Small, but Powerful, "3-Word-Theologies" from the NT

Small, but Powerful,

"Three-Word-Theologies" from the NT

The Cottage

A Weekly Sunday Observance

by Diana Butler Bass

October 2, 2022

Luke 17:5-6

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

What caught my attention this week were the three words at the beginning of the text: Increase our faith!

Three words carry emotional and spiritual weight — you can feel the disciples’s longing to trust deeply, to believe more fervently. Sometimes three words are all that are needed.

Three word theologies in the New Testament:

• God is love
• Love your neighbor
• Here am I
• Be not afraid
• Peace on earth
• Love one another
• Do unto others
• Faith, hope, love
• Pray like this
• Go, do likewise
• God will provide
• Love is patient
• Love your enemies
• Seventy times seven
• Thy Kingdom come
• Love never fails
• Increase our faith
• Mustard seed faith

Honestly, who needs tomes of systematic doctrine when we have such concise wisdom at hand? Three word theology is deceptively simple, but it isn’t shallow. One could live a lifetime with this list and never grasp its full beauty or practice its teachings consistently. But these uncomplicated phrases beckon, holding our hearts and hopes, and offering a vision of love and mercy. The way is often found in the smallest things, the fewest words. Maybe all we need is mustard seed faith.

INSPIRATION

Lord of the growing seed,
you reach to the roots of our being
and quench our sea-deep thirst:
help us to know ourselves
through the eyes of the other
who calls us to answer and serve
and, in the end, be filled.

— Steven Shakespeare


Love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

— e.e. cummings, “Love is a Place”

On Sundays, the preacher gives everyone a chance
to repent their sins. Miss Edna makes me go
to church. She wears a bright hat
I wear my suit. Babies dress in lace.
Girls my age, some pretty, some not so
pretty. Old ladies and men nodding.
Miss Edna every now and then throwing her hand
in the air. Saying Yes, Lord and Preach!
I sneak a pen from my back pocket,
bend down low like I dropped something.
The chorus marches up behind the preacher
clapping and humming and getting ready to sing.
I write the word HOPE on my hand.

— Jacqueline Woodson


Who ever saw the mustard-plant,
wayside weed or tended crop,
grow tall as a shrub, let alone a tree, a treeful
of shade and nests and songs?
Acres of yellow,
not a bird of the air in sight.

No, He who knew
the west wind brings
the rain, the south wind
thunder, who walked the field-paths
running His hand along wheatstems to glean
those intimate milky kernels, good
to break on the tongue,

was talking of miracle, the seed
within us, so small
we take it for worthless, a mustard-seed, dust,
nothing.
Glib generations mistake
the metaphor, not looking at fields and trees,
not noticing paradox. Mountains
remain unmoved.

Faith is rare, He must have been saying,
prodigious, unique —
one infinitesimal grain divided
like loaves and fishes,

as if from a mustard-seed
a great shade-tree grew. That rare,
that strange: the kingdom

a tree. The soul
a bird. A great concourse of birds
at home there, wings among yellow flowers.
The waiting
kingdom of faith, the seed
waiting to be sown.

— Denise Levertov

When Christians Love Theology More Than People

Holding hands, Mats Bergström / Shutterstock.com

When Christians Love Theology More Than People

http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/01/22/when-christians-love-theology-more-people

by Stephen Mattson

January 22, 2014

Beyond the realm of churches, religious blogs, and bible colleges, nobody really cares about theology. What does matter is the way you treat other people.

Within Christendom, we’re often taught the exact opposite: that doctrines, traditions, theologies, and distinct beliefs are the only things that do matter. It’s what separates churches, denominations, theologians, and those who are “saved” and “unsaved.”

Historically, Christians have been tempted to categorize the Bible into numerous sets of beliefs that are either inspired or heretical, good or bad, right or wrong — with no room for doubt or questioning or uncertainty.

It’s easy to get caught up in theorizing about God, but within our everyday lives reality is what matters most to the people around us. Theorizing only becomes important once it becomes relevant and practical and applicable to our lives.

When I'm sick, and you bring me a meal, I don't care whether you're a Calvinist or Arminian.

When I'm poor, and you give me some food and money, I don't care if you're pre-millennial or post-millennial.

When I'm in the hospital, and you send me a get-well basket, I don't care what your church denomination is.

When you visit my grandparents in the nursing home, I don't care what style of worship music you listen to.

When you're kind enough to shovel my parent's driveway, I don't care what translation of the Bible you read.

When you give my friend a lift when their car breaks down, I don't care if you’re Baptist or Catholic.

When you help my grandmother carry a heavy load of groceries, I don't care what you believe about evolution.

When you protect my kids from getting hit by a car when they're running across the street, I don't care who your favorite theologian is.

When you’re celebrating my birthday with me, I don’t care about your views related to baptism.

When you grieve alongside me during the death of a family member, I don’t care if you tithe or not.

When you love me in deep and meaningful and authentic ways — nothing else really matters.

But when you idolize belief systems and turn theology into an agenda, it poisons the very idea of selfless love. 

The gospel message turns into propaganda, friends turn into customers, and your relationship with God turns into a religion.

You may have the most intellectually sound theology, but if it's not delivered with love, respect, and kindness — it's worthless.

The practical application of your love is just as important as the theology behind it. Our faith is evidenced by how we treat others. Does the reality of your life reflect the theory behind your spiritual beliefs?

We should never give up on theology, academic study, or the pursuit of understanding God, the Bible, and the history and traditions of the church, but these things should inspire us to emulate Christ — to selflessly, sacrificially, and holistically love others. Theology should reinforce our motivation for doing things to make the world a better place — not serve as platforms to berate, criticize, and attack others.

But too often, we’re guilty of failing to practically apply our beliefs in tangible ways that actually help others. 

In the end, this is what matters most to the world around us: that we simply love as Christ loved.

Stephen Mattson has contributed for Relevant Magazine and the Burnside Writer's Collective,and studied Youth Ministry at the Moody Bible Institute. He is now on staff at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minn. Follow him on Twitter @mikta.

Image: Holding hands, Mats Bergström / Shutterstock.com

Oh the Games We Play with God and Church: A Study of Game Theory and Favorable Outcomes

 

The games we play
http://gospelfutures.org/2013/04/04/the-games-we-play/

by Neil Williams
April 4, 2013

When the mathematical genius John von Neumann (1903 – 1957) sat down to figure out how he could use mathematics to improve his poker playing, little did he realize the repercussions of his inquiry, not only in mathematics but also in almost every other field of inquiry. Considered the father of game theory, Neumann, with the economist Oskar Morgenstern, produced the founding textbook Theory of games and economic behavior that revolutionized economics.

 

When playing a game such as poker, you have limited information (you cannot see all the cards), other players will deceive you, and they intend to win. Game theory is about what decisions and strategies you should take to achieve a favorable outcome.

 

Games consist of three main areas: players, strategies, and outcomes. A basic form of a game is a two-person game where a win for one player means a loss for the other. Known as a zero-sum game, the outcome of this type of game adds up to zero—a win (+1) is offset by the other player’s loss (-1). These games are one hundred percent competitive with no co-operation between players.

 

In a positive-sum game, your win does not mean a total loss for your opponent and involves some co-operation as well as competition. In such games, all players benefit, the outcome being positive. The cliché “win-win situation” refers to a positive sum game where all players benefit from the outcome. Trade between two nations is a classic example of a positive-sum game.

 

Game theory started in mathematics, but expanded to other disciplines including psychology, economics, politics, evolutionary biology, warfare, and theology. We can conceive of most, if not all, interactions in terms of a game: people bidding on an ebay auction, the Cuban missile crisis, a couple arguing with each other, a job applicant negotiating a salary, airlines overbooking flights on the assumption that some passengers will not turn up, a criminal taking a plea agreement instead of a jury trial, a person sacrificing their life for the sake of another.

 

The ways games are structured have implications for relationships and transformation. A married couple may frame an argument as a zero-sum game where each maneuvers, like game pieces on a board, to achieve a winning position—a position that means a defeat for their partner. Seminaries, religions, churches, and para-churches may frame their institutional identity as zero-sum games. Rules and beliefs establish and dictate how and why the game is played and who may play it. If you play, you play to win. If you play, you may only play as long as you stick to the parochial system; otherwise you are out. Blogs—from religious to atheist—will make little progress in relational transformation if a zero-sum mentality demands winners and losers.

 

In these zero-sum games, a community builds a petty game with rules and beliefs that exclude a multitude of other realities, creating a system of thought that is placed above people and transforming relationships.

 

The most famous example in game theory is the Prisoner’s Dilemma devised by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher. The basic idea of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is this: The police have arrested you and your partner-in-crime on suspicion of robbing a bank. Lucky for you, the prosecutor lacks sufficient evidence to convict. You and your friend, however, are locked in separate, isolated cells and the prosecutor comes to you with a few options:

 

• Confess and we will let you go free and put your friend behind bars for 15 years.
• Don’t confess and if your partner confesses we will put you in jail for 15 years.
• If you both confess, we will drop the penalty to 3 years.
• If neither of you talk, well, we have enough to convict you on a lesser charge and put you both away for 6 months.

What do you do? The dilemma is this: the rational choice is to confess, no matter what your friend does. If they do not confess, you go free. If they confess, you only get three years instead of fifteen. But here is the catch: if you both keep silent the jail time is even less—only six months instead of three years. Do you confess or stay silent, or in the language of game theory, do you defect or cooperate? In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the rational choice is to defect, but the best possible outcome for both of you is to cooperate and keep silent.

Cooperation needs a relational connection. To achieve the best possible outcome we need trust, but trust is vulnerable to exploitation. Do you trust your friend enough, because if you co-operate and they deflect, then you are behind bars for fifteen years? In this case, game theory underscores that trust and cooperation achieves the best outcome for everyone. The rational choice is not always the best. The relational choice is the best.

Game theorists have studied many variations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma including iterative cases. Most interactions in life are not once off. Instead of a one-off game, what happens when we have the opportunity to repeat the game a hundred times? What strategy should we now adopt? The answer was discovered in two experiments organized by the political scientist Robert Axelrod, author of the highly influential The Evolution of Cooperation, a book that opened with the question: “Under what conditions will cooperation emerge in a world of egoists without central authority?” Axelrod invited game theorists in economics, psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology, political science, mathematics, physics, and computer science to submit computer programs that would compete against each other in an iterative Prisoner’s Dilemma scenario. What program would receive the highest score? One that was more willing to cooperate? One that defected all the time?

Axelrod describes some of the programs:

Massive retaliatory strike: cooperate at first, but after a defection, retaliate for the rest of the game.

Tester: this program tries to find out what you are like, so it attacks in the first move. If met with retaliation, it will cooperate for a while. Then it will defect again, just to see how much it can get away with.

Jesus: always cooperate

Lucifer: always defect

If Tester plays Massive retaliatory strike, they both do poorly. Tester defects on the first move and Massive retaliatory strike defects from them on.

If Lucifer plays Jesus, Lucifer wins.

Axelrod thought that the winning program would contain thousands or tens of thousands of lines of code. The mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport submitted the highest scoring program, and it was also one of the simplest, five lines of code, a tit-for-tat program, where co-operation was met with co-operation, and defection met with defection. Overall, the top ranking programs were all nice, and on average, the defector programs scored significantly lower.

Axelrod described the tit-for-tat program as nice, retaliatory, forgiving, and clear. It is nice so it starts with co-operation. It retaliates to discourage the other player from continued defection. It forgives and quickly restores cooperation. It is clear in that it is not duplicitous; its actions are straight forward and easily interpreted, thus providing a basis for long-term cooperation. The one distinguishing feature of programs that did well versus those that did poorly, was being nice. In other words, start with trust and co-operation, and avoid unnecessary conflict. A nice player is never the first to defect and co-operates whenever the other player co-operates. Surprising, nice people finish first.

Tit-for-tat is the most successful strategy when the Prisoner’s Dilemma is played numerous times. You start with co-operation and basic trust. If the other player cooperates, you continue to cooperate. If they defect, then you respond with defection. The strategy punishes those who take advantage of other players’ trust and generosity. The strategy, however, also allows for a change of mind. After deflecting, your opponent may once again decide to co-operate with you. In tit-for-tat, you respond with cooperation.

To express these ideas in theological language, for an iterative game that achieves the best outcomes for all players, we need trust, forgiveness, and repentance. Trust is necessary for cooperation and as we cooperate we repeatedly send the message that we are trustworthy. In a repeated game, however, there will be failures by all players. Forgiveness is necessary, for it allows us to continue to play the game when a defector decides to cooperate. Repentance is necessary, for it allows us to change from defecting to cooperating. It turns out that forgiveness and repentance are even more important than first realized by game theorists. In the complicated world of relationships, signals can be misinterpreted. Perhaps a player intended to cooperate but her actions are misconstrued as a defection. A player can make a mistake or perhaps they just need a second chance. Does the game now have to continue with repeated retaliation? Here is where a small tweak optimizes the tit-for-tat program; named “generous tit-for-tat,” it will randomly throw in a forgiveness about ten percent of the time. Call it grace—an undeserved mercy that breaks a cycle of repeated defection.

Playing games that benefit all players depends on healthy relationships. If we are in relationship with other players, we are more likely to cooperate than defect. Relationships encourage a willingness to forgive and repent. Relationships temper our fear that we will be tricked. And relationships temper our greed that seeks outcomes advantageous to us while at the expense of other players.

The tit-for-tat strategy illustrates that a relational approach is far from being a sugary pushover. Unconditional pacifism is a losing strategy because psychopaths and con-artists are always scouting to exploit some unwary soul, softie, or sucker. A relational approach that includes trust, forgiveness, and repentance, also includes a credible threat of repercussion for defection. “If another person sins, rebuke that person; if there is repentance, forgive” (Luke 17:3). A relational approach will retaliate, for example, against the zero-sum games of patriarchy, racism, and other forms of bigotry. It starts with trust and co-operation, is quick to forgive, but will also punish defectors.

There is, however, a problem with a game repeated a finite amount of times. If you know the game is finite and is going to end after a hundred moves, then even after repeated cooperation, the rational strategy is to defect in the final move. Take the money and run—there is no retaliation because the game has ended. This suggests the importance of infinite games, games that continue indefinitely, where there is no end and therefore no temptation to defect at the end.

The religious scholar James Carse has developed this idea in Finite and infinite games: a vision of life as play and possibility. Carse distinguishes between two types of games: finite and infinite. There are substantial differences between the characteristics and goals of finite and infinite games. Carse writes, “A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.” A finite game ends when somebody wins, thus finite games need fixed boundaries and unchanging rules to decide who wins. Because of the boundaries of finite games, it is impossible to play an infinite game within a finite game. In contrast, infinite games are ongoing and have no fixed boundaries or rules. Thus for Carse, “Every move of an infinite player makes is toward the horizon. Every move made by a finite player is within a boundary. Every moment of an infinite game therefore presents a new vision, a new range of possibilities.”

For Carse, the goal of players of finite games are to become powerful, entitled, Master Players, supremely competent in every detail of the game that they essentially play as if the game is already completed. And because a finite game always ends, finite players have to repeatedly play to prove they are winners. In a finite game, the last thing you want is surprise, whereas in an infinite game, surprise is a reason for continuing to play. An infinite game is fluid and open ended, and the reasons for playing an infinite game are not to become powerful or to win. The concern of infinite players is “not with power but with vision.”

Finite games are defined by their boundaries, whereas infinite games are defined by their horizon. Boundaries are fixed and clear, and one cannot move beyond a boundary. But in an infinite game the horizon is open-ended—it is a direction toward we move, a place we never reach, a journey always open to newness and surprise.

Is Christianity a finite or an infinite game? What should it be? We would be naïve to assume that there is one message of Christianity. In the church’s two thousand year history, people have expressed a multitude of different ideas about Jesus and different versions of Christianity.

It is possible to conceive of Christianity as a finite or an infinite game.

1. Christianity formulated as a finite zero-sum game: we win; everyone else loses. We are master players, essential to this grand game, a game that has a definitive conclusion resulting in a win for us, and a loss for everyone else. The game is one of good versus evil, us versus them. Our particular beliefs and rules establish fixed boundaries of the game, and distinguish us from other Christians and their games. You may join our game and play, but only if you accept the rules that structure and direct our game. The benefits include power, titles, solid explanations, fixed boundaries, solidarity with us, and a winning hand.

As a finite game, Christianity has had little difficulty aligning itself with patriarchy, slavery, racism, hate crimes, torture and death of infidels, and colluding with empires—Roman, Spanish, English, American. In each case, there are clear winners and losers.

If Christianity is setup as a megalomaniacal finite game, it is impossible to play an infinite game. By its nature, it excludes the possibility of the gospel story as an infinite game.

2. A vision of Christianity as infinite play: Jesus creates a new playground that plays fast and loose with the rules, dissolves boundaries and fixed beliefs, and opens new horizons of possibility. In an infinite game, the central themes of the gospel story—incarnation, life, death, resurrection—are articulated in ways that place people and relationships above the system. In Christ, there are no winners or losers—there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female (Gal 3:28). Jesus is not a master player but an infinite player who invites all to an infinite game by including the excluded and rebuking the excluders. Anyone can play, no titles are awarded, no winners are announced, and boundaries are replaced by a gospel horizon.

This infinite game is characterized by vision and openness, where beliefs and rules are continually rewritten in order to keep the game going. To put boundaries on an infinite game, destroys it and stops the game. There is no end of play, and if need be, infinite players will choose death over life in order for the game to continue.

The gospel story as an infinite game contrasts with the beliefs and rules of finite games. Beliefs are certain and bounded. Stories have development, surprises, twists, paradoxes, uncertainties, even contradictions. Beliefs often end the conversation. An infinite story invites further discovery, directs us to the horizon, continues the game, and reformulates the conversation.

If the story is a great pyramid of inspiration and awe, beliefs are limestone rocks dug out from the structure. Beliefs are not necessarily bad, we just need to recognize them for what they are—abstractions from the story, attempts to collate our understanding, pieces of rock dismantled from the magnificent structure. Sometimes these rocks are useful for constructing smaller buildings, but often people just throw them at others. Beliefs are ready tools to create finite or zero-sum games that leverage power over others, but if all we have is rocks, we have reduced the grand story to rubble and can no longer resonate with its openness, poetry, surprises, and vision.

There is an infinite game, an infinite story, which starts: in the beginning was the game maker, and the one who plays, and the one who invites others to join the game and continue the play....


 

How Narrow or Broad is Your View of Jesus and Scripture?

The Future of Evangelicalism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/04/the-future-of-evangelicalism/

 

by Peter Enns

April 9, 2013

Comments

 

Today’s post is by Harold Heie, Senior Fellow at the Center for Christian Studies at Gordon College (full bio here). He is the author of Learning to Listen, Ready to Talk: A Pilgrimage Toward Peacemaking, and his interest is in creating respectful conversations on the internet about difficult topics. Below, Heie introduces the latest respectful conversation, “The Future of Evangelicalism.” I have posted on Heie before, and I am very happy that he asked me to be a part of this conversation. The original post can be found here and I am reposting it here at Heie’s request.

 

I want to invite all my web site readers to follow along and contribute to a new electronic conversation that I will be hosting, starting on May 1, on the topic “American Evangelicalism: Present Conditions, Future Possibilities.” I am guessing that the views that will be expressed on this topic will range from “there is no viable future for Evangelicalism” to “Evangelicalism can have, and should have a vibrant future”. Allow me to conjecture as to why such a wide range of viewpoints may emerge.

 

It may depend on how one defines some key words and phrases. I will illustrate by reflecting on what are often taken to be three of the pillars of Evangelicalism (drawing on the work of Christian scholar David Bebbington).

 

The Centrality of the Biblical Record: Mark Noll has referred to this pillar as “a reliance on the Bible as ultimate religious authority.” But there are narrow and broad views as to what that means. The narrow view is a “Biblicism” that views the Bible as the only source of authority and understanding for the Christian. A broader view, which I embrace, is that whereas the Bible is the primary source and ultimate authority for my understanding of the Christian faith, it is not the only source and authority. Other sources include the Christian tradition, reason, and experience, and knowledge that is uncovered by study in the various academic disciplines.

 

The Centrality of Personal Commitment to the Christian Faith: Once again, this phrase can be interpreted narrowly or broadly. The narrow view can be called “conversionism;” the view that you aren’t a Christian unless you can point to a time and place when you made a decision to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior (being “born again” at that time). A broader view, which I embrace, is that a Christian is one who aspires to be a “follower of Jesus” by personally appropriating the gift of grace made possible through the person and work of Jesus Christ, and that there is no one prescribed means for such personal appropriation (e,g., it can emerge gradually).

 

The Centrality of Evangelism: Christians are called to share the “gospel” (the “good news” of restoration made possible by Jesus Christ). A narrow view of such “evangelism” is that the only message we are called to share with all peoples is that God intends to restore individual persons to a right relationship with God. A broader view of evangelism, which I embrace, is that the “good news” applies to all of God’s creation, not only individuals. The person and work of Jesus Christ are decisive for the restoration of all aspects of the created order, including the natural world and societal structures.

 

So, whether you think that Evangelicalism can, and should have a vibrant future may depend on whether you embrace the narrow or broad views of the “pillars of Evangelicalism” that I have summarized above, or something in-between.

 

Of course, what I say above could be all wrong. Thankfully, I have recruited “primary contributors” for this upcoming conversation who have much more expertise on this topic than I do. I can hardly wait to read what they will have to say about present conditions and future possibilities for American Evangelicalism. I invite you to will follow this conversation and contribute your own reflections by submitting comments.

 

To give you a sneak preview of what is to come, the seven sub-topics that our primary contributors will address (one topic per month, from May through November 2013) are as follows (in the order presented)

1. Evangelicalism and the Broader Christian Tradition

2. Evangelicalism and the Exclusivity of Christianity

3. Evangelicalism and the Modern Study of Scripture

4. Evangelicalism and Morality

5. Evangelicalism and Politics

6. Evangelicalism and Scientific Models of Humanity and Cosmic and Human Origins

7. Evangelicalism and Higher Education

I am pleased that over 20 Christian scholars have committed to being “primary contributors,” including Vincent Bacote (Wheaton College), Randall Balmer (Dartmouth College), Amy Black (Wheaton College), Jeannine Brown (Bethel Seminary). Peter Enns (Eastern University). John Franke (Yellowstone Theological Institute), Stanton Jones (Wheaton College), Richard Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary), Soong-Chan Rah (North Park Theological Seminary), Sandy Richter (Wesley Seminary), Sarah Ruden (Wesleyan University), Corwin Smidt (Calvin College), Theodore Williams (City Colleges of Chicago), John Wilson (Books & Culture), and Amos Yong (Regent University). Anytime after May 1, you can contribute to the conversation in a moderated forum by submitting a comment on any posting.

 

[For an elaboration on the above reflections, including the citations for the scholarly works noted above, see my essay “What Can the Evangelical/Interdenominational Tradition Contribute to Christian Higher Education” under the “Publications” icon on this web site]

Continue to -

 

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

 

 

 

 

Where does the etymology of the phrase, "It Is More Blessed to Give than to Receive" come from?

 

 

Recently I heard the phrase "it is more blessed to give than to receive" and got to wondering where its etymology might have come from. Perhaps not from the Jewish Gospels, as in Matthew 10.8b, when Jesus quoted a popular Jewish phrase,

 

^{5 "}These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ ⁸ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers,^[c] cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. ⁹ Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, ¹⁰ no bag for your journey, or two tunics^[d] or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food."

 

But more perhaps from Acts 20.35 (context vv.34-36), when Paul said,

 

"³⁴You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. ³⁵In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'³⁶And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all."

 

Earlier, in verse 32, Paul had said,

 

"And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified..."

 

as he spoke about his time of ministry having come to a close amongst his disciples. How he had labored night and day for their edification and sanctification. And that with his very hands he served them, providing the blessings of God's word to their hearts and minds.

 

So I found it curious that Paul would connect the grace of God with the phrase of Jesus of being a blessing to others (v. 32 to v. 35) by translating from its Jewish counterpart which flatly stated "freely give what you freely received" (sic, Matthew 10.8b). From Paul's Jewish heritage he was going through the process of re-evaluating Christ's teachings in light of what he  had previously understood through his Torah upbringing as seen here by his revelatory assessment pertaining to God's grace and blessings. He was in the process of threading the Christian themes of the Gospels backwards into his own Jewish heritage and teachings about God, and beginning to conclude their contemporary relevance and significance to the church of his day. Especially in the light of God's revelation through Jesus, as not only the Son of God come to dwell amongst men. But who was Himself the very God of the Godhead. The Incarnated Triune God. Israel's long-awaited Messiah come to live and minister grace within the temples of His dwelling built within His wondrous creation brought alive by His life, death and resurrection over sin and death.

Jesus' words were important to Paul. And they were important to evaluate against all of God's past revelation to Israel received over many, many centuries, if not millenia, from Abraham unto Paul's current milieu of first century Judaism. It is not hard to visualize Paul working out a basic hermeneutical structure of New Covenant theology as he progressed through the various ministry environments he experienced during his missionary journeys of evangelism and church planting. And when seated within the Roman cells of imprisonment to begin working through the many fractured paths of Judaistic thought-and-theology into a more enlightened view of God's New Testament revelation presented to not only himself, but to his fellow apostles (Christ's disciples) received at the hands of Jesus to by His faithful followers. Out of which we now have Paul's letters written to the churches of Asia Minor and Rome, garnered first by experience, and secondly through the interpretive rumination of prayerful thought and balanced judgment, against Paul's previous background of systematic, rigorous, Jewish training. (Paul once noted that he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, when contesting an interpretation of Scriptural revelation being rejected by fellow would-be revelatories. Interpreting and acting upon God's Word aright was important to him).

And not only did this phrase of blessing mean something in Paul's day, but it has come to mean something to us in our day as well, as we continue to translate, or import, God's revelation through Jesus into the digest of worldly phrases heard in our ears from within today's cultures and societies vying for moral, religious, or philosophical ascendancy. But by filling our ears, our minds, and our hearts, with the illumined richness of God's Word, the Bible, as revealed to us through Jesus, we might then be better able to speak to each other of God's grace and truth. By re-assessing (or re-positioning) such popular phrases as, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" we, as Christians, may communicate it's higher revelatory significance of referring to God's empowerment of His word of grace into our meager lives lived so gracelessly. So self-centered. So anxious and sparse.

 

And by this phrase one might gather that it had become one of those basic tenets of Judaism mostly likely conscripted from its more common, worldly origins, then as it later became by Paul through impassioned speeches to Jewish-Hellenistic congregations scattered amongst the pages of the book of Acts as he hastened to Jerusalem to begin his fourth and final journey for the gospel of Jesus unto Rome itself. Paul's desire to go to Rome saddened the churches of Asia Minor (20.38f) but also stiffened their resolve to provide for their destitute Jewish brethren dwelling in-and-around Jerusalem they had not met but knew to be suffering for faithfully following Jesus. So that in the midst of famine in Israel, the Apostle Paul's congregants wished to provide help through the provisioning of bread, money, and so forth, to the churches of Jerusalem, as he, Paul, travelled amongst the churches of Asia Minor before returning to Jerusalem, and ultimately to his final journey as a Roman prisoner to tell of the good news of Jesus to the emperor of Rome himself.

 

And in this way Paul spoke to what his Lord and Savior had provided to him - specifically that through the gospel of Jesus he freely received God's grace as a religiously loyal Jewish Pharisee trained in the Torah - and was to freely give back God's grace to those who knew not Jesus.... And in hearty response, those Christian followers of the Messiah Christ took to their heart to give of themselves - and not only to one another - but to their Christian brothers and sisters suffering in foreign lands for their faith in Christ.

And in this way have I likewise labored here at Relevancy22 with many contemporaries to provide fresh insights into God's living Word through recitation of articles and posts reflecting popular discussions, songs, theologies, or ideas, found in today's mainstreams of thought and rhetoric. To tell of the Scripture's richness once thought lost in the arguments of the church between one interpretive dogma or the other; to enliven today's theologies with a recharged hermeneutic that works past many of Evangelicalism's dead-ends to reclaim a Jesus-nation warm-and-alive with the breath-and-power of the Spirit. To say plainly what many would wish to cover up. And to say it again-and-again-again until it sinks in, using a simple literary nuance here, or a shaded overtone there, that might overcome our Christian differences and religious impasses to discover a more meaningful Bible; a richer theological landscape; and a broader tapestry of ministry and livelihood than once thought possible.

Nor did I think I would become so overwhelmed by so large a burden so late in life. But through God's spirit, and by the grace He has given to me, I have collected and written this past year-and-a-half of God's great goodness as it proceeds unstoppable through this world we live within. Whether through the church itself. Or in spite of itself. Or even at the hands of those burdened souls for human rights and suffrage. Or even through the pursuits of common scientific discoveries and human organizational efforts. God is actively involved in this world of ours and it is only we ourselves who would try to contain the will of our Divine Creator, the Lover of our Souls, our Redeemer and Savior. To unwittingly, or ignorantly, prevent His word of grace from being as relevant today as it ever was in Christ's day. It is but for us to hear. And to hear God's Word aright. And thus, have I chosen to re-orient our message of the Gospel as an emerging Gospel dispelled of the church's many pet dogmas and religious zeals. To dare to enter in upon holy ground and there stand speaking God's Word afresh as it should be spoken unaltered and pure without so many of our words and actions hindering the Spirit's movement.

And with that, I leave with you a follow-up article speaking to the further development of the Christian phrase of blessing written several years ago during one Christmas season from a Canadian perspective. It doesn't complete the Jewish etymology of this phrase, but it may help provide an important "regal" perspective to our response by God's actions to us - both in creative deed and redemptive act. To this may I add a short prayer,

As God gives strength,
Be blessed and be blessings,
Each and every day,
To every man or beast,
In every realm or kingdom,
To the glory of God,
Unto the richness of
His Rule and Reign.

Give without receiving,
Receive with thanksgiving,
In all things give grace,
As is the will of God,
Who Himself is grace.

May God's peace be our inheritance,
May charity be our livelihood,
May the Lord Jesus Christ be uplifted,
Both now and always.

- R.E. Slater

October 11, 2012 

World Vision

Acts 20
English Standard Version (ESV)

Paul in Macedonia and Greece

20 After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. ² When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. ³ There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews^[a] as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. ⁴ Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus. ⁵ These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, ⁶ but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.

 

Eutychus Raised from the Dead

 

⁷ On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. ⁸ There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. ⁹ And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. ¹⁰ But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” ¹¹ And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. ¹² And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.

 

¹³ But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. ¹⁴ And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. ¹⁵ And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and^[b] the day after that we went to Miletus. ¹⁶ For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.

 

Paul Speaks to the Ephesian Elders

 

¹⁷ Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. ¹⁸ And when they came to him, he said to them:

 

“You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, ¹⁹ serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; ²⁰ how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, ²¹ testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. ²² And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by^[c] the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, ²³ except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. ²⁴ But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. ²⁵ And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. ²⁶ Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, ²⁷ for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. ²⁸ Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God,^[d] which he obtained with his own blood.^{[e] 29} I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; ³⁰ and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. ³¹ Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. ³² And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. ³³ I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. ³⁴ You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. ³⁵ In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

 

³⁶ And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. ³⁷ And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, ³⁸ being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

It's more blessed to give than receive

http://www.lucknowsentinel.com/2008/12/17/its-more-blessed-to-give-than-receive

By Pastor Perry Chuipka

Wednesday, December 17, 2008As we approach this advent and Christmas season this verse keeps coming into my mind. Many of us grew up hearing that "It is more blessed to give than to receive." But what does this word "bless" really mean.

 

In the Bible, the origin of the concept of "blessing" is a Hebrew word (baw-rahk'), meaning "to kneel" and was used one way or another, hundreds of times to convey the meaning of respect or adoration. You would kneel before a king in respect or to offer thanks for something. Of course, you would kneel to God in adoration, praise, thanksgiving and supplication. The Septuagint (LXX) translators choose the Greek (eulogeitos) to represent (baw-rahk') (more than 400 times). So, among Greek speaking Jews, this was a common word for praise, thanksgiving, respect, etc. Latin writers used the verb form (benedicere) to translate the Greek, preferring to offer the literal sense of the Greek. I think they wanted a strictly English word so they could get away from the Catholic Latin expressions.

 

The word "bless" was not a literal translation, but it had religious overtones and they used it even though it had come from a heathen source. So, there was a long and varied series of associations - Jewish, heathen, Christian - to blend in the English use of the word "bless". Therefore, "blessing" is a word which has a position in Christian vocabulary by reason of long-standing usage. But it does not directly translate (eulogeitos)! BUT - there is a modern version which does have a direct translation, and it is to this version that I pay honour. The version is the Spanish. In Ephesians 1:3 in the Spanish, the word (bendito) is the part participle of the verb (bendecir). It means, literally, "to say good things or good words."

 

So let me go back to my verse, "It is more blessed to give than receive." It is not that giving is more important than receiving. That is not what this verse means. Instead it points out that blessings start from someone giving good things or good words. I couldn't help but think back to the Genesis stories of creation where God created his blessings for this world by first giving good things or good words.

 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day" and the darkness he called "night". and there was evening, and there was morning-the first day."

 

Now, just think for a moment about Jesus' ministry. He showed us the power of the word [...and I might add, our actions! - res] to bring new life to others through the many good things that he said and did. And so it is with us, as we enter this advent and Christmas season. Our words and our actions are important because they help bring about God's blessing to others. We can give blessings to others this Christmas and it starts with us being thankful for all the good things that God has given us to share with others.

 

My family and I are very thankful for the people here in Lucknow. We arrived in Wingham near the end of April of this year coming from Sudbury in Northern Ontario. Not long after we arrived here, Sara, the reporter from the Sentinel came to our home to interview my wife and I. Not long after that, I attended the regular men's Wednesday morning gathering time at Finlayson's and I was greeted with smiles and a few jokes that I cannot repeat here. The people have been great and very welcoming to us. My family and I do feel blessed. We are blessed with good people who are with us on our common journey of searching for the truth in our lives. My family and I wish you and your loved ones a very blessed Christmas season filled with many good moments with family and friends and a New Year echoing with "good words and good things".