2025-03-16T13:07:17-04:00

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Saint Patrick of Ireland, by Aidan Hart.

I am away this week, and have not had the time to put together a Sunday Pilgrimage entry for you. Apologies: I promise that we will return to our wanderings through Christian England next week.

Instead, since tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day, here is an article I wrote here three years ago, about Ireland’s patron saint and his continuing presence in this land. Some of you may appreciate reading it again – and new readers, for the first time.


Today is St Patrick’s Day. It’s a national holiday here in Ireland, during which there is a lot of drinking and parading and the wearing of green leprechaun hats. I’m too old for that sort of thing, and the leprechaun hats don’t suit me anyway. Instead, this morning I was in church listening to two Irish friends singing an old hymn about the saint they learned at school, in harmony with a Romanian nun. It’s an experience I recommend. This evening, I’ve been sitting by the fire reading about St Patrick. Now I want to write something impulsive about the saint. I think he has something still to say to us.

I’m not Irish, I know: but then, neither was he.

In fact, Patrick – Patricius to his friends – was British like me, and like me he grew up in a time of imperial decline, though he had no idea how quickly the empire of which he was a subject would collapse, and all its assumptions drain away. Patricius was a British subject of imperial Rome, born around the year 400 into a middle class family, and trained for comfort and success. All of that went out of the window when, at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish slave traders and sold to a petty king named Miliucc, who sent him out to the hills to work as a lone shepherd.

Frightened, lonely and confused, a child in an alien land with no help, family or friends, Patrick did what a lot of people do under similar circumstances: despite being a self-declared atheist, he started praying.

The most entrancing and readable account of Patrick’s life I’ve come across is in Thomas Cahill’s excellent book How The Irish Saved Civilisation. Here he explains the end result of Patrick’s time alone in the hills, with only sheep and God for company:

Patricius endured six years of this woeful isolation, and by the end of it he had grown from a careless boy to something he would surely never otherwise have become – a holy man, indeed a visionary for whom there was no longer any rigid separation between this world and the next. On his last night as Miliucc’s slave, he received in sleep his first otherworld experience. A mysterious voice said to him: “Your hungers are rewarded: you are going home.”

Patrick did indeed get back to his family in Britain, but nothing was the same. He had met God, and they didn’t understand him any more. Patrick took himself to Gaul for a theological education, and after being made a Bishop, he was sent to spread the Christian message to the pagan kings of Ireland, as the first Christian missionary since St Paul, 400 years before.

Patrick’s time in Ireland, in Cahill’s telling, was transformative, and not just for this country. He converted the warring tribal kings to the Christian faith, and thousands of their people too, and he did it not with force (one former slave versus a nation of battle-hardened warrior kings would not have been a fair contest) but with love. ‘His love for his adopted people shines through his writings’, writes Cahill. Indeed, Patrick, after a while, went native. When he travelled back to Britain later in life to plead for some of his converts who had been taken in slavery by British pirates, his former countrymen no longer trusted him as one of their own.

Patrick’s greatest achievement in Ireland, in his lifetime at least, may have been the abolition of slavery, a cause about which he was understandably passionate, and for which he made a radical Christian case. Cahill calls him ‘the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery’:

He worries constantly for his people, not just for their spiritual but for their physical welfare. The horror of slavery was never lost on him: “But it is the women kept in slavery who suffer the most – and who keep their spirits up despite the menacing and terrorising they must endure. the Lord gives grace to his handmaids; and though they are forbidden to do so, they follow him with backbone.” Patrick has become an Irishman, a man who can give far more credibility to a woman’s strength and fortitude than could any classically educated man.

During his lifetime, Patrick was unknown outside Ireland. He lived around the time of St Augustine, the great influencer of the Christian West, but his understanding of his faith, suggests Cahill, was quite different:

Patrick’s emotional grasp of Christian truth may have been greater than Augustine’s. Augustine looked into his own heart and found there the inexpressible anguish of each individual, which enabled him to articulate a theory of sin that has no equal – the dark side of Christianity. Patrick prayed, made peace with God, and then looked not only into his own heart but into the hearts of others. What he saw convinced him of the bright side – that even slave traders can turn into liberators, even murderers can act as peacemakers, even barbarians can take their place among the nobility of heaven.

What made Patrick this way? Ireland. There is something special, something unique, about Irish spirituality, and especially about the early centuries of the Christian faith here. During the first five centuries of Irish Christianity, over 200 saints emerged from this tiny island. For comparison, the next ten centuries produced just three.

The shape that Christianity took in Ireland is not the same shape it took amongst civilised Roman Christians like Augustine. It was not the shape of which Popes approved. It was wilder in some strange way: embedded in the land and emerging from it in a shape that was in no way a betrayal of its teachings, but was in no way either a mirror of the civilised, imperial centre.

Irish Christianity today – despite its centuries of centralisation by a Rome that still behaves like an empire, despite its great diminishment, despite its scandals and collapses – despite all of this, away from the centre, out in the mountains and the fields, it still lives. I feel it every time I go out. Anyone can. It lives on Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s holy mountain, up which people still walk barefoot every year on the same day:

It lives in the wells in remote fields, and in the ruined chapels and blasted skelligs, and on the holy islands with broken towers, abandoned for centuries by people but perhaps not by the Spirit:

It lives in the the caves that saints once slept in, around which some power still hovers:

It lives in the land. It is waiting for something. I don’t know what.

But it is patient. It is patient like Patricius was. He left us an island whose monks, as Cahill demonstrates, took into themselves, copied and kept alive all of classical and Christian learning in the face of barbarian fires. He left us a leafy, wet, strange and magical Christianity, entwined with the spirit of this Atlantic island.

And he left us a hymn, a song which to me speaks of the mystic, green spirit of true Irish – and British – Christianity still. St Patrick’s Breastplate, they call it; or sometimes The Deer’s Cry. It is a prayer, an incantation, a chant, a spell. Sixteen centuries later – well, it is still quite something. Try speaking it aloud to yourself, and then see what power swirls around you.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles,
In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul;
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

Special thanks to Mr. Kingsnorth for this excellent post.  I, like St. Patrick, am an Englishman who loves Ireland.

2025-02-21T09:50:39-05:00

As we said in the last post, keyboards dominate this museum in terms of what’s on display, and rightly so.  Many of them are works of art.

But there are other stringed instruments, for instance lutes or mandolins,

The instrument above is a hurdy-gurdy (cue the famous Donovan song about the hurdy-gurdy man)

Where’s Ravi Shankar when you need him?

And all sorts of horns and woodwinds as well….

 

And here’s an instrument that one requires only a wave of a hand to make various sounds…. as demonstrated by cousins Greg and Kathy…

More in the next post.

 

 

 

2025-01-28T14:49:18-05:00

Rom. 8. 31-39 should probably be seen as one paragraph, though it could be divided up at vs. 4 as Tom does, but then vs. 4 has to serve as a bridge for both sections of this climactic portion of Rom. 8 so it is better to take them together.   It is interesting that at the outset of Tom’s discussion about 8.31ff. he notes that the list of potential threat in vss. 35-38 does not include personal sins, or the accusations of judgments on those sins.  This is because the list in vss. 35-38 is about external threats to one being separated from God’s love. Paul is saying that no third party, no angel or demon, no third force, nothing else in all of creation can separate the believer from God’s love. . What is not a part of this list is the believer himself, precisely because it is possible for a believer to commit apostasy.  What we have then at the end of this passage is a reassurance to Christians in Rome that under pressure, or persecution, or exile or even accusations and execution that none of these things can separate them from God. And some, like Priscilla and Aquila had indeed been sent into exile by Claudius and returned to Rome after he died.

There is something to Tom’s point about 5.6-11 being a theme brought up here again.  That text says: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Again the point is to reassure Christians in precarious situations how much God loves them and has already demonstrated this.   And as Tom says, each of the major subsections ends with a Christological summary cf. 5.11,5.21,6.11,6.23,7.25a, and 8.39.   What is also very notable is the series of rhetorical questions, all implying a negative answer–no power, no person, no third party can separate us from God’s love.  Even though some people can oppose Christians and cause them suffering and grief, nevertheless, if God is for a person, no such opposition can finally prevail.   The reason no one can condemn the believer is because Christ has already paid the price and pronounced the verdict– no condemnation (Rom. 8.1), and he is beside the Father interceding for the believers,not as if the Father is reluctant to forgive or to love his people, but because Jesus wants to act as our advocate.  As. Tom says, Gentiles would be used to thinking that some deity was cursing them when things went wrong for them, which is just the opposite of how Paul sees the Biblical God operating.  The assumption that good Christians would not be having a bunch of problems is contrary to the evidence.  Some of the greatest Christians lived short painful lives like Blaise Pascal who after years of illness died at 39.  As Tom stresses, we should not see the signs of other Christian groups greatly suffering as signs of God’s displeasure or our superior spirituality to but rather as an opportunity to mourn with those who mourn (p. 203).

It’s worthwhile to review the passages that speak of Christ’s love–2 Cor. 5, Gal. 2 , Ephes. 3, 5.2, and 5.25, 2 Thess. 2.13.   Tom makes a good point that nowhere in the whole OT do we hear about the Messiah’s love as how he would act when he turned up (p.209).  Notice also Phil. 4.13 which is not a superman verse saying ‘I can do all things in him who strengthens me’. Rather I am able to endure all things previously listed including living in want or in plenty, through Him who strengthens me.  This verse is about endurance, not about being superman.  (p. 217).

 

2025-01-27T13:39:10-05:00

Ben:  Allan what was it that prompted you to write this particular book?  In so many ways, it is a unique cross-disciplinary study, helpful in various ways?
Allan:    All the subjects touched upon have fascinated me from childhood.  Bible stories, travel narratives,  and real adventures go back to my earliest years. My family,  living in a gas-lit former coal mining cottage, was also full of story-tellers, and stories and the best way of telling them were absorbed from infancy onwards.
Ben:   Though there have always been Christian pilgrimages to the Lands of the Bible, what is it, do you think, that motivated Victorians to make such a journey, especially in an age when it was not easy to travel to the Middle East?  Was it mainly just pious curiosity, or a desire to see the Pyramids and other sites that connected with Biblical stories?   How would you distinguish between adventure travel, and serious educational attempts to be better informed about the context of the Biblical stories, and when would you date the first real attempts at archaeology in Egypt and Israel that didn’t simply amount to treasure hunting?
Allan:  The Victorian age,  especially  Evangelical Protestantism,  was interested in the demonstrable reality of Christianity.  It was also an age of burgeoning modest middle-class wealth. This inspired people to ‘go and see’.
Ben:  Today of course there is a lot of talk about returning artifacts to the countries where they came from in the Lands of the Bible. On a recent visit I made with students to the new Parthenon museum in Athens, I was struck by the signs on the top floor basically saying please return the Elgin marbles here, where they belong.   Why do you think it did not really occur to Lord Elgin, or even Howard Carter that it wasn’t appropriate to simply cart off another country’s antiquities and put them in the British Museum or the Louvre?  Do you think they were convinced that the European museums would better preserve the artifacts at that point in time?
Allan:   In 1840 people were fighting for liberation from Ottoman,  French, and other rulers.  Pots and pictures were less important.  Only in modern times,  with the growth of human rights, recognition of a person’s individual worth, and such, did ancient artworks come to matter culturally, as they do today.  And yes, it was believed at the time that artifacts would be better looked after in a European museum.  Yet if an artifact was sold legitimately by its then owners, where lies the morality of the 200+-year-old transaction?  I am also wary of the interference of the professional ‘activist’, to whom rightful ownership may be just another thing to protest about.
Ben:  One of the main judgments you make at several points in the book is that archaeology, even at its best can only give one a sense of the social and historical context of the Biblical stories not of the actual historical authenticity of what is said about the main characters and their actions in those stories.  In other words, the Biblical accounts have verisimilitude, but archaeology cannot prove the claims of the stories about persons and events are true.   I would say this is mostly correct, but there are clear exceptions— one thinks of the Erastus inscription in the ground at the Corinthian theater that matches up nicely with what Paul says in Rom. 16,  or more recently the Aramaic inscription on the James ossuary, which has been once again been shown to be authentic by Ada Yardeni, the IAA inscription expert, as well as by Andre La’Mere of the Sorbonne. What it likely proves is that Jesus really did have a brother named James whose father was Joseph.  But again, these are exceptions, not usually what archaeological finds can demonstrate.   Comments?
Allan:  I agree.  Archaeology actually proves very little,  but what it does is provide context and probability.  Also, by excavating very ancient inscriptions,  which can be translated, one discovers the real names and activities of Biblical characters and the locations (Mesopotamia, Nebuchadnezzar), etc., all of which gives the Bible accounts a stronger probability of authenticity.  As archaeology has become more extensive,  it is true that we find more and more exact fits between Scripture and archaeological finds, such as the Delphic posting of Imperial Governors, and Pilate’s posting to Palestine.
Ben:  The chapter on Thomas Cook was fascinating.  I had no idea he was the one who facilitated ordinary folk getting to travel, at a reasonable price, to the lands of the Bible.   And as you make clear, one of the major reasons for doing so was for the Biblical education and enhancing of the Christian faith of those folk.   I would never have guessed this from my various dealings with Thomas Cook when we lived in Durham (where I did my D.Phil.) and then as recently as 12 years ago, But I gather now Thomas Cook travel is no more.   Are there any agencies now in the U.K. That support religious travel?
Allan.   Cook was a pioneer of Christian travel,  beginning around the early 1840s, by chartering cheap train excursions to Temperance rallies in Midland towns.  And yes,  Cook’s has now folded,  but from the sheer profitability, other companies had come into being in late Victorian Europe and the USA.  After all, it was largely they who financed the first Middle Eastern modern hotels, railways, banks, and after 1913, cinemas.
Ben:  I really appreciated all you did give us in this book, but I was really hoping for a chapter on that greatest of all Victorian Biblical scholars, J.B. Lightfoot, who did interact with the work of Ramsay and others, and saw and supported the importance of the nascent Biblical archaeology which was on the rise in the late 19th century.   I had the honour of discovering Lightfoot’s missing papers and commentaries in the Dean and Chapter library at Durham Cathedral more than a dozen years ago, and then transcribing all his handwritten materials and turning them into 3 volumes published by InterVarsity Press.  There are in those volumes also various articles Lightfoot published before his untimely death in 1889 that have some of his reflections on the importance of the archaeological work of Victorians, and its historical importance.  Any chance we could get a second edition of your fascinating study with an additional chapter about this?
Allan:   Yes, Lightfoot was one of the pioneers of analytical Biblical scholarship, along with Ramsay and others, and I should have included him.  Apologies.  But there was a limit to what I could adequately deal with in my given word length.
Ben:  Having had a college professor at Carolina who was an archaeologist and OT scholar I was raised on Wright, Bright, and especially Albright. I was pleased to see in the final chapter that you gave him some attention. One of the more interesting things is that he actually spawned a whole bevy of archaeologists who continue to follow his approach, rather the minimalism of W. Devers and others who even object to the term biblical archaeology.  The magazine for which I have written for, Biblical Archaeology Review, for many decades now, continues to probe the connections between the Biblical text, not only in regard to the context, but even in regard to persons and events mentioned in the Bible. (e.g. the finding of the marble top to a scepter with Solomon’s name on it).   It led me to wonder if you had had occasion to look at that magazine, published since 1975?   Yes, it’s written for the educated lay person, but many of the articles are written by actual archaeologists from all over the religious spectrum, and some who have no religious affiliations at all.
Allan:   Yes, the Biblical Archeology Review is a major series, and brings home the richness of the field, and what there is left to discover, as scholars find and assemble ancient stone and papyrological fragments.  An old Oxford friend, a retired Parliamentary lawyer and a devout Christian, works with others in assembling and translating scraps of Greek papyri, often found in AD-buried pots in the Egyptian desert.  He says he never knows what he is getting, but hopes the fragments he is sent are Christian.  He deals with high-definition photographs.
Ben:  I wondered why some of the remarkable drawings and paintings of Roberts of the Holy Land were not included in your book, since there are other pictures.   There are also wonderful paintings from the Victorian era by some Russian artists, some of whom  who went to the Holy Land—  Polenov, Ge, and Ivanov.   Maybe in a second edition some of this could be included?
Allan:  I understood that I, the author, and not Eerdmans, had to pay for the pictures.  Therefore I restricted them to either pictures over 100 years old (out of copyright), in the public domain on the internet, or in old books that I own, such as Hole’s ‘Jesus’.  I think that Hunt’s ‘Scapegoat’ is in the public domain.  Hunt, like the Russian and other artists whom you mention,  spent extensive periods in the Holy Land.
2024-12-18T08:58:07-05:00

THE SECRET

 

Hidden reality

Like life in the womb

Hidden reality

Like death in the tomb

Hidden away

For the appropriate day

 

Wrapped in enigma, cloaked in secrecy,

Awaiting a wake up call with urgency.

But how shall such a song be sung?

 

A tale that’s never told,

A trail that’s long gone cold,

A mystery unrevealed,

A truth that is concealed,

Seems useless on first glance.

 

Who said there was a secret,

Who told us we must keep it

Who set the search in motion

And stirred up our devotion

If ‘clueless’ was our stance?

 

Call forth the revelator,

Who hinted something greater

A light that has been hidden

A thought that comes unbidden

And is not mere romance.

 

Go to the old gate keeper,

And wake the guardian sleeper,

Arouse the story teller

Seek out the boundary dweller

Lulled into tragic trance.

 

For sometimes revelation

Awaits the new creation

Propitious point in time

When insight is sublime

And we’re prepared to dance.

 

The time may fully come

The race be fully run,

The truth could then be heard,

And taken at its word,

As happy happenstance.

 

Thus mystery has a point

When times are out of joint

And no one wants to hear

About the truth they fear

Because of circumstance.

 

In one sense all of history

Apocalyptic mystery

With secrets kept and told

By prophets young or old

Who speak, suggest, recant.

 

For too much information

Obscures the revelation

Prevents a clear reception

May even cause deception

Instead of some advance.

 

So let us treasure mystery

And truths that unveil history

Spoken in due season

Reflecting divine reason,

And never left to chance.

 

 

THEOLOGICAL MUSINGS

 

There is a famous saying attributed to Alfred Lord Tennyson which stresses that there is a tide in the affairs of humankind which if taken at the flood leads on to great things. There can be no doubt that this is a Biblical idea.  We see it for example in Gal. 4.4—“But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son…”  There is a sense in which there are certain propitious moments in history which, when something happens it really matters.  One way people express this concept is when they say  “timing is everything”.   For example,  the invention of the automobile would not have amounted to much if it had not been preceded by several other inventions, such as the internal combustion engine, and various sorts of technology first used with trains.

In this Christmas season, one of the things most worth contemplating is why it was that Jesus came when he did.  In what sense had the time fully come?   We might even ask— Why wouldn’t God have waited until an era of mass communication if Jesus was to be the savior of the world in all generations?  Several things come to mind.

Firstly, it has been widely recognized that Jesus was borne at a time when there was something of a unified culture in the known world, with a language all could use, and roads and government that reach from far east of Israel to the western most part of Spain to Scotland in the north, and to Africa in the south.  Thanks to the spread of Hellenism and Greek by Alexander the Great and his successors even Israelites could speak Greek and relate well in the Greco-Roman world.   Thanks to Roman engineering there were durable roads in all directions, and thanks to the Roman military might the seas had largely been swept clean of pirates and brigands. Even just a little before the birth of  Jesus in the time of Julius Caesar, Rome was just a Republic, and there were many competing forces in  the Mediterranean world.   Jesus could hardly have come at a time more propitious for starting a new world religion if we were to evaluate the previous 2,000 years before Jesus’ birth.   Then too he was borne in the land that was the land bridge between three continents—Asia, Africa, and the regions in the north that led to what we call Europe.   Suppose, for example, Jesus had been borne while the Jews were in the Babylonian exile.  It would have been far more difficult for a Jewish messianic movement to start then and in such a locale.

Of course our author thinks as well that it isn’t just natural factors we should consider, but also the divine plan, as promised and predicted in the OT.   When Paul says the time had fully come, he is thinking of the fulfillment of prophecy, and of the divine time table for things.  He believes as well that God has a sense of timing, and that there is such a thing as a timely truth.  Many things are kept secret until just the right moment when they need to be revealed.  Sometimes God waits until we are prepared to receive a certain truth or message or revelation.

We in our age of ‘freedom of information’ and all access passes to the Internet have difficulty with the concept of  information being revealed on a need to know basis, or secrets needing to be kept, until the timing is right for their revelation.  We simply assume that all information should be available to us at all times, because “the people have a right to know”.  This assumption is of course rather naïve.  It assumes a lot about our powers to comprehend most anything if we study it long enough.  But in fact it is sometimes the case that “we can’t handle the truth”, and God knows this.   God knows our weaknesses, and God also knows when the time is ripe and right to share new revelation.    There is another factor as well.

T.S. Eliot famously asked where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge and where is the knowledge we have lost in the sea of information.  One of the problems with living in the age of Google and the Internet, is that there is frankly too much information available and much of it unreliable or even untrue.  I have this problem all the time with my students who take ideas or articles or information off the Internet assuming that it must be true since someone made it publicly available, but alas much of it is what the Rolling Stones once called “useless information supposed to fire my imagination”.  We may live in the information age, but it would surely be better to live in the revelation or even the wisdom age.  It is not only possible to get lost in the forest looking for the right tree of knowledge, but it is also the case that we may well mistake pulp fiction for a cedar of Lebanon, so to speak.  One needs some criteria, some guidance, some wisdom, some kind of road map to recognize the truth when we see it.  And sometimes its not a matter of finding the right wise man or expert. Sometimes its just a matter of being patient and waiting until God chooses to make the truth known, and the light finally dawns on us.  Some realities and truths need to be hidden away, like a baby in a womb, “until the time had fully come”.  We must come to terms with the fact that some times we must wait until the truth “comes to full term” and then is brought forth into the world.  Patience is not a virtue much practiced in the information and Internet age.  Sometimes a secret needs to be ‘kept’ until the appropriate time for it to be revealed.

One of my favorite Christmas stories is O’Henry’s famous tale “The Gift of the Magi”. O’ Henry was one of my childhood favorites as he grew up in the town right next to my home town— High Point N.C.  The story hangs on two things—the great love a couple has for each other and their willingness to sacrifice much to get the other a precious  Christmas gift, but it also hangs on the fact that the truth about the gifts must be kept secret until the appropriate day comes.  Thus, unbeknownst to his girl, the young man pawns his precious heirloom pocket watch to buy beautiful combs for his beloved’s beautiful long hair, and unbeknownst to the young man the girl has cut off and sold her hair so she could buy him a beautiful gold chain for the pocket watch.  Imagine their surprise when Christmas comes and both unwrap gifts they cannot at the present moment use, but which demonstrate the great love they have for each other.   The Christmas story in our Gospels goes this story one better, as it not only reveals God’s sacrificial love, but it offers a timely and timeless truth that is always helpful and useful to anyone from the very minute it is unveiled.  Indeed, there is a tide in human affairs, and God has a perfect sense of timing when it comes to revealing and healing, saving and restoring, reconciling and justifying us all.

2024-04-03T21:53:55-04:00

Q.  It seems clear enough to me that angels and demons, like the Devil himself, are beings or creatures, nor merely forces to be dealt with.  How would you view this matter?

 

A. Tom’s chapter is very good on this. He points out that the powers are to be, in some way, pacified and reconciled. Now, I doubt that that extends to the Devil himself, his rebellion is of such a nature that judgment is required. However, there is something right in thinking that the entire cosmic order, angels, powers, principalities, will be put to rights as Tom would say. Such seems to be the line of thinking especially so in Colossians and Ephesians.

 

Q. While we are on that subject, I don’t think that the death of Christ on the cross and its effect on the principalities and powers, warrants an a-millennial view of eschatology where Rev. 20 is viewed as saying Satan is sequestered away from the human world, and not allowed to bother the world during the church age.  The early church was often non-Dispensational pre-mil in its theology, or as it is called historic pre-mil, and it is not until we get to chaps like Eusebius and Augustine do we get serious push back to that theology.   I would view the cross as D-Day, the turning point in the battle vs. Satan and the powers, not the vanquishing of those powers altogether.  The ruler of this world is judged, but he’s still engaging in rear-guard actions, only now Christians have the Spirit and the armor of God against him and cannot be compelled to give way to temptation, or follow Satan’s lead.  How would you view this?

 

A.   Ben, this is where you and I need to sit down with Tom and discuss the case for a historical pre-millennial reading of Revelation 20. I do that a bit in my book Evangelical Theology, but I think Tom is more amill with some post-mill sympathies. That said, the best argument I’ve ever read for an amill reading Revelation came from the great Methodist New Testament scholar I. Howard Marshall!

2024-04-03T21:06:45-04:00

Q. It is not clear to me that the phrase basileia tou theou should simply be lumped together with the general sovereignty of God over all of his creation, or merely be seen as a subset of that idea. That phrase in Mk. 1.15 and elsewhere seems to have an eschatological and interventionist and salvific sense.  ‘If I by the Spirit of God cast out demons then you will know that the divine saving action of God has broken into your midst’.

 

A. Well, the kingdom of God in, by, and from Jesus, is a telescoped version of God’s sovereign saving power in creation itself. Let’s remember the back story to Mk 1:15, where Jesus’s words are part of a prophetic script pertaining to Isaiahs’ new exodus (see Isaiah 40, 52), which itself leads to the renewal and rescue of creation (see Isaiah 65-66). Jesus is “King of the Jews” as Israel’s Messiah, and a transformed Israel was always intended to transform the world (hence Isaiah’s oracle of Israel as a “light to the nations” in 42:6 and 49:6), and Israel’s covenant project, beginning with Abraham and telescoped into the Davidic covenant, was to rule over Canaan as Adam and Eve ruled over Eden. You don’t need to be Presbyterian to see that the basic covenant structure of the Bible takes us from YHWH as King of creation, to Adam and Eve as regents and priests of creation, to Abraham’s call to bring the promises of faith and justice to the whole world, zeroed in on Israel, and Israel’s King, of which Jesus is the truest type. Jesus is the new Adam, the embodiment of Israel, the prophesied Davidic king, who brings YHWH’s saving reign to bear upon creation, and the church will reign with him in the new creation.

[N.B.  I would say that this reading of salvation history and the covenants, ignores precisely what Paul says in Gal.4 and 2 Cor. 3, namely that the Mosaic covenant was pro tempore until the time was fulfilled and Christ was born, and that it is to be distinguished from the Abrahamic covenant, which is not seen as a continuation of various OT covenants.  It is the Abrahamic covenant which is connected by Paul to the new covenant which is not primarily a renewal of any previous covenant.  God’s rule over creation, and the human rule over creation in the charge to Adam and Eve are not part of the salvific plan of God that is needed after the Fall, except in the sense that in the end, creation having been affected by human sin and the Fall needs to also be redeemed at the resurrection and new creation.  Jesus is certainly the messiah of Israel, but he is also the savior of the world, the last founder of the human race, the last Adam.  Can we really say Christ has already brought God’s saving reign over creation, when Paul says creation has been subjected to futility for the time being, while the Devil is alive and well on planet earth and we still fervently pray thy dominion come on earth as it is in heaven? I would say no.]

2024-04-04T08:18:14-04:00

Hot off the presses (released in late March 2024) comes this book by Tom Wright and Mike Bird, boldly going where previous Evangelicals have been loathe to go— namely into politics.   The book is not difficult to read, and is under 200 pages (178 to be more precise), and does a good job of teasing the mind into active thought on this subject.  It is not merely a cautionary word about the problems with Christian nationalism in its various forms, the attempt to blend one’s Christian beliefs with certain forms of democratic or autocratic governments (never mind that there are no democracies mentioned in the Bible, only kingdoms of one sort or another).  It is a Reformed theology critique of the issue, with a certain advocacy of secular liberal democracies as the least objectionable form of government.  Not surprisingly, the book is zooming up the Amazon charts in this election season in America, and elsewhere.   When I asked Mike who wrote what, he replied. “Tom wrote the chapter on the powers, an earlier chapter reworks his stuff from other projects.  I wrote the intro and the final three chapters, but even then Tom had a heavy hand in commenting and shaping the contents. So it’s very much a joint effort.”

So what do I think of this book and its advocacy of Christians ‘building for the kingdom’ a phrase that pops up a great deal in this book (see e.g. p. 89)?   The first thing to say is that it is odd that there is not a clear definition to be found in the book of what is meant by ‘kingdom’/basileia. In a following blog post I address this issue with Mike in our dialogue about the book.  I found this problematic on several counts, not the least of which is that when that Greek word is used to refer to something in the ministry of Jesus or Paul it regularly has a verbal sense, referring to God’s saving activity in Christ, or the results of such saving activity (love, joy, peace patience etc.)  but what it does not refer to is a Christian’s view of government, including secular governments.   And when it refers to something in the future ‘coming on earth as it is in heaven’ it refers to a dominion of God in Christ on earth that believers can enter, inherit, obtain… or miss out on if they do not behave. Again, it does not refer to a Christian’s view of a non-divine process, or outcome.  It doesn’t tell us how to relate to the secular ‘powers that be’.

Of more direct relevance to the subject of this book is the brief discussion of Rom. 13 of how all authority and power ultimately comes from God, and so governing authorities should be respected, and taxes should be paid (see also 1 Pet. 3).

There is also something of a discussion of the powers and principalities that are not human governments, and I was not fully satisfied with that either. The powers of darkness are not merely forces (may the force be with you), they are malevolent beings in the case of Satan and his demons, or benevolent ones if we are referring to angels.  They are part of the created order, and so can indeed be called creatures, beings God made.  On this I’d say, read Mike Heiser’s (may he rest in peace) The Unseen Realm.

There were also issues related to how exactly God’s sovereignty should be viewed, or more to the point granted that God is almighty, how exactly does he exercise his power and authority?  Does he ever delegate some power and authority to angels and humans?  Do they have the power of contrary choice, such that they could choose to to violate God’s will, and sin?  These questions are necessary to ask because if we deny that the last sentence speaks to the reality of things, if the reality is that God has pre-determined all things, or at least all sorts of things and persons in advance and we admit there is wickedness and evil, even supernatural evil in the world, how does one avoid making God the author of evil and sin?   My answer would be with a theology that allows for viable secondary choices, and the human and angelic ability, by God’s grace, to have the power of contrary choices.  Humans and angels are the source of sin and evil in the world— and definitely not God.   So again, the sovereignty of God needs to be defined carefully and how it works before one makes broad statements about God raising up and bringing down rulers.  For example, did God really raise up Adolph Hitler, a man who had power and authority and ruled with an iron hand,  to judge the Jews before and during WWII?  My answer to that would be HELL NO!    But I digress.   I would agree that all legitimate power and authority comes from God.

Jesus’ dominion is not ‘of this world’ meaning not like human dominions and notice that Jesus absolutely repudiates the idea of his disciples fighting for his kingdom, like merely human kings and their subjects to.  The rejection of violence comes up not only in the discussion in John 18 with Pilate but it also is perfectly evident in Jesus’ ‘those who live by the sword, die by the sword’. and Jesus’ rebuke of Peter for cutting off Malchus’ ear, which he miraculously reattached.  Jesus committed his disciples to absolute non-violence when it comes to his dominion (see p. 71). If only the Crusaders had actually paid attention to Jesus on this matter.  Tertullian was later to say ‘when Christ disarmed Peter, he disarmed all Christians’.  Yes there were many early Christians who felt they should not join the Roman army, and for that matter should not do violence against another human being for whom Christ died.  It is good to see that Tom and Mike see Col. 3.12-17 as an example of Paul implementing the teaching of the Sermon on the Mt. (pp.67-68).

Here are a few of the more interesting lines from the book:

“God.. raises up kings and empires [and] directs the affairs of government through divine providence [and] gives us government as a feature of common grace.” (p. 151).  But in what sense, and to what degree does God direct the affairs of government through his providence? For instance, did God direct the British Bible Makers, authorized by the King, to produce a Slave Bible for its slave-holding colonies which deleted all the passages that suggested that there was a strong critique of slavery in both the OT and NT, and highlighted all the passages which could be seen as favoring slavery?  No, no, no.

Here’s an interesting critique of Christian nationalism: “Christian nationalism is impoverished as it seeks a kingdom without a cross. It pursues a victory without mercy. It acclaims God’s love of power rather than the power of God’s love. We must remember that Jesus refused those who wanted ‘to make him a king’ by force just as much as he refused to become king by calling upon ‘twelve legions of angels'” (p. 136).

Or even better “Christianity is a global religion, not the religious expression of an ethnic identity. The church includes Romans but not all Romans. The church includes Slavs but not all Slavs”. (p. 135.).  Unfortunately, Christian nationalism, whether in its American or Hungarian or Russian forms involves a specific denial of Gal. 3.28 and an affirmation of an ethnic identity that the group wants sanctioned and supported by government at the expense of other ethnicities, other religions etc.

“The logical implication of religious freedom for Christians is religious freedom for all people irrespective of their religion or lack thereof.”  (p.132).

Here it is worth quoting the word of God himself in Hosea 8.4 “They made kings but not through me…”  This clearly implies that as John Wycliffe insisted, not all authority, not all government is something that God raised up, and Christians must be discerning as to which authorities and governments one should submit too as legitimate. (see the discussion on pp. 114-15).  Prov. 8.15-16 comes into play at this juncture where God says “By me kings reign, and rulers declare what is just. By me rulers rule… all who govern rightly.” Notice the provisos in each case.  Notice it does not say ‘By me kings do wickedness, or govern unjustly.’

One of the odder remarks can be found on p. 60 where Tom, talking about the structures of governance says “As with everything else in God’s creation, once they stop being worshipped they stop being demonic”.  Now I would take this cryptic remark to mean that Tom does not think the ‘principalities and  powers are actually beings, but just fallen structures that are valorized as if they were.   I don’t agree.  Walter Wink was wrong about this.  And what would it mean to say the powers are defeated and then reconciled if they are not beings? (Col. 2.13-15).  However on p. 52 he refers to the demons mentioned in 1 Cor. 10 as “malevolent discarnate beings bent on corrupting and distorting human life and work– eager to recruit humans to their deadly pursuits.” (p.52). On the previous page he calls them. supernatural quasi-personal forces which stand behind human rulers.

Early on there is a discussion based on Ps. 8 that God always intended humans to rule on earth as God’s surrogates (pp. 42ff.). What is not discussed is the early theocracy and the rejection of theocracy in 1 Samuel, with which God was not at all pleased.  This is odd.

Check out the dialogue and the reflection on sovereignty that follows this blog post seriatim.

 

 

 

 

2024-03-11T07:54:18-04:00

We are all by now familiar with the famous reference in Ephesians 1.13-14 about the Holy Spirit and the seal which reads:  “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a pledge/earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”   The Greek word ‘arrabon’ does not mean ‘guarantee’.  The King James quite rightly renders it as ‘an earnest’ something given in advance as a sort of promissory note of something to be given later, all being well.   Or the NASB rendering is good here— ‘a pledge’.  Interestingly, in modern Greek the term is used for an engagement ring!  In other words, it refers to something that foreshadows something big later, a foretaste of glory divine but not the whole thing. The same applies to ‘arrabona’ in 2 Cor. 1.22 and 2 Cor. 5.5, and again in both cases the reference is to the Holy Spirit as this ‘pledge’.  There are no other references to this word in the NT.   But let us focus on the reference to a seal– not mind you to a sealing, a verbal idea, but to a seal (a noun idea).   

Surely everyone in antiquity knew about seals— seals on amphoras, seals on documents and so on.

The seal on an amphora not only indicated who it was doing the sealing, but it protected the wine from contamination,just like shrink wrapping does today on bottles of pills. But such seals could be and were broken.

So everyone knew that such a seal could be compromised, could be broken open.  Now bearing in mind that it is the person of the Holy Spirit who is said to be this seal this pledge of future good, we need to ask the question raised in the NT repeatedly– is it possible to so grieve or grieve the Holy Spirit or blaspheme the Holy Spirit that one nullifies the pledge or earnest?  And the answer surely is yes.

This is exactly what Hebrews 6 for instance, indicates.   Hebrews 6.5-6 it will be remembered says the following:  ” It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age  and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”  What is  being described here is apostasy– a willful rejection of the work that God has already done in a person’s life. Notice the reference to ‘having shared in the Holy Spirit, and then having rejected all those benefits that one already had.

Sometimes, Reformed exegetes have tried to suggest that the verb ‘taste’ in this context doesn’t mean that someone had actually had initial salvation by grace through faith, but had simply encountered such a thing without the initial transformation we would describe as conversion.  This however is nonsense.  The very same verb ‘taste’ is applied to Christ himself ‘tasting’ death in Hebrews 2.9 where we hear that Christ tasted death for everyone, which doesn’t mean he merely encountered it, it means HE ACTUALLY DIED.   Similarly, tasted in Hebrews 6 means having actually experienced the powers of the age to come and the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and yet went on to deliberately and willfully reject all that through an act of mental and moral apostasy.   In short, the author of Hebrews is saying ‘you are not eternally secure until you are securely in eternity’ and Paul himself would not have disagreed with this.  Consider his discussion of the deeds of the flesh which he warns born again Christians against committing because if they persist in doing such things, they will not inherit the kingdom or enter the realm of final salvation.  Paul in the Pastorals talks sadly about Christians who had made shipwreck of their faith (1 Tim. 1.19-20) and who were handed over to Satan.  As John Wesley once said— you can’t make shipwreck of a faith you never had, and Paul is clearly enough talking about the genuine Christian faith they have wrecked.

In short, the reference to the Holy Spirit as the seal, and as the pledge or earnest, reminds us that salvation is not finished until one goes through all three stages of ‘I have been saved (justification and the new birth), I am being saved (the process of sanctification), and I shall be saved (full conformity to the image of Christ even in the flesh at the resurrection).   The presence of the Spirit in a Christians life is a pledge that more is coming and needs to happen, but it is not a guarantee that apostasy cannot happen (which is why in Revelation 22.18-19 we hear the warning to the seven churches that their names could be erased from the Lamb’s book of life).

One more thing about a seal— it protects something from an outside danger.  This is why we have promises like that in Rom. 8 that no external power or force, or principality or angels or demons or circumstances in life can separate us from the love of God in Christ. That is a great assurance. But notice the one thing not in the list of things that can separate you from God is YOURSELF, hence the textual warning in various places about apostasy.   Again apostasy is not about ‘losing one’s salvation’ it is about deliberately willfully rejecting the work of God in your life.  Apostasy doesn’t happen by accident or when you are sleeping, as Hebrews 6 makes perfectly clear.  No one can steal your salvation, no circumstance can cause you to lose it. No temptation that comes to you cannot be resisted and escaped from (see 1 Cor. 10), if one draws on the power of God already resident in your life.   This is what assurance is about, but what it is not about is some sort of guarantee that no matter what you do after conversion you are once saved and always saved.  That is not a NT idea.

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