New Testament Poetry

All of us who are Bible readers are pretty familiar with poetry in the scriptures. However, for most of us, our experience with Biblical poetry is pretty much limited to the Psalms. We probably also understand that sections of Job, the prophets, etc are also done as Hebraic poems, but honestly, the only way we really get that is 'cause our English translations indent the text in a way that says to us: "THIS IS POETRY."

Without having at least a basic understanding of Hebrew or Greek there's no way we'd know that certain sections are poetry. This is where having a GOOD commentary helps immensely.

Recently I've been walking through Paul's letter to the Colossians with a group of guys.

Colossians just happens to be one of the New Testament books with a strong poetic presence. There isn't a lot of poetry in the New Testament (although there is likely a lot more than we usually make note of; ex. 1Tim3:16; 2Tim2:11-13; etc) and with the language barrier, what poetry is there we often miss.

One of the most amazing, powerful, and beautiful images of who Christ is, is provided for us in the form of the poem in Col. 1:15-20. Maybe in another post I'll break this one down, because I love it and think it's amazing! ...

... but this isn't the kind of poetry/literary device that I'm talking about. With this poem we can see it's structure and form even in English and can, as such, identify it as poetry. There are also sections of Colossians that are chiastic (don't know what a chiasm is? Click: here). These can also be identified in English.

But there's so much more going on within the text that we just can't see without the help of either a good commentary or a knowledge of (in this case) Greek.

Here are a couple of examples:

Alliteration:

Colossians 2:1-2 (ESV) ¹ For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, ² that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ...

It was Ben Witherington's Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Colossians that pointed out to me that the phrase "all the riches of full assurance" is, in fact, an alliteration: pan ploutos tes plerophorias.

Rhyme:

Here's where Witherington's emphasis on rhetoric really comes into it's own (speaking of Col. 2:16-19):

"Again, this section can best be appreciated if heard and not read. For example the end rhyme sets the cadence in 2:16 with brosei, posei, and merei and in vv. 18 and 19 with thelon, ton angelon, embateuon, kraton, ton haphon, syndesmon, and then epichoregoumenon and symbibazomenon. The length of the terms goes from two syllables to three to seven and six. By the very sounds of the rhetoric, Paul is building to a conclusion and the most polysyllabic terms, those that make the biggest impression, are served up last" (pg 151).

I know that this might look and sound a little technical, but surely you can see how (even if you don't know a lick of Greek) these groups of words rhyme with each other and that the rhyming words are grouped together by the number of syllables.

Punning?:

Colossians 2:8 (ESV) ⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

In N.T. Wright's commentary on Colossians (his IVP/Tyndale commentary, not the "for everyone" commentary) he proposes that the Greek verb for "take captive" (sylagogein) is a pun off of synagogue (synagoge). This makes perfect sense providing you agree with his thesis that the threat to the Colossian church is one with Jewish roots (ie. don't get "taken captive" into a "synagogue").

So, obviously not many of us will ever learn the original languages of the Bible in a way that we would be able to catch these subtle (or not so subtle) poetic/literary devices, but we are all capable of picking up a good quality commentary! Unfortunately, the more accessible the commentary, the less likely it will pick up on stuff like this... it's the more difficult-to-read, scholarly commentaries that will make note of this.

What other literary devices can you think of that show up in the NT?

How important do you think it is that we are able to identify these literary devices?

How do the existence of poetic/literary devices in a text influence how we interpret/translate a passage of scripture?

Do you ever read commentaries? If so, which ones?

Fairness vs Justice

How often do you hear people say things like, "... but that's not fair..."?

People often appeal to some sort of sense of fairness; in many cases I think that this is good and appropriate, but sometimes it clearly is not.

Sometimes people also appeal to fairness as if it's some sort of Christian/theological virtue. But when you actually think about it, I don't think there's much of a case to be made for fairness if you look in the scriptures.

The reason why this comes to mind for me is that I recently ran across this quote in an article written by N. T. Wright:

"Justice never means 'treating everybody the same way' [ie. fairness], but 'treating people appropriately', which involves making distinctions between different people and situations." (This was written in the context of the homosexual debate within the Anglican Church; if you care you can read the whole article here).

A quick search found that, in the entire Bible (ESV), only Dt. 25:15 used the word "fair" (there were other usages of "fair", like "fair weather" but that's not what we're talking about), and 2 usages of "fairness" in 2 Cor. 8:13-14.

Compare these 3 usages of fair/fairness to 139 hits for "justice"! (There were 212 hits for "just" but I was to lazy to sift through alternate usages of that word... ie. "these things happened JUST as the LORD said", etc...).

What do you think:

Is God fair?

Is God just?

How are these two concepts similar/dissimilar?

What do you think of Wright's definition of justice?

What might be some the results, theologically speaking, of saying that God is fair vs saying that God is just?

NT Wright & Yoko Ono: Acts, Resurrection, & Myers-Briggs!

Resurrection!!!

Easter is all about celebrating the real, physical, historical resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

I think most of us are on the same page with this one, but you might find some of this interesting:

NT Wright:

Lee Strobel:

William Craig Lane:

Happy Easter!

"All creatures of our God and King..."

Here's another big word for you: anthropocentrism. It means to view the world as though humanity (Gr. anthropos) is the centre of it all. Evangelical Christians (like myself) are notoriously anthropocentric.

Take for example our favorite verse, John 3:16 (ESV) ¹⁶ "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

The way we read this is usually like so: "For God so loved humanity, that he..." But is that what it says? I'd say no! For God so loved the world. The New Testament word here is kosmos which refers to the observable created order; God sent Jesus because He loves ALL of his physical creation. That means trees and tigers, earthworms and elephants, hamsters and humans.

God didn't send Jesus to die for me (not only is that anthropocentric, it's egocentric!), He sent Jesus to redeem all of creation (which, thankfully, happens to include me).

As we saw in my last post, Romans 8 tells us that all of creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth (ever been in a delivery room!?! That's a vivid metaphor). Creation suffers under the curse of sin and God's plan is not to send humans to heaven when they die and then let the rest of creation perish. God's plan is to recreate the world into the place He originally intended it to be.

Understand this: heaven is not our home. Heaven is a pit-stop on the road to a New Heaven and a New Earth (Is. 65:17; Rev. 21:1). I don't know if there will be dogs in heaven but there were a whack-load of animals in Eden and I'm guessing a recreated "Eden" won't be any different!

So what does this have to do with my previous post? Everything.

Jesus inaugurated His Kingdom and we, as His followers, are to continue His work until He comes again to bring it to completion/perfection. If His task was nothing less than the redemption of the whole of creation then this, too, is our task.

Yes, Conservative Evangelicals, I am saying that it is part of our God ordained mission to care for plants and animals (insert shocked gasps).

No, I'm not getting all "PETA" or "Greenpeace" on you. If you know me you know that I have no problem shooting and eating animals. I have no problem cutting down trees and using them for firewood or to build something with. I hunt and camp frequently... in fact, that's part of why I care deeply about this.

The fact is that the Bible does give us a theology of zoology. The Bible gives us a theological framework for environmentalism. For some reason we don't like using these words, so we usually call it stewardship... but we also usually ignore this topic all together.

[ I blame American dispensationalists but they're pretty easy to blame ] :)

There's a lot more I'd like to say and explore so please join me over the next number of weeks and leave your input.

So, what do you think?

What scriptures speak to our stewardship of the animal and plant world?

What do you think that passage from Romans 8 means to us?

What do you agree/disagree with so far?

Really big, fancy words

OK, so I was getting ready to do a post that I've wanted to do for a while now, but as I was thinking it through I realized that before we can eat the meal we need to set the table.

I realized that underneath the ideas of this post there were some pretty big assumptions. In order for for this post to make sense we need to have a common starting point.

Inaugurated Eschatology.

Yup, really big fancy words.

To inaugurate means: to initiate something or put it into operation.

Eschatology means: "eschatos" (Gr. last) "ology" the study of = the study of the last/end-times.

Inaugurated Eschatology.

I am assuming that underneath it all, we as Christians understand that a large part of what it means that we are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), that Jesus is the firstborn among the dead (Col 1:18; Rev. 1:5), and that we have the firstfruits of the Spirit (Rom. 8:23) is that we are to live lives of inaugurated eschatology.

Basically what I'm saying is that as Christians we need to live our lives in light of God's future. The Kingdom of God is the breaking in of God's future reign into today, into the here and now.

It's a bit of an heady concept, no?

But truly, this is the basis for all Christian behaviour. Biblical theology shows us the "bookends" of our faith: Eden and the New Jerusalem. In between is the fallen world that we currently live in; God's good creation under the curse of sin.

But do we live our lives like the rest of the fallen world? Of course not! No, we seek to live our lives in light of the Gospel: the true Lordship and reign of the Christ which is seen in original creation and new creation.

"...Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven..."

In other words, we (as new creations) are to begin God's work of New Creation (as we see it in Gen. 1 & 2 and Rev. 21 & 22) here and now. We aren't just here to bide time until God cleans up our mess. No! We are to be working for the Kingdom of God.

Inaugurated Eschatology: to put into operation today the reality of God's future reign.

And so, in preparation for next week's post read through and ponder this passage from Romans:

Romans 8:19-23 (ESV)
¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Good News for the Gospel

Our word "Gospel" comes from the Old English: gōd spell which means "good tidings." This was a direct translation (in it's day) for the Greek εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion): good message... the good news!

Naturally, the vast majority of English Bibles translate euangelion as either good news or gospel. But what does euangelion really mean? Does it really do the concept of euangelion justice to simply translate it literally as good news?

The reason why I bring this up is because recent scholarship (the last few decades) has been revealing that there is a depth of meaning behind euangelion that can't be captured by a literal translation. As more and more manuscripts are discovered that are also written in Koine Greek we can get more context for how certain words are used. It has become clear that the word euangelion is used most frequently in a very specific context: announcements to the citizens of the empire concerning royalty, specifically birth and coronation proclamations.

"The word euangelion was not invented by the Gospel writers... It referred to an announcement of 'glad tidings' regarding a birthday, rise to power, or decree of the emperor that was to herald the fulfillment of hopes for peace and wellbeing in all the world" (Mounce's CEDONTW).

"The idea of good news... had two principle meanings for first-century Jews. First, with its roots in Isaiah, it meant the news of YHWH's long-awaited victory over evil and rescue of His people. Second, it was used in the Roman world for the accession, or birthday, of the Emperor" (NT Wright's glossary in his "for Everyone" series).

So euangelion is not just, "Hey, honey, I've got some good news. I got a raise at work..."

No! Euangelion is all about, "GOOD NEWS!! An heir; a SON has been born to the emperor!" or "GOOD NEWS!! The reign of the new King has just begun! It's the beginning of a new era!"

On top of this, it is of note that in the Gospel of Mark the word euangelion is used 7 times (for those of you unfamiliar with the significance of numbers in the Bible please read: this). Couple this with the fact that the passion narrative in Mark's gospel is "arranged according to the coronation ceremonies of the Roman Emperor" (Velvet Elvis, 64) and I think we are running into a pretty significant theme.

The reason why I bring this up is because I think a lot of Christians are under the impression that the gospel is about personal salvation... but maybe it's not!

Over the next few weeks I'll be developing this line of thought (and it's implications) a bit more.

In the meantime:

What do you think?

How is this similar or different from what you think the Gospel is?

What implications do you see when you encounter this alternative definition of euangelion?

The church, our Mother

Once again, I'm feeling kinda swamped and don't have the leisure to do too much abstract thought. But I want to keep up (and wrap up) our ongoing discussion about "church."

Most of you know that I have a great admiration for N.T. Wright. I think he's one of the most progressive, pragmatic, and biblically grounded theologians in recent history. And so, what I have to offer you today is an excerpt from his book "Simply Christian" (pg. 210-212):

"If God is our father, the church is our mother." The words are those of the Swiss Reformer John Calvin. Several biblical passages speak in this way (notably, Galatians 4:26-27, echoing Isaiah 54:1). They underline the fact that it is as impossible, unnecessary, and undesirable to be a Christian all by yourself as it is to be a newborn baby all by yourself.

The church is first and foremost a community, a collection of people who belong to one another because they belong to God, the God we know in andthrough Jesus. Though we often use the word "church" to denote a building, the point is that it's the building where this community meets. True, buildings can and do carry memories, and when people have been praying and worshiping and mourning and celebrating in a particular building for many years, the building itself may come to speak powerfully of God's welcoming presence. But it is the people who matter.

...

It is within the church, even when the church isn't getting everything quite right, that the Christian faith of which we have spoken is nourished and grows to maturity. As with any

family, the members discover who they are in relationship with one another. Churches vary enormously in size, from scattered handfuls of people in isolated villages to enormous congregations of many thousands in some parts of the world. But ideally every Christian should belong to a group that is small enough for individuals to get to know and care for one another, and particularly to pray in meaningful depth for one another, and also to a fellowship large enough to contain a wide variety in its membership, styles of worship, and kingdom-activity. The smaller the local community, the more important it is to be powerfully linked to a larger unit. The larger the regular gathering... the more important it is for each member to belong also to a smaller group...

So, what do you think?

What do you agree with?

What do you disagree with?

Judas: Saint or Villain?

It's funny that Jared should make the request that he did.  Just this last week I read this in "Christians at the Cross," which is a book of  Easter week sermons by NT Wright:

"... those of us who are used to hearing the story of Judas Iscariot may be a little hardened to it, and we need to remind ourselves what was actually happening.

Judas was one of Jesus' closest friends and trusted companions.  Trusted?  Yes: he kept the

 purse.  He was the treasurer... you give them a great temptation to misuse their trust, but

 Jesus presumably had trusted Judas, at least in the beginning.  We of course look back on the story and we know from early on that Judas was the traitor, but nobody else knew that at the time.  In the story we've just read, when Jesus says, 'One of you is going to betray me,' they don't all turn round and point the finder at Judas and say, 'Oh yes, we all know who that's going to be.'  They were all worried: it isn't going to be me, is it?  Only Jesus knows.  Judas is one of them.  He has been part of it all, has seen Jesus heal lepers, preach the gospel, raise the dead.  He's done it himself, casting out demons in Jesus' name, watching God's 

power do new things.  And now...

We don't know why Judas did it" (Wright 34).

What do you think?

Why did Judas do it?

Have turned Judas into a villain?

If so, does he deserve it?

Soulless? (Part II)

As we continue this discussion I want to address the last two comments from last week's post. How do the Biblical writer's use NEPHESH? and is there a difference between the OT and NT concepts of "soul?"

My argument centres around the Septuagint (LXX). For those of you who may not know, the LXX is the Koine Greek translation of the OT. It is well known as a generally poor translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, but it has value to us in several ways:

First of all, because Greek was the language of the day, the LXX was the "Bible" used by Jesus, the disciples, and the early church. If you've ever run into a passage in the NT where it is quoting the OT but the wording isn't quite right when compared to the actual OT passage, that's because they were quoting the LXX, not the original Hebrew.

Secondly, the LXX is very helpful in bridging the cultural gap that I referred to last week. In the NT, especially the Gospels, we have Greek language but Hebrew culture. How do we know which is which? The fact is that a lot of our NT lingo is actually OT lingo, we just don't know it. When we look at the LXX we see words like "church (ecclesia)" and "baptism (baptizo)," which we normally think of as NT concepts. So when Jesus says "church" he wasn't coining a new phrase. He was using the LXX term for OT worship gathering. When the NT writers say "baptism" they are using the OT LXX term for ritual purification (ie. Naaman,2Kg5:10).

The LXX is our linguistic bridge between the OT and the NT.

The reason that this is pertinent to our "soul" discussion is because of the relationship between NEPHESH (Hebrew "soul") and PSYCHE (Greek "soul"). The LXX translates the Hebrew word NEPHESH as PSYCHE. So when a NT writer uses the term PSYCHE he is not identifying "soul" with Greek dualism but with the OT monistic concept of NEPHESH. This is highlighted by Lev. 21:11 (ESV) -"[A Priest] shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean..." What is interesting about this verse is that the word "bodies" is actually the word NEPHESH.

But not only is this a "dead NEPHESH" but in the LXX it is a "dead PSYCHE!"

A dead "soul?" That doesn't work from a dualistic perspective, does it?

This link between NEPHESH and PSYCHE is solidified by NT Wright:
“… the word soul is rare in this [dualistic] sense in the early Christian writings. The word PSYCHE was very common in the ancient world and carried a variety of meanings … the New Testament doesn’t use it to describe, so to speak, the bit of you that will ultimately be saved. The word PSYCHE seems here to refer, like the Hebrew NEPHESH, not to a disembodied inner part of the human being but to what we might call the person or even the personality” ("Surprised by Hope" 152).

The fact is that (I would argue) there is no Biblical precedent for dualism. When we see soul (PSYCHE) in the NT it is referring to the OT concept of a holistic being: the spiritual and physical as one integrous being. Yes, we see Paul talking about the battle between the physical and the spiritual aspects of our being but that is part of us as humans living the the tension of how God created us. Remember, Paul was a Pharisee. Odds are he was referring to PSYCHE as NEPHESH and not Plato's kind of PSYCHE.

Sorry for the long scholastic rant.
What do you think?
Are there any other aspects of this that we should be taking a look at?

Wright Whistles

Well for those who are done with thinking for the summer CHECK OUT MY WILLOW WHISTLES!

A short piece of willow and my Mora knife.

The bark removed, the mouthpeice cut, and the sound chamber carved out.
The bark replaced.
And I made two just for kicks (yes I know that it's kind of lame that I do this for kicks!).
Unfortunately, only one of them makes any sort of sound because I made the sound chamber too small on the first one. The second one kind of works but the bark split as I was bruising it to remove it.

Anyway, for those of you who are still capable of abstract thought, feel free to check this out. What are your thoughts on imaginative worship and liturgy?

Surprised by Colbert

I was quite surprised to see that one of my favourite authors/theologians, NT Wright was on the Colbert Report last week. Check it out:

...uh, it appears that you can no longer get the clip from Colbert's site, Comedy Central's site, or YouTube... but you can watch it here. Please do.

If only Colbert would stop interrupting!

Wright asserts in this book that (as he barely has time to explain in the clip) contrary to popular belief, our true destination after death is not heaven but a recreated earth with the New Jerusalem as a "bridge" between the New Heaven and the New Earth.

I have frequently heard people ask the question that Colbert asks: if God is going to recreate everything then why should we bother taking care of the world?

Wright is interrupted before he can develop his analogy, so I will take the liberty of expanding it:

In a normal family household situation it is the job of the parents to make sure the home is clean and in order. However, parents often give their children the authority and responsibility to take care of their own rooms. The child could refuse to clean up their room saying, "Mom and Dad will clean it all up at the end of the day," which would probably be true, but that misses the point. The point is that the parents have given the child the job and responsibility of taking care of their room.

So it is with us. God has given us the responsibility of taking care of the Earth. This requires an holistic activistm. It includes environmentalism, humanitarianism, and evangelism.

So, the question is, do we just slack off, do nothing and say, "God will clean it up in the end," or do we step up to the challenge of stewardship and begin the process of New Creation here and now?

UPDATE:
A while back ABC did a bit with Wright in which some of his thoughts are more cogently captured. It may be helpful in our discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0NLb0pXGI (YouTube wouldn't allow me to embed it...)

Just Looking for Your Input.

If you are a regular here at my blog you will have seen that I'm reading "Surprised by Hope" by N.T. Wright. As the subtitle suggests the book is all about "rethinking heaven, the Resurrection, and the mission of the church."


His main idea is that as Western Christians we have allowed too much of the Medieval Church's tradition to seep into our perspectives on what it means to become a "New Creation" and our views on the "New Heaven" and "New Earth." But I'll let him speak for himself briefly:

"A massive assumption has been made in Western Christianity that the purpose of being a Christian is simply, or at least mainly, to 'go to heaven when you die,' and texts that don't say that but mention heaven are read as if they did say it, and texts that say the opposite, like Romans 8:18-25 and Revelation 21-22, are simply screened out as if they didn't exist" (Wright 90).

As he develops his argument he has shaken some of my views profoundly. And so I'd like to hear from you on a few things. Without overthinking anything too much:

1. What is the first thing that enters your mind when you think of Heaven?

2. In your mind's eye what does Heaven look like?

3. Where do we go when we die?

4. After Christ's return where will we be, the New Heaven or the New Earth?

I just want to know if my old perceptions were just me or if, like he says, we're all a little messed up!

A Brand New Sport!

"Claiming the status of victim has become the new multicultural sport..."

As you can all see from the side bar, I've been reading N.T. Wright's "Evil and the Justice of God". The above quote comes from the opening chapter. One of the basic premises of this book is that because we (in the Western world) so rarely encounter the horrors of evil we usually react to it in immature ways (like invading the 'evil' country and replacing its 'evil' government with a 'good/Western' democracy... but that's a topic for another post).

Another one of these immature reactions is this:

"We can project evil out on to others, generating a culture of blame: it's always everyone else's fault, it's society's fault, it's the government's fault, and I am an innocent victim. Claiming the status of victim has become the new multicultural sport, as people scramble for the moral high ground in which they can emerge as pure and clean, and everybody else is to blame" (Wright 29).

See more reasons why you should all be reading N.T. Wright: here.

We all live in a multicultural society. Do you agree?

What examples can you think of?... without being too "politically incorrect"

Is it true that we react to evil in immature ways?

Why hasn't anyone donated to my Wii fund?

Out of date = Out of mind

So, this semester I'm taking a class again at Bethany. This one is "Christian Apologetics". For those of you who may not know, apologetics can be briefly defined as "defending and commending the faith."

Ever since first reading CS Lewis' non-fiction more than a decade ago I've been interested in apologetics. Naturally, it all started when I first read Lewis' "Mere Christianity", the all-time classic Apologetic book.

I think it's important that Christians think through what they believe and why they believe it. I think it's important that Christians know they don't live in a vacuum. We live in a world that we are called to interact with. As such, we will have to be "prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV). This verse is often used as a basis for Christian Apologetics.


There may be a few of you out there who have read both Lewis' "Mere Christianity" and NT Wright's "Simply Christian". Essentially, Wright wrote his book to be the "Mere Christianity" of

the post-modern age. It is.


Anyway, the point of all this is that I have a little beef with Apologetics and North American Christianity in general: why are we always several decades behind the times?


Have you ever been frustrated at how Christian culture often sees a trend in the world then goes to work making a crappy, B-rate, "Christian" knock-off version of it... and by the time it's out there it's already out of date?
Any examples?


My beef with apologetics is that you can see a similar trend. Every once in a while there is a CS Lewis or an NT Wright who is a true contemporary of his day or even ahead of the times but they are few and far between. It seems as though many, if not most, apologists are still trying to address the questions posed by modernity when the rest of society has moved on to post-modernity.


Thus they render themselves obsolete to everyone but those Christians who read their books and become obsolete themselves.


People won't even consider the church as a source of the answers to life's hard questions if we're completely culturally irrelevant.


Out of date = Out of mind.


Am I being too hard on these people? Probably.
Is apologetics still relevant in a Post-Modern age?
Who is apologetics for; Christians or non-Christians?
Which is more important; "defending" or "commending" our faith?
What examples of crappy "Christian" knock-off trends can you think of?