All I can do is pray: pushing through number two

So,
the stomach healed up. Lost a couple of days.
Got back into the swing of things. Kept swinging.
A couple of days ago my eye starts weeping. Rinsed it, left it, slept on it, worked a day.
Still weeping at 9pm. Hmm. Back to hospital. 6hr wait in emergency. Looks like another corneal infection, maybe an ulcer. Up to the specialist in the morning. Hourly drugs and daily visits for the next few days.
Get a call from a retired pastor who is worried about my health.
"Oh yeah" he says. "I get eye problems like that."
"Though not so much now that I have retired and am not under so much stress"
"You wouldn't be under any stress though would you... hahaha".

Another week of Scripture lost. Feeling really useless. Can't read, not meant to mix socially (could be contagious). All I can do is pray

On 'pushing through'

It has been a big couple of weeks.
A lot on at work. A big fundraising push. 'Interesting' pastoral issues. Diocesan training. Lots of meetings with big, controversial, difficult decisions to be made. As well as the usual week to week stuff. Friday night we had a '24hrs of prayer' at church that had me filling a gap at 2am.
The temptation has been to push on through this tough time.

Yesterday I got a massive headache. In bed all morning. Then in the afternoon I started vomitting blood. Not just vomit with tinged with blood. Rich red mouthfuls of blood.
Freaked out, called the ambulance. Off to hospital. Blood tests. CT scan. Morphine, mmmmm, morphine.
8 hours later I was released.
The most likely scenario is that the overtiredness gave me a migraine. The migraine gave me nausea, and the force of the vomitting, as it pushed through, tore the lining of my stomach. I'll have to go and get a camera down there to check.

Which makes me question the idea of 'pushing through'. When you 'push through', things get torn.

Our church has great Bible teaching

Every church thinks that it has great Bible teaching.
It is a simple law of attrition.
Whoever is left likes it
Whoever does not like it has left

Principles for preaching: Who are you speaking for?

So, as far as I can see at the moment, preaching involves three distinct but related movements or postures.

1. You are listening to God on behalf of others.
     You've spent those hours in the study(or wherever) , pouring over the scriptures, trying to hear what God is saying, not just to the original readers, not just to yourself, but to the congregation you are to speak to. Preaching is standing alongside that congregation and listening on their behalf

2. You are speaking to the congregation on behalf of God.
           There is no way around this. When you get up to preach, you are saying that you have some access to the mind of God, and that he is speaking through you. You are claiming that you have something to teach the congregation, somewhere to take them. Perhaps this is the mode we are most comfortable with. 

3. You are proclaiming God on behalf of the congregation.
             I reckon this is the one we think about the least. Proclaiming Jesus is the job of the whole church, and when you get up to speak, you speak on the congregations behalf. You don't just talk to them, you talk for them. This is an encouraging thing for younger preachers (or older!!) who feel like the congregation knows more than them, who feel as though they have very little to 'teach' the congregation. The preachers job isn't to bring us something new, or even simply to teach us, the preachers job is to proclaim Jesus Christ. Our current emphasis on 'exegeting the congregation' is good, but it can tend to obscure this third role. We can fall into thinking that preaching is all about achieving some outcome for the listeners. Sometimes you need to cry out things for which the only response is 'Amen'. In fact maybe we need to do that a whole lot more often. I reckon the American preaching culture can be a bit better at this.

I think this is also why crap preaching is so offensive. It isn't just that you bored me for 30 minutes, or that you didn't  teach me, it is that you spoke drivel on my behalf.

Andrew Shead: A mouth full of fire

I somehow missed the fact that Andrew Shead's awesome Moore college lectures on Jeremiah have finally been released as a book
"A Mouth Full of Fire" in that silver Biblical Theology series.
Jeremiah is still my biggest biblical blindspot (though revelation has to come close too), so I'm really looking forward to reading this one

You can't read the Bible like any other book...?

I recently took some holidays.
One of the projects I set myself was to re-read my favourite novel, David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest". I wanted to get a better grasp on the novel, and test out some theories about what DFW was up to.
So I committed to taking notes. Nothing too onerous. I set out to list the order of scenes, and to map the chronology of scenes. I also noted references to language and speech (testing a theory about the influence of James Incandenza), and also attempted to diagram what Enfield Tennis Acadamy looked like. (given references to the lung and the brain).
Anyway, just paying this close attention to the book meant all sorts of interesting things turned up in the first 30 or so pages. All sorts of interesting links and themes and clues. I loved it. I got so much more out of those 30 pages. But then I gave up. Mostly because when I was too tired to take notes, or couldn't, or didn't have my notebook, I didn't read. So 30 pages was all I got through.
Instead I picked up the 'Hunger Games' series and knocked one over each afternoon for three afternoons. Now, admittedly, they are an easier read. But it got me thinking...

Has our approach to 'Bible Study' made us people who can't read the Bible.

That is, because we move so slowly through the Bible, trying to milk every last drop, does it put us off actually reading the thing. 

So spurred by these thoughts, and by some stuff from 'Cor Deo', our young adults group is trying something different.

We are just going to read the Bible because we love it, and love God. We aren't going to set aside a disciplined time for reading. You don't do that with a book you love, you pick it up whenever you get a chance. We aren't going to set the number of chapters you 'must' read each day, we are just going to read it because we love it. As we read, we will highlight the bits we like, and then share those together when we meet. We won't labour through any passages. After sharing the bible bits, we will talk about it together, and how we think we need to respond
 We have set a provisional goal, the whole thing in 4 months, and so a provisional target of about 40 chapters a week. As one of our ladies said ' yeah then people can read more if they want to'.
The idea then, is that you could get through the whole bible three times a year. You may miss some things as you whizz through the first time, but the second? third? fiftieth time? My hunch is you will know and love the Lord and his word a whole lot better than our plodding method

I'll let you know how it goes

Wisdom and Education

…the values which we most ignore, the recognition of which we most seldom find in writings on education, are those of Wisdom and Holiness, the values of the sage and the saint….Our tendency has been to identify wisdom with knowledge, saintliness with natural goodness, to minimize not only the operation of grace but self-training, to divorce holiness from education. Education has come to mean education of the mind only; and an education which is only of the mind…can lead to scholarship, to efficiency, to worldly achievement and to power, but not to wisdom.

- T.S. Eliot. The Idea of a Christian Society and Other Writings (London: Faber and Faver, 1982), p 142, cited by Craig Bartholomew & Ryan O’Dowd, Old Testament Wisdom Literature: A Theological Introduction, 293

Brian Rosner, Tim Foster...and now this. Ridley is taking over the world

Saw the announcement today that Mike Bird has been appointed Lecturer in theology at Ridley College Melbourne.
Wow.
I'd seriously consider studying there now. What with Brian Rosner and Mike Bird.

Samson and Delilah

Since Jonathan is doing such wonderful serious stuff on Samson and Jesus over at the grit, I thought it was appropriate to share this equally serious reflection

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Principles for preaching- Thieleke

‘The aim of the sermon, after all, is to create something living and set it in motion. Consequently, it should be directed not only at the intellect, but must at the same time also be aimed at the conscience, will, and imagination. It is addressed to the whole person! Corresponding to the complexity of this goal are the wealth of reflections in which one is absorbed before one makes ones way to the pulpit.

The extremely pluralistic composition of my audience forced me to still further reflections. The different levels of education and social background necessitated an inquiry into that aspect of human nature that is common to all human beings, that center of their being in which – each in his own different way – human beings are moved by fear and hope, by their finitude, by ambition, desires, the search for meaning, by the burden of guilt and torment of conscience. My goal – and I strived to attain it at least partially – had to be above all to ensure that everyone could say afterwards (because he had been personally touched in this center of his being, “I was the subject of this sermon, he meant me.”

In order to find associations with the text for my sermon and so to illustrate it with images, stories, and a human touch, I constantly kept an eye open during my varied reading for anything I could use in the pulpit. I started various collections in files and card indexes in order to have suitable quotations and other material at hand. If this material then nevertheless failed to hit the mark, I could at least comfort myself with the fact that I had done all that I could.

I did not, by the way, keep to the prescribed readings, that is, to the texts stipulated for use in church sermons. At best these prescribed texts have one useful function, namely, they safeguard the preacher from misusing the text by preventing him from choosing a text simply as a motto for his pet ideas. Preachers who do this quickly preach themselves dry. Their only achievement is to cause deadly boredom – probably not only to the audience but also to themselves – by their constant rummaging through the remnants of a crop that has long since been completely harvested. A prescribed text is certainly the best protection against the law of inertia taking effect in this way. It is also possible for the preacher himself to build a defensive wall against this temptation. This can be done in the following way.

I forced myself to give series of sermons oriented towards a sequence of biblical texts or a single subject. This is how the aforementioned series on the Lord’s Prayer, the parables, the biblical creation story, the pastoral conversations of Jesus, the creed, and many others came about. I also gave openly “didactic” sermons, which were a sort of catechism lesson for adults, in which I explained, for instance, the theological significance of historic-critical textual research and allowed the congregation to take a look into the workshop of academic theology. This principle of preaching series of sermons proved to be fruitful for both sides. It was fruitful for the preacher because it subjected him to a salutary constraint and safeguarded him against arbitrarily choosing texts on his own authority. It was fruitful for the audience because their interest was sustained by the continuity and development of a particular subject or train of thought, as a result of which they always looked forward eagerly to the next sermon.

The fact that I brought current events into play in my sermons should not be taken to mean that I had been talking politics in the pulpit. In my opinion, there are two types of degenerate sermon, both of which, although very different in themselves, are today having a ruinous effect on the life of the church service.

The first of these decadent forms is the transformation of the sermon into a set political speech proclaiming a particular political position as the Christian position. In my experience, this mostly gains the upper hand among people whose spiritual substance is too diluted for them to give a rousing proclamation of the Gospel. They are then forced to give their sermons a political shot in the arm to lend their dead spirituality the appearance of life. But this form of sermon has no permanence. People very soon wonder why it should need the circuitous route of the pulpit to get this political message across and whether they could not get the same thing cheaper and without the Christian paraphernalia simply by going straight to a political meeting.

The second type of degenerate sermon is a certain ritualism that suppresses or at least obscures the personal faith of the individual through the excessive use of time-honored phrases and traditional musica sacra.

This brief look into the “theological laboratory” has not yet touched on what goes on inside the preacher. This remains hidden to outside eyes. I can only give the following hint at where one should look for an answer. Whoever sees so many eyes directed towards him is in great danger. He may believe that they are directed towards “him,” whereas he is in fact only the ambassador of another. In the sacristy of the Church of St. Michael there is a little altar where the preacher prepares himself to approach the pulpit and arms himself against the temptations that threaten him. This is all that I wish to say about this matter’.

– Helmut Thielicke, Notes from a Wayfarer: The Autobiography of Helmut Thielicke (trans. David R. Law; New York: Paragon House, 1995), 291–93.

H/T Jason

Les Murray- Church

Church

i. m. Joseph Brodsky

The wish to be right
has decamped in large numbers
but some come to God
in hopes of being wrong.

High on the end wall hangs
the Gospel, from before he was books.
All judging ends in his fix,
all, including his own.

He rose out of Jewish,
not English evolution
and he said the lamp he held
aloft to all nations was Jewish.

Freedom still eats freedom,
justice eats justice, love —
even love. One retarded man said
church makes me want to be naughty,

but naked in a muddy trench
with many thousands, someone's saying
the true god gives his flesh and blood.
Idols demand yours off you.

Les Murray- The last Hellos

The Last Hellos

Don't die, Dad--
but they die.

This last year he was wandery:
took off a new chainsaw blade
and cobbled a spare from bits.
Perhaps if I lay down
my head'll come better again.
His left shoulder kept rising
higher in his cardigan.

He could see death in a face.
Family used to call him in
to look at sick ones and say.
At his own time, he was told.

The knob found in his head
was duck-egg size. Never hurt.
Two to six months Cecil.

I'll be right, he boomed
to his poor sister on the phone
I'll do that when I finish dyin.



Don't die, Cecil.
But they do.

Going for last drives
in the bush, odd massive

board-slotted stumps bony white
in whipstick second growth.
I could chop all day.

I could always cash
a cheque, in Sydney or anywhere.
Any of the shops.

Eating, still at the head
of the table, he now missed
food on his knife side.

Sorry, Dad, but like
have you forgiven your enemies?
Your father and all them?
All his lifetime of hurt.

I must have,(grin). I don't
think about that now.



People can't say goodbye
any more. They say last hellos.

Going fast, over Christmas,
he'd still stumble out
of his room, where his photos
hang over the other furniture,
and play host to his mourners.

The courage of his bluster,
firm big voice of his confusion.

Two last days in the hospital:
his long forearms were still
red mahogany. His hands
gripped steel frame. I'm dyin.

On the second day:
You're bustin to talk
but I'm too busy dyin.


Grief ended when he died,
the widower like soldiers who
won't live life their mates had missed.

Good boy Cecil! No more Bluey dog.
No more cowtime. No more stories.
We're still using your imagination,
it was stronger than all ours.

Your grave's got littler
somehow in the three months.
More pointy as the clay's shrivelled,
like a stuck zip in a coat.

Your cricket boots are in
the State museum! Odd letters
still come. Two more's died since you:
Annie and Stewart. Old Stewart.

On your day there was a good crowd,
family, and people from away.
But of course a lot had gone
to their own funerals first.

Snobs mind us off religion
nowadays, if they can.
Fuck them. I wish you God.

N.T Wright on trajectories in Scripture

At a conference I attended recently, the speaker claimed that Tom Wright, in his book 'The Last Word' made an argument that we can take the trajectory of scripture and go further than scripture. This was said in the context of arguments about women in ministry leading to the approval of practicing homosexuals in ministry. The speaker was so shocked that Jim Packer (obviously a white hat)would recommend the book that he concluded that Jim 'must not have read it. Now, the speakers claim didn't sound quite right. But I didn't have the book in front of me, so I wasn't sure. So here is Tom, on page 125 "The New Testament is the foundation charter of the fifth act. No change of act in God's drama with the world (despite manifold changes in human culture) has occured between the time of the apostles and evangelists and our own.....We recognize ourselves as the direct successors of the churches of Corinth, Ephesus and the rest, and we need to pay attention to what was said to them as though it was said to us. We cannot relativize the epistles by pointing out the length of time that has passed between them and us, or by suggesting any intervening seismic cultural shifts which would render them irrelevent or even misleading. It is an essential part of authentic Christian discipleship both to see the New Testament as the foundation for the ongoing (and still open ended) fifth act (the church)and to recognizze that it cannot be supplanted or supplememted" I haven't re-read the whole book. But i can't find the kind of 'trajectory' argument the speaker accused Tom of. I can only assume the speaker did not read the book. N.B Another claim was made about Tom that he would not publically say that homosexual practice was against the teaching of scripture. Here are some public words from a public interview in a public paper "Can a Christian morality rooted in scripture approve of homosexuality? The word "homosexuality" is an abstract noun. What in the Anglican Church we've tried to do is restrict the debate to the practice of homosexual relations. Of course, many people claim to be "rooted" in scripture in a variety of ways. But if a church is actually determined to be faithful to scripture, then not only at that point but at several others -- for instance, some of our economic practices -- we would need to take a long, hard look and say, maybe we're getting this wrong. So a Christian morality faithful to scripture cannot approve of homosexual conduct? Correct. That is consonant with what I've said and written elsewhere. The speakers obviously have some political issues with Tom Wright. They feel (and indeed expressed this) that his personal desire for influence has led him to persecute a brother of theirs. And yet one wonders in both their other claims that their political differences with Tom have led them to misconstrue, mishear and mischaracterize him. In a conflicted situation, it is always, always dangerous to attribute motive. "Ahh, he says or does x simply because he is power hungry". We may disagree with people. We may disagree with the way they approach things. We may think we could do a better job. Nevertheless, we still need to listen carefully. (which is why, when I get the CD of the conference, I'll go back and check exactly the words of accusation against Tom)

2 Thesssalonians thoughts

In 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17, Paul reframes the early church as the restored people of God. Having been called by Paul's gospel, they are now loved by the Lord, chosen as a firstfruits of salvation (I'm going with NA27 on this one), sanctified by God's Spirit, and going to share in his glory. These are wonderful things to meditate upon in themselves, but there is something else going on here. All of these terms have been used to describe Israel and the Temple in the Old Testament. Israel is loved by the Lord, has been sanctified to him, and chosen to be delivered, (Deuteronomy 7:6-10) This is all due to God's faithfulness (2 Thess 3:3)for those who obey his commands. Which Paul reframes as obeys his (Paul's) commands (2 Thess 3:4). Interesting also in the Deuteronomy passage is that God will repay those who disobey him, a prominent theme of 2 Thess 1. Paul places his gospel on par with the commandments of God in marking out who will be accepted by God and who will be punished. It is through faith in the gospel of Jesus that the thessalonians have been marked out as the people of God. All this is in contrast to those who 'did not believe the truth, but delighted in wickedness'. I can only assume that 'the truth' in verse 12, is the same as 'the truth' in verse 13. That is, the gospel that Jesus is the Christ. (Acts 17:3). Paul has already hinted at who these rejecters of truth might be in 1 Thess 2:14. Those of Judeea who reject their messiah, reject the messiah's people, hinder that message going to the gentiles and so pile up wrath for themselves. These are those who have both rebelled against their God 2:3 (and so will be repayed), and will rebel against the message of their Christ to pursue peace and to love their enemies, and so will rebel against Rome in AD66. Their rebellion will co-incide with the revelation of a man of lawlessness, who like the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28, like the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14, like Antiochus Epiphanes in Daniel 11, will consider himself a God, above all Gods, will attack God's temple, but be destroyed in the process. As Paul writes, the current Emperor is Claudius, who has a fairly restrained policy towards christians. (He may have even protected them by kicking the jews out of Rome, but this is hard to tell). Nevertheless, he is, contemporary to Paul's writing, restraining his adopted Son, Nero, who turns out to be quite lawless. A murderer of all sorts of people, but particularly christians. Having taken his father Cladius out of the way, Nero become Ceaser and is gradually revelaed for who he is. When Judea revolts, Nero attacks. Yet Paul says that this man of lawlessness will be destroyed by the breath of Jesus' mouth and by the splendour of his parousia (2 Thess 2:8) Jesus had wept over Jerusalem, and her coming destruction. And yet he described this event as the coming of the Son of man in glory (Luke 21:27, and every other mention in Mark and Matthew. If you are concerned about the cosmic language about this event, go and look again at Isaiah 14 and the 'day of the Lord' destruction of Babylon by the Medes. Same language). This event is also connected with the gathering (or synagogui-ing) of the elect from all the nations, as is prophecied in Isaiah 43. Half way through the war on Jerusalem, Nero kills himself in suburban squalor. Jerusalem and the Temple are flattened in 70AD. From this point christians are no longer welcome in Jewish synagogues They are synagogued (gathered together) only around Jesus Christ. Paul takes the fundamental reality, that those who accept the gospel are the new people of God, and applies the prophets to that new situation, where the gospel people are opposed by both Rome and Jerusalem (sometimes together, and sometimes seperately), and predicts the destruction of both oppressors. He isn't talking about some far distant future end of the world, but events close to the Thessalonians.

whenever Jesus comes to us he always tends to bring his friends along with him as well

Just wanted to save this turn of phrase from Jason "whenever Jesus comes to us he always tends to bring his friends along with him as well"

The Father's Spirit of Sonship

The Father's Spirit Of Sonship: Reconceiving The Trinity by Thomas G. Weinandy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a reasonably short book with a single point. Because of the evidence of the Spirit's role in fashioning Jesus as the Son(in birth, ministry and resurrection), and because of the Spirit's role in fashioning believers as Sons, the Spirit's role in the immanent Trinity should be seen as the one in whom the Father begets the son. The begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit are different but inseperable. Weinandy goes a little further to say that the Spirit 'persons' the Father by fashioning the Son, and 'persons' the Son by being the love with which the Son loves the Father.
Weinandy reckons his conception provides a way through the filoque debate. I like the thesis, but I'm not sure the debate will end.
The only downfall of the book is its length. If you are convinced of his thesis, it is too long. If you are unconvinced, it will probably be too short. Take a look at David Hohne's 'Spirit and Sonship'

Other Christians are the cause of sin in the world: untested assertions and the consequence of ideas

A little furor has arisen over at the Gospel Coalition, over Jared Wilsons post on bondage and kinky sex.
In it, he approvingly quotes Doug Wilson, who argues that abandoning a clear authority structure in marriage (and sex in marriage) leads to that authority displaying itself in violence such as rape.
Of course, Doug Wilson puts it a little more colourfully.
There has been outrage at various aspects of this post. For me it exemplifies the kind of untested assertions Christian leaders are always making. This idea leads to that.. that idea leads to this. Often these kind of assertions just seem to be point scoring. That is, they say the reason there is sin in the world is because there are other christians who disagree with them.
So, Doug and Jared. Sexual violence and rape happen because of more egalitarian attitudes. Really? Really? It isn't because of the sinfulness of men? It isn't because people reject Christ and his way of love? Do you have stats on this? Can you run a control, where you have Christians with egalitarian views and Christians with complementarian views and see where sexual violence happens? Or as another control, a non-christian society with hierarchical structure and one without? Are there really such discrepencies in the rates of sexual violence that you can posit such a clear causal link?

On the flipside, egalitarian christians have responded "See! Complementarian views lead to condoning sexual violence!".
Now, the way Doug spoke of conquering and penetrating was unwise. In fact lets just say it was dumb. But as Jared has defensively pointed out, the thrust (excuse the pun) of Dougs point was against sexual violence, was for a vision of male power that is to serve and to love. Some of us may not like the way it was worded, but that is what Doug was getting at. And for the most part, I've found that complemtarian christians aren't really into sexual violence.

So here is a crazy thought. Perhaps sexual violence doesn't happen because of egalitarian or hierarchical views of the relationship between men and women. Maybe it happens because people are sinful bastrds.

And perhaps we should all pause before we pontificate on the consequences of ideas

John Williamson Nevin on the need for innovative religious services

"Let the power of religion be present in the soul of him who is called to serve at the altar, and no strange fire will be needed to kindle the sacrifice. He will require no new measures. His strength will appear rather in resuscitating, and clothing with their ancient force the institutions and services already established for his use. The freshness of a divine life, always young and always new, will stand forth to view in forms that before seemed sapless and dead. Attention will be engaged; interest excited; souls drawn to the sanctuary. Sinners will be awakened and born into the family of God. Christians will be builded up in faith, and made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Religion will grow. This is the true idea of evangelical power.

"But let a preacher be inwardly weak, though ambitious at the same time of making an impression in the name of religion, and he will find it necessary to go to work in a different way. Old forms must needs be dull and spiritless in his hands. His sermons have neither edge nor point. The visitation and no skill to make it of any account. Still he desires to be doing something in his spiritual vocation to convince others and to satisfy himself that he is not without strength.

"What then is to be done? He must resort to quackery; not with clear consciousness, of course; but instinctively, as it were, by the pressure of inward want. He will seek to do by the flesh what he finds himself too weak to effect by the spirit. Thus it becomes possible for him to make himself felt. New measures fall in exactly with his taste, and are turned to fruitful account by his zeal. He becomes theatrical; has recourse to solemn tricks; cries aloud; takes strange attitudes; tells exciting stories: calls out the anxious, etc. In this way possibly he comes to be known as a revivalist, and is counted among those who preach the Gospel 'with the demonstration of the Spirit and with power.' And yet when all is done he remains as before without true spiritual strength. New measures are the refuge of weakness."
from 'The Anxious Bench'


see a summary of it here

Change and the Elderly

It has long been noticed that older people don't like change. (sometimes this is more assumed than tested).
I have a hunch that it is about to get harder though.
 I have these two observations.

1. Bringing about change with those born in the 'war years', is like pushing a 100kg block of stone along the floor. You have to push really hard. They stick together. You move in small increments. And eventually you get there

2. Bringing about change with baby boomers is like pushing a 100kg block of jelly across the floor. If you push, they wobble, but don't move. If you push hard you are enveloped by the jelly. Then you thrash around a bit. The block disintegrates, some melts. It breaks into small isolated coagulations all over the place. The apparent lack of solidity, the apparent fluidity, the lack of form, makes it all the harder to budge.

Our churches are in for a blast of a ride in the next 10-20 years, as our elders slowly have no (set) liturgical tradition, but long for the 'contemporary' services of the 70's and 80's. Very, very few are going to move into the early morning prayer book services, which means all of us are going to have to learn to get along with a generation that (sometimes) didn't want to learn to get along with their elders.

Fun times

Gay marriage talk notes.. please comment/tear to bits

ok, so I've been convinced that we need to do this at church.
This are my initial thoughts. Just scribbles, stealing mostly from O'Donovans fulcrum sermon 'Good news for Gays' and Hauerwas' 'Sex in public'

The issue has been presented as though there is one group of people who wants everyone to be treated equally, and another small group of people who think they can define marriage.
This is true, but not in the way you think.

(Christians can't help but argue from Christianity.. which we think is the best for everybody)

Christians want people to be treated equally
The churches position is that all people find their true identity in Christ. There is one christ and one gospel.
That gospel is a word of comfort and a word of challenging transformation. You can't have one without the other. The comfort is that God is powerful to transform us.
The desires of all disciples of Jesus are challenged when they truly walk after him.
We are all equally challenged by the gospel, sometimes to suffer for the sake of the kingdom.
Yet this is worked out in different ways. Something which has traditionally been called 'vocation'.
The one gospel is preached to a banker, a politician and a soldier. But when they recieve it, there are different aspects of their lives that are impacted in different ways. The banker needs to know (and obey!) God's attitude to money, the politician about power, the soldier about just war etc...
One gospel, different vocations.
No different to a homosexually oriented person. one gospel, perhaps a different calling and vocation

Go to marriage and singleness in 1 Cor 7.
    Let's remember that the calling to heterosexual marriage is more morally compromised than the call to celibacy.
    That is, Paul thinks it is harder to be devoted to Jesus if you are married than if you are single and trying to avoid sex. (because of the cares of this world). (The homosexually oriented person may ironically have an advantage here, though I'm sure it does not feel like it!)

Christians need to apologise to the gay community for when we have made out they need a different gospel
1. When we treat them as worse sinners, beyond the love of Jesus and outside the need for our care
2. When the church has treated the gay community as a seperate group that does not need to be challenged to discipleship, even suffering for the sake of the gospel

The gay marriage lobby (arrogantly) thinks it can define marriage.

In this debate, people think they completely know what marriage is.
It is when 2 people love each other. So if 2 people love each other they should be able to get married (The romantic fallacy)
It is about having children. Modern technology allows gays to  have children, therefore they should be able to get married (The realist fallacy)
It is about sex/ companionship/ tax avoidance......
Eph 4- one flesh as a mystery
Even for Paul, marriage may be all the things above, but it is more. It is a mystery
It is a mystery closely tied to Christ's love for the church. An ordered love and care and submission between man and woman, that is mysterious.

But, it might be replied, surely a heterosexual marriage isn't the only place this happens??
Well, did you notice what it is a mystery of? The church.
The whole church are meant to submit to each other
The whole church are meant to care foreach other financially
The whole church are meant to have close committed relationships
THe whole church is meant to be involved in raising children (baptism)
The whole church is meant to love each other.

We have failed the gay community by failing to be the church
(We have failed heterosexual single people too!!)
When we restrict our submission, commitment, money love, children to marriages and blood family, when we reduce the basis of our marriages to romance, (or entertain the idea of secret marriages.. ie, we have had sex so we are married).....we are like the world around us,
but our good news is (should be) that in the community of disciples, these things are opened up beyond the exclusive sexual relationship of marriage.




Ok , so it needs a lot of fleshing out, but I think it is a different (stealing O'Donovan and Hauerwas) to the question, that ultimately says we respond by preaching the gospel and being the church.

Thoughts?

"Because it is better for mission"

The overriding justification for changes within churches in the Sydney Diocese is the claim that these changes will be better for reaching people with the gospel of Jesus. Hallelujah! Praise God that we have churches and church leaders who love Jesus so much, who want his Gospel spread to every ear, who want his grace to fill every portion of our country and world.

And yet.
Have we actually done any better with mission.
In some circumstances, those who have opposed various changes have been seen as suspicious. Often it is the elderly "Oh they just need to be changed, to have a gospel heart".
"They love tradition more than people"
"They aren't on board with the mission"

Yet the stats don't lie. We aren't really doing all that well with the converting and reaching people.
 And our churches are probably over represented with spiritual adolescents. (For eg. "I want the church to be a loving community, that is all about relationships, but I only want to turn up half the time").
This can all be put down to the sovereignty of God , of course. Our changes were good, necessary, better for mission, but God decided not to bless them.

Or possibly we were wrong on some things (like the dumbing down (ie abandonment) of our liturgy).
Just putting it out there. 

Missing Mass

Yesterday I ate and drank bread and wine at church.
I'm pretty comfortable with calling this the Lord's Supper. This is Jesus' table
I'm ok with calling this Holy Communion. We are united with Jesus and so united to each other.
I'm even fine with calling it the Eucharist. Take a look at the prayer book. It is one big prayer of thanks.

But personally, I'm uncomfortable with the word 'Mass'. Firstly, it sounds rather Catholic. And secondly, I don't really know what it means.
But perhaps we have lost something by losing the word  'Mass'

"The term "Mass" is derived from the Late Latin word missa (dismissal), a word used in the concluding formula of Mass in Latin: "Ite, missa est" ("Go; it is the dismissal")" .
Thankyou Wikipedia.

So essentially, to call church 'Mass' is to call church 'leave'.
Which sounds rather strange, but perhaps there is something to this.

A few weeks ago Rory Shiner had a post about forgotten ministry models. He traces how churches, under the impulse of the 'priesthood of all believers' have made the Sunday meeting the epicentre of christian ministry and service, rather than seeing the Sunday service as a resource that equips the saints for their ministry through the week.
The post is titled 'Go in peace to love and serve the Lord'. That is the anglican dismissal.(Not in the communion service, but in the other ones) It defines our missio. Now I don't know about you, but the dismissal in many churches I have been in is 'there is some morning tea/supper, please hang around'.
Combined with this is the sense that if you are going to love and serve the Lord, it will involve some Sunday commitment, or at least involvement in one of the churches programs.

In a similar vein, JKA Smith suggest that the constant tinkering with the Sunday service distracts us from getting on with the business of innovative mission. I don't know whether he has the figures to back it up, but the idea that there is one stream of evangelicalism hammering away at making the Sunday service new, fresh and contemporary; and another that is being refreshed by rich liturgy and getting on with serving people through the week rings true in my experience.


I lead a fortnightly bible study with a bunch of men. The bible study is held at another fellows house.
In his words "I love having you guys over, but I have a life" So, at a certain point in the evening, as we all stand around chatting, he will call out "Orright, everybody, get lost".
May we all learn from him

Devouring the Psalms

One of my great pleasures this year has been meeting with one of the young men from our evening service each week.
We choose a Psalm that may be helpful as a response to the reading and sermon, and then rework it as a corporate prayer for the congregation (often doesn't require that much in the way of rework)
This fella is a very enthusiatic, emotional guy, and has just devoured the Psalms. A few weeks in he said ' These are great! I just want to read the whole Psalms so I know which one to choose'. So he now has read through the whole of Psalms and is starting again.
The congregation seems to be enjoying it too.
This year, Moore College's School of Theology (September 12 and 13) is on the Psalms.
Perhaps I'll drag along my young friend

I am very happy to be in a church system that is Reformed, but generally thoughtful and historically aware.
Peter Leithart points out the terrible results when a particular stream of Reformed theology claims it is the only one that is truly reformed.
So, so, so glad that I don't live in America

An interesting proposal for Archbishop of Sydney

A good friend had a fascinating proposal for the next Anglican Archbishop of Sydney.
Keith Condie
Think about it.
Gentle but firm. Affectionately known at College as the smiling assasin.
Very well thought through
An appreciation for Anglican history.
Well respected.
I reckon he would be a good media player too.
Hmm...

Chiasms in Isaiah 40-66 by Kenneth Bailey

I've been reading Kenneth Bailey's Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians. I thought it would be an interesting Middle Eastern perspective on 1 Cor and there are helpful comments on the way. What I've discovered is that it is a very rigorous structural analysis of 1 Cor using chiasms or ring composition as he calls them. (It is not the only rhetorical device he observes.)

What is new to me is the argument that this type of structure comes from the Jewish prophets and not Hellenistic Greek. He has done an extensive structural analysis of Isaiah 40-66 which you can download here. 

I've been reading through this Isaiah translation with a guy at church and finding it helpful. Actually it is especially helpful in reading the prophets because it explains the argument of otherwise confusing passages, and relatively simply. I'm trialing it with a few other people at church to see if it helps with the ease of reading the prophets.

Has anyone else used this?

Not Amill?

Just to clarify on the last post, I still do hold some kind of Amillenial position.
At the moment I'm calling it 'iterative amillenial'
I still think that the 'eschatological texts' of the New Testament (which, is kind of all of them, but you know what I mean) are incredibly relevant for us, setting out a pattern of how we are to live between Jesus' resurrection and his final return.
But I think they mean something for us now because they actually meant something for their original readers. And sometimes they aren't (simply) about Jesus final return.
And that's where I think idealist amillenialism breaks down. So I'm reading Greg Beale on 2 Thessalonians 2. He wants to argue that the temple that gets defiled here is the church. Which, is kind of persuading. But his presupposition is that the appearing of Jesus must be the 'final' appearance of Jesus. He works from this presupposition to say that the appearance of Jesus is the final appearance. Round and round we go.
What it leaves him with is actually a kind of futurist interpretation (both of Daniel and Thessalonians), one day there will be a massive apostasy within the church away from the true church and that is when Jesus will return. But it is kind of now, but not really, but it is, but not.

In a sense, I like Beales interpretation, but by cutting the chapter loose from history, the content of the apostasy can be filled with whatever sins are unfashionable in the evangelical world at the moment, and  then we can all start speculating about Jesus return.
While I agree that the emphasis in the New Testament is on the church as the 'temple of God', I wonder whether what we are dealing with in the New Testament is the seam in history where one Temple//cosmos is being dismantled and another replacing it.
Beales application is (kind of) where I want to get to, without sacrificing the flesh and blood, historical reality that Paul is talking about.


in other rambling thoughts on iterative vs idealist amillenialism, I reckon this changes quite drastically how we speak about politics.
If the world power is always evil (as in idealist amill), then all christians can say is, 'you are bad', no matter what the politicians are actually doing. If however, political power is being pilloried in the New testament because of it's claims to divinity, we can honestly say that world powers that dont do this are doing better. And if they started making such claims, well then we could yell at them again.
time for bed

2 Thessalonians 2- do we have to choose?

So I'm trying to nut out 2 Thessalonians 2 at the moment.
I've put aside the 'this is what happens all the time (and so never really happens)' kind of amillenial interpretation, and I'm trying to figure out what Paul is referring to. with the 'man of lawlessness'

Two options press hard.

First is some kind of reference to the Imperial cult of Gaius Caligula. James Harrison marshals some pretty interesting evidence, to do with Caligula's descriptions of himself as divine, his attempt to install a statue of himself as a new Zeus, manifest divine in the Jerusalem temple as a background to Paul.

Option 2 is seeing the 'man of lawlessness' as some kind of reference to apostate Israel, who has rejected her Messiah. Perhaps as the High priest. The faithful suffering of God's true people commends God's right judgement about them, while the false people commend themselves as God's.

It's the chestnut of a lot of eschatological judgementy stuff in the NT. Is the target Rome or Israel?

i'm starting to wonder whether we need to choose so clearly.

Who was it that was persecuting the Thessalonian church?

Acts 17:5 But the Jews became jealous,17 and gathering together some worthless men from the rabble in the marketplace,18 they formed a mob19 and set the city in an uproar.20 They attacked Jason’s house,21 trying to find Paul and Silas22 to bring them out to the assembly.23
Acts 17:6 When they did not find them, they dragged24 Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials,25 screaming, “These people who have stirred up trouble26 throughout the world27 have come here too,
Acts 17:7 and28 Jason has welcomed them as guests! They29 are all acting against Caesar’s30 decrees, saying there is another king named31 Jesus!”

The problem for the thessalonians seems to be both jealous Jews and the challenge of the gospel to the imperial cult.

I'm not quite sure how this is going to work out in 2 Thessalonians yet, just bubbling away in my head

Now, Not yet, and the shape of history

In the circles I travel in, the explanation of New Testament eschatology as 'Now but not yet' is so common as to be banal. Visually it is represented like this.
The idea is of an 'overlap of the ages'.
It's advantage is that it allows us to see God's eschaton beginning before the end of the old age.
But I'm starting to think it has serious limitations.
In the image above, the two ages never really interact, the new age never really breaks into the old (it floats of to heaven and is located there.
Also, the new age and time is seen as the same as the old, simply on a different register or plane.

So, I want to suggest a significantly more complicated picture

Where the ancients saw history as circular and eternal, we know that only God and his kingdom are eternal. History proceeds in a straight line, and not a straight line toward God's kingdom, but (initially) away from it. (the lines).
God intervenes, in actions that are both comprehensible and actual on that linear progression, yet are glimpses and real anticipations of the eschaton. (the circles)
This is true of Gods rescue of Israel from egypt, of every sabbath rest, of the return from exile, of Jesus resurrection, the coming of the Spirit, each sunday morning as we anticipate the first morning of the new creation. These interventions of God curve the linear progress of history toward the eschaton (though at no point could history be left to itself and find the eschaton)
The advantages of this picture, (I reckon), is that it allows us to see continuiy in God's activity between the old and new. it also allows us to apply similar interpretive strategies to prophecy in the Old and New Testaments, that is is, it allows us to say that some events are 'Then and not yet', rather than simply in an ever present now. This means that we can take things like the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD as genuine events in the action of God, genuine interventions of the eschaton onto actual, flesh and blood history, fulfilling prophecies in the NT, and yet which still give us a lense into the future (ie, we aren't full preterists who  think there is no more eschaton to come.)

Thoughts?

How much to pay for a monograph

You can get David Moffit's 'Atonement and the logic of resurrection in the epistle to the Hebrews' for $300 from Brill here

Or you can get his dissertation version for $0
here from Duke

The choice is entirely yours

The year of fat books

The past few months I've chewed through some fat books.
My current one in Charles Taylor's 'The Secular Age'.
The book is an account of how the west moved from (almost) unquestionable beleif in God to a situation where belief is one option among many.
The book is describing something complicated, and so is a fairly complicated book. Taylor refuses simplistic explanations.

I'm almost through it.
 Reading 'A Secular Age' feels like taking the red pill from the Matrix. Your eyes are opened to the presuppositions you have about the world, where they come from, and why they are not 'obvious'.
As someone whose job it is to try and help the church be faithful to the gospel, I also feel like I am now wearing a bland grey sweater and eating gruel.  "Give me back my fantasy!!". The way Taylor describes it, the task of the church is incredibly hard. (though he is positive about the church's prospects).

The book is difficult to get into at first. Taylor is weaving together many threads, and doesn't deal with them one by one, but gets into them all and then comes back to them again and again. About a quarter to half the way into the book, you start to get a feel for the tapestry he is describing, but that is about 200 pages! He also assumes you have some grasp on the history of philosophy, literature, art, music and politics. Sometimes he also assumes you know French. (Classic Quebecois, sometimes he translates, other times he wants to rub your nose in it)

Still, it is a very helpful book for understanding the complicated motivations for belief and unbelief in our context (and is more sympathetic and less ranty about it than most christian accounts)
Well worth the time, the book will shape you for many years to come.

Making sense of the claim that "we do not interpret Scripture"

There is a claim that gets bandied around every now and then that (as preachers) 'we do not interpret Scripture'. Recently I heard it coupled with the claim that 'there is nothing cultural in the Bible... except headscarves in 1 Corinthians'
It comes from an understandable unease with modern historical criticism that places the reader at an uncrossable cultural distance to the text of the Scriptures.

Robert Jenson has (in my opinion) a good discussion of this in his Systematic Theology.
Quoting Ebling, he notes
"Within Christianity's construal of reality as history, discovery that Paul in his time and place did not necessarily think or experience what I am in my time and place presuppose everyone must is a necessary first step of his authority over me. Paul cannot enrich my apprehension of the gospel so long as I presume his apprehension and mine must obviously be the same" (Sys Theol Vol 2, 278)

Yet Jenson recognizes the crisis this causes.
If we actually pay attention to a texts meaning within it's own historical and cultural space, how do we then let it speak today.
"Ironically, what usually happens is that preachers and teachers are defeated by such questions and relapse to whatever moralistic or theological platitudes they would have proclaimed anyway" (279)
and yet, and this is where Jenson is on to something
"Whatever hermeneutical gaps may need to be dealt with in the course of the church's biblical exegesis, there is no historical distance between the community in which the Bible appeared and the Church that now seeks to understand the Bible, because they are the same community"

"The error of almost all modern biblical exegesis is a subliminal assumption that the church in and for which Matthew and Paul wrote...and the church in which we now read what they produced are historically distant from each other"
"Past and present do not need to be bridged before understanding can begin, since they are always already mediated by the continuity of the community's language and discourse"

"Those who interpret Scripture in and for the church are compelled to keep trying to say what it says, and by the mere act claim that Scripture does say something to us; the struggle itself is the hermeneutical principle. Bishops and parish presbyters and scholars in their service are the ones whose labor to read the text honestly and faithfully, and whose assumption of the labor this means in their office, will maintain the authority of Scripture or whose failure to do so will undercut it. The old-protestant doctrine of Scripture gave it a second essential predicate: it is "Perspicuous", by which they did not mean it contains no obscurities or can be understood without effort but that the effort need not finally be repeated" (280, bold mine)

This account obviously shares some affinity with those who claim 'we do not interpret scripture'. It shares an uneasiness with modern hermeneutical distance. But it does so without courting the danger of saying the Bible is obvious, that it requires nothing of us, that it is somehow immediately available, and also avoids the ridiculous claim that 'there is nothing cultural in the Bible' (as though God had somehow blessed/cursed this magical age by erasing the possibility of 'culture')

"The historical distances with which interpretation must indeed reckon and of which historical-critical labors must maintain the awareness are the distances between Moses and the later prophets, or between the prophets and Jesus, or between Jesus and Paul and Paul and us, but never between the story as a whole and us, never between the biblical community as a whole and the present church"(281)

Faithful to Scripture

"The churches most faithful to Scripture are not those that legislate the most honourific propositions about Scripture butthose that most often and thoughfully read and hear it"
Robert Jenson Sytematic Theology: Vol2 The Works of God 1999 ,pp 273

Preaching the message, rather than preaching 'from' the message

Halden has recently posted a couple of sermons up on his website.

Ephesians 2:1-10 here
and 1 John 1:1-2:2 here

They are incredibly gripping. The style is one I've never really heard before, where he is simply rephrasing the text of scripture, with a few expansions here and there. It is as though he is imagining himself into the voice of the apostle and then speaking that to his congregation.
What you end up with is rich depth within a short sermon. I wonder though, whether they would need to be spoken slowly.
Certainly something I would like to have a crack at sometime.

The preaching circle

An unpolished good friday sermon

Here's my Good Friday talk. 10 minutes. I'm putting it up in it's actual written form, which often bears little relation to what I end up saying, but is far more honest about my writing skills and preparation. It is here because tabs are a better way for me to file, Enjoy



How can this be a Good Friday?
a nightime arrrest, a hasty trial, a friends betrayal
How can this be a good friday?
they beat Jesus, our Lord, they spat on him, they pushed a crown of thorns into his skull
How can this be a Good Friday?
an innocent man carries a lump of wood on his back, has nails driven through his arms and feet, hasa spear pierced through his side
How can this Friday, this Friday, be good?
How is it that christians can speak of this death as a good thing?
How can we speak of any death as a good thing?
Death is a horror, an enemy, a tragedy.
There are very few stuations where we would say that death was welcome. Isn’t there. Very few deaths that we would call good. Very few who look forward to death.
Perhaps only those with the most trapped and hemmed in lives would call death good.
The prisoner languishing in prison on a life sentence, maybe they would call death a good escape.
Or the terminally ill, who suffer a long slow decline. Perhaps for them we would say death is good.
But Jesus’ death is neither of these. Jesus is not a prisoner for long, No he is arrested, tried and executed with a day. Nor can we say that Jesus death is somehow an escape from suffereing, as we read the gospel accounts, we find his death was the reverse of an escape from suffering.
How is it then, that we can say that this day, this Friday, when Jesus hangs on the cross, is a good friday?
The bible does speak of people whose lives are trapped. People whose lives are like a long prison sentence, like a long kidnapping ordeal, like slavery. And it is us. The bible speaks of All humanity as though we are imprisoned by evil.

We are trapped in a world where we cannot escape evil happening to us.
We are trapped by our own selfish desires, and so we perpetuate that evil.
We are trapped by our pasts, and by guilt from our past
We are so enmeshed in a world of violence and vengeance, we hardly even notice
so insttutionalised by the prison of sin that we have forgotten that there is a another way to live
We are imprisoned by our fear of death, so even when we know what is right, when push comes to shove, we will not do it.
Sin and evil, these forces within us, but somehow also larger than us, are like prison guards, like strong men, who keep us locked up tight, away from God, hostile to him alone in our cells.
And the Bible speaks as though everyone, everyone is locked in this prison, and the hope of release seems slim.

But Jesus didn’t live a trapped life.
God sends his Son Jesus, as a man, as a human. God sends Jesus into our prison. But instead of a life lived trapped in selfishness, he freely lives his life for others, instead of being trapped in violence and vengeance, he freely forgives those who hate him, instead of being trapped by fear of death, he freely obeys the will of his Father, all the way to the end. And by freely following his Father, he breaks the power of Sin and evil. This is why we call this day Good Friday.
Throughout the gospels, as Jesus faces the temptation to disobey his Father, to destroy his enemies, to take his kingdom by force, to avoiud the cross, the question lingers, will, Jesus give in, will he become part of this prison of evil.
As Jesus hangs, dying, suffering, in agony on the cross, as the evil world throws everything it has at him Because as Jesus hangs on the cross, as he commits his Spirit into the hands of his FAther, as he breaths his last, as his life comes to an end, he has won. He has not given in to the system of Evil and sin. Here finally is a person whose whole life was lived toward God. Here finally is a human who was faithful, right to the end. Here finally is one who has faced all the temptations but has survived them all.
When Jesus dies, he wins. He breaks the power of Sin and Evil. The one who died has been freed from Sin.
We call this day Good Friday, because it is the day Good wins, even by dying. But why celebrate Jesuss victory? How is this Friday good for us? Well, it is good for us, because his death is also ‘for us’. The apostle Paul explains it in Romans 6 he says “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?.. v6 “For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin”
When Jesus dies, when he wins that victory over sin, he ties up those strong guards , Sin and Evil. He opens all our prison doors, the chains that bind us fall off, as he says to each one of us, “Follow me, follow me away from that Old life of slavery to Sin and Evil, that old life is dead, follow me to freedom, follow me to a new life”
As Christians, we celebrate Good Friday, because Good Friday is the day that our Old, trapped, imprisoned lives died. Today is the dayy Jesus set us free
And Jesus still calls those words out to us to today “Follow me into freedom, into a new life”

Some of you are still trapped by Sin, still trapped by Evil. The prison door is open and you are still sitting in your cells. Today is the day for freedom, the way out is to follow Jesus. If you want to be free to love God and others, free from the power of Sin and evil, the way out is to follow Jesus. To throw your lot in with him, to be joined to him in his death, that is saying “I want my old life to die” so that you can share in his new life.

Many of us have tasted that new life, and Paul in Romans gives us a warning. Jesus has set us free for a new life. But not free to be selfish, vengeful, fearful, Not free to do whatever we feel like. That isn’r freedom. That would be to fall back into slavery to sin. That wouldbe to walk back into the prison cell that Jesus just freed us from.
No we are free to offer ourselves to God, freed to love him and our neighbours, freed so that we no longer fear death, freed from guilt.
So lets today celebrate the freedom Jesus won for us by his death on the cross,

wealthy church

Churches are a witness to the resurrection power of God.

Wealthy churches will either be full of amazing stories of God's blessing, even when everything was given away, or they will be haunted by unfaithfulness.

Where are the stories?

But that just doesn't make sense to me!

I'm always interested in what does/does not make sense to people.

Recently we had a sermon on John 4, the woman at the well, in which the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman was presented as a paradigm for evangelism.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Jesus draws attention to his own identity to reply to the womans rebuff
"If you knew who I was....." Should I do that?
Jesus bizarrely asks the woman to get her husband, then knows about her marital history.
Am I meant to have prophetic knowledge of peoples circumstances too?
Jesus kind of puts down the woman religious knowledge and practices. Should I do that too?
Jesus identified himself as the Christ. Should I do that too?

So I had to do a Bible study on same passage. I fear my Bible study made little to no sense to those who came along. Here are some points.

John 2-4 sees a similar movement to Acts 1:8. Jesus first goes to Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, and then , in the form of the Samaritans confession and the imperial official, to the ends of the world. The disciples are drawn in for the harvest, but are reaping from what Jesus has worked.

The conflict is obvious from the beginning, Jesus is a Jew and the woman is a samaritan. What was the problem with Samaritans. Well the problem began way back in 1 Kings 12. The northern tribes split off from the south and Jereboam (from Shechem), their leader decides to set up temples other than the one in Jerusalem.

Eventaully the North is smashed for their idolatry by Assyria. In the place of the people, Assyria moves in other nations, with other Gods. Here is 2 Kings 17:29-33 ²⁹ Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. ³⁰ The people from Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth, those from Kuthah made Nergal, and those from Hamath made Ashima; ³¹ the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelek and Anammelek, the gods of Sepharvaim. ³² They worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. ³³ They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.

Note there are five groups listed, with their Gods.
In 2 Kings 18:34 there is a list of another 5 groups, with their God's who did not save Samaria.

Ezekiel, in the context of indicting Jerusalem as an adulterer, also mentions Samaria, and her restoration

⁵³ “‘However, I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and of Samaria and her daughters, and your fortunes along with them, ⁵⁴ so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them comfort. ⁵⁵ And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before; and you and your daughters will return to what you were before. ⁵⁶ You would not even mention your sister Sodom in the day of your pride, ⁵⁷ before your wickedness was uncovered. Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom^[a] and all her neighbors and the daughters of the Philistines—all those around you who despise you. ⁵⁸ You will bear the consequences of your lewdness and your detestable practices, declares the LORD.

⁵⁹ “‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant. ⁶⁰ Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. ⁶¹ Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both those who are older than you and those who are younger. I will give them to you as daughters, but not on the basis of my covenant with you. ⁶² So I will establish my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the LORD. ⁶³ Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign LORD.’”

Note that Samaria is described also as an adulterous woman, and her restoration is to shame Jerusalem and is not on the basis of the covenant with Jerusalem.

All of Israel herself is spoken of as an adulterous wife to YHWH. Famously in the book of Hosea, but also in Isaiah 54:6 The LORD will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—
a wife who married young,
only to be rejected,” says your God.
⁷ “For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
⁸ In a surge of anger
I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
I will have compassion on you,”
says the LORD your Redeemer.

And so it shouldn't too difficult to recognise in John 4 the biblical typescene of a betrothment.
All of our movies have fairly stock standard boy-meets-girl tropes, which are instantly recognisable to us.
The bible also has a pattern for how engagements happen.

1. The bridegroom is encouraged to leave his family (or kicked out) and journeys to a foreign land
2. He meets a girl at a well
3. Someone draws water from the well
4. He reveals his identity
5. The girl runs home to tell the family
6. They get married
7. Eventually he returns back to his family and is welcomed

Isaac and Rebekah(done for him) Genesis 24:12-21
Jacob and Rachel (the grandma of Samaria)Gen 29:1-12
Moses and Zipporah Exodus 2:15-22
Saul and Israel 1 Sam 9 (Saul messes with the story, instead of getting a wife (or the donkeys he is looking for), he meets a prophet, who tells him everything that is on his heart, calls him the ‘desire of all Israel’ and annoints him as Messiah.

Contextual factors point to a betrothal scene here too.
Jesus has just been described as 'the bridegroom' by John the baptist (3:29), which is also connected to Jesus' role as the Christ. Prior wedding language has also appeared in chapter 2, where Jesus assumes the duties of the bridegroom, though 'his time has not yet come'.

Jesus then, leaves his family, travels to a strange country, meets a woman at the well, reveals his identity, she runs back to tell the family (city) they come and rejoice, and then Jesus returns to his family and is welcomed there (even though a prophet is not welcome in his home town).

This is a betrothal scene. But the woman is not the bride, or, in a sense she is, in as much as she represents Samaria, and Jesus is YHWH/the Christ her bridegroom.
Jesus comes to Shechem, to Mt Gerazim, to the spiritual heartland of Samaria. To Jacobs field, to the well, to the stones of blessing and cursing from Deuteronomy.

And when he gets there he offers living water.
What is this living water and how is it connected to Jesus identity?
Jeremiah 17:13 speaks of YHWH himself as the living water. Psalms like Psalm 46 speak of a river of gladness that flows from the presence of YHWH in his Temple. Ezekiel 47 picks up similar imagery with a river that flows from beneath the right shoulder of the Temple, bringing life and abundance.
The living water comes from YHWH and his temple. Jesus has already described his body as the Temple. In John 7:37-39, the living water is the Holy Spirit, given after Jesus death. In John John 19:34, Jesus is pierced beneath the shoulder (his breast in one tradion 'his right breast', and blood and water flow from his side. In John 21, Jesus will supply the numerolgically significant 153 fish to the fisherman, as in Ezekiel 47 (See Richard Bauckham on Gematria and unity in John for this one).
The living water is Jesus' identity as YHWH and temple, able to give eschatological life, through the pouring out of the Spirit.
This explains the relativising of the worship sites of Mt Gerazim and Jerusalem. Worship is now centred around Jesus (the truth), empowered by the Spirit.

What of Jesus request for the woman to call her husband? How does this fit into the wider, symbolic reading of the woman?

A hint may be that the Hebrew word for husband and the Hebrew word for Baal (divine Lord/god) share the same root and are essentially the same word.
Samaria at this time has no Lord/Baal.
She has had five Baal's (remember the listing of five groups with their Gods?) and the Baal she has now isn't really hers.
I assume this last reference is to Samaritan worship of YHWH. He is not really Samaria's husband, for salvation comes from the Jews, and the Samaritans worship what they don't know.

The samaritans come to believe in Jesus however, so in one sense, the divine bridegroom does indeed get his bride. This is delayed though, until chapter 12. More are to be included in this bride. It is not until chapter 12, when greeks wish to see Jesus , that Jesus declares 'My time has come'

John's concern is to present Jesus as the bridegroom for Jews, Samaria and the entire world.
He is the source of the Spirit, that life giving water. He is the temple and so the centre of worship. He goes ahead of the disciples, sowing the seed of salvation, completing the work the Father sent him to do. The disciples simply reap the harvest.

Complicated, but make more sense to me.

Every New Testament book is the result of a number of theological traditions

No I'm not arguing for a documentary hypothesis that cuts up books of the Bible into ever smaller portions. Simply ruminating on the process of Canonisation.
Now, alot of Protestants have issues with the Church deciding what is Scripture. The counter argument is that the church simply received Scripture, rather than made it. And this is true to an extent, but nevertheless, the early church had to recognize the apostolic gospel in each of the writings.
I want to argue that this is a strength, that allows us to read each book with confidence. Each book can be read as the witness of 'the apostles (collective)', not just 'this apostle (or not)'.
Let me explain.
The early church arises as apostles go out and preach the gospel. We can pretty safely assume that individual church communities are heavily influenced by those who formed them. Of course there are cross overs and interactions, but there are probably going to be more 'Peter' groups, more 'james', more 'anonymous' groups etc
Now, when it comes time to canonize Scripture, all of these groups are involved. The decision must be accepted by all. We don't have all of Paul's letters in the Scriptures, only those judged by 'James' christians, 'John Christians' 'Peter Christians' and 'Anonymous christians' to be in accord with the teaching of the Apostles.

Paul's letters, then, are not simply an example of 'Pauline theology', but are accepted as congruent with all the Apostles teaching.
This allows the possibility that Apostles, like Peter, could say and write things that were a bit off, but that we don't find them in the Scriptures.
The authority of each book in the NT is not then simply that it was 'written by an Apostle', but that it is in accord with the collective witness of the Apostles.

After 10 years, on and off, of teaching Special Religious Education in Schools, I was told today that I could no longer teach in Schools.
It isn’t because of secular ethics, nor gross misconduct on my part. Simply that I’m bad at holding on to certificates.
My SRE teaching experience began at Wentworth Falls Public School and sitting in with a very experienced SRE teacher at Katoomba High School, back in 2002. I taught Primary for two years and High School for five. The first classes were terrifying, but you eventually got into a rhythm. Most helpful were the (then optional) Youthworks courses that we did one day down at Emu Plains, on the bible, classroom management, child development etc.
Of course this was combined with the onslaught of Child protection courses, which grabbed you wherever you went.
Now, at the end of each of these courses you get a certificate. But does a 22yr old who has walked away from a career to teach the gospel for free keep a good filing system. Not this one!! (it was an arts career after all) Nine house moves, two floods and one theological degree later, the chances of finding those certs are slim.
So when I’m informed that to continue teach scripture I will have to have completed said courses, I’m not too worried. I’ve done them, yep, trained, tick, yikes the people even ordained me. Nothing to worry about. Keep teaching kids.
But, you do in fact have to have those certificates.
So, they will be in that pile of papers somewhere right? Right???
And I’ll get to them when I get time for it , right?
Documentation
Stability.

Now, it is my own silly fault for not keeping the pieces of paper for optional courses that then become mandatory later. But it still raises a problem for teaching Scripture in schools, and churches recruiting people to do it.
The assumption is that those who teach scripture are nice, stable people who keep a nice filing system. Now this shouldn’t have come as a surprise. I learned fairly early on teaching scripture that the lesson material assumed that you had a car and quite a budget to spend on your lessons.
But here is the problem.
Some of our Scripture teachers are nice , stable people, with (I assume) good filing habits.
However. Most of our nice, stable people in church are off in nice, stable jobs, and so can’t teach the SRE they get so angry about defending. That sometimes leaves the crazy fools who just want to tell people about Jesus.

I’m not sure what the next step is for me. I’m still hunting for those certificates. Perhaps I will have to sit through a few hours of training courses.

But my advice to all those young punks.....
be the crazy fool, leave your career, live in a squalid sharehouse because the church pretends to pay you, be unstable, move alot if you have to. You will find places to speak of Jesus' kingdom without accreditation. But hey, if you can do that and hold onto those certificates, that would probably make sense too.

What was going on in the Hart Family?

I just found out that a the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has a brother who is an Anglican priest and another brother who is a Roman Catholic priest.

Makes me wonde what was going on in that family.

Jacob and Esau as a background to the Prodigal Son

Hi yall,
I'm toying with the idea of Jacobs reunion with Esau in Gen 33 as a background to the story of the lost son in Luke 15.

A younger Son nicks the inheritance, (though in Genesis flourishes), returns fearful and pronouncing himself a servant, Esau (the brother, not the Father), runs, throws arms around and kisses the younger brother.

The interesting thing with this background is that Jesus seems to be saying that the lost son is like Israel.
Haven't checked any commentaries or anything yet, just chucking the idea out there

Been wondering what to do with your mad koine skills?

Been wondering what to do with your mad koine skills?
Been halfheartedly waiting for Hendrickson to get that reprint of Early Church Fathers out, in the vain hope that Koorong will match Christianbooks massively low price?
But don't really want to deal with Schaff's faffing?
Do I have the solution for you.

Did you know that you can get (almost) the entirety of Mignes Patrologicae, for free, as PDFs, indexed to author HERE.
Don't waste that greek people, or pretend that it is some magical holy language only the Bible speaks. Get your teeth into the Fathers!
Bam!

Giving sex for money

I've posted on sex and money over at the grit in the oyster. I'm never quite sure which blog to put my rants on

Profiteering Jews?

When preachers preach on Jesus clearing the Temple, it is often asserted that the sellers of sacrifices and money changers charged inflated prices, and that is Jesus' problem with it.

Is there any evidence of inflated money changing/sacrifice prices in the Second Temple?

Or is this charge based on a stereotype of 'Jews'?

To me it is all a distraction from the fact that this takes place in the Gentile courts, which is noted as the problem in John 2.

Anyone know of some ancient sources here?

An evangelism course for Doug Campbells "Deliverance of God"

Over the last week I've been reading through Douglas Campbell's "The Deliverance of God", and, at the same time, been teaching Sydney University Evangelical Union's "Leading People to Christ" course.

Doug Campbell takes a look at 'Justification Theory', the way we often describe the gospel, showing both it's conceptual flaws and scriptural problems. While reading Campbell, I've been struck again by how brilliant the LPC course is, as it 1. construes sin as both victimhood and agency and 2. Allows the focus of the gospel to be deliverance and 3. places judgement at the end.

In fact, a large part of Campbells massive book (and the slightly overreaching part too!), could simply be summed up by one footnote in LPC
"It is these theological insights, namely, that God's fundamental orientation towards human beings is love, that the primary enemies of God are evil, sin and death, and that God's judgement is only secondarily against human beings, which has determined the structure of the Leading people to Christ course"

My hunch is that lots of people will feel the pressure of Campbell's book, but will revert to JT when they have to teach evangelism simply, because there is no other option. Take a look at LPC

(That said, LPC doesn't match entirely to Campbells perspective, which is probably good too)

Guess ..without google...who said it

"Sometimes, negative preaching can get in the way of the message. The tribalism that leads to ranting preachers or reactionary people does not edify the church, the preacher or the hearer. More significantly, negative preaching can let the misunderstanding of the passage set the agenda, so that more time and emotional energy is expended on what the passage is not saying than what it is saying. So the main focus, let alone the subtleties of the passage, is lost in the mire of correcting error."

Two fantastic cinematic reflections on Christian theology

I've been on holidays for the past few weeks. Yesterday I got to watch two films, both of which are profound reflections on christian theology

The first was Terrence Malicks "The tree of life". The film places a very particular, and ordinary, story, of growing up, of joy, of suffering and encountering death, sin and shame, in the context of protology (how things began) and eschatology (how it all ends). Malick's construction of eschatology is especially rewarding. On some levels it is a reworking of the daunting protology, only in a gracious key. His particular ability as a director is extracting complex emotions from his actors without dialogue, and this shows particularly in the wistful joy of the gracious final scene. The movie is an extended reflection on the book of Job, and it works marvelously.
I must give a warning though, this is a weird film. It is not a linear narrative. It is more lifelike than that. So, if you can't deal with a movie that makes you think..perhaps this isn't the movie for you. Also, I think this is a movie for philosophy and theology graduates. At least, they will get the most out of it. Malick makes interesting comments on all sorts of things that would, I think, be missed by most viewers. There are all sorts of allusions to scripture in the movie as well, though it is not specifically Christological.

Not like "of God's and Men". This film is essentially about how the resources of christian worship empower a bunch of christians to love their enemies. It is a mindblowingly good film to boot. I have never encountered a movie that is so explicitly christian, and wrestling with the questions of christians, yet also so well made. The film won the Grand Prix at Cannes. I especially enjoyed it's construal of martyrdom, not as the pursuit of death, but as the pursuit of love. The film is also full of wonderful hyms that I've never encountered before (then again, they are in french).

The takehome from both the films is that life is lived in the small decisions and interactions that we have with others. Even in the case of possible martyrdom, it is still just one person interacting with another.
Do see these films, they are both out on DVD

Lest I seem to be evangelical bashing

Lest I seem to be evangelical bashing, here is a great post on some of the history of women in evangelicalism

No leading the singing for women

Continuing on the American complementarian thread,
women really shouldn't be leading the service or the singing either, if we follow the lead of Bob Kauflin at Sovereign Grace.

So , where are we up to. No preaching, no reading the scriptures, no praying, no singing, no leading. Lets be really clear who we are getting involved with if we want to go down this complementarian line.

Lets be quite clear that they teach Christians that what we do is sub or even anti biblical (if we do indeed allow women participation in these things).

No praying from the front for women

Let's get this straight, you raving feminist Sydney Anglicans, who misunderstand the way God has made men and women.

Women shouldn't be praying up the front in church services either,
says John Piper and plenty of other complementarians

No Bible reading for women either

I would hate for a slippery slope argument to be invoked in the discussion about women in ministry, but.. this is where it leads to folks!

Tim Challies tries to defend only men reading scripture publicly

http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/challies/men-women-the-public-reading-of-scripture.html

Lucky evangelical liturgies and prayers are such trite nonsense (ie lacking in teaching content), otherwise women would be excluded from those activities too.
What rubbish.

Listening to the voice of women in the church

Take a look at your christian books.
How many are by women?
What ratio women to men?

Mine is about 1:50

Please list your best theological book written by a fmale

Principles for preaching- Spend some time with yourself

When we are preaching we are speaking to humans ( I hope!).
In theory then, this should be incredibly easy. I am also a human, we should be able to relate!
Surely in ourselves we have a great resource for understanding each other.
But unfortunately, most of us don't spend time simply with 'ourselves'.
Sure, we spend time alone. With the TV. With some passtime. With a bible.
But I don't think this counts as spending time with ourselves.
Now, I'm not recommending some complicated program of 'finding ourselves', or deep meditation to find something profound.
In fact, the profoundest thing I have found by spending time with myself is that I'm not very profound. Not that I spend that much time with myself now.

When I was a child and teenager however, I had a special rock that I would go to, simply to sit.
It overlooked a vast valley. I played with the smaller rocks on top. I got bored. I got past being bored. I let my mind wander. I learn't all sorts of things at that rock. I learnt that I should thank people who have helped me. I learnt about a friends horrific story. I learnt to sit. I noticed that I am here, now. I thought about stuff. Nothing too profound*. But at least it gave me some time to have an interior reality. Not everything is conversing with others. I exist when I am not being entertained. Apparently teenagers and young uns' these days are lacking an interior life. Go and sit on a rock. You get to notice yourself a bit
Which should help you relate to other 'selfs'. Perhaps even show them their own 'selfs' more than they have ever seen them before. There is a lot of talk that preachers should go and spend time with people if we want to connect. And there is some truth in that. But perhaps there is een more benefit from spending some time with yourself
Preachers, go sit on a rock.



* though also some profound things. On a moonless night, the few lights from the farmhouses in the valley blended with the stars, so that the horizon seemed to drop 100 metres ahead, and gave the feeling you were floating through space on a small ball. Which you are really. Also, after a few years sitting on the rock, I lay down in just the right place and saw that the edge of the rock aligned almost perfectly with the contours of the mountains in the distance. Freaky.

I Ain't dead

So this last year I have taken up mat-surfing. Heading out to the beach on an inflateable pillow.
Probably the best time was in tiny surf when a few dolphins turned up and joined in the wave fun, and the worst when I went out in big surf and got the crap kicked out of me.

Last week I went surfing, there were a lot of fish in the water. Which made me a little, ahem, nervous.

I got home and turned on the news, they are going through the headlines

"Beachgoers swim unaware next to sharks in feeding frenzy"
I scream and recoil from the television.
"Surfer bitten by a shark"
arghhh
Then the story comes on
"Surfer Mike Wells was lucky to survive today after being mauled by a 6 foot bronze whaler"
I ran from the lounge room squealing.

All of which is to say,
I aint dead

FIVE sharks were seen off central coast beaches yesterday less than 12 hours after a surfer was bitten by what was thought to be a bronze whaler at North Avoca.

Mike Wells, a local semi-professional surfer and surf shop worker, received stitches and had surgery to prevent infection to about 50 puncture wounds on his right arm.

The 28-year-old was attacked at dusk on Tuesday in the water not far from the beachfront house he rents with his girlfriend, Samantha Symonds.

She said he was doing well and was expected to be discharged from Gosford Hospital last night.

On a surfing blog a friend, Grant Molony, said he was ''cracking jokes [and was] a lucky man with a story to tell for years to come''.

Mr Wells used his left hand to fight off the shark, which was about the size of his surfboard.

A neighbour, called Max, said beach walkers helped when he came ashore bleeding. His surfboard strap was used as a tourniquet and a towel covered gashes.

''He was as white as anything but still lucid. I think shock was setting in,'' he said.

Yesterday a Westpac life saver rescue helicopter spotted five sharks up to four metres long at Copacabana Beach and Avoca Beach, which was closed for an hour. Large numbers of baitfish are thought to be attracting them.

One surfer at North Avoca, Lachlan Taylor, 19, went into the water about 8am yesterday and saw masses of fish. ''Then I saw a huge shadow so I just absolutely bolted,'' he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/rescue-service-spots-five-sharks-up-to-four-metres-close-by-20120104-1pl8g.html#ixzz1ivbXyfXa