Romans 8:18-22 (NIV)

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

The next chapter in Let Creation Rejoice: Biblical Hope and Ecological Crisis by Jonathan Moo and Robert White turns to Paul’s description of creation and especially to Romans 8 – creation groans as in the pains of childbirth. They connect this passage to Genesis 3, but even more significantly to the prophets, especially Isaiah 24-27. Moo has an article in New Testament Studies on this connection, Romans 8.19–22 and Isaiah’s Cosmic Covenant. There are also echoes of connection to Hosea, and to Jeremiah in Romans 8 although Moo and White don’t connect the passage to Jeremiah in this chapter of their book.

In Romans 8 Paul assumes that his audience is aware of the broader biblical story including the first chapters of Genesis. He refers to Adam in Romans 5 and in a number of other letters, so it isn’t unreasonable to assume that Paul is alluding to the curse of Genesis 3 in Romans 8, at least in part. Most commentators on the passage seem to stop here and ignore the other biblical contexts for Paul’s statements leaving us with a rather flat (and I think largely wrong) interpretation. Moo and White move beyond this to the far richer description of an ongoing curse depicted by the Prophets. These passages were also part of the broader biblical story Paul assumed as he wrote the letter to the Romans.

Paul, however, like the Old Testament prophets before him, goes further in describing how creation’s subjection to now-fallen humanity means that the entire creation is subjected to ongoing frustration, finding itself in “bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21), enslaved to ruin. (p. 105)

We tend to worry about using anthropomorphic language to refer to creation – for theological and/or scientific reasons.

Paul has no such qualms. He is able to draw on a rich biblical tradition of letting nonhuman creation have its own voice, a voice that is heard praising God throughout the Psalms, bearing witness to the covenant between God and his people in the Prophets and, as here in Romans 8, crying out – groaning even – when creation suffers the results of humankind’s corruption.

Paul is in fact echoing the language of Isaiah 24-27, a passage that he uses in his extended defense of the hope of resurrection in an earlier letter, in 1 Corinthians 15. He alludes to the same passage again in his description of life after death in 2 Corinthians 5:4. Just as Paul does in Romans 8, Isaiah 24-27 emphasizes both the present devastating effects of human sinfulness for a mourning earth and also the cosmic extent of the judgment and new creation to come. (p. 105)

Isaiah 24 connects the curse of the earth to ongoing human rebellion – the curse was not a one-off event at the origin of the human race. The earth continues to groan as a consequence of human activity and human failures.

The earth dries up and withers,
the world languishes and withers,
the heavens languish with the earth.
The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
and broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse consumes the earth;
its people must bear their guilt.

The curse continues, but creation will be redeemed. Moo and White point out that the curse continues today and at least part of this is because we continue to fail. There is a hope for the future, but it is an already/not yet kind of hope. The Old Testament speaks extensively about the problems of idolatry. The New Testament extends idolatry by connecting it to greed and covetousness (Eph 5:5 and Col 3:5). Because of these passages and others many Christians view idolatry as including the worship of material possessions. This connects to the curse on the earth arising from human activity. Ecological devastation when it happens and the potential for ecological crisis is part of this curse because it puts something other than God and the great commandments (love God and love each other) at the focus of human purpose.

In the light of what Paul says in Romans, our consumer societies actually hinder the material creation itself from fully glorifying God because we have hijacked it for selfish (and therefore sinful, hence empty) ends. (p. 108)

And a little later Moo and White are explicit in their view:

When we read Romans 8 today, we cannot help but see – and indeed ought to see – creation’s groaning reflected in our current ecological crises …, especially now that the truly global consequences of our actions for the rest of creation have become so evident.

If the biblical picture of humankind’s role within creation once appeared naive to some for the way in which it assigns such profound responsibility for the earth to one species, it no longer appears so – not in an age when human beings are having such widespread effects on the earth that scientists have begun to call it the “Anthropocene,” or “Age of Man.” The need for us to take seriously our responsibility for the creation has never been greater, and the potential consequences of the failure to exercise our responsibility well have never been so cataclysmic. (p. 109-110)

It isn’t that we should leave the earth in a pristine form untouched by human hands or unused. Rather we need to realize that creation has a purpose and a future and that our actions can and do make a difference. Paul tells us that it matters what we do with our bodies because they were bought with a price You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Cor 6:20) This despite that fact that Paul can later write that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God, that we hope in resurrection. Likewise Romans 8 puts to rest the idea that creation is disposable, consumable, and without a future. According to Moo and White:

What Paul tells the Corinthians about treating their physical bodies as valuable to God therefore can also be seen to apply to the entire creation. The way we treat creation matters. (p. 112)

This affirmation of the continuing value and future of creation should provide the foundation for a radical Christian environmental ethos.

Of course Romans 8 isn’t the only New Testament passage that refers to the future of creation. 2 Peter 3 has also had significant influence on the way (some) Christians view the future of creation. In next chapter Moo and White will look at cosmic catastrophe in 2 Peter. Today, however, we will stay with Romans 8.

Is creation subject to futility because of a one-off human sin (Genesis 3) or through continuing human sin and idolatry?

Does Romans 8 tell us that this creation will be redeemed and restored?

Should Romans 8 lead us to a Christian environmental ethos?

If you would like 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.

When the Book of Hebrews calls someone “God” to whom is the author referring? Is “God” always the “Father” so that one can equate God with Father in Hebrews? Or, do we need to query the text and its context to know Who is Who and to Whom the author is referring? (Yes.)

In her sparkling essay, Amy Peeler (“What does ‘Father’ Mean? Trinity without Tiers in the Epistle to the Hebrews”) explains Hebrews’ theo-logy and contends the positions of Bruce Ware, Wayne Grudem and Owen Strachan are lacking. There is clearly some shifting and some side-stepping and some back-tracking and some re-expressing going on this circle of former eternal subordinationists, but their changes are not as clear as they ought to be — nor do their audiences realize just how far off at times they got. The issue often has been their lack of attention to inseparable operations.

In their new book, Michael Bird and Scott Harrower (Trinity without Hierarchy: Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology) collect essays, one of which is by Peeler. Here are some highlights:

Father and Son are each Theos (4:14; 1:8, 9). [She does not discuss Spirit in this essay since space prohibits.]

Hence, when one is analyzing Hebrews and comes to the term theos or kyrios, it is exegetically responsible, even necessary, to inquire which referent—God the Father, God the Son, or the triune God—the author might be invoking.

A solid section follows that has this conclusion: The Father and the Son share (or have) the same glory, power, and will in Hebrews.

The shared power and glory between the Father and the Son in the opening sentences also point toward the will they both share. Participation of both the Father and the Son in the actions described above suggest that they both willed to create, to sustain the creation, to cleanse sin, and to reign over all things. There is one will of God which both Father and Son enact, although they enact this one will in different ways.

Thus far, in an attempt to read Hebrews faithfully, I believe I have articulated theological positions with which few would disagree. God the Father and God the Son share glory and power and will because both are God, yet the author also can describe them as distinct persons who perform distinct actions in the economy of salvation.

Her large claim then is that the Father’s initiation and the Son’s obedience do not indicate tiers or the dynamic of authority and submission.

Hebrews discloses that God the Father and God the Son, distinct persons, are both gloriously sovereign and in their sovereignty have acted out their one will to redeem humanity. The author uses pater/huios language to convey the uniquely intimate relation between distinct persons of God.

The word “Father” as father as well as some interpretations lead some to think the Father has an eternal authority and the Son an eternal subordination. Peeler disagrees:

ERAS supporters [Ware, Grudem, Strachan] seem to equate the Father’s initiation with the Father’s authority. I have endeavored to show that there was never a time when the Father’s authority was distinct from and supreme to the Son’s since Father and Son are mutually dependent upon the other, and upon the Spirit, for the distinction of relationship. In addition, since the Son as God was appointed heir of all things before creation and remains sovereign at God’s right hand forever, they share in equal authority. One must also assume that sending and being sent imply the distinction of authority and submission but the Father sending the Son indicates not submission to the will of the Father, but enactment of the will of God. There was and is authority but no submission, for the authority was given by the Father to the Incarnate Son as a reiteration of the equal glory, will, and power of the eternal Son.

In close, why does it matter to assert equal authority but no eternal submission? Eternal submission is to misunderstand the Son, and therefore diminish his glory, power, and will. I see no way that a decrease of the divinity of the Son can be avoided when he is portrayed as not just eternally responsive, but eternally submissive. Eternal submission of the Son also misapprehends the Father as a God who retains power rather than shares it, and if there were ever a day when the evangelical church needed a correction on its understanding of power, that day is now. [my italics in this paragraph]

[She has a summary of conclusions in footnote 5: “In my own analysis, I see likely reference to God the Father in 1:1; 2:4*, 9*, 13*, 17; 4:14; 5:4,10; 6:6; 7:3, 25*; 9:14, 24; 10:29; 12:2; 13:15,* 20* (the asterisk indicates passages that might be God as triune). I see 10:7,12,21, 31; 11:4, 5, 6,10,16,19, 25,40; 12:7, 22, 23, 28, 29; 13:4, 7,16.]

When theology is reframed for a flourishing, a kingdom life what does it look like?

Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun, in For the Life of the World, present a sketch of an answer in their last chp under two major categories: form and content. We look at content but here’s a summary statement:

… the Christian faith offers a specific account of the character of the transcendent realm and how it relates to the mundane, a particular vision of God and the relation between God and the world: (1) the mundane realm has its origin in the God of love (creation); (2) having become captive to Sin. human beings live as if they and the world they inhabit were other than they truly are (sin); (3) nevertheless, the God of love has come to inhabit the mundane realm (incarnation and salvation) and (4) the mundane realm has its telos in the “new Jerusalem, the city of the one true God, the full realization of which lies in the eschatological future (consummation).

They find a thematic vision of the Christian life in Romans 14:17: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Thus, it’s about a life led well, going well, and feeling as it should.

Led well: “righteousness” or “justice.” “That is, when Paul talks about dikaiosyne with respect to us, he refers, of course, not only to our lack of righteousness, but also to the ideal of a righteous or just way of life.” Thus, “righteousness is fidelity to the covenant.” That covenant is the law of love. This is something that can be done/acted upon always. They factor in inaugurated eschatology:

As a life coming to be in the midst of a world that is, in part, unfitting to it, the proleptic flourishing life is often marked by a love that suffers. If consummated flourishing agency is marked by perfect reciprocity, cooperation, and unity of purpose, penultimate flourishing agency aims at this cooperation and unity in service of love, and yet lives aware that love will elicit opposition under the unfitting conditions of this life.

Love resists injustice and is suspicious of power.

Life going well: “peace.” A big term in the Bible and transcends inner, personal peace.  It is the “world set right.” The whole world right with God, then, is the big picture and that kind of peace generates personal and interpersonal and creational peace — with God and others.

Life feeling as it should: “joy.” A theme often ignored in NT theologies, but one that plays a big role in the theology of Paul. (Over all this book could do more with the teachings and life of Jesus.) The major object of joy is God and God’s presence as well as others.

All of this is fleshed out through inaugurated eschatology: so love, peace and joy are partially realized and thus there is suffering and lament and resistance in the meantime.

The flourishing life is Gift: “in the Holy Spirit.” So crucial here. I’ve heard many stop before they got to this and turned this verse into nothing but modern social ethics. This turns the whole into redemption.

These three are interdependent.

Exceptional book. A precis of what is to come!

I wasn’t aware of the gift of Carolyn Custis James to the church until I heard her speak at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, April 16, 2019, at the Talking Points seminar “Women in the Kingdom.” The session that riveted my attention and set my heart ablaze was Carolyn’s flyover of the Book of Ruth; a talk titled “The Gospel of Ruth.” I learned she had a book with the same title as her talk. Determined, I thought, “I’ve got to get that book!” After the talk a Zondervan representative was at the resources table. Seeing one copy of The Gospel of Ruth, I said, “I want to buy that book.” I was told it was not for sale because it was a display copy. I whined, “But the seminar is over. What are you going to do with it?” To my happy surprise the kind Zondervan rep gave it to me. Book lovers know the power of whining.

That day at GRTS caused me to remember my Doctor of Ministry work at Fuller Theological Seminary in the late 1990s. For three years I took classes with gifted sisters and brothers of varying denominations and distinct theological streams. While I was studying the history and practice of Christian Formation at Fuller, the topic of “the role of women in the church” was hot and high on the evangelical agenda. Most of my theological training was in the patriarchal, hierarchical, complementarian view. By reading a boatload of books, I was heavy into the contentious debate, with hairsplitting, nail-biting, very biased-exegeting views about women’s “roles.” I was near the bottom of the funnel, realizing that in all the dust and fury of the debate, only one text was crux interpretum. To put a fine point on it, the blow torch text was 1 Timothy 2:11-12.

Thank God for my Christian sisters in the Fuller cohort who were ordained Lutheran and Presbyterian pastors. We often shared giving devotional talks before class. On one occasion, the Lutheran pastor spoke about the Eucharist and led us to the Table of the Lord. As she spoke, my heart was deeply stirred. She helped me meet God in a fresh, compelling way at the Table. This changed the game for me. I was face to face with living persons who were not verbs to parse, or culture to figure out, or pronouns to pontificate about. I slammed into this reality: was I going to continue to believe, based on some exegetical gymnastics, that these gifted sisters whom God used to enrich my life should renounce their calling, their education, and their undeniable giftedness as pastor-leaders? Was I willing to stand before Jesus Christ in the Final Assize and tell him that these sisters disobeyed the Word of God by becoming leaders in ministry? By no means!

Now 20 years later, I sit under the biblical teaching and theological leadership of Carolyn Custis James as she presents two new widows, Naomi and Ruth, and a farmer, Boaz, to me in a way I have never heard. Come on, how does that happen? Carolyn James is a scholar, a gifted and engaging communicator (and writer), and a woman whose voice was the exact voice from which I needed to hear the story of Ruth.

Scot McKnight has given me the opportunity to review Carolyn’s book, The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules. I wanted to first give you the back story about why I count it a genuine privilege to review Carolyn’s fascinating contribution to the church.

When theology is reframed for a flourishing life what does it look like?

Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun, in For the Life of the World, present a sketch of an answer in their last chp under two major categories: form and content. We look at form today.

… the Christian faith offers a specific account of the character of the transcendent realm and how it relates to the mundane, a particular vision of God and the relation between God and the world: (1) the mundane realm has its origin in the God of love (creation); (2) having become captive to Sin. human beings live as if they and the world they inhabit were other than they truly are (sin); (3) nevertheless, the God of love has come to inhabit the mundane realm (incarnation and salvation) and (4) the mundane realm has its telos in the “new Jerusalem, the city of the one true God, the full realization of which lies in the eschatological future (consummation).

They know that Paul is not as keen on kingdom as Jesus. Kingdom eschatology, however, is, and they find a perfect term in the term perfect.

Teleios, meaning “perfect” or “mature.” It is the single term that describes both the consummated reality (the “perfect’ or “complete”)[the future] and lives lived into that eschatological hope and energized by its partial realization (the “mature”)[the present].

They call this inaugurated eschatology “advent.”

Taken together, these two interlocking senses of the teleios give Paul’s vision of the good life what we might call an “advent structure”; fully consummated life is entering into this world, norming this life and partly realizing itself proleptically in this life even as its full realization remains impossible under present conditions.

The church is marked as that community able to discern the teleios that is, able to discern the vision of fully flourishing life toward which, in the power and under the guidance of the Spirit, its members improvise life under conditions partially unfitting to it.

Recognizing the distinction between creation and the consummation as well as between fallen creation and consummation. Thus, at the heart of their project is inaugurated eschatology, the now and the not yet, as the tension of life now.

We are to live now — imaginatively — into the not yet.

In light of the soon-no-longer-but-nevertheless-still presence of these unfitting conditions (“the form of this world”) and the opposition they present, the Corinthians have to improvise lives in the context of considerable tension.

How do we live this out?

Fi
rst, we must construe the world as created good by God, meaning that material goods are not merely things but relations, gifts from the God of love, given equally to all.

Second, we ought to see the world as malformed by sin, recognizing how the world is broken, especially how ungodly power has distorted the world and enthroned its distortions as “natural,” apparently usurping the rightful priority of creation.

Third, we ought to construe the world as the site of God’s indwelling in the person of Jesus Christ, seeing the redemption of all things currently and incompletely underway.

Finally, we must construe the world as destined for eschatological consummation, seeing the world both in hope and with sober awareness that the world is not yet what it will one day be.

Long ago I read a portion from a well-known theological textbook to a classical theologian who knows the Creedal tradition with expertise, and his response was “That sounds Arian, or at least very close to Arian.”

Michael Bird and Scott Harrower, in their new book Trinity without Hierarchy: Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology, now have provided a collection of essays that both criticize what must be called a Complementarian sub-Trinitarianism (Bird picks a fight by calling them “theologians of a lesser Son”) and offer an alternative in the classical Trinitarian orthodoxy of the church.

Not that all complementarians adhere to this for they don’t — those blog posts by those surrounding Westminster Theological Seminary some time back made that very clear. But far more do than are known, some won’t even admit it publicly, while others are gathering over beers and brats to tell one another that they still adhere to what Bird will expose in this volume. Evangelicals are not as good at Trinitarian theology because too many and for too long they have ignored the great church tradition.

What is also clear is that the Grudem-Ware-Burk-Strachan line is now under very serious investigation, and it is a pity that their tribe is so tight that their theology remains under-investigated.

Bird and Harrower are ending the silence and are challenging the tribe. From Bird’s “Theologians of a Lesser Son” preface:

As far as I could tell [from his earlier forays into this subject in writing], Ware and Grudem were clearly not Arians;  they did not deny the eternality of the Son, they affirmed that the Son was of the same substance as the Father, and they believed in their own minds that they were orthodox Trinitarians. That said, their language of “subordination” certainly bothered me, but I erstwhile assumed that such scholars were using the term not in its actual sense, but as more of a clunky yet effective way of correlating the economic Trinity with the immanent Trinity and safeguarding the personal distinctions within the Godhead.

However, after reading and rereading several volumes by complementarians, where the language of subordination and hierarchy are championed, I am now convinced that Grudem, Ware, and others were arguing for something analogical to a semi-Arian subordinationism. The Trinitarian relations being advocated by such scholars are not identical to Arius, since proponents identify the Son as coeternal with the Father and sharing the same substance as the Father. In addition, I think it is fair to say neither are Eternal Functional Subordination (EFS) advocates pure semi-Arians, because they do not think Jesus is merely like the Father nor do they consider the Son to be the Father’s creature. Those caveats aside, they resemble a species of semi-Arianism, called “homoianism,” by virtue of three things:

(1) an overreliance on the economic Trinity in Scripture for formulating immanent Trinitarian relationships,
(2) leading to a robust subordinationism characterized by a hierarchy within the Godhead,
(3) consequently identifying the Son as possessing a lesser glory and majesty than the Father.

Problems abound with this subordinationist and/or quasi-homoian complementarianism view of the Trinity, not least in how advocates describe the theological lay of the land and map their own position within it. For a start, one wonders if it wise to divide perspectives into so-called “feminist” views of the Trinity in contradistinction to so-called “complementarian” views of the Trinity. I submit that this classification tells us more about the classifiers than it does about the status quaestionis in contemporary Trinitarian discussions. A historical taxonomy would normally refer to “orthodox,” that is to say Nicene-Constantinopolitan formulations, over and against “heterodox” positions, such as Arianism, Sabellianism, and Tri-theism. Going further, within orthodox Trinitarianism, one could opt to distinguish “Classical” from “Social” configurations of the Trinity. On close inspection, then, the description of “feminist” and “complementarian” views of the Trinity do not represent historical categorizations or even correspond to contemporary schools of Trinitarian thought. Thus, to insist on views of gender roles as the single criterion for classifying Trinitarian formulations is a strange move. It is also a categorization that is, to be frank, utterly bizarre in that it subordinates Trinitarian doctrine to a very narrow band of anthropology (i.e., gender roles); it even turns out to be a meaningless categorization when it is realized that complementarian and egalitarian advocates both can affirm a non-subordinationist Trinitarian theology.

The problem, as I see it, is that a quasi-homoianism was drafted into the complementarian narrative by a small cohort of theologians in order to buttress their claims about gender roles and to define what distinguishes them as complementarians. In which case, something like homoianism is being utilized as scaffolding for complementarianism with the result that a defense of complementarianism involves a defense of a quasi-homoianism. Now it is quite clear that not all complementarians will allow their views of gender roles in the church to be tethered to this quasi-homoianism since many complementarians will regard such a formulation as extrinsic to their accounts of gender roles and will simultaneously wish to affirm an orthodox and Nicene Trinitarianism in which there is no subordination. Indeed, this book proves that very point since it comprises of several essays written by a mixture of egalitarian and complementarian scholars who are all singularly united in their articulation of a non-subordinationist and non-hierarchical account of intra-Trinitarian relationships. This is fatal to the quasi-homoianistic brand of complementarism because it demonstrates that a Nicene and orthodox Trinitarian theology ultimately transcends and even unites those with different convictions about gender roles, marriage, and family. Clearly, then, one does not have to hold to a homoian and hierarchical view of the Trinity in order to be complementarian.

By Kellye Fabian, Northern student in our MA in New Testament program

She is the Pastor of Protection, Conciliation, and Doctrinal Casework at Willow Creek Community Church

Author of Sacred Questions: A Transformative Journey Through the Bible.

When I started my masters program at Northern Seminary, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of how the experience would impact the ministry I was doing. I didn’t have any specific plans about how I would use what I’d learned or how I might advance my work in light of a new degree. As someone who went to law school to become a lawyer, schooling and degrees in my mind led to particular careers or opportunities. And of course I’m not saying that isn’t the case with a seminary degree. Rather, for me personally, I wasn’t looking for a new career or opportunity and so I wondered what value it would hold.

Also, I felt too old. I would start at age 40. That means I wouldn’t have my degree until age 44! “Isn’t that too old?” I asked a friend and mentor. He responded with these simple and wise words, “Well, whether you go to seminary or not, you’ll be 44 in four years.” Indeed. I decided to go for it because it really seemed God was leading me in that direction and I am a lover of all things learning.

For more information about studying with us,
reach out to our admissions department
or visit the website anytime
at www.seminary.edu/mant/.

Spots are open, so apply today!

I could hardly imagine anything better than reading and talking about theology in an academic environment for four years.

I am now about a year away from graduating (and 43 years old). I still don’t have a new career path in mind, but my seminary experience at Northern has impacted me in a hundred ways, some of which I don’t think I could even identify at this point. But let me name a few that I am very aware of:

• My faith has deepened and become more grounded. One thing I had not considered when I started seminary was how my faith might be impacted. I had heard that people become more skeptical, cynical, and perhaps even jaded while in seminary. The opposite has happened for me. My love for, allegiance to, and wonder about Jesus Christ has only expanded. This is a testament to my professors and the reading they have assigned. I am at the same time more convinced of the truth of the gospel and more aware of the mystery of the gospel. This deepening of faith allows me to do my ministry work with more trust that God really is at work, and with more compassion for those who are struggling.
• I know how to respond to questions better. Before seminary, I tended to look at individual passages of Scripture for the answers that I had or that others might pose. Of course this isn’t a bad practice necessarily, but perhaps just a narrow practice. I have learned to look at what Scripture says overall, how to understand a question in the big scheme of what God is doing to redeem and restore the world, and to rely on God’s loving kindness as being at the heart of the answer to any question. Because of this, I don’t fear being asked questions like I once did. I used to think I would be seen as a fraud if I didn’t have a clear answer to a particular question. I do know more now, for sure, but I also am more confident that wrestling through questions and doubts is a central and important feature of faith. Generally, when someone has a question, there is a deeper truth they are wondering about. God grows us, reveals truth to us, and loves us in the midst of our asking and searching.
• I am more comfortable with mystery and uncertainty. You might think that after going to seminary, you would be more certain of the answers. As if seminary kind of unlocks the mystery that everyone else has to live with. There are definitely facts I have learned and theories I have come to understand. And there are fundamental truths—the actual death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for example. There is also great mystery that surrounds God and the way God works in individual lives, people groups, and the world. Upon seeing and learning from so many scholars, theologians, and pastors, throughout history, I have become more able to embrace this mystery without it undermining my faith. In this way, I can be present with people in their pain, questions, and even anger much more easily. I can catch glimpses of where God is at work and identify that to the people with whom I meet.
• Church tradition really matters. One of the biggest discoveries for me in seminary has been the thinking and writing of the church mothers and fathers. I still am frequently stunned at the sophisticated thinking that was taking place in the first and second centuries. What a treasure trove of wisdom and brilliance I have missed! The fact that theologians and thinkers have been wrestling with the same truths and ideas that we are working through today is faith-building. I have come to appreciate creeds, traditional prayers, and historical spiritual practices. When the people I meet with question their faith, are at a loss for words because they are in seasons of pain or doubt, or are looking to deepen their own faith, I can point them to these resources for encouragement and grounding.
• The Church really matters. At a time when people are leaving the church or dismissing it as irrelevant to their faith, I have come to see the importance of the church. This comes from having my eyes opened to the church as more than a Sunday morning service. I can see the church now as a living body that dates back more than 2,000 years now. It is a tradition of faithful believers wrestling with how to follow Christ and live in the kingdom now in light of their own cultural realities. Through my seminary classes, I have realized something that seems obvious: we need other viewpoints to fully understand the depth and breadth of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Scripture, God’s presence with us, and the way to live out our faith. My classes include people from different faith traditions, races, ethnicities, countries, genders, socio-economic status, and life experiences. In other words, my classes have represented the church. Only by listening to and spending time with believers with such diverse backgrounds and experiences can I really understand God and faith in practice.

I can’t wait to see what else God shows me about himself and how to better love others as I finish my last year at Northern.

Caesar and the Sacrament, Baptism: A Rite of Resistance

Alan Streett is Senior Research Professor of Biblical Theology at Criswell College. He is the author of several books. His book, Caesar and the Sacrament, frames the following interview.

This interview was conducted by David George Moore. Some of Dave’s teaching and interview videos can be accessed at www.mooreengaging.com.

Moore: Would you describe the motivation behind tackling these two subjects?

Streett: Nearly twenty years ago I began to take a fresh look at the “kingdom of God.” I was amazed to discover that the kingdom of God was at the heart of all NT gospel preaching (Mark 1:1, 14; Matt 10:7; Luke 4:40‒43; 8:1; 9:2, 57‒60; 10:1, 9‒11; 12:22‒32; 16:16; John 3:3‒5; Acts 1:3; 2:30‒32; 8:12; 17:7; 19:8; 20:24‒25; 28:23, 30‒31, etc.). Jesus went so far as to say that the “end of the age” will not come until the “gospel of the kingdom” is proclaimed to all nations (Matt 24:14).

I traced the theme of the kingdom from Genesis to Revelation in my book Heaven on Earth: Experiencing the Kingdom of God in the Here and Now (Harvest House, 2013). This initial study led me to investigate further how baptism and the Lord’s Supper were connected to the kingdom. For example, John the Immerser linked baptism with the kingdom’s arrival (Matt 3:2). Jesus linked the Last Supper, the basis for our Lord’s Supper, to the coming kingdom (Luke 22:18, 28‒30). I discovered that the first-century church not only viewed these two rituals as pro-kingdom in nature but also as anti-imperial acts. As a result, I felt compelled to write Subversive Meals (Pickwick, 2013) and Caesar and the Sacrament (Cascade, 2018).

I fear the contemporary church, especially in the West, suffers from amnesia. It has forgotten the significance of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as prophetic enactments in the original context of the Roman Empire.

Moore: I greatly appreciate you taking the time to define critical terms. Communications of all sorts break down because we don’t give enough attention to defining key words/concepts. Some would say defining words may be necessary in writing a book, but not in sermons. Do you think there is ever much of a need to define key words/concepts in a sermon?

Streett: David, this is one of the major weaknesses in most preaching. When we fail to define key theological terms, our listeners cannot comprehend our message. For example, what does a preacher mean when he uses the word “saved?” Is he talking about going to heaven when we die, a quality of life that can be experienced in the here and now, the forgiveness of sins, or all the above?

Unless we define our terms, we fail to communicate effectively. While the preacher means one thing, the audience may interpret it another way.

Definitions, however, do not need to be belabored or boring. A simple sentence or explanation is all that is needed. A preacher might call on his listeners to repent and then add, “That means making an about face” or “That means a change of mind that leads to a change of action” or “That means a turning away from sin and turning to Christ for forgiveness.”

At other times a good illustration will provide context without having to give a formal definition. Such as, “Repentance is like going down a one-way street the wrong way and turning your car around when you face danger ahead.” The illustration itself provides the meaning of the word.

Moore: You write that “Jesus and his followers did not live or minister in a sociopolitical vacuum.” Describe that for us a bit and then give us your take on whether the majority of American Christians think they themselves live in a sociopolitical vacuum.

Streett: Jesus and the first-century believers lived under Roman domination. Rome claimed a divine right or manifest destiny to rule the world. Caesar was the Son of God and Lord over land and sea. He ruled on Jupiter’s behalf. Rome conquered nations, forced tribute from its subjects, and demanded absolute loyalty. Roman elites and native client kings, comprising 10% of the empire, grew wealthy as peasants and day-laborers worked for subsistence wages without hope of advancement. Pax Romana (Roman Peace) was advanced through the point of the sword.

In this context, for believers to follow Jesus whom Rome executed as an enemy of the State, was a politically subversive act. To proclaim Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Son of God was more than religious talk. It meant Caesar had a challenger. To announce the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom meant Rome’s rule was a failure and needed to be replaced.

Things have not changed much. No modern-day church resides in a political vacuum. Countries adopt various governmental models. The specific socio-political context will determine how believers must navigate that system while serving the Lord. Believers under Communist regimes will face certain challenges. Those living under a dictatorial strongman like Assad of Syria will have another set of challenges. What about those living in countries controlled by tribal chiefs, or monarchs or socialists? Others may find themselves living in Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu lands. The political sphere determines where a church meets and how it functions.

In a democracy like America, Christ-followers seem unaware that the way we do church is the exception to the rule. Believers in most other countries cannot be cultural warriors. They do not have a place at the table. Depending on the government, they may not get a vote. When they raise their voices in public, they are hauled off to jail or worse. This is how the church lived in the first century under Roman domination. Imagine the consequences the Philippian jailer faced when he was baptized and pledged his allegiance to Jesus as Lord.

Moore: Your writing about the dove descending on Jesus is fascinating. Why is it significant that it was a dove?

Streett: To the first-century readers the description of the Spirit’s descent on Jesus as a dove had special significance. It denoted that God chose Jesus to be Israel’s new king. The scene was familiarly reminiscent of the way Rome chose its leaders.

Rome depended on avian signs, known as augury, to choose it leaders. Augurs were trained to observe the flight of birds to determine the will of the gods for the nation. According to Cicero, Rome’s first legendary leader (Romulus) was chosen by this method. Because the eagle was the most powerful of birds and was able to soar to the highest heavens and swoop down and easily pick off prey, it became the emblem of the empire. The eagle also served as Jupiter’s messenger to divinely confirm the selection of the next emperor. Whomever the eagle settled upon was named the new Caesar.

For the readers of the Gospels, the dove landing on Jesus at his baptism and the accompanying voice from Heaven was understood as an avian sign which confirmed that he was Yahweh’s choice to rule the world. It was his inauguration as king. The dove, however, was antithetical to the eagle. In the Scriptures, the dove represents serenity and gentleness. Unlike Roman emperors, Jesus’ reign is not based on violence and force, but faith and peace.

Moore: For those of us who attend churches that downplay the sacraments, even preferring to go with the idea of ordinance instead, what should we better appreciate about baptism as it was understood in ancient times?

Streett: In a sense, this gets back to your first question. I am convinced that most churches incorrectly define the term sacrament. In the first century a sacrament (Latin, sacramentum) was a common term that described a soldier’s pledge or oath to serve Caesar as Lord. It was his promise of fidelity to the emperor and empire. The early Christians adopted the word for use and applied it to baptism. At baptism believers pledged their allegiance to Jesus as Lord and promised to forsake all other lords.

Jerome (ca 345–430 CE) was the first to redefine sacrament as a mystical event in which God imparts grace to the believer.

While some Christian communities view baptism as a vehicle for transmitting salvific grace and others view it only as a symbolic act or ordinance, I believe both views fall short of the mark. Baptism in NT times was a person’s public sacramentum or vow of commitment in sight of witnesses to serve Christ regardless of cost. In this sense baptism was a status-changing ritual. It changed one’s status from sinner to saint in the same way wedding vows changes one’s status from single to married or the swearing-in ceremony changes a person from an ordinary citizen to the President of the United States.

I wish we could get back to the earliest understanding of baptism and be more in line with the way the first Christians understood the term.

Moore: You are a careful reader of the Scriptures. Would you offer a few things that have helped you the most to be an alert student of the Bible?

Streett: My area of specialty is biblical theology. As such, I place utmost importance on studying the Scriptures in their original context. To succeed I spend an inordinate amount of time and research on biblical backgrounds. The better I understand the Roman Empire, the better I understand the people to whom the Gospels and Letters were written. This involves asking and answering a series of questions. Where did the recipients live in the Empire: Western or Eastern sections, rural or urban settings? When were the texts written: 50s, 60s, 70s, or later? What events are they describing: events at the time of Jesus (ca 30) or events experienced by a church? Who was the emperor at the time of the writing: Claudius, Nero, or Domitian? Were the texts written to Jewish believers, Gentiles, both? Why were the Letters or Gospels written? What were the circumstances surrounding a particular letter? Was the advice being offered specifically to one congregation or did it apply to others also?

Do you see why this preparation is important? Advice given to Christians living under Claudius may be different to those living under Domitian. Instructions for Hellenized Jews may be different than that for Hebrew-speaking Jews. Christians living in Rome, the capital of the Empire, faced different challenges than those living in Galilee or Ephesus. Each learned how to navigate the social and political structure differently. This is why we should not read a NT text and attempt to apply it to all situations for all times.

Familiarity of “Jewish” backgrounds is important and recognizing the structure of a text is essential, but a third area critical for understanding the meaning of a NT text is Roman backgrounds. Without all three, our interpretation is incomplete.

My assignment as a biblical theologian is to take one text at a time and attempt to discover its original meaning in its historical context. The job of the systematic theologian is to try to make sense of it all for the universal church. The task of a pastor is to take the findings and apply it to their local church. We work in tandem with each other.

Moore: What are a few things you hope your readers learn from your book?

Streett: First, I hope they will begin to look at baptism through the eyes of first-century believers. Long before the post-apostolic church debated the theology of baptism, Christ- followers knew it as a life and death act that defied Roman ideology. To publicly pledge one’s allegiance to Jesus as Lord in the very waters over which Caesar claimed control (He was master over all waterways and seas) was act of political subversion. It amounted to a confession that all of Rome’s claims were false.

Second, I hope they will realize that through baptism the initial Christ-followers aligned themselves with the kingdom of God and its ethics. It was a life-changing event that involved much more than a mere profession of faith.

Third, although we have not mentioned it in this interview, I make a case in the book that the Spirit and baptism are interconnected. God promised to give the eschatological Spirit to the baptized so they could persevere in the faith during the last days. We pay to little attention to the role of the Spirit in baptism.

Finally, I hope each person after reading Caesar and the Sacrament will reevaluate their own baptism and renew their commitment to serve Christ.

By Mike Glenn

Every industry is being disrupted by the future. Manufacturing jobs are being impacted by robots. Retail is being changed by the internet, and everyone is being impacted by artificial intelligence. Malls are closing because people can shop on their phones or tablets.

We schedule our entertainment with downloads and digital recordings. You don’t have to be home to see your favorite television show. You can record it, download it, or watch an entire year of shows at one time.

Meanwhile, banks and financial institutions are trying to figure out bitcoin.

Colleges and universities are adapting to open enrollment courses, taught by top professors, to people all over the world who are joining the class by video conferencing. Everybody is scrambling to prepare for a future no one saw coming.

And it’s coming faster than anyone anticipated. Think about it. Sears is going out of business. Sears. Sears, whose famous catalogue was Amazon before Amazon was born, didn’t recognize what they had in their mail order business and let it go.

Who would have ever thought that? We live in a time where we’re doing a lot of things no one ever thought about before.

And doing church is no different. Today, churches in North America are facing some unprecedented challenges. There are several streams coming together which, in their coming together, form a Class 5 rapids the church will have to navigate.

What are some of those streams?

First, there’s a generational shift being completed which will affect the local churches in every facet of their ministry.

The Builders, the generation that came home after World War II, has been called the greatest generation by some. They have an impressive resume to earn that title. These are the men and women who came home and started the businesses that became the great companies of America. They made a lot of money, and they gave a lot of money. The Builders are one of the most generous generations in history. They endowed colleges, churches and foundations that fund much of our non-profit work.

As the Builders were moving off the stage of history, the Boomers, of which I’m one, came on to the scene. We didn’t establish the great companies, but we got good jobs. We learned to finance our lifestyles – even our generosity. We changed our capital campaigns to three-year commitments. We couldn’t give a lot of money at one time, but over time, we could give a significant amount. Churches have been built all over America using this plan.

Now, Boomers are retiring, and Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Alpha are coming onto the stage and stepping into leadership. These younger generations have a very different understanding of how generosity should work.

A lot of people have written that Millennials don’t give. That’s not true. Millennials can be very generous and even sacrificial in their giving. They give differently – very differently – from previous generations.

For Millennials and the generations behind them, they have to be able to tie life impact to the ministry project they’re being asked to support. Our church has a Tuesday night worship experience called “Kairos.” Several months ago, a friend shared with Kairos the need to build a well and water purifying system in order to respond to the current drought affecting the townships in Cape Town. In one night, a room full of Millennials gave $50,000! What makes this gift even more impressive was no one knew an offering for South Africa would be taken. The moment and the giving were spontaneous.

Why was it successful? Because they could make an immediate connection between changed lives and the money they were giving.

They won’t give to support building projects that aren’t used all week long. All of the buildings have to be multi-purpose and designed to serve the surrounding community 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

They won’t give to large institutions or “big bucket” giving strategies that support bureaucracies and high overhead.

As you can imagine, this is going to have major impact on the funding of local church, national and international ministries.

Communities are no longer supportive of large mega-church facilities. The future church will not be able to afford them, but cities and towns are not going to be as generous in their support. Partly because of the negative reaction to Christianity, but mostly because of their impact on city infrastructures like roads and traffic. Churches aren’t seen as providing a community as good as they have been in days past.

So, how will we respond to these coming challenges? First, we’re going to relax and remember we’ve been here before. We’ve been limited on resources, without facilities to support our work and openly opposed by our cultural settings. The church did fine. In fact, we thrived.

The cultural changes will force us to get back to basics. Bible studies in homes, focusing on neighborhood missions and local pastors training the next generation of church leaders. Churches will meet in homes and store fronts, in empty warehouses and wide-open fields. Our pastors will be bi-vocational, making tents with one hand and preaching the gospel with the other.

We’ll find areas of our communities that are neglected and overlooked. We’ll reach out to those who can’t get the healthcare they need. We’ll start schools in the neighborhoods where schools are failing our children.

And we’ll do it all in the name of the Risen Christ.

Personally, I’m excited. We did well before, and in the grace of God, we’ll do well again. I can’t wait. It’s going to be a great ride!

We’re back from a mini sabbatical in Greece, and a truly restorative and productive time it was!

Barbara Bush’s final letter to her children:

HOUSTON – Barbara Pierce Bush knew she was entering the final days of her long and eventful life.

She was 92 years old. She had taken a fall, breaking her back and sending her to Houston Methodist Hospital. She was losing her battle with congestive heart failure, among other ailments. Soon her doctor would come into her hospital room to have a poignant conversation. The former first lady would be going home again, the doctor told her, but this time to hospice care.

Once again, Barbara Bush turned to her diary. She had kept a journal, sometimes intermittently and in various formats, since soon after she and her husband and their toddler, Georgie, had moved from the familiar comforts of New England to the booming Oil Patch in Texas. Seven decades later, she made the penultimate entry. Her children, as always, were on her mind. She wrote “Things I am grateful for” across the top, then began to draft a final letter to them.

Dearest Children,” she typed into her laptop. “I have thought of writing this for a while.”

The letter was never finished. It stops mid-sentence, perhaps interrupted when a visitor walked into her hospital room, and it was never sent….

I was apparently the first person to read the letter. Her son Neil told me her children weren’t aware that the letter existed until I raised it with them. A few weeks before she started to draft it, she unexpectedly gave me access to her diaries for the biography of her that I was working on, “The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty.” She had donated them to the George Bush Presidential Library with the provision that they not be available to anyone until 35 years after her death – as it turned out, until 2053. Decades of diaries, not yet reviewed or organized even by the library’s archivists, were stacked in document boxes and kept under lock and key…

In the final letter intended for her children, she praised them and the next generation for all they had achieved, for not relying only on the considerable advantages of their birth. “I am so grateful that our children and grand children all finished school and promptly went to work,” she wrote. “They did not feel entitled. They and their children support themselves and are now doing good works along with working in some cases.”

Then she thanked her friends. “The Saintly Stitchers who meet on Mondays at Saint Martins [Episcopal] Church. They treat me as a normal person although they do spoil me. We stitch kneelers for the church, I did two and then my eyes got bad and now I work on Santas and Clowns that either sit on a shelf.”

The least feminist nation? Thoughts?

It is one of the best places in the world to be a woman, with a narrow gender pay gap, equal employment rights, universal nursery care, and some of the happiest female retirees on the planet.

So it comes as a surprise to find, in a global survey of attitudes towards gender, equal rights and the #MeToo movement, that Denmark is one of the least feminist countries in the developed world.

The poll, conducted by the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project of more than 25,000 people in 23 major countries, found that just one in six Danes consider themselves a feminist, a third said that wolf whistling at women in the street was acceptable, and two in five had an unfavourable view of the #MeToo movement.

Arthur Boers, and pastors with (no) friends:

Since my theology minimizes clergy-lay distinctions, I didn’t expect pastoring to make me thin on friends. But I began asking other pastors: “Are you lonely?” “Do you have friends?” “What do you do for personal support?” All indicated they had problems.

• Upon leaving a seven-year pastorate, one pastor said he felt free to have friendships for the first time in years.
• A nationally known pastor lamented, “I have friends across the country and indeed around the world, but none in my own community. I can’t afford to.”
• A part-time pastor of a new church spoke of his happy involvement with a local theater group. But church members resented this, believing all his energy should go into the congregation.
• Still another pastor wrote me: “In the ministry you’re everyone’s friend–sort of–but no one’s friend really. It seems that pastors either forgo friendships or seek them outside the parish (in so far as time permits).”

I have yet to meet a pastor who isn’t lonely.

Popular names for babies:

Mom365 Newborn Photography has the honor of photographing many of America’s most brand-new babies every year, and our photographers always delight in hearing the names that adoring parents have given their newborns. Over at headquarters, we have fun watching name trends as the data comes in from our partner hospitals, and making lists of the top names.

It’s always exciting when we can declare the most popular baby names of the year, so without further adieu, here they are.

The most popular baby names overall in 2018 were:

1. Emma
2. Liam
3. Noah
4. Olivia
5. Ava

The most popular baby girl names in 2018 were:

1. Emma
2. Olivia
3. Ava
4. Isabella
5. Sophia

The most popular baby boy names in 2018 were:

1. Liam
2. Noah
3. Elijah
4. Logan
5. Mason

The BC Tree:

A TREE DATING BACK TO before the birth of Christ has been discovered in southeastern North Carolina.

Scientists discovered the cypress tree, whose internal annual growth rings show it to be at least 2,624 years old, along the Black River in the southeastern part of the state. Given it’s old age, the tree dates back to before Confucius and the English language.

The discovery makes the tree, and some others in the area that are more than 2,000 years old, the oldest living trees in eastern North America. It confirms that the species of tree, the bald cypress, is the oldest-known wetland tree species and the fifth-oldest tree species on Earth, according to research published Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Communications.

Scientists had previously discovered a 2,088-year-old cypress tree in the swamp and several more trees along the Black River are more than 1,000 years old. The oldest along the Black River are mostly located in a section of the swamp known as the Three Sisters Cove.