Christ-centered Bible reading

A worthwhile thought-starter here on the difference between modern ways of reading the Bible and the approach taken by the ancient Fathers, including the writers of the New Testament.

Here’s an excerpt, but I really suggest you follow the link and read the excellent comments as well:

….several key points about the Fathers’ nonliteral and image-laden reading of the Bible.

1. The New Testament authors clearly applied Old Testament texts in ways that departed seriously from the plain, surface meaning of the text. When Paul cites Psalm 19 in Romans 10 (“their voice is gone out into all the world”), he applies the Psalmist’s statement about the heavens to the preaching of the apostles. This runs against the plain meaning, said Wilken.

2. The books of Scripture do not bear their own significance. They must be united to something greater, which is Christ. Thus Paul interprets the creation of man and woman as a great mystery, which is Christ and the church; and he interprets the water-giving rock in the Sinai desert as Christ.

3. Typically, such creative renderings of the Bible are focused on the Old Testament. That is because the Old Testament text signifies Christ, but the New Testament text does not signify another Christ. It requires no allegory or analogy to reveal the Incarnate Word.

4. The Fathers also understood the interpretation of Scripture to require the reader’s participation in the spiritual reality of the text. Thus it is not enough to say that Christ was crucified. We must also say, “I am crucified with Christ,” and thus also I am raised with Christ.

On point #3, above, I’d like to make a further comment.  While it is true that it is not “another Christ” that the NT signifies, we do see Paul saying, “even if we had known Christ according to the flesh, we now know him [in that way] no more; therefore if anyone be in Christ there is a new creation… (2 Corinthians 5:16-17),  Thus Christ in the NT is not just the historical figure of the rabbi from Nazareth, but is the salvation of the world, good news to the nations (ethne, Gentiles), the beginning and end of history.  As such, the full application of the meaning and presence of Christ in all situations, “in whom is hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” requires, it seems to me, a continual re-envisioning of the world as it is (not just as it was in the first century) and, it seems to me also, we have ample precedent in scripture and in the work of the Fathers for  applying by extension and analogy the truth of Christ to emerging circumstances, just as the Fathers and the NT writers did with respect to ancient Hebrew texts.

Jabez revisited

One of my online friends has posted a very thoughtful take on the Prayer of Jabez.  You should read it. An excerpt:

Many people interpret this as, “If you ask God to bless you, He’ll shower you with material wealth and whatever else you want.” But as I learned Sunday at Amy’s church, that’s not the case.

Did you notice verse 9 when it says Jabez got his name because his mother “gave birth to him in pain?” As the pastor explained, the name Jabez basically means “pain.” Can you imagine being called “Pain” all your life? That’s where verse 10 comes in, where Jabez prays that he would be “free from pain.” He wasn’t asking God for a life free from trouble (which is dumb, because Jesus said in this world we’ll have trouble), but that He would be able to turn Jabez’s curse into a blessing. And He did.

I like it when people think.  Especially preachers.

Verse of the Month — July 2009

Fulfillment

Love does no harm to its neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Romans 13:10

The Swift Boating of Obama

Back in 2004, a group of people who were very interested for partisan and ideological reasons in derailing the viability of John Kerry’s candidacy created a major distraction that was designed to do one thing, and history shows that by and large the purpose was accomplished. The design was to transform one of Kerry’s greatest strengths — his status as a decorated war hero — into a liability. The chosen means was the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” who produced public information consisting of half-truths, distortions and untruths to cast an indelible shadow on the public perception of the candidate’s character. The tactic was successful in part because Kerry’s campaign was slow in refuting the half-truths and untruths, considering them beneath the dignity of a detailed response. By the time detailed responses became necessary, the damage was done, and the candidate never recovered. A tactic known as “swift-boating” entered the political lexicon.

I’d like to frame recent events along similar lines in the following fashion. This year, as political enemies of Barack Obama searched for a way to transform one of his greatest strengths into a liability, they found just the way to do it. Not being able to find a way to do him damage with respect to his message or his positions on issues, echoing the approach of the political enemies of a faithful public servant mentioned in Daniel 6:5, they began to turn to his associations, his identity as a practicing Christian in an active church, and must have spent many hours combing through the vast bulk of recorded sermons of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to find short clips that, when edited to greatest effect and made public, would do for Obama what the allegations of the Swift Boat group did for Kerry.

Epistemological Modesty: An Interview with Peter Berger

Epistemological Modesty: An Interview with Peter Berger

The history of Protestantism has shown that real faith, which has to do with God and Christ and redemption and resurrection and sin and forgiveness, is not just a psychological or a political activity, and also that you can have real faith without being in some sort of narrow orthodox mold…

Schleiermacher has always been a theological model not so much in the content of his thought as in his basic approach to faith, …with the understanding that one cannot simply swallow the tradition but has to enter into a reasonable dialogue with it. In one of my books I call this the “heretical imperative”–you have to choose….

…Epistemological modesty means that you believe certain things, but you’re modest about these claims. You can be a believer and yet say, I’m not really sure. I think that is a fundamental fault line.

Having read Berger’s book The Heretical Imperative more than thirty years ago (and Schleiermacher near the same time) my current observation is that even within a given congregation there are essentially two kinds of religious enthusiasts, and the difference turns on this question of tolerance for uncertainty: Some find paradox intriguing, while others find it appalling. Maybe this is what separates faith from fundamentalism. The fundamentalist has a driving need, a fear-driven need I would say, to know for sure.

Breaking news: Young Blogger Catches Fire

The fire of God’s love, that is.  Look what he wrote: 

 In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells us, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (5:44, NIV) Easier said than done, I know! When I look out and see all the atrocities done in the name of God–the Most High whose love can never be fully comprehended by human minds–I want to attack. I want to shut the mouths of those who speak hatred forever.

Search the scriptures

Here’s one who did:

“Love thy enemy” — U.S. soldier gets discharge

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. soldier who said his Christian beliefs compelled him to love his enemies, not kill them, has been granted conscientious objector status and honorably discharged, a civil liberties group said on Tuesday.

Trinitarian musings

 first written around 1982. 

Q.  What was the view of first-century christians regarding the Trinity?

A.  The what?

Seriously, the word never appears in the New Testament, and the doctrine as it is generally taught today is nowhere brought out explicitly.  So the question should be, What does the New Testament teach about the nature of God, the relationship of Jesus Christ to God the Creator, and the nature and relationship to both of the Holy Spirit? 

Out of the mouths of babes….

The following was shared by a mother on an e-mail list. No comment needed, really.

Tonight I slowed down a little when my nearly 4 year old was saying her prayers and thought I would share this. It made me think.We have a tradition that every night since she was old enough to talk when I tuck her into bed we say our prayers. I let her do the talking. It’s ranged from very funny to very interesting over the years. She usually says, “Dear God, Thank you for…. ” and then she proceeds to be thankfulfor ladybugs, but not snakes, and baby brother but not Camille at school and so on. Sometimes when she really doesn’t want to go to bed yet she starts naming fixtures – Thank you for the lights, the fan, my dresser, my bed, my sheets and so on. I usually let her ramble on for a bit, and then she goes to sleep. Tonight she said, “Dear God, thank you for America.” This wasdifferent for her, I’m fairly sure she doesn’t know what “America” is. Then in the next breath she said, and “Thank you for Iraq.” OK, again, I’m assuming my CNN running is what brought that up. Then she followed it up with “Thank you for our neighbors.” “Please let our neighbors be nice to us, and we should be nice to them, too” I asked her, who is our neighbor? And she started naming people in our neighborhood. And then she said, “And Iraq.”

I’m wondering when the rest of the world’s Christians will catch on.

Peace Scriptures

Psalm 46:9-10

9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.

He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear.

He burns the chariots in the fire.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.”

Jim Wallis likes to point out the ironic fact that many people trained in teaching Bible in their churches seem to have missed the thousands of scripture texts that speak of God’s special concern for the poor. Similarly, many who have attended evangelical churches could easily, based on the teaching they hear, gain the patently false impression that the Bible rarely speaks of peace, and that the few places where it does do so, it is with disapproval. They repeatedly hear just a handful of seemingly relevant texts: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword” (in which Jesus is actually speaking, not of armed conflict but of the danger his teaching is to traditional family values); “They have healed the wound of my people slightly, saying ‘Peace’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah’s assessment of the false hopes being raised by false prophets who, more interested in profits than real security, were insisting that the Babylonian army would fold up and go away if only the people kept up their armed resistance a little longer); and perhaps the incident in the temple where Jesus physically disrupts the profitable business of those who were taking advantage of the religious sincerity of others by spilling their carefully counted money on the floor and driving their merchandise (animals destined for slaughter) from the temple courts.

But in fact there are hundreds of texts throughout the Bible that teach about peace, its source and its place in God’s plan for the world, and it’s time that Christians everywhere stop being afraid of them. Below is a very small sample.