TIM KELLER on presenting the Gospel as both challenge and appeal

The following quotation is from a comment by Tim Keller in a blog discussion about his views on sharing the Gospel by connecting the story of Jesus to baseline cultural narratives. He says, "you have to show in line with the culture's own (best) aspirations, hopes, and convictions that its own cultural story won't be resolved or have 'a happy ending' outside of Christ." At the same time he explains that an effective presentation of the Gospel will both appeal to and challenge existing cultural narratives. He makes the following exegesis of 1 Corinthians 1.22-25 to help illustrate this:

1 Cor 1:22-25 is a good example of what I'm talking about. Your own Paul Barnett talks about it somewhat in his commentary on the text. Jews wanted a powerful Messiah, and the Greeks' ideal was the philosopher king. These were 'baseline cultural narratives.' For Jews--power, for Greeks--philosophy and wisdom. Paul preaches the cross to both challenge and appeal. He uses the weakness of the cross to show the Jews that they've made an idol of power, and the foolishness of the cross to show the Greeks they've made an idol of wisdom. And yet, he also is willing to preach Christ as the true power and the true wisdom. So on the one hand, he adapts and on the other hand he challenges. He is saying to Jews, 'You seek power? Well, here is the true power.' He says to Greeks, 'You seek wisdom? Well here is true wisdom.'

I thought this was a really helpful description of what Paul is doing here and a useful model for sharing the Gospel.

I was reflecting recently with someone about modern cultural narratives which provide opportunities for sharing the Gospel - connection points. We're all familiar with the way that films, for example, can provide what you might call 'leaping-off points' for talking about spiritual realities; for example, a movie like the Matrix gave us a whole new set of vocabulary for talking about choices and faith and reality. But are there other cultural narratives which we should be making better use of, thinking creatively about connections with the Gospel story? One I considered was the environmental narrative that's so current right now, as we think seriously about the consequences of our choices and our stewardship of this planet. Are there ways to speak into this theme and engage with these questions that bring the light of Jesus to bear? What about the big themes of national security, terrorism, personal liberty and the surveillance issue (privacy vs security)? How do we respond and what story are we telling in the light of these?


Tim Keller's 'The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism' sounds like an interesting read.


Thanks Matt!

Quote(s) of the Day, Olympic Style

"...a gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you're not enough without one, you'll never be enough with one."
Irv Blitzer, Cool Runnings

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever."
1 Corinthians 9.24-25

Openness and Prayer

Blogger TC Robinson has been investigating open theism on his blog and starting various interesting discussions along the way. I recently commented (hopefully gently!) on his post about prayer:

I've always understood prayer to be pretty effective - not just in my personal relationship with God, but also for affecting what happens in the world. I agree there's definitely the sense in the Gospels of Jesus taking time out in prayer to learn his Father's will (as Duane and others have mentioned above) but surely the overwhelming teaching of Jesus is that God responds to prayer and our prayers therefore have real consequences in the world, e.g. Luke 21.36, Matt 7.11 'how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him', Luke 10.2 'ask for workers', Luke 22.32 (in verse 31 it sounds like Satan is also able to pray!)... and I haven't even mentioned some of the most famous verses about prayer!

What I understand from what Boyd and others teach is that because God is relational he has chosen to mediate his authority through free agents such as ourselves and angels etc.* Although the plan was for us to rule 'under authority' (c.f. Luke 7.8), we have real delegated responsibility. To this end God has chosen to limit his influence and authority in the world according to our direction and desire. The really challenging thing about this view is that it makes prayer absolutely critical. God's involvement - to a certain extent - depends on us asking for it! When we pray 'your will be done' we're apparently - in a really odd way - actually giving God 'permission' to act to bring about his will. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

I actually think this view has a lot to recommend it, as it makes sense of Jesus' instructions about prayer and the importance Paul obviously gives to prayer (e.g. 1 Thess 3.10). God is genuinely responsive to our prayers, relational even in the exercise of his sovereign authority. That sounds like a truly dynamic relationship! It's also interesting to note the way Paul talks about being coworkers with God.

[*At the beginning humankind is given dominion over the earth (Gen 1.26-28) but unfortunately it seems we surrendered our authority to Satan, who is now the 'prince of this world' (John 12.41). But Daniel 7 indicates that part of our final destiny is to finally reclaim this authority in the kingdom of Jesus.]

Comments?

Learning moments at Revive! 2008

[Something of a scrapbook of quotes etc from camp last week. Apologies for the lack of order - just getting them down!]

Jonathan Oloyede
- Luke 4.1 - the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. The Spirit can lead us into difficult and strange places. Jesus fasted for 40 days before going out in the power of the Spirit.
- If you want to follow the Lord he will ask you to drop some things...are you ready for that?

Christen Forster
- Matt 16.13-19. Jesus tells Peter 'on this rock I will build my church'. Jesus was not specifically a carpenter but more likely a builder (Greek: tekton, which is the general term for a builder/craftsman).
- this reminded me of Aslan telling Lucy "I am the master Bridge-Builder" in 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader'.

- Proverbs 30.21 "Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a servant who becomes king, ..." It is a dangerous thing for those with the insecurities of a servant to be put in positions of leadership. The primary responsibility of a leader is to be proactive in putting themselves in a position to encounter God and be open for God to change them.
- everything we do is motivated either by fear or love. Fear is born out of our slavery, love of our sonship.
- two fear-based behaviours that hit Christian leaders are competitiveness and striving.

Debbie Laycock
Matt 25.1-13 - the Wise and Foolish Virgins
'This is a Parousian Parable about God's People; Jesus makes it Personal and asks "Are you Prudent, Prepared and at your Post?"'
- do you have enough fuel to be burning hot on the day Jesus arrives? Are you filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit?
- You can't lean on the spiritual lives of others - do you have the Spirit in you?
- Are we being proactive in taking practical steps to fuel our spiritual lives?
- Are we taking our role in the kingdom seriously?

Sarah Fordham
- Need spirituality and religion in balance. Religion gives boundaries to our spirituality. Without structure we are easily swept away into the 'New Age' (no boundaries).
- 'Religion' comes from the Latin religio 'to bind'. As Christians we are to bind Christ - the Word - to ourselves in the same way Jews bind the Torah to themselves (Deut 11.18)
- The truth is to be encountered in Jesus
'Do what I say and then you will know that what I say is true' (Sarah's paraphrase of John 7.31-32)

Jackie Pullinger-To
- look at the world: there must be justice! there is so much pain that must be accounted for, retribution that must be made.
- without justice there is no mercy
- Isaiah 53. Jesus took the pain of those wronged and the punishment for the wrongdoers
- there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood
- The day of Jubilee: 'the slave driver is forgiven and the slave goes free'

- what the Scripture says is true: 'my soul thirsts for you'. We may not feel it but it's our feelings that aren't true.
- a man is a slave to what he worships.

Faith Forster
- 'a seeking soul and a seeking Saviour are sure to meet'
- we shouldn't be running after signs and wonders because signs and wonders should be following us!

John Paul Jackson
- if people don't find answers to spiritual things in the church they'll go elsewhere
- What is true spirituality? You cannot be spiritual by yourself - be filled with the Spirit of the living God
- the Spirit brings true 'enlightenment' while anything else brings only 'endarkenment'. Satan left the light and source of life and is therefore continually deteriorating...joining the dark side literally sucks the life out of you.
- Light always overcomes darkness. Darkness never wins unless there is no light.
- Fear / Faith are two sides of the same thing: a belief in something invisible that has not happened yet. Fear is the belief that something bad will happen, faith is the belief that something good will happen.

Wounds of a Friend

In this month's Christianity Today, complementarian (men and women have equal but different roles in marriage and church life - W) John Koessler and egalitarian (God freely calls believers to roles and ministries regardless of gender, class or race - W) Sarah Sumner have an "unexpected exchange" on the women's leadership debate.

Complementarians need to recover a fully biblical view of women — and of handling theological disagreement. By John Koessler

Egalitarians should rely more on careful exegesis and less on political ideologies. By Sarah Sumner

Both articles are refreshing and graceful additions to the conversation and I found plenty to agree with on both sides of the discussion.

When God created humankind in his image, he created them to be male and female (Gen. 1:27). It is often said that men and women bear the image of God equally. But it might be more accurate to say that men and women bear God's image together. Men and women collectively reflect the divine image; one without the other is incomplete. In addition, the Book of Genesis affirms men and women's joint mandate to exercise dominion over creation. Men and women share this responsibility; neither can fulfill God's mandate alone. ...

Complementarians need to be on guard against the temptation to use the Bible as a sanction for social constructs. The Pharisees tried to protect God's commands by putting a fence around the Law. I fear that complementarians, too, have gone beyond the Scriptures in our effort to preserve God's design. Have we added our own traditions to the Bible's teaching in an attempt to preserve biblical manhood and womanhood?

John Koessler

Egalitarians often argue that since God commands his people to submit to one another, women leaders have the right to be submitted to by men. When this doesn't happen, they feel angry. Yet a truly Christian ethic would remember that women have the duty, not the right, to lead as God calls them to lead. When God calls a woman to step forward, she is to step forward, regardless of how others respond. ...

When Galatians 3:28 is used out of context, the egalitarian argument can easily be perceived as promoting a genderless church. Though most egalitarians emphatically believe that men and women are not the same or interchangeable, it is hard for the unconvinced to hear the wisdom of their message— and easy for others, like the gender-confused, to twist the meaning of their message into something it is not.

Sarah Sumner

Christianity Today's Timothy George also addressed complementarians and egalitarians in his excellent article 'A Peace Plan for the Gender War'.

I'm sympathetic to George's stated position 'I am not a card-carrying member of either party', finding plenty to agree with on both sides and probably falling somewhere in the middle of the debate. However, realistically, I know I'd fit in more easily on the egalitarian side, given my openness to women in church leadership roles. Also I personally feel more confident of having the opportunity in an egalitarian setting to argue in a complementarian direction, than I'm confident of being able to even talk about a egalitarian direction from a complementarian position. Whether you understand what I mean may depend on your experiences with both sides of the debate, whether positive or negative.

Questions from Feminist Theology

I went along to Theology 101 at church today and, apart from being perhaps the first Soup and Theology I've been to without Chris, and missing his particular brand of "Jubious theology" :) , I quite enjoyed learning about feminist theology...

Mark was doing 'What's Right About Feminism?'

Lots to critique in the texts, but I was left with some interesting questions and counter-questions:

• Given that the Bible was written by male authors, did it have to be this way?
• Would the Bible have been essentially different if it had been written by women? Assuming that it would have been, at least to some degree, different, what does this say about the nature of truth? Could it still have been the Word of God? (perhaps a meaningless question.. Scripture is as it is.)
  
• Did the Bible have to have been written by men? Was this a reflection of the (male-dominated) culture, or was it supposed to be this way - determining cultural norms? As in a hegemony, which comes first - the reality or the interpretation of that reality as normative? In other words, perhaps controversially, is the patriachal hermeneutic divinely ordained or the product of a fallen society obsessed with holding power over others? Or is it somewhere between the two?
  

These are complicated questions and raise questions about the authority and authorship of the Bible. Part of the answer may rest on how we see the divine / human authorship of the Bible. But asking 'could it have been otherwise?' is much the same as 'could it have been other?' and leads us onto difficult and possibly dangerous ground. Scripture defines itself.

I'm not normally a fan of feminism, but I have to admit these are interesting questions. Ultimately of course, we know Scripture - as it stands - as God's word and I'm not about to dispute that. But I do think it's a sensible idea to treat texts with a 'hermeneutic of suspicion' at times - as long as you remember to question this hermeneutic as well! As a good friend used to say, 'I'm learning to question my doubts'.

I also think it's important to learn from the way feminist theologians are explicit about their hermeneutical agenda, not claiming to be unbiased or objective. I have some serious issues with some of their conclusions, but I do think they raise some important issues about the importance of questionning our own hermeneutics and use of language.

However, at the end of the day I want to remember that we're involved in a searching for the Truth - above liberation, freedom, 'correctness', or anything else. Because we believe that ultimately Truth is a person (John 14.6), and he alone gives true freedom.

...Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. ...if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." John 8.31-36

Wycliffe and Tyndale

[Still in my addiction to audiobooks phase!]

After finishing the unabridged 'Dune' by Frank Herbert (read by Scott Brick), which was a completely absorbing 22 hours on another world (and even more marvellous to listen to than read), I'm now listening to Melvyn Bragg's Adventure of English. It's a truly fascinating story for anyone interested in history and language and Robert Powell's narration makes the words and language come alive. From Beowulf to Chaucer to Elizabeth I... (that's about as far as I've got!)

I'm currently deep in the Middle Ages; being inspired and moved by the stories of Wycliffe and Tyndale and their respective Bible translations. Tyndale sounds like a fantastic character particularly. The story of him agreeing to sell a whole print run of 6000 copies to the Bishop of London - which were then burnt - and then using the proceeds to finance a new version - pure brilliance! And Melvyn Bragg rightly raves about the lyricism and brilliance of his translation. He introduced a huge number of new words and phrases into English (see the Wikipedia article for examples). The King James Version stuck to his phrasing and vocabulary in most cases and lots is still familiar today in modern translations.

Tyndale was a preacher and his version was a preacher's Bible, lyrical and memorable. Bragg comments that English Bibles today still share this legacy from Tyndale of being designed to be read aloud and understood by all.

"I defy the pope, and all his laws... If God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than he did."

Bragg has some great quotes from Tyndale and others, which sadly I cannot share because I don't have the text in front of me, but I highly recommend reading the book - or even getting the audiobook (I have a subscription at Audible - by far the cheapest way!)

Articles on the rise of Reform Theology

I'll be keeping up with this ongoing discussion on Christianity Today, between Tony Jones (no, not the Durham one!) of 'The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier' and Collin Hansen of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.

Also, I thought this guest post from Thomas McCall was interesting to read in its sympathetic - yet cautionary - portrayal of the New Calvinists.

How fixed is the script?

I was interested to read Ben Witherington's view on God's 'script' and the significance of human decisions.

"Whilst, God could have done otherwise, he has chosen to allow us to be viable partners with God in ministry and the working out of his will and Kingdom on earth, beings capable of making un-predetermined choices that have incredible consequences. The issue is not the sovereignty of God - the issue is how God has chosen to exercise his power and will. And what the Bible says about this is that he has not pre-determined all things from before the foundations of the world.

Human history is not merely a preordained play, played out perfectly to a pre-ordained script. On the contrary while there is a blue-print, or a general script, God has allowed, indeed invited us to make the drama like a night at the Improv, improvising our roles as we go, and making viable choices of moment and consequence along the way. Are we supposed to follow the general instructions in the script? Well yes, as they provide the boundaries beyond which we ought not to go and show us what character and kind of roles we should play. But of course we may fail to play our parts well, or indeed at all."

I absolutely agree. Saying that God always gets his way makes no sense of Jesus' instructions on prayer, in particular the Lord's prayer:
"Let your kingdom come, your will be done..."

Another interesting link I came across on Ben's blog is a 'blogalogue' between Bart Ehrman and N. T. Wright on the problem of suffering. Ehrman has just published a book called 'God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer'. NT Wright is as eloquent and graceful in his replies as ever. I always find him refreshing on this subject as he takes the existence of evil seriously and isn't content to attribute all suffering in the world to human choices.

"...the Gospels constituted, and still constitute, a challenge to all expectations, particularly in that they link – as readers for hundreds have years have found it difficult to do – the story of Jesus’ kingdom-inauguration with the story of his crucifixion and resurrection. Somehow, they are saying, this is what it looks like when the good, all-powerful and all-loving God is in charge of the world. You may say that if this is what they’re saying then the God of whom they speak is not ‘all-powerful’ in the way we might have imagined, and I suspect that is in a sense correct. Near the heart of Jesus’ proclamation lies a striking redefinition of power itself, which looks as though it’s pointing in the direction of God’s ‘running of the world’ (if that’s the right phrase) in what you might call a deliberately, almost studiedly, self-abnegating way, running the world through an obedient, and ultimately suffering, human being, with that obedience, and especially that suffering, somehow instrumental in the whole process. What ‘we would want God to do’ – to have God measure up to our standards of ‘how a proper, good and powerful God would be running the world’! – seems to be the very thing that Jesus was calling into question.

The mystery of Jesus himself, then, is for me near the heart of – not ‘the answer’, because I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘the answer’, but – the matrix of thought and life within which God’s people are called to continue to grapple with the problem. This is where, in Evil and the Justice of God, I try to draw together traditional discussions of ‘the atonement’ and traditional discussions of ‘the problem of evil’ and suggest that it’s odd that they should ever have been separated, since they seem to go together so closely in the Bible itself. (And can’t be reduced, I suggest, to the ‘God punishes sin’ logic; I have tended to include some elements of that within the Christus Victor motif, which, yes, involves suprahuman cosmic powers and all that. Hard though they are to describe adequately, they are even harder, in my view, to ignore.)"

What I know

I've been listening to Greg Boyd's recent sermons on prayer - inspiring and thought-provoking, as ever. Hopefully I'll get round to blogging further on my thoughts and response to these. But, listening to his sermon on the variables that affect answers to prayer ('Scorpions, Eggs and Prayer') I've been particularly reflecting on his explanation of what we DON'T know, that is almost everything! He explains that it's profoundly important to know what we don't know and to get comfortable saying 'I don't know'. As he memorably describes it, we "swim in an infinite sea of unknowability" and what we call the 'things we know' is an oasis of pseudo-knowledge floating in a sea of mystery! It is knowing this that keeps us from being sucked into formulas and trite responses.

I completely agree with him that the statement 'I don't know' can be enormously powerful in the right context. When faced with the question of suffering, I wonder whether it is indeed the only appropriate answer. It rings true with God's response to Job - there is far more in the Universe than you could possibly know or understand. There is a necessary humility when faced with the question of why a prayer has not been answered. Although it may ease our pain to find someone to blame, any answer cannot help but be simplistic and damaging - either to ourselves or others, or to our relationship with God.

However, while we may have to answer 'I don't know', this cannot be the end of our response. We are called to have compassion - and words may only be a small part of this. And as Christians we also have hope.

There is much we don't know, but one thing I do know: Jesus our Saviour was dead in the grave, and is alive again! Jesus is alive - that is the response of hope.

"I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."
Revelation 1.18

Happy Easter everyone!

Quote from The Silver Chair (or John 6.44!)

"You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion.
"Then you are Somebody, Sir?" asked Jill.
"I am."

EUGENE PETERSON on Well-Worn Paths

"Christians tramp well-worn paths: obedience has a history.

"This history is important, for without it we are at the mercy of whims. Memory is a databank we use to evaluate our position and make decisions. With a biblical memory we have two thousand years of experience from which to make the off-the-cuff responses that are required each day in the life of faith. If we are going to live adequately and maturely as the people of God, we need more data to work from than our own experience can give us. ...

"A Christian who has David in his bones, Jeremiah in his bloodstream, Paul in his fingertips and Christ in his heart will know how much and how little value to put on his own momentary feelings and the experience of the last week. ...

"What we require is obedience - the strength to stand and the willingness to leap, and the sense to known when to do which. Which is exactly what we get when an accurate memory of God's ways is combined with a lively hope in his promises."

From 'A Long Obedience in the Same Direction' by Eugene Peterson

Atonement ...further remarks

Here are a couple of things I've been reminded about in looking at the different theories of the atonement recently. I've called them 'things to keep in mind'.

Substitutionary Penal Atonement
In talking about the Father’s wrath on the Son it is important not to draw too firm a line between them. God takes sin on himself and suffers his own judgement in the person of Jesus. Ultimately God satisfies himself.

Christus Victor
It is important to remember that in talking about the triumph of Jesus over the powers of evil, that this is not a military triumph, a triumph of violence over violence, but a triumph of love. This kind of love is something that evil cannot understand… thus the powers are ‘disarmed’.

The Atonement and onwards

As I mentioned in my last post, I've recently been considering some aspects of the atonement and the different ways of explaining what God has done for us in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In recent years I have become more sympathetic to the 'Christus Victor' theme as a way as describing in a cosmic sense what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection. In the context of this overarching triumph over the forces of evil, there are clearly many aspects to what Jesus' death means for us in particular. He took on himself the punishment for our rebellion against God and our evil deeds (penal substition), he paid the price (took the full consequences) for our sin ("the wages of sin is death" Rom 6.23), he died and rose again that we might have new life in him, he closed the book on the old covenant (see Romans 7)... and so on.

However, my recent re-reading of the NT and OT texts has given me lots of new things to ponder (some of which I hope to return to in later posts), and I am currently pursuing some avenues of thought in the OT (about blood if you want to know!). In my short investigation so far, none of the standard ways of speaking about the atonement (except for the most straightforward - e.g. 'Jesus died in my place'), have not felt entirely satisfactory, not quite telling the whole story. My hope, and it is a naive one perhaps, is that I will find a way to construct for myself a way of talking about the atonement that relies on Biblical language and reflects as best I can the fullness, and yet simplicity, of what God has done for us in Jesus' death and resurrection. I cannot pretend that I expect to complete this search but I'm sure it will be an interesting journey!

In my wanderings, I aim to keep three markers in sight. Firstly, I will keep foremost in my mind's eye a vision of the cross that once held the creator and saviour of the universe - but is now empty. In this I hope to follow Paul's insistence in 1 Corinthians 15 that "If Christ has not been raised... you are still in your sins."

Secondly, I shall keep my eye to the picture of Jesus that we have in Revelation chapter 5.

"See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah...has triumphed!"
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the centre of the throne...

I am convinced that no doctrine of the atonement can be complete unless it embraces fully the picture of Jesus we see in these verses: both triumphant Lion and slain Lamb.

Finally, I will strive to keep in mind Paul's warnings about 'earthly wisdom' in 1 Corinthians 1. Ultimately it's not a question of wisdom, but of power: while the cross seems like foolishness to those that are perishing, to us who are being saved it is the power of God. At the end of the day, as my friend Archie says, 'It works'.

The Widow and the King

I've just finished re-reading 'The Widow and the King' by John Dickinson, a teenage medieval fantasy that my brother Leo bought me a couple of years back. We both read and enjoyed his first book, 'The Cup of the World' and then had to read the sequel. They're a great couple of books, engaging and intelligent, and I'm always left with plenty to think about.

'The Widow and the King' is about a boy's escape from, and finally battle against, an enemy he variously calls the 'Heron Man' or 'The Prince Under the Sky'*. The Prince is a formidable and very creepy enemy who is always working in the background, whispering in peoples' ears, bringing down kings and corrupting the wise, bringing despair and destruction. It's not hard to see why I found in this book a worldview I could understand! The book is really quite scary at times, and there is a coherent (and occasionally heartbreaking) inevitability to the character development.

(*this works well as a title for Satan doesn't it?)

This is ultimately a story of good against evil. The boy, Ambrose, is the son of a previous king and an obvious heir. He tries to do the right thing, but he's innocent of the realities of the world he lives in. The book tells the story of his journey to wisdom, whilst at the same time vindicating him in his innocence and goodness. Of course we know that, in this book as well as in life, goodness will conquer evil in the end, but in the meantime, the Prince is depressingly successful in his destructive and corrupting aims.

One of the major and most compelling themes in the book is the theme of forgiveness. Ambrose is convinced that forgiveness is necessary and that a king must have mercy. He argues this out with Aun, who knows by experience that a king who forgives an enemy instead of destroying him may suffer the consequences:

"And as for forgiving - it's not free, not even for a king. It's like taking on debt. And a king who forgives too much pays with his life. Remember that."

There are so many interesting subthemes in the books, and half-references to a worldview which makes sense to me, that I'd probably be surprised if John Dickinson was not a Christian. But if he isn't - he's stumbled on some significant truths about the world. CS Lewis talks about all stories reflecting something of the 'BIG Story', so perhaps that's what's happened here.

I've been thinking a lot about atonement recently and I'll probably be posting some of my reflections this week.. so until then.

God at War

I've finally finished reading 'God at War' by Greg Boyd and I find I have mixed feelings about it as a book. The overall thrust of his argument is very compelling and his analysis of the warfare motifs in the ministry of Jesus particularly persuasive. I find his reading of the NT as being fundamentally about the Kingdom of God 'at war' with the world/the kingdom of Satan is hard to dispute.

However, attempts to build a coherent 'theory of everything', to systematize the Biblical material, should always be treated with caution. As NT Wright points out, when we come to the Bible "looking for particular answers to particular questions...we have thereby made the Bible into something which it it not" ('How can Scripture be Authoritative?' 1989, see also 'Scripture and the Authority of God'). Systematic theology never sits completely comfortably alongside the Bible taken as a whole - just when you think you've 'got it' an unruly verse turns up to confound the theory.

As with any thesis of this nature, 'God at War' seems a bit 'rough at the edges', where at times the thesis is stretched just that little bit too far. Boyd is an enthusiastic theorist and always interesting, but there were moments in the book when I felt uncomfortable with the extent to which he seemed to be 'trying too hard' to pull in a variety of Biblical material to support the warfare theme. Notable in my mind is his warfare re-interpretation of the Lord's Prayer.

Despite these criticisms, I found 'God at War' a provocative and always-interesting book which I would definitely recommend - if only as a starting point for conversation. Those who know me well will know I am a big fan of Greg Boyd - although more in his preaching and energetic exposition of ideas than in his books - and I came to the book already persuaded by his God-at-war theodicy and understanding of Jesus' ministry.

In my view, Boyd is most challenging and convincing in his teaching on Jesus and the Kingdom of God and I know that he would agree that it is these ideas that are worth paying the most attention to. As I mentioned in a previous post it is his high view of Jesus (as with NT Wright) which I find most compelling. I've often heard him start teaching / preaching with the statement 'God looks like Jesus Christ', from Jesus' statement in John 14.9 "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." He will then go on to explain how we should always move from the known to the unknown - our understanding of God should start with Jesus, who is "the exact representation of his being" (Heb 1.3). If we want to know what God is like we should start by looking at Jesus (as opposed to philosophy or religion). As Boyd often says, "God looks like a man dying on a cross for those who crucified him."

The strength of this concept is what anchors his theodicy - his starting place in explaining the problem of evil. Since, he argues, the evil in the world around us does not accord with a God who, as Jesus Christ, rebuked sickness (and the wind and waves - Mk 4.39) and battled Satan (e.g Mk 3.23, Lk 13.16) it cannot be God's will. Evil is the result of wills other than God's. This fits with the NT's teaching that Satan is the archon (ruler) of the world (Jn 12.31, 16.11), the "god of this age" (2 Cor 4.4) and the "ruler of the kingdom of the air" (Eph 2.2), who has the whole world under his control (1 Jn 5.19).

Further explanation I will leave to Boyd as he is much more articulate than I! 'God at War' is the first book in a Trilogy, of which the second is 'Satan and the Problem of Evil' (onto which I shall move) and the last is as yet un-published. I would highly recommend his January 2005 sermon 'Being the Kingdom in a Groaning Creation' - given in the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami - as a summary of some of these ideas.


'God at War' concludes with a declaration of hope:

"The hope that the New Testament offers is not the hope that God has a higher, all-encompassing plan that secretly governs every event, including the evil intentions of malicious angelic and human beings, and that somehow renders these evil wills 'good' at a higher level. To my way of thinking, at least, that supposition generates a truly hopeless position... If justice is, on some secret transcendental plane, already being served, what do we have to look forward to? If God is already vindicated because 'the big picture' justies [a victim]'s torment 'for the good of the whole', then we really have no reason to hope that things will fare better for [a victim] or ourselves in the world to come.

"In direct contrast to all this, the ultimate hope that the New Testament offers is eschatological. As sure as the Lord came the first time to defeat his cosmic enemy and our oppressor in principle, just as certainly he shall return again to defeat him in fact. Because sickness, disease, war, death, sorrow and tears are not God's will, and because God is ultimately sovereign, we can have a confident assurance that someday, when his foes are ultimately vanquished, God will end all sorrow, and will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Rev 20:4). Precisely because our present suffering is not God's will - however much he can now use it for our ultimate good - we can have an assurance that it shall not always be this way."

As Boyd likes to say, "we live in a Good Friday world, but Easter Sunday is coming!"

Death into Life

I've been reflecting recently on symbols, particularly symbols of death and the way that God likes to subvert them. The NT is littered with symbols of death that mean life for us: sacrifice, blood, the cross. God has literally, and symbolically, turned death into life. Our life is in death: Jesus' death on the cross brought us life, we're cleansed by his blood, we die with him in baptism, we die to ourselves, we die to live. Jesus triumphed over death, for it had no hold on him. God raised him from death, as he will raise us all. Blood, sacrifice, the cross no longer mean death to us, but life!

"We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body." 2 Corinthians 4.10-11


I've heard people compare wearing a cross to wearing a little electric chair around the neck. A useful analogy perhaps, expressing some of the absurdity of wearing an execution device as a fashion statement, but I suggest it doesn't go half-way far enough. The electric chair doesn't have a fraction of the symbolic power wielded by the cross two thousand years ago.

Crucifixion was the Roman's preferred method of execution: gruesome, public, efficient. It was an excruciatingly painful way to die, deliberately lengthy and public. Part of its usefulness for the Romans was the way it allowed them to humiliate their enemies in defeat, and display publicly the consequences of disobedience and rebellion. Famously, in 71BC, Emperor Crassus ordered 6600 rebellious slaves crucified, one every 1000 paces, on the Appian Way between Capua and Rome, the defeated followers of Spartacus, who led the slaves in an uprising against Rome from 73-71BC. Crassus never ordered the crosses taken down, so this gruesome reminder of the consequences of rebellion remained to warn travellers on his highway for many years, perhaps decades.

To the first century Roman world the cross signified Roman domination, the power of the Roman state to subdue its enemies. To the nations controlled by Rome the cross was a symbol of occupation and oppression, slavery and fear. I cannot think of a modern equivalent that comes close.

The electric chair, if anything, symbolises the kind of bloodless, clinical death favoured by the American judicial system, in which most states now favour lethal injection (the electric chair is seen as too barbaric). Executions, as carried out in the modern Western world, are tightly controlled, relatively private and carefully designed not to offend the sensibilities of law-abiding citizens. These methods of execution have no power as symbols, hardly even summoning up the reality of death, from which we all live happily sheltered. Most of us have never even seen a dead person, let alone watched them die in agony.

It is hardly possible for us to grasp the magnitude of the change in fortunes of the cross as a symbol. Jesus' death and resurrection turned the most disgusting and oppressive symbol of death and bondage the world had ever seen into the most powerful symbol of love and freedom in the earth and heavens. Talk about a victory! This is subversion of the highest order. God took the worst the enemy could offer and made it his most potent symbol of love and grace.

"..having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." Colossians 2.15


You need the resurrection to complete the story, the victory over death, but that doesn't diminish the eternal significance of the cross. Jesus isn't only the risen King, he's our crucified Lord. At God's right hand, but still displaying the wounds of death, in his hands and side. Jesus' death is forever part of who God is; the Lamb who was slain,"chosen before the creation of the world" (1 Peter 1.20), now stands "in the centre of the throne" (Rev 5.6).

"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!" Revelation 5.12

Amen!

'Party on!'

The first miracle (or sign) in John's Gospel is the Wedding in Cana where Jesus turns the water into wine. I heard Steve Chalke point out that in a world of poverty and brokenness, the miracle he chooses to do first is to provide more wine for some people who were probably already less than sober! As Steve puts it, it's Jesus' first miracle, and it's "Drinks on me!" A reminder that the kingdom of God is something of a party and Jesus says to us, 'Come on in, let's party!'*


*See also Mt 8.11, Mt 22.1-14, Lk 14.15-24, Rev 3.20 ... :-)

Comedic scenes in Matthew

A curious title, you say?
Surely Holy Scripture is not allowed to make you laugh...?

A couple of scenes in Matthew's Gospel have made me chuckle recently.

Matt 14.51
Jesus has been telling parables about the kingdom of God - the mustard seed, the yeast, the pearl, the seed in the field, the hidden treasure and the net... It's not his plainest teaching, put it that way. He comes to the end..
"Have you understood all these things?" Jesus asked.
"Yes," they replied.

Try reading all these parables out loud to someone, with all their varying scenes and images, and then coming to the end with this verse. Tell me it doesn't pull you up chuckling, raising your eyebrow and going 'Oh, really?' I can imagine them nodding vigorously in response, "Yes, absolutely, like a pearl, yes, that makes complete sense. It always reminded me of a net..." It reminds me of times when I was teaching and I'd stupidly ask the class, "Does that make sense? Do you understand?" If I got any response at all it would be nodding heads and confident expressions. Did they have any idea what I was talking about? No.

Matt 16.5-12
Jesus and the disciples are in a boat, crossing the lake. But the disciples have forgotten to bring bread. Perhaps they're blaming each other, or sitting shame-faced. Jesus tells them, "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." The disciples are convinced he's telling them off for forgetting the bread and they discuss it among themselves. (It makes you wonder if Jesus is playing with them, but his serious response in v.8 probably rules that one out!) I like that the disciples found Jesus just as cryptic as we often do! It's hard to imagine Matthew writing this without a smile on his face.


Anyone got any more?

Revelation on the Road

In Luke 24 Cleopas and his friend are leaving Jerusalem and on the road to Emmaus when they meet Jesus, although of course they don't recognise who he is.

They recount the events in Jerusalem for him:
- Jesus was a prophet from God, "powerful in word and deed", they hoped "he was the one who was going to redeem Israel."
- he was handed over by the chief priests and crucified
- three days later, the tomb is empty (v.23,24)
- the women reported seeing "a vision of" angels who said he was alive

(But they're clearly not convinced! In fact, they're leaving and going home. Alive! That's crazy...)

[Jesus] tells them to pay attention and he opens up the Scriptures regarding himself. Later, they recall how their hearts were "burning within [them]".

Finally, as they eat together in Emmaus, their eyes are opened and they recognise Jesus! They immediately return to Jerusalem, running the 7 miles in the dark (v.29) to tell the disciples (though sadly, their news is already out-of-date because in the meantime Jesus has also appeared to Peter!)

It's not the fact of the empty tomb that convinces them, it's not the angels (the women aren't credible witnesses to start with and with a story like that..?), nor have they simply understood from the Scriptures what it was all about. Their new excitement, as they rush back to Jerusalem, is because they have met the risen Christ himself. As always, it's about revelation, not information!

Richard Briggs pointed out that Christian belief is not based on the fact of the empty tomb, but on the experience of Jesus, alive from the dead. The disciples went from a scared bunch of nobodies, hiding in an upper room, to being passionately excited about Jesus, missionaries and martyrs and church leaders, not because they'd seen an empty tomb, but because Jesus was alive from the dead! They had met him, seen his hands and feet (v.40), seen him eat "broiled fish" (v.41-43 present a funny scene, easy to imagine.. they're all standing there, amazed, and he's trying to convince them he's not a vision. 'Give me something to eat, ' he says.).

There's also a sweetness to this story in the way that Cleopas and his friend don't miss out. If Jesus had not caught up with him (and his wife?) on the road they would not have returned to Jerusalem, where Jesus then appears to all of them and tells them to wait in the city until the Holy Spirit comes. It's also worth noting that Jesus has apparently appeared to Peter individually before this point (see also 1 Corinthians 15.5 for the earliest account of the resurrection appearances), significant because of Peter's earlier betrayal.

The Road to Emmaus story gives us the paradoxical truth:
"Scripture reveals Jesus but you need Jesus to reveal Scripture."
(see also Luke 24.45)