For some religions are all doing the same basic things. Varieties and differences notwithstanding, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism — or jumping back in time — Roman religions and gods and worship and Judaism as well as its mutation, Christianity, are all doing the same. This is how religion scholarship addresses world religions and it is how such historians see the 1st Century.

But comparison of religions to find similarities only approximates accuracy; one must also note their differences, differences held in more than high regard by the proponents of the various religions. (The term “religion” of course has a history and a nuance that modern separation of the religious world from the secular world often trumpets.)

Furthermore, there is an emphasis today among scholars of both Judaism and Christianity to emphasize commonalities between the two — is this accurate? We turn to a new and very important study.

This approach is why Larry Hurtado, A Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World, is so important. Hurtado thinks, with more than a tipping of the hat to how the term religion is understood, Christianity was a mutation of Judaism but was in many senses a new kind of religion.

I begin with his careful description of the religions of the Roman world, and he notes a kind of tolerance and respect and pluralism, even polytheism, at work in that world — and it is the world out of and into which Judaism and Christianity emerge and speak. Notice this kind of blending of the gods into a homogenous kind of piety (it’s on full display in the Roman novel called Ephesiaca):

Each of the many peoples of the Roman Empire had their own traditional, and multiple, deities, and in that period the tendency was to recognize and welcome them all. In general, the attitude toward this rich diversity of gods was “completely tolerant, in heaven as on earth. 45

To deny a deity worship, and that typically meant sacrifice, was, effectively, to deny the god’s reality. Individual pagans of that time did not feel it obligatory to reverence each and every deity, but, in principle, all gods were entitled to be reverenced. So, the people of the Roman period generally found no problem in participating in the worship of various and multiple deities. 47

Indeed, for people in the Roman era generally, ‘piety” meant a readiness to show appropriate reverence for the gods, any and all the gods. 48

But both Judaism and Christianity cut against the grain and scraped the chalkboard, and here is the general perception:

Outright refusal to worship deities was deemed bizarre, even antisocial, and, worse still, impious and irreligious. 48

Hurtado goes to pains to emphasize the distinctiveness of the Christian faith on this matter and where their challenge and courage arose:

This is particularly where the religious beliefs and stance of early Christianity stand out as different. Christians were expected to avoid taking part in the worship of any deity other than the one God of the biblical tradition. … Given the ubiquitous place of the gods and their rituals in Roman-era life, however, it would have been difficult for Christians simply to avoid all such rituals without being noticed. Christians likely often also had to refuse to join in the worship of the various divinities and so had to negotiate their relationships carefully, especially, no doubt, those involving family and close acquaintances. 49

In short, precisely that which was generally considered piety (religio or eusebeia), reverencing the many gods, was, for early Christians, idolatry, impiety of the gravest sort. 50

For some reason, Hurtado shows, Judaism was more or less tolerated when it came to their refusals and denials, and he contends it was because they had a national religion of one God:

The difference and distinguishing feature of the early Christian stance against “idolatry” is this: In the eyes of ancient pagans, the Jews’ refusal to worship any deity but their own, though often deemed bizarre and objectionable, was basically regarded as one, rather distinctive, example of national peculiarities. … But, in general, however strange they seemed, the national peculiarities of various peoples were taken in stride, Jewish peculiarities included. Every people had its peculiarities, and, on the matter of the worship of the gods, so did the Jews, only more so! 52-53

But Christianity was distinct and courageous and it became more challenging because it was not a national religion and the denials were pervasive and required. This makes Christianity undoubtedly different and distinct:

This total withdrawal from the worship of the many deities was a move without precedent, and it would have seemed inexplicable and deeply worrying to many of the general populace. 54

So, to refuse to worship these deities could be taken as a deeply subversive action or at least a disregard for the political order.54

Indeed, the exclusivist stance of early Christianity was so odd, unjustified, and even impious in the eyes of ancient pagan observers and critics that they often accused Christians of being atheists, just as Jews had been labeled previously! 56

In my next post, I will sketch the Christian view of God that made Christianity’s faith so distinctive.

WHAT WOULD JESUS DO, AGAIN?

By Garrett Sheldon

Garrett is John Morton Beaty Professor of Political Science Professor at the University of Virginia (Wise). He is the great-grandson of Charles Sheldon, the author of the legendary, In His Steps.

In 1896, Rev. Charles M. Sheldon published the book In His Steps which raised the question for Christians to ask when facing decisions: “What would Jesus do”?  The book had a faulty copyright, immediately went into the “public domain” where anyone could print and sell the book without paying the author royalties.  It is estimated the book sold 30,000,000 copies in 20 languages, making it the most widely read Christian book after the Bible.  Its author rejoiced at this providential success of the book, even though he made almost no money on it.

Sheldon believed it was God’s providential way of spreading this life-changing message of personal, immediate discipleship in everyday life. How a Christian lives, speaks, thinks, acts, relates to all others, spends time, sees life is highlighted by this question. It has touched millions and revived the church.  In 1993, Charles Sheldon’s great-grandson, Rev. Dr. Garrett W. Sheldon (whose book on the “Christian ” James Madison recently appeared on this site) updated In His Steps as “What Would Jesus Do”?, which with WWJD bracelets, songs, a movie, and other books, revived the message in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.

Dr. Garrett Sheldon is a professor of Political Theory at the University of Virginia at Wise and a Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church in Big Stone Gap, VA.  His favorite story of speaking on the WWJD theme at a church was an old man who came up to him and said, “I wish I’d never read your book!!!”  Sheldon asked him why.  The man said, “I always considered myself a ‘good Christian’!”  It seems the man had been in church all his life, had all the “right” positions on things, and led a decent life. But as he continued speaking he began to weep:  “I have been Christian in the abstract; I haven’t shown Christ’s love and charity in my daily life, with the people closest to me! My family, employees, friends, associates.  I only hope I live long enough to show as much Christian love and grace as I’ve shown coldness and neglect.”

That question “what would Jesus do”? is not some magic formula.  It is simply a way to focus on Christ, immediately, in our lives; everyday, with everyone we encounter. Some, even evangelicals have called it impossible or even presumptuous to imitate our Lord.  But believers have the Spirit of Christ within them: as a guide, teacher, helper, convicter, and comforter.  We can live the life of Christ as we yield to that Spirit of God.

Charles Sheldon was a Congregational minister in Topeka, Kansas; known as “St. Charles of Topeka” because he lived his faith in every day life.  Known as a Social Gospel writer, his concern for society was really a traditional Christian appreciation of human sin: greed, hatred, selfishness; and the answer of spreading the truth of the Gospel to change people internally to transform the world outside.  It’s so easy to become a self-righteous reformer and use activism as an excuse to neglect one’s duties close to home.  He lived a simple life, unconcerned with money, constantly thinking of spiritual things.  God provided for him by having him fall in love and marry the daughter of a Vermont banker, who WAS practical and good with money. It was said if she, Mary, had not bought his clothes, Charles would have worn the same tattered suit he had in seminary all his life. Her wealth and care supported his otherworldly lifestyle and his ministry. A favorite family story was that she gave him 5 one-dollar bills every day as he left the house, because he followed Jesus’s dictum to “give to all who ask” and would give something to everyone he saw in need.  If she’d given him five $100 bills, he would have given those away!  He had a great sense of humor, loved laughing, singing and was a cheerful, fun companion.  Although deadly serious about the evils of life, and the truth of God, he knew cheerfulness was a gift from God to be shared. Once, when staying in a rather rundown hotel, he remarked that the walls were so thin you could hear the person in the next room change his mind!

His great-grandson, Garrett Sheldon, felt called to update the WWJD in a book entitled “What Would Jesus Do?” about 100 years after the publication of In His Steps.  At the same time, simultaneously and without knowledge of what the others were doing, many revived this theme in the 1990’s: a youth group at the church in Michigan invented the bracelets WWJD; songs, plays, a movie, children’s’ books all celebrated this theme, and spread it worldwide.  The younger Sheldon began to be asked to speak and preach on this theme after the publication of the book.  At one small Baptist chapel near his college, made up mostly of coal miners and farmers, Sheldon was invited back many times until they asked if he would be their pastor. “That is very kind, ” he said, “but I am not a Baptist.”  They said that didn’t matter: “You preach the Gospel and care for us, and that is all we need in a pastor.” So he served as a bi-vocational minister there for six years. It was quite different from the Anglo-Catholic Episcopal church he had grown up in in Wisconsin.  “It was just like growing up English Catholic,” Sheldon says.

It wasn’t until he saw Billy Graham on TV at age 10; and later Charles Stanley, that he heard the Word preached under the power of the Holy Spirit and was truly converted.  He largely left church in college and graduate school (at Rutgers) until he began to attend the Presbyterian Church in Princeton, where his wife was at the seminary.  They moved around evangelical and charismatic churches until he was called to the ministry in the Southern Baptist Church.  He is now Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, near the farm in Powell Valley where he lives with his family.  “It is a church of diverse background, blending an evangelical emphasis on the Bible; a reverence for tradition, and an openness to the Holy Spirit.”  Like Sheldon, it is very ecumenical, not your “typical” First Baptist Church (if there is a “typical” anymore).  “Nothing pleases me more, on a Sunday morning before the service, sitting in my church study, hearing the sounds of happy children playing.”  Our Church appreciates the many troubles and trials of this life and world; but we are open to receiving and sharing the joy of the Lord; happiness; encouragement.”  That, for him, is “following In His Steps.”

Professor Sheldon’s book can be found here: What Would Jesus Do?

It has been awhile since the last post in our walk through Genesis – Isaac was Isaac-ing, but now we turn to Jacob, through whom the nation of Israel was established. Abraham and Isaac became fathers of many nations, but Jacob of only one, God’s chosen people Israel. Abraham had many sons, but only through Isaac rather than Ishmael, or the sons of his concubine Keturah (Gen 25:1-4), did the covenant promise continue. Isaac had two sons, but only through Jacob did the covenant promise continue. From here on out, however, all descendants are children of the promise.

The most striking thing in this section of Genesis (ch. 28-35) is that it isn’t about Jacob. It is about God preparing the way for his people Israel. With a typical Sunday School and Sermon background, this surprised me. The emphasis is usually on Jacob and his role, not on God and his mission and plan. But this isn’t a story to provide us with insight into how we should live – it is a story about what God was and is doing.

Nothing in the text gives any indication that God chose Jacob as the father of his people through any special merit or righteousness. In fact, the story of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob is a story of one dysfunctional family. There are many Sunday School favorites here. Esau sells his birthright – his inheritance right as first born son – for a bowl of stew.  Isaac and Rebekah play favorites, which pits Esau and Jacob against each other. Rebekah and Jacob conspire to steal Esau’s blessing and ensure Jacob’s primacy in the family.

The blessing is not mere words. Bill Arnold in his commentary on Genesis notes:

 The value of a patriarchal blessing was preeminent, and receiving the blessing at or near the end of the patriarch’s life made it a legally binding will. Such “testamental blessings” were illocutionary or performative utterances, in that the pronouncement of the words itself accomplished the act of blessing. (p. 245)

This isn’t the end of Isaac’s life (he dies and is buried after Jacob returns from a twenty year sojourn with his uncle), but it is the end of his role in the story of Israel.  Esau sold his birthright, but Jacob willingly, and with his mother’s prodding and help, stole Esau’s blessing. For his efforts he gained exile for a time.

It is hard to imagine a less deserving patriarch. Abraham was a man of faith and is held up as such. Isaac doesn’t play much of a role in the narrative, but the role he plays is neutral to positive, except perhaps the favoritism that plagued his family. On the other hand, there are few stories in the narrative of Jacob’s life that cast him in an undeniably positive light. His family was less than ideal – with conflicts between his wives, between his children at times, with his uncle and father-in-law, with his brother. This is not an epic story of a hero as founder of a nation. Jacob is hard to hold up as a role model in any meaningful way. This isn’t to say he was all bad, simply that righteousness and faith don’t seem high on the list most of the time.

God worked through Jacob. Here it becomes abundantly clear that the Genesis narrative from chapter 12 to the end is not a story of the patriarchs, it is a story of God’s work in history. God formed his people through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Three accounts of meetings with God frame the Jacob story. Finding it necessary to leave Canaan, to find a wife from among his mother’s people, but more importantly to get away from his brother’s wrath, Jacob meets God for the first time. (The image above, based on this passage, is by William Blake)

He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (28:12-15)

God renews the covenant promises he made to Abraham and Isaac, now to Jacob.  Jacob is the heir to the promise and the one through whom The Lord (Yaweh), the God of Abraham and Isaac, will establish his people in the land.  Jacob’s response is tentative and conditional. “If God will be with me and will watch over me … so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God.” (v. 20-21)  Bill Arnold suggests that we should not read too much into Jacob’s conditional response, “the most that can be said about Jacob here is that his faith is not mature.” (p. 256)  Part of Arnold’s reasoning rests on the lack of critique in the text, but it seems that Jacob does many less than honorable things that are not explicitly critiqued in the text. While there are consequences for his theft of Esau’s blessing this is not critiqued either. Certainly Jacob’s faith is not mature, but perhaps we should read more into his tentative response. However, God will work through him as he is.

The story of Jacob’s time in Paddan-Aram, serving his uncle, acquiring two wives, 11 sons, a daughter, and much livestock is well known.  God is at work, although the family is far from perfect – or faithful. When Jacob leaves to return home after an absence of 20+ years his wife Rachel steals the household gods to bring with her.  En route and wary of the reception he can expect from his brother, Jacob again meets God it seems. (Image by Rembrandt)

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” (32:24-30)

This chapter, and this passage, is full of word plays. “This reflects a dominant feature of the chapter impossible to communicate in translation; that of the literary artistry and interpretative power of word plays.” (p. 281)  The place names are punning names, and in this passage Jacob is Jacob-ing.

The verb “wrestle” (ʾābaq) almost certainly plays on the name of the river Jabbok (yabbōq) as well as on the name Jacob (yaʿăqōb).  … As a patriarch for all who would count themselves among his descendants, “Jacob at the Jabbok ʾābaq-ing with God” becomes the paradigm for all who would struggle with God. (p. 283)

Covenant established. After reconciling with Esau and parting ways (with a brief interlude of the affair of Shechem and Dinah) Jacob finally does something worth of a patriarch of God’s people. He gets rid of the foreign gods in his household and turns to follow God. In a third meeting God establishes him in Canaan as the patriarch of God’s people, Israel.

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. (35:1-4)

After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel. And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.” Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him. (35:9-13)

That Jacob’s name is now Israel concludes the narrative of Jacob and sets up the story of his descendants. Bill Arnold thinks it likely that the renaming of Jacob as Israel in both chapter 32 and 35 reflects different traditions brought together into the final text we have. They are not independent, carelessly patched together, but parts of a carefully constructed telling of the story of God establishing his people. “This revelatory appearance of God in vv. 9-15 makes Jacob essentially another Abraham. In a sense, this passage is Jacob’s covenant renewal. … Jacob is fittingly Abraham’s successor as “father of the faith.” (p. 304)

This isn’t about Jacob. It is about God and his work in history.

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

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If anything is clear in NT Wright’s new book, The Day the Revolution Began, it is that Christians have … here are Wright’s own words:

We have Platonized our eschatology (substituting “souls going to heaven” for the promised new creation) and have therefore moralized our anthropology (substituting a qualifying examination of moral performance for the biblical notion of the human vocation), with the result that we have paganized our soteriology, our understanding of “salvation’ (substituting the idea of “God killing Jesus to satisfy his wrath1 for the genuinely biblical notions we are about to explore). (147)

Atonement theory gets distorted when placed in these three rubrics: Platonizing, Moralizing, and Paganizing. Two things, he contends, must be restarted:

First, Paul shared the early Christian vision of the goal of redemption. Humans were to be saved not for “heaven” (Paul never mentions that as the goal) or simply “to be with God forever” (that, though no doubt true, was not the point), but for the new creation. [Thus, our covenant for vocation is emphasized as the goal of redemption.] 228

I have a question or two for those who have thought about this: How much difference is there between Wright’s emphasis on new creation vs. the older view of heaven? Or, What are the differences between the older view of heaven and this emphasis on new creation?

Second, that goal would be attained by means of the death of Jesus, through which the powers of sin and death were defeated. That defeat was accomplished through the dying “for sins” of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah: Jesus, representing Israel and the world, took upon himself the full force of the divine condemnation of Sin itself, so that all those “in him” would not suffer it themselves. 229

By the way, penal substitutionists will ask here “What’s the difference? Have you not seen Jesus needing to die because of the punishment of God upon sin?” Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think many penal subsitutionists see penal substitution in these words.

Wright thinks we need to re-read typically-used Pauline texts in light of a Passover narrative. First, a text from Galatians is cited:

In Galatians 1:4 Paul declares that Jesus, the Messiah, our Lord, “gave himself for our sins, to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of God our father.”

Then a re-reading of that text in light of a Passover-oriented narrative is given:

Or, to put it in the language of the biblical narrative to which Paul will appeal frequently in Galatians, the new Passover (liberation from the enslaving powers) is accomplished through the rescue from exile (“for our sins”), and all has taken place in fulfillment of the age-old divine purpose (“according to the will of God”). 230

Another largely neglected theme is that Paul’s Christology has often ignored the Messiahship of Jesus, and when Messiah is ignored, neglected, or diminished the narrative is distorted and the goal is distorted — and that means atonement itself is distorted. Hence, for Wright, atonement theory can’t be understood until the right narrative is used to locate it in the story.

(Im)migrating Toward Love (Part 2):

5 Things Our Church Is Doing To Become a Home

I find houses to be curious places. They often tell the tale of travel by the souvenirs on display or of their owner’s interests by the kinds of nicknacks one might find sitting around the place.

One of the ways my childhood home told stories was through the various quips and quotes hanging on the walls throughout our house. The one I remember most was a familiar cross-stitched phrase, “Home is where the heart is.” It was adorned by little hearts and other kitschy items I can’t seem to recall, but the platitude itself remains stitched into my memory after all these years.

I like the phrase. It suggests something that seems true enough – our homes are not so much a fixed location as much as they are a place built upon the foundation of relationships that sturdies the structure for familiarity, love, and support.

In part 1 of this series, I suggested that things changed for us at our small church located in the American South when we came to see Kimberli, an undocumented immigrant who was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers this past January, as one of our own (to borrow language from Leviticus 19). Seeing Kimberli in this way led an otherwise politically right-leaning group of people to care for someone that might not typically receive such positive attention.

When we see ourselves belonging to each other we begin to embody the kind of talk we find written large across the witness of Scripture in which Paul says I am willing to become all things to all people…that I may share in its blessings.

I like the way Greg Boyle puts it too, “Kinship isn’t serving the other, but being one with the other.”

In order to cultivate the kind of place where a multi-cultural and bilingual church could become a home – a place where we saw and treated each other as family – we’ve had to think differently about how we “do church.”

Here are 5 Things we are doing to make our church a home:

We’ve had to put first things first. Because of our religio-political context we had to spend time thinking through the implications of what it meant to be a church made up in part of undocumented immigrants. As is the case for all of us no matter the issue at hand, we are always at war within ourselves as well as within our social gatherings to pledge our allegiance to the Kingdom of God above everything else. For many of us, seeking the Kingdom first meant we had to place our political views about immigration below the directive from Scripture to welcome the “outsider into our midst.”

In other words, we needed permission to believe that practicing open doors as a church didn’t mean we had to believe in open borders.

We also had to realize that our differences didn’t pose as big of a threat as we might have thought. No matter the situation, most of us have struggled to connect with those who are different from us. People are attracted to sameness, but healthy families choose to love each other despite their differences.

In fact we came to realize our indifferences were a bigger threat to our ability to connect with each other than our differences. A church that cares for each other will find ways to overcome the barriers that threaten to keep it apart, but a church that is indifferent…well, it simply won’t care.

So how do we practice putting first things first and overcoming our differences:

We Worship Together. There are several English speaking congregations in our area that host Spanish speaking churches – that is they provide the space and accommodations needed for worship to take place in Spanish, and each church has varying degrees of interaction with them. Our leadership, however, decided early on that we would worship together no matter how difficult or strange it may be to do so. We haven’t perfected this yet by any means. Our music is still primarily in English, but the reading of the Word, and the celebration of Communion are always bilingual and each week we have people of various colors, who speak various languages leading up front for all the church to see.

We Eat Together. One thing I know for certain after nearly 20 years of working with churches is that churches love to eat – and ours is no exception! We find, and even invent, opportunities to sit around the table with each other and to share the food from our homes in hopes of creating a home for each other in our church.

We Serve Together. One of the ways I know our church is growing towards putting first things first and overcoming our differences is that we serve together. Some are surprised that our church does not exist to serve first generation immigrant families. Any serving done within our church always goes both ways. But what I love even more is that, when given the opportunity, we serve others in our community side by side.

We have, as part of vision, To be a church OF this city and FOR this city.   Each week I am able to look around and see those of our city sitting together in worship and at the table, and each week I’m blessed by the stories I hear of how our church is serving others for the sake of our city.

I can’t speak for everyone, but when I think of my childhood home and that stitching on the wall, I can’t help but think of our church these days. Home certainly is where the heart is.

Every theory of leadership derives from a worldview, a theology, and a systemic location. This is why John Nugent in his Endangered Gospel can say these things that show correlation of kingdom theory and leadership theory:

Heaven-centered and world-centered churches gravitate toward certain forms of leadership. For example, when churches focus on preparing people for a better place somewhere else (heaven centered), their leaders concentrate on getting people into the church and getting them ready for heaven (131-132).

When churches focus on making this world a better place (world centered), their leaders must discern what is wrong in the world around them and which of these wrongs their church is best suited to make right. They have to be strong in the areas of assessment and management (132).

These visions of the church’s responsibility call forth specific sorts of leaders. Since the goal of the heaven-centered view is to draw people in and keep them in, attractive and magnetic leadership is ideal (132).

Since the focus of the world-centered view is identifying, prioritizing, and meeting needs, its leadership style is highly administrative. The ability to evaluate, plan, and execute is central (132).

Which leads him to ask questions provoking a kingdom-as-church-as-better-place understanding of leadership:

What would change if the church’s first priority were to be the better place that God has already begun? What if the church’s mission were to embrace, display, and proclaim the kingdom? What kind of leadership would the kingdom-centered view require? Does it matter that the church is called to be a certain way and not to do a certain thing. depends, of course, on what the church is supposed to be like (132-133).

Thus, he sketches a bit of the kingdom’s nature: “It is a kingdom that unifies through diversity, operates by the wisdom of the cross, and has only one head: Christ. The kingdom is empowered and guided by God’s Spirit, which has been given to all members. Each member needs all others because God organized the body in such a way that each part would be incomplete without all the others” (133).

Those attributes so often mentioned today in leadership theory get this pushback from Nugent:

We just do not find any of the attributes of “take-charge,” worldly leaders commended in the New Testament. We are never told that church leaders should be attractional, charismatic, decisive, persuasive, commanding, accomplished, or even educated. Despite the fact that he embodied many of these attributes, the Apostle Paul publicly renounced them. To him this was necessary so people would see what Christ has done and not what he was doing (1 Cor 2:1-5) (134).

Instead of a NT job description of leadership, we get a NT exhortation to servanthood:

We do find many Scriptures that emphasize how leaders must serve others rather than control them (Luke 22:25-27; John 13). We also hear that leaders must be examples to the body (Heb 13:7; 1 Pet 5:3). Since the body must embrace, display, and proclaim the kingdom, its leaders should embrace the kingdom like a gift, display it in their home life, work life, and community life, and proclaim it to others every chance they get (134).

A parting word about worldliness in leadership in the church:

Worldly leadership relies on the extraordinary ability of superior people. It elevates exceptional people, gives them power, trusts that they will use their power responsibly for the good of the organization, and expects them to get things done. Quite simply, this is not how Jesus framed leadership (135).

The congregation doesn’t elevate the leaders so they can get the work done; leaders elevate the members so they can do the work of the body (135).

Kingdom centered leaders focus on empowering the people of the church to become the better place the church is designed to be.

Your Liturgy: Why Do You Do What You Do? By Michelle VanLoon

[email protected]
http://www.MomentsAndDays.com

Much has been made of the longing among some believing Millennials for structure, reverence, and beauty in worship. Fewer smoke machines, more incense. I’ve certainly evidence of this desire among this demographic. But I see it among many in my own Boomer demographic, too, in a different form. Those who grew up in Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal, or Orthodox churches and made their way through a born-again experience into the Evangelical world (which is predominated by low church worship) found in those churches the promise of accessible, intimate relationship with God and like-minded others they hadn’t experienced in the churches of their youth.

What I do hear from my age peers who’ve spent part of their adulthood in low Church congregations is that they often experience a crystallizing moment or three when their high church childhood experiences come into focus. One friend told me she went to a funeral mass for a relative and realized she heard more Scripture simply being read and proclaimed than she had in years of listening to sermons at her non-denominational congregation. Another friend told me she grew to recognize how much she missed confession and communion being central to her worship. A third has cradle Catholic began attending a liturgical church after three decades in various Evangelical and Charismatic congregations, noting that she was tired of being an audience member and wanted to feel as though she was playing a meaningful role in participating in “the work of the people”.

It would be easy to chalk this up to the old saw that absence makes the heart grow fonder – at least when it comes to the childhood churches from they’ve exited. More likely, the perspective that comes with spiritual maturity lends “ah ha!” meaning to what they once experienced as dry, lifeless worship.

In other cases, some find that what once seemed full of vitality has its own gravity to it. Low church worship can become predictable, then rote, just as easily as high church worship can. It is easy to place blame on the high or low church structure without owning the fact that we ourselves carry some of the responsibility. The positive of our restlessness is that it can be a sign of our own spiritual growth; as we mature in our faith, whatever form of liturgy by which we worship takes on different meaning in our lives in every new stage of our lives. We are vulnerable to temptation when we’re restless with old, too-familiar liturgy because everything around us in our culture tells us our identity is that of consumer, and it is our mission as consumers to seek and find novelty. (IPhone 7, anyone?)

I noted in Moments & Days: How Our Holy Celebrations Shape Our Faith that a worshipping according to a particular calendar – whether civil, Hebrew, or Christian – doesn’t impart instant faithfulness to adherents. A cursory glance backward through history reminds us that the Chosen People had a calendar given them by God and still drifted into idolatry. The church developed her own calendar and still has her own messy, chaotic, divisive history. As a result of the book’s release, I’ve been a part of lots of conversations in recent weeks about liturgical calendars – and liturgy itself – with people from both high and low church backgrounds. Not surprisingly, because I’m a Jewish follower of Jesus, I’ve fielded plenty of questions about the Jewish calendar, which is less familiar to most readers than the Christian calendar.

But I have been surprised by the Evangelicals with whom I’ve spoken who are telling me they’re seeing their high church childhood experiences in a new, less-negative light. Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising to me, but it is. I realized that for many of them, a bit of time and distance from those worship structures suddenly made the structure’s lines come into focus for them. Church leaders and worship planners, I’d like to suggest it would be of help if we could offer this kind of perspective to those who are worshipping with us here and now.

In the book, I urge both high and low church Christians to have some serious conversation and prayerful reflection about the story their church calendar (and, by extension, their approach to worship) is telling them about God, themselves, and others. Both high and low church congregations tend to do much of what they do out of habit. When I was involved in planning worship services, we talked a lot about why we were making the particular choices (music, readings) for a service, but frankly, didn’t do much reflecting about the structure of the service itself. Why did we do what we did each week? Because we spent most of our time thinking about what to plug into that structure, we didn’t consider how to communicate the meaning and intention of the structure of our service, either during the worship service itself or in a class or small group setting.

I’d love to hear from you, Jesus Creed readers – both from high and low church traditions. How do you help orient both new worshippers and long-time attenders to your church’s liturgy? How do you help them understand why you do what you do each week, each season, and each year?

By Debbie Fulthorp

Recently, I received a couple of e-mails from a few well-meaning friends suggesting that I tone it down with social media posts advocating for women in ministry. These friends suggested that my posts cause tension, make the church look bad, and turn people away from attending church.

I took their words to heart, prayed, and pondered them for some time. I asked myself, do these posts truly have a negative effect on the church, or do some Christians mistakenly believe that advocating for women in ministry disrupts church unity? As a former lead pastor and a fairly new advocate for women in ministry, I hear many unfounded myths like this about the inclusion of women in church leadership. Let’s explore some of those myths.

Myth #1: Advocating for women in ministry will turn people away from the church.

According to various research polls, the increase of people who identify as “unchurched” rose by 21% between 1993 and 2015. 85% of those “unchurched” women are more accurately identified as “de-churched.”[1] One of the top reasons women are leaving church is the “lack of emotional engagement and support.”[2]

In reality, people are already leaving the church, and they are acutely aware of the problems we face as a community. The church actually strengthens and grows when men and women collaborate to honestly approach challenges.

Our main priority as kingdom-bringing Christians is to build bridges where there were once barriers. Advocating for women in ministry provides opportunities for bridge building, and breaks down barriers to the gospel.

Myth #2: Advocating for women in ministry causes people to lose sight of the gospel, and doesn’t help win people to Jesus.

This myth is the logical fallacy: A, therefore not B. Just because someone advocates for women’s full equality in ministry does not mean that they don’t love evangelism. Advocating for full equality for women in ministry is all about how God views people, and it has everything to do with what Jesus did for all of humanity.

Carolyn Custis James asserts in Half the Church, “When half the church holds back–whether by choice or because we have no choice–everybody loses and our mission [winning people to Jesus] suffers setbacks.”[3] The kingdom grows stronger when we work together for the gospel, side by side.

Myth #3: Women who advocate for equality “wear the pants” in their families.

Simply put, this myth exemplifies shaming, implying that there is something emasculating about an equal marriage partnership. In the book, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, this is one of the seven characteristics of a shame-based relationship.[4]

This myth belittles women who have strong callings in ministry by acting like they subvert some natural order and shames men who faithfully support those callings. We should replace this myth with Scripture and combat shaming of strong women and men who affirm them.

Myth #4: Women who advocate for equality have a Jezebel spirit and have subverted God’s plan for man’s rule over them.

Another characteristic of shame-based relationships, this myth shifts blame onto, manipulates, and humiliates women so “they won’t act that way anymore.”[5] It implies that women are the only ones who ever behave negatively, and it says that a desire for equality is sinful.

The truth is that both men and women can have an unhealthy, controlling spirit. This problem is endemic to humanity. The solution comes when control is released and the marginalized are empowered. Advocating for women in ministry is all about empowering and releasing others into ministry. And Genesis 1:28 indicates that God’s original plan for man and woman was that they would lead together.

Myth #5: Men who advocate for women in ministry are weak and need to “man up.”

Another effort to shame, this myth attempts to undermine men by striking at their masculine identity. And yet, the Apostle Paul himself is considered a strong man in both complementarian and egalitarian circles, and he was an advocate for women in ministry. Throughout his epistles, but more specifically in Romans, Paul commended women as co-laborers in ministry.[6]

Men who advocate for women in ministry are strong men, and they have kingdom vision. As the Apostle Paul illustrated, male support is essential to activating women for the gospel.

Myth #6: Advocating for women as equal partners in ministry is anti-biblical.

Used and abused, this myth pops up regularly despite evidence to the contrary. Many people use this myth to dismiss examples of women in ministry such as Deborah, Huldah, Priscilla, Junia, and more. But advocating for women as equal partners in ministry is biblical and examples of men who did so are found throughout Scripture.

Side note: You can find many resources and books on these topics through CBE International and other websites. Here is a list of blogs from the Junia Project with more information.

It is time for men and women to set aside myths and labor together for the kingdom of God. Our common ground is Christ and him crucified. We must work together by honestly addressing our challenges, advocating for each other, and continuing to evangelize, pastor, teach, preach, and serve regardless of gender.

Notes

[1] Barna Group, “Five Factors Changing Women’s Relationship with Churches.” Barna.com, June 25, 2015. Accessed September 10, 2016, https://www.barna.com/research/five-factors-changing-womens-relationship….
[2] Ibid..
[3] Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 2011, 19.
[4] David Johnson and Jeffrey VanVonderen, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2005), 57.
[5] Johnson and VanVonderen, 58.
[6] Romans 16:1 (Phoebe), 3 (Prisca),6 (Mary), 7 (Junia), 12 (Tryphena, Tryphosa, Persis), 13 (Julia, Neurus’ Sister, Olympas).

I am preparing to lead a short Bible study on the book of Job using the recent book How to Read Job by John Walton and Tremper Longman III as a guide. The book of Job provides an excellent forum for discussing the nature of Scripture as the word of God, God as creator, and God’s rule of creation. All of these are issues we must deal with in an consideration of science and Christian faith or the relevance of Christian faith in the 21st century. The questions we ask today are not enormously different than those asked by the original audience of Job, but the baggage we bring to the text of Scripture seems to have grown. We need to learn to read the Bible on its own terms, not according to our human (western, modern, …) rules.

Part One of How to Read Job addresses the question of reading Job as literature. The book of Job is not history and it is not, actually, about Job. Both Walton and Longman agree that the book of Job is about God and the way God runs the world. Two major questions drive the book. First: Is it good policy for God to bless the righteous? Blessing the righteous just buys pseudo-loyalty doesn’t it? And second, Is it it just when God allows righteous people to suffer?

These two challenges set up the focus of the book as it pertains to God’s policies in the world: it is not good policy for righteous people to prosper (for that undermines the development of true righteousness by providing an ulterior motive). In tension with that, it is not good policy for righteous people to suffer (they are good people, the ones who are on God’s side). So what is God to do? (p. 15)

I think we can take these questions and pose some additional questions that encompass all of Scripture. Why did God create humans capable of sin? Why was the snake in the garden? Why do the wicked prosper? Why does God show mercy? Why are there tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes? Why did God apparently (assuming evolution is correct) use years of death to shape the world, from the origin of an oxygen environment down to the present day? Why is the death of Jesus important? Why are hell and judgment important biblical concepts? Why are Christians sometimes horribly persecuted? All of these bear on the larger question of how God runs the world. It isn’t always clear from a human perspective.

What big questions do you see in Scripture?

What is on trial in the book of Job?

I have heard a number of Christians claim that evolutionary creation runs counter to the nature of God. And, apparently ignoring the serpent in the garden, that the introduction of sin and evil must be laid at the feet of humans to preserve God’s integrity and justice.  But is this what the Bible teaches?  Perhaps Job will help us as we look for answers.

The book of Job is a work of theological literature. Both Longman and Walton see it as a sophisticated and carefully constructed work. The book consists of a prologue and opening lament (ch. 1-3), a cycle of dialogue between Job and his three friends (ch. 4-27), a wisdom hymn (28), a discourse by Job (ch. 29-31), a discourse by Elihu (ch. 32-37), a discourse by God (ch. 38-41) and an closing and epilogue (ch. 42). (The drawings are by William Blake – available on Wikipedia.)

Though many modern interpreters have found the book lacking in cohesiveness, we would contend that each of these components of the book plays a significant role in the development of the book’s purpose. The various styles of literature used by the book include dialogue, discourse, narrative, hymn, and lament. All of these are woven together into a poignant piece of wisdom literature. None of these parts can be easily written off as later additions or as redundant once we understand the role that each plays in the book. (p. 20)

While the book of Job fits into the larger world of ancient Near Eastern literature, it is distinctly different in the way it portrays Job and God. Job thinks like an Israelite. God alone is wise. The book doesn’t mirror the surrounding views – in a sense it responds to them. “It is remarkable that some could still suggest that the book of Job borrows from the ancient Near Eastern exemplars. … A more defensible model sees the mentality of ancient Near Eastern literature as a foil for the book of Job. Job’s friends are the representatives of the ancient Near Eastern perspective, and their views are soundly rejected.” (p. 32)  Walton and Longman point out out several ways the text responds to the culture, including the following: (1) There is no “great symbiosis” because God does not have needs for humans to satisfy. (2) The text is interested in the justice of God, while just gods are not a concern in the ancient Near East. (3) The text is concerned with righteousness as an abstract concept, and one that goes beyond the ancient world. (4) No ritual offenses are considered (contrary to the literary parallels). (5) Divine wisdom is a major theme.

The book of Job is not history. The character of Job may or may not be based on a real person known to the original author and audience – by reputation at least. It doesn’t matter. Longman and Walton don’t mince words here: “this book is manifestly and unarguably in the genre category of wisdom literature rather than historical literature.” (p. 35) And a little later on the same page, “We would be mistaken to think that the author seeks to unfold a series of historical events.” (p. 35) They run through some of the reasons for this conclusion (for example, no stenographer recording heavenly prologue or the dialogues). The excessive extremes that frame the story. Job is exceedingly wealthy, he is undeniably righteous, no space is left for easy outs. The reader must grapple with the central question.

We therefore adopt the position that, though Job himself may have been a real person who actually lived, the rest of the book is a literary work of art providing a wisdom discussion that is framed by extremes. … This allows us to consider the extreme and artificial scenario the author has constructed so that we can engage in a deep investigation of an important philosophical issue without having to continually cope with the muddied waters of the normal ambiguities of people and their circumstances. Whether we label it a thought experiment or simply a hypothetical scenario built around extremes, we can encounter the God-given message of the text undistracted from incidental curiosities and without the angst that comes with wondering why God killed Job’s children. (p. 39)

I suppose that we could argue that God should not have allowed (or inspired) the original author to include such troubling elements as the wager with the challenger and the killing of Job’s children. However, this may well be imposing modern sensibilities on an ancient text.  We find these to be distractors, but they need to be taken for their literary intent as extremes not as moral statements.

How would you describe the genre of Job?

How does this influence the way you interpret the book?

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

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