Being Human 4 (RJS)

May 24, 2011 By RJS

Chapter 2 of Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible is entitled “What does it mean to be human?” In this chapter he addresses the title question from two directions, scientific and biblical. In the post last Tuesday I considered the scientific evidence for the connection of human life with the rest of animal life including a consideration of the material features that may, or may not, make us distinctly human. In this post I would like to put up for conversation some of the biblical perspective on human uniqueness.

Moving from science to the bible, Dr. Green starts by describing several problems or pitfalls in the consideration of a biblical view of the nature of humanity. He proceeds to consider a few passages of scripture and wraps up with an sketch of what he finds as the biblical basis for human distinctiveness.

The evidence for the nature of humanity found in the bible is implicit not explicit. We are not told “this is the nature of humanity” rather we have texts that assume a view, counter other views though to be errant, or project ideas about the nature of humanity into a discussion of the future new heavens and new earth.

There is a problem of method. There is no simple method, be it appeal to culture, word study, or appeal to the afterlife, which, when applied to the scripture, will permit easy discovery and understanding of the biblical view of the nature of humans.

Most importantly, there is an ever present danger of imposing our current ideas about the human person on the text rather than listening to what the text has to say. This is really the big problem. The approach of substance dualism is something that Dr. Green claims we project into the text rather than extract from the text. Here he looks specifically at the healings by Jesus to provide an example. Physical blemish kept a person from access to God and the community of God’s people. Cleansing a leper restored him to God and to community (Mt 8:1-4). In another example healing is connected with the forgiveness of sin, in fact healing is tantamount to the forgiveness of sin (Mt 9:2-8). Humans are unified wholes.

Here we find no room for segregating the human person into discrete, constitutive “parts,” whether “bodily” or “spiritual” or “communal.” (p. 49)

Is the dualist view of human persons as body and soul something we read from the text or we read into the text?

(more…)

A Church And Conflict Management

July 5, 2018 By Scot McKnight

Is Paul’s approach to conflict an example or not? (From Conflict Management and the Apostle Paul.) The following post, which kicks off a series on Paul and conflict comes from a book I was privileged to write with my DMin cohort at Northern Seminary.

Here’s how this project worked: Lauren Visser and Greg Mamula co-wrote a study of conflict management theory in modern thinking. (The chapter is a model of description and will be of value to any pastor or staff thinking about how to manage conflict.)

Then each student, working with another, wrote chapters on various conflict episodes in Paul’s mission experience. Students were not asked to whitewash Paul but they were asked to do their best to evaluate or compare Paul to the opening chapter by Lauren and Greg. I believe more writing makes for better teaching, preaching, and communicating in a church. I also believe writing about tough issues like this sharpens our minds with one another and also gives us angles on Paul that we might not otherwise have.

There is no reason we have to think did conflict perfectly; we don’t idolize Paul. Yet, he opens doors to valuable discussions, and our seminar on this topic was one of the highlights of my academic career of teaching.

I wrote the introduction and it follows:

Buried into the back of your copy of Paul’s letter to the church of the Roman colony, Philippi, is an apostolic urging that may well be the precise reason Paul wrote this short (in Pauline standards) letter. Two women, Euodia and Syntyche, are urged “to be of the same mind in the Lord” (Phil. 4:2; NRSV). Lynn Cohick, in her commentary on Philippians, observes that some argue that the situation in Philippians 4:1-3 about Euodia and Syntyche is minor, unimportant, or incidental.” She’s right, and one could create a long list of scholars who agree. But Lynn turns the corner noting that “most recent commentators hold that Paul’s concern for unity between these [two female leaders and] believers is central to the letter.”[1]

The story repeats itself. Bible read by males, Bible read for males, women in the Bible ignored or silenced or unnoticed. In a letter about unity shaped by the word “same” (1:27; 2:2; 3:15; 4:2), in a letter justly famous for the Christ hymn (2:6-11) but which is provoked into appearance in this letter to teach Christoformity and sacrifice for others in order to maintain unity (2:1-5), and in a letter where fellowship (1:5; 2:1; 3:10), the first real mention of anyone in particular is these two women. What are they told? To have the “same mind” (3:2). I am of the view, with many others, that the division between Euodia and Syntyche both shapes the problems at Philippi and represents the problem. The problem is division and the need is unity.

Granting that non-controversial conclusion, I want to approach this from another angle, one I have not seen or heard. How do you think Euodia and Syntyche responded to Paul’s putting them on the spot? To Paul’s degrading of their status in the community by calling them out in this letter, which would have been performed publicly for all in the congregation and house churches to hear?

So let’s imagine what they might have said in their defense, and we’ll get to what he said that they surely needed to be of the same mind about below. It would not have been a stretch of imagination for the Christians of Philippi to know, first, about some of the Apostles Behaving Badly. I’m speaking here of the public outburst of Paul against Peter and Peter’s rather obvious failure to live up to the gospel that includes gentiles. The story is told from Paul’s angle in Galatians 2:11-14. Details aside – was Peter eating pork? Were the Jewish believers demanding circumcision? – the incident itself is enough to tell the story of apostles. “One mind, Paul?,” Euodia and Syntyche ask.

And, second, we can reasonably think that Paul was not himself of “one mind” with either Barnabas or John Mark. One can read up about Paul’s strong disagreement with Barnabas over taking John Mark on the mission trip subsequent to the Council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:37-40). Earlier John Mark had jumped the mission trip ship and headed back to Jerusalem (13:13) and Paul didn’t like it. Barnabas, correctly it turns out, saw more in John Mark than did Paul at the time. Euodia and Syntyche could have looked Paul square in the eyes and said, “One mind, Paul?”

It takes no imagination to know that what festered between Paul and the Corinthians was anything but unity, fellowship and one mind. One communication after another – 1 Corinthians, the severe letter, 2 Corinthians, which may be more than one letter, one trip after another – Paul, Timothy and Titus each trying to work things out. Any reading with sensitivity can see that 2 Corinthians 10-13 is Paul’s response to accusations made against him by the Corinthians. They couldn’t be entirely wrong, could they? “One mind, Paul?”

These three examples could at least have flashed through the mental screens of Euodia and Syntyche when they, sitting in the house church – one of theirs? – heard their names and heard as well Paul’s urging of them to be of “the same mind.” Did they even hear Paul continue with “help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life” (4:3)? And who is this “companion”? Perhaps Epaphroditus, perhaps Luke, perhaps Timothy. Whoever it is, he is being urged to work with Euodia and Syntyche to come to agreement. There are many things we don’t know – including what the point of their dispute was. What we do know is that they were fractured and they were contributing to fracturing in the Philippian house churches.

If they continued to listen, however, they heard Paul affirm them publicly, and that was noteworthy and valuable in a world driven by status and public honor. If they listened they heard him tell the whole church that they have been companions with Paul in gospel work – which means evangelism and teaching and discipling and suffering. If they listened they heard him label them with his most noble term: “co-workers.” If they listened they heard they were to be classed with the leader Clement. Most noticeable, they heard him say they – in spite of their tension – were names listed in the “book of life.” This is Paul’s way of saying they are on God’s side all the way.

Whatever they heard they knew that the tension at work between them, however, was at work in Paul’s own life and mission. Paul could surely point to fractured relationships now healed – which is the case with Barnabas (1 Cor. 9:6), Peter (9:5; 15:5) and John Mark (Col. 4:10; Philemon 24; 2 Tim. 4:9, 11), and it is noticeable that Peter is now getting along with John Mark too (1 Pet. 5:13). I am not suggesting directly that Paul could respond to their flashing mental screens with his stories of fractured relationships now made healthy again, but we could.

What I am saying is that Paul is not perfect; only Jesus gets that place in our minds and hearts. What I am saying is that Paul is not a perfect pastor and his approach to conflict is not always consistent with Jesus’ or even with his own gospel of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:16-21). What I am saying is that in the book that follows we will take conflict management theory at its best, which for pastors at least is Christian principles put to use in management theories, and examine the apostle Paul. He comes out pretty well, but not unscathed.

What I am saying is that Paul is like us and he needs to grow just as we do.

[1] Lynn H. Cohick, Philippians, Story of God Bible Commentary 11 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 208.

Did Paul Liberate Slaves? No. Why Not?

April 10, 2017 By Scot McKnight

The answer to the first question is a firm No. Paul not only embraced “slavery/servant” language as a metaphor for the Christian’s relationship to God — who today would say you are “slave” to God to someone released from trafficking? — but Paul simply told slaves to obey their masters and masters to treat their slaves fairly. Anyone who deeply believed in emancipation or who thought slavery was immoral would not say those things and would become sensitive to slavery as a a metaphor. The answer is no.

The second question is also deserving of consideration. In Paul Behaving Badly, Randy Richards and Brandon O’Brien examine this question too. A few observations, beginning with this: Paul is often accused of not getting this one right and that history has shown him wrong.

In modern times, nearly the worst indictment critics can level at a position or movement is to say that it is on “the wrong side of history.” Critics of Paul argue that because he never advocated for abolition or the civil rights of slaves, Paul and the Christian church he founded are on the wrong side of history. 93

Far too often we appeal to pragmatics and Paul’s limitations, but we sometimes do so with the notion that Paul actually penetrated deeper than the did on this question:

To begin with, in Pauls generation the Christian church didn’t have the social clout to end Roman slavery. … What was within their power was to love one another within those social systems with such pure and godly love that it gutted those systems of their power to oppress. … but it amounts to asking why Paul didn’t invent an entirely new economic system for the Roman Empire.

This lets Paul off the hook a little too easily, and this one can at times let us off the hook a little easily:

We have more options available to us today. While we tsk, tsk at Paul for not doing more to improve the plight of slaves with his limited options, we might ask if we ourselves have leveraged the greater resources at our disposal to advocate for the migrant worker, house the refugee or rescue the victims of human trafficking. 94

This is where I would begin on this discussion and in my Philemon commentary coming out this Fall I will do so.

Additionally, this critique ignores the radical new relationships Paul called believers to forge within existing systems.

Paul, they are right, did not begin with a vision for the Roman Empire but with a vision for the church and its fellowship. He called then for a church of siblings — brothers and sisters — that in that context relativized status.

But, I ask you, did he do the following?

Paul clearly planted seeds that flourished into abolition centuries after his death. If the church failed to water and cultivate these seeds, and it did, Paul is not to blame. Paul’s language about slaves seems woefully behind the times. But that’s easy for us to say on this side of history. To those of us who are further along in history, the people behind us will always appear “behind the times.” … When you get to Z, it’s easy to look back at Y and think that Y looks restrictive. But we have to look back historically and remember that Y is what got us from X to Z in the first place. We feel like Paul was behind the times because we have closed the discussion on slavery. That issue is an issue of the past, and Paul’s arguments are a relic of the past.

They return to the metaphor of slavery for us today:

While the world advocates for social ascension, the gospel calls us to follow Christ in downward mobility.

Paul and Racist Language

April 6, 2017 By Scot McKnight

Behind the Lutheran Church is a man named Martin Luther who said, “”First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn.” I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.” These are from Luther’s disgusting On the Jews and Their Lies.

In Paul Behaving Badly, Randy Richards and Brandon O’Brien, after quoting the above and more from Luther, said, “After the horrors of the Holocaust and in light of ongoing racial tensions in the United States, we cannot consign racism in general or anti-Semitism specifically to the status of a personality quirk. If Paul was an anti-Semite, that creates a serious problem for Christianity.” What is racism? “For the sake of the present conversation, when we say “racism” we mean the belief that some races or ethnicities are superior to others.” Was Paul a racist according to this definition?

In a letter to Titus, a young pastor in Crete, Paul urges Titus to “rebuke” his congregation “sharply” (Tit 1:13). They are intractable people, Paul claims. “One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: ‘Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons'” (Tit 1:12). … ‘This saying is true” (1:13).

In his letter to the Christians in Galatia, Paul refers to them Wl th what feels like another slur: “foolish Galatians” (Gal 3:1). The Romans named thai entire region of central Turkey by the generic title Galatia, a Roman mispronunciation of the word Celtic. … When Paul calls the church a bunch of “foolish Galatians, it would be a lot like calling people from the South (our home region) “rednecks,” “hillbillies” or “white trash.” Paul does this on purpose.

Colorful as Paul could be in his interactions with Gentiles, Paul reserves his harshest language for his fellow countrymen, the Jews. He calls them Christ-killers who have their hearts set against the things of God. Not only have they “killed the Lord Jesus” but also “the prophets” who were proclaiming God’s word, and most recently they “also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone” (1 Thess 2:15). … At his most virulent he even calls some Jews “dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh” and “enemies of the cross of Christ” whose “destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame” because their “mind is set on earthly things” (Phil 3:2,18,19).

Yes, these are his own words. But there’s another side to Paul that baffles anyone who wants to dismiss him with racist language.

[Yet] He poses an important rhetorical question to the Romans: “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?” (Rom 3:1). … “Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God” (Rom 3:2).

[In using the terms two paragraphs back…] Paul is not calling all Jews these things. Rather, he is referring to a small group of ethnic Israelites — those living in Judea — who are followers of Jesus but are distorting the gospel by teaching that Gentile converts must behave like ethnic Israelites if they want to be saved.

Most often Paul is referring to Judeans rather than to ethnic Israelites; to translate “Judean” as “Jew” courts misunderstanding. Jesus was not a Judean; he was a Galilean Jew. This can be nuanced but it is a fair point from the authors. It doesn’t let Paul off the hook completely but we gain a more precise understanding.

There was plenty of racism in the 1st Century, not least Jewish racism:

The Greek poet Petronius ridiculed the Jews and their religious convictions by pointing out what he considered the nitpicking nature of their piety: The Jew may worship his pig-god and clamour in the ears of high heaven, but unless he also cuts back with the knife the region of his groin, and unless he unlooses by art the knotted head, he shall go forth from the holy city cast forth from the people, and transgress the sabbath by breaking the law of fasting.

There’s no denying Paul employed slurs and dealt in stereotypes that most Americans today, Christian or otherwise, would consider racist.

The authors think Paul’s language about the Galatians and Cretans deserves more careful reading and that his words are not as strong or racist as they might appear. Even calling them Judean dogs can be read as (“friendly”?) fire from Paul for his own heritage included being educated in Judea. That is, this is how ancients spoke about and with those they disagreed. Yes, that’s right. But…

Let us be very clear about one thing: this may be one of those times it is best not to imitate Paul. We would not suggest that anyone incorporate racially insensitive language into personal or public discourse in an effort to enhance discipleship. If Paul were in ministry in the United States in the twenty-first century, we believe he’d avoid hurtful racial stereotypes and opt instead for rhetorical strategies more suited to his audience.

The irony of this about Paul and his rhetoric is that Paul is being used for the very opposite point of view:

However, in recent years the racist charge against Paul has largely vanished and his writings have been used to show that Christians should be leading the charge against racism because of the gospel. Just look at Paul’s cross-cultural ministry and you see at once the power of Christ to transcend the cultural boundaries of race and ethnicity.

As far as Paul was concerned, the gospel of Christ made Jews and Gentiles equal—not the same—and brothers and sisters in Christ, children of God, heirs of the promise. And sometimes it’s brothers and sisters, the ones who love you the most, who use the strongest language for your good.

Annoying Apostle Paul

March 28, 2017 By Scot McKnight

When our children were teenagers they would sometimes say someone was “annoying.” When we probed for a little details it was often not forthcoming. It was an existentialist response one person to another, a response in which one person and the other person were unable to dwell in peace. Many respond to the apostle Paul the same way. In fact, in Randy Richards and Brandon O’Brien’s book, Paul Behaving Badly, they ask if Paul was not in fact a jerk.

But some get nervous here because they fear that one is getting near irreverence toward Scripture. Again we must say, to affirm Scripture is not to affirm everything said or done by the people in Scripture. To affirm the inspiration of Paul’s letters is not to affirm the example of Paul in every instance.

Consider, for example, the following verses, and I offer — following their lead — a brief word of jerkiness-interpretation.

First, who do you know — other than some fairly arrogant megachurch pastors and small church control-freak pastors, small group leaders who think they’ve now got a group in need of some submission, and cult-like teachers — who go around urging you to follow them?

Phil. 3:17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.

To make the following claim is to contend you have a special place in history:

Gal. 1:15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased

I don’t care for those who curse others.

Gal. 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!

And we all get annoyed when someone brags about how profoundly spiritual and competitively moral they are.

Gal. 1:14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

1Cor. 14:18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.

1Cor. 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Who, seriously, thinks they have a one-and-only revelation from God and that no matter how important the apostles were this man believes he got his message straight from God — and the apostles can confirm it or not, he’s still independent of them?

Gal. 1:12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Gal. 1:16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

Gal. 2:6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message.

Peter was there from the beginning with Jesus himself: he was called by Jesus, ate with Jesus, walked on the water a bit with Jesus, suffered for Jesus, heard Jesus, watched Jesus, preached Jesus, preached the Day of Pentecost into a few thousand converts… over and over and this Johnny-come-lately called Paul turns against him in public!

Gal. 2:11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

Gal. 2:14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

Paul thinks we are not to grieve or quench the Spirit; we are to listen to the Spirit; when the Spirit speaks Paul presses on with his plan anyway.

Acts 21:4 We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.

Acts 21:14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”

How does all this fit with this?

Eph. 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Whew. A complex figure that Paul is. The authors put it this way on the The Spirit: To Listen or Not to Listen?

The moral of the story is if you think the Holy Spirit is saying one thing and everyone else disagrees—particularly if everyone else includes famous prophets, the Twelve, and all the Christians along the Mediterranean coast—you should at least consider the possibility that you might have misunderstood the Spirit. But Paul, it seems, sometimes trusted his own instincts and interpretations more than those of others. Luke had no problem pointing out Paul’s stubbornness and misdirected certainty. We shouldn’t gloss over it either (31).

Complex is the word. This is the same man who submitted to the wisdom of James in Jerusalem to pay for and take a vow in the temple in order to conform to Jewish expectations. Perhaps most significantly, this is the same man who in a culture that encouraged folks to boast about their accomplishments, which Paul did a bit of in madness, turned it all around and boasted in his sufferings!

2 Cor 12:7 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

All those revelations and he speaks of himself in Third Person. Many — still today — are not convinced this is Paul himself. (It is.) He’d rather brag about his sufferings, so he does:

12:21 Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about.

22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

Jerk? No. Complex? Yes. Human? For sure. Inconsistent? Yes.

A Theology of Suffering (RJS)

December 13, 2016 By RJS

What does the book of Job teach us about suffering?

In the face of suffering many Christians turn, almost instinctively, to the book of Job. Surely there must be an answer here! The book explains suffering. But this isn’t exactly true. First, Job is not a book to give anyone in the midst of personal suffering. It is a book we should study as a church and as Christians to be prepared for suffering when it comes, and it surely will in one form or another. In the final chapters of How to Read Job, Part Three: The Theological Message of Job, John Walton and Tremper Longman III dig into the question of suffering and the nature of God.

Suffering covers a broad range of experience from injuries and chronic pain to illness, birth defects, and natural disasters. It also includes the emotional pain of broken relationships, death and distance. We, along with many of our friends, are at a stage of life where care for aging parents is a concern. Systemic suffering from poverty to human trafficking and miscarriages of justice contribute to the problem. According to Walton and Longman “a theology of suffering explores how we think about God in connection to suffering. Such a theology would include the larger questions: Why has God created a world in which suffering can exist, and why does he allow it to continue? But it can also include the deeply personal questions: Why is this happening to me? Is God trying to teach me something? What did I do wrong?” (p. 132-133) What does the book of Job have to say about these questions?

507px-Job_Confessing_His_Presumption_to_God_Who_Answers_from_the_Whirlwind,_object_1_(Butlin_461) Job has no direct answers to these questions, but it does help us learn to think about God in a world where suffering is a reality. Walton and Longman highlight several points.

Suffering is the lot of all humanity. No one escapes – except perhaps by stillbirth (one of Job’s wishes in the book).
Suffering is a contingency of the creation in process.

While we cannot imagine what a fully ordered world will be like, we can recognize that both non-order and disorder are responsible for suffering at one level or another. God’s design was to create us with nervous systems that warn us of potential harm through what we perceive as pain. Furthermore, God created us with emotions through which we can experience hurt feelings. If we are capable of love, we are vulnerable to pain.(p. 134)

As Christians we believe in the resurrection – but it will be unlike the reality we experience today. It will be fully ordered with no disorder or non-order.

Suffering is not intrinsically connected to sin. Suffering can be the result of sin – and personal suffering the result of personal sin, but often there is no direct connection. God can use suffering as a punishment, or permit suffering as a context for growth, but all suffering, perhaps most suffering, doesn’t fit into this category. The retribution principle doesn’t hold up.
Suffering should drive us into arms of God’s love. “Trusting in God’s wisdom is the strongest counsel the Bible has to offer; it must suffice.” (p. 136) The presence of suffering is not a reason to blame God for creating the world he did. Walton and Longman quote John Polkinghorne: “”The suffering and evil of the world are not due to weakness, oversight, or callousness on God’s part, but, rather, they are the inescapable cost of a creation allowed to be other than God.” Our overly simplistic reactions need to be replaced with an impulse to trust our Creator.” (p. 137)
Suffering provides an opportunity to deepen our faith. This isn’t because there is some silver lining if only we knew where to look. Often there is no silver lining, only pain and even death. But in the darkest depths we can still learn to trust.
Suffering sometimes involves participating in Christ’s suffering. Persecution for the faith falls into this class. Even in other suffering we can find connection. We don’t worship a distant uncaring God. In Christ God took on himself physical pain, the anguish of betrayal, and the pain of rejection.

The book of Job is not a theodicy – it does not attempt “to provide a holistic explanation of why the world works the way it does and, in the process, vindicate God with regard to his role in it.” It does offer a number of voices that explore the nature of God and his relationship to the world. Throughout the dialogues and discourses that comprise the majority of the book of Job none of the characters convey an accurate picture of God. All of them, Job, Bildad, Eliphaz, Zophar, and Elihu view the retribution principle as the driving force of God’s policies in the world. Because of this Job’s friends feel that he must have sinned to deserve the massive downturn in fortunes. Job’s view of God is little better. He knows that he hasn’t done anything to deserve the suffering he experiences. He doesn’t curse God and die, but, because he too believes that the retribution principle governs the world, he does accuse God of behaving badly. There is the suggestion that God is petty, that minor unknown offenses can have major consequences. He accuses God of behaving unjustly. He wants to hold God to account, to mount a defense before him. Job admits his ignorance after God’s speeches:

I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer— twice, but I will say no more. (40:4-5)

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. … My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. (42:3, 5-6)

Job repents, John Walton suggests (e.g. here start at 26 minutes), not of any wrong doing to deserve the misfortune he has suffered, but of thinking and speaking wrongly of God. He repents (changes his mind) and puts aside the dust and ashes of mourning. He now trusts in God’s wisdom rather than in the retribution principle.

In the next post on this book we will turn to Part Four: Reading Job as a Christian.

How does the book of Job help us when we suffer.

How should we think about God in the midst of suffering?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Is Grace Vanishing? (RJS)

October 9, 2014 By RJS

Philip Yancey has a new book coming out Vanishing Grace: What Ever Happened to the Good News?. This book tackles a topic that is down to earth real in my world and makes an interesting complement to Tuesday’s post Coming Soon … “The Talk”?. In his NY Times opinion piece David Barash argues that science has undermined any rational basis for faith in God and describes a no nonsense approach that makes this clear to his students. He can get away with this because his view is no longer an uncommon sentiment in our western world. Many (most?) of his peers, while not so abrupt, will agree with his conclusion. In Western societies many go a step further and see Christian faith as a net negative in society. Frankly, Christian faith is losing traction in society. It has lost traction in Europe and Canada where far fewer than half find religion a positive influence. And it will likely continue to lose traction in the US.

This is a situation we should worry about. We don’t need hand-wringing and a persecution complex. We do need to explore the reasons for the current state of affairs and then appropriate responses. This is where Yancey’s book digs in. From the Amazon synopsis:

Yancey explores what may have contributed to hostility toward Evangelicals, especially in their mixing of faith and politics instead of embracing more grace-filled ways of presenting the gospel. He offers illuminating stories of how faith can be expressed in ways that disarm even the most cynical critics. Then he explores what is Good News and what is worth preserving in a culture that thinks it has rejected Christian faith.

The approach non-Christians take to Christian faith comes in a number of different flavors – two of the more common can be referred to a pre-Christian or post-Christian, an insight Yancey picked up from Daniel Hill:

“Pre-Christians” seemed open and receptive when the topic of religion came up. They had no real hostility and could imagine themselves connected with a church some day. In contrast, “post-Christians” harbored bad feelings. Some carried memories of past wounds … Others had simply absorbed the media’s negative stereotype of rabid fundamentalists and scandal-prone television evangelists. (p. 18)

Most of the people I interact with on a day-to-day basis are post Christian. Some grew up in the church and had bad experiences, some just drifted away, but many have simply absorbed the messages floating around them. A not insignificant number have had bad interactions with Christians unrelated to the church directly, or to their upbringing. Here is the real issue, and the one we must wrestle with. The negative stereotype portrayed by the media doesn’t tell the whole story, but it contains enough truth to be credible. Should we fault people for believing it?

To take one example, read the comments on a controversial topic at your favorite Christian site … well perhaps not your favorite site, but at many Christian sites. At times Christians behaving badly seems the rule of the day. We moderate comments carefully for just this reason. Yancey reflects on an experience following a post on his Facebook page of quote from the late Andy Rooney … the quote raised the ire of many and a firestorm of comments ensued, complete with flame-throwers. Some found it necessary to attack Rooney, dismissing him as a lightweight thinker, others attacked Yancey himself for posting the quote. Yancey writes:

Would I want to eat dinner with the flame-throwers who posted comments on my site? I replied – and here is a recurring theme of this book – that the issue is not whether I agree with someone but rather how I treat someone with whom I profoundly disagree. We Christians are called to use the “weapons of grace,” which means treating even our opponents with love and respect. (p. 26)

Even when commenting on blogs.

Everyone is human, and everyone has a story. We would be far better off listening to their stories and treating them with respect. This can include vigorous debate and disagreement – but should never lose sight of the fact that the other is human as well. Yancey suggests a prayer, derived from Henri Nouwen, “Let me see them as thirsty people, and teach me how best to present the Living Water.“

I will dig into more of Yancey’s book over the next month or so mixed in with other topics.

Do you think America is becoming increasingly post-Christian?

What responses do you get from non-Christians in your situation?

If you would like to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net

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Uncomfortable Bible Passages

September 27, 2007 By Scot McKnight

Most of us have read enough Bible to know texts that make us uncomfortable, texts like ignoring Hagar or sacrificing Jephthah’s daughter or patriarchs behaving badly. But most of us do the same thing: ignore them and hope no one asks us about them. John Thompson, though, doesn’t ignore them: he looks them square in the eye in his new book Reading the Bible with the Dead. And he does so by introducing us to how Christians-now-dead read those difficult texts. |inline