Commissioning (3-4)
III. The People Doubt and God Renews His Promise (5-6a)
IV. Ten Plagues (6b-12a)
V. The Salvation of the LORD (12b-15a)

The LORD Cares for His People through the Wilderness (15b-18)
I. The LORD Provides Water (15b)
II. The LORD Provides Mannah (16)
III. The LORD Provides Water From the Rock (17a)
IV. The LORD Provides Victory in Battle (17b)
V. The LORD Provides Justice & Peace in Israel (18)

The LORD Moves in With His Covenant People at Mount Sinai (19-40)
I. The Covenant Cut (19-31)
A. Covenant Initiation (19)
B. Covenant Stipulations (20-23)
1. Ten Commandments (20)
2. Diverse Laws (21-23)
C. Covenant Ratification (24)
1. Vow of Obedience
2. Elders Eat with God
3. Moses taken further up
D. The Pattern for the LORD’s Tent Revealed (25-31)
II. The Covenant Threatened (32-34)
A. Sin (32a)
B. Judgment-Exile (32b-33a)
C. Salvation Promises Renewed (33b-34)
III. The Covenant Kept (35-40)
A. The Construction of God’s Tent (35-40a)
B. God and Humanity Reunited (40b)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:31:00 +0000

An Outline of Genesis:
GENESIS: CREATION, DAMNATION & THE PROMISE OF NEW CREATION

Creation, Damnation, New Creation, Damnation (1-11)
I. Creation, Sin, Judgment, Exile and the Promise of Salvation (1-6)
A. Creation (1-2)
1. God Speaks the Cosmos (1)
2. The Generations of the Heavens and the Earth Begin/Birth of Eden (2)
B. Sin-Judgment-Exile and the Promise of Salvation (3-6)
1. The Sin, Judgment, Exile and Salvation Promise for Adam and Eve (3)
2. The Sin, Judgment, Exile and Salvation Promise for Adam and Eve’s Children (4-6)

II. New Creation, Sin, Judgment, Exile and the Promise of Salvation (6-11)
A. New Creation: The Salvation of Noah and the Animals through the Waters (6-9)
B. Sin, Judgment, Exile and Promise of Salvation for Noah’s Sons (9-11)

Another New Creation: The Covenant with Abraham and his Offspring (12-50)
I. The Covenant with Abraham (12-25)
A. Abram from Babylon to Canaan, to Egypt, back to Canaan (12)
B. Lot Chooses Sodom, Abram is Promised the Land Again (13)
C. Abram Victorious in Battle, Blessed by Melchizedek (14)
D. God Seals His Covenant with Abram (15-17)
1. An Unconditional Covenant Cut (15)
2. Abram and Sarai Doubt the Covenant (16)
3. God Renews and Seals His Covenant: New Names & Circumcision (17-18)
E. Abraham Among the Nations (18-24)
1. Abraham a Priest for Sodom and Gomorrah (18)
2. God Judges Abraham’s Wicked Neighbors, Saving Lot (19a)
3. The Sin and Exile of Lot/Ammonites (19b)
4. Abimelech Barren, Abraham Blessed (20-21)
5. The Test of Abraham’s Faith (22)
6. Abraham Possesses the Hitites (23)
7. Abraham Keeps the Covenant Race Pure (24)
F. Abraham Dies Blessing Isaac (25a)

II. The Covenant with Isaac (25b-26)
A. Two Nations Spring From Isaac, Jacob Inherited (25b)
B. God Renews His Covenant with Abraham through Isaac (26a)
C. Isaac Blessed Among the Philistines (26b)

III. The Covenant with Jacob (27-36)
A. Jacob Takes Isaac’s Only Blessing (27)
B. Jacob in Exile (28-33)
1. Jacob Keeps the Covenant Race Pure, Esau Defiled (28a-b)
2. Joseph’s Dream at Beth-El (28c)
3. Jacob’s Blessings Multiply (29-30)
a. Jacob Marries Leah (fruitful) and Rachel (barren) (29)
b. Jacob Fathers Many Children (30a)
c. Jacob’s Flocks Multiply (30b)
4. Jacob Flees Laban (31)
5. Jacob and Esau Reconciled (32-33)
a. God Wrestles Jacob in his Night of Dread (32)
b. The Brothers Meet (33)
C. Jacob in Canaan (34-36)
1. The House of Shechem Plundered (34)
2. God Renews His Covenant at Beth-El (35a)
3. Rachel and Israel Die (35b)
4. Esau’s Descendents (36)

IV. The Covenant With Joseph [and Judah’s Redemption] (37-50)
A. Joseph Sold into Slavery to Egypt [Judah Ruthless](37)
[B. Judah Humiliated by Tamar (38)]
C. Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (39)
D. Joseph in Prison (39b-40)
1. Joseph Promoted (39b)
2. Joseph Interprets Dreams (40)
E. Joseph in Pharaoh’s Court (41-50)
1. Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dreams and is Promoted (41)
2. Joseph Reconciled to His Family (42-46)
a. Joseph’s Brothers Arrive, (Dreams Fulfilled), Simeon Detained (42)
b. Joseph’s Brothers Reconciled to Him (43-45)
i. Return with Benjamin (43)
ii. Joseph Tests their Love for Benjamin [Judah Redeemed] (44)
iii. Joseph Restored to His Brothers (45)
c. Joseph Reunited with Jacob (46)
3. Joseph’s Family Settle in Egypt (47)
4. Jacob Blesses His Descendants (48-49)
5. Joseph Dies (50)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:40:00 +0000

Some Biblical Macro-Thematic Movements

In the language of Genesis 1-3:

Creation
Disobedience
Curse/Life Outside the Garden/Death
Redemption

In the language of Exodus-Deuteronomy:

Exodus
Idolatry/Unbelief
Life Outside Canaan (Wilderness)/Death
Promise of Canaan to New Generation

In the Language of the Prophets:

Covenantal Creation
Idolatry/Disobedience
Exile/Babylon
Return to Israel/New Covenant/Temple

The Life and Ministry of Jesus:

Incarnation
Kingdom Authority
Calvary
Resurrection/Ascension

The New Testament Christian Life:

New Birth/Baptism/Regeneration
Obedient Life of the Spirit
Participatory Suffering
Resurrection/New Creation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:41:00 +0000

My former professor Pete Enns is featured on today's (August 13, 2008) episode of WHYY's Radio Times, speaking about his book Inspiration and Incarnation and his recent troubles at Westminster Theological Seminary.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:26:00 +0000

Jaques Ellul commenting on Jonah's citing Scripture against God in Jonah 4:2

"This is a grave warning; it is not enough to lean on a biblical text to be right; it is not enough to adduce biblical arguments, whether theological or pietistic, to be in tune with God. All this may denote opposition to God. It may even be a way of disobeying him. The using of God's word to tempt God is a danger which threatens all Christians. Every time the Christian thinks he has God's word in store to be used as needed, he commits this sin, which is that of Satan himself against Christ. This is the attitude of the historian who dissects Scripture to set it against Scripture, of the theologian who uses a text to construct his doctrine or philosophy, or of the simple Christian who opens his Bible to find himself justified there, or to find his arguments against non-Christians or against Christians who do not hold the same views, arguments which show how far superior my position is to that of others."

And again,

"When we find in the Bible that which justifies us in our own eyes, when in reading the Bible we say: 'I was right,' when we see in it an argument for us and against others, when we are righteous in our own judgment, we can be certain that like Jonah we have turned the revelation against God. For what revelation teaches us about ourselves is all to the effect that we are not righteous, that we have no means of justifying ourselves, that we have no possibility of disputing with God, that we have no right to condemn others and be in the right against them, and that in this extreme distress only a gracious act of God which is external to us (though it becomes internal) can save us. This is what Scripture teaches us, and if we stick to this, reading the Bible is useful, healthy and brings forth fruit in us."

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:11:00 +0000

If Augustine's two cities are seen in Jonah 4, a more biblical delineation is as well--that of the wilderness and the promised land. Jonah lives in a booth (the liturgical reminder of Israel's days in the wilderness) outside the walls of the city were man and beast have entered into harmony with God. There Jonah complains about God, is angry and twice states that he would like to die (the same cry as the wilderness wanderers and also their divinely appointed fate). The abrupt ending not only asks the reader if Jonah (and thus the reader also) will repent of rebellion and contempt of the promises of God, it asks if he/we will repeat the disobedience of our parents in the wilderness in the same way as Psalm 95 and Hebrews 3:7-4:12.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:20:00 +0000

We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self (Augustine, City of God XIV.xxviii.593).

The 4th chapter of Jonah is an illustration of this sentence of Augustine's. Nineveh becomes a heavenly city as its animals and citizens deny themselves, fasting, and turning toward God in faith. As Nineveh undergoes this transformation into a heavenly city, Jonah goes outside its gates and constructs a booth. He is complaining, angry, and wishes his own death rather than serve a God that is generous to people he doesn't like.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:04:00 +0000

The book of Jonah is filled with ironic elements, theological and literary. One way of highlighting the central irony of the story is in contrasting Jonah's disdain of the God of Israel's nature in 4:2 with the repentance and worship of all the heathens in the rest of the story. The Israelite and prophet is an idolater, the heathens (sailors and Assyrians at that!) are worshipers of the LORD.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:09:00 +0000

I have been preaching brief eucharstic meditations at the Wednesday evening prayer and communion service at Resurrection Presbyterian Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Our texts have come from Obadiah, Jonah and 1 Peter. Our NT reading tonight is 1 Peter 3:18-22.

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels authorities, and powers having been subjected to him."

This passage has many layers worth untangling (e.g. the death, descending, preaching, resurrection subjection ascending work of Christ; the spirits in prison, the relationship of suffering in the flesh to the whole) but tonight I will try to explain how Peter's connection of Noah's ark to our baptism teaches us two things about the nature of sacraments: 1. (directly) that they are tokens of judgment; and 2. (indirectly) that the eucharist is a sacrifice of eucharistia, thanksgiving.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:06:00 +0000

In Praise of 'Fundamentalists'

I have a sick addiction: reading theologically oriented blogs. I have tamed this habit pretty well but things are slow at work right now so I can follow a few of the ones that I don't consider to be total train wrecks. I have noticed among the posters and commenters on these blogs that there is a recurring disdain for 'fundamentalists' whenever the subject of Christianity and culture comes up and it usually stems from the broad-minded Reformed, Episcopal or Barthian (the worst offenders) types. I don't like it. I remember John McGuckin, professor of Patristics at UTS, commenting that as much as he loved Cyril, Origen, and Gregory of Nazianzus, he would not want to spend his summer vacation with any of them. These, along with and especially Tertulian and Chrysostom, were "terrible fundamentalists," he quiped. A lot of what the Christ above culture people say starts to sound like Christ within culture after awhile.