A Faithful Encourager

Three years ago, one my former professors of Old Testament, J. Alan Groves, succumbed to cancer and entered into glorious celebration with his God and Savior.

In memory of his passing, Pete Enns has posted a letter Professor Groves wrote in anticipation of his memorial service.  It was a quiet encouragement and stirring challenge towards faith for me this morning.

Reading Lessons

Back in seminary, we would often joke about how often professors (from all departments) would reference Luke 24:44-48 in their lectures.   The scene takes place shortly after Christ’s resurrection.  Jesus comes across his downtrodden disciples walking towards Emmaus.  After questioning their fears and demonstrating His alive-ness , he reminds them of the following:

Luke 24:44-48  He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”  Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.  He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,  and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.

This passage perhaps more than any other backboned the hermeutic taught at Westminster – that the death and resurrection of Jesus was the telos (end or focal point) of all the Law, Prophets, and Psalms (basically, all of Scripture to that point).  This conversation along the road to Emmaus teaches us as it did the disciples how to properly read the Bible.  In short, the Bible is an unfolding story that reaches ultimate climax/fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Christ.

I was realizing this week that, per my recollection, we rarely honed in on v.47.  According to Jesus, the telos is not simply His death and resurrection but also the preaching of repentance and forgiveness.  In other words, the ongoing mission of the church completes the telos event.

So what?  Well, if the rationale from this passage is that we should read the Bible in Christo-telic fashion, it would seem we should also read it in a missio-telic way.  Or in other words, the whole Bible aims at the formation of Christ’s post-resurrection mission community.  All the law, prophets, and psalms drive the reader to the mission of the Church as much as they do the death/resurrection of Christ.  Not that the two don’t go together…

It made me wonder, do I read the law passages purely for insight into privatized righteousness or as wisdom for mission…or both?

These thoughts are by no means original to me.  I got to thinking about them reading an article by Michael Goheen that interacted with David Bosch’s Biblical theology of missions.

Christ Plays in More Than Words

In his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson says this:

What we often consider to be the concerns of the spiritual life – ideas, truths, prayers, promises, beliefs – are never in the Christian gospel permitted to have a life of their own apart from particular persons and actual places.  Biblical spirituality/religion has a low tolerance for “great ideas” or “sublime truths” or “inspirational thoughts” apart from the people and places in which they occur.  God’s great love and purposes for us are all worked out in the messes in our kitchens and backyards, in storms, and sins, blue skies, the daily work and dreams of our common lives.

I need to de-compartmentalize my life.  I need to let the dinner table teach more theology than the words I take so much pride in.  I need to let conflict and disappointment intermingle with atonement and new creation.  I need to let morning prayers infuse afternoon conversations with baristas in town.

And as a pastor I need it to be infectious.

God preserve your people from my too-often detached words.

Am I Missing Something?

Not so long ago, Republicans spoke vehemently against politicians who were pro-choice, opposed to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and/or were in full support of their state using tax-payer money to provide universal healthcare.

On Tuesday, one such individual was elected to the senate.  The general response of the Republicans appears to be elated rejoicing and unending thanksgiving at their God-sent salvation.

On my “sanctified” days, this political (not just Republican) phenomenon  leaves me genuinely perplexed.   On my less-than sanctified days…

Sending the Son…

It was striking  today to remember in a new light (via a somewhat unrelated passage from Eugene Peterson) that in Genesis 3, God expels His sinful son from His garden sanctuary and sends him to inhabit the curse-ridden, uncultivated wilderness.  Then in Luke 4 God sends His sinless Son into the harsh and barren wilderness to engage the curse’s fiercest proponent.

The wilderness serves as the habitation of the unholy but then also the arena of God’s mission.

Jesus later says to His disciples, “as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”  As a disciple of Christ I have to come to terms not only with the as-so of being a disciple but also the destination.  Following the true Son doesn’t presently entail a return to the comforts of the long lost garden-paradise, but rather a deeper venture into the curse-ridden, comfort-forsaken wilderness in pursuit of God’s long lost sons.

God of the wilderness, forgive me for avoiding the uncomfortable places you inhabit in mission!

BBQ Venison Steaks

We’ve been fortunate enough to get to know one of our neighbors who happens to be pretty accomplished with a bow and arrow.  A couple months back he brought over a healthy portion of his latest target.  And just last week I finally got around to putting the steak portion to good use.

Having never grilled venison before, I scoured some books and websites for tips and recommendations.  The result was somewhat of a conglomeration.  I mixed together equal parts soy and Worcestershire sauce then added some garlic powder, onion salt, pepper and chili powder to taste (roughly 1/2 teaspoon each).   The steaks took a long bath in that (6 hours) before hitting the racks.

I added some mesquite smoke to the fire which complemented the marinade quite nicely (albeit very mildly since it wasn’t for very long).

Being pseudo city folk, the gaminess was a new “adventure” for me (my wife could only look on with contorted expressions and occasional yet deliberate groans to preserve my awareness of her displeasure).  Can’t say I’m sold on it the way some are around here.  But I did detect a certain sense of primal satisfaction cooking up this wild meat fresh off the untamed wilderness.  Hoowah!

An Evolutionary Take on Brit Hume (?)

Nicholas Wade has a new book out entitled: The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures. I can’t say I’ve had a chance to read the book yet, but I did read one his articles in the New York Times on the same issue and have read a few reviews of the book.

Wade is an evolutionary biologist and joins a long list of similar folk  (i.e. Stephen Jay Gould, Matthew Alper, Daniel Dennett, etc) who argue that one explanation for the phenomenon of religion is likely certain biological processes resulting from natural selection. The simplistic version of the argument goes like this: (1) Man wants to survive.  (2) Religion helps man survive with either its therapeutic or fear infused (etc) perspectives on life.  (3) Religious people thus are equipped as the fittest of the species and out-survive non-religious people (ala survival of the fittest).  (4) Throw in a few billion years and… you got yourself a God-gene.  Wade’s book seems to be more interested in how religion itself evolves according to the needs of evolving societies.  But the intent is much the same.  For instance, the jacket reads: “Nicholas Wade traces how religion grew to be so essential to early societies in their struggle for existence that an instinct for faith became hardwired into human nature.”

I’m no evolutionary expert and I’ve only ever read one of these books cover to cover (Matthew Alper’s The God Part of the Brain).  This whole idea though seems a somewhat self-refuting one.  If natural selection is in the business of hardwiring us to believe falsities, than how could we ever trust any “fact” or idea (including the one being made by these atheists)?  But what seems curiously obvious to me might be an ignorant or irrelevant point to someone else, so I move on.

“Calvinist Confessions”

Long time no post.  Kathryn Patrice Susek (all of 21 days old) has delightfully consumed all available time previously reserved for blogging and other extra-curricular activities.  Sorry I don’t have pictures to back up that statement.  Stay tuned…

Rather than submit a post myself, I thought I’d pass you along to another blogger this morning.  I’ve been reading a few things from the mind of  Thabiti Anyabwile lately.  He has a good series going over at the Gospel Coalition entitled, “Calvinist Confessions.”

Prayerful introspection and confession is deep nourishment to gospel celebrants.  In my mind, Calvinists are often the most articulate celebrants (at least in theological musings) of the radical gospel of grace.  Sometimes we’re (I link myself with the term for simple clarity’s sake, but do so with considerable caution) slow to live out the radical implications of grace in sincere weakness and confession.  Call it pride perhaps.

Servants like Thabiti Anyabwile who draw attention to Calvinist sins keep us humble…which is the only way to live consistently Calvinist!

If interested, check out Calvinist Confessions, 1.

New Art Forms

The latest in modern art?  You tube musical collages.  Someone mixes together various unrelated youtube clips to create what one individual “composer” (Kutiman) is calling, thruyou.  It made TIME Magazine’s top 50 inventions from this past year.

 

Grasping “Justice”

Sunday mornings, we’re nearing the end of the book of Micah (we took a break through October to touch on our mission and values as a Church).  This week we’ll be hitting the ever familiar passage – 6:1-8.  In it, God lays charge against His people, accusing them of unwarranted apathy and disloyalty.  The people fire back in question to God:  okay, how do we prove our love and loyalty to you?  What should we bring to the alter?  How about an offering of year-old calves?  You want thousands of rams and a river of precious oil?  Say the word, and we’ll bring even what’s most precious to us – we’ll lay down our first-born child to make things right.

It’s hard to know specifically what God might have been thinking at all this.  Was He offended at the notion His covenant love and grace wasn’t really grace at all and could be bought with human commodity (cf. the first 5 verses)?  Was He weary from all the weakened ceremonialism and reductionist views of the covenant?

The divine response first cuts at any presumed claims upon God and His covenant activity:  He has told you, O MAN (emphasis mine)…

Then it answers the question of God’s requirement:  to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

The present “popularity” of these words mixed with their actual centrality in the whole argument of Micah, makes me approach with much caution, wanting to make sure I understand clearly what God is communicating through Micah and how it speaks to the life of our post-resurrection community of faith.

Bruce Waltke has been throwing me for a loop in trying to properly understand this term justice.  He is widely considered the foremost evangelical scholar on all matters Hebrew – the language, history, canon, etc.    In his commentary on the book of Proverbs, he highlights well the interconnectedness of the terms, justice, righteousness, wisdom, goodness, and hesed (the word translated as kindness in this passage).  He quotes G. Liedke and talks about acts of justice as ones “transpired in a ‘three-cornered relationship’: two people, or groups of people, whose interrelationship is not intact are restored to the state of shalom (typically translated peace) through a third party’s justice (translation mine).”

The basic idea is that justice involves stepping in to bring broken relationships to right.  For Waltke this could include any such relationship between man and God’s created order.  God establishes creation and its fabric for ensuring His good and right intentions for His people.  Sin tears at the fabric.  Justice brings those broken threads to right.

Okay Dr. Waltke, you’re stretching me a bit.  My impressions of justice tend to be much more me-isolated, much more centered on individual fairness and personal rights.  But I see you heading in a different direction, and I think I’m game to follow…

Then he quotes J.W. Olley when defining righteousness as “to bring about right and harmony for all, for individuals, related in the community and to the physical and spiritual realms.  It finds its basis in God’s rule of the world.”

What?

Righteousness, says Waltke (I’m now quoting from his Old Testament Theology), means to ‘disadvantage’ self to ‘advantage’ the community, and ‘wickedness’ is to serve self at the expense of the community.

So what you’re saying is that righteousness is not a me-and-God thing, but a God-and-me-in-community thing; that righteousness doesn’t happen in a private life of isolated worship , but only as I sacrificially engage for the good of the community?  Are you suggesting the predominant American version of Christianity (me and God) could be considered a religious form of wickedness?  Tough to swallow….

Needless to say, I’m wrestling to absorb the full gravity of God’s direction to the Israelites in this passage (and we haven’t even touched yet  the business of kindness and walking humbly with God).  My anemic views toward righteousness and justice are getting in the way.

This is just a bit of my joy every week…experiencing how alive and piercing is the word of God, finding through the Spirit’s probing those hidden structures in my heart more in line with cultural values than the kingdom of Christ, shaking and reorienting my life’s storyline to God’s drama of redemption, and then prayerfully seeking to walk our people through a similar experience of conviction, freedom, and celebration.

Sorry I didn’t really answer much in this post.  Like I said, I’m wrestling a bit and just thought I’d invite you in on (or at to least observe) the match.  Any thoughts?