The Gift of Reading the Bible Dynamically

is there payoff for the church in reading the Bible critically?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/11/is-there-payoff-for-the-church-in-reading-the-bible-critically/

November 25, 2014 by Peter Enns Comments

Theologian Peter Enns

At this year’s annual “help me I’m wearing tweed in San Diego” conference (a.k.a. Society of Biblical Literature) I was part of a panel discussion on “Reading the Bible in the 21^st Century: Exploring New Models for Reconciling the Academy and the Church.” On the panel with me were N. T. Wright, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Lauren Winner. John Dominic Crossan was scheduled to be there but his flight was delayed.

At any rate, we were each given 10 minutes to address the topic and here is what I said.

* * * * * * * * *

About 10 years ago a friend of mine, who teaches systematic theology at an evangelical seminary, told me of a faculty meeting held to discuss my recently published book Inspiration and Incarnation.

During the faculty discussion, a biblical scholar pointed out, “You know, there’s really nothing new here”—which, of course is not only true, but largely the point of the book: well known and widely accepted things like the presence of myth, contradictions, and numerous historical problems in the Old Testament, not to mention the New Testament’s midrashic use of the Old, have not been handled well within evangelicalism.

My friend chimed in, “Wait a minute. There’s nothing new here? I never heard of this stuff—and I graduated from this school and had you as a teacher.” The Bible professor replied, “Our job is to protect you from this information.”

Or consider the following: it’s been known within the evangelical community to encourage promising seminary students to pursue doctoral work at major research universities, but for apologetic purposes: infiltrate their ranks, learn their ways, expose their weaknesses. Or, related, they are told to “plunder the Egyptians”—a phrase actually used. To appropriate whatever in critical scholarship can aid the cause and either ignore or fight against the rest.

And so you have three postures by this faith community toward the threat posed by the academic study of the Bible: gatekeeper, spy, or plunderer. What lies beneath these postures is a deep distrust of the academy.

But the academy isn’t just a problem for evangelicals or other conservatives. On the other end of the spectrum we have the mainline church and theological interpretation—which is a movement to recover scripture for the church (the mainline church) in the wake of the historical critical revolution, which has not always been friendly to life and faith.

This is no rejection of the academy, though. What’s done is done. We’ve passed through what Walter Wink calls the “acid bath of criticism,” which has done the necessary job of stripping us of our naïve biblicism. But now, what’s left? What do we do with the Bible? How does it function in the church? What does it say about God? What should we believe? So, whereas evangelicalism distrust the academy, the mainline has felt a bit burned by it.

What binds both groups together is the problem of the academic study of scripture for the church—though there is also an important difference between them that goes beyond simply their different attitudes toward biblical criticism. Let me explain.

Evangelicalism’s suspicion of the academy appears to be justified by the mainline church’s embrace of historical criticism at first only to wind up advocating for theological interpretation as a corrective to it. “See, I told you so. Biblical criticism is a dead end. Look at the mainline churches and their shrinking numbers. They’re on life-support. Let’s learn from their mistake, not repeat it.”

I can see the point, but not so fast. Evangelicalism can’t simply adopt as its own the mainline response to historical criticism. The mainline embraced historical-critical insights; it’s had its acid bath and is working toward, as Gadamer and others put it, a second naiveté that acknowledges the critical revolution. In other words, the mainline church is postcritical, and there is no going back to the way things were before.

Evangelicalism, by contrast, hasn’t gone through the acid bath of criticism, nor does it seek the second naiveté. They are certainly willing to acknowledge that critical scholarship has shed some light on scripture, but the overall critical “posture” as it were is largely a mistake that one should be suspicious of, guard against, infiltrate, or plunder. In a sense, the evangelical reading of scripture is more at home in the precritical world, lamenting the slow erosion of biblical authority and inerrancy at the hands of biblical criticism.

If I had to pick, I’d rather be postcritical and wounded than precritical and defensive, but this is not to say that the mainline project of theological interpretation holds the key to binding together church and the academy—at least I don’t see it yet.

For example, I remember 25 years ago reading Brevard Childs’s excellent commentary on Exodus, but feeling frustrated. He acknowledges throughout the undeniable insights of historical critical methods, and even explains the text’s incongruities on the basis of source critical analysis. But when it comes to the theological appropriation of Exodus, all his learned critical analyses is left behind—because source criticism won’t get you to theological reflection. In fact, it gets in the way.

A lot has happened since Childs, and I respect the larger project championed by Walter Brueggemann, for example, but my experience of theological interpretation in general is that the relevance of biblical criticism for the church’s life and faith can be hard to discern. It’s not always clear to me how the academy is brought constructively and intentionally into the theological life of the church.

In fact, at times I see little more than a bare acknowledgment of the “importance” or “necessity” of biblical criticism, but when it comes to theology, it’s sometimes hard to see the importance or necessity. Biblical criticism seems to be more of a negative boundary marker to distinguish the mainline from the religious right—“We’re not fundamentalists; we embrace criticism”—but where’s the payoff?

As I see it, the academy and the church have at best an uneasy relationship when it comes to the Bible, whether for evangelicals or mainliners. In my opinion, true reconciliation of academy and church must strive for a more intentionally theological synthesis of the academic study of scripture and how that contributes theologically to faith and life, to seeing—perhaps in fresh ways– how God speaks to us in and through scripture today.

As I tell the story in The Bible Tells Me So, I’ve been captured by this synthetic idea since my first few weeks of graduate school—and some of how I put the pieces together has made its way into the book, albeit on a popular churchy level (which is exactly where it needs to be). For me, one payoff of this synthesis is a Bible that is remarkably dynamic and therefore personally meaningful.

For example, when I understand Deuteronomy as a layered work that grew out of the late monarchic to postexilic periods, I get happy. I see canonized a deliberate, conscious, recontextualizion, actualizion, indeed rewriting of earlier ancient traditions for the benefit of present communities of faith.

The same holds for Chronicles—a realignment and reshaping of Israel’s story for a late postexilic audience. Or taking a big step back, we have the Old Testament as a whole, which has woven into it the exaltation of the tribe of Judah, a theme that reflects the present-day questions and answers of the postexilic Judahite writers that produced it. Scripture houses a theological dynamic that is intentionally innovative, adaptive, and contemporizing.

Scripture’s inner dynamic provides a model for our own theological appropriation of scripture. As Michael Fishbane reminds us, within scripture the authoritative text of the past is not simply received by the faithful but is necessarily adapted and built upon. And this is a noble quality of the Old Testament that continues in Second Temple Judaism and, for Christians, the New Testament, where Israel’s story is profoundly recontextualized, reshaped, and re-understood in light of present circumstances.

And what the Christian Bible does is continued as soon as the church got out of the gate in the 2^nd century and beyond: reshaping the ancient Semitic story in Greek and Latin categories, giving us creeds; and then through the entire history of the church, where everywhere we look people are asking the very same question asked by the Deuteronomist, the Chronicler, and Paul:how does that back there speak to us here? 

And answering that question is a transaction between past and present that always involves some creative adaptation.

I don’t see this dynamic as a problem. It’s a gift. What more could the church want from its scripture? Don’t make a move without it, but when you move—you may need to move, not just remain where things have been. This is what I mean throughout The Bible Tells Me So when I say that the Bible is not an owner’s manual or an instruction guide.

It is a model of our own inevitable theological process, because the question is never simply what did God do then, but what is God surprisingly, 

unexpectedly, counterintuitively, in complete freedom, doing now?

Historical criticism doesn’t get a free pass—and I’m thinking here for example of Brueggemann’s critique. But it has nevertheless helped us understand something of this dynamic.

If I can put this in Christian terms, scripture bears witness to the acts of God and most supremely to the act of God in Christ. But scripture bears witness in culturally and contextually meaningful ways. This is where historical criticism comes into the picture—not as an enemy to be guarded against or plundered, and not as an awkward relative you don’t know what to do with, but as a companion, a means of understanding and embracing the complex actualizing dynamic of the Bible as a whole.

This is what I am aiming for in The Bible Tells Me So, albeit at a popular level, because that is where this discussion needs to be—with those who feel they have to chose between accepting academic insights or maintaining faith. I don’t believe that is a choice that has to be made, and miss out on a lot when we feel we need to.

* * * * * * * * *

Related Articles -

The Many Voices of the Church - A Quick Assessment

of the 2014 ETS & AAR Conference Meetings

On Knowing in the Bible: How Can We Know That We Know? Part 1 & 2

Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"

What Brand of Philosophical Theism Do You Carry In Your Bible?

Greek Philosopher Socrates

The other day Roger Olson mentioned "philosophical theism" in his article "Can God Make Himself Dependent Upon Us?" which I thought was both a good descriptive phrase as well as a most curious one. Curious in that any classic Christian position of theism is in itself embedded within its own vested "philosophical theism" of which there are many kinds and flavors: Greek Hellenism, Medieval Scholasticism, Rational Enlightenment, Secular Modernism, and so forth. Hence, to describe any theology (or theologian) one must necessarily look at their philosophical orientation embedded within their own education and schooling, the culture they write from, their predisposition towards the contemporary and vernacular, and so forth. To simply lob the title of philosophical theism upon someone is both too general and too non-specific to be of any help. The better question to ask is what kind of philosophical theism or faith tradition is the theologian in question espousing through his or her's theology, preaching, pulpiteering, and publishing?

Which gets to the greater problem of evangelicalism that tends to defend itself through mis-directive phrases and hot button idioms. For example, by saying that "THAT theologian is a philosophical theist!" "Oh my!" the naive respondent replies, "That's bad!" Not realizing that EVERY theologian is a philosophical theist, and the more responsible ones make a great personal effort in identifying their brand of philosophical theism, its limitations and any necessary qualifications within their own system of writing and thinking rather than simply declaring it as "orthodox," or what they think passes for "orthodoxy". Those less bothered by such prejudicial sentiments (or accuracy) will regard their own Christian faith traditions and heritage as the most appropriate to be written, published, and communicated to others. Nonetheless, it behooves the reader (and listener) to "critique" their favorite "bedrock" theologians for disposition, veracity, breadth, and wisdom. Without which there is only statement versus anti-statement as two or more philosophical traditions clash together in withering fire and lament (realizing, of course, that "traditions" are layered upon one another, and not so logically clean as first supposed).

Consequently, today's article written by Roger Olson follows up on his previous statement by his own words. Words that I think should be reconsidered and evaluated because the subject matter is so large and wide and deep. A subject that requires a pervasity of spirit and a mindedness of theological control, if not restraint and patience.

R.E. Slater

August 22, 2014

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Intuitive Evangelical Theology versus Scholastic Evangelical Theology: “Classical Christian Theism” as Case Study

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/08/intuitive-evangelical-theology-versus-scholastic-evangelical-theology-classical-christian-theism-as-case-study/

by Roger Olson

August 15, 2014

Comments

I have long been impressed by how foreign scholastic evangelical theology is to even the most devout, biblically literate evangelical lay people. What do I mean by “scholastic evangelical theology?” I don’t know a better term for the “official” theology taken for granted and promoted as “orthodoxy” by many conservative evangelical systematic theologians. When I was in seminary we were required to read Calvinist Baptist Augustus Hopkins Strong’s Systematic Theology and the book of the same title by Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof (not to be confused with revisionist Reformed theologian Hendrikus Berkhof). They are stellar examples of what I mean by “scholastic evangelical theology,” but there are Arminian-Wesleyan examples as well (though not as many, I would dare to say).

While Strong and Berkhof are long dead, their influences live on. Many of the standard, best-selling evangelical systematic theologies are little more than updatings of Strong and Berkhof (or Hodge and Warfield who influenced Berkhof). Backing up in time…what I am calling “scholastic evangelical theology” derives from and is strongly influenced by Protestant Scholastic Orthodoxy—a technical term for theologians and theologies almost nobody but historical theologians ever read or even know about. Perhaps the best example is Francis Turretin (d. 1687). His Institutio Theologiae Elencticae was required reading for students at Princeton Theological Seminary until Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology replaced it in the late nineteenth century. Turretin’s Institutions was one of the most influential examples of Protestant (especially Reformed) scholasticism.

When I read Hodge, Strong, Berkhof and their contemporary successors among conservative evangelical theologians I am always impressed with how, in my opinion, nobody just reading the Bible would ever even guess at some of what they promote as “orthodoxy”—especially in the doctrine of God. Of course there are differences of nuance among them, but, for the most part, they all articulate, defend and promote as “biblical orthodoxy” what is, in my opinion, a barely Christianized version of Greek philosophical theology. The story of that begins, of course, with the second Christian Apologists Justin Martyr and Athenagoras and the Alexandrian church fathers Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Even Athanasius and the Cappadocians were steeped in it—although they struggled to Christianize Greek philosophical theology. I don’t think they were entirely successful.

Here’s what I mean—to be specific. What ordinary lay Christian, just reading his or her Bible, without the help of any of the standard conservative evangelical systematic theologies, would ever arrive at the doctrines of divine simplicity, immutability, or impassibility as articulated by those systematic theologians (e.g., “without body, parts or passions” as the Westminster Confession has it)? Without body, okay. But without parts or passions? The average reader of Hosea, for example, gets the image of God as passionate. While “parts” isn’t exactly the best term for the persons of the Trinity, a biblical reader will probably think of God as complex and dynamic being rather than as “simple substance.”

Take the doctrine of God’s “aseity”—absolute self-sufficiency. According to Protestant (and Catholic) scholasticism, including much conservative evangelical theology, God cannot be affected by anything outside himself. He is “pure actuality without potentiality.” Who would guess that from just reading the Bible? I wouldn’t. And yet it is touted by many conservative evangelicals as orthodox doctrine not to be questioned. To question it is to dishonor God and detract from his glory!

I much prefer “biblical personalism”—a term I borrow from Emil Brunner. I don’t agree with Brunner about everything, but he was right to take the doctrine of God back to the Bible and strip it of philosophical theism—especially attributes derived from the Greek idea of perfection. The God of the Bible is intensely personal, relational, interactive, emotional, even reactive. Or shall we throw Hosea out of the Bible? Oh, I remember—from seminary: it’s all “anthropomorphism.” There is anthropomorphism in the Bible (God does not literally have hands or eyes as we do except in the incarnation), but to attempt to explain the passions of God in Hosea (and other parts of the Bible) as all anthropomorphism is to start down the road of de-personalizing God. The end point is [Paul] Tillich’s Ground of Being or Being Itself. (Of course, conservative evangelicals never arrive there, but sometimes what they say about God’s attributes leaves one cold as ice with God seeming to be unfeeling and anything but relational.)

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[One of the problems of theology, especially systematic theology, is the use of language itself. It is never pure syntax or syllogistic logicism but narrative and personalization, poetry and metaphor, if not very ambiguity itself in the very language it uses to tell us of God and ourselves. Perhaps the better question to ask is which philosophies best allow the many traditions of the biblical text to breath its greatest airs? I suspect we must always start with the tradition of the text itself in the ancient lost lands of the middle east, its bygone kingdoms, mindsets, and idioms if possible. At which point we must also use today's most current philosophies to critique those of their past heirs and precedents. Hence, "to strip theology of its philosophies" is to foist yet another "philosophy" upon the Bible. It cannot be done and would be naive to think to do so.  - R.E. Slater]

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I’ve taught Christian doctrine and systematic theology for thirty-two years now and I have one recurring experience when introducing students who grew up in evangelical Christian homes and churches and are themselves biblically literate to standard conservative evangelical teaching about God’s attributes. They usually say something like “I’ve never heard anything like that.” And often “where’s that in the Bible?” I have to agree with them that much of it is foreign to the Bible, alien to Christian experience, and spiritually deadening. How does one relate to a God “without passions?”

No doubt many conservative evangelical theologians (and others) think they are honoring God by paying him metaphysical compliments derived from Greek-inspired philosophical theology, but what they are really doing is making God very much unlike Jesus who wept, was provoked to anger, rejoiced, etc. Scholastic theology tends to say those were only possible for the Son of God in and through his humanity—as if emotions are ungodly. Interestingly, virtually all theologians who portray God as unemotional are men and men are often inclined to view emotions as feminine and therefore unworthy of God. Could it be that traditional scholastic theology is infected with a tendency to justify male aversion to emotions, especially those associated with tenderness, by denying that the God of the Bible has such emotions?

This is where narrative theology (about which I have posted here before) can be helpful. Our doctrine of God should not be derived from philosophical presuppositions about what is appropriate for the divine but should be derived primarily from the biblical story of God—beginning with Jesus Christ as the fullest revelation of God’s person and character and spreading out from there to embrace the passionate God of the Bible who dared to open himself up to pain and peace, sorrow and joy in relation to the world and who could do that because feelings and emotions are part of being personal and God is eternally personal. Having appropriate emotional feelings is part of being in the image of God whereas scholastic theology tends to portray the image of God as reason ruling over emotion, being apathetic.

The God of Brokenness: Etherlyn Q. Naiah - Asking for "A New Day of Worship" (a Liberian Gospel Song)

In the face of trial and suffering we ask God for a new day

A New Day of Worship, by Etherlyn Q. Naiah

Liberian Gospel Viveo

Published on Jan 10, 2013

Dear Lord, please give to me a new day. I don't want yesterday again. Yesterday brought to me sorrow and tears, bitterness and hatred, anger and hopelessness. May your grace and mercy cover my brokenness and spirit of lament. Thank you O God my Saviour.

This song is based on a true story and reminds me of a woman's daughter who was killed by a drunk driver and she could not find her way out of her spiritual agony. The only thing she could do is ask God for a new day. She then sang this song for herself and for the man that killed her daughter. This is just another way that GOD can help anyone in an kind of situation.

Thank you Father for giving this great testimony to this dear lady. You said in the Book of Isaiah that old things have passed away and all thing will be made new. So help me today dear Father this day to know the truth of your Word. May you give to me your promises of life. Of renewal and hope. And may it be so for my Christian brothers and sisters around the world who suffer in your name. Who need your love and assurance. Your power and strength for a new day. Thank you Father. Thank you for your comfort and peace. In Jesus' precious name. Amen.

This is a very, very powerful message. Papa God I asked that you give me a new day. Take away every pain, sickness, every thing that will make my life miserable, "O, my God!" And just give to me a new day." May God continue to be with you Minister Naiah and bless your ministry. O Lord put my enemies to shame and may Jesus be raised up in my life. Amen.

Hallelujah! We cannot change yesterday but hope for a new brighter day. Only God can do this. And by faith and with hope we pray for this new day in our souls. With God nothing is impossible. When our heavenly Father says "Yes," no one can say "No." What our great God has put asunder no man can raise up. Hallelujah. Amen.

Isaiah 65

English Standard Version (ESV)

Judgment and Salvation

65 I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;

    I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
    to a nation that was not called by^[a] my name.
² I spread out my hands all the day
    to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
    following their own devices;
³ a people who provoke me
    to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
    and making offerings on bricks;
⁴ who sit in tombs,
    and spend the night in secret places;
who eat pig's flesh,
    and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
⁵ who say, “Keep to yourself,
    do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
    a fire that burns all the day.
⁶ Behold, it is written before me:
    “I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their lap
⁷     both your iniquities and your fathers' iniquities together,
says the Lord;
because they made offerings on the mountains
    and insulted me on the hills,
I will measure into their lap
    payment for their former deeds.”<sup>[b]

8</sup> Thus says the Lord:

“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
    and they say, ‘Do not destroy it,
    for there is a blessing in it,’
so I will do for my servants' sake,
    and not destroy them all.
⁹ I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
    and from Judah possessors of my mountains;
my chosen shall possess it,
    and my servants shall dwell there.
¹⁰ Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,
    and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down,
    for my people who have sought me.
¹¹ But you who forsake the Lord,
    who forget my holy mountain,
who set a table for Fortune
    and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
¹² I will destine you to the sword,
    and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter,
because, when I called, you did not answer;
    when I spoke, you did not listen,
but you did what was evil in my eyes
    and chose what I did not delight in.”

¹³ Therefore thus says the Lord God:

“Behold, my servants shall eat,
    but you shall be hungry;
behold, my servants shall drink,
    but you shall be thirsty;
behold, my servants shall rejoice,
    but you shall be put to shame;
¹⁴ behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart,
    but you shall cry out for pain of heart
    and shall wail for breaking of spirit.
¹⁵ You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse,
    and the Lord God will put you to death,
    but his servants he will call by another name.
¹⁶ So that he who blesses himself in the land
    shall bless himself by the God of truth,
and he who takes an oath in the land
    shall swear by the God of truth;
because the former troubles are forgotten
    and are hidden from my eyes.

New Heavens and a New Earth

¹⁷ “For behold, I create new heavens

    and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
    or come into mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever
    in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
    and her people to be a gladness.
¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem
    and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
    and the cry of distress.
²⁰ No more shall there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for the young man shall die a hundred years old,
    and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
²¹ They shall build houses and inhabit them;
    they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
²² They shall not build and another inhabit;
    they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
    and my chosen shall long enjoy^[c] the work of their hands.
²³ They shall not labor in vain
    or bear children for calamity,^[d]
for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,
    and their descendants with them.
²⁴ Before they call I will answer;
    while they are yet speaking I will hear.
²⁵ The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
    the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
    and dust shall be the serpent's food.
They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.

Footnotes: 

1. Isaiah 65:1 Or that did not call upon
2. Isaiah 65:7 Or I will first measure their payment into their lap
3. Isaiah 65:22 Hebrew shall wear out
4. Isaiah 65:23 Or for sudden terror 

2 Corinthians 5:17

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

Revelation 21:4

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.'

Isaiah 25:8

"He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken."

How Might We Interpret the OT for Today?

 

 

Suffice it to say that today's article would be a great beginning point in the postmodern Christian's understanding of how the OT might relate to the NT. However, at first blush it would seemed that there may be a few more things going on here than we might currently admit. Mostly, we must think about why certain societal rules or cultural norms appeal to us. A postmodernist will question everything, and one of the things s/he must question is ourselves, then our social group, our church fellowship, and lastly our society.

 

But rather than saying everything is relativistic we should be asking how the Bible might help illuminate us as we find ourselves in our time-and-place when re-enacting God's great love that He has shown to us through His Son Jesus. Not judgmental love even though proper love will judge both its challenger as well as its motivation to meet that challenge. But to love in the sense of bringing peace and justice, reconciliation and purpose, back into a person, a situation, or a society. Even so, it must all begin with Jesus even as He questioned everything, teaching an ethic that stood everyone on their head, and spun them around in their thinking, from what they thought He might say to what He was actually saying TO THEM.

 

Further, a good historian of the Bible knows that ancient biblical culture - both in the OT as well as in the NT - are mostly lost to us in the sense of knowing how people thought and behaved back then. Oh yes, we can make our conjectures based upon our comparative readings of ancient histories, but most of these histories were written much later after-the-event-had-occurred! Even in the Bible's recorded histories by the biblical writers themselves as they too wrote from their cultural-and-historical perspectives (sic, via an  enculturated boundedness, personal biases and judgments). In its present form the Jewish OT was written in the Second Temple era from records as much as a thousand years earlier, many of which had been lost to time and inattention. Truly, we mostly are at a lost as to what people were thinking back 2000 years ago (the NT period), let alone 4000 years ago (the Torah period).

 

Which also gets us to the idea of remembering that language by its nature is both fluid and ambiguous. Even today, amongst our literate societies news-events are continually questioned as to their correctness of interpretation! Whether they are punning towards a particular view, outcome, or bias - or whether, it is in sincere search of the truth - our words carry multiple meanings to multiple hearers and societies. How much more than has the church done the same with its own ancient records and traditions as demonstrated by the vernacular speeches and commentaries held forth by today's current crops of Christian writers, pulpiteers, and media outlets? Words carry meaning. But they also carry ambiguity. Words are not mathematical symbols with strict mathematical properties. The best words of poets know this. And those kinds of lucid poets will write in a way that will carry an idea as expressed in a poem on many levels of meaning to many kinds of ears and eyes. Even in the church's traditional creeds we find our postmodern thinking wanting more (or less) when reading those grand confessions of faith. Especially when couched in the newer terms of process theism, relational thought, open theology, and the emergent strains of radical theology in its pithy cores and poignant questions to Christianity's truer meanings.

 

For all these many reasons, and many more, today's articles by Christianity Today and Scot McKnight make for a great beginning point of conversation. But not an ending point. Why? Because CT's expression is couched in the church's traditions and classical creedal expressions. Whereas McKnight's is showing a more nuanced reading of those traditions and expressions which may help guide the street-level Christian in his/her's reading of the OT. But still, we may push forward by asking even more questions. Questions of our preferred hermeneutical interpretation of the Bible: whether it pushes us far enough from our comfort zone, or if whether it keeps us too smugly wrapped up in our biases and bigotries towards those whom we should share God's love with. Whom we should advocate and mediate justice for. Whom we should forgive and reach out to. If whether we might lay down our religions clubs and shields long enough to work together in irenic debate and peaceful argumentation.

 

At the last, it is a beginning point. And hopefully, as we have discussed here at Relevancy22 in previous articles about the Bible and biblical interpretations, we might have been asking the hard questions of how we might discover Paul's readings aright in light of his Jewish orientation and not his Calvinistic or Reformed interpretation that we have covered him in. Or his Americanized, Western dress that we see Paul in. But not only must we learn to rethink the OT, so even must we learn to rethink the NT. When making our brazen speeches that "Paul said this or that" we may only be marking ourselves by our own (biblical) shortsightedness to what Paul may or may not actually be saying (or not saying!). Issues of gender equality, same-sex marriage, homosexuality, political rightness, poverty, victimization, and injustice continue to challenge us by God's Word. Let's just say that it would be a fearful thing should Jesus return today within our lives and churches. Just how many of our judgments and biblical assurances might you think remain?

 

In Paul's day, even this great Rabbi of the Jewish faith (I'm speaking of the Apostle Paul) found his faith impoverished, his ideas conflicted, his ministries oppressive, his love hardened before he met the Resurrected Jesus on the Damascus Road. An experience that burned up the chattel of his life and reapportioned his livelihood to the re-righting of his earthly calling to public ministry. A ministry of love-and-reconciliation rather than of one of oppression-and-judgment. So too must we each must be confronted by our own Damascus Road experience beginning with how we might skew (or unskew) our interpretations of the OT text and NT principles we think we understand today in the postmodern sense. No, we do not speak of a relativism, but of a loving God's guidance of His church to err on the side of love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. To do all in the name of Jesus as we are able or gifted by our separate callings. No more, and no less. And to abandon our guilt, and the oppression of our conscience, by taking all to the Lord as He gives us insight into our lives, our calling, our purpose here in this life when confronted by the crucified Christ.

 

At the last, how did Jesus answer his accusers? To Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. And to Love your neighbor as yourself. Even so may this be prayer and admonition be in our lives this day, as difficult as it is. As challenging as it can be. To do good to everyman... and even more, to love in the power of the Holy Spirit by God's grace and mercy, peace and forgiveness. May this be so for you as God gives you strength and confession, repentance and trust. Amen.

 

R.E. Slater

July 25, 2013

 

 

 

 

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Chris Wright on Old Testament Law and Today

by Scot McKnight

Jul 25, 2013

Comments

 

Introductory comments from an article in Christianity Today:

But just as well, we should never say, “Oh, we don’t bother with those things because they are just Old Testament rules.” There are principled reasons why Christians not only need but also should not observe certain Old Testament laws simply as written. And regarding two kinds of law, the New Testament itself provides those reasons. 

The sacrificial laws: The New Testament makes it clear that the religious system of temple, altar, animal sacrifices, priesthood, and the Day of Atonement has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ through the Cross and Resurrection. He has accomplished once and for all what that great system pointed toward. The Book of Hebrews stresses that, whether we are Jewish or Gentile believers, we must not go back to that system, because we already have all that it represented through Christ’s sacrificial death and ascended life in the presence of the Father. 

The food laws: The distinction between clean and unclean animals and foods was symbolic of the distinction between Israel as God’s holy people and the Gentile nations (Lev 20:25–26). In the New Testament, that separation is abolished in Christ, as Paul says in Ephesians 2. Through the Cross, God has made the two cultures one new humanity. And as Peter discovered through his vision in Acts 10; before going to the home of the Gentile Cornelius, what God has called clean should no longer be called unclean. Today some Messianic Jewish believers choose freely to observe the kashrutregulations as a mark of their Jewish community and cultural identity. But in their unity, believers are free from food laws. 

But just because we no longer keep these laws literally does not mean they can’t teach us anything. We are called to present our bodies as a living sacrifice in the service of God. We are called to offer the sacrifice of praise. We are called to cleanness of life in a corrupt world. In fact, if we are tempted to mock Jewish fastidiousness over kosher food in the kitchen, we might ask if we have any sustained commitment to the moral and spiritual distinctiveness that the New Testament upholds. 

We can find principles even in Israel’s civil laws to apply today. The urban Christians in Corinth did not see oxen grinding corn in their city houses. But when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he took an Old Testament law about allowing working oxen to be fed from the product of their labors (Deut 25:4) and applied it to Christian workers in Corinth. He sees a principle in the case law—originally meant for the benefit of animals—and applies it to working humans. The principle: Work deserves reward. Later he applies another commandment about how manna was to be collected (totally irrelevant to Corinth, you might think), and applies it to the principle of equality between Christians (1 Cor 9:8–10; 2 Cor 8:13–15). These are biblical examples of creative application of biblical laws in nonliteral, but very appropriate, ways.

 

 

Additional Comments from Scott McKnight:

 

In Blue Parakeet, I advocated that we learn to read Moses’ laws as God’s ways in Moses’ days, and it seems Chris Wright gets close to this view by advocating a hermeneutic of questions that then get re-asked in our day:

The best way to derive principles from the Old Testament law is to ask questions. All laws in all human societies are made for a purpose. Laws happen because people want to change society, to achieve some social goal, to foster certain interests, or to prevent some social evil. So when we look at any particular law or group of biblical laws, we can ask, “What could be the purpose behind this law?” To be more specific: 

● What kind of situation was this law intended to promote or to prevent? 

● What change in society would this law achieve if it were followed? 

● What kind of situation made this law necessary or desirable? 

● What kind of person would benefit from this law, by assistance or protection? 

● What kind of person would be restrained or restricted by this law, and why? 

● What values are given priority in this law? Whose needs or rights are upheld? 

● In what way does this law reflect what we know from elsewhere in the Bible about the character of God and his plans for human life? 

● What principle or principles does this law embody or instantiate?

Now we won’t always be able to answer these questions with much detail or insight. Some laws are just plain puzzling. But asking questions like these leads us to a much broader and deeper grasp of what Old Testament laws were all about: forming the kind of society God wanted to create. 

Then, having done that homework as best we can, we step out of the Old Testament world and back into our own. Ask the same kind of questions about the society we live in and the kind of people we need to be, and the kind of personal and societal objectives we need to aim for in order to be in any sense “biblical.” 

In this way, biblical law can function sharply as a paradigm or model for our personal and social ethics in all kinds of areas: economic, familial, political, judicial, sexual, and so on. We are not “keeping it” in a literalist way like a list of rules. But more important, we are not ignoring it in defiance of what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16–17. We are studying and using it as guidance, light for the path, in the joyful way of Psalms 1, 19 and 119.