Wednesday, August 27, 2003
I often wonder how many of us have felt at various times as if God was going to "battle" with us. By that I mean the sense that the Lord seemed either absent from us or that He was "making" life difficult and trying for us. Think of the story of Ruth. In this story a picture is painted of a woman, Naomi, who after experiencing horrible loss (the death of her husband and two sons and no dependents) expressed from the depths of her being the feeling that the Lord had gone to "battle" with her.
"So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (Ruth 1:19-21).
You could imagine her despair. She had lost everything, her family, her land, and as a widow in that world, with nobody to take care of her (especially in the days of the Judges when there was evil in the land) she was as good as dead. To make matters worse, she believed that the Lord had decided to go to court with her and she knew she had no chance. She could not stand against the Lord in court for He could not lose. There is no doubt, at least from the biblical witness, that there is a sense that God comes or at the very least allows His people to go through some awful and trying times. I also think from the biblical witness that it was not "impious" for his people to cry out "why Lord, why?" And that is what I am getting at. So often in Christian circles (and quite frankly I notice this more in the Reformed Camp though admittedly that is where I spend my most time) there is a knee jerk reaction, when a brother or sister cries out and expresses that they feel as though God has gone to "battle" with them or that their faith is being tested and they are struggling with trust, to set them straight. You know the cliches "oh you will have to pray through this" or "maybe God is testing you because your heart is not right" or "the Lord knows what's best for you" or "God is sovereign everything will work out." That is, however, often the quandry though isn't it? I mean it is precisely because you know God is sovereign that the angst comes. "Lord you are in control, therefore why am I going through this. You can take this away. Why don't you?" "Lord, how could it be good for me that my child has died?" Or that I have gone bankrupt and lost everything. There is a tyranny that I suspect we all feel (I don't like overstatements) so I will say that I have at times certainly felt (especially being a seminarian and wanting to Pastor the people of God I am supposed to have it all together. Right!!! All the "i's" dotted and the "t's" crossed) that tyranny to act like all is well with God and me. There are times that I have wondered to God, "why" or "what's the point". There are times I have felt as if God took up battle with me and let me tell you it is helpless feeling. I know it is "battle" I will lose. If the Lord decides to go to court with me and test me, I have no case to bring. I know there are some who may read this post (all three people LOL)and think to themselves, "This man is impious. How dare he even think of being a Pastor. He would lead people to doubt. How could a Christian say such a thing?" How do I know that? Just read some of the blogs when a person blogs about how hard things are for them at a certain time and read some of the "advice." Someone is just expressing themselves and boom the replies come in. "You need to pray." (Implying that the person isn't praying to God) "Well, maybe you need to get right with God." (Implying that the person isn't right with God). However, look at the biblical witness. You have Naomi, Asaph (Psalm 73), Job (and by the way it's the characters that had all the answers, who are said by the Lord to have spoken wrongly about God, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. "After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8 Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job's prayer" (Job 42:7-9)). What are we to say of Elijah who wanted his life to end (1st Kings 18), or the Apostle Paul who himself also said that he despaired of life itself (2nd Cor. 1:8) even though he knew that what God was actually doing was a good thing in and of itself. I don't know about you, but people don't ordinarily despair of life if they are enjoying what they are going through! Or what about Paul's cry to the Lord to heal him of his thorn in the flesh. He says he pleaded with the Lord, which again, I don't tend to think of people pleading who say, "Well Lord if you want you can heal me and if it be your will." No, I tend to think that a plead is more like an angstful cry from the depths of the heart. Again, Paul knows that these things do work for the good in some mysterious manner but that doesn't mean he is pleading, "Thank you, may I have another." Not at all. He is going through real pain and real despair. I could imagine that Paul wondered why many times in his labors for the Lord. Last of all though we have Jesus in the Garden and we have Jesus on the cross. The cry of Jesus from the cross resonates and haunts. The One who proclaimed the nearness of God and Kingdom of God, dies with a DEATH CRY that reverberates throughout the ages,"My God, My God, why have you Forsaken Me." Jesus dies as no stoic. Jesus dies with no grin and bear it attitude. No Jesus dies struggling and feeling abandoned. Jesus dies feeling in that moment that God had come to "battle" with Him. May we, who have been given the faith of Christ, persevere amidst the tears, the angst, the grief, the joys, the ups and the downs, that in all things we would say that I know that my Redeemer Lives and He shall take his stand upon the earth and in my flesh I will see God. Then and only then in the new heavens and the new earth will things be finally and totally the way they were meant to be. Amen.
posted by Tom 10:52 PM | Discuss |
Saturday, August 23, 2003
It is Saturday and that means the weekly barbeque. The chicken, which has been soaking in limes and herbs and who knows what else, is cooking up. Anyway, the weekly barbeque also means the weekly music. Tim and Seth, two thirds of the Gray Brothers, who by the way played the Double Door (the only true Charlotte music venue which has had Stevie Ray Vaughn, Clapton, Buddy Guy among others) last weekend will of course bring their talents and people like me will join in and drag them down!!! Well I will try not to drag them down but I will join in, I can't help myself when it comes to singing. One of the best nightime songs, after a good meal, good drink, and good conversation, is the following song from the Eagles.
There are stars in the southern sky
Southward as you go.
There is moonlight and moss in the trees
Down the Seven Bridges Road.
Now I have loved you like a baby...
Like some lonesome child,
And I have loved you in a tame way,
And I have loved you wild.
Sometimes there's a part of me
Has to turn from here and go...
Running like a child from these warm stars
Down the Seven Bridges Road.
There are stars in the southern sky.
And if ever you decide you should go,
There is a taste of time sweet and honey
Down the Seven Bridges Road.
posted by Tom 7:14 PM | Discuss |
When the Jewish people, even to this day, celebrate the Passover they celebrate the meal not only as a memorial that is off in some distant past but they are to speak of it as a present reality. Though the Exodus from Egypt happened long ago, those who participate in the meal paticipate in the Exodus event (Exodus 13:8). Think of Jesus telling the disciples as he sits to eat with them on the night that he was betrayed, that he has earnestly desired to eat this Passover meal with them. He then tells them, in a manner reminiscent of the Lord to Israel concering the Passover feast, to do this in remembrance of himself. Could it be that the Eucharistic Meal that we celebrate in the present is a particpation in that night in which Jesus took bread and wine and said this is My Body, This is My Blood? Could it be that this is what Paul is getting at in 1st Corinthians 10:16, when he says rhetorically, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?"
posted by Tom 11:57 AM | Discuss |
Here is a quote from T.F. Torrance:
"It was indeed in the course of the Old Testament revelation that nearly all the basic concepts we Christians use were hammered out by the Word of God on the anvil of Israel. They constitute the essential furniture of our knowledge of God even in and through Jesus. If the Word of God had become incarnate among us apart from all that, it could not have been grasped- Jesus himself would have remained a bewildering enigma. It was just because Jesus, born from above as he was, was nevertheless produced through the womb of Israel, mediated to us through the matrix of those conceptual and linguistic patterns, that he could be recognized as Son of God and Savior and his crucifixion could be interpreted as atoning sacrifice for sin. It was because God mediated his revelation to mankind in that patient, informing way through the history of Israel and within the interpretive framework of its relation with God in salvation and worship, that people were able iin that context to know God in Jesus and enter into communion with him, and proclaim him to the world. . . We have tended to abstract Jesus from his setting in the context in Israel and its vicarious mission in regard to divine revelation. . . That is to say. we detach patterns of thought from their embodiment in Israel as they presented in the Old Testament Scriptures, or even in the New Testament, and then schematize them to our own culture, a western culture, an african culture, an asian culture, whatever culture it may be. . . When we seek to interpret Jesus within the conditioning of, for example, our European culture, we inevitably lose him. The continued attempt to make Jesus relevant to modern ways of thought has the effect of obscuring him, for all the time we have been engaged in plastering upon the face of Jesus a mask of different gentile features which prevent us from seeing him and understanding him as he really is, as a Jew. . . we need Jewish eyes to help us see what we cannot see because of our gentile lenses, that is the cultural conditioned habits of thought and interpretation which we bring to Jesus and which makes us read into him the kind of observational images which have played such a dominant role in our literary culture and, until recent decades our scientific culture as well."
posted by Tom 9:40 AM | Discuss |
Friday, August 22, 2003
It seems to me that a good number of people feel an overwhelming need to "justify" their actions. What do I mean by that? I mean there exists, as I see it, a pathos that compels people to make defenses and arguments for things that they like. I could think of many examples but entertainment comes to my mind in particular. Take movies, especially if they are of the potentially "offensive" variety. If one likes the movie, they feel the need to give a long well reasoned answer as to why they liked it. It's pro's and con's, it's sublime "theological message." I would love to have a nickel for every person who has reacted with "horror" because I didn't like "The Lord of the Rings." My answer, "I didn't like it" doesn't suffice, which makes me laugh. I have had at least 3-4 people tell me how I am not getting the metaphor and how Tolkien is showing the Gospel etc... He may well have done just that but I still didn't like the movie. I don't like movies like that, heck I hated Star Wars as a kid, I didn't like the Matrix. For me, when I go to a movie I like to shut my brain "off " and relax. I would be a horrible movie reviewer because it always seems as if I forget most of the movie 30 minutes or so after it ends. I saw a movie the other day, all I could say about it now is this: people got killed, it was campy which made it funny, and it did the most money at the box office over the weekend. This post probably makes no sense but it's late and I had a long day and I am rambling!
posted by Tom 12:46 AM | Discuss |
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
I registered for the fall semester today. I have a good schedule. I have class on Monday 1-4, Tuesday 9-6, Thursday 8:30-5, and I am off Wednesday and Friday. It was a good feeling when I registered to be able to sign my name on the "Please sign if you are graduating in May '04" list. I had the privilege to preach Sunday evening at Church. The sermon was on John 5:30-47 "These Testify of Me" and it was about how the Scriptures are a servant of redemption, a line from Geerhardus Vos, that point beyond themselves to the Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth.
posted by Tom 6:25 PM | Discuss |
Saturday, August 16, 2003
Finally I am going to post the second part on righteousness.
So here we have the image of God entrusted with the task to bring to perfection the very good world made by God. To be man and woman means to participate in what the LORD has done, is doing, and will do. The story tells us that Adam and Eve failed in their fidelity to the LORD. They were not content to be under the LORD but to be equal to the LORD, deciding for themselves what was good and evil. They overstepped their bounds, if you will, and forgot that God is wholly other than them. They came from God, not God from them. Is that not the heart of sin; establishing for ourseleves what is good and evil and thus standing in judgement over good and evil, refusing to submit to what God deems is good and evil? Colin Gunton put it this way, "The essence of sin consists in wanting to be like God otherwise than in the way he invites and enables us to be like him." Adam and Eve fail in their vocation to live out the image of God and reflect in the world and by consequence back to God his glory and honor. God had made the world eschatologically, that is to say for salvation. Because of Adam and Eve's sin the only way for that eschatological, soteriological purpose to be realized is through redemption. I quote again the late Colin Gunton, "The purposed end of the story is the perfection of the 'work of art' to the glory of its creator." That is what redemption of the world is to produce. It is to set everything to rights, from the universe to human beings to ecogology, whatever exists that needs to be restored is included in the redemption. The New Testament informs us that Jesus Christ is the one in whom and through whom and for whom the world was created (e.g. John 1 and Col 1). This begs the question, would Jesus have come if there was no fall? We speak here where angels dare not tread, for it is dangerous to speculate on such matters but is it a stretch to say, since the world was created for the Son, through the Son, as a gift from the Father to be perfected in the Spirit, that Jesus would have come to the world even if there was no need of redemption? Though, I will say this: if the world was created for the Son, through the Son, by God to be perfected with the work of the Spirit, then two things need to be said, 1) that is why God does not DESTROY the world because to do so negates the gift of creation for the Son 2) it is appropiate that since the world was made for the Son that the Son would come to the world and become Man and not the Father or the Spirit. The eschatological purpose of God, to bring the world to perfection (salvation), is begun, or shall we say put back in place and brought back to course, in the life of Jesus. Israel's calling and election as the answer to Adam and Eve has come into the world in the man Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, the redemptive election of Israel is fulfilled in Jesus, who himself says, "salvation is of the Jews." Why is salvation of the Jews? Because they were the people entrusted to be the ones in whom God would set to right the world, in short the answer to Adam. That is why Paul calls Jesus the Second Adam. That is why Jesus calls himself the Son of Man. Think of what Paul writes concerning Jesus, "He is the image of the invisible God" (Col.1:15). Now our default setting when reading that is to think of this as pertaining solely to Jesus' deity. I propose that it is, however, a throughly Pauline way of saying Jesus is the true human. NT Wright says it best, "Humanity was made as the climax of the first creation (Gen. 1:26-27): the true humanity of Jesus is the climax of the history of creation, and at the same time the starting point of the new creation. . . the man Jesus fulfills the purposes which God had marked out both for himself and for humanity. Upon Jesus Christ, then, has come the role marked out for humanity, and hence for Israel." Ben Witherington puts it this way, "Jesus is the eschatolgical Adam. All of what Paul says has an eschatological flavor. In a sense, Jesus is starting a new creation, being firstfruits from the dead. But in another sense he is the end and the goal of the whole human race. . . He is bringing in the last age, the new creation, the end of God's plan. . . Jesus is the second human being." So what does all this have to do with righteousness and being righteous? Well for starters, those who are in Christ particpate in his righteousness. Those who have been grafted into the 2nd Adam share in his life. The purpose of Jesus' coming to redeem the world was to set the world back on course, we could argue that it is even better because of who Jesus is, but suffice to say, that at the very least Jesus came to overturn what Adam did restoring and refashioning (My imagination thinks of the image of God being broken in pieces and Jesus coming into that broken world and broken image and refashioning and remaking it from the inside out TF Torrance is excellent on this idea. Jesus does not come to the place where Adam started in the Garden of Eden but where Adam finished, cast into exile from the Garden, thus the body that Jesus receives is a broken body that is in the likeness of sinful flesh that he might destroy the fracturedness of this world from the inside out) humanity back to their rightplace as God's image bearers in the world. That is why the Church is the Body of Christ. The Church particpates in the Image of God as revealed in the Incarnate Son. We are united to him that we might particpate in the eschatolgical purpose of God. And what is that eschatological purpose of God: to perfect the very good creation of God and reflect God's glory into the world and back unto God. When Paul says that we are the righteousness of God, among the many things that he is saying is that we participate in the new creation, the new humanity (Eph. 2:15). We are participating in the eschatological, soteriological purpose of God as it has been manifested in the One who is both God and Man, Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, we who are in Christ must be a people who bring to bear upon the world this truth. We thus care about the arts. We care about populating the world. We care about the sciences. These are righteous endeavors that bring glory to God. They need NO JUSTIFICATION. We celebrate and worship the God who creates the world and yes restores the world by participating in the body of Christ and in turn live out in our spheres the Kingdom of God, wherever that might be.
posted by Tom 12:11 PM | Discuss |
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
I should be sleeping because I have Greek class tomorrow and I need to get up early and study because I did not study that much today. It is one paradigm after another and to be honest it has been an easy but time consuming class. Like the Hebrew my grade though will not be indicative (good word for Greek!!!) of what I know. Yesterday got off to frustrating start as I was bit by mating ants (at least that's what it looked like) while I was sitting outside at school. I blame the incident for my failure to get a 100 on today's quiz, hey you always need an excuse! Today was a good day because my professor Dr. Harold O.J. Brown was back on campus. He has been feeling under the weather but he is doing much better. He and I went to lunch. I enjoy talking to him because he is a man who possesses not only great knowledge of Church history but who enjoys getting together with his students. His classes are great and are geared toward what I prefer in a class; participation. We hash out and tease out ideas in his classes which is what I like. In fact if I had my druthers there would only be two ways of testing; oral examination and papers. I don't like exams because I don't think you learn best that way. But I concede that is just my opinion because I know people who think I am nuts for prefering my way of testing. Anyway, I better get to bed I have a test in the morning.
posted by Tom 12:25 AM | Discuss |
Friday, August 08, 2003
This will be the first of two parts that I am writing on Righteousness.
Righteousness is one of those words that is hard to define as to what it really is, despite the fact that it is used quite a bit in our vocalbulary. What does it mean to be righteous? How does one become righteous? Can we become righteous and if not, why even bother at all? It is essential for those of us who believe in the One who is Righteousness Incarnate to seek our understanding of what righteousness might look like according to the Scripture. In order to do this, we must go back to the creation of man and woman. Adam was created from the dust of the earth and formed by the Lord, "then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature" (Gen. 2:7). This creation by God was different from all his prior creation. This creation of man would be God's image in the world, "Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen.1:26-27). It is VERY EASY to overlook the polemical nature of the story. While we know the Genesis account is written well after the actual creation, it is easy to forget that when we read the text. Genesis is written in a world that believed strongly in gods and they had a god for every situation. The gods were represented by frogs, gazelles, bulls, kings, mythic warriors etc... There would often be a statue (an IMAGE) of the god and the presence of the god was said to reside in some sense in the statue. Lest we make fun of the ancients for their strange and wicked beliefs, we know in our "so-called sophisticated" world that we have our gods. Think of Iraq and the ubiqitous images of Saddam Hussein spread throughout the country. Those images were not Hussein himself but to be sure they communicated his presence very well. I digress. Genesis is not originally written for the world, though it is the world's story, but for Israel. Who is Israel and why are they God's people? Genesis is the story that explains that to them. So Moses gives Israel the story that details for them how she came to be and why she has been chosen to be God's people. That story reveals, contrary to the pagan nations around them, that the image of God in the world does not reside in beasts or constellations or anything of the sort but in man and woman. God has his image in the world and it is humanity. Think back to images (idols); the image was not the god itself but the place in which the god's presence made its abode. The pagan nations did not view humanity, in and of itself, as the image of the gods but rather animals, or things in the heavens, or some kingly figure. In Genesis the opposite is true. Man is formed from the earth by God. The Lord has this image that he has just formed and he breathes His life into the image and the image comes to life. Is it a stretch to say that God's presence takes up residence within the man? That is to say the man as God's image is made to reflect God into the world. As one theologian commented, "If there is a sacramental reality, something uniquely or especially fitted to mirror the divine, it is the human race." In the midst of the story of man's creation we are told that it is not good for man to be alone. Here we have something that lies at the heart of being human; relationships with others. The man and woman are told to rule the world for God. They are righteous, that is to say they are in right relationship to their Creator the Lord God, with each other and they are to perform the tasks assigned to them. They are to cultivate the land, name the animals, populate the world and multiply themselves. This righteousness is not STATIC but fluid. It is creative (Doesn't Adam name the animals?), it is dynamic (They are to cultivate the land) it is eschatological. The Creation of the world is Eschatological, that is to say the world is to go somewhere and not stay put. The "Very Good" creation by the Lord is entrusted to his image to "perfect" the world. The man and woman are to bring to fruition what God had made. If this is an overstretch on my part, I would suggest why would the man and the woman be told "be frutiful and multiply?" Certainly the God who made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them could have just as easily made the world populated and full in an instant. But he doesn't. I propose that he doesn't do this because he is a patient God. He creates with a purpose. There is a telos to the creation. If I may be allowed to equivocate on the words "eschatological" and "soteriological" I think I could make the point this way; the creation was made with salvation in view. By this, I don't mean redemption. Redemption comes in to view after the fall. I mean prior to the fall God created with a purpose toward salvation, to take the world into perfection with his image, both man and woman at the very heart of that plan. This means that culture at its very core is to be engaged in the "ART" of perfecting that which was made "Very Good." To fail at that task is improperly reflect the image of God in the world. God, if you will, begins the work and entrusts his image to enage in the completion of that work. The Spirit of God is at work in the world through the image of God man and woman bringing glory to God shaping the creation toward the ends in which it was made.
posted by Tom 9:48 PM | Discuss |
Thursday, August 07, 2003
We are now starting on verbs. There are only five classes left of Greek I and we have already taken two of our three major exams and six of our ten quizzes. The apartment is decorated with paradigm charts hanging on the walls. It is hysterical. When our neighbors come over they immediately are drawn to look at them and their facial reactions are interesting. Something tells me that this is something only a couple of single guys could get away with doing to the walls of their home. I love the apartment complex where I live. The Lord's happy face of providence has definitely smiled on me here. Our neighbors (by that I mean about 20 people not just the people directly next door) are great and we have a real, bona fide community has been born here. Many of my neighbors are literally refugees. They are from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Vietnam. They have been and continue to be a source of friendship where lasting bonds have been formed. I can't help but think that the English program that was established has been the instrumental cause of the community. I marvel at the fact that last June 2002 many of our neighbors (friends) were new arrivals to Charlotte. They were understandably nervous. Fast forward one year later and every Saturday we have the weekly barbeque. We bring out the homemade brew (which by the way is excellent) the guitar (I can't play a lick of music but Tim and Seth my friends who are in a band can) the food and sit out back for hours just talking, laughing, or singing. It's funny to hear a request from Verilojb that "Sweet Home Alabama" be sung. It may be even funnier to hear a New Yorker attempt to sing it! The Montagnards come to the barbeques and they love them. Their growth in the last year has been nothing short of remarkable. A couple of the guys now have their driver's license. I will never forget the first day that a few of the guys were in my car for the first time. They were scared to say the least. They had only been here for about a week and they had come from a world where it is not uncommon for you to go somewhere and not return. There reaction when they saw a police man for the first time was telling!!!! Those days are but a distant memory. Now, forget about it, Ngli or Tat will just nonchalantly come on over to the apartment sit down and talk. The conversations are still choppy and require some intent listening but considering what it was some 13 months ago is nothing short of amazing. There is nothing like sharing meals with other people to build community, friendship, love, and the list could go on and on. Boy, that sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?
posted by Tom 6:49 PM | Discuss |
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Jacob Neusner's "Incarnation of God" has been one of the more influential books that I have read in the last year or so. Now a little needs to be said about Neusner. He is quite possibly the foremost Jewish scholar in the world. He is a professor at Bard College in New York and has written over 800 books. He was a classmate of Dr. Harold O.J. Brown, a professor of mine at the Seminary. Neusner is not a Christian and is not in the business of doing "apologetical work" for the Church's Christological claim. This is what makes the following quote all the more profound.
"The authorships of the Hebrew Scriptures would not have been surprised that in the final unfolding of the canonical writings of the Judaism dual Torah (Neusner defines Dual Torah from what we call the Old Testament and oral (also written) traditions of the 2nd Temple period up to the Rabbinic period) God gained corporeality and personality and so became incarnate. They had long ago portrayed God in richly personal terms: God wants, cares, demands, regrets, says, and does-just like human beings. God is not merely a collection of abstract theological attributes and thus rules for governance of reality. . .God is not a mere composite of regularities, but a very specific, highly particular personality, whom people can know, envision, engage, persuade, impress."
Neusner goes on to explain that when the Jewish teachers of the 2nd Temple period spoke of God coming to save Israel from her enemies and rule Israel, "they reentered that realm of discourse about God that Scripture had originally laid out." He adds, "Israel's Scripture's picture of God as incarnate, that personality who said to make us 'in our image, after our likeness.' "
Some of the ways that God made Himself Incarnate were in the creation of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are the image of God. The idea of an image communicates that something represents another thing, in this case some one (humanity) represents another one (God). The Temple was another way that God would incarnate Himself to Israel. Maybe Jesus is working within this belief when referring to His body being the Temple.
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2).
It seems pretty interesting that John records for us that when Jesus was resurrected the disciples remembered what Jesus had said and they believed the Scripture.
Now I just want to focus on two things here as it relates to some of what Neusener wrote. Now I admit, Neusner does not believe in the Messiah and Lord of the world Jesus of Nazareth. But as food for thought, think back to what Neusner says were some of the ways that Judaism spoke of God's Incarnation, the creation of humanity and the Temple. Think about this from the NT perspective and see if maybe this can make sense of what the NT writers write.
1. In Christ there is new creation. In Christ there is a new humanity. Does that not hearken us back to the creation of Adam and Eve? It sure does. 2. Those who are in Christ are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, thus Paul can say that we are the Temple of God. We are living stones and as such we participate in the redemptive work of God as He is recreating the cosmos. Does not the Psalmist say, "When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground" (104:30). Is it a stretch to say that we who are in Christ particpate in His Incarnation? Could it be that the Apostle has this running through his mind when he writes words that most exegetes are afraid of, for example:
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. 1).
The first part of that great passage is what I had in mind when I mentioned that most exegetes were "afraid" of. It sounds to "Roman Catholic" I suppose but you know what, who cares? Paul seems to believe that, in his life, especially in his sufferings, participates in the redemption of Christ. That is to say that when he suffers it is Christ suffering. Considering Paul encountered what he encountered on the Damascus Road, is it any wonder that he would believe this? He knew first hand from Christ Himself that to persecute a Christian was to persectute Christ!!!!
Anyway, I only post as food for thought!!! I have my 2nd Greek Exam tomorrow. I better study for it!!!
posted by Tom 3:47 PM | Discuss |
Saturday, August 02, 2003
My friend Mark, from school, got married today. Mark is one of those people that you meet in my life that is what I call a "keeper", a friend that you meet that you know you will stay in touch with the rest of your life. I drove down to Greenville from Charlotte to attend the ceremony. I have been to many weddings and, while I admit it is impossible to know what is going through someone's mind, I have never in my life seen a Bride overflow with love the way that Mark's Bride Monica did during the service. It is almost impossible to explain it except to say that it was evident to me and my friend Ben. The language of the vows were beautiful based on the perichoretic (the mutual indwelling of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) relationship of the members of the Trinity. If anyone ever tells me that doctrine is impractical all I would have to do is show them the bulletin of today's wedding and show them the language of the vows. It was a great time and privilege to attend the wedding of my brother in Christ!!! As we say in Italian when we toast "cent'anni" (one hundred years) though in dialect it sounds more like "chen don"!!!!
posted by Tom 11:42 PM | Discuss |
Friday, August 01, 2003
The first week of Greek I is over and there are now 9 classes left. We meet three hours a day for three weeks, which isn't bad. The Greek, at least in the beginning, has been easier than the Hebrew, especially the vocalbulary. We took our first major exam today and have two more left to take plus a daily quiz. What I like about taking the Greek at this point in Seminary is that I will graduate with the Greek fresh in my mind.
posted by Tom 4:39 PM | Discuss |
