Forever Now

Relevance is a pretty big thing these days. Maybe it’s because the modern world is such a disconnected world, and the old patterns of life that used to ground people no longer exist. But whatever the reason, trending things, fashionable things, current things, are what form the fabric of meaning for much of life today. Abstractions like “being behind the times” genuinely trouble us.

I had this in mind a couple weeks back when I wrote a paper for my New Testament History of Revelation class. Paul uses the words “flesh” and “spirit” all over his letters, and he uses them to refer to a variety of things. But it’s the way he uses them in Galatians in particular that got my attention. I read about it in our textbook, Thomas Schreiner’s Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory, and decided to explore the idea a little bit more in my paper.

First, there’s a plain meaning to Paul’s use of flesh: to do the works of the flesh is to live according to your sinful desires. You don’t need any kind of theological education, or even to be a Christian, to understand these things: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, etc. . .” (Gal. 5:19).

There’s another meaning to the word “flesh,” too, and it’s directed rather pointedly, pun intended, at Paul’s Galatian audience. I’m referring, of course, to circumcision. In Genesis 17:13 God says to Abraham, “My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.” The whole meaning of God condescending to man, loving him, redeeming him, was bound up within the sign of circumcision. Friendship with God, the life of wisdom, the joys of worship – all were represented to the Jewish people through that sign. You can understand, then, why the question of circumcision so troubled the early Church. Many, if not most, of the early Christians were Jews, for whom outside of circumcision there was no covenant, no life, with God.

But Paul is having none of it. He argues, with some of the strongest language in the New Testament, that the circumcised life is a dead life. Those who insist on it may as well cut the whole thing off, he charges in chapter 5:12. By insisting on circumcision as a source of life with God, these teachers were drawing the Galatians away from the only source of life available: faith in Christ. Christ’s coming has changed everything, and it is by faith, not by flesh, that man now lives with God. In fact, the circumcision road is now the road clean out of God’s covenant, the express lane into yonder heathenry. Paul neatly equivocates, and says that if you insist on the flesh (circumcision), then what you’ll get is indeed the flesh (sinful living).

And this leads into the third meaning, which is the meaning that intrigued me. Not only does flesh refer to sinful actions and to circumcision, but it also refers to yesterday. It refers to the time before Christ’s coming. To the best of my knowledge, the phones at the circumcision clinics today aren’t ringing off the hook from Christians hoping to find life with God. We live in a very different world from that of the Jewish converts of the early Church. But we are just as prone to living in yesterday’s world as the Jewish Christians were. Circumcision belongs to a past time, it’s true, but everything in the flesh category, including our sinful works, is so redemptive-historically yesterday.

Winter 2016 Rundown

Somehow over the course of my seminary career I’d gotten into the habit of getting sick during holidays – even one-day holidays. Or, more accurately, my immune system had the habit of letting me down during the holidays. For whatever reason, it took a break whenever I did, and while I don’t want to claim any kind of consciousness for my immune system, the uncanny parallel between sickness and holidays is highly suggestive.

Last semester was different, though, and I stayed healthy all the way through, even through the Christmas break. But the dues have come, as they always do, and I and my family have been paying them these first two weeks of school. Alas.

Anyways, here’s a rundown of this semester’s courses. I’ve included the brief course description from the syllabi and listed the textbooks. Do note that a textbook is merely a book from which readings are assigned, not a book that we read cover to cover:

A Hypothetical Class of Ministers

“If a Minister should be a man of means, then would his church nevertheless be obligated to support him? 1 Corinthians 9 leaves no room for doubt. It clearly teaches that such as labor in the Gospel are entitled to live by the Gospel. There is no intimation at all that such as have other means of subsistence, are not entitled to support. Also, during Old Testament times the Priests and Levites received tithes regardless of their personal circumstances. This was by command of God. Hence we take it, our Church Order makes no exception, but simply states what the Churches should do in all cases. The moneys to which their labours entitle Ministers of some means (to be sure a rather hypothetical class of Ministers as far as our Churches are concerned) these moneys are theirs, to use or to give away as they see fit, and concerning which they shall have to render an account before God. Of course, if any Minister of means desires to labor for but a small salary, or for no salary at all, that would be entirely his business. And in case the Church concerned should happen to be a poor struggling Church, good-will of this type certainly would be very commendatory.”

– Van Dellen and Monsma, The Church Order Commentary, p.55

The Quest for Eloquence

Does Scripture forbid Christians from being eloquent? Here’s Kostenberger’s answer from his book, Excellence:

Did Paul approve of the quest for eloquence, or did he discourage – or even condemn – it? In a key passage, the apostle wrote to the Corinthians, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17). Later on in the same epistle, Paul elaborated, “I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:1-2). Judging from these passages, Paul seems to have intentionally curtailed his eloquence in order to focus his listeners’ attention on the gospel message. Is it legitimate, therefore, to use Paul’s example to argue that believers – including preachers – should refrain from cultivating eloquence in presenting the gospel?

As we will see, this conclusion would be premature. An appreciation of the first-century context helps put Paul’s words into proper perspective. The Sophists, a group of Hellenistic philosophers, were widely known for their eloquence and rhetorical skill, including in Corinth. By cautioning the Corinthians against unduly relying on human rhetoric, Paul most likely sought to counteract the Sophists’ influence, trying to redirect their focus away from human rhetoric to the actual gospel message (see 1 Cor.2:1-5).

That said, however, Paul’s eloquent use of rhetoric elsewhere in his letters – including in 1 Corinthians – makes clear that he did not reject its use altogether. Rather, he cautioned against a misplaced focus on the medium – the human speaker – at the expense of the message: the saving news of salvation and forgiveness of sins in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is powerful, not because of human ingenuity, rhetorical persuasiveness, or oratorical power, but because of the saving work of God. This fact, however, should not lead us to reject eloquence altogether. It is the abuse of rhetoric that Paul opposed, not its proper use in ways that undergird the gospel message.

John Piper helpfully addressed Paul’s stance toward eloquence along those lines in a chapter entitled “Is There Christian Eloquence? Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross.” He rightly argued that Paul presented a two-pronged criterion for judging eloquence: does it encourage sinful pride and boastful arrogance, or does it exalt Christ? Eloquence that makes the speaker the center of attention should be rejected, while eloquence that draws attention to the crucified Christ and the message of his gospel should be embraced and utilized in preaching and teaching.

Paul’s “anti-eloquence” stance in 1 Corinthians should therefore be applied only to situations where rhetoric subverts and obscures the message. It should not be extrapolated to imply a universal prohibition against Christians utilizing eloquence or rhetoric in the persuasive communication of the gospel. This contention is underscored by the pervasive presence of eloquence throughout Scripture. The Bible itself is highly eloquent. It is filled with hymns, poetry, narratives, and letters that display the highest levels of ancient Hebrew and Greek rhetorical achievement.

Kostenberger, Excellence, (p. 149-151)

 

Because We Know that God is Truth

We were assigned one project to do over the summer, and that was to read and review Andreas J. Kostenberger’s Excellence: The Character of God and the Pursuit of Scholarly Virtue. So far, I have found the book to be very edifying and encouraging and it makes me look even more forward to our return to school in September. Here’s a passage that contains the central, valuable message of the book:

“The pursuit of holiness on the part of the Christian scholar, I contend, of necessity ought to result in a pursuit of excellence. As Christians who have been set apart for God’s use and called to the vocation of scholarship, we do not engage in our research as disinterested, detached observers but as individuals who have been separated from the world and made holy by a holy God. We passionately pursue the truth wherever it leads because we know that God is truth. Our interest in scholarship lies not simply in exploring a topic academically. It is fueled by a quest for God’s truth for the sake of arriving at important insights, clearing up prevailing misconceptions, or both.

“For this reason we need not be embarrassed by our faith, nor should our faith commitments be considered a necessary obstacle to our academic work. Instead, our faith should motivate us to pursue academic excellence, attaining to the highest scholarly standards on the basis of publicly accessible evidence. Our status as those who have been set apart by God and our pursuit of excellence in the investigation of truth should result in a level of scholarship that nonconfessional scholars, if they are at all fair-minded, will readily recognize and acknowledge as excellent, even though they do not share some or any of our faith commitments” (p. 63).

In the Time before the Alpha Course

An interesting passage from my Symbolics textbook:

“[The roots of creeds] lie not so much in the Christian’s sacramental initiation into the Church as in the catechetical training by which it was preceded. Declaratory creeds, conceived in the setting of their original purpose, were compendious summaries of Christian doctrine compiled for the benefits of converts undergoing instruction. The German scholar A. Seeberg was working along sound lines when he stated: ‘The primitive Christian creeds are simply and solely the recapitulation, in a formula based upon the Trinitarian groundplan, of the basic catechetical verities.’ Our own English historian, C. H. Turner put the same point in different words: ‘The creed belongs, not indeed to the administration of the rite of baptism, but to the preparation for it.’

“… Even at the New Testament stage the Church’s central message, the kernel of its doctrinal deposit, was beginning to harden into semi-stereotypical patterns, and that catechetical instruction was one of the fields in which this process was earliest in getting underway.

“… It is obvious that teachers must always have felt the need for concise summaries, approximating as closely as possible to formulae, and that the increasingly elaborate and official character of the Church’s arrangements for instruction must have made the need all the more urgent. What is significant is that when we first come across declaratory creeds, their express purpose is to subserve the ends of popular instruction.”

– Kelly, Early Christian Creeds. p.50-51.

The creeds of the ancient church had a more practical function than they serve today, being used as tools to teach people about the faith. Could you imagine if the Alpha Course used the Apostles’ Creed as its foundation? The creed is a plain and simple platform from which to introduce people to the essential Christian doctrines, with the added bonus of being easy to memorize. It’s a shame that it’s not likely to happen.

Epicurean Living

“To be accustomed to simple and plain living is conducive to health and makes a man ready for the necessary tasks of life. It also makes us more ready for the enjoyment of luxury if at intervals we chance to meet with it, and it renders us fearless against fortune.”

– Epicurus, in Melchert, The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy

Monks vs. Heretics

“The examples of these Eastern and Western monks suggest that the intellectual and theological obedience or self-restraint required to be orthodox is more than superficially analogous to the psychological and moral obedience or self-restraint required to be ascetic. . . . A passionate zeal for orthodoxy has historically become a special cause for those who have consecrated their lives to poverty, chastity and obedience.”

-Pelikan, Credo. 299-300.