Tag Archives: theology

  • love-never-fails-love-15165570-700-534

    A New Fundamentalism

    October 20, 2011

    5 Comments

    I, Rebecca Trotter, hereby declare that the time has come for a new form of Christian fundamentalism.  It is my belief that this new fundamentalism is needed in order to preserve what is most sacred and true to Christianity against assaults from without and within the Christian church.  Although there is freedom in Christ which allows for a variety of ideas and understandings to be held by those who follow Jesus, there are certain fundamentals which all believers must adhere to according to scriptures.  As such, I nominate the following bible verses to be considered literally true by all believers and defended against all challengers:

    Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” -Matthew 22:37-40

    If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. – 1 John 4:20-21

    Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

    “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. – Matthew 5:43-48

    the LORD said to Samuel, “. . . The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7

    Do not be afraid of any man, for judgment belongs to God. – Deuteronomy 1:17

    God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 1 John 4:16-17

    And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. – Micah 6:8

    My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.You are my friends if you do what I command.I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.This is my command: Love each other.  – John 15:12-17

    “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

    “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

    “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” – Matthew 25:34-40

    Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. – 1 Peter 3:15

    “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:35

    Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

    If you agree with this (admittedly partial) list of fundamentals for Christian life, please join me in promoting a New Fundamentalism.  Pass this list around.  Link to this post. Tweet it.  Put it up on your facebook page.  Email it.  Let’s take a stand for our faith and the fundamental, unchanging truths that must be preserved and acted out if we are to call ourselves people of God!

     

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    The Book of Job: The Happy Ending

    September 27, 2011

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    This past week I’ve been looking at the last chapters of the Book of Job.  As I said before, these passages have always bothered me because they don’t make sense.  Why would a loving and compassionate God show up and affirm that Job did not bring his suffering on himself and then tell him to sit down and get in line because he’s just a little peon?  And why would Job respond with satisfaction at God’s answer?  So, I went back and re-read these chapters this past summer and realized how much I had been missing.

    The earlier installments are here:

    Book of Job Chapter 38: Guessing

    Book of Job Chapter 39: Our animal friends

    Book of Job Chapters 40-41: Defense!

    So today, we reach the end of the Book of Job.  Chapter 42:

    Then Job replied to the LORD:

    2 “I know that you can do all things;
    no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
    3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
    Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me to know.

    4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.’
    5 My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.
    6 Therefore I despise myself
    and repent in dust and ashes.”

    This is usually read as Job saying, “yes God, you are right.  I am a peon and have no cause to complain no matter how much I am suffering.”  But if we look back at what God has actually said, a slightly different picture begins to emerge.

    I believe that God’s message was basically this: “Job, you are right that you do not deserve this and I am here to do for you what you cannot do for yourself: bring down the wicked and foolish who see your destruction as reasons to be proud and contemptuous.  But I did not make you defenseless.  Look at who I made you to be; when you do not understand you imagine things that are sometimes beautiful and true.  You have taken the wild animals I created and found those suitable to your own purposes and made them serve you.  But do not behave like a domesticated animal.  Look at the behemoth who I made along with you – it fights.  You know how – you have imagined for yourself creatures more fierce and untameable than any that walks the earth.  Fight!”

    And Job understood enough of what God was saying to see that sitting in the dirt listening to his friend’s theories and defending himself wasn’t the answer to his problems.  He was in a spiritual fight and he now understood that he needed to fight back.

    Next:

    After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad theShuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.

    This is not only a matter of God reprimanding Job’s friends.  He is actually asking Job to do for his friends what he used to do for his own children.  (See Chapter 1)   God is actually entrusting Job with his friend’s spiritual well being just the way was in the habit of caring for his children’s spiritual well being. In a way, God is both affirming what Job has always done for those in his care and expanding it.

    Next:

    After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver[a]and a gold ring.

    12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

    16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.

    There are a couple of things that I want to point out here.  First, God’s primary restoration is spiritual.  When God gave Job twice what he had before, it wasn’t just a physical thing.  Secondly, we can see from Job’s behavior that he continues to go above and beyond in following God spiritually.  In her lovely book Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, Hebrew scholar Ellen Davis points out several significant things about the ending passage of the Book of Job.  First of all, the names of his daughters and not his sons are listed.  This is never the way it works in scriptures.  Not only are the names listed, but the names are outrageous.  Jemimah is a reference to a beautiful queen of arab folklore.  Keziah is the name of a spice tree used for perfume.  Keren-Happuch is a type of make-up.  It’s like naming your daughters Cinderella, Passion and L’Oreal.  And they were beautiful.  And Job gave them an inheritance along with their brothers which was just as extravagant a gesture as the outrageous names.  Why this particular reaction? I would guess because its a particularly potent way of fighting back the enemy.  Job is a devout man who knows God.  His is a deliberate rejection of a commonly accepted lie of the enemy: that women are less than, worth less and not to be valued as highly as men.  And I love that Job could of no better way to fight back against the enemy with so much force that he will never forget the battle than to honor his girl children.  No wonder God blessed him so greatly!

  • HolySpiritStainedGlass-3

    Sins against the Holy Spirit

    September 27, 2011

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    Going all theological on ya again!  At one point Jesus says that the one sin which will not be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Spirit.  But no one seems to know what the sin against the Holy Spirit is.  I would say that first of all, the sin must be one that is not repented of.  If we ask for forgiveness, it is given.  Period.  But does this mean that any-ole sin that we don’t repent of is a sin against the Holy Spirit?  Because that would be a real problem.  What if we forgot some of our sins?  What if we didn’t realize we had even made a mistake that could be considered a sin?  That doesn’t seem right either.

    So, since the sin is against the Holy Spirit, let’s consider what the Holy Spirit does.  The Holy Spirit has been sent as a comfort and a teacher.  It takes time and patience and practice for most of us to learn to hear the Holy Spirit.  And one of the things that the Holy Spirit does is tell us to repent.  How does the Holy Spirit tell us to repent?  Sometimes the signal comes from outside of ourselves.  It’s heard where there is suffering, oppression, and fear.  When we see or hear people that say they are suffering, that is a sign that we’re getting something wrong and need to start looking for a better way of doing things.  When we ignore those who are suffering, we are ignoring the Holy Spirit calling us to repentance.  And just like in our own lives, we do not always know how to do what we know we should be doing, we at least need to recognize that it is sin.  A solution may be a long way off, but in the meantime, we still need to repent.  Other times the Holy Spirit tells us to repent by making us uncomfortable with what we are doing.  Sometimes we know that our discomfort indicates sin.  And we need to repent when that happens, even if you don’t know how to change or don’t think you can.  God understands that even doing our best we will fall short which is why He declared sin a non-issue for those who repent.  Unfortunately, many of us assume that our discomfort is something to overcome.  We’ve been told that something is supposed to work a certain way, but there is something deep in us that knows its wrong.  But because we think we know how its supposed to work, we ignore the Spirit deep in us that is screaming out “no!”

    So, I would posit that the sin against the Holy Spirit is when we do something that we know is wrong or causes pain and suffering or support things that are wrong and cause pain and suffering but will not repent.  If we know its wrong, and we do it anyways without repenting even in our own hearts, that is a sin that God can not forgive.  For all practical purposes, we are choosing to do evil and are committed to it.  It can’t be forgiven because it has been willfully held back from Jesus’ offer of forgiveness.  And if we do it while pointing to God, don’t think that He will understand.  God wants us to know Him and when we willfully reject His way which is love and ascribe it to Him, we rejecting Him as He is in favor of god as we would have Him be.  The good news is that any sin can be repented of whether it can be fixed or not.  There is no sin which is automatically a sin against the Holy Spirit.  But we must beware because the sins we are least likely to repent of are the ones we commit when we blame God for our actions and attitudes.  In order to avoid this sin, we Christians would do well to take the safe route of unconditional love for all people.  When we get good enough at that, perhaps we can be trusted to try our hand at showing others the way to go.  Because if we make a mistake out of an abundance of love, that is an easy sin to repent of.  At least that’s my theory. ;)

  • wild donkey

    Book of Job – Looking at our animal friends

    September 22, 2011

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    A couple of days ago, I started writing about the ending chapters of the Book of Job.  As I said then, the end of Job has always bothered me.  It doesn’t make sense that this man would lose everything have God show up and go, “who do you think you are?” and then Job would be satisfied and comforted.  It doesn’t make sense for God or for Job to behave in such a way, so I’ve always figured I was missing something.  This summer I re-read the Book of Job and some things I had never noticed before started to stand out, and that’s what I’m going to be sharing here.

    Today we look at Chapter 39.  I’m going to break it into sections to point out a few details.

    “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
    Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
    2 Do you count the months till they bear?
    Do you know the time they give birth?
    3 They crouch down and bring forth their young;
    their labor pains are ended.
    4 Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds;
    they leave and do not return.

    This strikes me as odd because people in the ancient world were often quite aware of the cycles of life taking place around them.  So it seems quite likely that there would be people in Job’s time who knew when the mountain goat mated and then when it gave birth.  Perhaps because Job’s people were agrarian, they had lost touch with some of this knowledge.  But today, anyone with the money can watch mountain goats mate and give birth on the Discovery channel.  It’s not quite the great mystery most of us assume when first reading this.  I think that perhaps this passage isn’t about some secret knowledge God has, but is pointing to the differences between parenting as a mountain goat vs parenting as a human.  When a woman gives birth, her physical labor pains end, but the labor of raising children to maturity and beyond is only started.  Our children do not leave and not return in most cases.  IOW, although our cycles of life are shared by other parts of creation, they are not the same.  God could also be pointing to the very wild cousins of the goats that were kept by humans.

    5 “Who let the wild donkey go free?
    Who untied its ropes?
    6 I gave it the wasteland as its home,
    the salt flats as its habitat.
    7 It laughs at the commotion in the town;
    it does not hear a driver’s shout.
    8 It ranges the hills for its pasture
    and searches for any green thing.

    Of course, no one set the wild donkey free.  It was created free.  We domesticated donkeys, and their wild cousins live as they always have.  But wild donkeys have their homes, away from where others would want to dwell and they’re happy there.  He pays no attention to us and doesn’t envy the domesticated donkey his life.

    9 “Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
    Will it stay by your manger at night?
    10 Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness?
    Will it till the valleys behind you?
    11 Will you rely on it for its great strength?
    Will you leave your heavy work to it?
    12 Can you trust it to haul in your grain
    and bring it to your threshing floor?

    Again, God brings up an animal that humans domesticated and points to its still wild cousins.  While we have oxen who do our bidding, their wild cousins will not.  When someone needs heavy work done, he acquires an oxen from the stock of domesticated animals, but would not go out into the wild to acquire an ox.  When we put our hands on God’s creation, we change it.  But those parts of God’s creation that we don’t touch remain as they were created – beyond our control.

    13 “The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
    though they cannot compare
    with the wings and feathers of the stork.
    14 She lays her eggs on the ground
    and lets them warm in the sand,
    15 unmindful that a foot may crush them,
    that some wild animal may trample them.
    16 She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
    she cares not that her labor was in vain,
    17 for God did not endow her with wisdom
    or give her a share of good sense.
    18 Yet when she spreads her feathers to run,
    she laughs at horse and rider.

    I think that part of what God may be pointing to here is that sometimes we are envious of the freedom and wild beauty of a wild animal such as an ostrich.  We may even be awed by a creature that seems more amazing to our eyes than ourselves.  But God points out, this is also a creature that doesn’t care for her young.  She has not been given wisdom or good sense such as we have and for all of the ostrich’s power and speed, she cannot share God’s concerns for her offspring that binds us humans together and is intrinsic to what makes us image bearers.  Also, I’m not sure about ancient times, but I do know that ostriches are farmed – domesticated – in places today.  But again, messing with a wild ostrich is both difficult and dangerous.

    19 “Do you give the horse its strength
    or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
    20 Do you make it leap like a locust,
    striking terror with its proud snorting?
    21 It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
    and charges into the fray.
    22 It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
    it does not shy away from the sword.
    23 The quiver rattles against its side,
    along with the flashing spear and lance.
    24 In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground;
    it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
    25 At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’
    It catches the scent of battle from afar,
    the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

    The horse is another animal we domesticated.  Interestingly, God points to the horse’s role in battle when speaking of horses.  What is described here is behavior that isn’t prevalent in wild horses.  It took human domestication and training to bring this aspect of the animal’s nature to the forefront.

    26 “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
    and spread its wings toward the south?
    27 Does the eagle soar at your command
    and build its nest on high?
    28 It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
    a rocky crag is its stronghold.
    29 From there it looks for food;
    its eyes detect it from afar.
    30 Its young ones feast on blood,
    and where the slain are, there it is.”

    There are two things I see taking place here.  First, hawking is a very ancient practice.  Some hawks really did (and sometimes still do) take flight by our instructions and head south (or where ever they have been directed).  But again, their wild cousins are well beyond our control.  Probably in part because they do build their nests in such inaccessible places.  And yet, even the wildest and freest of creatures – the eagle – does not fail to be affected by our activities.  Unlike the raven and their young from the end of the last chapter who go about on the ground crying out to God because there is nothing to eat, the eagles on the cliff and their young are fed whenever and where ever we go to war.  Or even when we just leave our own meat unattended!

    So, there are a few general observations to be made.  God doesn’t point to strange and unfamiliar animals here.  Even the mountain goat of the first section has a domesticated corollary.  God gave us dominion over the animals and their domestication is part of what we have done with that.  Perhaps God is saying that work done by his hands is wild, dangerous and free while work done by our hands captures the aspects of an animal’s nature that serves our needs.  It is almost like God created and we harvested what we needed.  God creates the wild and we create the domesticated.  I also notice that the last two animals are spoken of in relation to humans going to war.  Perhaps this is a subtle comparison between God who doesn’t always provide for the hungry lions or ravens and us who kill each other directly.  And again, like in the last chapter, there does seem to be a level of respect given from God to what men have done.  By the time of Job the secrets to animal domestication were probably lost to time – perhaps they were even given to Adam and Eve when they were given dominion over the animals.  There seems to be a sense of awe that should come not just from God’s wild creation, but also from what man has been able to do with it.  We are more powerful than we realize.

  • K1.1Zeus

    Book of Job: It’s a guessing game

    September 20, 2011

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    A couple of years ago I started blogging about the Book of Job, thinking I would blog through the whole thing.  Thankfully, God called me off that task because I now think that I was headed in the wrong direction.  However, I have always been puzzled by God’s words to Job and Job’s response to them.  They just never made sense to me.  Job didn’t claim to be perfect, just faithful and his whole life has been taken from him and a kind and compassionate God shows up and says, “who do you think you are, you little peon?” and Job is satisfied.  Whaaaa?

    However, this summer, I re-read the Book of Job and saw some things there that I hadn’t previously seen.  So, I’m going to go through the last couple of chapters of Job and share what I see.  Today I’m going to look at Job 38:

    The LORD Speaks

    1Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

    2 “Who is this that obscures my plans
    with words without knowledge?
    3 Brace yourself like a man;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.

    4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.
    5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
    6 On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone—
    7 while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels shouted for joy?

    8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
    when it burst forth from the womb,
    9 when I made the clouds its garment
    and wrapped it in thick darkness,
    10 when I fixed limits for it
    and set its doors and bars in place,
    11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
    here is where your proud waves halt’?

    12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
    or shown the dawn its place,
    13 that it might take the earth by the edges
    and shake the wicked out of it?
    14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
    its features stand out like those of a garment.
    15 The wicked are denied their light,
    and their upraised arm is broken.

    16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
    or walked in the recesses of the deep?
    17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
    Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
    18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
    Tell me, if you know all this.

    19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
    And where does darkness reside?
    20 Can you take them to their places?
    Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
    21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
    You have lived so many years!

    22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
    or seen the storehouses of the hail,
    23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
    for days of war and battle?
    24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
    or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
    25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
    and a path for the thunderstorm,
    26 to water a land where no one lives,
    an uninhabited desert,
    27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
    and make it sprout with grass?
    28 Does the rain have a father?
    Who fathers the drops of dew?
    29 From whose womb comes the ice?
    Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
    30 when the waters become hard as stone,
    when the surface of the deep is frozen?

    31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
    Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
    32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
    or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
    33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
    Can you set up God’sdominion over the earth?

    34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
    and cover yourself with a flood of water?
    35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
    Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
    36 Who gives the ibis wisdom
    or gives the rooster understanding?
    37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
    Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
    38 when the dust becomes hard
    and the clods of earth stick together?

    39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
    and satisfy the hunger of the lions
    40 when they crouch in their dens
    or lie in wait in a thicket?
    41 Who provides food for the raven
    when its young cry out to God
    and wander about for lack of food?

    The first thing that stood out to me about this chapter was how much of it is based on human’s imaginative explanations for how the world works.  I won’t go through them all, but there is the waters of the earth coming from the womb, lightening being shot off by hand, constellations, water jars in heaven, storehouses where snow and hail are kept, places where the sun and the darkness reside, etc.  All of these things are our own imaginative explanations for phenomena that humanity didn’t have real explanations for.

    So part of what I hear God saying here is: “all of your best explanations are just guesses.”  Which I think we all need to remember.  More often than not, we don’t really know what’s going on.  We’re just creating explanations for ourselves that hopefully honor God and reflect some portion of what is really going on. But we’re just guessing.

    It is interesting to me that most of the mythology referred to comes from other ancient near-eastern religions and not the Hebrew religion.  Perhaps God is laying claim to all of the work that other religions attribute to a multitude of Gods.  I also think that it shows a level of respect from God towards humanity.  He knows perfectly well that the things he is talking about aren’t actually how the world works, but we humans had created some very beautiful, poetic descriptions which God seems quite willing to accept from us.  It kind of reminds me in the book of Acts when Paul quotes pagan poetry to explain the reality of God.

    The other element I see here is God pointing to unpleasant realities that we humans don’t want to deal with.  He ends by asking who feeds starving animals and their young.  The pat answer is God does.  Except when he doesn’t.  Because sometimes there is no prey for the lioness and the lion goes hungry.  And sometimes even the raven does not have food for their children.  This is the world that we live in.  We humans with our big brains and imaginations who think up wonderous ideas about how the world is run live in the same world with the animals who sometimes starve to death.  And we can only guess how God is working out His purposes in it.

    Tomorrow: what the animals have to teach us.

  • head2

    Heads or Tails?

    September 1, 2011

    3 Comments

    I’m about to go all theological on ya here . . . So, I don’t know why, but I was thinking last night about how the bible says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church.  (Why, what do you think about as you’re drifting off to sleep if it’s not random bible verses?  LOL)  Aside from the obvious issues of power and authority that we’ve ruined this verse with, there is the question that no one really tries to find an answer for: what does it mean that Christ is the head of the church?

    We assume that this verse means that the husband should lead his wife, but does Christ really lead the church?  We have no record of Jesus ever giving directions for how to build a church after he was gone.  He established no rituals, no holy days, and his directions for membership were fuzzy at best.  And, with all apologies to those who believe that somehow their church takes directions directly from God, Jesus doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in how the church does what it has to do.  I don’t think leader in the sense of “having the right or authority to direct of course of action” is a very good description of Christ’s relationship with the church.

    The description that the bible does give us of Jesus and the church is one of groom and bride.  This is interesting because the best marriages are marriages between people who are pretty equal.  Not the same, per se.  But research does show that we seem to instinctively seek out and bond with those who are about as intelligent, passionate and attractive as we are.  The goal of marriage is to share life, in all its permutations, as one unit.  The church is being prepared to be a partner to Christ – to share in His life and His work.  Not as an inferior (unless we want the old model of women as quasi-children to make a come back!), but as a full partner in life.  This is one of those places where we can understand what is happening better by looking at how things work in the real world.  We don’t seek partnerships where one partner is a drag on the other or where one partner is so inferior to the other that the marriage can’t related spiritually and emotionally.  God’s not dumber than us and certainly doesn’t want a marriage for his Son and the church that is inferior to the ones we put together for ourselves. 

    The other overlooked issue is that the church is being prepared to be a bride.  This leads to, but is different from, being a wife.  A bride and groom have decided that they share enough in common, are passionate enough and attracted enough to each other to want to learn to be husband and wife.  A wife is already sharing in the life and work of the family.  A bride has not yet undertaken that responsibility.  The bible tells us that God sees in us the necessary ingredients to make a good spouse for His Son and we are in the process of basically being shaped and civilized to bring out the beauty that God put in us from the beginning.

    Now, the story of the rescued bride is a very old, classic one.  Think Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty or even Beauty and the Beast.  Why is this?  This is where the church as the bride of Jesus and the husband as head of the wife start to come together.  The rescued bride has resonated through the ages in part because the position of women has traditionally been so oppressed and subject to so much abuse.  Men could prove themselves worthy by feats of bravery, cunning, physical strength.  Women could prove themselves worthy by having people fall in love with them.  A worthy queen was beloved by her subjects.  And a more typical woman could prove herself worthy by winning the love of her husband and children.  What the woman was capable of herself was rarely the subject of much praise or attention.  And even “winning love” wasn’t a reasonable option for most women.  Most women came from poor families.  And rich or poor, they were passed between families in marriage with little say.

    And this is the point that all of the heurmetics about the role of women and relationship between husband and wife almost completely leave out: out of all God’s creatures, women – whose creation He crowned all that He had made with – were the most oppressed, the most heartbroken, the most vulnerable, the most weak, the most despised, the most ignorant, the most powerless.  But I have never heard this spoken about in church.  I have heard pastors preach on poor, oppressed men with women tagging along behind.  But when Paul tells men that they are to be the head of their wives as Christ is head of the church, the fact that their wives were in need of rescue from their oppression, pain and powerlessness is not what they talk about. 

    When Jesus announced his ministry, he read from Isaiah 61: 1-3:

    The LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion–to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

    This is Jesus’ marriage proposal to all of us.  This is what Paul is telling us husbands were called to when he said that they were to be the head of the wife as Christ was head of the church.  This is supposed to be part of Jesus’ provision for the most oppressed, hurting of God’s children – the women.  A husband’s job is not to direct his wife in the way that she should go.  A husband’s job is to give his wife hope and comfort and the freedom to become who she was created to be (a secret only her heart knows, btw), just as Jesus offers hope and comfort and freedom to become who we were created to be in the Kingdom of God.  This has nothing to do with power and authority and everything to do with love.  Paul was telling men that they should be empowering their wives to be who God designed them to be and presenting their wives to Christ as an example of how well they loved.  This is very deep stuff here.  But . . .

    Paul was writing in a time and place which was, praise God!, very different from our own.  I tell my kids frequently that I thank God often that I was made a woman during this time and this place, because at no other time in human history could I, as a woman, enjoy as much freedom, respect and control over my own life as I can today.  I will take the difficulty and stress and heartbreak of the modern world gladly over someplace or time when they would mutilate my genitals as a child or where I could not show my face in public or be expected to bear all pain, loss or hurt without complaint and without comfort.  And how did we go from being a world where women were universally oppressed to one where I can live comfortably?  Well, I don’t think it’s any co-incidence that the part of the world where women enjoy freedom and equality are those areas where Christianity took hold.  God was looking out for His girl children and providing for their rescue.  And it has taken a lot of time, but this antipathy towards women runs so deep in the human race that it has been called humanity’s real original sin. 

    The question for us now is what does an idea like the headship of the husband mean in a time when women don’t need to be rescued from the law and custom and religion in order to be free?  Here’s where we run into a problem; is there something inherent in women as opposed to men that is in need of rescue?  If not (and I would argue not), then it’s the circumstance, not the nature of women that triggers the headship behavior.  In which case, just like love and submission, this is something about how we all should view our relationships.  Hmmmmm . . .

    More to think about as I am heading to bed!  But as food for thought, I will throw into the mix John and Staci Eldredge’s explanation of what woman was created to be for man(which I will have to look up later) which points out that the word that often gets translated as “help” in other contexts is only used to describe God himself coming to help in times of extreme peril.  Hmmmmm . . .

    So, anyhow, that’s what I’ve been thinking of as I go to bed.  And you?

  • Book of Revelation

    May 28, 2008

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    I came across a post just now on the first chapter of the Book of Revelation that was so wonderful, I wanted to share it with y’all.  It’s on a blog called Into The Subversion.  The whole thing is worth reading, but here’s the part that hooked me:

    It was the year A.D. 96 in the province of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), the region where a few decades earlier, the apostle Paul had written his letters to the churches at Colossae and Ephesus. John the beloved disciple is the leader of the church in Ephesus and the region of Asia Minor. During the late 60s, this region had been devastated by Nero, an emperor of unmatched ruthlessness towards Christians. . . If Nero was the most ruthless emperor up until the late 60s, the Roman Empire had not seen anything until the 90s when Domitian (A.D.81-96) came into full power. . . When the subjects of the empire wanted to buy or trade goods in the marketplace (agora) of Ephesus, they would need to acknowledge the maker of all goods by offering incense at altars before entering. Then they would take a pinch of the ash from the incense and take it as the mark of Domitian and say, “Caesar is Lord” (Kaisar Kurios) before they could enter to do their buying and selling. Always good to recognize who is sovereign, right? This is the social, political, and cultural mix in which one day a letter arrived to the church communities of Ephesus. The letter stated, “The revelation of Jesus Christ,” and it was for the servants of God! These Christians were familiar with letters and edicts, because all the emperors would send them out to the various districts to announce their “good news.” But this letter was different. This letter was from their resurrected Savior, to John, to their church communities!”


    I’m a sucker for some historical context.  He goes on into a great explanation of how the letter would likely have been received and understood by the Christians to whom it was sent from not just a historical perspective, but from a faith perspective.  Good stuff.

  • Emerging Church – Promise and Failure Part 1

    January 13, 2008

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    Over the last couple of months, I have been looking into something called the “Emerging Church” movement. This movement seems to be seeking to reform the evangelical church in light of the failures of the evangelical movement to bear transformational fruit in the lives of individuals and the larger community.

    There are things that are happening, being talked about and experimented with in the Emerging Church movement which I think are very, very good for the church body as a whole. I can easily see a time when the work and ideas germinating today in the Emerging Church movement will become extremely influential in Christianity. However, I am also concerned that ultimately, they are setting themselves up for failure. Their influence, it seems to me, may end up being one of style rather than the radical transformation of the Christian life and church which they seek and which the gospel exhorts us too.

    Before I get to what I think are the seeds of their failure, I want to discuss what I think they are getting right. The Emerging Church movement tends to be focused on two areas: praxis and doxology. Praxis being how we live as Christians. Doxology being concerned with how we “do” church through our services, prayers and other communal activities. In Evangelism attention to these two areas of Christianity has tended to be thin gruel. Praxis meant don’t sin and doxology meant sing, listen to a sermon and pass out grape juice and bad bread once a month. As the black sheep offspring of the Evangelical movement, Emerging Churchers are taking these areas apart and trying to completely reconstruct them into gourmet meals using both experimentation and borrowing from ancient wisdoms.

    I am going to do a three part series on what I think the Emerging Church movement has to teach us as Christians, what I think the seeds of their undoing are and a new vision which could turn the Emerging Church movement into the transformational power I think the church needs today.

    In Part 1 I will cover praxis. Part 2 will be on doxology and Part 3 will cover the flaw and new vision I have spoken of above.

    Part 1: Praxis or Christian Living

    In my experience I think it’s fair to say that conventional evangelism presents praxis as a series of rules for personal morality which we should be motivated to follow out of loyalty to God. Continue reading »

  • Theology and Truth

    April 9, 2006

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    There’s a very interesting (although slightly technical-language heavy) essay on theology and search for truth at Focus on the Family’s TrueU.org sight for college students. The author, Michael Bauman, makes a point which I have often thought/observed myself – that too often Christians become servants of their theology to the point where they are unable to acknowledge or deal productively with anything which is contrary to what they already believe. These are people who measure truth against their own theology, rather than measuring their own theology against truth. If something doesn’t fit into their understanding, then either it is simply incorrect, no matter the evidence to the contrary, or if what does not fit is from scriptures, then that scripture is manipulated, pushed, pulled and explained until it can be made to fit. Mr. Bauman puts forth his prescription for avoiding this all too common trap:

    In short, we ought to be biblical, skeptical, objective and tolerant. That is, while we have the record of the very revelation of God in our hands, we must remember it will always be interpreted and applied by our own fallible minds. The Bible itself is infallible and indefectible; we are not. We try to walk and talk according to our Bibles – and we should. But, we are lisping and lame.
    To such guides as we have proven ourselves to be, the best response is to be skeptical about what we hear advanced as truth and open-minded and loving toward those who advance it. We ought to listen carefully to what we are told and to evaluate it according to the best workings of our mind and senses. But, in so doing, we ought never to lose our love and appreciation for those whose words and ideas we so carefully scrutinize.

    I especially like his advise about how we approach those with whom we disagree:

    Theological exploration is a difficult, even dicey, matter at best – one that we must not complicate by constantly shooting at other explorers. Giving aid and comfort and modest advice to fellow travelers is one thing; to treat them like the enemy is another. This is not to say we have no enemies. We do. A lot of us just don’t know who they are, and we begin to shoot at anything that moves, or at least that moves in a way different from our own. We have forgotten, apparently, that not only does our enemy move, but so also do our friends and fellow travelers.