Christians and Muslims (by Josh Graves)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:47 pm By Scot McKnight

In about one month, I am releasing a book with Cascade (Wipf and Stock) Books entitled How Not to Kill a Muslim. You can pre-order the book HERE. The book’s title actually wasn’t my idea. My original idea was something a little more pedestrian . . . like Tearing Down the Walls or Learning to See our Muslim Neighbors. But, my editor was correct, I needed the title to say exactly what the book was saying. Start at the end, and work your way back . . . I think that’s a NT concept.

I started writing this book a few years ago as I was ending my doctoral work at Columbia Theological Seminary. Since beginning this book, so much has happened in the U.S. (Boston Marathon Bombing, Paris Charlie Hebdo attacks , ISIS in Syria, etc.) to deepen the divide between Christians and Muslims.

Here’s what I’m essentially saying in this book . . . (you can read an overview I did for Jesus Creed HERE)

1. Paradigmatic text. Certain texts count more than others. I believe this because Jesus taught this to be true. The title of Scot’s blog (Jesus Creed) is based upon the idea that Jesus’ central teaching was the Shema (Love God) plus Lev. 19:18ff (Love neighbor). We work from the center. Some texts count more than others. I argue that, if all you had to guide the conversation regarding Muslims and Christians in the U.S. was the unique Luke 10 parable, it would be enough to guide the entire conversation.

2. Imago Dei. Evangelical Christianity is just now catching up to the ancient truth that every person alive . . . every breathing, walking, talking human is an extension of God’s presence. That is, every person bears the mark of God on their body and in their soul. So, I can call a Muslim my neighbor because they are first and foremost a child of God. We don’t have to believe that same narratives regarding the Qur’an and Jesus in order to acknowledge the Genesis claim that God has smuggled his likeness into 7 billion people strong on Planet Earth.

3. The church lacks chutzpah. Fear is big business in secular and religious America. Fear paralyzes the church from thriving in God’s world. Instead of the church existing for the life of the world, the church cowers in the face of complex and dangerous social questions. Post-Sept. 11, 2001, I can think of very few issues that are more pressing than the manner in which Christians come to know and understand Muslims living in the U.S.

4. Hospitality is chief virtue and practice in a postmodern world. Table is more effective than talk. Between the Eucharist and solidarity with those who suffer, Christianity is poised for this unique moment we find ourselves in precisely because the early church (inspired by Jesus) thrived in hostile and tense environments in which hospitality provided a stark contrast

5. Our children will judge our version of Jesus on this matter. I was born in 1979. This means I straddle the fence between Generation X and the Millennial Generation. We love to ask our grandparents and parents about race, Jim Crow, segregation, and the horrors of lynching and discrimination. Here’s the deal. My three sons are going to ask me about Islam and the treatment of Muslims in the U.S. by Christians the exact same way in which I have asked those who’ve gone before me about white supremacy and privilege. I’m not saying they are the exact same issue, I am suggesting that the coming generations will not waiver from nailing us on our commitment to the Jesus Way (Sermon on the Mount, etc.). And they should.

Here’s what I’m not saying in this book (not that this will lessen the e-mail’s and courageous anonymous letters I receive).

1. I am not suggesting that church = the state. I believe the U.S. government should everything within her power to limit radicalIslamist terrorists like ISIS. Because that is what governments are designed to do. I also think the church should focus on being the church. That means we are more passionate about praying for our enemies than celebrating their death. That means committing to sending missionaries to the Middle East to dig wells, teach children, empower women, and bring hope in ways that are good news for people who don’t believe Christianity is good news.

2. I’m not naive and I don’t believe this is easy. I’ve been at this kind of work now for a decade and it’s hard work. It can be demoralizing and depressing. It can feel pointless, lonely, and never-ending. But my calling is to focus on the main thing–the love of God poured out into the world through Jesus–and let God worry about the outcomes, results, and conclusion.

3. I’m also not saying, in this book, that all religions are the same. Fundamentalist Christianity tends to lean towards fear, isolation and suspicion on all things “inter-faith.” Mainline liberal Christianity, however, has trended in the opposite direction the last half-century. Liberal Christianity has tended to teach that all the world’s religions are simply many paths up the same mountain, ending up at the same destination. I’m suggesting that neither Fundamentalism (isolation) or Liberal Christianity (appeasement) are true of the early church nor does either approach actually work. I’m suggesting–as others have also done so–a Third Way. Namely, incarnation. Word to flesh. Relationships. Dialog. Shared tables. Understanding. Habitat Houses built in the spirit of mutuality.

Someone recently relayed to me that in certain circles of my life people were referring to me as a “Muslim lover.”

In a strange way, I could not have said it better myself. I’m a Jesus person, what other choice do I have?
Josh Graves is the teaching minister for the Otter Creek Church in Nashville. In addition to How Not to Kill a Muslim, he is author of The Feast and Heaven on Earth (with Chris Seidman). He holds a doctorate degree from Columbia Theological Seminary.

The Importance of Heaven and Hell

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:47 pm By Scot McKnight

No one in the world has thought more about heaven, hell and purgatory than Jerry Walls. He has an academic, but accessible, book on each topic and now he has brought all his thinking together in one far more accessible, rearranged book called Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory: A Protestant View of the Cosmic Drama. Just a few introductory thoughts today on these topics:

First, the importance of heaven and hell — not the importance of thinking about them but the importance of the “places”:

This book deals with the most important questions you will ever think about, questions that every sane person must care about. You can deny that heaven and hell are real, but you cannot rationally be indifferent about the matter. Given what is at stake, the only sensible attitude is to care, and to care deeply (11).

Some have declared a boom-boom on the topics, thinking them unworthy of moderns and postmoderns with their claim to eternal salvation in a life beyond, while others have dismissed them by claiming they are nothing but speculation, while others have said it’s far more important to care about life now than life in the afterlife. Say it as you will, heaven remains fascinating:

But I want to emphasize that there is far more involved here than mere fascination. Indeed, fascination can be nothing more than curiosity at the unusual or the entertaining, the mysterious, and even the bizarre. Certainly, much that is written about heaven and hell is sensational and appeals to these tendencies. Moreover, popular writing about the afterlife is often sentimental, simplistic, and emotionally manipulative (14). [but]

… the Christian doctrines of the afterlife involve a set of profoundly substantive truth claims with explosive implications (14).

Walls thinks heaven and hell strike at the heart of Christian orthodoxy!

Indeed, I think it is especially incumbent on all who profess orthodox Christianity to remain true to these remarkable doctrines and their far-reaching implications. I find it ironic that contemporary theologians sometimes wax eloquent about the radical nature of Christian theology or the truth of the Christian narrative but become mute or tentative when the issue of heaven is broached. The Christian story is extraordinary, to be sure, but it is radically incomplete and ultimately unsatisfying without a robust doctrine of the afterlife, and one simply cannot seriously affirm Trinity, incarnation, atonement, and resurrection without going on to heartily affirm “the life everlasting” (15, italics added).

Which issues matter then?

In particular, I believe these doctrines are most pertinent to such perennial issues as the problem of evil, the nature of personal identity, the foundations of morality, and, ultimately, the very meaning of life (16).

The So-called “Wrong Side of History”

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:47 pm By Scot McKnight

Some people think they know where history is taking us and are quite happy to declare boom-booms on those who take exception, the boom-booms declared with a long finger pointing at them with the accusation they will be on the “wrong side of history” or, perhaps more damaging, they will be “left behind” or “irrelevant.”

The irony is that in a world where “manifest destiny” or “discerning God’s plan for America” or even connecting something bad (9/11) with something else bad (same-sex sins) are objects of scorn, it is more than a little surprising that we now have some who know where history is going. It comes from those on the Left and the Right.

From the Left, from Lynn Stuart Parramore, we get this observation about where history is going: religion is dying, so cheer up secularist:

With fire-breathing religion figuring anew in global conflicts, and political discussions at home often dominated by the nuttery of the Christian right, you might get the sense that somebody’s god is ready to mug you around every street corner. But if you’re the type who doesn’t like to hang your hat on organized religion, here’s a bit of good news: In America, your numbers are growing.

There are more religiously unaffiliated people in the U.S. today than ever before. Starting in the 1980s, a variety of polls using different methodologies have come to the same conclusion: people who do not identify with religious labels are on the rise, perhaps even doubling in that time frame.

Some call them “nones”: agnostics, atheists, deists, secular humanists, general humanists, and people who just don’t care to identify with any religious group. It’s not exactly correct to call them nonbelievers, because some still have faith and spirituality in some sense or another. A 2012 Pew study noted that 30 percent of these people believe in “God or universal spirit” and around 20 percent even pray every day. But according to the latest research, Americans checking the “none of the above” box will make up an increasingly important force in the country. Other groups, like born-again evangelicals, have grown more percentage-wise, but the nones have them beat in absolute numbers.

The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute has documented this sea change in its American Values Atlas, which it released last Wednesday. The fascinating study provides demographic, religious and political data based on surveys conducted throughout 2014. According to PRRI director of research Dan Cox, “The U.S. religious landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation that is fundamentally reshaping American politics and culture.”

But John Gray, who points to the progressive theory of history at work in Sam Harris in an article in The Guardian, called “What Scares the New Atheists,” thinks the opposite might be the case so there is less cheer for the secularist here:

Harris’s militancy in asserting these values seems to be largely a reaction to Islamist terrorism. For secular liberals of his generation, the shock of the 11 September attacks went beyond the atrocious loss of life they entailed. The effect of the attacks was to place a question mark over the belief that their values were spreading – slowly, and at times fitfully, but in the long run irresistibly – throughout the world. As society became ever more reliant on science, they had assumed, religion would inexorably decline. No doubt the process would be bumpy, and pockets of irrationality would linger on the margins of modern life; but religion would dwindle away as a factor in human conflict. The road would be long and winding. But the grand march of secular reason would continue, with more and more societies joining the modern west in marginalising religion. Someday, religious belief would be no more important than personal hobbies or ethnic cuisines.

Today, it’s clear that no grand march is under way.

Yes, Sam Harris more or less subscribes to a secularization theory that pretends to know where history is going but the facts are not all in his corner. What’s clear to Parramore is not clear to Gray.

And from the strident Right Jeannine Pirro overtly asks why President Obama accuses his opponents of being on the “wrong side of history,” which means both the President and Pirro know what is the “right side of history” and where it is headed:

You know Mr. President, why does it feel like you’re on the wrong side of things, on the wrong side of history? Why are you not working with Egypt and Jordan to eliminate ISIS. Both are Arab Muslim nations willing to identify the enemy as Islamic extremists.

Evidently Pirro knows where history is headed too, and it is in the opposite direction of Parramore and the President (as she constructs him).

I hear the same claim about the “right side of history” and the “wrong side of history” in the same-sex marriage or same-sex relations in the church crowds.

I wonder about this argument, this argument about the “right side of history.” No, in fact, I don’t wonder. It’s wrong. Here are my reasons why those who know where history are wrong:

1. They make history inevitable progress in their direction. This is simple hermeneutics, or put more simple, it’s hermeneutical colonialism. In fact, those who know the “right side of history” and the “wrong side of history” are judgmentalists through and through. They not only know history is moving where they are or want to be but they sit in judgment on all those who disagree. They are censorious — and both Parramore and Pirro illustrate the point.

2. They make history presentist. That is, what is happening now is not only progressive improvement but what is now is always better than what was before. Which means, far more often the advocates are wind sniffers who, now having counted up the tilt of numbers, have thrown in their lot and are ready to sanctify it with this specious argument that is is where “history is going.” We should pause only for a moment to know that presentist arguments would have justified — in other days — slavery, Stalinism and Hitlerism, and the inequality of African Americans, women and undocumented workers.

3. They destroy biblical eschatology. Instead of taking their cues from the biblical vision of the kingdom of God in the future (where Jesus will be Lord over all in consummation) they ask Jesus to join their presentist historical progressivisms and so sanctify their discernments as God’s divine plan. Tom Wright in some of his newest books — both Surprised by Scripture and Simply Good News — has taken shots at this theory of progress and countered with a kingdom vision of where history is actually headed.

4. They claim omniscience. Not overtly but the subtler form is all the more noticeable. When you can tell us where history has been and where it is headed, and you can say you are on that side, you have just made a claim bigger than Hegelian theories of the Spirit. You claim, like Deuteronomy, that you know the divine mechanisms at work in history and you pronounce some awful boom-booms on those who will not join. That is, these folks stand in with prophetic words from God.

5. They claim omniscience by assuming a futurist stance where all things will be as they think. It won’t be, and all history proves this. Whether one is a utopian or a postmillennialists, history doesn’t cooperate. Nor will it. Why? There are too many dissenters. That’s a very good thing.

6. They destroy both diversity and freedom. I give two examples: Back in the early decades of the 20th Century some American thinkers and literati knew where history was headed — toward socialism and communism. When it turned up vicious, brutal and murderous, they didn’t always back down but many sulked off to a quiet corners. Others switched sides. Back in the 70s and 80s some conservatives thought the church would be destroyed if women were allowed to be priests or pastors and some liberals thought it would save the gospel and the church and religion in America, and where are we now? Some are against and some are for women pastors. (The same will be the case with same-sex relations in the church and America — diversity.) But there’s a sinister side in all this: to announce that history is headed in any direction is to tell those who don’t agree with that side that their freedom to disbelieve is in jeopardy. It takes all kinds to compose a world and the “wrong/right side of history” people need to defend freedoms. We need freedom and freedom will mean diversity, and that’s what the world is about.

7. They seek to centralize their vision in order to impose conformity rather than to solicit the majority view based on the freedom of choice. These specious historians are top-down thinkers, whether from the Left or the Right. Common response to failure are to press even harder for the centralized vision and to blame the failure on the dissenters. The way to win is to get more votes, make more laws, and impose the laws on the blinkered dissenters. What this produces is resentment, and resentment will find a way for expression.

A Few Thoughts for My Friends in the Gospel Coalition (by David Moore)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:50 pm By Scot McKnight

By David George Moore. Dave blogs at Two Cities.

Bear with me a bit, but some personal background is needed. Theologically, I have sympathies with a “Calvinistic” understanding of salvation, but a deeper commitment to the “consensual Christianity” that theologians like Wesleyan Tom Oden have written about. This is the Christianity which finds its anchor in “what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.” I am a graduate of both Dallas Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Towards the end of my time at Trinity, my thesis adviser, Wayne Grudem, asked me to be the first executive director of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I was honored to be asked, but turned Wayne down. I have known some of the men in the Gospel Coalition for many years. Ironically for my post, it is one of those men who first introduced me to Tom Oden’s writings. That was over twenty years ago. One other personal comment is needful for this post. In the early years of the Jesus Creed blog (back in the Beliefnet days), I found Scot McKnight willing to respond regularly to my comments, even when I disagreed with him. It is one reason why Scot’s invitation years later to be a regular contributor was an easy one to accept. Now to the nub of my concern with the Gospel Coalition… Watching the Mark Driscoll implosion was sobering and terribly sad. Early signs of Driscoll’s problems were observed by Tim Keller (The New York Times, Aug. 22, 2014):

He was really important — in the Internet age, Mark Driscoll definitely built up the evangelical movement enormously. But the brashness and the arrogance and the rudeness in personal relationships — which he himself has confessed repeatedly — was obvious to many from the earliest days, and he has definitely now disillusioned quite a lot of people. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/us/mark-driscoll-is-being-urged-to-leave-mars-hill-church.html?_r=0

It is encouraging to see Keller’s candor, but I find it perplexing why John Piper has no regrets for Mark Driscoll being invited to speak for the ministry of Desiring God. To Piper’s credit, he wishes he had been a better friend to Driscoll. I continue to have questions about how the Driscoll implosion was handled by the Gospel Coalition, but that is not what I want to address. Rather, it is something which seems more endemic among the Gospel Coalition: the penchant to either not answer valid criticisms and/or marginalize those who raise serious concerns. I will offer a specific for each starting with the last first. Carl Trueman used to be one of the most quoted people on blogs and twitter accounts sympathetic to the Gospel Coalition. Now his name rarely comes up. If you don’t pay attention to these sorts of things it is because of Carl’s writings on Ref 21 and in First Things where he detailed his own concerns about the ways in which the Gospel Coalition seemed to mishandle various matters. As to not answering valid criticisms, let me provide a recent example. Denny Burk approvingly linked (Dec. 6, 2014) to a Doug Wilson post. In that post, Wilson detailed several criticisms with the Biologos Forum for its less than biblical understanding of origins. I decided to raise a question on Burk’s Blog:

I truly would appreciate the answer to the following question: Why do you guys make so much of this issue [age of the earth, Adam and Eve, etc.], but never call out Tim Keller? I have watched Al Mohler go hard after people who hold to theistic evolution, but Keller is left untouched.

Denny did not respond, but another reader did. That reader simply said people know Keller is more “moderate” so therefore he does not get criticized. I responded to that reader by saying, “Regardless of what Keller’s personality and posture may be, I am asking why he gets a pass and others don’t. Others could also be categorized as ‘diplomatic,’ but they are not part of the Gospel Coalition, so they alone become targets of criticism.” I can only speculate why Burk did not respond. He frankly did not respond to anyone, but I still don’t think there is a sufficient answer to my question. In Tom Oden’s endlessly fascinating memoir, A Change of Heart, he mentions how Stan Gundry of Zondervan reached out to him:

In the late 1970s, my friend Stand Gundry of Zondervan Publishing House met regularly with me every year for an extended conversation at the American Academy of Religion. One year when we met in New Orleans for AAR, we talked about my possible participation in the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), and he as a board member urged me to join.

I think the Gospel Coalition could learn much from this model. The Gospel Coalition would be better served by having people like Fred Sanders, Roger Ols0n, and Scot McKnight involved. Oh yeah, and that Trueman guy as well. He is a very committed Calvinist! Let me close with a challenge I have posed in various places. It always engenders deafening silence. I am still waiting to hear a name given. Here goes: Name a person within a Christian organization who raised a serious concern, and was not booted or marginalized for doing so. Even though Charles Barkley is friends with both Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, and Coach Belichick, good old Chuck was more than willing to question whether they were telling the truth about “Deflategate.” Evangelical organizations, churches, parachurches, and schools are in desperate need of people like Charles Barkley. As Peter Vardy says, “It takes courage to stand up to your enemies. It takes more courage to stand up to your friends.”

When Does it Matter? (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:50 pm By RJS

The first two chapters in N. T. Wright’s book Surprised by Scripture address questions concerning science and Christian faith. The primary focus in the second was on Adam (It’s About God and God’s Kingdom), but the essay started with a discussion of the authority of scripture and the importance of being immersed in the story told in scripture. We need to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and become immersed in the whole sweep of scripture. When we are immersed in the sweep of scripture we learn how to deal with the inevitable challenges that each new generation faces as they embrace the Christian faith. Today one of the significant challenges comes from science and the impact this has on the way we understand Christian faith. Is the earth young or old? Does it matter how old we think the earth is? Is evolution a threat or a challenge? A threat is bad, a challenge can be good as it causes us to think more deeply about our faith.

First, the authority of scripture. In his essay on Adam Wright outlines his understanding of the authority of scripture (described more completely in his book Scripture and the Authority of God).

In the Bible all authority belongs to God and is then delegated to Jesus. … The phrase authority of scripture can only, at its best, be a shorthand for the authority of God in Jesus, mediated through scripture. … [A]s centuries of history demonstrate, the Bible is the God-given means through which we know who Jesus is. Take the Bible away, diminish it or water it down, and you are free to invent a Jesus just a little bit different from the Jesus who is hidden in the Old Testament and revealed in the New. We live under scripture because that is the way we live under the authority of God that has been vested in Jesus the Messiah, the Lord. (p. 28)

But the point of scripture isn’t a myriad of facts and details that must be believed. The point is in the story of God establishing his kingdom on earth as in heaven. It is about God and God’s kingdom.

This is the big story that we must learn how to tell. It isn’t just about how to get saved, with some cosmology bolted on the side. This is an organic story about God and the world. God’s authority is exercised not to give his people lots of true information, not even true information about how they get saved (though that comes en route). God’s authority, vested in Jesus the Messiah, is about God reclaiming his proper lordship over all creation. And the way God planned to rule over his creation from the start was through obedient humanity. The Bible’s witness to Jesus declares that he, the obedient Man, has done this. But the Bible is then the God-given equipment through which the followers of Jesus are themselves equipped to be obedient stewards, the royal priesthood, bringing that saving rule of God in Christ to the world. (p. 28-29)

Powerful stuff … and dead on target. This is the message we need to preach. The Bible serves its God-given purpose through the fresh wrestling of each generation with the text and the story. The authority of the Bible is dynamic not static, as though it were possible for one generation to answer all questions for all time. “The Bible seems designed to challenge and provoke each generation to do its own fresh business, to struggle and wrestle with the text,” (p. 29) and “each generation must do its own fresh historically grounded reading, because each generation needs to grow up not simply look up the right answers and remain in an infantile condition.” (p. 30) This is a process to embrace, not a process to fear. We listen to tradition, but tradition doesn’t rule. This is why it is important to read the bible, in community and in conversation.

When does it really matter? Wright makes another point as well. “All too often the word biblical has been shrunk, so that it now means only “according to our tradition, which we assume to be biblical.”“( p. 31) Sometimes tradition represents a walk away from the message of scripture, sometimes tradition is neutral, and sometimes it keeps us on the message of scripture. Wisdom and maturity come from wrestling with tradition as we are formed by scripture.

When tradition or favored interpretation takes us away from the central message of scripture it needs to be confronted and corrected. But this isn’t always the case. Wright asks the question about the young-earth position: Is this a disputable matter over which we should not quarrel? (Romans 14, 1 Cor. 8) Should I, as a Christian and a scientist, view the young earth position as an allowable if regrettable alternative?

If the only reason for objecting to the position is image, “the pragmatic reason that it makes it hard for us to be Christians because the wider world looks at those folks and thinks we must be like that too,” (p. 31) then some gentle correction may be in order – but it isn’t a critical matter. Of course this goes beyond personal discomfort to the issue of evangelism. If people in our context won’t even consider Christianity because the young earth position is simply untenable, then the correction should, perhaps, be more forceful.

But there is a time when confrontation and correction is clearly called for. “Yes, of course, any confrontation must be done in courtesy and civility, charity and gentleness – though if the truth is a stake, look at how Paul confronted Peter at Antioch.” (p. 31) Paul’s complaint here wasn’t about appearance and witness, but about a central part of the Christian gospel message. In Christ there is not Jew nor Gentile.

Creationism, and young vs old earth. Perhaps young-earth creationism falls into the category where correction is called for because it represents a more serious distortion of the Christian message. Wright reflects on this …

Or is it – as I suggest it ought to be – because we have glimpsed a positive point that urgently needs to be made and that young-earth literalism is simply screening out? That’s the danger of false teaching: it isn’t just that you are making a mess; you are using that mess to cover up something that ought to be brought urgently to light. (p. 31)

Perhaps science has exposed a flaw in tradition that needed to be brought to light. It isn’t that it matters if you think the earth is young or old. It is the importance that is attached to this position and the way the argument is framed. Perhaps the way the young earth position is often advocated, the approach taken to the authority of scripture and the framing of God’s work in his world, distorts an important part of the Christian message.

If this is true then, it is an issue that needs to be confronted on biblical grounds, not scientific grounds. And it requires familiarity with the entire sweep of scripture. Creation, fall, redemption, consummation is a truncation of the gospel that leaves out incredibly important parts. It tends to treat most of the Old Testament and most of the New Testament as expendable extras. We shouldn’t reduce the story to Genesis 1-3, John 3:16, Matthew 26-28, and Revelation 22, with Romans as a theological exposition, and wrap it up with a neat ribbon and bow. When we look at the whole sweep of scripture, the young-earth view and Adam as a historical person are not essential. This is the point of the last post (It’s About God and God’s Kingdom).

The young-earth literalism is a serious problem when it distorts and defines scripture rather than letting scripture speak for itself. It is a problem when everything needs to fit into a nice externally defined mode for the “authority of scripture,” when everything needs to be shoe-horned into this predetermined mold. There is a positive point we need to make about the authority of scripture and young-earth literalism can distort this point.

The conversation between young-earth, old-earth, intelligent design, and evolutionary creation positions is useful when it helps us dig down into the sweep of scripture, to identify the real points of conflict with our surrounding culture, and focus on the gospel message of Jesus Christ. We need to stand against naturalism and secular humanism as a worldview. But the story isn’t about how we escape this world in the end. It is about God and God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven. “If we can study Genesis and human origins without hearing the call to be an image-bearing human being renewed in Jesus, we are massively missing the point.” (p. 39)

I don’t really care if someone holds a young-earth position. Many wonderful Christians past and present have held such a position. I do care when the position is being clung to because it is part of a faulty view of the gospel story or when it prevents others from hearing the gospel story.

What do we mean by the authority of scripture?

How should this shape our approach to scripture?

When is it important to confront false teaching, and how should we go about it?

How are we to know when we are guilty of false teaching?

If you wish to contact me, 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.

It’s About God and God’s Kingdom (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:50 pm By RJS

The second essay in N. T. Wright’s book Surprised by Scripture addresses the question Do We Need a Historical Adam? Wright accepts a historical Adam and Eve as a representative pair chosen by God, much as God later chose Abraham and Israel. The need for a historical Adam is much the same as the need for a historical Israel. This is the way the story is told, and the way God worked in the world. (My interpretation, Wright never put it quite like this.) The significance of Adam isn’t as progenitor of the human race or as originator of sin. Rather, the significance of Adam is in his vocation to be God’s image bearer in the world and in his failure to live up to this vocation.

In any discussion of Adam the key passages to consider are the passages written by Paul in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. In Romans 5 Paul draws a contrast between Adam and Jesus: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (v. 19) This comparison leads many to claim a need for Adam as originator of sin, no Adam, no need for Jesus. But this, according to Wright, is to misunderstand Paul’s message.

First Jesus then Paul and Adam. Wright leads into his discussion of Paul and Adam with Jesus and the central message of the Bible.

The central message of the Bible is not simply that we are sinners, but through Jesus God is rescuing us from the sinful world so that we can be with him in heaven. That’s part of it, but it’s not the whole biblical story. The Bible is not about the rescue of humans from the world but about the rescue of humans for the world, and indeed God’s rescue of the world by means of those rescued humans. …

… Yes, Jesus was and is fully divine and fully human. But the point of his divinity in the Gospels is that in him and as him the living God is becoming king. And the point of his humanity in the Gospels is that , in him and as him, human beings are at last taking up again their God-given vocation of being the royal priesthood through which God brings his wise, redemptive ordering to the garden. And yes, the good news is good news of salvation. But in the Bible we are saved not simply so we can go to heaven and enjoy fellowship with God but so that we can be his truly human royal priesthood in his world. (p. 32)

With this idea in mind, we now move to Paul and Adam.

First, Paul’s exposition of Adam in these passages is explicitly in the service not of a traditional soteriology but of the kingdom of God. (p. 33)

This isn’t about how we get saved, but about how God is re-establishing us through Jesus as his image bearers in his kingdom.

Second, there is a close parallel between the biblical vocation of Adam in Genesis and the biblical vocation of Israel. (p. 33)

Adam and Eve failed to carry out their God-given vocation in the garden with serious consequences. Israel failed to carry out its God-given vocation as the people of God and light of the world. “God’s project for the whole creation (that it should be run by obedient humans) was aborted, put on hold“. (p. 34)

Romans 5: According to Wright “the great climax of Romans 1-8 is the renewal of all creation.” If we miss this we will miss the point of Romans 5.

For Paul it’s clear: the whole world is now God’s holy land. That’s what scripture prophesied, and that’s what has been achieved in Jesus the Messiah. (p. 33)

What Paul talks about in Romans 5 is not some kind of genetic propagation of sin through the seed of man, but the failure of Adam in his vocation as the image of God. Jesus as God’s Messiah and the faithful one sets this right.

This, you see, is what Paul is really talking about in Romans 5:12-21 … In verse 17, Paul surprises us. “If by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one,” he says, and we expect him to go on “how much more will life reign through the one.” But he doesn’t. He says, “How much more will those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the gift of covenant membership, of “being in the right,” reign in life through the one man Jesus the Messiah.” Adam’s sin meant not only that he died but that he no longer reigned over the world. God’s creation was supposed to function through human stewardship, and instead it now produces thorns and thistles. Now humans are redeemed to get God’s creation-project back on track. … Paul’s Adam theology is also his kingdom theology, and the author of Genesis would have smiled in recognition. (p. 34 emphasis added.)

1 Corinthians 15 has the same point from a different angle. “Paul’s whole point is to pick up from Genesis the notion of the calling of Adam and to show that it is being fulfilled in the Messiah.” (p. 35) Humans from the beginning (i.e. from Adam) have failed to carry out their God-given vocation as the image of God in his temple … the garden and indeed all of creation.

This leads to Israel. Wright sees a strong parallel between the calling and vocation of Adam and the calling and vocation of Israel. Israel was called to be a royal priesthood (Exodus 19) and the light of the nations (Isaiah 42,49). Like Adam, Israel failed to keep God’s commandments, resulting in exile and despair.

And it is that complex which the New Testament sees being dealt with, gloriously resolved, in Israel’s messiah, Jesus the Lord, and his death and resurrection. He has dealt with exile, and now the whole world is God’s holy land, with Jesus and his people as the light of the world.

… Certainly the Jews of the Second Temple period would have no difficulty in decoding the story of Adam as an earlier version of their own story: placed in the garden, given a commission to look after it; the garden being the place where God wanted to be at rest, to exercise his sovereign rule; the people warned about keeping the commandment, warned in particular that breaking it would mean death, breaking it and being exiled. It all sounds very, very familiar. (p. 37)

It is this context that leads Wright to his proposal that Adam and Eve were chosen representatives of the whole human race much as Israel was God’s chosen people. It isn’t clear to me that it matters if Adam and Eve were some unique representative pair, or if the story relates the simple truth that humans from the beginning, called by God to be his image bearers in the world, failed.

And this leads to Jesus. God himself did what we could not and cannot. The incarnation is central. Jesus is the faithful human, the faithful Israelite, doing what Adam and Israel did not (could not) do.

All of this projects us toward a full and rich Christology, but not simply of Jesus as both divine and human – that’s a given, but its only a shorthand, a signpost. … He is Israel’s Messiah, who fulfills Israel’s obedience on the cross and thereby rescues both Israel and the whole human race. He does for Israel what Israel couldn’t do for itself and thereby does for humans what Israel was supposed to do for them, and thereby launches God’s project of new creation, the new world over which he already reigns as king. This is the great narrative, and we need to learn to tell it. (p. 39)

It seems at times that Wright suggests that the sin of Adam thwarted (temporarily) God’s plan for creation. I don’t think that this is quite right. God knew from the beginning that humans, Adam and Israel, would be unable to be the obedient image bearers. Jesus as the obedient human, Messiah, Immanuel, God with us, second Adam, shoot from stump of Jesse, was always the plan for the establishment of God’s kingdom. We have to take Colossians 1:15-20 and John 1:1-14 seriously. The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. … all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Wright’s emphasis on the vocation of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, who fulfills Israel’s obedience and as the true image of God who fulfills Adam’s calling makes sense of the story where many truncated messages falter. This can, will, and should, preach. Primarily because it is faithful to scripture and to the mission of God in the world.

The point of it all is vocational: if we can study Genesis and human origins without hearing the call to be an image-bearing human being renewed in Jesus, we are massively missing the point, perhaps pursuing our own dream of an otherworldly salvation that merely colludes with the forces of evil, as gnosticism always does. (p. 39)

The message ought never to be simply about “me and my salvation.” It ought to be about God and God’s kingdom. (p. 40)

We are called to be God’s faithful people, his image bearers. It is through Jesus we are “rescued by the blood of the Lamb to be a royal priesthood” and by following the way of Jesus that we become God’s faithful image bearers.

This is about God and God’s kingdom.

Do we need a historical Adam?

Do we need to understand the origin of human failure as the image bearers of God?

Does Paul, or any other part of Scripture, intend to answer this question?

If you wish to contact me, 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.

A Teacher’s Story (by Cheryl Arnold)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:50 pm By Scot McKnight

As many of you know, my daughter, Laura, and I published a book together late last year — Sharing God’s Love: The Jesus Creed for Children. It is our hope that the children’s version of The Jesus Creed will assist parents, teachers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, as they guide children into loving God and loving others in practical ways, each day. Today we begin a weekly series on reflections of how the book has been used and applied. We hope you find it useful and practical, and we pray it will usher more children into a life of loving God and loving other people.

By our friend, Cheryl Arnold:

Jesus Creed for Children

As a kindergarten teacher, I see social stories unfold at school every day. I recently observed a child stamp her foot and yell at her friends, “I am the boss of this playtime and you had better do what I say!” I also recently observed one child comfort another who was crying by bringing a tissue, offering her own personal stuffed animal from her backpack, and sitting with the crying child until she was feeling better. So how does a teacher or parent or someone who works with young children encourage more of the latter behavior? How do we shape their hearts so they will love others? Simply telling them to “be kind” or “be nice” is not enough. Children need to know what love looks like and what love sounds like in the daily life of a kid at school, at home, at activities, and any other place they may go.

I teach in a Christian school, and one of the joys of teaching there is that I can teach to the heart as well as the mind. In my lessons, I teach them how to love God and how to love others. We read Bible stories, have class conversations, and sometimes do some role playing. I am always looking for additional teaching tools, and I was delighted to add Jesus Creed for Children to my teaching toolbox. Kindergarteners love picture books of all kinds, and they loved this book when I read it to them.

Jesus Creed for Children tells about a day in the life of Aksel and his little sister Finley. The stories are presented as a series of short anecdotes, each concluding with part of the Jesus creed: “Love God with all your heart. Love other people as yourself.” My kindergarteners were fully engaged by the little stories as well as the sweet, colorful illustrations. Although the book can be read in one sitting, I chose to read it to them in smaller chunks spread over a week. In this way we could stop after each anecdote to make comments and personal connections. We talked about how others felt when they were shown love, and we talked about ways we could show love like Aksel and Finley did. My kindergarteners grew in their understanding of ways to love God and love others as we read this book together.

This is not a book to read once and set aside. Last week I pulled it out again during morning devotions. Right away my students piped up, “I remember when we read that book!” Then they wanted to share what they remembered from the first reading. We read the book again, this time in one sitting. We will reread again in the future as we continue to learn how to love God and others.

Afterlife and Hope in the Old Testament (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:50 pm By RJS

Any discussion of Christian hope must look carefully at Scripture, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The next section of John Polkinghorne’s book The God of Hope and the End of the World turns to Scripture beginning with the Old Testament and the views of life, death, hope, and the hereafter expressed in the Old Testament. Polkinghorne’s sketch is similar to Iain Provan’s as described last week (Old Testament Hope: For New Jerusalem – Not For Eden), but emphasizes different elements.

Belief in an afterlife was common in the ancient Near East, especially in Egypt. Israel was in close proximity to Egypt, brought out of Egypt as we read in the book of Exodus, yet the Egyptian obsession with the afterlife was not reflected in Israelite thinking. As Polkinghorne notes: “the people of Israel centred their hopes on justice, prosperity, and honored old age, attained in the course of the life of this world. Hope for the future lay in the continuance of the nation and the family.” (p. 54) There appears to be a belief in an existence after death in the law, the histories, and the wisdom literature, but this is shadowy and not particularly hopeful. There are hints of something better, but these are only hints (Psalm 139 and Job 3 are examples). But the afterlife is not a foundations of hope for the people of Israel.

In general Israel viewed God as working within history and their hope rested in the faithfulness of God to preserve and to prosper his people. “This confidence did not arise from some facile optimism, but it was forged in the fire of disaster and disappointment.” (p. 58) In the pages of the Old Testament over the course of a thousand years there are cycles of deliverance and disaster, from the deliverance of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to defeat at the hands of the Babylonians and the destruction of the temple. Through it all there is hope in the covenant faithfulness and mercy of God. He will not forsake his people.

The defeat at the hands of Babylon, the exile and then the return to Jerusalem prompted deeper thinking about God’s plan for Israel and indeed all of mankind. Passages of Scripture that reflect a more profound hope, a hope that extends beyond a long and peaceful life and continuance of nation and family, come only at the end of the Old Testament period. Either during the exile, or as most scholars think, after return from exile and in the intertestamental period leading up to the first century. One example is found in Isaiah 26 and includes an image of imminent birth that Paul uses in Romans 8 for all of creation.

As a pregnant woman about to give birth
    writhes and cries out in her pain,
    so were we in your presence, Lord.
We were with child, we writhed in labor,
    but we gave birth to wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth,
    and the people of the world have not come to life.

But your dead will live, Lord;
    their bodies will rise—
let those who dwell in the dust
    wake up and shout for joy—
your dew is like the dew of the morning;
    the earth will give birth to her dead.

Go, my people, enter your rooms
    and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
    until his wrath has passed by.
See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
    to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed on it;
    the earth will conceal its slain no longer. (Isaiah 26:17-21)

The other major example is found in the apocalyptic vision recorded in Daniel 12:1-4

“At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”

Both of these passages occur in a context where the Jews were wrestling with the fact that God’s judgment and deliverance did not seem to be happening in the way that they were expecting. This opened the possibility of a far greater plan, and a more extensive hope for the future. This future includes victory over death and the divine gift of life.

In the prophets we also find an expectation for something new, not simply a repetition of the past. The future will include judgment, vindication, and the breaking forth of something new. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all speak to a new creation and/or a new temple. This is envisioned as “within the future unfolding of present history” … but also as something radically new. Isaiah 67:17,25 is a case in point. “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind” and “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food.”

The prophets set the table for the Christian hope developed in the New Testament. New creation, judgment, victory over death, a new Jerusalem, the concept of the Messiah, the book of life. All of these are found in the prophets. The figure of the Son of man in Daniel 7 plays a significant role in gospels, one that Polkinghorne believes goes back to Jesus himself “as he drew on the Hebrew scriptures for an understanding of his vocation.” (p. 64) The eschatological overtones are significant. One thing is certain in the Old Testament. “The ultimate eschatological issue, and the only adequate ground of hope, is the everlasting faithfulness of God.” (p. 65)

What is the ground of hope in the Old Testament?

How important is this for Christian faith?

If you wish to contact me, 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.

Old Testament Hope: For New Jerusalem – Not For Eden (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:50 pm By RJS

Chapter 11 of Iain Provan’s new book Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters turns to the question of Hope and God’s plan for the future. What kind of hope is expressed in the Old Testament? This is an excellent chapter, sketching what Provan sees as the sweep of the Old Testament story. The Old Testament is a story of hope. If we miss this thread, we miss everything. And too many have … skipping from the Fall to Matthew. I’ll sketch this chapter briefly, but note that I found it worth the price of the book.

Genesis 1-3 is a passage of hope. Hope begins with creation. There is a hope for the future, with humans walking in harmony with God.

The human beings of Genesis 1–2 are mortal beings, then, who may eventually be given the gift of immortality. … The book of Genesis begins in hope; human beings are born looking forward to something they do not yet possess. This beginning in hope is typically obscured by those who assume that the first humans already possess what, in fact, they have only been promised. (p. 281)

But the hope present in Genesis 1-2 is not limited to humankind. Indeed, there is hope for all of creation.

When our biblical authors tell us that creation is good, they mean that it is a wonderful place, created in such a way as to be exactly the right place—a good and a beautiful place—for the flourishing of God’s creatures. They do not mean that, in this original state, creation has already arrived at its final destination. To the contrary, they tell us in Genesis 1–2 that change is built into the very fabric of creation from the beginning, as its human creatures set out on their quest to multiply, to rule and to subdue, and to keep and to serve. Along with these divine image bearers, nonhuman creation also sets out on a journey; its destiny is bound up with theirs. (p. 284)

The biblical story is not one of lost perfection and a return to Eden. Rather it is a story of a journey to the end God has planned for humanity and for all of creation. It has become a journey of fits, starts, detours, and corrections – not because of God’s ineptness, but because of the freedom he has allowed in his creation.

There is hope in the midst of the evil present in the world. Provan interprets Genesis 3:15 as descriptive of an ongoing battle between two opponents. Certainly the Old Testament is a tale of the battle between good and evil. But it is a hopeful tale. The hope lies “in the mere fact (if it is “mere”) that God continues to pursue a relationship with human beings even after they embrace evil.” (p. 286) God makes a covenant with Abraham so that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Hope continues through the covenant faithfulness of God. Provan traces this hope through the remainder of the narrative. Exodus and then Deuteronomy extend the covenant relationship with Israel.

In the narrative that follows Deuteronomy, just as much as in the one that precedes it, God works actively in the world to pursue his good ends. As in the Pentateuch, he does so in the midst of significant dysfunction and wickedness even among the people he has called to help him. The story in the first book of Samuel about how Israel eventually came to be ruled by kings illustrates this truth in a striking manner. (p. 290)

In Deuteronomy we see a description of God ordained kingship.

The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. (17:16-20)

This isn’t the kind of kingship Israel generally experiences. Their kings may not consider themselves semidivine, like those in Mesopotamia and Egypt, but they do acquire horses, wives, and wealth; and they do turn away from God. Samuel warns Israel of this and yet they seek a king. This doesn’t thwart God’s plan, of course. It becomes a means through which God acts.

From this point onward in the biblical story, kingship becomes central to God’s own plans for both Israel and the whole world; it becomes a ground for hope. … Drawing on the language of kingship, the biblical literature then looks forward to a kingdom of God that will one day arrive, at the heart of which will still be a human king. … The institution of kingship is, as I say, accepted into the divine plan—not temporarily but eternally. God does not spend his time in the biblical story fighting against it. He simply seeks, throughout the story, to take what has begun in wickedness and foolishness and turn it toward the good. (p. 292)

The covenant is established through David, a man with serious weaknesses, and yet a man after God’s own heart. He fails miserably in the Bathsheba incident, yet he repents and continues to follow God. He has his share of problems in his family. His son Solomon builds the temple, but proceeds to break every rule given in Deuteronomy concerning kingship. There are a few high points in the later kings (Hezekiah and Josiah are examples), but very few. Israel is sent into exile.

What survives? Has all the hope that was grounded in the monarchy entirely dissipated? The answer is no; hope remains. … [H]ope remains, because God has committed himself to the descendants of David. … The hope is fully expressed, however, in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament…. Here, the biblical authors, for the first time in the biblical story, lay fully bare their convictions about the extent of God’s commitment to his original creation purposes, and they clarify what these purposes are. (p. 295)

The prophetic literature is the core of the Old Testament. Provan doesn’t put it quite like this – but this is the conclusion I have come to, and Provan’s sketch is consistent with this. The core of the old Testament isn’t to be found in stories of heroes and battles. It is the hope and vision cast by the prophets. The prophets look ahead to a time when human relationships with God, others, and the rest of creation will be healed.

They look ahead to a time when these various relationships will be healed—and, beyond that, to an entirely new order of being in the cosmos. The forces of cosmic darkness will be defeated, they tell us, and all the suffering they have initiated will be abolished. More than this, creation itself will be transformed, and, as an aspect of that transformation, immortality will be gifted to human beings after all. The journey with creation upon which God set out “in the beginning” will be completed. There will be redemption of what has gone wrong, but there will also be the fulfillment of the plan that would have been enacted (it seems) even if nothing had gone wrong.

Rather than a return to Eden the prophets look forward to New Jerusalem, with humanity and all of creation forever in safe communion with God. This will involve a transformation of his people, all of humanity. Provan quotes from Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. There is a restoration of right relationship with God and a pressing beyond, to a day when evil is truly conquered. There will also be a transformation of human society. Here the return of the Davidic kingship plays an enormous role, in Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Isaiah. Among the well known passages:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. (Isaiah 11:1-5)

The righteous king establishes a just human society.

Finally there is a transformation of creation. This is found in Ezekiel, Hosea, Isaiah.

In these various passages, the human relationship with other creatures, and with the earth itself, is healed. But more than this, the cosmos is radically transformed. In the created world as we know it, no wolf would ever cohabit with a lamb; no leopard would ever lie down with a goat (Isaiah 11:6). This is an entirely new order of things—a new heavens and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17-25; 66:22-23; Ezekiel 47:1-12). Only in such a new world could it possibly be that the sound of weeping would never be heard (Isaiah 65:17) and that everyone could be guaranteed to live to a ripe old age (65:20). Indeed, only in such a new world could death itself conceivably be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8); only there could it be true that “multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Here, in the end, we discover that the possibility of immortality has not, after all, disappeared from biblical hope. It is still very much alive. (p. 301)

The Old Testament hope is also an active hope. The hope calls people into action establishing justice, worshiping the one true God, and healing relationships. This is an assurance that in the end God’s purposes will be achieved and a call to live in the future today.

Hope is what keeps one going, living a good and a just life in the midst of very real challenges—hope, and also faith. Faith holds that God does still live in his temple-cosmos—that God is still at work here and now in this present world, drawing it toward the good. Faith insists that God himself is good. It holds that God’s kingdom is not simply future but now and that God is continually blessing his creatures in this kingdom now. To have faith, then, is to participate actively in this work of God in the world, as we live out our vocation as kings and priests.

… Hope tells us that success is possible in the here and now, because in cosmic terms it is inevitable. Those captivated by biblical faith therefore keep on pursuing the prophetic vision now, because they know that one day it will come to pass. (p. 304)

This is a summary of Provan’s discussion. He goes into far more detail about each of the major points. The sweep of Scripture, framed by hope and culminating in the prophets, leads directly into the New Testament and the Gospels. On the road to Emmaus Jesus said to the two travelers “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” … And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Lk 24:25,27). The early Christian community, and the authors of the Gospels, saw this connection. It is impossible to truly understand the Gospels without the Prophets. In the next chapter Provan will connect his sketch of the Old Testament vision to the New Testament story of Jesus.

What do you think of Provan’s sketch of the Old Testament vision of hope?

Is this central to the story?

What kind of story is the Old Testament: a story of heroes for our edification? a story Israel’s failings? a story of God’s faithfulness?

If you wish to contact me, 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.

Pray for Our Friend Jason

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:53 pm By Scot McKnight

Friends and readers of the Jesus Creed blog will know that I post at times the sermons of a young, gifted narrative preacher, Jason Micheli. I’m asking you to pray for Jason and Ali and their two sons at this time, I’m asking you to pray for his good friend and fellow pastor Dennis Perry, and the whole fellowship at Aldersgate. Here’s what Jason, who blogs at the “tamed cynic,” posted at his blog:

Image

Dear friends, HEWHOMUSTNOTBENAMED and random visitors,

As you may already know, I’m going on my 10th year at Aldersgate Church and in all that time I’ve taken 1 paternity leave, several long potty breaks and, count them, 0 vacations.

Working with a man like Dennis Perry, a man whose name will go down in history with names like Michael Scott, Gomer Pyle and Roscoe Peco Train, I simply couldn’t afford to take time off of work. I cared too much about you all to allow you to suffer long under Dennis tired, broken body, diminished mental faculties and antiquated job skills.

I couldn’t even get away and let Dennis ‘phone it in’ at work because even then, I knew, the phone in question would be a rotary phone.

Just think, there’d you be, waiting as long for Dennis to complete a thought as it takes to dial a number with a 9 and a 0 in the area code. People of Aldersgate, I just couldn’t do that to you. I love you too much.

Fortunately for you all, Hedy’s arrival on staff has made me as irrelevant, ineffectual and archaic-seeming as Dennis has proven these past many years, which is lucky for me because, now, like Bilbo Baggins, I’m going to be away for a while.

If you skipped church last Sunday, are not on social media or were just trapped under something heavy this week then you might not have heard already that I have the ‘C’ word.

No, no that ‘C’ word. Don’t be so vulgar. This is church.

No, I have that other ‘C’ word.

Cancer.

The irony in all this is the first thing that hit me too: this past year Aldersgate has had a healthy, in-shape pastor and his name was Dennis Perry. I’m never exercising again.

To make a long story short, I’ve suffered abdominal pains since the early fall, pains I chalked up to too much coffee in my stomach, too much fat in my diet or too many church people in my schedule.

That most of you didn’t even know I was suffering such pains, I attribute to a virility that makes Lee Marvin look like Judy Garland.

Last Thursday I had a CAT scan of my abdomen, which showed that my pain was caused by an intussusception, a rare condition (for adults) where my small intestine had inverted and was ‘telescoping’ in on itself. Ali and I met with a surgeon on Friday morning who explained the surgery and warned us as well that she was concerned about what could be causing the intussusception.

The surgeon had hoped she could do the procedure laparoscopically, but when I woke up on Monday evening, feeling like someone had gone at my gut with an electric Thanksgiving knife and a battery acid chaser, I suspected it had been a bigger surgery.

In fact, they removed about 3 inches of my intestine to correct the inversion, and they also removed from my small intestine a 10 by 10 inch tumor baby, whom I’ve since taken to calling- affectionately- ‘Larry.’

Let that sink in: 10 by 10 inches. I can now say I understand what women go through in child birth, which I think should make me even more appealing to the ladies (if such a feat is even possible).

A 10 by 10 inch tumor baby, unlike a real baby, however is not an occasion for cigars and balloons.

The pathologist took initial slides of the tumor immediately after surgery and on Tuesday the oncologist told Ali and me that, even without the exact biopsy results, he knew:

I had a lymphoma that fell somewhere among 5 rare cancers of the blood.

You can imagine how we took that news. I went to the doctor last week thinking I had a gall stone or an ulcer. The idea that my body, which has always been a source of pride in me and arousal in women- the idea that my body was now trying to kill me was a complete shock to us. The idea that if I do nothing at all I’ll swiftly be dead was an even bigger shock.

We cried.

A lot.

I made lots of apologies for all the ways I’ve been a crappy husband because I assumed we had all the time in the world.

Finally, we dried our eyes and told our boys, Gabriel and Alexander, that Daddy has cancer, which is what was making his tummy sick, that I’m still sick and that the doctors are going to work to make me better but it’s going to take a long time and I’ll be sicker in the meantime.

Today is Friday. We met with the oncologist last evening. It turns out:

I have Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a rare, non-Hodgkins form of B cell lymphoma that typically only organ music-loving people the age of the 8:30 service get. Its spread through the GI System and bone marrow.

I like to think I’m unique in all things and it turns out I am in diseases as well.

Because it’s a rare, aggressive lymphoma, I’ll be fighting it likewise. I will begin 4 two-part phases of aggressive chemotherapy this coming Friday- not much of a break I know.

Each phase will last approximately a month. The lymphoma has spread to the rest of my system so I’ll definitely be hospitalized again for the first phase as the oncologist wants to monitor my kidneys. Hopefully, hospitalization won’t be necessary for the succeeding treatments. At the end of the 4 phase treatment, it’s likely I will need to undergo bone marrow transplants as well.

All in all, I think its safe to say 2015 will be an exceptionally crappy year for the Micheli household. The Nats better freaking make it out of the first round because I’m not going to have much else going for me this year.

In case you were wondering, I won’t be around much for the next 6 months.

I hope you continue to be around for us though. I’m not normally given to sappy, sentimental nonsense, but I can’t tell you how fortunate we feel to be going through this in a church and a community we’ve come to know so well. Already so many of you have been key to getting us through the dark nights we’ve had. We’re going to need you and we’re not the type to ask so don’t wait for us to ask. Just continue to do what you’ve been doing.

I like to yank Dennis’ chain but without him I’d probably still be in the corner crying and sucking my thumb.

I couldn’t have made it through this week without Dennis and I won’t make it through the weeks ahead without him, so cut him some slack. And even though you know I won’t be preaching for quite a while and you know he’s likely to bore you to tears, please show up at church anyway.

It might not surprise you, but my biggest fear- the thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night with panic attacks- has been about my boys. I don’t want to put them through this and I certainly don’t want them to lose me or the family they know. You can help on their end too. When you see them, please don’t ask about me or my cancer.

Please just treat them like normal kids because a normal life for them is my biggest goal in all of this.

I miss you all. I really do, and I wish I could be there today to say all this to you. And don’t sweat the God thing, people. Please. I never believed before that God does mean-ass stuff like this to people so I’m not hung up on God doing it to me. I don’t believe there’s any mysterious ‘reason’ other than the chromosomal one that cancer- however rare- is happening to me, and I don’t believe there’s a bigger plan behind all of this other than the same plan God has for all of us: to love and glorify him through Christ. I’ve just got to figure out how to do that given my new circumstances.

Finally, don’t pity me.

Cancer’s not all that bad.

For example, just as I was drifting off before surgery I heard one of the surgical staff say aloud: ‘We’re definitely going to need a bigger tube for the catheter…’

See, some dreams do come true. Even amidst nightmares.

– The End.

PS: I hope to hell not.

I couldn’t even get away and let Dennis ‘phone it in’ at work because even then, I knew, the phone in question would be a rotary phone.

That most of you didn’t even know I was suffering such pains, I attribute to a virility that makes Lee Marvin look like Judy Garland.

A 10 by 10 inch tumor baby, unlike a real baby, however is not an occasion for cigars and balloons.

I like to think I’m unique in all things and it turns out I am in diseases as well.

In case you were wondering, I won’t be around much for the next 6 months.

Please just treat them like normal kids because a normal life for them is my biggest goal in all of this.

Who was David's great-grandmother?