Sons of Thunder

My wife, Katie, and I are huge fans of the worship music that comes out of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  The music has a pretty awesome Seattle/indie feel to it.  The Church has made available quite a few live MP3's available for download on their website.  Check out this sample of the amazing song "Redemption" from their band Sons of Thunder.  

"

Together for the Gospel- Christmas Edition

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

What is Christmas?

That's Christmas! from andy pearce on Vimeo.

If you're tired of the commerciality and exploitation of the Christmas season and you've ever wondered what Christmas is all about... you should check out this video.

The Role of Reason in Coming to Faith

For my New Testament Theology class at Wheaton with Dr. Nicholas Perrin, we were recently asked to do an online bulletin board post and interact with other students in regard to the role of reason in coming to faith.  My professor was looking for some integrated theological thinking from the New Testament that bears on this issue.  So, for what its worth, here's what I posted on the Wheaton bulletin board for my class.    

At the outset, I believe that it is important to first lay down a definition of what I mean by the concept of “reason” as I approach this discussion. Although the concept has been weakened in our postmodern climate, reason is often understood in terms of the autonomous reason that grew out of the period of the Enlightenment. In this case, reason is a universal principle to which all of life must conform and by which all things are judged, even the concept of “God”. Such a concept of reason has no place within a Christian worldview shaped by the Bible. The New Testament makes it clear that all things are created by and for Christ and that He continues moment by moment to uphold the created order by the word of his power (Col 1:15-17 & Jn 1:3). So, there are no universal principles at work in the world that do not have their source and continuance constantly upheld by Jesus.

While Christians should reject the autonomous reason of the Enlightenment, there is a Biblical place for reason in New Testament Theology. This definition of “reason” is the rational faculty or cognition that human beings possess by virtue of their being created in the Image of God. However, the problem with this reason is that, as Paul points out in Rom 3:9-20 and 1 Cor 1:21 & 2:14, it is fallen and unable to seek God or find Him on its own.

If unaided human reason is thus useless with regard to faith so that it does not even begin to seek after God, what then is its role in a human being coming to faith? I think that we must affirm that the New Testament writers use language which expresses the exercise of human rational faculties in the process of salvation. Language such as “seeing”, “hearing”, “knowing”, “receiving”, etc all speaks of the human exercise of the rational faculties. However, it is part of the process of coming to faith in such a way that it cannot be said that man works together or cooperates with God in the process of coming to faith. Nowhere is this made more explicit than in 1 Cor 1:18-2:16. Wisdom which equates to a profound grasp of Christ’s eschatological victory and atonement on the Cross, is mediated to human beings only by the Spirit. Human reason or wisdom, unaided, is of no value and so must be brought about by the Spirit who imparts True Wisdom embodied in Christ crucified. This spiritual “making alive” is not done apart from human responsibility. The Spirit energizes our reason so that we are willingly drawn to Christ and call out to God for grace. This is done in such a way that human beings can in no way claim credit for this astonishing work of God’s grace through Jesus. It is, as Paul said, “all for the praise of his (God’s) glory.”

20 Books in your 20's

In keeping with the book them I seem to have going, I thought I'd post a link to Justin over at the Buzzard Blog who has compiled a list of "20 books to read in your 20's".  I have read many of these books on his list and have heard very good things about the one's I haven't read.  So, I pray that this list can be helpful for your faith and walk with Jesus.  

A Few Books I'm Looking Forward to Reading in the Next Few Months

As a follow up to my last post, I thought I just list a few books that I'm excited to read in the next few months.  Whether or not that will actually happen is another story since I'm always too ambitious in my reading plans.  Maybe God will be gracious and I'll have the time and discipline to finish them all...

1. We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry by G.K. Beale

2. The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright

3. Death By Love: Letters from the Cross by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears

4. Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis

5. John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace by Jonathan Aitken

6. Communion with the Triune God by John Owen

7. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

• I was encouraged recently that technical exegesis is not truly reading.  It is common for Biblical Scholars to get so caught up in the details of exegesis that they forget how to read literature AS literature.  

Top 10 Books I've Read this Year (In no particular order)

A lot of bloggers tend to give a "Top 10" list at the end of the year.  While I am in no way a consistent blogger, I've read quite a few books in the last year both for personal edification and for school.  I thought I would post the top 10 from this past year with a run down on each one.  So, here goes:

1. Isaiah's New Exodus in Mark by Rikki Watts:

This book has literally revolutionized how I see not only the gospels but also Biblical Theology in general.  It's a quite technical read but is worth the effort in order to understand Jesus' significance and to feed your faith!

2. The Temple and the Church's Mission by G.K. Beale:

If you're not familiar with the writings of Dr. Beale, you need to get familiar as quickly as possible!  While also on the technical side, Beale gives a maximalist account of Biblical Theology in light of the Temple theme.  Has massive implications for how we read the Bible and how we function as a Church.

3. When I Don't Desire God by John Piper:

This MAY be the best book that John Piper has ever written on the Christian life.  It combines his robust theology of Christian Hedonism with the practical nuts and bolts of striving after God to enjoy Him even while our passions are pathetically weak.

4. The Peacemaker by Ken Sande:

I had the privilege of reading through this great book this summer in a couples bible study at my church.  It is ostensibly a book on Biblical conflict resolution (which it is) but it has much wider implications for my life than simply conflict resolution.  This is really a manual on how to apply the Gospel to every relationship in your life!

5. The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin:

While I have read portions of the Institutes before this year, I was able this fall, to read through the entire institutes over the course of a semester.  It has been breathtaking to see the broad-brush overview of Calvin's thought.  It has also served to reinforce in my mind the dictum that there is nothing new under the sun!  Most if not all of the controversies that Calvin was involved with in his day have some sort of contemporary representation among the theological challenges to Orthodox, Reformed teaching.

6. God Crucified by Richard Bauckham:

All I can say about this book is "WOW!"  In such a short book Bauckham manages to weave an incredible picture of Jesus' divinity in light of OT and first century Jewish thought.  This is not a dry scholarly work, it will feed your faith and cause you to worship Jesus in new and greater ways!

7. Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics by Graeme Goldsworthy:

Extremely helpful for seeing how the entire Bible relates to Jesus.  This is not simplistic I-See-Jesus in every passage of the Old Testament.  The Gospel message about Jesus Christ is not simply the result of our Biblical Interpretation, it is also the grounds of our interpretation!

8. The Mission of God by Christopher J.H. Wright:

I technically read this book last fall but I'm including it here because I'm beginning to take my college guys small group through it this year.  This is probably one of my top 5 all time books.  If you haven't read it, you need to... 'Nuff said!

9. The Glory of the Atonement edited by Charles Hill and Frank James:

A collection of Biblical and Theological essays defending a classic penal-substitutionary view of the atonement.  Extremely helpful for clarifying the discussion of the atonement.  Most of the authors in the work see penal-substitution as the central facet of the atonement but also have a healthy understanding that it is not the only facet of the atonement that the Bible presents.

10. How to Pray for Your Wife by Mark Weathers:

This is a 31 day devotional guide intended to help men pray for their wives by using... what else... Proverbs 31!  While I can't stand behind all of his exegesis of Prov 31, his suggestions on prayer for wives are extremely helpful.  God has used this to help me be more faithful in praying for Katie.

Spiritual Leadership

A proper understanding of spiritual leadership is an urgent necessity in the Church today. Ours is a culture in which there is both a lack of mature leadership and in which leadership principles and values have been so inverted that much of what is said and written about leadership is of no value to the leaders of the Church. However, in spite of these deficiencies, there has been a broad movement within the American Church to incorporate the values of Corporate or Political America into the Church. Thus, sadly, many Pastors have become no more than CEO’s of the Church and frequently lack the Biblical qualifications to lead and pastor a flock of Christians. As Paul makes starkly clear in 1 Cor 1-2, the wisdom of God will be foolishness to the world. The converse is true as well that what the world considers wise will be seen as foolish in the sight of God. What the Church needs is the robust and glorious vision of spiritual leadership that is given across the pages of the New Testament. This vision will be radically counter-cultural and subversive in as much as it takes the Cross as its foundation with the goal of bringing all of life under the gentle dominion of Christ. Therefore, I want to try to elucidate the marks and purpose of spiritual leadership and trace out how these aspects work themselves out in the context of the Church body. 

A helpful place in the New Testament to begin is in the book of Titus where Paul writes to a younger pastor with instructions on how the Church is to function and how the Elders are to fit into the body of believers. In Titus 1:6-9, Paul lays out the qualifications that must be in a man’s life in order for them to serve as an Elder in the Church. He writes,

“…if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

When compared with the similar list of Elder qualifications in 1 Tim 3:1-7, the picture that emerges is the Elder as the ideal mature Christian. All of the qualities that are prescribed by Paul for Elders are qualities that every Christian is exhorted towards at various places in the New Testament. Thus the Elder is one who evidences in his life the maturity towards which all Christians are called and exhorted. Obviously, this does not mean that an Elder must be a sinlessly perfect Christian. That is impossible on this side of the final resurrection. However, it does mean that the Elder is an exemplar of a mature Christian who, empowered by God’s grace and in constant dependence on the Spirit, perseveres in the process of sanctification.

The overarching characteristic that Paul seems to be concerned with, particularly in Titus, is that spiritual leaders be “above reproach”. The importance of this defining quality is not concerned as much with personal piety as it is with God’s reputation. Paul seems to be concerned with God’s reputation in the world in the course of his letter to Titus; a concern that makes a great deal of sense in light of the cultural context in which Titus ministered. Every part of the body of Christ is supposed to conduct themselves both in and out of the Church so that “they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior”.  God’s reputation or glory in the world is the primary reason for the existence of the Church and so they must naturally conduct themselves in such a way that reflects God’s ultimate beauty and worth to the world. This purpose aligns perfectly with Jesus’ words in Matt 5:14-16,

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

If this is the purpose of Christ’s people here on Earth, then it is necessary that their leaders be models of such a life that is above reproach. Put another way, the life of the Spiritual leader is meant to be a model of treasuring God and being ultimately concerned with the cause of His glory on the Earth. John Piper sums this concept up well when he writes, “The ultimate goal of all spiritual leadership is that other people might come to glorify God, that is, might so feel and think and act as to magnify the true character of God.”

Therefore spiritual leaders must model this overriding concern for God’s glory. However, this is not the full extent of the need for spiritual leaders. There is much good that can be done from having a good model but there is still something lacking if there is not teaching that accompanies this model. I believe this is the thrust of Paul’s command to Titus in Titus 2:1, “But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.” Following this injunction, Paul goes on to describe the proper fruit that should be in place in the lives of Christians in different segments of society so that they will not bring reproach to the name of Jesus. This leads to the conclusion, supported elsewhere in the New Testament as well, that right living flows from right teaching. If the Church has teachers who are carefully teaching people the Word of God, lifting high the glory of God and showing people God’s redemptive purpose to fill the Earth with His glory as the waters cover the seas, then people will be gripped by such visions and live lives in accordance with that teaching. Therefore, both the modeling and the teaching are essential functions of a spiritual leader.

To many, the idea of the glory of God may sound rather abstract and many teachers aid this unfortunate misunderstanding in their teaching. Paul was clearly not one who would have left God’s glory as a mere theological abstraction. As Luther so forcefully emphasized, good pastors and teachers must be theologians of the Cross. If pastors and teachers want their people to come to grasp the glory of God and its full implications they must learn to bring people before the Cross which is the brightest and fullest display of God’s glory possible in this created order. In 1 Cor 1-2, Paul makes it clear that it was his mission to preach Christ and Him crucified and not to tickle people’s ears with rhetorical niceties. Such preaching was not hip and fashionable but was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to those in the Greco-Roman world. However, Paul’s was not simply a teacher of the message of the Cross, it was a daily reality of his life. He tells the Corinthians in 2 Cor 3:8-12,

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.”

So, we see that Paul’s very life was cruciform. He both modeled and taught the message of the Cross. Both his manner and his speech were mutually beneficial so that the glory of God through the Cross of Christ would be most fully and powerfully evident among those to whom he ministered.

The message of the Cross, which mediates God’s glory to us is what, people are in most desperate need of. Therefore, it should be the chief goal of all spiritual leaders to lead their lives and conform their speech to God’s redemptive purposes through the Cross. This is how true spiritual leadership is to be exercised; it models the example of Christ who “came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

HHCM?

Check out the just complete sermon series "The Peasant Princess" from Mars Hill Church.  This is the goal of the series of messages:

Pretty worthwhile huh? My name is Scott Newman and I approve this message.

Meaning, Postmodern Theory and the Glory of Jesus

This is another paper which I wrote this semester dealing with the topic of hermeneutics. This was also written for Dr. John Walton at Wheaton College Graduate School. As always, comments are welcome as I want to continue to grow and mature in this area of my thinking.

Hermeneutics: The Glory of God in Meaning

According to Anthony Thistleton, “Hermeneutics denotes critical reflection upon processes of interpretation and understanding, especially the interpretation of biblical texts or texts that originate from within other cultures.” Thus the science and art of hermeneutics deals with the epistemological underpinnings of the process of interpretation as well as the methodological processes by which the interpreter will seek meaning in a given text. To many, the process of self-critical reflection upon the act of reading and interpreting may seem like intellectual and academic overkill. In the case of contemporary literature, this critique may be appropriate although it still reflects a certain naiveté about the nature of discourse, communication and meaning. However, when one comes to the Biblical text by which the interpreter is separated chronologically by the span of 2000-3500 years, linguistically by the difficulty of learning and understanding Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic and culturally by the immense differences in thought and worldview, the possibility of simply reading and interpreting correctly becomes problematic. In light of these barriers to understanding, having a well though out and epistemologically grounded approach to interpretation is essential for faithful interpretation, particularly when it comes to the text of Scripture. Therefore, I will seek to argue for the supremacy and sovereignty of Jesus Christ as the basis by which interpretation and appropriation of the Biblical text is possible followed by a brief sketch of an epistemologically humble, methodological approach to Scripture.

As has been said previously, the goal of hermeneutics as applied to the Biblical text is faithful interpretation and appropriation of its content. Interpretation and appropriation both relate to knowledge since knowledge is what is sought in interpretation and is a necessary ingredient for the process of appropriation. Therefore, epistemology bears greatly on the subject of hermeneutics. This is especially so when it comes to discussions of meaning about which no clear consensus exists in the philosophical or literary community. The nature of meaning and how texts “mean” are issues that have filled volumes at least since the time of Socrates and Plato and show no signs of abating in the scholarly literature any time soon. In the face of such lack of understanding regarding meaning, one wonders if it is possible humanly to account for the phenomenon of meaning in a text or communication. It is at this point that I take Derrida’s critique of modernity to have been successful.

Derrida begins by addressing himself to the issue of structure within modern thought. These structures, or meta-narratives as Lyotard termed them , are the means by which humans make sense of the world around them. Language, Philosophy and Theology all fall under the category of structure in Derrida’s thinking. Every structure is held together by what is termed a “center”. According to Derrida, “The function of this center was not only to orient, balance, and organize the structure… but above all to make sure that the organizing principle of the structure would limit what we might call the play of the structure.” However, while also being the integral part of a given structure, the center is also an element that is outside the structure and thus governs how much play is possible within the structure. “Thus it has always been thought that the center, which is by definition unique, constituted that very thing within a structure which, while governing the structure, escapes structurality.” This very idea upon which the structures or meta-narratives of modernity rest is fundamentally incoherent in that the center cannon simultaneously be both within and without a structure. In order to manage this incoherence there must be a sign-center substitution in order to try to maintain stability in the structure. Because of this Derrida writes, “it was necessary to begin thinking that there was no center, that the center could not be thought in the form of a present-being, that the center had no natural site, that it was not a fixed locus but a function, a sort of nonlocus in which an infinite number of sign-substitutions came into play.”

It is this infinite-regress in substitutions of signs for center that ultimately makes meaning, humanly speaking, impossible to get at. There is a constant deferring of sign for signifier by which language and meaning, for all intents and purposes, is broken. Now, at this stage, it is important to grasp what Derrida, and those postmodern theorists who followed him, is saying and is not saying. He is not saying that there is no “world out there” or that truth and meaning do not exist. His critique does not amount to a denial of absolute truth. It is rather as Lyotard put it, “incredulity toward the meta-narrative”, the inability to access or know that we have access whatever is real. Fish writes of this, “this is not say that the world apart from the devices of human conception and perception doesn’t exist ‘out there’; just that what we know of the world follows from what we can say about it rather than from any unmediated encounter with it in and of itself.” What this amounts to is a recognition of brokenness or, might we say, fallenness in the ways that we as humans access reality. The postmodern posture then is not to nihilistically reject the meaningfulness of everything in life but rather to work within the broken systems while simultaneously recognizing their brokenness. It is impossible for humans to have an unmediated access to reality and therefore it is impossible for humans to escape the systems or meta-narratives with which we make sense of the world.

Theologically, it appears that Derrida and the postmodern theorists have stumbled onto an astounding realization, namely the fallenness of the creation. The Bible makes it clear throughout but particularly in the New Testament that the fallenness of the creation extends not only to the physical realm but also the metaphysical realm. In the realm of human thought, Theologians have termed this phenomenon the “noetic effects of sin” . The implication of this is that humanity should not be able to understand anything rightly, communication and knowing should not happen. Yet, experience alone tells us that meaning does happen. I am able to sit down to dinner and have a conversation with my wife in which we can (most of the time) understand each other. I can read a text and grasp the basic content contained therein. Ultimately there is no human way to adequately account for this phenomenon; the answer must be theological. In Colossians 1:16-17 Paul writes, “For by him (Christ) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Typically, this statement by Paul is thought of in the physical sense that Christ is the Creator and Sustainer of all that we see, interact with and experience. However, creation was not simply the physical realm but the metaphysical realm as well. Therefore, because Christ wills it, the universe holds together and does not fly apart and also, because Christ wills it, metaphysical reality still works despite its fallenness.

That knowing, communication and meaning still happen should be viewed as a work of common grace, by which glory must be given to Jesus. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the logos or wisdom of God and the Scriptures take great pains to help us understand that Truth is no mere metaphysical abstraction, it is a person; Jesus Christ, the perfect image by which we know the Triune God. Truth is not merely an attribute of God as if Truth was some sort of abstract that stands over and against God; He is rather Truth Itself!

This understanding has immense implications for how we, as Evangelical Christians, approach Biblical interpretation. The systems which man has set up in order to make sense of texts are all broken and unable to account for meaning. Meaning is located in the Triune God as He has manifested Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. It is the role of the person of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity to overcome man’s fallenness and lift the veil from our eyes to see God rightly in the person of Christ, the Word of God. There is, therefore, hope in interpretation because the Bible is the Written Word of God which corresponds precisely to the Living Word of God. The Spirit can be expected to overcome the noetic effects of sin and allow us to accurately understand the person of God on the pages of Scripture because that is how the Father has chosen to reveal the Triune God to us. It is not in hermeneutical systems but in the working of the Spirit of God then that we must place our trust for confidence in interpretation.

However, it is impossible for us to function interpretively outside of a hermeneutical system and so we can have confidence that the Spirit will work through our broken systems in order to bring us to a knowledge of and relationship with God. Therefore, I wish to briefly propose some methodological considerations to help us as interpreters come to the Biblical text and pray for God’s Spirit to allow us to understand the meaning of the text of Scripture.

First, I propose that what we are seeking when it comes to Biblical interpretation is/are completed speech-act/acts. According to Speech-Act Theory as laid out by Kevin Vanhoozer, a speech act involves a locution, illocution and perlocution. The locution is the mechanical act or content of communication, i.e. the text or the act and words of speaking. The illocution refers to the intentionality that the communicator invests in the locution. Finally, the perlocution refers to the effect that the locution and illocution have on the recipient of the speech act. A speech act is successful when each of the components has been successful.

Interestingly enough, this tri-partite structure corresponds to each of the three aspects of interpretation: author, text and reader. A text is a locution, it is the content that is being communicated. The author is the one who invests intentionality in a text and the reader is the one who receives the communication and is affected by it according to the intention of the author. It is because of this that interpretation cannot focus on merely one component of a speech act; it involves a triangulation of all three elements in order to get at meaning. A functional definition of meaning then can be understood as Vanhoozer puts it, “’Meaning’ is the result of communicative action, of what an author has done in tending to certain words at a particular time in a specific manner.” In light of this, a faithful approach to interpretation will then seek a triangulation of these three components.

In addition, a faithful approach to interpretation should begin from the ground up with a healthy recognition of the place and necessity of presuppositions in the interpretive process. For Christians, the gospel is the most basic presupposition which accurately understands Christ’s mediatorial role in the interpretation of the Bible and, indeed, of all reality. This should not be mistaken as a license to impose our theology on the text and to thus run roughshod over it. Rather, it is viewing the hermeneutical spiral as something that is good and God-ordained to help us in the process of interpretation. Our theology gives us a grid with which to make sense of the Biblical text and then the detailed, ground-up exegetical work in the text re-shapes our theology where it is not completely faithful to Scripture. This balancing process leads to exegesis that is properly shaped by the Gospel and Theology that is properly shaped by exegesis.

Finally, the process of ground-up interpretation is not completed until a text is viewed in its full, canonical context. In other words, if all of scripture is Christo-telic and history is unified by God’s sovereign plan to redeem the creation through the work of Christ then each text of scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, is not fully interpreted by us as Christians until we grasp how the trajectories in the text point us towards Christ and the Gospel. As Christians, this should not be an optional step to add to the end of the interpretive process; it is essential for our Biblical understanding as God’s covenant people. I do not deny that every passage in the Old Testament had authority for the Old Testament community when it was originally written. However, for Christians living on this side of the Cross, our appropriation of texts in the Old Testament must be done in light of the Christo-telic trajectories present in the text.

For Christians living at this period of history, the interpretive times are extremely confusing. The implosion of modernity and the postmodern turn are events which have sent shock-waves through the world and affect anyone engaged in interpretation of any kind. Ultimately, the anchor to which we must fasten ourselves as systems rise and fall is Christ. Mankind is desperately quick to latch on to and seek security in interpretive fads but God is the only true source of security and stability in the process of interpretation. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to emphasize again that God through Christ by the working of the Spirit needs to get all the credit and glory for our knowing and communicating just as we give Him glory for our breath and our salvation.

Bibliography

Briggs, Richard S. “Speech-Act Theory.” Pages 763-766 in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 2005.

Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. Translated by Alan Bass; Chicago, IL.: The University of Chicago Press, 1978.

Fish, Stanley. “French Theory in America.” No Pages. Cited 9 September 2008. Online: http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/.

Goldsworthy, Graeme. Gospel- Centered Hermeneutics: Foundations and Principles of Evangelical Biblical Interpreation. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2006.

Goldsworthy, Graeme. Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000.

Gracia, Jorge J.E. “Meaning.” Pages 492-499 in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 2005.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Theory and History of Literature 10. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995.

Thisleton, Anthony C. “Hermeneutics.” Pages 283-287 in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 2005.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2002.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Is There a Meaning in This Text: The Bible, The Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “Lost in Interpretation: Truth Scripture and Hermeneutics.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48/1 (2005): 89-114.

Preaching the Old Testament as Christian Scripture

This is a paper that I recently wrote for Dr. John Walton at Wheaton College Graduate School on how to preach and teach from the Old Testament. Please be aware that much of this was footnoted in the copy I turned in to Dr. Walton. Unfortunately, I'm not able to bring these over into a blog post. If anyone happens to read this I would love to get feedback. God Bless!!

Preaching the Old Testament as Christian Scripture

Since the inception of the Holy Spirit’s New Covenant ministry, the Church has been characterized by the proclamation of God’s message of salvation through the written Word of God. Throughout the narratives of Acts, the apostles are shown to preach the gospel wherever they go. Interestingly, as they proclaim the good news of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the apostles preach on the basis of Old Testament texts and frequently cite the Old Testament as they describe the work that Christ has accomplished. This pattern continues into the New Testament epistles where we find the apostles laying down doctrine and exhorting local congregations by citing the Old Testament. It goes without saying that, in the Apostolic period, much of New Testament scripture had not yet been penned and those works that had been penned were not in wide circulation. Thus, we find the apostles supporting their message about Jesus Christ from the Old Testament scriptures. In comparison to the period of Apostolic preaching, today there is a sad neglect of the Old Testament in the Church’s teaching and preaching. I believe that this situation derives from two primary factors; a lack of understanding how to faithfully interpret the Old Testament and secondly, an inability to apply the Old Testament to the lives of New Covenant Christians. Therefore, what the Church needs is a recovery of the ability to exegete the Old Testament scriptures in their original historical, literary and theological context followed by the ability to fully articulate the theological significance of Old Testament pericopae as they pertain to Christians living under the New Covenant. The act of proclamation is thus the fruit and culmination of the process of careful exegesis and theological development.

Ideally, the full process of exegesis should undergird the act of preaching or teaching an Old Testament pericope. The preacher thus should go through the process of examining the literary aspects of the text from the top down. Issues of genre and rhetorical strategy need to have particular importance at this stage for a proper contextual understanding of the passage. Once this stage has been completed then the preacher should examine the exegetical details of the passage. This would include the process of lexical and syntactical studies, discourse analysis as well as any historical background issues that may affect the interpretation.

Expository preaching that works systematically through a book of the Old Testament is ideally suited for such an exegetical approach as all these steps are necessary for understanding the Biblical book in its entirety as well as relating each preached pericope to the message and rhetorical thrust of the work as a whole. However, even when preaching solitary sermons on a text or topical studies that center on one or two passages of scripture, it is necessary to engage in the whole process; even if to a lesser extent. The goal in this exegetical process is to understand the message in the text in the way that the original author and the original recipients would have understood it. It is by this triangulation of the three points of the hermeneutical spectrum; author, text and reader that the preacher can maintain his link to meaning as we best understand it. Unless one goes through the labor of understanding the details of the text, he is cut off from the authority inherent in the message that the Holy Spirit inspired into the text.

While the exegetical work in the text is certainly foundational and indispensable to the enterprise of interpretation in order to maintain the link to inspiration and the authority of the Holy Spirit; it is not the last word when it comes to the interpretive process. Revelation was given to us so that we might know God and His ways and plans more fully. In this way, the text of Scripture is no mere historical artifact; it is the authoritative revelation of the God with whom the Church is in Covenant relationship. Therefore, for our knowledge about God and His ways and purposes is to be authoritative, it must be based on what is communicated about Him through the text of Scripture. In this way, the interpretive process must not be satisfied only with the historical exegesis; it must press on to the theological dimension.

The first aspect of the theological dimension relates directly to what the text under examination for preaching communicates about God. Every text, in some way or another, will communicate something to us of the character or purpose of God. Even texts where there may be a conspicuous absence of direct mention of God may lead us to greater understanding of His providential ways of governing the world and its systems. It is important, therefore, to understand that this first aspect of theological reflection flows directly from the pericope at hand.

However, just as historical exegesis is not the stopping point for interpretation but necessarily leads into the theological process, the theology which is explicitly drawn from the exegetical detail work in the text is the foundation for further theological reflection across the canon to understand God’s ways and purposes in the full light of progressive revelation. This is especially true when it comes to the task of preaching. It is important and necessary to demonstrate how there are trajectories in every OT text that find their telos in Christ and His salvific work on behalf of God’s people. Thus this step is, in a sense, a bridge between the theological reflection stage and application stage for the Church. While it is true that the Old Testament texts contain knowledge about God that is true and authoritative on its own, Christians living in the New Covenant era inaugurated by Christ’s death, burial, resurrection and ascension cannot end the theological process merely with grasping a texts original theological significance. Any knowledge of God at this stage of redemptive history is mediated by Christ who is YHWH revealed to us in the flesh and who represents the culmination of God’s saving work on behalf of His people.

Sidney Greidanus has done much work on how to preach the Old Testament scripture Christianly in a hermeneutically responsible way. He outlines six broad ways in which the Old Testament texts can find their telos in Christ. Each of these ways is gleaned from ways in which the New Testament authors are shown to understand and interpret the Old Testament texts in light of the Christ event. These include the way of redemptive-historical progression, promise-fulfillment, typology, analogy, longitudinal themes, and contrast. Thus, any text can be shown to have trajectories that lead to Christ’s work in at least one or possible several of these ways. It is by careful understanding of redemptive history and the careful application of these categories based on an accurate exegesis of the text that safeguards the theological process from fanciful conclusions. It can thus be said that for Christians, the Old Testament is to be understood to have its own authority as it did for the Covenant community in the OT. Now, in addition, it also has authority in as much as it provides the categories by which we understand the culmination of YHWH’s saving and redeeming work through Jesus Christ.

Once the detailed work of exegesis and the Christo-telic theological reflection are completed, it is important for a preacher to grasp how to apply the text and its accompanying theology to the gathered Church. Unfortunately, preaching in the contemporary, Evangelical church is often shallow and moralizing to the extent that much of Western Christianity is theologically impoverished and legalistic. Western Christians are so pragmatically driven that unless they have an “action step” to take home with them from a Sunday service, they feel that the preacher has not made application. Against this, it must be asserted that having our view of God enlarged is certainly a sure starting point for application if not a sufficient application in and of itself! Seeing the grandeur and sovereignty of YHWH played out across the OT narratives and beautifully expressed in the prophetic and poetic books should be enough to move the Church to worship. In this way, the process of theological reflection based on the exegesis of the passage is directly applicable to New Covenant believers.

In addition, I believe that it is possible to preach ethics from the Old Testament in a hermeneutically responsible and non-legalistic manner. Unfortunately, the vast majority of preaching from the Old Testament in the American church, which attempts to focus on ethics, tends to try to exhort Christians from the moral examples of the characters portrayed in the OT. The sad fact of such preaching is that it gives people a standard, whether real or fabricated, without the accompanying theological motivation necessary for the ethic to not be legalistic. Whenever right action is done from improper motivation, it is just as sinful as doing the wrong action. However, anything done from the motivation of wanting to see God’s Name honored through Christ will be pleasing to God. Therefore, the Church needs to recover a theocentric approach to ethics.

In addition to gaining a proper motivation for honoring God through preaching His glory from the Old Testament, there needs to be an accompanying emphasis on the Gospel. It is through the work of the Spirit which was purchased by Christ’s atoning and victorious death on the Cross that Christians are able to live lives that honor God by exalting His glory. It is ultimately in the Gospel that Christians find the proper motivation and necessary power to please God in their lives. This primacy of the Gospel in the Christian life is what necessitates the Christo-telic interpretation of the Old Testament. Unless Christians are continually brought back to the Gospel or shown how Old Testament texts culminate in the Gospel, any ethical exhortation a preacher makes will be in danger of producing legalism in the life of the congregation.
It is through the process of top-down and bottom-up exegesis and canonical theological reflection that is based in the exegesis of the text that we can see preaching and teaching as the culmination of the entire interpretive process. It is essential to recognize that each of these elements must be in place in order to maintain our link to scripture which is the authoritative, inspired Word of God. However, there is no value in the detailed exegetical work or theological process unless it produces fruit for the sake of the Church. These texts were meant to be understood and God was meant to be seen for the sake of His Covenant community of which we are a part. In addition, we must also remember that each step of the process of preparation for teaching and preaching needs to be done in conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit. As the One at Work to inspire the texts of scripture, it is through his agency that our hermeneutical models and ways of drawing application from the text will ultimately be successful.

Bibliography

Broyles, Craig C., Editor. Interpreting the Old Testament: A Guide for Exegesis. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

Chapell, Bryan. Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon. Second Edition. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.

Chisholm, Robert B. From Exegesis to Exposition: A Practical Guide to Using the Hebrew Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998.

Goldsworthy, Graeme. Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics: Foundations and Principles of Evangelical Biblical Interpretation. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Academic, 2006.

----------------------. Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000.

Greidanus, Sidney. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999.

----------------------. The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988.

Stuart, Douglas. Old Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors. Third Edition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

Back to Britain

I liked this enough that I thought I would co-opt it for my rarely updated blog!

Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A. ----A Message from John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America:

"In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately."

"Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas ,which she does not fancy)."

"Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed."

"To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. "You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary, then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. "The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. "Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, 'God Save The Queen'.

4. "July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday."

5. "You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. "Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. "All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

8. "All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

9. "The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

10. "You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

11. "The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.

12. "Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie McDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

13. "You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will,in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

14. "Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

15. "You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

16. "An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

17. "Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season."

"God save the Queen."

ht: Ben Witherington

Left Behind?

I didn't realize that Billy Graham was coming back for me???

Wordle

I just wordled one of my paper's from this past semester.  I wrote it for my atonement class and entitled it "Glory, Love and Justice".  See if you can figure out what I wrote about ;-)

title="Wordle: Glory, Love and Justice"> src="http://wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/08850/Glory%2C_Love_and_Justice"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd"
>

My Wife

If you know my wife, then you know that this picture describes her pretty well.  Starbucks and reading (esp. Piper books) sum her up pretty well :-)  I love you Baby!

Book Review: Isaiah's New Exodus in Mark

I recently finished reading Isaiah's New Exodus in Mark by Rikki Watts, now a professor at Regent College in Vancouver, BC.  Anyone who has the technical ability to wade through the Greek and Hebrew references will glean pure gold from this work! It has opened my eyes to understanding the Gospels as well as the ministry of Jesus in a Biblical-Theological framework.  I'm including my review which I wrote for my Exegesis of Mark class.  Hopefully this can whet your appetite for more to come!

Isaiah's New Exodus on Amazon.com

Introduction:
Given the rise of literary criticism as a sub-discipline of Biblical Studies and the resurgence of interest in theological interpretation, there has been a greatly renewed interest in the Gospels in their final, canonical form. With regards to the Gospel of Mark, this new scholarly climate has resulted in greater attention and debate as to Mark’s overall literary organization and the bearing that it has for Mark’s Biblical Theology. It is into this milieu that Rikki Watts has presented Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark. His central thrust is that Mark has structured his gospel account in order to demonstrate that Jesus, in His life, ministry, death and resurrection, fulfilled the long standing Jewish hope of a New Exodus and consequent end to exile that had been promised in the Prophet Isaiah. Thus, Jesus both stands in continuity with and yet redefines the hopes that Israel had been carrying with her for centuries.

Argument of the Book:
Watts begins his studying with an examination of the major literary-theological works on the Gospel of Mark in the past 50 years. He is careful in each instance to note the important contributions and insights that each author has into Mark but also demonstrates that each author comes up short when trying to see a unified way in which Mark structures his gospel and draws on Old Testament imagery. One constant motif that emerges again and again in the surveyed literature is the theme of Exodus and the noted use of Exodus imagery in the Gospel. Watts notes that these authors are successful in demonstrating a link to the Exodus at individual points in the Gospel but are less compelling when they attempt to see an overarching Exodus structure. Although he hints as his solution to this difficulty, namely that Mark makes use of the Exodus motif in as much as it was reinterpreted in Isaiah 40-66, he saves this assertion for a later point in his work.  

From his survey of previous works on Mark, he proceeds to articulate a hermeneutic that he argues Mark has made use of in bringing the OT to bear on his narrative. Through a detailed analysis of Ideology as expressed in the discipline of Sociology, he explains that a community will maintain its identity and self-understanding based on continuous reference to what he calls its unique founding moment. Based on this unique founding moment, an author may make textual allusions that are designed to make the reader recall a whole historical, sociological grid. He writes, “I suggest that his (Mark’s) ‘grand piano’ is a schematized interpretive ‘map’ of Israel’s ‘history’ and that his OT part-citations or allusions may function as ‘grid references’ to that map which gives expression and order to Israel’s interpretation of her history, namely the OT.” In light of this understanding and the often observed influence of Isaiah 40-55 on Mark, Watts proceeds to examine the gospel to see how Mark’s use of OT citations, allusions and imagery may shed light on the structure of Mark’s gospel.  

Particularly key for Watts’ argument is the function of the opening conflated citation of Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 in Mk 1:2-3. Isaiah 40 introduces his New Exodus (NE) schema that is developed throughout the remained of the book. He argues that the Malachi 3 portion of the citation functions as a development of Isaiah’s NE expectation that serves to explain why his NE has been delayed. Together, they form a controlling ‘grid reference’ by which the reader is alerted to the interpretive framework that Mark is attempting to develop and argue for through his narrative. Watts writes,

“for Mark the long-awaited coming of Yahweh as King and Warrior has begun, and with it, the inauguration of Israel’s eschatological comfort: her deliverance from the hands of the nations, the journey of her exiles to their home and their eventual arrival at Jerusalem, the place of Yahweh’s presence.”

This editorial citation functions according to the norm of ancient literature in which such a citation establishes the conceptual framework for the remainder of the work.
The bulk of the rest of Watt’s book serves to demonstrate how looking at Mark from the perspective of the fulfillment of an INE schema serves to make better sense of Mark’s structure than previous proposals and ultimately demonstrates that, at least for Mark, Jesus’ ministry was the culmination of the long-awaited hopes of YHWH’s deliverance of Israel although in Jesus both Israel and their hope are drastically redefined. Watts, along with many other commentators, sees two major breaks in the Gospel’s narrative at 8:21-27 and 10:45-11:1 which would divide the book into a three part structure consisting of Jesus’ ministry in which He preaches and performs miracles, Jesus leading His blind and deaf disciples along a ‘way’ and finally an arrival in Jerusalem. According to Watts, this structure

“displays broad parallels with the INE schema of A) Yahweh’s deliverance and healing of his exiled people, B) a journey where ‘blind’ Israel is led along ‘a way they do not know’, and C) arrival in Jerusalem.”

At each point in each of these three major sections, he is careful to demonstrate how the major features of the narrative demonstrate are consistent with a NE hermeneutic and how such a hermeneutic lends a hand in helping solve difficult interpretive questions in the work.
Finally, Watts concludes his study with a chapter in which he recognizes the limitations or temptations of such a study to make all the evidence fit within the desire schema. So, in good critical realist fashion, he sets forth the Theory of Consilience and the criterion of simplicity from the Philosophy of Science in an effort to justify his study. So, while he admits that he may not be completely convincing at every stage of his argument for a controlling NE framework for Mark’s gospel, it “leads to a greater degree of consilience than any other literary theory yet proposed for Mark in that it explains and integrates a large number of previously separate classes of recognized phenomena.”

Evaluation:
Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark is, I believe, a masterful and well argued study of Mark’s Gospel which seems to shed light on its narrative technique as well as the Biblical Theology that it sets forth. Watts displays a great degree of skill in both Greek and Hebrew exegesis and appears to be knowledgeable about nearly every major secondary source on the Gospel of Mark extant at the time of his writing (his bibliography is nearly 45 pages long!). He brings these skills together to weave a convincing picture of what Mark is up to in his gospel.  

It could be argued that at times Watts does cook his evidence to fit into a NE schema. Indeed, when at an exegetical or theological impasse, a reference to Mark’s controlling INE framework seems to be, at least for him, what would tip the scales of interpretation in favor of his hermeneutic. So, in these instances, his arguments can become admittedly circular, a fact which he appears to recognize as he writes his final conclusion to the work. However, it should be noted again that this study does not rise or fall on individual interpretations of events and pericopae. The strength of his argument is that it seems to better fit the evidence than any other scheme that that has yet been proposed. He recognizes that there are other OT themes and motifs at work in the gospel other than a NE one and so he shows appropriate scholarly humility in holding individual interpretations loosely. What is important for him is that the INE motif provides the “conceptual framework” for the narrative.  

One area in which I wish Watts could have been clearer was in his assertion that Jesus’ ministry was, at least for Mark, the fulfillment of the NE hope of Isaiah. However, it never seems to be defined clearly what he means by “fulfillment”. One wonders whether he understands to be Mark attempting to show a partial fulfillment, an inaugurated fulfillment or a final fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. It seems that there are clues in the gospel that would lead one to see the events of Jesus’ ministry in Mark as an initial or “inaugurated” fulfillment and more careful nuancing on Watts’ part would have lead, I think, to an even larger theological payoff for the work in terms of helping to articulate a broader New Testament Theology.

Conclusion:

Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark appears to be a groundbreaking study on Mark’s gospel which sheds much light on what is happening in the work from both a literary and a theological perspective. As I’m sure it already has been, I believe that it will continue to be a resource and base from which many scholars can penetrate further into the gospel in an attempt to mine the riches that are there for the Church. I pray that in this way, it will cause people to more fully appreciate the work that Christ did on Earth in His life, death and resurrection and bring the Church to stand in greater awe and worship of YHWH through His Servant, Jesus.

Why the Prosperity Gospel is not Gospel!

Here's a powerful video showing John Piper explain why the "Prosperity Gospel" is not true gospel at all.

ht: Justin Taylor

Christmas Break!!!

I am now officially on Christmas Break and it feels amazing!  I don't think that I've ever longed for a Christmas break as much as I have this semester.  My first semester at Wheaton has been so sweet and yet so challenging all at once.  The Bible feels more real to me and God more majestic and awesome than I've felt for quite a while and for these things I'm so grateful to Him!  But, this picture sums up pretty well how I feel right now:

So, on to Christmas Break!  Katie and I leave early tomorrow morning for a week in California where we're absolutely excited to see our families, our church family at Copperhill and enjoy not worrying about snow!  We're praying that it would be a sweet time of fellowship and that God would make us sad, again, to leave.  

I'm hoping to do some intense reading over the break in order to get ready for next semester.  My first project is to finish Jesus and the Victory of God by N.T. Wright.  I'm actually considering starting it over since I think I would be all the more benefitted by it after this semester. Wright has some important things to say to the church and he seems to have become the force to be reckoned with in Biblical Scholarship.    

Following that, if there even is a follow up to that, I would also like to finish The Temple and the Church's Mission by G.K. Beale, one of my professors at Wheaton.  This book traces the Temple theme throughout scripture and then relates it to the purpose of the church at this stage of redemptive history.  I think that this book has a lot of practical value in helping Christians to think theologically about the presence of God.   

If I happen to have a few minutes to spare, I would also like to reacquaint myself with some of Milton's poetry.  Milton is so refreshingly God-centered and his Biblical emphasis on discernment is something that is desperately needed in our contemporary theological and church climate.  I love and advocate a "Missional" approach to ministry but so many people and ministries that claim the label "missional" are really just a sell out to our culture.  We need to think about and engage our culture in a gloriously God-centered and countercultural way so that God is seen for who He is.  I think Milton has a lot to say to us in this particular regard!

Maybe after all that I'll enjoy some fiction.  I want to try and make sure that my mind doesn't become accustomed to reading only dense treatises.  Fiction is good for the mind and helps us read the Bible in a more true-to-life manner.  If anyone has some good suggestions for fiction, feel free to let me know!  

Well, I pray that God blesses you all this Christmas Season with the knowledge and comfort that come from the amazing truth of the incarnation.  I leave you with a quote from Daniel Fuller regarding the astonishing fact of God becoming man:

"Some idea of how much glory Jesus therefore lost in his incarnation can be found in the words of a well-known hymn that speaks of his leaving the "ivory palaces" and coming into a "world of woe."  A helpful picture to have in mind is that of Jesus' descending a winding staircase stretching for a very long distance from the glory of heaven above far down into a world of wretched misery.  Each downward stop in leaving this glory increased the pain Jesus underwent to pay for our sins, and so a good part of the severity of the punishment Jesus suffered for us consisted in coming down this staircase, whose length cannot be exaggerated, since it spanned the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature."

-Daniel Fuller in Unity of the Bible

Snowy Morning

I found this on Justin Taylor's blog and had to post it.  Enjoy ;-)

Why Is Missional Important? Pt. 1

There are many facets of the answer to the question I posed above but let me show you my cards beforehand and say: Missional theology and ministry is important because it gets the Gospel!  If this is the case then the trendy label “missional” is at least an accurate description of a key aspect of our Biblical faith and at most an apt synonym for the entire package of Biblical Christianity. 

 

Now, after making such a bold statement the question could legitimately be asked, “If Missional is a buzzword for Biblical Christianity then why the label?”  Let me give some background:  The modern missions movement begain in the late 1700’s when the renown Reformed Baptist and Father of Modern Missions, William Carey, departed England for India.  As he went out and other western missionaries followed his example into the uttermost parts of the Earth they were all forced to come to grips with an aspect of the task they were entrusted with.  That is, they were forced to deal with the phenomenon of Culture and in case anyone is wondering, 18^th century European and North American culture was in no way similar to the various cultures that met these pioneering missionaries as they spread out over the non-western world.  And so, while the essential gospel message that these men and women taught was the same it took different shapes and forms in order to incarnate itself into the local culture.  They had discovered essentially what Paul meant when he said:

 

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.  To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.  To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.  I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings

-       1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV

 

As time progressed, Missionaries became more and more skilled at incarnating the gospel into the various cultures to which they were sent and principles began to be developed on how to handle the difficult balance of being faithful to the message and theology of the Gospel and how to dress that message in the clothing of the local people.  However, even while these developments were happening in missions, there was an neglect of these principles at home in the Western world.  For a long time though, churches were able to continue to preaching and teaching in the ways that they always had while being oblivious to the culture because at its core, Western Society was still firmly rooted in an understanding of the gospel.  Christians were oblivious to how to incarnate the gospel because, to a great extent, they didn’t need to. 

 

However, with the increase in Philosophical Skepticism and the increasing advance of Cultural Postmodernism, we in the West are now living in a Post-Christian society and culture.  The air we breathe is not the same air that even our Parents or Grandparents grew up breathing and this calls for new ways for the gospel to be articulated in order for it to be brought to bear on our culture.  Basically, the Western church is now in desperate need of the incarnational principles that have been developed by missionaries and missions agencies serving in non-western contexts.  However, now these ideas and principles are being applied at HOME.  There is an enormous need for the church to be missionaries in OUR OWN CULTURE.  This is where we get the term “missional”. 

 

One thing I would like to point out is that the Church’s role as “missionaries” in it’s own culture is technically not a new development.  This is what the Church has ALWAYS been called to and it is only because it has largely NEGLECTED this mission that we now find ourselves in a position where some who claim the name of Christ are actually hostile to this idea of incarnating the gospel into our own 21^st century Western Context.  It is only because the fish worked hard enough to convince itself that it wasn’t living in water that it was surprised to wake up one morning feeling wet.  But more on that tomorrow…