5 apocalyptic horseriders (and horse shift) for hard ceilings in liquid modernity

Ian Morris, in his  big “big book",  talks about
 "hard ceilings"

 in times of  axial/historical shift
(They are often accompanied by  the "Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse": climate change, migration, famine, epidemic and state failure).


I love that we have 
hard ceilings 
in  "this weird moment in history " that is 

liminal and "liquid  (post)modernity."

(Aqua Church, punctuated equilibrium, etc)


Maybe the horseriders (and their horseshift) are asking us to
open up the sky...

Marvin Snurdly, the clipboard approach, and Bible as jigsaw puzzle

Below is an excerpt from  "RE-APPROACHING THE NEW TESTAMENT: THE BIBLE IS NOT A JIGSAW PUZZLE", Chapter 11 of Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.   Used by permission.  Link to PDF. Link to buy the book
-----------------
“In handling the subject of ministry in the New Testament it is essential to remember the order in which the books of the New Testament were written. If we assume, as the order in which the books of the New Testament are now presented would lead us to assume, that the Gospels were written first, and then Acts and then the letters of Paul, beginning with Romans and ending with the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy to Titus and the Letter to Philemon, we shall never be able to understand the development of the institutions and the thought of the early church.” —RICHARD HANSON, TWENTIETH-CENTURY PATRISTIC SCHOLAR 

“In the last 50 or 100 years New Testament research has unremittingly and successfully addressed itself to the task of elucidating for us what was known as the „Ecclesia‟in primitive Christianity—so very different from what is to-day called the church both in Roman and  Protestant camps. . . . This insight—which an unprejudiced study of the New Testament and the crying need of the church have helped us to reach—may be expressed as follows: the New Testament Ecclesia,‟ the fellowship of Jesus Christ, is a pure communion of persons and has nothing to do with the character of an institution about it; it is therefore misleading to identify any single one of the historically developed churches, which are all marked by an institutional character, with the true Christian communion.” —EMIL BRUNNER, TWENTIETH-CENTURY SWISS THEOLOGIAN


WHY IS IT THAT WE CHRISTIANS can follow the same rituals every Sunday without ever noticing that they are at odds with the New Testament? The incredible power of tradition has something to do with it. As we have seen, the church has often been influenced by the surrounding culture, seemingly unaware of its negative effects. At other times, it has, quite properly, recognized overt threats—such as heretical teachings about the person and divinity of Jesus Christ. But in an effort to combat those threats, it has moved away from the organic structure that God wrote into the church’s DNA.

But there is something else—something more fundamental that most Christians are completely unaware of. It concerns our New Testament. The problem is not in what the New Testament says. The problem is in how we approach it.

The approach most commonly used among contemporary Christians when studying the Bible is called ―proof texting. The origin of proof texting goes back to the late 1590s.

A group of men called Protestant scholastics took the teachings of the Reformers and systematized them according to the rules of Aristotelian logic.The Protestant scholastics held that not only is the Scripture the Word of God, but every part of it is the Word of God in and of itself—irrespective of context. This set the stage for the idea that if we lift a verse out of the Bible, it is true in its own right and can be used to prove a doctrine or a practice. When John Nelson Darby emerged in the mid-1800s, he built a theology based on this approach. Darby raised proof texting to an art form. In fact, it was Darby who gave fundamentalist and evangelical Christians a good deal of their presently accepted teachings.3 All of them are built on the proof-texting method. Proof texting, then, became the common way that we contemporary Christians approach the Bible. As a result, we Christians rarely, if ever, get to see the New Testament as a whole. Rather, we are served up a dish of fragmented thoughts that are drawn together by means of fallen human logic. The fruit of this approach is that we have strayed far afield from the principles of the New Testament church. Yet we still believe we are being biblical. Allow us to illustrate the problem with a fictitious story.

MEET MARVIN SNURDLY :
Marvin Snurdly is a world-renowned marital counselor. In his twenty-year career as a marriage therapist, Marvin has counseled thousands of troubled couples. He has an Internet presence. Each day hundreds of couples write letters to Marvin about their marital sob stories. The letters come from all over the globe. And Marvin answers them all.

A hundred years pass, and Marvin Snurdly is resting peacefully in his grave. He has a great-great-grandson named Fielding Melish. Fielding decides to recover the lost letters of his great great grandfather. But Fielding can find only thirteen of Marvin’s letters. Out of the thousands of letters that Marvin wrote in his lifetime, just thirteen have survived! Nine were written to couples in marital crisis. Four were written to individual spouses.

 These letters were all written within a twenty-year time frame: from 1980 to 2000. Fielding Melish plans to compile these letters into a volume. But there is something interesting about the way Marvin wrote his letters that makes Fielding’s task somewhat difficult.

First, Marvin had an annoying habit of never dating his letters. No days, months, or years appear on any of the thirteen letters. Second, the letters only portray half the conversation. The initial letters written to Marvin that provoked his responses no longer exist. Consequently, the only way to understand the backdrop of each of Marvin’s letters is by reconstructing the marital situation from Marvin’s response.

 Each letter was written at a different time, to people in a different culture, about a different problem. For example, in 1985, Marvin wrote a letter to Paul and Sally from Virginia, who were experiencing sexual problems early in their marriage. In 1990, Marvin wrote a letter to Jethro and Matilda from Australia, who were having problems with their children. In 1995, Marvin wrote a letter to a wife from Mexico who was experiencing a midlife crisis. Unfortunately, Fielding has no way of knowing when the letters were written.

Take note: twenty years—thirteen letters—all written to different people at different times in different cultures—all experiencing different problems.

 It is Fielding Melish’s desire to put these thirteen letters in chronological order. But without the dates, he cannot do this. So Fielding puts them in the order of descending length. That is, he takes the longest letter that Marvin wrote and puts it first. He puts Marvin’s second longest letter after that. He takes the third longest and puts it third. The compilation ends with the shortest letter that Marvin penned. The thirteen letters are arranged, not chronologically, but by their length.

 The volume hits the presses and becomes an overnight best seller.

 One hundred years pass, and The Collected Works of Marvin Smurdly  compiled by Fielding Melish stands the test of time. The work is still very popular. Another one hundred years pass, and this volume is being used copiously throughout the Western world. The book is translated into dozens of languages. Marriage counselors quote it left and right. Universities employ it in their sociology classes. It is so widely used that someone gets a bright idea on how to make the volume easier to quote and handle.

 What is that idea? It is to divide Marvin’s letters into chapters and numbered sentences (or verses). So chapters and verses are added to The Collected Works of Marvin Snurdly.

 But by adding chapter and verse to these once living letters, something changes that goes unnoticed. The letters lose their personal touch. Instead, they take on the texture of a manual.

Different sociologists begin writing books about marriage and the family. Their main source? The Collected Works of Marvin Snurdly. Pick up any book in the twenty-fourth century on the subject of marriage, and you will find the author quoting chapters and verses from Marvin’s letters.

 It usually looks like this: In making a particular point, an author will quote a verse from Marvin’s letter written to Paul and Sally. The author will then lift another verse from the letter written to Jethro and Matilda. He will extract another verse from another letter. Then he will sew these three verses together and upon them he will build his particular marital philosophy.

Virtually every sociologist and marital therapist that authors a book on marriage does the same thing.
 Yet the irony is this: Each of these authors frequently contradicts the others, even though they are all using the same source!

But that is not all. Not only have Marvin’s letters been turned into cold prose when they were originally living, breathing epistles to real people in real places, they have become a weapon in the hands of agenda-driven men. Not a few authors on marriage begin employing isolated proof texts from Marvin’s work to hammer away at those who disagree with their marital philosophy.

 How is this possible? How are all of these sociologists contradicting each other when they are using the exact same source? It is because the letters have been lifted out of their historical context. Each letter has been plucked from its chronological sequence and removed from its real-life setting.

 Put another way, the letters of Marvin Snurdly have been transformed into a series of isolated, disjointed, fragmented sentences—so anyone can lift one sentence from one letter, another sentence from another letter, and then paste them together to create the marital philosophy of his or her choice.

 An amazing story, is it not? Well, here is the punch line. Whether you realize it or not, this is a description of your New Testament!

THE ORDER OF PAUL‟S LETTERS
The New Testament is made up mostly of the apostle Paul’s letters; in fact, he wrote two-thirds of it. He penned thirteen letters in about a twenty-year time span. Nine letters were written to churches in different cultures, at different times, experiencing different problems. Four letters were written to individual Christians. The people who received those letters were also dealing with different issues at different times.

Take note: twenty years—thirteen letters—all written to different people at different times in different cultures—all experiencing different problems.

 In the early second century, someone began to take the letters of Paul and compile them into a volume. The technical term for this volume is ―canon.‖5 Scholars refer to this compiled volume as ―the Pauline canon.‖ The New Testament is essentially this compilation with a few letters added after it, the four Gospels and Acts placed before it, and Revelation tacked on the very end.

 At the time, no one knew when Paul’s letters were written.
Even if they had, it would not have mattered. There was no precedent for alphabetical or chronological ordering. The first-century Greco-Roman world ordered its literature according to decreasing length.

Look at how your New Testament is arranged. What do you find? Paul’s longest letter appears first. It is Romans. First Corinthians is the second longest letter, so it follows Romans. Second Corinthians is the third longest letter. Your New Testament follows this pattern until you come to that tiny little book called Philemon. In 1864, Thomas D. Bernard delivered a series of talks as part of the Bampton Lectures. These lectures were published in 1872 in a book entitled The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament. In the book, Bernard argued that the present order of Paul’s letters in the New Testament was divinely inspired and commended. This book became very popular among Bible teachers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a result, virtually every theological text, exegetical text, or biblical commentary written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries follows the present chaotic order, which blinds us from seeing the entire panoramic view of the New Testament. Canonical criticism is big among seminarians. This is the study of the canon as a unit in order to acquire an overall biblical theology. What is needed today is a theology built, not on the present canon and its misarrangement, but on the chronological narrative of the New Testament church.

 Here is the present order as it appears in your New Testament. The books are arranged according to descending length:

•  Romans
•  1 Corinthians
•  2 Corinthians
•  Galatians 
• Ephesians
•  Philippians
•  Colossians
•  1 Thessalonians
•  2 Thessalonians 
• 1 Timothy
•  2 Timothy
• Titus 
• Philemon

 What, then, is the proper chronological order of these letters? According to the best available scholarship, here is the order in which they were written:

•  Galatians 
• 1 Thessalonians
•  2 Thessalonians 
• 1 Corinthians
•  2 Corinthians 
• Romans
•  Colossians
•  Philemon
•  Ephesians 
• Philippians
•  1 Timothy
•  Titus
•  2 Timothy

 THE ADDITION OF CHAPTERS AND VERSES
In the year 1227, a professor at the Uniof Paris named Stephen Langton added chapters to all the books of the Bible.
 Then in 1551, a printer named Robert Stephanus (sometimes called Robert Estienne) numbered the sentences in all the books of the New Testament.

 According to Stephanus’s son, the verse divisions that his father created do not do service to the sense of the text. Stephanus did not use any consistent method. While riding on horseback from Paris to Lyons, he versified the entire New Testament within Langton’s chapter divisions.

 So verses were born in the pages of holy writ in the year 1551. And since that time God’s people have approached the New Testament with scissors and glue, cutting and pasting isolated, disjointed sentences from different letters, lifting them out of their real-life setting, lashing them together to build floatable doctrines, and then calling it ―the Word of God.

 Seminarians and Bible college students alike are rarely if ever given a panoramic view of the free-flowing story of the early church with the New Testament books arranged in chronological order.  As a result, most Christians are completely out of touch with the social and historical events that lay behind each of the New Testament letters. Instead, they have turned the New Testament into a manual that can be wielded to prove any point. Chopping the Bible up into fragments makes this relatively easy to pull off.

HOW WE APPROACH THE NEW TESTAMENT
We Christians have been taught to approach the Bible on one of eight ways:

• You look for verses that inspire you.
•  Upon finding such verses, you either highlight, memorize, meditate upon, or put them on your refrigerator door.
•   You look for verses that tell you what God has promised so that you can confess it in faith and thereby obligate the Lord to do what you want. 
•  You look for verses that tell you what God commands you to do. 
•  You look for verses that you can quote to scare the devil out of his wits or resist him in the hour of temptation. 
•  You look for verses that will prove your particular doctrine so that you can slice-and-dice your theological sparring partner into biblical ribbons. (Because of the proof-texting method, a vast wasteland of Christianity behaves as if the mere citation of some random, decontextualized verse of Scripture ends all discussion on virtually any subject.) 
•  You look for verses in the Bible to control and/or correct others. 
•  You look for verses that ―preach‖ well and make good sermon material. (This is an ongoing addiction for many who preach and teach.) 
•  You sometimes close your eyes, flip open the Bible randomly, stick your finger on a page, read what the text says, and then take what you have read as a personal ―word‖ from the Lord.

 Now look at this list again. Which of these approaches have you used? Look again: Notice how each is highly individualistic. All of them put you, the individual Christian, at the center. Each approach ignores the fact that most of the New Testament was written to corporate bodies of people (churches), not to individuals.

But that is not all. Each of these approaches is built on isolated proof texting. Each treats the New Testament like a manual and blinds us to its real message. It is no wonder that we can approvingly nod our heads at paid pastors, the Sunday morning order of worship, sermons, church buildings, religious dress, choirs, worship teams, seminaries, and a passive priesthood—all without wincing.

 We have been taught to approach the Bible like a jigsaw puzzle. Most of us have never been told the entire story that lies behind the letters that Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude wrote. We have been taught chapters and verses, not the historical context.

 For instance, have you ever been given the story behind Paul’s letter to the Galatians? Before nodding, see if you can answer these questions off the top of your head: Who were the Galatians? What were their issues? When and why did Paul write to them? What happened just before Paul penned his Galatian treatise? Where was he when he wrote it? What provoked him to write the letter? And where in Acts do you find the historical context for this letter? All of these background matters are indispensable for understanding what our New Testament is about. Without them, we simply cannot understand the Bible clearly or properly.

One scholar put it this way, ―The arrangement of the letters of Paul in the New Testament is in general that of their length. When we rearrange them into their chronological order, fitting them as far as possible into their life-setting within the record of the Acts of the Apostles, they begin to yield up more of their treasure; they become self-explanatory, to a greater extent than when this background  is ignored.

Another writes, "If future editions [of the New Testament] want to aid rather than hinder a reader’s understanding of the New Testament, it should be realized that the time is ripe to cause both the verse and chapter divisions to disappear from the text and to be put on the margin in as inconspicuous a place as possible. Every effort must be made to print the text in a way which makes it possible. Some of us have been taught a little about the historical background of the Bible. But it isjust enough to inoculate usfrom searching further and getting the whole story. for the units which the author himself had in mind to become apparent."

You could call our method of studying the New Testament the "clipboard approach." If you are familiar with computers, you are aware of the clipboard component. If you happen to be in a word processor, you may cut and paste a piece of text via the clipboard. The clipboard allows you to cut a sentence from one document and paste it into another.

 Pastors, seminarians, and laymen alike have been conditioned by the clipboard approach when studying the Bible. This is how we justify our man-made, encased traditions and pass them off as biblical. It is why we routinely miss what the early church was like whenever we open up our New Testaments. We see verses. We do not see the whole picture. This approach is still alive and well today, not only in institutional churches but in house churches as well. Let me use another illustration to show how easily anyone can fall into it—and the harmful effects it can have.

The above is an excerpt from Chapter 11 of Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.   Used by permission.  Link to PDF. Link to buy the book

--
Related:

Sweet and McLaren: Versus Verses and Verse-itis

A Bible without verses

three versions of a Leonard Sweet message

The Greatest Song Ever Sung from Marble Collegiate Church on Vimeo.

"There has been little interest in friendship in the history of Christendom"

 Leonard Sweet:

There has been little interest in friendship in the history of Christendom. The move from philia to agape in the Christian tradition was so dramatic that philia was almost left behind. 'A book on friendship now means, quite often, a collection of little sayings, attractively illustrated, meant as a gift, and sold in a drugstore' is how Gilbert  Meilaender puts it. About the only forms of relationships that have received sustained theological reflection in Christian literature are the two missing from this book: the erotic dimensions of relationships and marriage. Page 11 of 11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without

Seeing With a Creative Eye -- Leonard Sweet

(Rev.) Katie Couric is Martin Luther?

Since we're "in the middle of the beginning" of a 2nd (some say 3rd or 4th) Reformation/Re-formation in the church world...

we are living in "this weird moment," but whatever the heck it is, it IS  already 'the next reformation"...

 it's interesting to compare parallel moments in the media world.  The twain definitely meet again this time, as Leonard Sweet has well pointed out with his Gutenberg world/Google world grid.

The catch is, as always, one doesn't know what the (The) key moment is until history is written.
 Is there an assassination of Archduke Ferdinand?  Is there a Wittenburg...and/or  Wittenburg.. Door moment?  9-11?

All that to say..what if Katie Couric's posting her thesis on the door of network TV is a Luther moment? (:

I mean, Phyllis Tickle (a very important writer and interpreter of the times) has suggested that Brian McLaren is the Luther this time around.  But I don't think Brian McLaren would agree..

What would Wolfgang Simson say?  maybe it's a nameless taxi-driving apostle this time?

Or maybe it's someone  famous , yet more unobvious, this time?

Hey, if Focus on the Family thinks she's an antiChristian, maybe she's a prophetess? (:
(see Focus On The Family Attacks 'Today' Show's Couric As 'Anti-Christian)

Read this:

See this analysis, for example:  "It's 70 AD, and 1517, all over again...maybe The Matrix is Luther this time.."



Read this:

Does Katie Couric’s Move to Yahoo Signal the End of Old Media Dominance?

When, years from now, historians try to piece together the exact moment that the balance of cultural power shifted from old media to new, when the old lions guarding the gatehouse were flattened by the democratizing power of the Internet and social media, the events of the last few months, or even the last couple of days, may provide a clue.
On Friday, news broke that Katie Couric, one of the most recognizable stars of television, was leaving ABC for Yahoo News. During any other month, that news alone would have signaled a new world order, an upheaval in the pecking order. But in November 2013, Couric was just the latest high-profile media talent to leave what was once considered a lifetime post for a job at a website that in the public mind’s at least last saw its heyday back when Friendster and Meetups and “the netroots” ruled the digital   link

Scripture and sex: semiotics, simulacrum, synesthesia, Sapir-- skubala or shekinah?

People sometimes ask me if all the violence in "The Matrix" doesn't bother me.

Part of my answer is "What violence?"....because I tend to translate it all to spiritual warfare (which is appropriate on one level and problematic on another).

No one has yet asked me if the steamy sex scene  between Neo and Trinity in the second Matrix film bothers me.

  So thanks for asking.

Part of my answer would be "it does"  (and it was a cheap grab for ratings).
But again I tend to see it as also  a spiritual representation (Neo=Jesus or EveyChristian  and Trinity  as Trinity, Holy Spirit  or church).



But if Bell's definition of sexuality is at all close, then  everything is sexuality....especially spirituality.



Of course, everything is also inevitably semiotics.

In a great book about semiotics (that strangely doesn't mention Leonard Sweet, who  literally wrote the book on evangelism and semiotics), Crystal Downing , in a section called "Sex and the Simulacrum," writes:

the change in sexual signs has been noted...in one college textbook: 'sexual desire is no longer a response to a person whom we meet and  know face-to-face.  Rather, sexual desire is stimulated by images promulgated by the media, and we strive to remake our bodies to fit these images." People have this substituted imaged for reality, submitting themselves to what cultural critic Baudrillard calls 'simulacra': copies of reality for which no original exists...Ironically, our culture's obsession with the body often leads to a denial of the body, offering simulacra instead. -p. 276

T-Bone Burnett  (or at least his image) might suggest that
                    all sex is image to image.

All sex is semiotic simulacra..virtually virtual..really

It doesn't take much trainspotting to catch the simulacra references in The Matrix:

.

The Matrix makes many connections to Simulacra and Simulation. Neo, is seen with a copy of Simulacra and Simulation at the beginning of the story. He

uses the hollowed book as a hiding place for cash and his important computer files, however, Neo's hollowed copy of the book has the chapter "On Nihilism" in the middle, not at the end of the book, where it is in reality.  uses the hollowed book as a hiding place for cash and his important computer files, however, Neo's hollowed copy of the book has the chapter "On Nihilism" in the middle, not at the end of the book, where it is in reality. Morpheus refers to the real world outside the Matrix as the "desert of the real", a reference to Baudrillard's work. In the original script, Morpheus specifically referred to Baudrillard's boo link

  Ironically, the Matrix's use of Baudrillard may be an "copy of which the original no longer exists." The same article notes

 however, in an interview, Baudrillard said "The Matrix" has nothing to do with his work. 




If everything is creative analogy, 
         and everything is sexuality, 
                                       then there will of course be a 
                          sex and synesthesia (which itself is all about  creative analogy) connection.

Downing on the tendency to  semiotcally gnostisize sex and the body

Marcion, the second century bishop..went so far as to denounce the incarnation calling it a 'disgrace to God' because the human body is 'stuffed with excrement'

Huh? Skubala  disqualifies incarnation?  That itself is skubala!

Let's instead consider things holistically and pursue the sexuality and SHEKINAH .interface.



And the fact that language about sexuality is semiotic and  sign-ificant:

Western culture today seems obssesed with the body, especially the sexualized body.  The popularity  of 'sexting' has   lead to a new kind of crime, "sextortion"...-Downing

New words create  new realities (Sapir-Whorf).

Since new words can create new  crime, and new crime words..

..can't they also   creative creative language and creative inkingdomedness?

Where does this all lead: obsexxion?

Or to Jesus,

  Pepsi, Sex, Elevation...& Mission Trips That Are Actually Missional

..and asking ourselves why we can't at least ask  'banned" questions?

Most readers here will be familiar with Len Hjalmarson's important blog:

..if the new earth is really a restoration and renewal — a new paradise — this time a garden city –

a place of peace, fulfillment and new creation –
a restoration of paradise and innocence (in the best sense) –

How could it be all this apart from new creation in humans and animals? In other words – is there no sexual union in the kingdom? No children? No new people, just we resurrected or restored ones?  -sex and the kingdom 

video: "Changing Signs of Truth: A Christian Introduction to Semiotics" (Crystal Downing)

Faculty Scholarship: Crystal Downing "Changing Signs of Truth" from Messiah Humanities on Vimeo.

Abduct 'em

Abduct 'em

The helpful section  on the "abductive" method in Leonard Sweet and Brian McLaren's "A is for Abductive"  is on

page 31-33 here

everything is semiotics; semiotic=semi-erotic

In one current class, we've been enjoying the family tree of the word "sign" (see  this  and   this).
It's a reminder that everything is sign-ificant.
We can't not do signs/ semiotics.

It's a sign.

Read up on semiotic theology.

Enjoy the delightfully named Erotica: The Semey Side of Semiotics .
(Of course they'll be a connection between semiotics and sexuality...if everything is semiotic and "Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God.
Don't forget, as Sweet says in the interview below, " In nature, you don’t get to mate or even sometimes move without being able to read signs."


Definitely read theo-semiotician  Leonard Sweet (study with him in the Semiotics and Future Studies Doctor of Ministry program):

Explorefaith: Len, you are often described as a futurist. Can you tell me what that means, exactly? Do you foretell the future?
Leonard Sweet:  Don’t we all wish we had that crystal ball? What I do is called “semiotics,” which makes me a “semiotician,” a word derived from one of Jesus’ favorite sayings: “Red sky in morning/sailors take warning/Red sky at night/sailors delight. You know how to read the signs of the sky; Learn to read the signs of the times.” [See Matthew 16:2-3] The Greek word for “signs” is semeion, and semiotics is the study of signs and the art of making connections, seeing the relationships between apparently random signs and reading the meaning of those relationships.
Our brains are designed to detect patterns. So I only do what everyone else can do if we do what we’re designed to do.
The world is ruled by signs and signals. For example, cars are driven to be seen and to be read, not just to get you somewhere. Cars are signs of who we are or want to be. Signals are heavy laden with social and moral connotations. They even alter the behavior of those receiving the signals. In nature, you don’t get to mate or even sometimes move without being able to read signs, many of them blazing signals in code: the crow of a rooster, the tail of a peacock, the antlers of a buck, the scent of an otter, the song of a kakapo. In economics, the whole system of money is based on signs, and you can’t balance a checkbook without the ability to read a sign language called “mathematics.” You are tested in your sign-reading ability before you are given a license to drive a car.
Explorefaith:  What does reading signs have to do with faith?
Leonard Sweet:  Disciples of Jesus must learn to read the sign-language of the Spirit. Sometimes God gives us a hint; sometimes God drops a hammer on us. But the handwriting is on the wall. God’s finger is still writing. Can we read the signs of what God is doing? The ultimate in spiritual illiteracy is the inability to read the handwriting on the wall, especially when the essence of evangelism is announcing the good sign, the Jesus Sighting. For me, semiotics is another way of talking about the signs of the Spirit’s activity in the world. For we are sent into the world to join Jesus in his continuing mission.
Also—there are some people in the church preoccupied with reading signs, but they’re looking only for one thing: not signs of our times, but end times signs, signs of the coming of Christ, signs of the “latter days” and the “end of days.” I’m trying, instead, to read the signs which give us Jesus sightings.   link

See especially the "Semiotics 101" section,   pp 41-50 here below (Nudge, By Leonard Sweet -Chapter One):

learn semiotics. It’s a direct order

Sweet and McLaren: Versus Verses and Verse-itis

First,Sweet and McLaren on "Versus Verses" from  "A" is for Abductive (a great book which, of course, is on the cut-out rack at the Christian bookstore):

Then, Sweet on Verse-itis and apples/oranges

"Jesus: A Theography"

Some books seem impossible to review...other than to say they  are amazing, make my top ten list., and everyone should own it.

Such is the case with "Jesus: A Theography," by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, a book that creates a word...and a genre.

I don't know where to start, so I'll start at the beginning...and the end.

•  The intro..It's free read online. (Click here to Read introduction)
• The footnotes: absolutely amazing...a book unto itself.

And the middle:

• The entire book was checked by the Biblemaster, Craig Keener...and they took all his suggestions!  That alone would make it a six (out of five) star book.

I an tempted to  turn it up to eleven,

but I'll give it a ten..

Buy the book already..

"the greatest song ever sung"

In this video (and in the new book by Sweet and Viola), Sweet makes the case for "the greatest song ever sung" 
 (more info, see  "The Lord Be With You...Even When He's Not!" and posts tagged "lament" below).
The Greatest Song Ever Sung from Marble Collegiate Church on Vimeo.

The Greatest Song Ever Sung from Marble Collegiate Church on Vimeo.
Sermon preached on Sunday, February 6th, by Dr. Leonard Sweet at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City.

what's worse than blindness and more evil than the devil?

What's worse than blindness and more evil than the devil? The answer is... well, I'll reveal that in a minute.. ..by way of two scriptures on the Top Ten Most Misunderstood Texts lists (BTW, ask Keltic Ken about his Top ten Misheard lyrics list). 1)The debate over what Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was is easily solved. The candidates  you usually hear are: his eyesight, another physical illness or limitation, a demon...                                          etc etc etc But if we get over our verse-itis, and simply read the  2 Corinthians 12 text in context and contexture, it's pretty obvious. Actually, this hilarious  SpongeBob cartoon comes close: If you read any standard academic commentary, you'll find it. What can be worse that an illness?                     a religious person. A false believer/teacher, a persecutor,  a heretic, an infiltrator of the Body. Follow the word "thorn" ....or phrase "thorn  in the side/flesh,"   which is used in scripture exclusively of people  (Kind of like how today we call someone  a "pain in the neck," no one thinks we're talking about a literal neck pain): Numbers 33:50-55 (which also talks about religious people as "pricks," at least in the   KJV...no comment (: Joshua 23:11-13 Judges 2:2-3  Ezekiel 28:24  "Messenger of Satan"?  "Messenger" is a person, when not translated "angel."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EkYQXlsyV4
And Paul' s context is obviously satanically-inspired "deceitful religious workers":

¹² And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. ¹³ For such persons are false apostles, deceitful religious workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel/messenger of light. ¹⁵ It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.  -ch 10

                                          And don't get me started on this next one.

 

2)How many times have you heard that  John 10:10 teaches that"the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy"??

True as the statement is that  devil does these three things..

The devil is nowhere mentioned in that chapter's content and context.


Could it be that there is something more evil (in a sense) than the devil?

A religious person.

Just a basic look at the context of John 10 will reveal clearly who the thief is:

Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “ We are not blind too, are we?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “ If you were blind, you would have no sin; but ^[f]since you say, ‘ We see,’ your sin remains.

 Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. ² The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” ⁶ Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

⁷ Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. ⁹ I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.^[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
¹¹ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³ The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

---

More "misundertaken" texts from The Top Ten list?

• Which commandments are listed the only time the scripture says "These are the  Ten Commandment"?

• In Matthew, it's the believers who will be left behind

• Don't "avoid the appearance of evil"

• Romans 7, "I do what I don't want to do" is not descriptive the Christian life Fill in the blank: "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of ___" (9 out of 10 evangelicals will give the wrong answer)  Christians are sinners...myth

Leonard Sweet, "Viral"

spiraling towards a moving center: pardon me, your gravitas is showing

1)So what happens if/when/since your  arrow towards the center of the centered set isn't straight but spiraled? (diagram at left)

2)So what happens if the center of the set itself (Himself) moves?
(diagram at right).
"Holy Spirit is on the move.  Our job is to move with the movement."

Back to Album · My Photos

Previous · Next

LikeComment Tag Photo

1)Doug Erickson addresses a version of the first question with this quote and diagram: What i am proposing is this: rather than a linear trajectory where either I am pointing directly towards the center OR NOT, what if we change the visual representation to be more like an orbit, or a vortex. I realize this may be quibbling, but i think it's more reflective of the provisional and conditional nature of our knowledge, loving and acting.  I am rarely in direct trajectory towards the center. The center does, however, have a certain pull, a gravitas, that I sometimes give in to, sometimes resist, and sometimes am unaware of.  Am I moving towards the center? Usually, but more in a spiral pattern, or a vortex. Perhaps my graphic would look something like this:

-Doug Eriickson, link

See also:
posts tagged with "centered set" label at bottom of this post

• Timelines and Testations: Jesus, Sexonomics and Facebook
•  "time is a helix of semi-precious stones, it's not linear" 

Here's my "Holy Helix"...





 

The dual lines represent God's line, and ours.
Note they are not actually separate..but one line...even though headed in different directions and of different colors.
That will preach!!

..but its lines/curves are too perfect.  So I often teach from my "Chaotic Helix" (below).
Isn't that more your life's line?

All of life is helical...

or hell.

Back to Album · My Photos

Previous · Next

LikeComment Tag Photo

Album:Mobile Uploads

If fact,  Keltic Ken. and the Super Rabbi checked out my  chaotic helix (and examined its groovy gravitas,) , as you can see:

Back to Album · third day fresno's Photos · third day fresno's Profile

Previous · Next

LikeComment Tag Photo

--------------------------

which dot (green diagram with two dots) is center?..find out here)

2)I heard Brian Mclaren address a verion of the second question at FPU,, but my notes went offlline along with our fotum.  Anyone have notes?

He (along with Len Sweet and Jerry Haselmayer
touched on this in "A is For Abductive"/ See:

• centered sets with moving center
• centered sets and moving center part 2
• moving center part 3