" fasting,prayer, communion, and following Jesus all ceased with the apostles"

link

Bible as center

Of course, this post connected me to "bounded sets" and "centered sets," though Enns doesn't use that language:

The Bible is the center of the Christian faith (and don’t assume you know what I mean by that) by Peter Enns

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

I once  Googled, and was surprised to find some churches advertising as "Bible-centered"..as opposed to "Christ-centered."

Related:

• This era is Bible centered. Too bad
• -posts tagged "centered set" and "bibliolatry" below,

a biblical post about being biblical by not calling anything "biblical"

Remember the "Christian is a lousy adjective" article?

In a similar vein, hear Rachel Held Evans (in "A Year of Biblical Womanhood"), suggest that the Bible (or "biblical")  shouldn't be an adjective, either:

The Bible isn’t an answer book. It isn’t a self-help manual. It isn’t a flat, perspicuous list of rules and regulations that we can interpret objectively and apply unilaterally to our lives.
The Bible is a sacred collection of letters and laws, proverbs and poetry, philosophy and prophecies, written and assembled over thousands of years in contexts very different from our own, that tells the complex, ever-unfolding story of God’s interaction with humanity.”
When we turn the Bible  into an adjective, and stick in front of another loaded word (like “womanhood,” “politics,” “economics,” “marriage”  and even "equality") , we tend to ignore or even downplay the parts of the Bible that don't fit our tastes.  In an attempt to simplify, we try to force the Bible's cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.  p. 294

A few pages later:

And I believe that my calling, as a Christian, is the same as that of any other follower of Jesus. My calling is to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. Jesus himself said that the rest of Scripture can be rendered down into these two commands. If love was Jesus’ definition of “biblical,” then perhaps it should be mine.

Basically the same section in a CNN article:

My Take: The danger of calling behavior ‘biblical’

Related:

This era is Bible centered. Too bad

more compost pile than cookbook

Uncensored...and NOT an owner's manual!

Q & R: Bible as constitution or library?

Strange Fire

Readers might be interested in this link:

"A Final Appeal to Pastor John MacArthur on the Eve of His 'Strange Fire' Conference"

                     -Micheal Brown, Charisma Magazine 

Of course, we have challenged MacArthur here before..on issues of unintentional bibliolatry.

see this

But now MacArthur's upcoming book and conference call us to issue another friendly challenge

(I hope he learned a lesson from Chuck Colson, see part 1 , part 2)

Read this:

In this book, Pastor MacArthur argues, “The ‘Holy Spirit’ found in the vast majority of charismatic teaching and practice bears no resemblance to the true Spirit of God as revealed in Scripture,” even accusing the modern charismatic movement of “attributing the work of the devil to the Holy Spirit."

Wow, how ironic..since according to Jesus, the unpardonable sin/ is exactly the opposite:  attributing the work of the Holy Spirit  to the devil.

And:

"charismatic theology has made no contribution to true biblical theology or interpretation"

Wow,how ironic;  "charismatic theology" is the only kind of theology we have,  If it's not "spiritual"
(the biblical word "charismatic"), it's nothing.

  

"The Bible Made Impossible" by Christian Smith

From the Brazos blog:

Jack Heppner reflected on the role of Scripture and turned to The Bible Made Impossible, by Christian Smith.“Christopher Smith laments the fact that evangelicals have too easily written off Barth’s view of revelation. He summarizes Barth’s view as follows: ‘The highest , truest, most real and authoritative divine revelation to humanity is the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity (John 1:1-18)…The Bible is also God’s Word, his word written. But Jesus Christ is the highest, most final, most real word of God. The Bible is God’s word written, which exists as a witness and testimony to the Word of God, Jesus Christ’ (124).”  link

Promo:

Biblicism, an approach to the Bible common among some American evangelicals, emphasizes together the Bible's exclusive authority, infallibility, clarity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability. Acclaimed sociologist Christian Smith argues that this approach is misguided and unable to live up to its own claims. If evangelical biblicism worked as its proponents say it should, there would not be the vast variety of interpretive differences that biblicists themselves reach when they actually read and interpret the Bible. Far from challenging the inspiration and authority of Scripture, Smith critiques a particular rendering of it, encouraging evangelicals to seek a more responsible, coherent, and defensible approach to biblical authority

Endorsements

"Evangelicalism is cracking apart not because of theological drift to the left but because the only theology that can sustain a genuine evangelicalism is--to use the only word appropriate--a catholic theology. Many who were nurtured in American evangelicalism (as Christian Smith was) and now find it seriously deficient (as Christian Smith does) seem to be those on whom the light has dawned. I first saw a chapter of this book and was stunned; I've now read it all and am delighted. Here is a genuinely evangelical catholic understanding of scripture."

Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary

"Biblicism remains one of the most entrenched and pressing problems facing the church. In his characteristically lucid, direct, and fair-minded fashion, Christian Smith asks questions about biblicism that need to be answered. Smith also begins to articulate an alternative, Christ-centered approach to biblical interpretation that is supremely constructive--a truly evangelical account of scripture. Here his words fall like water on parched ground. We may expect the church to flourish as it reads them."

Douglas A. Campbell, associate professor of New Testament, Duke University Divinity School

"Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible is a slap across the conservative evangelical face: a challenge to a duel/debate over the nature and practice of biblical authority. Ever the sociologist, Smith forces readers to confront and account for the stubborn fact that not everyone who ascribes supreme authority to 'what the Bible says' hears God saying the same thing. Even those, like me, who are not persuaded by his 'truly evangelical' alternative will benefit from this strong dose of realism about the way in which evangelicals actually interpret and appeal to the Bible."

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, research professor of systematic theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

"I do not think that biblicism has been quite as destructive as Christian Smith describes it in this book (for example, among evangelicals there is very little 'pervasive interpretive pluralism' in understanding John 20:31). Despite this reservation, I think Smith has written an extremely valuable book. Although his account of the problems besetting biblicism is devastatingly effective, his appeal for a Christ-centered approach to scripture is wise, encouraging, and even more effective."

Mark A. Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame

"Many books have been written either defending or detracting from an evangelical view of the Bible. Christian Smith, as a trained sociologist, offers a much-needed perspective: explaining evangelical biblicism as a sociological phenomenon. Smith demonstrates, respectfully but critically, that the type of biblicism that often characterizes evangelicalism cannot account for how scripture itself behaves. Biblicism is retained, however, because of its sociological value for 'maintaining safe identity boundaries.' Smith's analysis of the problem of biblicism and his offer of a way forward are important contributions to the current developments surrounding evangelicalism and the Bible."

Peter Enns, author, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins and Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament

"Christian Smith plainly says what so many others have been thinking or implying for some time--namely, that many strands of evangelicalism believe things about the Bible and theology that are simply impossible. Smith exposes the scholastic alchemy that holds this fragile theological edifice together and helps us understand that serious damage is done to the church and its witness when we perpetuate the errors of biblicism."

Kenton L. Sparks, professor of Hebrew Bible, Eastern University

"Smith vigorously presents a compelling possibility: The Bible could be more alive, the church could be more unified, those of us who care deeply about scripture could be less fearful about some collapse of authority and more honest about what is actually in the Bible if we simply began to listen with more humility and openness to what it is God seems most concerned to reveal. A great book for this time in the life of evangelicalism."

Debbie Blue, pastor, House of Mercy; author, Sensual Orthodoxy and From Stone to Living Word
link

Kindle is not God

I know you know that..but since we bibliophiles/Kindlephiles can be tempted..

I thought you might get a kick out of this:





Scot McKnight posted a prayer on his blog; a great prayer that should be prayed, but I couldn't help chuckle at the  unintentionally funny (and convicting) opening line...must be read carefully, so do click the link to get the context!: (:

Almighty God, kindle, we pray.... (continued here)

PS: He could've prayed to a Kindle Fire, that would totally make sense, too..

Breaking news: Jesus is bigger than the Bible

I was honored that one of my heroes, "Antioch" Shawn Spiess, quoted

 and namechecked  me in a sermon recently at New Destiny Church, Kansas City on the topic of bibliolatry (see  1:32:25 below).  

It's my infamous list of "misundertaken" Scriptures  (read the list complete list here, along with some shocking quotes by John MacArthur I've collected.  I'm sure MacArthir is a great guy, but maybe someone needs to confront him ...as I once tried to do with Chuck Colson here)

Kudos to Shawn for being a pastor brave enough to quote me...uh jk...brave enough to, in a sermon from the Bible,
teach the flock that the Bible itself points to something bigger.


T

Watch live streaming video from ndckc at livestream.com

Related:

• This era is Bible centered. Too bad
• other posts tagged bibliolatry

"If Tennessee is part of the Bible Belt.."

‎"If Tennessee is part of the Bible Belt, I consider California to be the Bible Sunglasses..."
- Jon Acuff

That reminded me of the quote Tim Nuefeld (et al) got out of Bruce Cockburn when they explained to him that our California town (Fresno) was the Bible belt of California : "That's not the Bible's fault."

More John McArthur adventures in misunderstanding..

More John McArthur adventures in misunderstanding.,  This video clip reveals how Dobson, World Magazine and others evenyually were able to get one of the best translations ever (TNIV) banned.
(See TNIV tags below for more info on the backstory)

More on McArthur's well-meaning adventures in missing the point:

• McArthur accuses Driscoll of raping the text
• Why John McA preaches in a tie
• (Mis)undertsanding Emerging Church: Videos

Check this: Fill in the blanks below with your best answer:

"There is no substitute for submitting to ____"
"If you are not a Christian, you need ______ for salvation"
"_____ is perfectly able to open an unbeliever's eyes to the truth of the gospel, convict him of sin, or even do radical surgery on his soul."

Check out McArthur's answers here (bottom of post)

Worship the Bible or Jesus? Come to Church or to Christ? (Len Sweet video)

"Do we come to Church or do we come to Christ? Is Christ missing in our churches? Do we worship the Bible or Jesus? Author, speaker and futurist Len Sweet laments...":

Come To Christ from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.



Faithful Till He Comes from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

"not a congenial book"

"GloboChrist:The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn

is a fairly recent book by an awesome writer Carl Raschke, that I had missed until now.

(Here are my previous posts on his "The Next Reformation.")
Here's Tall Skinny Kiwi's post on the new one:

GloboChrist: The Book to Read:

This is for the missional entrepreneurs working in continental Europe that I will be teaching in Belgium next week. You know who you are and you may have been notified of my book recommendation. If not, here it is: The most important book you can read in preparation for my presentations, the one and only book apart from the Bible, is GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn, by Carl Raschke. Get it from UK's Eden or Amazon if you are coming over from USA.
I finally met Carl a few months ago in Amsterdam, having read the PDF earlier this year and we had a good chat. But reading the hardcopy of the book, which was just released, I have become convinced that this book sums up the postmodern European challenge and the church's response better than anything out there right now.
It is not a congenial book. Carl comes out fighting and throwing punches across the board. He slams both McLaren for being too inclusive and McArthur's philosophical approach for being a "cheap metaphysical absolutism pretending to be the basis of biblical inerrancy". He sees fundamentalism as "the idolatrous substitution of eighteenth-century propositional rationality for the biblical language of faith itself" and the "new trendsetting Emergent Village kind of postmodern Christianity" as "simply a replay of the modernist-fundamentalist debates of a century ago, with a few savory pinches of the culture wars thrown in for good measure." Raschke derides the "self-congratulatory intellectual faddism" of both camps and attempts to move beyond the controversy towards an appropriate response to the challenge of postmodern Europe..


-Tall Skinny Kiwi, continued here

Is Scripture a Strange Loop/Mobius Strip?

Since the Word is ...

• "living
• active
• sharper than any double-edged sword"

... of course in some sense it is both

• Loop .............and
• Mobius,

and bigger than both..

..but they can't be as perfectly looped/Mobiused as God (such would be bibliolatry).

AND it just hit me that a double-edged sword would by defintion looped and Mobiused.

If you need some info on the terms in my post title:

• See this on Strange Loop,

(and this on theological implications thereof).

• See this on Mobius Strip

(and this on theological implications thereof),

Eco:

"Even though the senses of the Scriptures are indefinite, none of them annuls the others, each increasingly enriching this immense storage of meanings...perhaps a Mobius Ring"
-"Semiotics and The Philosophy of Language" p. 150

Maybe chiastic-matrix a better term...
is that loopy enough?

Scripture as punishment

“The holy writings are valuable for those who use them right,” testified one Anabaptist at the Regensburg trials in Bavaria. “But their misuse is the source of all heresy and unbelief. To the scribes and the Pharisees the holy writings were not a guide to Christ, but a hindrance and eventually a punishment.”
- Peter Hoover, The Secret of the Strength: What Would the Anabaptists Tell This Generation
(from a good article on bibliolatry by David Flowers)

"A New Kind of Christianity" review part 2: Greco-Roman fridge repair and loud farts

As I have now finished McLaren's

"A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith,"

.. and believe it is in several senses his most important book yet........
here is a follow up to my first post (here) and kind of
a walk-through review of Book One of the book.

Let me say that even though I may not eventually follow everywhere it leads, I love the book, and think it is a vital read for anyone one wants to "get" the current (click each phrase to see who has coined each phrase)"weird moment is history"/ Deep Shift //Reorientation/Great Emergence/3rd Reformation/4th Great Awakening/4th Rummage Sale"/New Kind of Christianity"....which in the end (literally: p. 255) McLaren clearly admits is not truly something new, but something quite ancient which is finally re-emerging..for those brave enough to run with it.

If you'd like to be such a runner, or are just brave and Christian enough to test it out, the new McLaren book should be read in tandem with Wolfgang Simson's "Houses That Change The World," Tony Jones' "The New Christians," Phyllis Tickles' The Great Emergence" ...and pick at least one of Len Sweet's books, please.
"New Kind" has been called everything from called the first Systematic Theology of the Emerging Church to an evil missive from a son of Lucifer.

It's not either, but much closer to the first (:

The basic ideas are that he six line narrative; "what we call the biblical story line isn't the shape of the story of Adam, Abraham, and their Jewish descendants. It's the shape of the...Greco-Roman narrative"(37); and that we have read the Bible wrongly through a constitutional lens rather than viewed it as a "community library."

What this means and implies is not small news, it is the good news that we have missed via our "adventures in missing the point" (to reference another McLaren title).

For those of us trained in the West, this changes as much as everything.

As the Fly once told us, "Everything you know is wrong."
But remember said Fly emerged later (at a Christian festival, no less, with a reconstructive "Everything you know is right."
We live in the weird and wonderful times in between those two prophetic proclamations.
It's a new kind of day.


A few thoughts regarding the book in general, and then onto Book One.

On a practical and positive note:
Often at the beginning of a chapter, transition statements and summaries are quite helpful.

Also, for some reason,and to my surprise, book one to me was twice as thoughtful, exhiliriating and rewarding as Book Two (the practical "so what do we do now" section)...though some sections of the second book ( exegesis of John 14's "prepare a place for you," and the Chapter 21 suggestions for those seeking to become change agents, are hugely helpful.

I am not sure why this is; perhaps the call to reorient our worldview and narrative; to betray our blinders and bibliolatry is so crucial and fundamental that we still must spend (too much) time and deconstruction there. Then again, "nothing is more practical than theory."

One minor annoyance: the cute coupling of phrases like "shrinking, wrinkling," translation/ transition," "stealthy and wealthy" became a bit to distracting after awhile...and these examples are just from the first ten pages! But he is an English professor, and I do the same thing in a much cheesier way!

On to some highlights and commentary from each section.

PREFACE:

This quote nails the"re-forming" times we have been given:

Paradigms and dogma can be defended and enforced with guns and prisons, bullets and bonfires, threats and humiliations, fatwas and excommunications. But paradigms and dogmas remain profoundly vulnerable when anomalies are present. They can be undone by something as simple as a question. (16)

Too bad American evangelicals have been taught that questions are never part of the answer!!

PARTS ONE ('THE NARRATIVE QUESTION")AND TWO ('THE AUTHORITY QUESTION"):

If it is at all possible that we have been seduced and hijacked by the Greco-Roman six points, we must be willing to at least ask and pray if such is so.

Most of us inevitably and unquestioningly (the heart of the problem, this refusal to even ask questions about everything we have inherited) read and wrestle with the Bible as one particular story line with six sections: 1) Eden/perfection), 2) Fall, 3) History/condemnation, 4) offering of salvation, 5) heaven/return to perfection or 6) hell/eternal punishment.

So first of all, can we ask, is this six-line metasermon really there?

Secondly:

Does it contribute to a higher vision of God, a deeper engagement with Christ, a more profound experience of the Holy Spirit? Does it motivate us to love God, neighbor, stranger, and enemy more wholeheartedly?

If not, how does Scripture shape iteslf? What if instead of reading church history backwards through Luther, Augustine, et al, we went back to the beginning and followed the flow?
What if we started not with our inherited Greco-Roman glasses, but with the eyes of the father of faith, Abram?

In this video, McLaren draws (in the sand, no less. The critics will inevitably ask, "Who does he think he is: Jesus?") a version of the six-sectioned narrative he draws in the book, and offers a more biblical

Brian McLaren: Q1 – The Narrative Question
by theoozetv

Now hang on as we fill in the new (old) narrative:


"But Genesis is, in many ways, not the main story of the Hebrew Sriptures. It is more like a prequel...to the prime narrative...which comes to us in Exodus (56)..

This so dovetailed with a section in Ray Anderson's (ahead of his time) book, "The Soul of Ministry," that I must bring it into the conversation:

"Where is the theological beginning point of the Old Testament?" I asked a group of pastors...I received a variety of answers, with Genesis the most cited. "No," I replied, "I want the theological beginnimg poimt, not the htonologiacl.

"Exodus," someone shouted out, and we were off and running.

Exodus precedes Genesis in the same way that knowledge of God as Redeemer precedes knowledge of God as Creator.
-Anderson, p. 6

McLaren makes the case that Genesis is creation/reconciliation, and Exodus liberation/formation (66)....but the latter is ultimately of foremost import.
So much so that even "[in John], Genesis themes are strong, but Exodus themes are stronger. (131).

The third part of the biblical narrative, then is the sequel to the primary (Exodus), just as the first narrative (Genesis) is its prequel. The third narrative being "the sacred dream of the peaceable kingdom."

Are we in sync then with the Greco-Roman six line narrative or 3D Jewish narrative of the "world of God as creator, liberator and reconciler" (66)?



Part of our problem, as McLaren has previously taught, is that we love static "states."
McLaren doesn't draw this out fully, but "state" here, stands for state as staticness (which physics helps us debunk, as well as state as "empire." The first reformation produced a state, but this current reformation is about a quest.

"At this moment in history, we need something more radical and transformative than a new state, we need a new quest..more than a new static location,we need a new dynamic direction" (17)

"The Lord has little taste for states." (48), so we are called to move from state to story.

And from a "constitutional" view of the Bible to a view of it as a dynamic, Jewish, three-dimensional "community library." Here is where McLaren reminds us of everything we know intuitively, but have not been allowed to admit under reigning views of infallibility: the Bible is a lively collection of genres, and each had their own context. He uses the Book of Job as a case study; seeing Job as a fractal (93) and microcosm for all of Scripture, and Scripture's many voices.

Isn't it amazing that in Job itself, "God himself has "told us that a large proportion of what is uttered in the book of Job [by Job's friends] is false and foolish (89), but we continue to be formed by the G-C narrative, a constitutional paradigm, and the eisegesis of radio-orthodoxy,
and preach from all parts of Job as if they are the unified words of God.

Job, then, is a helpful model of the whole Bible, and that narrative, authority and revelation in a s a sense emerge out of the honest, unedited library, and "conversation " of Scripture itself.
For those we see McLaren as dogmatic and dangerous here:

Perhaps the approach I am recommending is no better..But here's what I hope; that this approach will not try to put us under the text, as conservatives tend to do, or lift us over it, as liberals often seem to do. Instead, I hope it will try to put is in the text, in the conversation...in the Spirit, in the community of people who keep bumping into God...even now.
(97)

And for those who have him a hellbound hellhound, hear how Christ-centered he is.

Mike Morrell's corrective:

One of the things I appreciate the most about Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity is its refreshing Christ-centeredness.
-link

Mike quotes the book:

The Quaker scholar Elton Trueblood approached the Bible this way. One of Trueblood’s students told me that he often heard his mentor say something like this: “The historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.” In other words, the doctrines of the incarnation and deity of Christ are meant to tell us that we cannot start with a pre-determined, set-in-stone idea of God derived from the rest of the Bible, and then extend that to Jesus. Jesus is not intended merely to fit into those pre-determined categories; he is intended instead to explode them, transform them, alter them forever and bring us to a new evolutionary level in our understanding of God. An old definition of God does not define Jesus: the experience of God in Jesus requires a new brand definition or understanding of God.
Trueblood’s insight, in my opinion, is the best single reason to be identified as a believer in Jesus, and it is an unspeakably precious gift that can be offered to people of all faiths. The character of Jesus, we proclaim, provides humanity with a unique and indispensable guide for tracing the development of maturing images and concepts of God across human history and culture. It is the North Star, if you will, to aid all people, whatever their religious background, in their theological pilgrimage. The images of God that most resemble Jesus – whether they originate in the Bible or elsewhere – are the more mature and complete images, and the ones less similar to the character of Jesus would be the more embryonic and incomplete – even though they may be celebrated for being better than the less complete images they replaced.
This is why we cannot simply say that the highest revelation of God is given through the Bible (especially the Bible read as a constitution, or cut and pasted to fit in the Greco-Roman six-line narrative). Rather, we can say that, for Christians, the Bible’s highest value is in revealing Jesus, who gives us the highest, deepest, and most mature view of the character of the living God.
- A New Kind of Christianity, pages 114-115

In fact, if he has a potential fault, it might be that in over-correcting from Greco-Romanism and bibliolatry, he can push us to center too much on Christ (gasp)..

when our true center is even bigger than Jesus.
(see Len's post, and mine, on this topic relative to Alan Hirsch)

Which leads us to next section, reminding us it is ultimately all about:

Kingdom.



Next blog post, that is..

But here's a good summary and preview:

"A linear prose argument may be the best way to teach engineering or refigerator repair, but to teach matters of the spirit, literary forms work better--with all their twists and turns and circlings and returns and refrains, their imagination and provocation, their soina and sneakiness...He throws down metaphor after metaphor..to jolt the imagination"

Ahh, that's what we fear.... Eugene Peterson:
"metaphor is a loud fart int he salon of spirituality,"



Next time:

PART THREE: THE GOD QUESTION

PART FOUR: THE JESUS QUESTION

PART FIVE: THE GOSPEL QUESTION
...and some shocking video by perhaps the biggest heretic of our day (Hint: it's not McLaren...but maybe another Mc..maybe a Mac..)
----------------

NT Wright on moldy Scriptural suitcases

"....Too much debate about scriptural authority has had the form of people hitting one another with locked suitcases. It is time to unpack our shorthand doctrines, to lay them out and inspect them. Long years in a suitcase may have made some of the contents go moldy. They will benefit from fresh air, and perhaps a hot iron."
-NT Wright

The Bible returning void, evangelizing Woody Allen, and something bigger than Jesus

Since I am preaching to the choir in these parts of the Internet, I probably don't have to remind you that many (most? all?) the references in the NT to "The Word" that we have been told are 'obviously' referring to the Bible, are in the clear opinion of the early church and fathers referring to Jesus:

• "Preach the Word, in season and out of season"
• "The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword."

etc

Even:

• "Rightly dividing the Word of Truth"

Russ Willingham did a great session on this, including references to early writers,offering clear evidence....I need his notes.

Of course the Word/Logos usually refers to something even "bigger and wider" than Scripture..maybe even bigger than Jesus: God's overall influence and power, and any means of his speaking/communicating.

It seems most of these NT references are commentary on the John 1 or Rev: 19:13 traditions. And in the days the NT was being written, there was no developed sense of Scripture as The Word.

Of course there are OT references to the Word (Hebrew davar), such as the classic prooftext, of Is 55:11...which obviously can't refer directly to Jesus, and do refer to the OT Scriptures...but also so much more..
in context it's "what comes out of [God's] mouth," not (just) The Scriptures. It sometimes takes a discussion about something unrelated (?) to help us back into focus....Something like a chat about Woody Allen:

WORLD: If you were sitting next to Woody Allen on a plane, what would you say to him?

METAXAS: I have to somehow figure out how to connect with him. . . . If you come across as morally superior, that's unbiblical, that's wrong, it's a lie, so you're confused. But also you'll push the person away. You've got to find a point of connection, otherwise they won't hear you. If you walk around New York you might see someone, semi-homeless, almost always from out of town, with a hat and a Bible "preaching the word" on the street. Nine times out of 10 they are not preaching the Word any more than Satan was when he was quoting the Bible to Jesus in the wilderness. The words are not magic. Some people will respond, "The word of God will not return void," and yes, the capital-w Word of God, the Logos, will not return void—but the words of the Bible can certainly return void unless they're anointed by the Holy Spirit. Many people think that if they just spew out Scripture or something that people are hearing them, but it's not true. Jesus never did that. He always connected with everyone around him.
link

See also this video:

Two Great Theologians: Woody Allen/Billy Graham

sexiness of translation, McArthur the pomo poster boy?

I was prepping to teach a bit on Bible translations, and translation theory/ethos/theology...dynamic equivalence etc,
when a post from the Tall One arrived:

..Speaking of translation, and also connected with the mystery vs. relevance debate in Song of Solomon, check out Walter Benjamin's Task of the Translator here on Google Books version of the Postmodern Bible Reader. I have the big hard copy of this book at home but here you can read about dynamic equivalence in translating the Bible as a "modern" task OR the more postmodern idea of Walter B that a translator has to protect the text in order to honor it. In this understanding of translation, is John McArthur taking the postmodern approach and Mark Driscoll the modern? Thoughts?
-Tall Skinny Kiwi

The post was about preaching/blogging the spiritual/eroticism of Song of Solomon. No surprise
John McArthur accuse Mark Driscoll of "raping" the book. Follow the link to the Postmodern Bible Reader here to weigh the important, amazing question the Kiwi asked. See Tall Skinny Kiwi for links to the sex sermons in debate.

If it turns out dynamic equivalence and Driscoll are modern, and, of all saints, McArthur is the true pomo after all...

...What's next? Colson losing his crabs?

The Reformation and the shape we're in

Just a few lines from a choice chapter (30) and pivotal tract for our times.
This explains a lot of TSWI.

"Mysticism had no role in the early Protestant Reformation: both Luther and Calvin depended wholeheartedly on the persuasiveness of their carefully composed inked syllogisms. All founders urged their followers to have 'faith,' but the underpinnings of Protestantism were actually written, torturously logical constructions that were oresented in long dense, imageless tones...

The Protestant Reformation was clearly not a return to the content of the New Testament; but I submit, a wrenching sociological shift wrought by a new information technology dependent on users being alphabet-literate. This in turn changed the collective perception of culture. The printing press made the Reformation's rigid an repressive self-discipline possible."
-The Alphabet Vs The Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image | by Leonard Shlain

By the way, pray for Shlain, he is recovering from a brain tumor (news)

"if you find a 'Bible-believing' church...don't go to it"

Aren't you glad someone is at least asking the (right) questions (at all)?

Darin Hufford asks:

• Did the New Testament Church have a stage?
• Did Paul tell the people to pay 10% of their income to the Church?
• Where in the Bible did they have "Worship Services" led by a "Worship Leader"?
• Where in the Bible does it say that we have to "believe in the Bible" in order to be saved?

Read here

raging chutzpah, sabbath elevators, bibliolatry and missionality

I'll never forget taking the elevator from our towering Jerusalem hotel room down to the lobby for breakfast one Saturday.

Not only could I not push the lobby button,

but the elevator stopped automatically on every floor.
I wondered if I would make it down for lunch.

When I ordered, I realized that the waitress was not writing down any orders;
even the most complicated ones.

Writing was "work" on the sabbath,
as was pushing elevator buttons.
Thus, the "sabbath elevator"




Which of course (!) brings me to..


the eccentric physics professor:

Richard P. Feynman,
the classic absent-minded professor,
Nobel Prize-winner even..

but with a twist or three:

-"a storyteller in the tradition of Mark Twain" (NY Times)
-accompanied ballet with bongos
-"high intelligence, unlimited curiosity and raging chutzaph"
-Freeman Dyson once wrote that Feynman was "half-genius, half-buffoon", but later revised this to "all-genius, all-buffoon"
-used a topless bar as an office
etc etc..

..relates in the famous/infamous "Surely You're Joking, Mr, Feynman,"
this short chapter which raises eyebrows and questions
about

how Judaism (or any tradition with a potential for bibliolatry..
that is, all of them) navigates missionality
..on the sabbath..
or any time
(I have placed phrases worth pursuing for "church and culture" implications in bold):

In the early fifties I suffered temporarily from a disease of middle age: I used to give philosophical talks about science - how science satisfies curiosity, how it gives you a new world view, how it gives man the ability to do things, how it gives him power - and the question is, in view of the recent development of the atomic bomb, is it a good idea to give man that much power? I also thought about the relation of science and religion, and it was about this time when I was invited to a conference in New York that was going to discuss "the ethics of equality."

....There was only one thing that happened at that meeting that was pleasant or amusing. At this conference, every word that every guy said at the plenary session was so important that they had a stenotypist there, typing every ..damn thing. Somewhere on the second day the stenotypist came up to me and said, "What profession are you? Surely not a professor."

"I am a professor," I said.

"Of what?"

"Of physics - science."

"Oh! That must be the reason," he said.

"Reason for what?"

He said, "You see, I'm a stenotypist, and I type everything that is said here. Now, when the other fellas talk, I type what they say, but I don't understand what they're saying. But every time you get up to ask a question or to say something, I understand exactly what you mean - what the question is, and what you're saying - so I thought you can't be a professor!"

...A footnote: While I was at the conference, I stayed at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where young rabbis - I think they were Orthodox - were studying. Since I have a Jewish background, I knew of some of the things they told me about the Talmud, but I had never seen the Talmud. It was very interesting. It's got big pages, and in a little square in the corner of the page is the original Talmud, and then in a sort of L-shaped margin, all around this square, are commentaries written by different people. The Talmud has evolved, and everything has been discussed again and again, all very carefully, in a medieval kind of reasoning. I think the commentaries were shut down around the thirteen- or fourteen- or fifteen-hundreds - there hasn't been any modern commentary. The Talmud is a wonderful book, a great, big potpourri of things: trivial questions, and difficult questions - for example, problems of teachers, and how to teach - and then some trivia again, and so on. The students told me that the Talmud was never translated, something I thought was curious, since the book is so valuable,

One day, two or three of the young rabbis came to me and said, "We realize that we can't study to be rabbis in the modern world without knowing something about science, so we'd like to ask you some questions."

Of course there are thousands of places to find out about science, and Columbia University was right near there, but I wanted to know what kinds of questions they were interested in.

They said, "Well, for instance, is electricity fire?"

"No," I said, "but. . . what is the problem?"

They said, "In the Talmud it says you're not supposed to make fire on a Saturday, so our question is, can we use electrical things on Saturdays?"

I was shocked. They weren't interested in science at all! The only way science was influencing their lives was so they might be able to interpret better the Talmud! They weren't interested in the world outside, in natural phenomena; they were only interested in resolving some question brought up in the Talmud.

And then one day - I guess it was a Saturday - I want to go up in the elevator, and there's a guy standing near the elevator. The elevator comes, I go in, and he goes in with me. I say, "Which floor?" and my hand's ready to push one of the buttons.

"No, no!" he says, "I'm supposed to push the buttons for you."

"What?

"Yes! The boys here can't push the buttons on Saturday, so I have to do it for them. You see, I'm not Jewish, so it's all right for me to push the buttons. I stand near the elevator, and they tell me what floor, and I push the button for them."

Well, this really bothered me, so I decided to trap the students in a logical discussion. I had been brought up in a Jewish home, so I knew the kind of nitpicking logic to use, and I thought, "Here's fun!"

My plan went like this: I'd start off by asking, "Is the Jewish viewpoint a viewpoint that any man can have? Because if it is not, then it's certainly not something that is truly valuable for humanity . . . yak, yak, yak." And then they would have to say, "Yes, the Jewish viewpoint is good for any man."

Then I would steer them around a little more by asking, "Is it ethical for a man to hire another man to do something which is unethical for him to do? Would you hire a man to rob for you, for instance?" And I keep working them into the channel, very slowly, and very carefully until I've got them - trapped!

And do you know what happened? They're rabbinical students, right? They were ten times better than I was! As soon as they saw I could put them in a hole, they went twist, turn, twist - I can't remember how - and they were free! I thought I had come up with an original idea - phooey! It had been discussed in the Talmud for ages! So they cleaned me up just as easy as pie - they got right out.

Finally I tried to assure the rabbinical students that the electric spark that was botherin g them when they pushed the elevator buttons was not fire. I said, "Electricity is not fire. It's not a chemical process, as fire is."

"Oh?" they said.

"Of course, there's electricity in amongst the atoms in a fire."

"Aha!" they said.

"And in every other phenomenon that occurs in the world."

I even proposed a practical solution for eliminating the spark. "If that's what's bothering you, you can put a condenser across the switch, so the electricity will go on and off without any spark whatsoever - anywhere." But for some reason, they didn't like that idea either.

It really was a disappointment. Here they are, slowly coming to life, only to better interpret the Talmud. Imagine! In modern times like this, guys are studying to go into society and do something - to be a rabbi - and the only way they think that science might be interesting is because their ancient, provincial, medieval problems are being confounded slightly by some new phenomena.

Something else happened at that time which is worth mentioning here. One of the questions the rabbinical students and I discussed at some length was why it is that in academic things, such as theoretical physics, there is a higher proportion of Jewish kids than their proportion in the general population. The rabbinical students thought the reason was that the Jews have a history of respecting learning: They respect their rabbis, who are really teachers, and they respect education. The Jews pass on this tradition in their families all the time, so that if a boy is a good student, it's as good as, if not better than, being a good football player.

It was the same afternoon that I was reminded how true it is. I was invited to one of the rabbinical students' home, and he introduced me to his mother, who had just come back from Washin gton, D.C. She clapped her hands together, in ecstasy, and said, "Oh! My day is complete. Today I met a general, and a professor!"

I realized that there are not many people who think it's just as important, and just as nice, to meet a professor as to meet a general. So I guess there's something in what they said.

-Feynman, chapter: "Is Electricity Fire?"