Tag: Theology

Irenaeus, Mosaics, and Old Wives’ Tales

Being kept up by a baby who would not sleep, and who would wake his mother with his cries if he were not constantly being bounced about in a chair, with my supply of Agatha Christie and Dick Frances novels depleted, I found myself the other night reading a copy of Irenaeus’ *Against Heresies*, and I ran across this quote:

They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and to use a common proverb, they “strive to weave ropes of sand,” while they try to adapt with an air of probability, the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, to their own particular assertions, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.

Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should re-arrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that *this* was the beautiful image of the king which the skillful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king.

In like manner do these persons patch together old wives’ fables, and then endeavor, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions. (Book I, Chapter 1.)

It’s a pretty good image for misquoting the Bible, isn’t it? Continue reading “Irenaeus, Mosaics, and Old Wives’ Tales”

Unbalanced Complementarianism

I’m slowly acquiring the capacity for writing again as I crawl my way out of the morass of being a new teacher, and I wanted to share a bit of somebody else’s hyperbole with you.

Owen Strachan, whom I do not know, has a post on the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood blog reflecting positively on a quote than just hit me exactly the wrong way: “A man who really gets Ephesians 5 is the kind of man who will be willing to work two jobs and live in a trailer to enable his wife to be the primary caregiver of his children.”

Yes, I get the point. The upwardly mobile, upper echelon middle class lifestyle isn’t nearly as important as providing for your wife the privilege of being able to stay home with the kids. Believe me, I know. Even as a teacher at a Christian school, I have a very low opinion of the parenting capacity of daycare workers, preschool teachers, and teachers in general in comparison to moms. They are simply too poorly paid, and too little invested to be an adequate substitute for actual full-time parenting. Ideally, the earliest I’d be comfortable sending a child to school would be in the early teens, when all the “raising” should be done and all that’s left for the school is the actual education. But then, I think a child should be ready for college level curriculum (not lifestyle) by about 14.

By all means, let mom stay home, especially if all that’s sending her to work is your dream of a house that’s just a little bit bigger, or a retirement that’s just a little bit nicer. Because what you’re really doing by sending your wife to work is not actually earning more money, but merely skimping on proper child care.

But be serious. I suspect that neither Owen Strachan nor Dr. Russell Moore (whose quote it is) has ever actually faced the prospect of working two jobs long-term, yet living in a Trailer Park. I must confess it lacks an appeal. The mobile home idea actually isn’t so bad, though it is my wife who insists she would rather be in a smallish apartment. But to say that a husband and a father should take up a second job so his wife can stay unemployed borders just slightly on getting it exactly backwards, especially if you measure things in time rather than in dollars: what you are actually saying is that full-time mothering is so important that it should be purchased at the expense of any fathering at all.

Really. If I am working two jobs on a long term basis, when am I going to see my son? Is mothering so important that it trumps fathering entirely?

Who was married?

It has been my privilege to hear arguments from time to time that the Apostle Paul was married, despite the impression you get in 1 Corinthians 7:7. (What state exactly is Paul recommending when he says, “I wish that all were as I myself am”?) Usually, when people say that Paul was married, it’s on the basis that everyone back then knew that the first requirement to be a Pharisee was that a person had to be a father. Since Paul called himself “a Pharisee of Pharisees.” He must therefore have actually been a father. It sounds pretty shaky to me, but then I’m not the foremost authority on the Pharisees.

Nevertheless, in his letter to the Philadelphians, Ignatius lists Paul among the married: Continue reading “Who was married?”

Jesus, Really

But as for me, I do not place my hopes in one who died for me in appearance, but in reality. For that which is false is quite abhorrent to the truth. Mary then did truly conceive a body which had God inhabiting it. And God the Word was truly born of a Virgin, having clothed Himself with a body of like passions with our own. He who forms all men in the womb was Himself really in the womb, and made for Himself a body of the seed of the Virgin, but without any intercourse of man. He was carried in the womb even as we are, for the usual period of time; and was really born, as we also are; and was in reality nourished with milk, and partook of common meat and drink, even as we do.

And when He had lived among men for thirty years, He was baptized by .John, really and not in appearance; and when He had preached the Gospel three years, and done signs and wonders, He who was Himself the Judge was judged by the Jews (falsely so called), and by Pilate the governor; was scourged, was smitten on the cheek, was spit upon. He wore a crown of thorns and a purple robe; He was condemned: He was crucified in reality and not in appearance, not in imagination, not in deceit.

He really died, and was buried, and rose from the dead, even as he prayed in a certain place, saying, “But do Thou, O Lord, raise me up again, and I shall recompense them.” And the Father, who always hears Him, answered and said, “Arise, O God, and judge the earth; for Thou shalt receive all the heathen for Thine inheritance.”

The Father therefore, who raised Him up, will also raise us up through Him, apart from whom no one will attain to true life. For says He, “I am the life; he that believeth in me, even though he die, shall live: and every one that liveth and believeth in me, even though he die, shall live for ever.” Do ye therefore flee from these ungodly heresies; for they are the inventions of the devil, that serpent who was the author of evil, and who by means of the woman deceived Adam, the father of our race.

–Ignatius of Antioch, letter to the Trallians

Continue reading “Jesus, Really”

Armchair Textual Critic

Now that school is out, I actually have a little time to do some reading while frantically searching for employment and making plans to move.

I’m reading now through my set of Apostolic fathers my parents gave me a few years ago. Currently I’m reading the letters of Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch in the early 2nd century. He was martyred in Rome around 107, and wrote seven letters en route.

The curious thing is that we have two very different versions of every one of his letters. One set is consistently short, and the other is much longer. As of the publication of my book, there had been no consensus as to which set was the letters actually penned by Ignatius. The majority seems to favor the shorter versions, but there is a vibrant minority that will not let go of the latter. I’ll give you a sample, and maybe you can see why: Continue reading “Armchair Textual Critic”

Worship is Informative

The Holy Spirit in Worship (part 8)

This section is last and shortest, not because there is the least to say about it, but because it should be sufficient to merely point out that worship has real content. In the service, we use words which define our understanding of God: the trinity, his character, what he has done for us. These words, in turn, are bounded by scripture, which has been breathed by God (2 Tim 3:16). The role of the Spirit in the creation of scripture must be understood as something more than a “Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.” The work of Holy Spirit is always described in scripture as something that is immediately discernable, not something that is inferred after the fact. “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). There would be no talk of a Holy Spirit, if people hadn’t had discernible experiences with him. In the same way, the existence of scripture itself is proof that experiences with the Spirit can be reduced to cognitive knowledge. As a result, reflecting on the worship experience, as I have been doing here, is itself also worship.

Sacraments

The Holy Spirit in Worship (part 7)

Baptism and communion are the most direct model we have of actions that we do, which the Holy Spirit invests with formative power. As the Westminster Larger Catechism states, “The sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not by any power in themselves, or any virtue derived from the piety or intention of him by whom they are administered, but only by the working of the Holy Ghost, and the blessing of Christ, by whom they are instituted.”

Baptism and the Lord’s Table are the only sacraments ordained by Jesus Christ, and the Protestant reformers fought to keep the list of sacraments limited to these two. However, I think it is possible to refer to certain acts of worship as sacramental in nature if they are an effective means, not necessarily of salvation, but of Christian formation, and they derive that effectiveness not “from the piety or intention of him by whom they are administered, but only by the working of the Holy Ghost.” Among these sacrament-like acts are particularly preaching and intercession.

One aspect of preaching described by Debra Murphy is imagination. By this she means “not that it is about the imaginary, but that it participates in the communal (rather than individual) practice of ‘construing reality according to a particular vision, in full awareness of other options.’” I’ve mentioned the possibility of understanding preaching as a form of prophecy, and to a certain extent, this idea of preaching as imagination fits this description. One of the functions of prophecy is to create the world that God envisions by proclaiming what they must become. In Ezekiel 37, God tells Ezekiel, “Prophesy over these bones” (verse 4) and as Ezekiel prophesies the word of the Lord, God creates the reality he told Ezekiel to declare.

Unfortunately, Ms. Murphy couches her understanding of preaching as imagination within the vision of the community, rather than the vision of God. Continue reading “Sacraments”

Worship is Conformative

The Holy Spirit in Worship (part 6)

In my class this semester on the Theology of the Penteteuch, Dr. Gordon Hugenburger pointed out that covenants have two parts – a vow and a ritual act. For instance, in Abraham’s covenant with Yahweh in Genesis 15, God promises Abraham an heir and an inheritance of land, and then walks through the animals Abraham has sacrificed, as if symbolically to say “let it be to me as it is to these animals if I do not fulfill the words of this covenant.” In marriage we have the same double bond: way commit to a marriage vow, but the stronger bond, which makes the marriage real, is the actual consummation of the marriage. Robert Webber says this is the same thing that happened when Israel first assembled at Mount Sinai: in the act of worshiping him, and committing to follow his laws, they became the people of God. In the same way, “when believers come together, the church, as the people of the Christ event, becomes a reality…. In this way the church is actualized.” It isn’t that there are certain activities that we engage in because we are the church. Rather, the Holy Spirit works through these activities to establish us as the church. It is by performing that we are formed.

Debra Murphy takes this concept one step further in Teaching that Transforms. Her main thesis is that the primary place for catechism – learning what it is to be a Christian – is in congregational worship: “What we do, how we act, in the liturgical assembly shapes us in particular and powerful ways and is both formative of identity and catechetical in the most basic sense.” Ms. Murphy is right. However, throughout her book, despite her ability to point out that “The doctrine of the Trinity is foundational” and that “The truth of this doctrine… is not available for us outside of our own participation in the forms of life that bear witness to God as Trinity,” she doesn’t seem to have any clear view of God’s engagement with us in these forms of life. Nevertheless, she make some very good statements about the formative character of acting out the liturgy which I think only need to have added a more sacramental understanding.

Preaching

The Holy Spirit in Worship (part 5)

There is a legend that C. H. Spurgeon, as he would climb the steps to his pulpit, would say “I believe in the Holy Spirit” at each step. The implication about the work of the Holy Spirit in preaching should be obvious: it is the preacher who speaks, but it is the Holy Spirit who must “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). If he doesn’t speak through our words, then our words are useless.

However, I want to discuss as well the fundamental role of the sermon when the Holy Spirit becomes an active participant. In my class on worship, we discussed the idea that all worship functions around a template of revelation and response. There is a progressive revelation of God’s nature and his purposes, and at each successive revelation, there is an appropriate human response. Debra Dean Murphy, in her book Teaching that Transforms, pays special attention to this dynamic in the act of preaching (where revelation is expressly apparent) in a chapter titled “Proclamation and Response.” “The preacher,” she says,

Interprets the Word for the community, placing the day’s appointed texts within the larger narrative scope of the biblical witness; allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture; acknowledging the multistranded nature of any given text’s meaning for the life of the community; recognizing the partiality and self-interest that undergird all our interpretations of the biblical texts; and letting the Word of God interrogate the community as much as the community, through the preacher’s own hermeneutical practices, scrutinizes the text.

This is a fairly accurate description of what I am being trained to do in seminary, via classes on exegesis and preaching. As a preacher, my job will be to write the equivalent of a research paper each week on the biblical text, and then present my findings to the congregation on Sunday, couched in a way that communicates the key points directly in a way applicable to their lives.

However, in view of the Holy Spirit’s work in preaching, I am beginning to think her description is insufficient. Continue reading “Preaching”