Brian McLaren in Brisbane

I went to hear Brian McLaren speak on Thursday night at a World Vision event. I think I must be part of a very small set of people who have gone to hear both Mark Driscoll and Brian McLaren speak in the last year :-)

Brian is a brilliant presenter; his communication ability amazes me. I really like his thinking about the nature of God's kingdom coming - what it might look like for God's will to be done on earth. He presented Colossians 1:15-20 in a way that highlighted the comparison/contrast with Roman "gospel" proclamation concerning the emperor, as he was discussing the concept of a controlling story that would bring about the living out of God's will on earth. I was a little disappointed that he passed very briefly over "firstborn from among the dead" - I think the resurrection is perhaps the most powerful element in such a programmatic narrative - but his presentation really helped me think about a lot of things and I hope I can learn from his presentation style.

It was a real pleasure to be able to meet Brian briefly afterwards as well - he's an exceedingly warm individual.

More on Preaching Christ in Nehemiah

The other day I blogged an outline of my sermon on Nehemiah 5; someone asked me about some of the more general themes in Nehemiah I'd been thinking through, so that's what this post is about.

Specifically, in approaching Nehemiah I was asking a few questions:

• What's a reasonable way to apply Nehemiah's wall-building to the church today? Is it reasonable to take the wall building as a metaphor for stuff like church planting?
• I've come to general agreement with N.T. Wright's proposal that Israel had not truly returned from exile at this point; but if that's the case then what *is* actually going on?
• There's no escaping the insular nature of Ezra/Nehemiah; there's an unmistakable agenda to purify Israel and to keep the Gentiles out. Is it OK to ignore that in making application to the church, or should that drive us to a greater awareness of certain themes in the gospel?

Here's my thinking, without much structure as it's late at night:

In A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible, the chapter on Ezra/Nehemiah brings out this intertwined dual "building" metaphor - that, on one hand there's physical building (Temple, then Wall) but there's a second strand of rebuilding the covenant people. Ezra in particular seems to come as a "builder" but we find that he's not a physical builder, he's a teacher of Torah. I'm thinking of all this as a "double helix" - two interwoven strands of building; restoring Temple and Wall, and restoring a faithful, purified, Torah-observant people.

The really noteworthy aspect of it all, and it's this that becomes for me the biggest sticking point in the way the book is often applied in the church, is that all of this is drives at separation between Israel and the nations - all of it! The Temple building is striking in this respect; neighbouring Gentiles seem to offer help in good faith, but are told they have no part in it. Likewise the dealing with covenant faithfulness is primarily about marriages with Gentiles; those foreign wives end up getting sent away. Under Nehemiah, even the half-blood Israelites get cut off.

And Nehemiah's wall itself is such a symbol of division with the nations. Interestingly, it only covers a small area and will not house many people. I'm quite sure it's primarily about a Kingdom restoration - Yahweh will reign over the nations from Jerusalem. Nehemiah is prophetically enacting certain aspects of the restoration (perhaps even thinking that he may be God's agent to bring them about) - but anything to do with Gentiles coming in is completely and utterly overlooked.

Think about Galatians 3:8

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

This just doesn't get a look-in in Ezra/Nehemiah! Furthermore, think about Ephesians 2:13-16

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

So, one of Christ's great achievements was to tear down the "dividing wall of hostility" - part of the Temple but the Jerusalem wall also qualifies, as does the "wall of hostility" of driving foreign wives out or refusing to let neighbours participate in the building. In fact, Ezra/Nehemiah pretty-well qualifies in entirety as a big story of the building of the dividing walls of hostility!!!

Where do we go with that in terms of preaching about what Nehemiah's doing, then? Well, we have to see him as faithful to God's covenant purposes at the time for sure. But we can't miss the specific role of Israel, and the fulfilment of that role in Jesus the Messiah. Israel was elected to bring blessings for all the nations, and when Jesus came the whole destiny of Israel climaxed in an unexpected way. In his flesh, the wall (that Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah in their own ways had constructed) was torn down and the Gentiles brought in. This is a glorious truth that should blow our minds - but it's going to get buried under tons of rubble if we stick with the wall-building as some kind of allegory for stuff we should be building today.

I suspect it also gets buried if we take the line that return-from-exile had taken place but it's already/not yet. As I mentioned in the previous post, the "not yet" aspects are way too many to overlook: no king, no presence of the LORD in the Temple, Moab not judged, the Gentiles still are their overlords, there's still poverty and injustice, etc.

Anyway, I hope there's a bit of food for thought for someone in all this - I'd love to hear anybody else's views on this!

Preaching Christ in Nehemiah 5

This past Sunday I preached my first sermon in well over a year and a half - found it really difficult for all kinds of reasons, including but not limited to being out of practice and also the fact that my presentation laptop blue-screened during my intro and also failed to display the video at the end.

The sermon was called "Something's Coming: Nehemiah, a Blip on on the Radar".

I thought I'd blog a quick sketch of the salient points. The sermon wasn't really in point form, but the chapter falls into 3 obvious paragraphs like this:

1. Neh 5:1-5, The complaint from the landholders who have mortgaged their land to fellow Jews, are losing the land, and selling children into slavery.
2. Neh 5:6-13, Nehemiah defends the victims of oppression and brings about change.
3. Neh 5:14-19, Nehemiah the benevolent governor who hosts the meal.

Nehemiah 5:1-1, The Landholders' Complaint

• Uncanny comparison with descriptions of life in 1st century - the Temple/Jerusalem became the centre of power, landholders overpowered by taxes lost their land and sold children into slavery. This presents problems for attempts to read Nehemiah as an exemplary builder: what he's building will, by Jesus' day, be the centre of oppression and injustice.
• "You can't eat a wall". Note that Nehemiah's wall was not for the sake of the common people or any majority. It would enclose a select few; built in hope of Israel's restoration expecting the Davidic King to reign over the world from Jerusalem.
• Consider the problem of slavery today - 27 million slaves, see http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

Nehemiah 5:6-13, Nehemiah defends the victims of oppression and brings about change

• Nehemiah is "very angry" when he hears about the injustice. This mirrors God's response to injustice - e.g. Ex 22:21-22. God says that if you oppress a widow and he sees you, he will kill you and make a widow of your wife. Same passage then prohibits charging interest to those in need, which is the fault in this case.
• What do we get angry about? Conservative Christians are known for certain issues ("family values", etc.) but not enough for standing up against injustice.
• Difference between justice and mercy: justice is about denial of basic rights, mercy is about giving to someone even though they don't deserve it. Tendency for conservatives to focus on mercy, liberals to focus on justice.
• Nehemiah has a "justice" focus here - not concerned about creating a "welfare state" etc., he responds to the injustice.
• Judgment can be "good news" - to those who have been severely oppressed, they are waiting for God to vindicate them and judge their oppressors. God promises in Torah to do this within Israel, but it doesn't seem to happen. Here Nehemiah is being a "small m" messiah, but Jesus will bring all things to light and deal with every act of oppression.

Nehemiah 5:14-19, Nehemiah the benevolent governor who hosts the meal.

• Nehemiah's provision of a regular meal for hundreds of people (at his own expense) sounds a lot like Isaiah 25 - the Messianic banquet where Israel is restored, death is dealt with, the sympathetic nations come in, Moab is judged, etc.
• Nehemiah likely saw himself as enacting this Messianic meal, yet he cannot bring the fullness of the promised restoration:
  - There is no king to reign
  - The Lord's presence hasn't returned to the temple
  - The nations are still in control (Persia, and the neighbouring agitators)
  - Death is still a reality
  - There is no abundance; there is poverty
  - Acts of oppression are only intermittently dealt with
• Jesus also enacted meals, but there's a radical shift as he becomes inclusive of Jewish "sinners"
• Revelation 19 - the meal has become the marriage supper of the Lamb, his New Covenant people have become purified and clothed in righteous deeds, Jesus is the reigning King, there's a new Temple-shaped city/garden that comes from Heaven and is no longer oppressive etc., death is dealt with as Jesus is resurrected and those in him also, no more poverty, but also judgment as the oppressors are brought to severe judgment.
• In short, Nehemiah enacts some aspects of restoration but in Jesus all things will be made right!

Studying Luke - Reading Material

I'm spending several months in Luke's Gospel (not so much Acts, although a lot of the reading material I'm going through spans both). Here's the reading list as it currently stands:

The Gospel of Luke, by Joel Green: This NICNT commentary by Joel Green is widely respected. I used it extensively a couple of years back for some preaching on Luke's parables, but haven't read it in its entirety until now.

Jesus and the Victory of God, by N. T. Wright: I have actually read this book before, but will most definitely read it again as part of my study of Luke.

Wright's "JVG" is astonishingly confronting to one's understanding of Jesus' ministry especially as presented in the synoptic gospels. I'm excited about reading it for the second time.

Reading Luke, edited by Craig Bartholomew, Joel B. Green, and Anthony C. Thiselton: This book is a collection of academic essays that span many themes found within Luke-Acts.

I particularly found the chapters on Luke's treatment of the Holy Spirit and on a missional reading of Luke to stretch my understanding.

The Social World of Luke-Acts, edited by Jerome Neyrey: An incredibly important book! If you don't mind reading academic-style essays, you should most definitely read this book.

Probes a wide array of cultural issues and demonstrates how an awareness of these could be applied to interpretation of Luke-Acts. This has truly been one of the most useful books I've ever read.

Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes, by Kenneth Bailey: Bailey is one of my favourite authors; I loved his earlier works on the parables. Having spent most of his life in the Middle East, he is well suited to providing cultural background on material in the Gospels.

This book is similar to his earlier material, although in this one Bailey pushes further into certain theological themes (such as justice) that are found in the text. Highly recommended, and very readable - not academic.

Luke, by Leon Morris: This is a reasonably brief, conservative Evangelical commentary by the late Australian scholar Leon Morris.

I bought this one mainly because I've appreciated some of his other books; it seems to approach the text very even-handedly but can be frustratingly brief at times.

Are You the One Who is to Come?, by Michael Bird: Doesn't deal specifically with Luke, but certainly deals with a theme that is of major importance in Luke's Gospel.

This was a very quick and rewarding read.

The Gospel of Luke, by Luke Timothy Johnson: I've not yet read a commentary in the Sacra Pagina series (a series by Catholic scholars), so I'm planning to read this one.

Luke for Everyone, by N. T. Wright: Wright's "For Everyone" commentaries are brief non-technical books that provide a bit of an overview. I found his Galatians book in this series to be worth its weight in gold - looking forward to this one too.

Eckhard J. Schnabel's chapter in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by Beale and Carson: Finally got myself a copy of this big book and hoping that the chapter on Luke will contribute greatly to my study.

Luke (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture), edited by Arthur Just: These commentaries are actually assembled from various writings by ancient Christian authors. They're really well done, so that they flow a bit like a regular verse-by-verse commentary; great to get an early church take on things.

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, by Richard Bauckham: Bauckham is another author I've found really helpful, and this book seems to get a lot of recommendations.

Alan Culpepper on Luke, in The New Interpreter's Bible: Luke - John: I don't know too much about Culpepper, but I do really like this series so I intend to buy this volume.

Walter Liefeld on Luke, in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8: I own the full set of these commentaries, so generally read them. To be honest, I've found them quite variable - mainly because the strong dispensationalist bent of a number of the authors doesn't gel with me. That said, there is always some good background info on each book, and some of the commentaries are outstanding - so I'm looking forward to this one.

My New Blog

I haven't blogged here for a while now - haven't felt too well over winter, but I'll be getting right back into it soon as I've been thinking through a multitude of themes in the Gospel according to Luke.

Just wanted to point out my other blog - backyard permaculture - which is a bit of a pictorial coverage of what we're doing with our backyard. This is also something I'm very interested in from a justice perspective - more on that soon.

Galatians Part 20 - A Missional View of Galatians

Galatians seems to be most often read "soteriologically" - that is, the reader is looking for what the book says about how people "get saved". What does it look like, though, to read Galatians "missionally"? What does the book of Galatians tell us about God's mission, and how does that mission underlie the themes found within this book?

This is my 20th post on the book of Galatians - I've loved spending time in this book, although I'm moving on to Luke's gospel account real soon now.

The missional trajectory in Galatians is very pronounced:

• Paul understood that he had been chosen to preach Jesus among the Gentiles (1:16)
• Paul's travels (1:18-2:3) are very deliberate, and all revolving around the Gentile mission as well as ensuring it is unified with Jerusalem.
• The false brothers (2:4) are also acting deliberately - we get this very real sense that something very big is at stake.
• Those of influence saw that Paul had been entrusted with the Gentile mission and Peter with the mission to the circumcised (2:7). That is, acceptance that this calling was directly from God.
• Peter's actions at Antioch framed in distinct opposition to this mission (the "but" beginning 2:11).
• The purpose of Christ's death was even viewed missionally (and pneumatologically) by Paul in 3:13-14:
  

  "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith."

• The strength of Paul's final arguments (6:11-17) lies in his contrast between those (Christians) who preach (presumably Christ plus) circumcision in order to avoid persecution, and Paul who bears the marks of such persecution.

Something that has deeply impacted me in this letter is the realisation that the whole mission really was at stake. These "agitators" or "teachers" (or even "missionaries") were following Paul around (see Philippians for evidence of this) after he had planted churches, with a deliberate agenda to teach the Christians to become Torah-observing. Some commentators have said that, had this been allowed to continue, it would have spelled the end of the Gentile mission within a generation - and I think this is correct. What was at stake was the whole church-planting mission into the nations; something Torah (with its purpose of keeping Israel in a protective bubble until Christ) worked directly against.

Thinking through Galatians from a missional perspective has thus helped me to rethink the enormous priority of the mission of proclaiming Jesus to the nations and the need to take very seriously anything that might stand to oppose that.

What is the Gospel?

There are lots of gospel definitions around the place - Trevin Wax has collected a number of them on his blog. Trevin also has this excellent post about the "both-and" nature of kingdom and atonement in the gospel.

More recently, Mike Bird had this post on Wright/Piper where he quotes one of Wright's recent gospel summaries as:

"The gospel is the royal announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus, who died for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures, has been enthroned as the true Lord of the world. When the gospel is preached, God calls people to salvation, out of sheer grace, leading them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord."

And he gives Piper's definition thus:

"The heart of the gospel is the good news that Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. What makes this good news is that Christ’s death accomplished a perfect righteousness before God and suffered a perfect condemnation from God, both of which are counted as ours through faith alone, so that we have eternal life with God in the new heavens and the new earth."

At the PTC Blog, John Davies has probed this a bit more, and seems to prefer Wright's language choice of "royal announcement" over Piper's choice of "good news". I just love this line from John's post:

"We suffer from a truncated and impoverished gospel if it ends up looking simply like a get-out-of-jail-free card."

Now, I think that John is correct in probing the Roman imperial concepts behind the term "gospel", but we also need to keep the Old Testament themes in view as well. In this post, I tried to summarise a paper of Wright's that argues very well that we can (and should) keep both the OT and Roman imperial backgrounds in view in coming to terms with what "the gospel" is all about.

Galatians Part 19 - Biblical Theology and Meals

Galatians has a lot to do with table fellowship - probably more than is often admitted. In this post I want to do a brief sweep of the role of meals through the Bible, and consider how the Galatian situation fits in and what we might learn from it.

This is post 19 in my series on Galatians. I've tried to break down the role of meals into various periods of Biblical history, as laid out in the following set of diagrams:

1. Prior to Moses:

• Meals to signify covenants with God, e.g. Abraham and also Moses + elders on Sinai - eating & drinking with God
• Meals to signify covenants with neighbours etc. These were meals with "outsiders" and ratified business/political dealings.

2. Period of the Law:

• Meals centred around the sacrifices and religious ceremony, "closed" - food and purity laws working to isolate Israel.
• Prophetic view of the future (e.g. Isaiah 25) that includes all nations.
• Proverbs refers to the feeding of the poor and marginalised, but feeding the poor not really described in actual practice in the OT.
• The ingathering of nations increasingly interpreted as ingathering of Israel, and the Gentiles increasingly viewed as being excluded. This becomes obvious in the intertestamental Jewish literature.
• The food laws increasingly cause Torah-observant Jews to isolate themselves from "sinners" - that is, from Gentiles and from those Jews not living under the Torah.
• The Essenes take this to radical extremes: communal meals that exclude those with physical deformities, anyone ceremonially unclean, etc.
• Increasing view that impurity needed to be kept outside - non-missional view of meals.

3. Ministry of Jesus

• Especially in Luke's Gospel - meals with "sinners", i.e. with Jews not living under Torah and considered unclean, and also apparently fed Gentiles. Jesus fulfils prophetic vision.
• Jesus heavily criticised by religious leaders for meals with sinners - very striking aspect of his ministry.
• Missional meals - Jesus more interested with bringing the unclean into a transforming relationship with God than with keeping their uncleanness locked out.
• Specific meals with disciples (Last Supper, reinstatement of Peter, Emmaus etc.). Could be interpreted as "missional" or as "closed"?

4. Church Age

• "Lord's Supper" - either continuous with Jesus' "meals with sinners" or unrelated?
• Early church did not seem to have the same reputation as Jesus for these kinds of meals.
• Paul detects issues around table fellowship in Galatian churches and raises example of Peter's move to not eat with uncircumcised Christians. This looks much more like the disturbing Jewish trend towards meals being divisive, exclusive and "boundary marking" than looking like Jesus' ministry.
• No longer Jew/Gentile, male/female, slave/free - should be reflected in table fellowship.
• Unfortunately not viewed as relevant today in many church settings because of lack of meal context.

5. Future Banquet

• Imagery such as Isaiah 25 assumed by Jesus, e.g. in Luke 14. Jesus describes (using a parable) a situation where the invited guests who snub the host end up being discarded and those in the margins get the invitation.
• Great vision of nations coming together, of abundant food and drink, of the presence of God.
• The church should be the place where that future starts to be glimpsed now.

Summary:

The OT gave us glimpses of a vision of both all the nations being gathered in to the banquet, and the marginalised being fed - but the Law (Torah) increasingly isolated Israel with a false view that impurity was being shut out. Jesus' own ministry was radically counter-cultural and in line with the prophetic view of Isaiah and the ethical view of books such as Proverbs. The situation in Galatia was looking horribly like a reversal of this, where the Gentiles were being shut out of table fellowship.

Unfortunately today, our view of church often excludes table fellowship entirely - making it hard to even grapple with the Galatian problem. But there are large issues at stake - including the issue of Christian unity. That is, with whom will I willingly break bread? Would I be willing to sit down to eat with people who had very different theological outlooks and practices but who apparently exhibit faith in Christ and share a meal of Christian fellowship? And not just willing - does it actually happen?

I spent many years in an exceedingly sectarian group. It really frightens me to see many in that group who agree that other churches may (in principle) be "true Christians", but can't seem to move beyond the hypothetical. Likewise, many churches have turned the communion meal into something so tied up in the ecclesiology of the local church that it is also boundary-marking; maybe not in a salvific sense but in a local church membership sense - as if there's really any way to separate these two concepts. To say on one hand, "I accept this friend as a fellow Christian, but he's not welcome to take communion in my church" is patently missing the point. To say on the other hand, "I think there may be other Christians outside of my church tradition, but I can't name any" is cause for great concern.

Our DVD Has Been Launched!

Last Saturday night we had the launch of our new DVD - it's a 6-week curriculum for small groups called "A Question of Mercy: Gospel Application to Issues of Justice and Mercy" (available from http://citygospel.net).


We held the launch at Jagera Hall, which is an arts centre named after the Jagera people, who are an indigenous Australian people group.

There's a photo here of myself and Steve in front of an amazing piece of Aboriginal artwork.

We had a really great time of worship, led by Greg; so great to have so many friends from a bunch of very different churches all worshiping God together with much passion.


Steve and I put a massive amount of work into making the DVD (a full year), because we wanted to see a resource made available that could help Christians think through some of these issues in a small-group format.


We also wanted to make a resource that would keep Jesus in the centre; to enable people to think through issues of justice and mercy without the risk of moving into liberal territory:

- By keeping God's activity in history in focus, we can avoid the temptation of the "we can fix the world" error. We need to understand that God has acted decisively in history by sending his Son and raising him from the dead to create in him a new humanity and ultimately a completely renewed cosmos.

- By keeping the issue of sin in view, we can avoid the "God cares more about mercy than righteousness" error. Human sin was the reason for the fall and the whole creation suffers as a result. Jesus came to deal with sin, and Jesus' death is a graphic reminder of how seriously God is concerned about sin. But sin does include injustice and lack of mercy, and God's nature includes his defence of the poor and oppressed.

If you're interested in gospel-centred resources for thinking through things like social justice and mercy ministries, please consider checking out the DVD. Also, you can find book recommendations on our website.

Galatians Part 18 - Biblical Theology: Retelling Israel's Story

This is part 18 of my random posts on the book of Galatians (although super-observant readers would obviously notice there was no part 15).

One of the most fascinating aspects of the New Testament for me is the way that Israel's story is retold from time to time in a radical way.

An example of this is in Luke 15 - the parable of the prodigal. Kenneth Bailey has written an entire book on this (Jacob and the Prodigal) showing that Jesus retold Israel's story - in this case, the Jacob and Esau narrative - in a dramatically different way. Who ends up being children of Jacob and who ends up being children of Esau? I recommend the book!

In Galatians we have a similar retelling of Israel's story - this time focusing on Hagar and Sarah, and their respective sons Ishmael and Isaac. Paul writes:

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,

“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;

break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!

For the children of the desolate one will be more

than those of the one who has a husband.”

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

It's very easy for us to read this as Paul's use of some OT characters as examples - especially if we don't connect well with story. But it is more than using characters as examples, and it is a powerful/dramatic retelling of a core part of Israel's story. What does it mean to be a son of Abraham? What does it mean to dwell in Jerusalem? In retelling this story, Paul is perhaps saying some of the strongest things possible about the Jewish law and the position of Israel outside of faith in Jesus the Messiah.

Notice that the opposing missionaries in Galatia must have brought up the whole "son of Abraham" issue in support of circumcision. Rather than argue that it was not important to be a son of Abraham, Paul agrees that it is exceedingly important - and then proceeds to retell this story in such a way as to put the most radical spin on that sonship as possible.

• That Hagar represents slavery is not contentious. The tie from her to Sinai is unusual but logical (read any commentary for details). But to equate the "present" Jerusalem with Hagar/Arabia/slavery truly is like setting off a bomb! The story is suddenly completely unlike the way that anyone could really have expected to read it without understanding the arrival of Jesus. The law was given at Sinai, Jerusalem (the city) was the focal point of the law, and the whole package is being associated directly with Hagar, slavery, and being outside of the covenant.
• That Isaac was born according to promise is also not contentious; his parents were ridiculously old, but God promised and it happened. Paul says here though that he was "born according to the Spirit" - linking in with a key thread running right through Galatians. Who are the sons and daughters of Sarah? They are the ones in whom the Sprirt is bearing fruit, not the ones tied to the law. Another bombshell retelling of the story!

Remember the Galatian situation: mainly Gentiles who began in the Spirit, having faith in Christ. Then Jewish Christians came in and taught that they needed to observe the law, the Torah. In retelling this story, Paul is not making the point that Torah observance is not necessary... he's gone the whole hog and reversed the whole position of Israel; those who've come in through the Spirit's work and not through law aren't just tolerated - they are the true sons!!! And those who promote law just may end up with Hagar out in the desert...

What's the application today? Well, quite obviously we should be all about faith in Christ and God's empowering presence in the Spirit, but I think there's more to it. We need to see that the story of Israel is our story, and it's an essential story. There's just too little understanding of the story today, too little connection with that story by Western Christians. If we have "begun in the Spirit", we are children of Abraham and Sarah, inheritors of the promise, and we look forward to the new Jerusalem that comes out of heaven!

Evangelicalism and the Envrionment

This is a discussion that I've been meaning to have with a friend of mine - and having seen this very thought-provoking post on Scot McKnight's blog (noting that the post is actually by Dr. Mary Veeneman), I think this is a great starting point.

Veeneman is reviewing a book that covers wider issues of the relevance of the church, but in this post she focuses on environmental issues and whether certain theologies (namely dispensational premil but I know it's broader than that) have even been a cause of environmental problems.

This is all around our view of the future - do we see the future as one where God burns the earth and we live happily-ever-after somewhere else, or do we see that God will restore his good creation?

The post raises some great questions - worth reading :-)

Galatians Part 17 - A Trajectory of Works

This is the 17th post in my series on Galatians.

One theme that strikes me about the book of Galatians is the "trajectory of works" - it's a letter that is, in so many ways, all about works.

Beginning with Paul's calling to a life of mission and ending with his body bearing the "marks of Christ", this letter is pushing toward a goal of a Christ-like community living lives of loving service and care:

• The big example of Peter in Antioch is not just an issue of legalism but it's about results - Peter's living was not in line with the gospel and resulted in divisive hypocrisy (2:12-14).
• Paul's own life lived by faith in Christ (2:19-20),
• The Galatians had "begun" in the Spirit but somehow expected to be "perfected" by the law. This is about transformational change, about growing in godliness (3:3).
• Chapters 3 and 4 present strong theological arguments culminating in the theme of freedom in Christ - freedom to serve one another through love (5:13-14).
• The call to walk by the Spirit is in order to overcome the desires of the flesh (5:16-17).
• These desires include sins of perconal morality, but the focus is on community-centred sins of division etc. The fruit of the Spirit is likewise primarily about community-centric qualities such as patience and peace. The call is to move from law/flesh reliance (which is only producing communal strife and discord) to Christ/Spirit reliance which will be evident in a transformed community (5:16-26).
• There is also the call to bear burdens, help restore those who have fallen into sin (because of their legalism?), and to actively do good to people - especially to fellow Christians (6:1-10).

I have generally been of the opinion that application proceeds from the gospel - seeing imperatives that sprout from indicatives.

However, I've shifted a bit to seeing a closer relationship between indicatives and imperatives, and seeing "works" not just as the response to the gospel but in many ways inherent within the gospel itself.

There really was an obedience/works problem under the old covenant - the law was powerless to produce obedience. The great promise of the new covenant made by Jeremiah, fleshed out by Ezekiel and embodied in Jesus is a promise of cleansing, of restoration, of a people empowered to obey.

Galatians Part 16 - Defining Legalism

I'm up to post number 16 blogging about Galatians.

How do we define legalism? I've heard a few good definitions (sometimes by way of example) in the past. Here I want to offer a definition. Note that I see this as one possible definition of legalism, not the definition!

Legalism: A belief that the law is powerful.

I see this stated specifically in Galatians 3:21b:

For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

And this is such a huge theme in Paul's letter - he piles argument after argument onto this, insisting that law does not have the power to create life, law does not have the power to produce righteousness. Once again we have to break away from this question of "how do people get saved?" (which isn't really being dealt with in Galatians) and see the weight of what really is being said:

• The Spirit (experienced, with miracles) was received through faith in Christ - could not be gotten through law obedience (Gal 3:2).
• Beginning in the Spirit, can the law (here, "flesh") bring perfection? (Gal 3:3)
• Could the promised blessing come to all the nations via law, or faith in Christ? (Gal 3:8)
• The law held Israel captive (Gal 3:24), whereas being "in Christ" (through faith/Spirit/baptism) creates unity between Jews/Gentiles, men/women, slaves/free. (Gal 3:27-28)
• The receiving of the promise enables inheritance (3:29)
• The Spirit enables the fulness of sonship, to call God "Abba! Father!" (Gal 4:6)
• Law is "weak and worthless" (Gal 4:9)
• Responding in faith brings a blessing that is experiential (Gal 4:15)

And on it goes. This is not about people trying to earn their salvation; it's about people looking entirely in the wrong place for the power to change, the power to move from the beginnings of their Christian lives to "perfection", the power to form a godly Christian community, for the power to produce an incredible hope in the future.

It's way too easy to move our theology away from the experiential; the argument here is very much about "what works"? Paul draws on the Galatians' experience of the Spirit (yes, including miracles). He longs to see a righteous community birthed, and he insists only Christ can bring that about. Any turning to law assumes that the law is powerful to do something - produce righteousness, change lives, form communities. But the law cannot do these things because it was never intended to.

Jesus and the Temple Destruction

Some interesting discussion came up with a friend today as to whether Jesus claimed that he would destroy the temple? I think he most likely did - I'm basically going to summarise N. T. Wright's reasoning from Jesus and the Victory of God here:

• Mark 14:58 and Matt 26:61 indicate that false witnesses claimed they heard Jesus say he would destroy the temple. John 2:18-20 on the other hand has Jesus specifically states that he will tear down the temple and raise it in 3 days, and this is linked directly to his body.
  
• Matt 27:40 and Mark 15:29 both have Jesus mocked on the cross for making exactly this claim.
• In Acts 6:14, Stephen is accused of maintaining that Jesus will destroy the Temple/Jerusalem.
• Matt 24 (and Mark 13, Luke 21) has Jesus specifically forecast the destruction of the Temple, linked with the coming of the Son of Man, within a generation.
• The Temple-action episode (Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19) is seen by some as "cleansing", but seems better understood as an enacted symbol of judgment. In the tradition of prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel who acted out various symbols, the Temple-action of Jesus enacts a symbol of its judgment. This is a defining moment in Jesus' ministry, as the Jewish leaders (chief priests, scribes and principal men) seek to destroy Jesus in response to this action. Wright goes into great detail regarding the OT background to this; both the specific quote drawing on Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 and what he calls "wider echoes of Zechariah".
• Isaiah 56 proclaims the full restoration from exile - in terms of the gentiles coming in to a purified temple, and unfaithful Israel coming under intense judgment.
• Jeremiah 7 is perhaps even clearer. As Wright says, "On the one hand, it is a devastating critique of corruption within Jewish society in general. On the other, it is an unambiguous warning that, as a result, the Temple is to be destroyed."
• In Luke 19:41-45, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem (predicting her destruction) and then carries out the Temple-action - Luke seems to very deliberately link the two.
• Mark 11:11-21 gets really interesting! We have the combination of two enacted symbols - the cursed fig tree, and the Temple-action. It looks like this:
  - Jesus looks for fruit and then curses an unfruitful fig tree
  - Jesus carries out the Temple-action prophetic enactment
  - The fig tree has withered - a prophetic enactment of a prophetic enactment.
• The fig tree episode itself draws directly on an OT passage - Jeremiah 8:11-13 which is unambiguosly about the destruction of Jerusalem because of immense covenant unfaithfulness.
• In Mark 11:23 (immediately after the fig tree withering), Jesus refers to the mountain being thrown into the sea. Wright gives strong reasons why this should be connected with the Temple mount, and also deals with Zechariah 4:6-7 where a mountain stands in opposition to Zerubbabel rebuilding the Temple.
• There are many more themes regarding Jesus' royal claims and the relationship between king and Temple.

Wright spends many, many pages working through these things and I really do recommend taking the time to examine the evidence that he presents. The implications are fairly vast in terms of our understanding of the Synoptics and how Jesus' words and actions may be interpreted.

Galatians Part 14 - Spiritual Celebrity

Still blogging about Galatians....

In Chapter 1, Paul tells us that he doesn't proclaim "man's gospel" - but rather a gospel he received directly from Jesus.

The really astonishing thing about all this is that he didn't go up to Jerusalem immediately after receiving this from Jesus, but went into Arabia. It was several years before he went and spent 15 days with Peter (and at that time met James).

He tells us in chapter 2 that it was 14 years later that he went to them again; he put before them his calling to take the gospel to the Gentiles - we get the distinct feeling that he still wasn't looking for their endorsement of his beliefs in any way, but he was looking for unity in the mission. He goes on to use language such as "those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)" - and that's referring to Apostles such as Peter and James!!!

- Are we in the same position as Paul, receiving the gospel by direct revelation? By no means; we receive it from eyewitness records in the New Testament and we need teachers etc.

- Do we have something to learn from Paul's attitude of standing on his own convictions? Absolutely! It's way too easy to find these celebrity church leaders today and start measuring our own views and behaviours by theirs.