Theological Intoxication

I think my favourite thing about going through the Psalms in the LXX is that everything is just phrased slightly differently. It makes you stop and take notice of things that you might not otherwise. Switching from one translation to another often has that effect.

What I've been struck by most recently has been the language of intoxication.

Here are a couple examples of what I'm talking about:

"You anointed my head with oil, and your cup was supremely intoxicating" (Ps. 22:5 [23:5] NETS).

"You showed Your people hard things; You gave us to drink wine of stupification" (Ps. 59:5 [60:3] NETS).

"You visited the earth and intoxicated it; You multiplied enriched it; the river of God was filled with water; You prepared its nourishment, because so it Your preparation. Intoxicate its furrows! Multiply its crops; it will be glad with its drops, when it sprouts" (Ps. 64:10-11 [65:9-10] NETS).

These were the passages that I ran across in Psalms just recently which prompted me to do a little more searching to see how the imagery of wine and inebriation are used in scripture.

Now, before I get going I want to be clear that, at least in my view, the scriptures (both OT and NT) are very clear on drinking: the drinking of alcoholic beverages is not only permitted but considered normative (Yes, even in the NT: Lk. 7:32-35; Jn. 2:1-12; Rom. 14:21; 1Tim. 5:23). HOWEVER, the scriptures are also abundantly clear that drunkenness is forbidden... always (Pr. 20:1; Is. 5:22; Eph. 5:18; 1Tim. 3:8; Tit. 2:3; etc). Nothing good comes from drunkenness (Gen. 9:20-25; 19:30-38; 2Sam11).

Of course, the other concept essential to this is whether one's drinking is a "stumbling block" to our brothers and sisters (Rom 14; 1Cor.8).

But it's not the topic of drinking that I want to talk about; it's the metaphor of drinking/drunkenness that I'm talking about.

Drunkenness is strictly forbidden by God and yet, as part of His revelation to us, He uses the imagery of intoxication as a means of communicating His Truth. Isn't that just a bit odd?

Now, most of the time it actually makes sense, because in the majority of cases the language of drinking and intoxication is in reference to God's judgement and wrath (Job 21:20; Rev. 16:19; etc). A good example of a wine & wrath scripture is this one from Jeremiah:

"Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them" (25:25-26).

To me this connection between drunkenness and wrath makes sense. It just connects the idea that those who fall under God's wrath will be thrown into chaos and confusion.

But there are numerous other passages that talk about drinking and even drunkenness in very different terms. In fact, in Jeremiah just two chapters before the passage I just quoted we run into this verse:

"My heart is broken within me; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and because of his holy words" (Jer. 23:9 ESV).

I find this interesting because this passage isn't directly dealing with wrath. Instead, I think it is talking about the effect that God's revelation is having on Jeremiah. Even though we can fairly say that Jeremiah was a righteous man He feels "like a drunken man" upon receiving word from God.

Even more juxtaposed to this is the fact that God not only refers to wine and drunkenness in connection to His wrath, but wine is often connected with passages that talk about plenty, blessedness, and restoration:

^"14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth ¹⁵ and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart" (Ps. 104:14-15 ESV).

Prophesying about the New Covenant, Isaiah says, "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Is. 55:1 ESV).

Earlier in Isaiah we see that "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined" (Is. 25:6 ESV).

Hosea prophecies that when God removes His blessing on Israel: "... I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness" (Hos. 2:9 ESV), but then when he prophesies about the restoration of Israel: "... and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil..." (2:22).

And again we see Joel using similar terms: "So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it. ¹⁸ "And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim" (Joel 3:17-18 ESV).

In Proverbs we read that Wisdom personified says, '⁴ "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!" To him who lacks sense she says, ⁵ "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. ⁶ Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight."' (Pr. 9:4-6 ESV).

And, quite significantly, we read of Melchizedek, the forshadower to the Christ:

"And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.)" (Gen 14:18 ESV) ["bread & wine"... think New Covenant & Communion].

So, what do you make of all of these (and the MANY other) scriptures that talk about drinking and intoxication?

What other theological themes do you see in connection to drinking/wine/ect?

Why do you think this has become such a divisive issue within evangelical Christianity?

A Christmas Meditation

This is a brief excerpt from Augustine's Confessions as he ponders the meaning of Jeremiah 23:24 which says, "Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord." (my emphasis)

[1.3] (all the "you"s are referring to God) "Do heaven and earth, then, contain the whole of you, since you fill them? Or, when once you have filled them, is some part of you left over because they are too small to hold you? If this is so, when you have filled heaven and earth, does that part of you which remains flow over to some other place? Or is it that you have no need to be contained by anything, because you contain all things in yourself and fill them by reason of the very fact that you contain them? For the things which you fill by containing them do not sustain and support you as a water-vessel supports the liquid which fills it. Even if they were broken to pieces, you would not flow out of them and away. And when you pour yourself out over us, you were not drawn down to us but draw us up to yourself; you are not scattered away, but you gather us together.

"You fill all things, but do you fill them with your whole self? Or is it that the whole of creation is too small to hold you and therefore holds only a part of you? And is this same part of you present in all things at once, or do different things contain different parts of you, greater or smaller according to their size? Does this mean that one part of you is greater and another smaller? Or are you present entirely everywhere at once, and no single thing contains the whole of you?"

There's no doubt that trying to wrap one's mind around the immensity of God is an exercise in futility!

... and this mind-bogglingly BIG God became a human baby...

All is Calm?

"Silent night, holy night, all is calm..." Really? Calm? Have you ever seen a woman in labour? And I can't help but think that adding a bunch of stinky shepherds to the mix is going to help anything. "How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv'n..." Wondrous, yes. Silent, not likely!

"It came upon the midnight clear..." Well, I suppose it could have; it just doesn't say. All Matthew has to say is "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem..." (Mt. 2:1) and Luke simply states that "while they were there, the time came for her to give birth" (Lk. 2:6). Yes, the angels appeared to the shepherds at night (Lk. 2:8) but that's the closest time-frame we've got... I guess, in all fairness, the song is talking mostly about the shepherds and the angels... but then what's the point of the song? If it's not about Jesus, why bother singing it?

It doesn't take much to find some Carols that have inaccuracies, poor theology, or just silly statements. So should we scrap them?

Just this morning I ran across this quote which attempts to answer that question:

Should we get rid of Christmas Carols?

“Only with great care. For thousands, carols will be their only link with a church. At the same time, sentimentality is perhaps the single most dangerous feature of our Church and culture—and the sentimental air is never thicker than at Christmas. The Incarnation is messy, dirty, and resonates with the crucifixion. We need a new wave of carol writing that can gradually swill out the nonsense and catch the piercing, joy-through-pain refrains of the New Testament.” - Jeremy Begbie, professor of theology, Duke Divinity School

What do you make of that?

What carols are worth keeping?

Which carols are worth ditching?

Do you know of any new Christmas/Advent songs that are worth singing?

God in the dark?

Those of us who are Christians and regularly read the New Testament are used to the imagery of light. We are familiar with statements like "I am the light of the world" (Jn 8:12) and "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 Jn 1:5), etc...

However, last spring I was going through the covenant passages and ran across an interesting description of what happened when God made His covenant with Abraham:

Genesis 15:12, 17-18 (ESV)

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him... ¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram...

At the time I found this imagery of darkness striking and intriguing but didn't think too much about it until just recently as I read through the book of Exodus where I found more darkness associated with the presence of God. As Moses is up on Mt Sinai receiving the Law we see this:

Exodus 20:21 (ESV)

²¹ The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

And Deuteronomy's description of these events is very similar:

Deuteronomy 4:11 (ESV)
¹¹ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom.

And when Solomon dedicated the newly built temple:

1 Kings 8:12 (ESV) [also: 2 Chr. 6:1]
¹² Then Solomon said, "The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness...

We also see a fair amount of darkness language associated with God in the Psalms. This is just one of numerous instances:

Psalms 18:9-11 (ESV)
⁹ He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. ¹⁰ He rode on a cherub and flew; he came swiftly on the wings of the wind. ¹¹ He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick clouds dark with water.

Now, of course there is also a whole lot of light language used to describe God... in fact, as we would suspect, there is much more light language than there is darkness language but I find these scriptures fascinating.

What is your initial reaction to associating darkness with God?

What do these darkness scriptures say to you about who God is?

Any other examples?

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?

Changing Orthodoxy?

So, while I have a fairly "high" view of orthodoxy, I do believe that God calls us to constantly evaluate and, if necessary, adjust our beliefs and practices in order to realign ourselves with His will.

But how is this done?

When it is simply a matter of an individual changing his/her beliefs/actions that is one thing... but what about when it is the/an entire church that needs to change their "orthodoxy?" What then?

This is where a number of passages (ie. Matt 16 & 18), but particularly Acts 15, come into play.

I would encourage you to take the time to read this chapter (here). If you have time, reading chapter 14 is also helpful for context.

The gist of what's going on in this chapter is that while Paul & Peter have been proclaiming the Gospel to everyone (including Gentiles) they clearly have not been requiring them to, upon conversion and baptism, begin adhering to the Mosaic Law (particularly after the whole Acts 10 deal: here).

Obviously this is a HUGE break in orthodoxy. Those Pharisees who have become Christians can't handle the idea that God wouldn't require Gentiles to follow the "Old" Covenant and begin debating with Paul and Barnabas on the matter.

So the Church convenes a council to address the matter.

The "orthodoxy" at issue: the practice of circumcision and adherence to the Law of Moses (15:5)

Due process is followed including:

- a gathering of the leaders of the Church (vs. 6)

- debate (vs. 7)

- reports of God's work as pertaining to the issue at hand (Peter, vs. 7-11; Paul & Barnabas, vs. 12)

- The leader of the Church (in this case, James) proclaims the judgement as reached in the council (with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, vs.28).

In this case the answer is, No!, Gentile Christians do not need to be circumcised (the sign of the Old Covenant) nor do they need adhere to the Mosaic Law save on several points (vs. 29).

The precedent set by this situation is an excellent one, especially as far as changing orthodoxy goes. In my reading of this passage (and other key texts) I would say that no one person has any right or authority to change what orthodoxy is.

It is only when God's people gather together under the proper leadership that God has put in place and, led by the Spirit, they discuss, debate, and ultimately decide what orthodoxy is that orthodoxy can amended.

And, as we can see in this situation in Acts, this sort of orthodoxy making has the definite ring of authority.

Obviously, as I said above, the implications of all this are huge.

What sort of implications does this have?

What do you make of this? Why?

The Weight of Orthodoxy

How much weight does orthodoxy hold for you?

With post-modernity seemingly having its way among many circles within western Christianity I generally see two approaches of "deconstructing" (and presumably reassembling) our faith:

1) disassembling our current belief structures and attempting to "start from scratch."

2) a reinvestigation of what the Apostolic Church believed.

I'm sure there are more approaches than these and you can feel free to add them to the comments below, but these are the ones I've seen most often.

Which of these do you lean toward? Why/why not?

I believe that orthodoxy has a certain amount of weight. By this I mean that the foundational, central beliefs of the church throughout the past 2,000 odd years have a certain amount of authority.

Yes, of course, different denominations have various "distinctives" or unique beliefs that set them apart from other denominations. There are a lot of these: child-baptism vs. believer's baptism; just-war vs. pacifism; hierarchical vs. congregational; etc... There are lots of different "distinctives" and they are of varying significance. All of them are "Biblical" in the sense that they are based on a certain interpretation of the scriptures.

But that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about orthodoxy. I mean catholic (small "c") orthodoxy; universal orthodoxy. There are certain beliefs that 98.2% of the church has always believed (yes, I just made up that percentage). I could list off some of the things that I think are included in this category, but in the name of participation and interaction I'll ask you instead:

What beliefs do you think fit into this category?

The reason why I have great faith in Christian orthodoxy is because I have great faith in the Spirit of God. I believe that God is guiding His church in order to accomplish His goals for His church. After all, Jesus Himself said "... I will build my church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it" (Mt. 16:18).

No, this doesn't mean the church is infallible. Obviously there have been mistakes made, from the mildly disappointing to the near catastrophic, but in the midst of it all God continues to move and to guide His Bride. After all, when things get too out of line events like the Reformation happen which bring us back... which bring us closer God's intention for His church.

All of this is to say that when I see people going out and trashing the church or tossing aside orthodoxy as if it has no significance I can't help but think: don't you have any faith in God's guidance of His people and His history? Can you really set yourself against or above 20 centuries worth of Spirit guided followers of Christ?

But that's just my take.

What do you think?

All Creatures... Pt 5

So finally we arrive at the Gospels!

How does Jesus interact with the natural world? Does He teach about how we should interact with creation?

In my opinion, Jesus' interactions with nature are very much tied together with Paul's teaching that Jesus is the second Adam (Rom. 5; 1Cor. 15). Jesus exercised perfect authority over creation much in the same way that Adam did in the garden of Eden.

We see Jesus exercise His Lordship and Sovereignty over creation in a variety of ways:

Calming the storm (Mk4), walking on water (Mk6), cursing the fig tree (Mt21), etc.

An interesting one is this passage from Mark 1:13 (ESV):

"And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him."

This one is interesting because scholars are in debate as to how the animals fit into the picture here. In the Greek this verse is all one sentence with three parts: 1) ...He was tempted by Satan; comma 2) and He was with animals; comma 3) and angels served Him; period.

No one is 100% sure where part #2 fits. The text doesn't indicate whether the animals are connected with the temptation or with His rest and recovery from the temptation. Different scholars ride different sides of the fence here. Personally I lean toward (and so do the ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT translators: notice the phrasing breaks) connecting the animals with His rest and recuperation.

This is because of the "Jesus = Adam 2.0" thing as well as the fact that Mark says that Jesus was "with" the animals (incidentally, the "wild" part of "wild animals" is inferred, not explicit. It is one word, therion, which is generic meaning any living creature other than humans). It doesn't say that Jesus fought or struggled with them; it says He was with them.

Obviously I have my own leanings on this one, but let's just acknowledge that the text isn't super clear here. As such we shouldn't read too much into it.

There are other miracles where I'm not sure if they'd fit into what we're talking about, like turning the water into wine and the multiplication of food... And how do human healings fit in?

Don't you just love this drawing of Jesus and the sheep? It's gotta be one of the cheesiest ones around! :)

Now, unless you can think of some passages that I'm missing, we also need to acknowledge that Jesus doesn't really teach/preach much in connection with "geo-stewardship." However, I don't think this can be read-into too much either. Arguments from silence usually aren't very strong.

For example, while Jesus doesn't really preach about geo-stewardship we can't ignore the beginning of the Gospel of John. There it is clear that it was through Jesus that all of creation was created (Jn. 1:3, 10). If it was Jesus who created the world and called it "very good" (or was it Jesus who created and the Father who proclaimed it "very good"? Either way I don't know that it makes any difference) then that says something about Jesus' opinion of the created world.

Now, the other aspect is that Jesus had a very specific mission. He says, Himself, that His mission was to the people of Israel (Mt. 15:24, etc) and not to the gentiles. It is only when He gives His disciples "the Great Commission" that Jesus really opens wide the doors for Christian witness.

And this brings us to "the Great Commision" in the Gospel of Mark; Mark 16:15 (ESV):

"And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation..."

I find this really interesting because the word for "creation" here is "ktisis" which Mounce defines in his dictionary as "...that which God has created... encompass[ing] both inanimate creation and animate creatures such as people."

Throughout history people have taken this to mean all sorts of different things. Francis of Assisi, for example, took this very literally and actually preached to animals! I think that might be taking it a bit far... :)

Now, this ties into some of the ideas from my previous series of posts which were asking, what is "the gospel?" I believe that prior to Paul's diverse usage of euangelion the biographers of Jesus (particularly Matthew & especially Mark) view the gospel as being a proclamation that Jesus is the rightful King of everything. If we hold this to be true (...if...) then this fits perfectly with Mark's account of the Great Commission. In other words, we might be able to paraphrase Mark as having Jesus say something like, "proclaim my rightful Reign and Rule over this world to all of creation (inanimate and animate)."

So, throughout the Gospels we see Jesus exercise His authority over creation through a variety of miracles and then upon His ascension He commands His followers to continue to proclaim that authority.

[** again, let me make it clear that this is also, even primarily, meaning that we are to proclaim the Kingdom of God to PEOPLE. This is not either/or. We are to make disciples and you can't really make trees disciples that I am aware of :) **]

So, what might it mean for us to proclaim that "Jesus is Lord over all creation" (which includes the earth, plants, and animals) to all creation?

All Creatures... Pt 4

So this week we're going to continue flying through our survey of how the scriptures speak of how we need to live in relation to God's creation and how creation lives in relation to us. This post will cover the wisdom, poetry, and prophecy books. Later this week I'll get to the crux of it all, Jesus (get it? crux! I'm so funny :).

Obviously, when we think of the Bible and wisdom we often think of Solomon.

There are at least two passages where Solomon addresses the natural world. Both of these have been mentioned either in previous posts or comments so I will simply cite them here (1Kg.4:29-34; Ecc.3:19). In 1 Kings this passage says that the wisdom that God gave Solomon included trees, beasts, birds, reptiles, and fish. If this is a part of God-given wisdom, is it fair to say that God fully endorses an intimate knowledge of the created world?

There are also some interesting statements in the book of Job. In chapter 5 it is said of the one who is blessed and reproved by God: "At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and none shall fear the beasts of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you" (vs. 22, 23 ESV). Hmm. The blessing and discipline of God leads to unity with creation?

But there's another theme that comes out of Job:

Job 12:7-10 (ESV) "But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

Job 35:11 (ESV) "who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?"

It turns out that wisdom is a two way street; the wise human will have great knowledge of the natural world... and at the same time some of that wisdom comes from the natural world (ie. from God through nature).

[In what ways is our wisdom shaped by our relationship with creation?]

But we run into some great eschatological stuff when we hit Isaiah. Like this Messianic prophecy:

Isaiah 11:5-9 (ESV) Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Under the righteous rule of the Messiah, all of creation is united (also see Is. 35; 43:19-21; 65:17-25). {and as an additional aside: notice that this doesn't happen in heaven this is on earth; again, see Is.65 & Rev 21}

[Acknowledging that this can only be accomplished in its fullness with the return of Christ: if we are followers of Christ and this is what His dominion looks like, should we not be striving for this? Why/why not? And if so, in what ways?]

In these books there is also evident the same theme that we've talked about before, where nature is bound up with the covenant obedience/disobedience of God's people.

Jeremiah 12:4 (ESV) How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the evil of those who dwell in it the beasts and the birds are swept away, because they said, "He will not see our latter end."

The land suffers because of the evil of mankind.

Hosea 4:1-3 (ESV) Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.

All of nature feels the consequences of mankind's lack of faithfulness, love, and knowledge of God.

[Do we see nature reaping the consequences of our obedience/disobedience today?]

But it's not all death and despair! There is hope!!

Joel 2:21-22 (ESV) "Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and vine give their full yield.

So, what do you make of all this?

All Creatures... Pt 3

In this post we are continuing in our discussion of how we as Christians should be interacting with God's creation. We all understand that "the Earth is the LORD's, and everything in it" (Ps. 24:1, 50:12; 1Cor.10:26). And yet, at the same time, God has given humanity the authority and responsibility to rule over His creation (Gen.1 & 9).

We usually call this principle "stewardship", and in the specific stewardship relationship we have with creation I have called this "geo-stewardship."

What does this look like?

How is this similar/dissimilar to the contemporary, secular "environmentalist" movement?

Today we look at the Mosaic Law.

I'm going to start with the covenant that God makes with Moses and the people of Israel. I'm starting here because in my last post we saw how God included creation in His covenant with Noah. In the Mosaic Covenant we see the same thing. Creation both participates and acts as a witness to the covenant:

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (ESV) "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." (also see 4:26 & 31:28)

[What does it mean that creation is a witness to our Covenant relationship with God?]

And in Leviticus 26 we see that creation is involved in carrying out both the blessings of obedience to the covenant (vs. 6) and the curses of disobedience (vs. 22).

Creation itself is both a witness and an agent in God's covenant with His people.

But creation is also a participant in the covenant! We see this most readily in the Sabbath and Jubilee laws. I will include only one here due to length:

Leviticus 25:1-7 (ESV) "The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food" (see also: 26:34-35, etc).

The land observes a Sabbath to the Lord? Interesting. Not only that, but the fruits of the Sabbath year go to the benefit of all creation: Jew & gentile, slave & free, male & female (yes I am intentionally using the language of Gal.3:28), mankind & animal.

In the OT Law, where there is Sabbath there is a reuniting of all of creation; a reminder of what Eden was like and a foreshadowing of New Creation to come!

[In our world today what might this Sabbath unity look like?]

But some of my favourite "eco-verses" :) in the Torah are the ones that provide minute detail:

Deuteronomy 22:6-7 (ESV) "If you come across a bird's nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long."

In the hunting world we call principles like this "conservation." Notice that the Israelite's "wellness" is at least partially dependent upon conservation.

And it's not just talking about animals either:

Deuteronomy 20:19 (ESV) "When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you?"

Wow! Don't you just love that last statement?!

So, what do you think?

How do all of these pieces come together so far?

How might we apply these principles in today's world?

Next Post: Wisdom/Poetry/Prophets

All Creatures... Pt 2

So, there are a tonne of scriptures that I want to get to but let's start in the beginning. It's all fine and good to talk about caring for creation but this topic gets so convoluted so quickly that before we get too far we need to make sure we're anchored in the right spot.

We start with the creation of the heavens and the earth. God created, and step-by-step He called everything He made "good."

[What does that say to us about how we should interact with His creation?]

Now, normally we attribute God's final statement about creation, "very good," to His creation of humanity but, strictly speaking, that's not quite accurate. Genesis 1:31 (ESV) "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (my emphasis).

It is the whole of creation that God is so pleased with.

[So again I ask: What does that say to us about how we should interact with His creation?]

I would also like to draw to your attention that in Gen. 1:30 it says that all of the animal world "...has the breath of life...". It is not just humanity that God breathed His breath of life into. So, while animals are not Image Bearers we do share the life giving breath of God with them. [And on top of this we need to remember that in both Greek and Hebrew the word for "breath/wind" is the same word as "spirit." ... in fact, in the LXX it doesn't even say "breath/spirit"; it says SOUL]

This explains Solomon's words in Ecclesiastes 3:19 (ESV) "For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity." (also see: Gen. 7:15)

And, of course, we see in Genesis 1 & 2 that mankind live in complete unity with the plant and animal world. Adam & Eve, as bearers of the Divine Image, rule over creation and creation submits to their rule.

[In what way should we "rule/have dominion" over creation? What does it look like to rule over creation in a Godly way?]

It is only with the Fall of mankind that this unity with the created world falls apart. With the curses (3:14-22) we see the division between humanity and both the animal world and the plant world (and obviously the division between man-God; man-man... that's a given). Mankind is cast-out from the Garden and the holistic unity of God's "very good" creation is broken.

But does this mean that God's mandate that Mankind rule over all of creation is done with?

Absolutely not! The same language that God used with Adam & Eve is used when God makes a Covenant with Noah after the flood: "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 9:1, 7), all animals are "given into your hands" (9:2). (also check out: Gen. 7:3; 8:1)

The part that really strikes me about the Noahic Covenant is that God doesn't just make the covenant with Noah; He also makes it with animals.

Huh?

Now you're all going to think that I'm really off my rocker!

Well, read it for yourself:

Genesis 9:12 (ESV) "And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations..." (my emphasis; also check out 9:15, 16).

A covenant "for all future generations" that includes God, Mankind, and the animals.

And again:

Genesis 9:13 (ESV) "I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth."

God makes a covenant with the earth.

So, what do you think?

In posts that will come soon we'll move into the Mosaic Law and the rest of the scriptures so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Putting aside our preconceived notions of what "environmentalism" means in our contemporary world what do you think these passages (and any others from GENESIS that you might think of) say to us about how God relates to nature and how we need to relate to nature?

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.

A Pharisee and the Gospel

Last week we looked at the way the Gospel/Good News (euangelion) was used in the writings of Matthew and Mark. In these books my thesis that euangelion is a proclamation of the Lordship of Christ held up pretty well. The majority of the time euangelion is coupled with the kingdom of God/Heaven which makes a perfect connection.

But the fact is that compared to Paul, the biographers of Jesus barely used the word gospel. Here's the full break-down of euangelion:

Matthew x4

Mark x7

Acts x2

Paul x59

So while there is definitely a huge level of significance as to how Jesus used the word (or it was used in direct reference to His ministry) if we want to really wrestle with this we have to wrestle with Paul.

Now, in my opinion, Paul was too educated for our own good :)

I don't remember where I heard it (so don't go spouting it off like I'm about to) but I remember hearing somewhere that today's equivalent of Paul's Pharisaical education is that of at least 2 doctorates.

Paul's writing is dense, intricate, "wordy", full of run-on-sentences (which are allowed in Greek), metaphors, mixed-metaphors, analogies, vague illusions... the list can go on. There is no doubt that Paul was an intellectual and wrote as an intellectual. Paul's writings make the Gospel of Mark and Peter's letters (for example) look like "Run Spot, run!"

As a side note, it is unfortunate for us as English readers when our translations "smarten up" rough Greek like Mark's and Peter's and at the same time "dumb down" Paul's Greek. We lose the personality of the writers when the language in our translations are homogenized.

Anyway, all of that is to say that Paul's usage of euangelion is rather diverse. He doesn't use it in a conveniently uniform way like we saw in Matthew and Mark. Instead we see him using phrases like, "the gospel of your salvation" (Eph. 1:13) or "the gospel of peace" (Eph. 6:15). These don't fit nicely with my thesis and therefore must be ignored... just joking.

Instances such as these fit better with a literal translation of euangelion ("good news") rather than an idiomatic (Lordship proclamation) translation. This brings me back to my original question from a few weeks ago: is it better to educate people on the semantic range of our word Gospel or is it better to translate it differently depending on its context?

Aside from that, I think I could probably make a case that "the gospel of peace" can still fit within my thesis (see Mounce's def'n in my original post). At the very least we can agree that euangelion is not confined to an announcement of personal salvation, nor is it quite so simple as a literal good news. The New Testament usage of it is way too broad to be simplified into either of those.

Michael F. Bird addresses complex words like gospel in his introduction to Pauline theology:

"In the ancient world, the title 'Lord' (Kyrios) was also used of the Roman emperor. In the Roman era, terms like grace, gospel, parousia, justice, freedom, Lord, saviour, and Son of God were employed in Roman political propaganda and utilized in the prayers and rites of the imperial cult, which focused on worship of the Roman emperor. By analogy, then, the 'good news' that 'Jesus is Lord' carried with it the implication that Caesar was not Lord... We see that Paul's gospel had theopolitical consequences in that it claimed for Jesus an immense authority and power which threatened that of Rome" (Introducing Paul, 84).

In fact, Bird uses the comparison that proclaiming the Lordship of Christ in the Roman world would have been pretty much the same as proclaiming 'Jesus ist Fuhrer!' in Nazi Germany!! An interesting analogy.

And I still think that a significant portion of the time that Paul talks about euangelion it fits closely with this idea of Lordship:

"gospel of Christ" x8 (Rom. 15:19; 1Cor. 9:12; 2Cor. 2:12, 9:13, 10:14; Gal. 1:7; Phil. 1:27; 1Thess. 3:2)

"gospel of God" x5 (Rom. 1:1, 15:16; 1Thess. 2:2, 2:8, 2:9)

"gospel of his son" (Rom. 1:9)

"gospel of our Lord Jesus" (2Thess. 1:8)

"glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1Tim.1:11)

"gospel of the glory of Christ" (2Cor. 4:4)

There is absolutely no doubt that the theme of Lordship is evident all throughout Paul's writings. After all, by my quick count, Paul uses the phrase "Lord Jesus" or "Lord Jesus Christ" a minimum of 72 times as well as referring to the Kingdom of God (of whom, of course, Jesus is Lord) a minimum of 14times.

However, a lot of the time the way Paul uses euangelion is ambiguous enough that you can't strongly argue for or against a specific definition. An example of that is Romans 15:20 - "and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel..." This usage is so generic that it doesn't exactly lend any weight to either side.

The phrase that got me scratching my head was "my gospel" x3 (Rom. 2:16, 16:25; 2Tim. 2:8).

This doesn't really fit with my "Lordship" definition. Here Paul seems to simply mean "the message that I preached to you."

So it appears that Paul's usage of euangelion does include, but is not limited to a Lordship proclamation. Depending on the context Paul flexes the word to make it fit his purpose; typical Paul!

Anyway, what do you think?

What other texts might tie into this?

What do you think about the translation issue?

The Gospel in the Gospels

So, the theme that I'm running with for the next few weeks is that there may be a need for us to rethink what the Gospel/Good News (euangelion) really means. Our tendency as Western Christians has been to personalize/individualize our faith and so the Gospel has been taken by many to mean: the good news of my personal salvation... Christ died for me.

I'm certainly not going to argue the basic truth of such statements, but that is not what the Gospel is. Based on what we talked about last week, the thesis that I'm testing (and please understand that this is a trial-run of this idea. I'm arguing for this idea to see if it holds under scrutiny... so please provide some) here is that the Gospel is a proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus.

And, just so you know, this isn't just me making stuff up. Aside from some very major New Testament scholars pursuing this theme, the fact that Bible translation guru, Bill Mounce (ESV, NIV2011), would include "...rise to power, or decree of the emperor that was to herald the fulfillment of hopes for peace and wellbeing in all the world..." in his definition of Gospel really says something.

So this week we're going to tackle the usage of Gospel in... the Gospels:

Surprisingly, euangelion doesn't show up all that often in the Gospels!

Matthew x4

Mark x7

Luke x0

John x0

**Gospel may show up in Luke & John in our English translations but (and I checked) euangelion isn't there in the Greek.**

In Matthew the euangelion is intimately linked with the Kingdom (Mt. 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). This makes perfect sense with this "proclaiming Lordship" definition of Gospel. If Jesus is preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God then to think of the gospel as a proclamation that there is a New King and a New era coming into being fits perfectly.

In fact, that is one of the major themes of Matthew: that Jesus, the descendant of King David is the one true heir to the throne of Israel and is bringing about a new Kingdom, one where the purposes of Israel are being fulfilled through Him.

Basically, there's no way that we can really think of gospel as being about personal salvation (at least not in the 4 Gospels) because Jesus is preaching the gospel prior to His death and resurrection!

Observe Mark 1:14-15 (ESV)

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

Again we see this link between the Kingdom and the Gospel. Again, the gospel cannot mean Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice for us because it hasn't happened yet. So, in order for those people to "believe in the gospel" it has to mean something else. Again, in my mind, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would mean:

"The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe [that God's Messiah is the one true ruler of all creation]"... or something along those lines.

This also makes perfect sense with Jesus' constant healings and exorcisms. If the only reason why Jesus came was to die for my sins why did He bother doing all that extra stuff? He did it to demonstrate that He was the true Lord of Creation coming to claim His rightful throne. Jesus had God-given power and authority over all creation: physical (healings, calming seas, multiplying food, etc) and spiritual (exorcisms, forgiving of sins, etc).

So, what do you think?

Is this starting to make sense?

What problems with this idea do you see?

What strengths?