Abundant Life

This morning our pastor made an interesting connection between the lectionary readings. The epistle reading came from 1 Peter 2:19-25, a portion of which reads:

"For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.
If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps."

The Gospel reading came from John 10:1-10, a portion of which reads:

"I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

So often, Christians want to read the promise that Jesus gives in John 10 as referring to this earthly life. We want this to be a promise that if we follow Jesus than he will abundantly bless this life. Some versions of Christianity have even built their theology around this promise. The Prosperity Gospel, as it was called, preached that God blesses his followers monetarily in this life. The converse implication is that if a person is suffering than he or she must be in sin. There are versions of this perverse gospel being preached today. Sometimes it is subtle, but if you listen for the rhetoric, it is there.

The wise formers of the lectionary must have known the potential danger of misinterpretations of which life Jesus was referring to for they paired it with an epistle reading that makes it impossible to understand Jesus promise of abundant life as referring to monetary blessings. For Peter is crystal clear that followers of Christ are not promised blessings in this life - at least in the way that "blessings" are understood these days. Rather, Peter writes that Christians have been called to suffer unjustly. Bear in mind, he does not say that we may suffer unjustly, he says that this is what we have been called to.

Why would God call us to suffer unjustly, our modern minds may ask. The answer is simple. This is the example that our savior set for us. Jesus suffered unjustly because he was faithful to God in an unfaithful world. The original audience of 1 Peter likewise lived in an unfaithful world and Peter knew that to follow in Jesus' footsteps would likewise result in unjust suffering. Christians today continue to live in an unfaithful world, and if we are faithful to the example of our savior, the result will be the same. There have been more Christian martyrs this year already than in the entire first century.

Abundant life comes in the pure joy of living a Christlike life and the reward that results from such a life. May God give us all the courage and strength to live the life to which we have been called.

Why have we lost the Story?

In the previous post, I lamented the fact that church has, generally speaking, in some way lost the understanding of the biblical narrative, the redemption story of God and the people he has called to himself in Israel and in the church. This loss has been deceptive because in many parts of the church, it would appear that bible reading is on the rise. Individual study of the Scriptures is now everywhere encouraged, including the Catholic Church which, for a time, kept the Scriptures away from lay people in an ancient language. Additionally, it would appear that Scripture memorization is on the rise. I've been to many churches where pastors encourage this discipline from the pulpit.

But the deception comes just in this. It is easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that we are biblically literate people because we have memorized a few verses or because we know a few bible stories. It is easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that we understand the story because we know who Balaam is. And so despite what can pass for biblical sermons and such, I hold to my original claim. But why have we lost this story? Particularly when the love of the bible is so high in many denominations. How did we get to where we are? This is a complex question with many possible answers. In this post, I would like to suggest only one possible factor with the knowledge that it alone cannot shoulder the blame.

Maxie Dunham, long time United Methodist pastor and former president of Asbury Theological Seminary, was fond of saying: "As the seminary goes, so goes the preacher, as the preacher goes, so goes the church." There is much wisdom in this statement and I think that he gets at a fundamental truth of the loss of the story. Much of the onus must be placed on the academy that trains these ministers. Allow me a bit of background to make this point.

In the modern era, there developed in biblical scholarship a series of methods for studying the text, which are collectively known as the "historical-critical method." The historical-critical method, in all of its varieties, seeks to find the meaning of the text by placing the text in its original sitz im leben ("life setting"). It seeks to discover the original author, the original audience, the original setting, any circumstances that occasioned the work, and the like. It was thought that the original context would provide the appropriate interpretive context. The historical-critical method developed in response to erroneous interpretations which read the text purely from one's own context, often employing it in manners that are unwarranted by the text itself.

This is all well and good and you might think that the historical-critical method was a positive development. After all, there are innumerable examples of how the text has been twisted to meet someone's personal agenda and the historical-critical method does provide some means of objectivity to act as a check against this sort of exegesis.

Having said this, there are, in my estimation, many negatives to the historical-critical method. The first, and perhaps the only one that needs to be mentioned here, is the shifting of the context of interpretation. For the historical-critical method, the context of interpretation moves behind the text. That is, the real interesting and crucial knowledge about an epistle such as Ephesians is not the content of the letter itself, but rather the situation in which it was written. Scholars who employ this method think that they will ascertain the meaning of the text if they can recreate the original context. But that means that the meaning is not located in anything Paul says in the text (if indeed Paul wrote Ephesians) but what was happening in his mind to cause him to write this. As a result, the text shifts to the background and these "behind-the-text" issues become the only important thing.

The greatest example of the loss of the text is in Gospel studies. Historical-critics are in general agreement that Mark was the first Gospel written and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. But to understand the numerous similar passages found in Matthew and Luke that are absent from Mark, they have constructed a hypothetical "Q" document which is, supposedly, an early list of Jesus' sayings. They contend that Matthew and Luke also used "Q" to write their accounts. There is no manuscript evidence for this document. It is never quoted as such in the early Fathers or canonical lists of books. Yet, for most biblical scholars Q more important than any of the Gospels because it represents the earliest source, a list that is closest in time to the Christ event. NEVER MIND THE FACT THAT IT DOESN'T EXIST! The canonical Gospels, in the work of these scholars, very clearly take second place.

This phenomenon can also be witnessed in any scholarly commentary that one picks up today. On the average, 3/4s of a given commentary is devoted to the recreation of the original setting, whereas only 1/4 is given to actual exposition of the text. And these are the commentaries that our preachers are using.

And here is where I think the academy has led to the loss of the story. The majority of ministers currently in the pulpit cut their teeth on this historical-critical method. As a result, they have been trained to think of the text as secondary in importance. This leaves them with quite a problem on Sunday mornings. Are they to write a sermon about the real author of Ephesians? Chances are no because that does not preach very well. What is left then but some topical sermon? For they were not trained to understand the entire narrative and that its retelling is the only thing that will form Christian disciples.

There are, to be sure, positive things to be mined from the historical-critical method. But to buy into it hook, line, and sinker is to relegate the text to second place and to lose the overall understanding of the story of God from creation to redemption. It is to lose the idea that the one author, the Holy Spirit, is behind all of the individual authors and settings and gives the story its coherence. It is to lose the idea that this story still speaks to us today, that we as the church today are the intended audience of these letters. In short, the beginning of the recovery of the biblical story is the restoration of the text to its rightful place as the center of both exegetical study and homiletical exposition.

The Sword of the Spirit

"Nothing can so banish licentious habits from the soul and restrain memories which disturb and stir up troubling flames in the body as can avid devotion to the love of learning and searching investigation into the meaning of the passages of Scripture."

-St. Isaac of Nineveh

Lion or Lamb? (Part 2)

A somewhat more helpful metaphor involving a lion and a lamb (see Part I) is found in Holy Scripture. Our Savior Jesus Christ is likened to both animals in various places. The ascription "lion" is often modified with "of Judah" and it comes originally from Genesis 49, where the Patriarch Jacob is pronouncing blessings upon his sons prior to his death. He has this to say of his son Judah: "Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah . . ." Judah is the tribe of Joseph, the father of Jesus. Thus, through the kingship of Jesus, the prophecy that the "scepter shall not depart from Judah" is fulfilled. The imagery is first applied to Jesus by the writer of Revelation: "and one of the elders said to me: 'Stop weeping; the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and the seven seals" (5:5). To call Jesus the Lion of Judah is to refer to his kingship, his worthiness to be king, and the protection which he offers his people.

We have an example of this in the lectionary reading for today, Luke 13:31-35: "Just at that time some Pharisees approached, saying to Him, "Go away, leave here, for Herod wants to kill You." And He said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal. Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day; for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! . . ."

In these verses, Jesus calls Herod a fox, evincing his craftiness and his desire to pick off sheep from the flock. Nevertheless, Jesus with the courage of a lion does not stray from his destination. Rather, he sets his face toward the city for he knows that unless he complete his work, rulers like Herod will forever rule and there will be no salvation for anyone. The Lion of Judah continues on to Jerusalem.

But there are also many places in Scripture where Jesus is referred to as a lamb. John the Baptist is the first to call him this, recorded in John's Gospel: "The next day (John) saw Jesus coming to him and said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'" (1:29). The Baptist is, of course, drawing on imagery with which his hearers would have been instantly familiar. He is referring to the Jewish sacrificial cultus, the system which prescribed animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. The shed blood of a pure lamb, the Israelites believed, would atone for their sins and thus assuage the wrath of God. The Baptist, before Jesus even begins his ministry, recognizes that Jesus is that pure lamb.

Interestingly enough, the writer of Revelation again picks up this imagery. The seer describes the first time he sees Jesus in his vision: "And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain . . ." (5:6). The English translations miss what I think the Greek portrays; a better translation might be: "a Lamb standing while slain." The point of this vision is that Jesus in heaven is a slain lamb. But that quality, namely that he has been slain, is the very quality that allows him to open the seals, that earns him the title "Lion of Judah."

We see this imagery, again, bear fruit in today's lectionary reading. Jesus heads to Jerusalem, we noted, with the courage of a lion. However, he indicates in the reading the manner in which he will save His people, and it is not an image of a conquering lion. Rather, he says: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." Jesus likens himself to a Mother Hen! But I ask, what good is a Mother Hen in the face of a prowling fox? The only means the Mother has of saving her chicks is to offer herself as the fox's meal in lieu of the chicks. And this is exactly what Jesus does.

John's vision of the slain lamb in heaven forever reminds us that while it was the courage of a lion that led Jesus to Jerusalem, it was the sacrifice of a lamb which redeemed us.

The Importance of Context in Reading Scripture

I believe that in understanding the meaning of a story, context is everything. Nowhere is this insight more crucial than in our understanding of Scripture. Just as one would not be able to pick a paragraph out of a novel such as To Kill a Mockingbird and understand the meaning of the story, its comments on the rapant racism of the South in thr 1930s, so one cannot read a verse in Philippians and understand what Paul is saying in the letter, much less the entirety of Scripture.

This truth might seem self evident. Unfortunately, however, many current practices in reading Scripture encourage just this practice. We often read a verse or two for our quiet times, in no particular sequence, and think we understand without giving any thought to the context in which it is set. The context than becomes whatever we bring to the verse resulting in an interpretation that best fits what we need, but may or may not have anything to do with the actual biblical narrative. Pastors, unfortunately, often model this practice, by reading one or two verses (sometimes even a half of a verse) and then making a 40 minute sermon on some topic that evidences little resemblance to the Scripture. While we may here a nice message, we are nowhere closer to understanding Scripture, which is, afterall, the primary duty of preaching.

The following blog was written by Chuck Gutenson, a former professor of mine at Asbury. It is one of the best pieces I have read on the importance of understanding the context for understanding Scripture: Gutenson's Blog.

Studying the Bible or Reading Scripture?

I just finished reading a rather in depth article about the authorship of II Peter. It seems that we have been duped, that in fact the apostle Peter did not write that letter. But the most profound truth I gleaned from the article was the realization of how thankful I am that I am pursuing historical theology and not biblical studies.

This statement may sound odd to many of my readers. I can just hear it now: "What could be better than studying the bible?" I certainly agree; unfortunately, the manner in which the majority of biblical scholars pursue study of the text, in my opinion, is not what we might call reading Scripture (there are exceptions, many of them at Asbury). Modern biblical scholars are studying an historical document, at best a dubious one in their minds. They are interested in questions of history - did this really happen in this way? Who really wrote this book? When did he write it? Who did he write it too? Did they really cast lots for Jesus' robe, etc. This is an entirely different process than what happens with the reading of Scripture in church, the reading to see God. And this is the only kind of reading in which I am interested.

I stand with the Fathers and the great majority of the church tradition when I say that the purpose of reading Scripture is to be formed into the kind of people God created us to be, Christlike, or if you like the slightly more shocking language, perfect (my apologies to Martin Luther). At the end of the day, I don't believe it much matters whether the apostle Peter truly did write II Peter or whether one of his disciples writing in his name wrote it - what matters is that the church recognized that in this document is contained the authentic message of Christ and it is therefore useful in making us perfect.

Now the first thing that a biblical scholar is likely to say to me is: "Don't you care if all this really happened?" Of course I care! As Paul said, "if Christ didn't truly raise from the dead, let us drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." Or in modern Milwaukee terms, "hand me a PBR because I ain't studying Greek no more!" I believe that these things really happened because of the coherency of the Scriptures and their power to do what they were written to do, as witnessed in the lives of the saints and in my own experiences. But despite Lee Strobel's best intentions, I do not think that we will ever be able to prove these things beyond a shadow of a doubt anymore than we can prove that the Battle of Bull Run was fought twice. Therefore, it seems to me that the historical questions of authorship and setting and the like are not very helpful in forming me into a Christlike person. It is the story of redemption, told ultimately by the Spirit, which matters most.

Thus, I pursue historical theology because I believe that the story of the church is the ongoing story of redemption begun in Scripture. Here we see Scripture lived out by the saints. Here we see Scripture given meaning in community. Here we see mistakes that were made that we might not relive. And here we see the redemption of those mistakes in manners that only Christ can accomplish. In a way, studying historical theology is studying Scripture - but Scripture as it was meant to be studied, Scripture performed in the lives of the people of God.

For 1800 years it was believed that the apostle Peter wrote II Peter. According to the article I just read, 1800 years of Christians got that one wrong. But guess what? The Scriptures still produced an Augustine and a Perpetua. They still produced a Francis and a Teresa. They still produced a Merton and a Therese. And these are all the proofs I need.

Insights on Psalm 51

In the previous post, I discussed the positives and potential negatives of Scripture memorization. I received some excellent comments on each side of the issue, particularly from those indicating what incredible insights can come from Scripture memorization. As I have started memorizing Psalm 51, I have experienced some of these new insights of which many of you spoke, and I thought I would share them.

1. Psalm 51:1: "Be gracious to me, O God, according to your lovingkindness." This word lovingkindness is very prominent in the Old Testament and it is used to translate the Hebrew word which indicated God's covenant faithfulness. And if we see anything from the story of Israel, we see that God is faithful to his covenant even when his people are not. We call on God, here, to be gracious to us, not according to the good we have done, but according to HIS faithfulness. I don't deserve it, but I know that God will be gracious to me because he is faithful despite what I do.

2. Psalm 51:5-6: "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold you desire truth in the innermost being and in the hidden part you will make me know wisdom." This verse indicates the predicament that we are all in, that we have been born into original sin, that we are sinners from birth. Many times, and I speak for myself here, I like to hide behind this. To justify my sin, in other words, because I can't help it. But notice how the Psalmist David does not stop at the truth of original sin, but continues on to where God is wanting to bring us - into truth and wisdom. Sin is our problem but it doesn't have to be our reality, for God desires us to know truth and to know wisdom. What is interesting about this "wisdom" is that the Fathers universally saw Wisdom as a name for Christ. So John's Gospel starts: "In the beginning was the Word." This Word (logos) is actually the Greek masculine form of sophia (the word translated from the Greek Psalm 51 as wisdom). Psalm 51 is saying that God desires us to know Christ in the innermost part. Wow!

3. Psalm 51:14: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation." I believe that as I read this Psalm in the past, I always thought or assumed that the "your" in this verse was actually "my" - restore to me the joy of my salvation. There might even be a praise chorus of this song which uses my. What is interesting to me is that David is asking God to give him joy of the Lord's salvation. The emphasis, in other words, is not on David's salvation, but on the Lord's salvation of all of creation, and David is a part of that. How often we reduce things to individual truths (God and me), when the biblical perspective is communal truths (God and us).

These are just a few of the insights that have come to me while memorizing this Psalm. It has been quite an exercise and what I like most about it is that I find Scripture reverberating in my head as I walk around, instead of the normal Seinfeld, baseball, One Crazy Summer junk that is often not productive. My prayer is that the development of this discipline in my life will be used by God to help me to know Wisdom in the hidden part.

An Overlooked Discipline

I have a confession to make. I've never been a big fan of Scripture memorization. I've done my fair share of it - though, truth be told, I've likely forgotten about as much as I've 'memorized' - but something always seemed wrong about it to me. I've heard the case for it, Scripture says to "hide the Word in your heart" and such, but to me, memorizing one verse out of Deuteronomy did not equate to hiding the Word in your heart.

When I got to Seminary, I found a concept for my anxst. It's called "prooftexting." Simply defined, this is the process of yanking one verse out of Scripture to back up some argument. More often than not, however, the verse is pulled out of context and used to defend something that has nothing to do with the actual verse. Prooftexting is fairly rampant among Christians these days, lay people and clergy alike. You hear people using "the Bible says" as a trump card for anything they like. I heard it all the time in my classroom at Lexington Christian Academy - often it was the boys quoting a verse out of 1 Timothy or Ephesians to tell a girl to be quiet. I've heard preachers quote verses to argue a point that is actually the exact opposite of what the verse is saying in its context. I'm almost convinced that if we tried hard enough, we could use the Bible to prove that Rumsfeld was in fact the second shooter on the grassy knoll. Such practices cheapen the richness of the Word, make it a punchline for jokes, and usually enforce some of the Christian stereotypes that I have spent the past few years trying to dispell.

For several years, I felt that the practice of memorizing Scripture actually encouraged this sort of flippant use of Scripture. After all, no one ever memorizes an entire book, and frequently, those who memorize small verses actually have no clue of where that verse falls in the larger story. I grew so skeptical of it that, last year at LCA, I downgraded Scripture memorization from crucial part of the grade to extra credit (that is until I was politely informed of the policies).

At the same time that my disgust was high, I continued to have great admiration for people who prayed or spoke in Scripture; people who would not use Scripture as a licence to hurt or a trump card, but who knew Scripture so well that their speech was literally peppered with it. JD Walt, my pastor at Asbury, was one of these people. In our visits, he would frequently recite a Psalm in answer to a question or dilemna I was having. And I was always comforted by the words. This was one person who truly had hidden the Word in his heart and it showed in his life.

I have been ruminating on this question for some time now and have decided that Scripture memorization can be a wonderful discipline and an excellent way to grow in holiness, so long as the dangers of "prooftexting" are avoided. I have decided that the way to avoid prooftexting, in my own developing discipline of memorization, is to focus on the Psalms. The Psalms are short, relatively easy to memorize in whole, and they were written for any situation. The fact is that you don't have to worry about placing Psalms in context because they all revolve around praise - and praise can and should be done in any situation.

I've started with Psalm 51 because it is one that I already know fairly well. Julie is starting with me and it has led to some poignant moments of reciting Scripture out loud together. I'm excited to see where this journey of "hiding the Word in our hearts" will take us. More details to come. I'd also be interested in hearing any of my reader's thoughts or stories on this discipline.