Peter Enns - Paul's Letter from Rome to the Christian Churches

This 4th century New Testament papyrus contains the first seven verses of Paul's Letter to the Romans.

Beneath the scripture a different author has scribbled in random 

phrases. It has been suggested that this

papyrus may have been a writing exercise. 

New research has identified the owner of this document - a

man named Aurelius Leonides - who was a flax merchant from Eqypt. (article link here)

a long lost letter back to Paul from the Jewish Christians at Rome (that I totally made up)

uphttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/04/a-long-lost-letter-back-to-paul-from-the-jewish-christians-at-rome-that-i-totally-made-up/

by Peter Enns
April 21, 2014
Comments

If I could go back in time, I’d love to be a fly on the wall to hear how the Jewish believers in the church at Rome heard Paul’s words in his letter to them. (Actually, if I really could go back in time I’d first make a pit stop along the way so I could win the Power Ball Jackpot, but I digress.)

Here we have Paul writing a letter to a church he had neither founded nor even visited and that had a significant Jewish population. And he says things like the following:

• Gentiles (a.k.a. Greeks) may be sinners, but Jews are no better off in God’s eyes, since they are the ones who have God’s gift of Torah but don’t do what it says.

• Jews and Gentiles are in the same boat as far as God is concerned because both are enslaved to the power of sin, both equally fall short of God’s glory, and both equally need Jesus, not Torah, to defeat that power.

• This decentering of Torah to allow Gentiles to become equal partners with Jews in Israel’s story, though appearing to be an unexpected move, has actually been God’s plan all along, beginning with Abraham.

• Neither circumcision nor maintaining food laws, both of which are commandments to Israel, remain necessary for God’s people–either Jews or Gentiles–in view of Christ’s death and resurrection.

• Those whose conscience tells them that they need to maintain food laws may continue to do so, but rather than being praised as obeying Scripture, these believers are “weak” in their faith as opposed to those who are “strong,” i.e., those who understand that no foods are unclean.

• Neither the weak nor the strong are to judge each other, for love and unity among the people of God take priority over whether Israel’s ancient practices continue to be maintained.

- Paul the Apostle

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[In response,] I hope one day we find a long lost letter written back to Paul by these Jewish believers. It might go something like this:

Dear Paul,

We read your letter with great interest, and it sparked no little amount of commotion among your fellow Jews.

Have you lost your mind?

We believe in Jesus as you do, and like you we are still scratching our heads a bit about why our Messiah came in humility and weakness, even dying a criminal’s death, and then was raised. You’ve actually helped us quite a bit on those things, especially early on in your letter, and we much appreciate it.

But Paul, you’re Jewish. You’re one of us. Do you really think that the God of our fathers would simply reverse course and expect us to figure out that Jesus the Galilean brought an end to our ancient traditions–especially given how (according to the stories we heard) Jesus himself never said any of what you’re saying here?

We’ve never met though your reputation precedes you. We believe that you are an apostle, but do you really think we should just take your word for it that all that we’ve known is now, at best, an add-on and at worst a hindrance to true faith in the God of our fathers?

And we appreciate how fervently and creatively you cite scripture to support your point, but don’t you think you took your creative readings of scripture a bit too far? Was obedience to Torah really never central to the Lord’s overall plan? We’ve read our scripture cover to cover many times and we can’t find where God even hints at that idea.

Your reading of the story of our father Abraham to marginalize Torah-keeping is way over the top, and your handling of the Psalms and the Prophets to show how the Lord has always “elected” Gentiles is…well…you might as well say that there is really no advantage at all to being a Jew–like we’re one big mistake.

You try to get out of that implication a couple of times in your letter. You sense the dilemma, but frankly you don’t do a very good job of talking your way out of it.

And then toward the end of your letter, when you talk about clean and unclean foods (which seems to be the real point of your letter), you call “weak” those who have the courage and faithfulness amid our pagan culture to maintain God’s holy laws, given by him to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and you call others “strong” for not doing so.

So, what’s up with that?

Paul, we cannot stress this enough: you can’t just pick and choose what parts of scripture you think are worth holding on to.

After all, if everyone did that, there’d be chaos. And where does it end, Paul? Once you start denying one part of scripture, there is no logical reason not to deny anything else. And then what happens to the authority of scripture?

You can’t do this sort of thing with God’s word and you can’t claim that God is telling you to deny what God had told us from ancient days up to know.

We respect you as our brother, Paul, but when you finally pay us a visit, which we do hope will happen in the not-too-distant future, we would like to sit down with you and hear from you more clearly your reasoning process in all of this–exactly how Jesus’s death and resurrection, which we firmly believe, leads you to draw the conclusion that God is turning his back on the very traditions he commanded.

So, those are our main concerns. If in the meantime you decide to write back, could you please work on writing shorter sentences, and maybe not breaking off in mid-sentence to follow another train of thought? That would help us a lot.

We would also appreciate it you used certain key words a bit more consistently–like faith, righteousness, and law. We see some ambiguity here and it’s already caused us no end of debate.

Most sincerely,

Your brothers and sisters in the faith,

fellow children of our father Abraham, according to the flesh

- Your brothers and sisters in Christ

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Jewish Teachings in the Bible Series

continue to -

A Jewish Perspective by Elie Wiesel - The Story of Seth

A Jewish Perspective by Elie Wiesel - The Story of Jethro

A Jewish Perspective by Elie Wiesel - The Story of Aaron

A Jewish Perspective by Elie Wiesel - The Story of Joshua

Peter Enns - Paul's Letter from Rome to the Christian Churches

Peter Enns - "How Jesus Read His Bible," by Michael Hardin (Parts 1-4) + Videos: A Non-Violent Atonement

How Jesus Read His Bible

(Michael Hardin part 1)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/04/how-jesus-read-his-bible-michael-hardin-part-1/

by Peter Enns

April 8, 2014

Comments

Today begins a 4-part series by Michael Hardin, “How Jesus Read His Bible.” Hardin is the co-founder and Executive Director of Preaching Peace a non-profit based in Lancaster, PA, whose motto is “Educating the Church in Jesus’ Vision of Peace.” An internationally known speaker, he is one of the earliest members of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion and is a co-founder Theology and Peace, also based in the United States. Michael was educated at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago and is a PhD candidate at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia.

Hardin is the author of the acclaimed The Jesus Driven Life and What The Facebook?: Posts from the Edge of Christendom, and co-editor of Stricken by God?: Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ, Peace Be with You: Christ’s Benediction amid Violent Empires, Compassionate Eschatology, and editor of the forthcoming book Reading the Bible with Rene Girard.

His current book project is Lamb Up!: The Resurrection Gospel. He has published over a dozen articles on the mimetic theory of René Girard in addition to essays on theology, spirituality and practical theology. 

Michael participated in the recent documentary Hellbound? and is working with director Kevin Miller on a television project on the work of René Girard.

These posts are adapted by Hardin from The Jesus Driven Life.

- Peter Enns

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We have learned from modern theologians that what one says about Scripture and how one uses it can be two different things and that how one uses Scripture is the real indication of what one believes about it.

I notice, for example, that many preachers use Scripture as a diving board, they quote it and then jump off into a pool of ideas, leaving the biblical text behind. What they say might be good or true or even relevant but it has little or no connection to the passage under discussion.

Other preachers I have heard treat Scripture like they are in a 7th grade science class dissecting a frog. They notice with some repugnance the things they don’t like and can be quite critical of the process of having to figure out what lies before them.

Some have a "high" view of Scripture by which they mean Scripture is the Word of God, inspired and without error, yet the way in which they use it betrays that they really don’t take it very seriously. These folks ignore context and, "a text without a context is a pretext" or as my Australian friend Jarrod McKenna says “a text without a context is a con.”

These folks have what I call the Old McDonald approach to the Bible, here a verse, there a verse, everywhere a verse verse. Contemporary fundamentalist preaching is like this; a string of verses on a chain like pearls that all make whatever point the preacher is seeking to get across.

That makes the Bible flat and you can do all kinds of strange things with a flat Bible. It’s like silly putty. A flat reading of the Bible is like a 2D grainy black and white silent film compared to reading the Bible on a Hi-Def BIG HDTV screen with Blu-Ray color and Bose Surround Sound in 4D. Now what would you rather have? A thin schemer of old butter on cold toast or a rich robust Feast?

There is a way to read the Bible that is life-giving, thoughtful and joyous. How Scripture is deployed says a lot more than what is believed about it. Believing something to be true about the Bible does not make it true no matter how many have shouted it.

What counts, ultimately, is the way the Bible is rendered in your life, that is, how your life is the living interpretation of the Bible.

Protestants frequently argue that because Jesus quoted the Jewish Bible, this means that he accepted its authority as a whole. When they do this they import a modern view of the authority of Scripture or canon back into the past.

The fact is that there were many and varied views of the authority of the biblical writings and not all groups in Jesus’ time had the same view of biblical authority. It is also true that the way the New Testament writers and Jesus quote and interpret Scripture follows certain patterns in their culture.

Groups in Jesus’ day had rules or guidelines for interpreting the biblical text. The key question for us and one that is rarely raised is this: Did Jesus have a way of using his Bible that was different from those around him? I suggest that he did.

The key text for us to explore in this section will come from Jesus’ inaugural sermon at his hometown synagogue in Nazareth found in the Gospel of Luke (4:16-30).

To be fair, many critical scholars see the hand of the Gospel editor all over this text, noting that many phrases are typical of Luke. Nevertheless, I suspect that there is an authentic story underlying this text inasmuch as Jesus’ first sermon almost gets him killed.

There is also a tremendous congruity with how Jesus interprets the Scripture in this text and his way of understanding both theology and ethics that we find in his teaching, e.g., in the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6).

In Luke 4 Jesus returns to his hometown in Nazareth after having been baptized and then tested in the wilderness. He enters the synagogue and is asked to be the Scripture reader.

In Jesus’ day this could have taken two forms, the first is the actual reader (a vocalizer) of the Hebrew text that would not have been understood by Galileans. It would be like someone reading from the Greek New Testament in church today.

The second role would be that of a translator/interpreter known as a targumist. This person would not read from a scroll but recite from memory a ‘standard’ translation (a Targum) in Aramaic that was the common Semitic tongue in Palestine. Luke appears unclear as to which role Jesus took, perhaps conflating both roles into one. Nevertheless in Luke, Jesus arises takes the scroll and reads from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to

release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

After this he rolls the scroll up, hands it over to the attendant, who puts it away and then Jesus sits down.

The sermon was short and sweet. He further says,

“Today this text has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Now what follows is strange for at first it appears that the listeners are quite glad for what Jesus said. But he retorts rather sarcastically and then proceeds to cite two examples (Elijah and Elisha) to justify his sarcasm. It is at this point that the crowd wants to take him out and kill him by throwing him off a cliff.

This really doesn’t make much sense. Some interpreters might argue that what got Jesus in trouble was some sort of ‘divine’ claim, that God had anointed him to be special. But is such the case?

In my next post, in order to see what is happening here in Luke 4, we shall note three critical but interrelated aspects of this episode. First, we will note the way Jesus cites the book of Isaiah compared to what is actually in Isaiah. Second, we will look at the translation problem of verse 22. Third we will look at why Jesus uses these specific examples from Elijah and Elisha to make his point.

- Michael Hardin

* * * * * * * * * *

Are you irked at the thought of God not being wrathful?

(Michael Hardin part 2)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/04/are-you-irked-at-the-thought-of-god-not-being-wrathful-michael-hardin-part-2/

by Peter Enns

April 9, 2014

Comments

Today we have part 2 of a 4-part series by Michael Hardin, “How Jesus Read His Bible.” Hardin (see full bio at part 1) is the co-founder and Executive Director of Preaching Peace a non-profit based in Lancaster, PA whose motto is “Educating the Church in Jesus’ Vision of Peace.” Hardin has published over a dozen articles on the mimetic theory of René Girard in addition to essays on theology, spirituality, and practical theology. He is also the author of several books, including the acclaimed The Jesus Driven Life from which these posts are adapted.

In today’s post, Hardin continues his discussion of Luke 4 and and how Jesus’s use of Isaiah 61:1-2 reframes our understanding of “wrath” and the retributive violence of God.

- Peter Enns

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When teaching Luke 4, I point out that Isaiah 61:1-2 was one of the more popular passages in Judaism. It is cited in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other writings as well as in rabbinic literature. Have you ever seen a football game where after a touchdown somebody holds up a sign in the end zone seats that reads “John 3:16?” If they had played football in Jesus’ day that sign would have read “Isaiah 61:1-2.”

What made it so important was that it was a lectionary passage for the Year of Jubilee. This was a text that expressed the hope of Israel for liberation from the bondage not only of spiritual disease but also political and economic oppression. The vision of Isaiah was one of shalom, wholeness in all of life.

The first thing to notice is that Jesus does not cite the entire text but eliminates one very important line, “and the day of the vengeance of our God.” The question is: why did he do this?

Some suggest that now is the time of grace and so Jesus holds off on quoting the text about God’s vengeance since that will come later at the end of time. But nowhere else does Jesus seem to quote the biblical text in this fashion, and he never seems to break the work of God into dispensations or periods of time. [Therefore,] something else is going on here.

Second is the problem of translation that arises in Luke 4:22. Most translations indicate that the crowd was pleased with Jesus. These same synagogue hearers then comment, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

Jesus reading Luke 4

The intonation we are supposed to supply would be something like “Oh, what a fine sermon and what a fine preacher Jesus has turned out to be, his father would be so proud!” But is this the case?

The Greek text is quite simple and the King James has adequately translated this “and all bore witness to him.” This bearing witness in the KJV is neither positive nor negative. Why then do translators say, “all spoke well of him?”

Translators have to make what is known as a syntactical decision, they have to decide whether or not the “bearing witness” is negative or positive. Technically speaking they have to decide if the dative pronoun “to him” is a dative of disadvantage or a dative of advantage; was the crowd bearing witness to his advantage or to his disadvantage?

If it is the former case then the intonation we gave to “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” above would make sense and Jesus immediately following gets sarcastic for no reason, but if it is the latter then we could just as well translate this text as “and all spoke ill of his sermon,” that is, they didn’t like what he said.

Then the intonation of the phrase “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” should be rendered something like “who does Jesus think he is coming into our synagogue and saying such things?” With this alternate, preferable translation, of verse 23, Jesus is not being sarcastic but is responding to the negativity of the listeners.

A third point to be made concerns the two examples Jesus cites from two of Israel’s greatest prophets, Elijah and Elisha. In both cases Jesus notes that God worked not within the bounds of Israel but outside the chosen people when he sent these prophets to feed and heal.

What is the connection between what these prophets did and what Jesus said when he quoted the Isaiah text, and why did the crowd get angry enough with him to want to kill him?

We noted that when Jesus quoted the Isaiah text he did not quote the phrase “and the day of the vengeance of our God.” If, in popular opinion, part of the promise of jubilee was that God would deliver Israel from her oppressors, and if that expectation was that God would punish her oppressors, then the phrase “and the day of the vengeance of our God” would be an aspect of the longed for and hoped for deliverance by which Israel’s enemies would be cast down.

Political deliverance was perceived as an aspect of God working wrath on Israel’s enemies. By eliminating this line, Jesus also eliminated the possibility that jubilee included God’s wrath upon whoever was oppressing Israel. His words were indeed “gracious words” (“words of grace”).

The citation of the two examples of Elijah and Elisha then justify Jesus’ exclusion of this vengeance saying, for both prophets had worked their healing miracles among foreign outsiders, those whom God was supposed (in popular piety) to hate.

In short, Jesus is saying to his synagogue hearers:

Jubilee is here, not only for you but also for those you hate; in fact God also goes to your oppressors with this message of jubilee, deliverance and salvation. God will become their God and thus you shall all be family.

Now we can begin to understand why they got so mad at him.

But there is a further implication to be drawn from this. By eliminating the phrase regarding God’s vengeance, Jesus is removing the notion of retributive violence from the doctrine of God.

Noah's Flood

He is in effect saying that God is not like you think, loving you and angry with those you hate. There is a great bumper sticker making the rounds these days that captures this problem. It says “Isn’t it convenient that God hates the same people you do?”

Like the Galileans, we too have a tendency to want to believe that God is on our side and will judge “the other” who is over against us, or different from us. Such was not the case with Jesus. He observed that God makes no distinctions between righteous and wicked, between oppressors and oppressed, they both need deliverance and God’s blessing. Did he not say, “God makes rain to fall on good and evil and sun to shine on just and unjust?” (Matt 5:45)

This is perhaps the most important point I am seeking to make in my book The Jesus Driven Life, namely that, like Jesus, it is essential for us to begin to reframe the way we understand the “wrath” or retributive violence of God.

To suggest that God is nonviolent or better yet, that God is not involved in the cycle of retributive vengeance and punishment will undoubtedly strike many as wrong. Some having read this far are no doubt ready to run me out of town. If you are feeling this way, then what is the difference between how you feel and how Jesus’ hearers felt that day when he preached in his hometown synagogue?

Nothing irks some folks more than losing a God who is wrathful, angry, retributive and punishing. This is only because we want so much to believe that God takes sides, and that side is inevitably our side.

- Michael Hardin

* * * * * * * * * *

What does a God without retribution look like?

- Ask Jesus!

(Michael Hardin part 3)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/04/what-does-god-without-retribution-look-like-ask-jesus-michael-hardin-part-3/

by Peter Enns

April 10, 2014

Comments

Today we have part 3 of a 4-part series by Michael Hardin, “How Jesus Read His Bible.” Hardin (see full bio at part 1) is the co-founder and Executive Director of Preaching Peace a non-profit based in Lancaster, PA whose motto is “Educating the Church in Jesus’ Vision of Peace.” Hardin has published over a dozen articles on the mimetic theory of René Girard in addition to essays on theology, spirituality, and practical theology. He is also the author of several books, including the acclaimed The Jesus Driven Life from which these posts are adapted.

In today’s post, Hardin continues his discussion of Jesus’s use of the Old Testament. Hardin argues that the manner in which Jesus quotes his scripture shows us the God Jesus proclaims is not retributive. And, as you’ll see, John the Baptist was confused about this (as you might be).

- Peter Enns

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We ended the last post by saying,

Nothing irks some folks more than losing a God who is wrathful, angry, retributive

and punishing. This is only because we want so much to believe that God takes

sides, and that side is inevitably our side.

So much of Jesus’s teaching subverts this sacrificial way of thinking.

One example is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector found in Luke 18:9-14, where what counts as righteousness is completely and totally turned on its head!

If, in fact, as I argued in my last post, that Jesus begins his ministry by asking what God without retribution looks like (Luke 4), and if he acts this way in his ministry, and if he interprets his Bible to say such things, the question arises:

• Shouldn’t we also follow Jesus in interpreting our Bibles in the same way?
• Is biblical interpretation also a part of discipleship?
• Does following Jesus include more than just living a virtuous life?
• Might it also have to do with helping folks change the way they envision God?

Such was the case for Jesus who called people constantly to “change your thinking.” This is what repentance is, changing the way you think about things (Greek metanoia). When we change the way we see and understand the character of God, everything else changes and we turn back (Hebrew shuv) to the living and true God.

John the Baptist

We can see Jesus doing the same thing in Luke 7:18-23 when he responds to the followers of John the Baptist. Herod had imprisoned the Baptist for his preaching against the Herodian family system. John did not want to die without knowing whether Jesus was the one to come.

Now what could possibly have created this doubt in John’s mind? The answer comes in Jesus’ response to John’s followers. “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard,” Jesus says and then follows a list of miracles. Is Jesus saying, “Tell John you have seen a miracle worker and that God is doing great things through me?”

Doesn’t John already know these things about Jesus? Surely he does. Healers were rare but they were not uncommon in Jesus’ day. What then is Jesus really saying?

Luke 7:22ff is a selection of texts, mostly from Isaiah but also including the miracles of Elijah and Elisha (blind, Isaiah 61:1-2, 29:18, 35:5; lame, 35:6; deaf, 29:18, 35:5; poor 29:19; dead/lepers, I Kings 17:17-24 and 2 Kings 5:1-27).

The Isaiah texts all include a consequent or subsequent reference to the vengeance of God none of which Jesus quotes. As in Luke 4 what is at stake is the retributive violence of God that was an important aspect of John’s proclamation (Luke 3:7-9).

John, like the prophets before him, believed that God was going to bring an apocalyptic wrath. Nowhere in Jesus’ preaching do we find such and this is what confused John, just as it confused Jesus’ synagogue hearers.

Janus

Jesus implicitly tells John, through his message to John’s followers, that the wrath of God is not part of his message, rather healing and good news is. That is, Jesus is inviting John to read Isaiah the way he did!

The last thing Jesus tells John the Baptists’ disciples is “Blessed is the person who is not scandalized on account of me?” What could have caused this scandal? What had Jesus said and done that would cause people to stumble on his message? The clues are here in both Luke 4 and 7.

Jesus did not include as part of his message the idea that God would pour out wrath on Israel’s enemies in order to deliver Israel. Violence is not part of the divine economy for Jesus.

Sad to say, most Christians still think more like John the Baptist than Jesus.

Christians have lived a long time with a God who is retributive.

• We say that God is perfect and thus has the right to punish those whom he deems fit.
• We say that God will bring his righteous wrath upon all those who reject God.
• We say that God can do what God wants because God is God.

All of this logic is foreign to the gospel teaching of Jesus about the character of his heavenly abba.

Jesus does not begin with an abstract notion of God or Platonic metaphysics, but with the Creator God whom he knows as loving, nurturing and caring for all persons regardless of their moral condition, their politics, their ethnic background or their social or economic status. God cares for everyone equally and alike.

By removing retribution from the work and character of God, Jesus, for the first time in human history, opened up a new way, a path, which he also invites us to travel.

Sadly few have found that this path and church history is replete with hundreds, even thousands of examples of a Janus-faced god, a god who is merciful and wrathful, loving and punishing. Some have said that we need to hold to both of these sides together.

Jesus didn’t and neither should we. It is time for us to follow Jesus in reconsidering what divinity without retribution looks like.

- Michael Hardin

* * * * * * * * * *

“Scripture is like a cracked jar” -

the glory of an imperfect Bible

(Michael Hardin part 4)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/04/scripture-is-like-a-cracked-jar-the-glory-of-an-imperfect-bible-michael-hardin-part-4/

by Peter Enns

April 11, 2014

Comments

Today we come to the final post of a 4-part series by Michael Hardin, “How Jesus Read His Bible.” Hardin (see full bio at part 1) is the co-founder and Executive Director of Preaching Peace a non-profit based in Lancaster, PA whose motto is “Educating the Church in Jesus’ Vision of Peace.” Hardin has published over a dozen articles on the mimetic theory of René Girard in addition to essays on theology, spirituality, and practical theology. He is also the author of several books, including the acclaimed The Jesus Driven Life from which these posts are adapted.

In today’s post, Hardin talks about how he sees God speaking through Scripture: through the cross.

- Peter Enns

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If God speaks through Scripture, and I believe God does indeed speak, how shall we understand God speaking? I begin with several criteria.

1 - The first is that in Jesus the “fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily” (Col 2:9). Jesus is the figure who reveals the character of the Father (so Heb 1:1-3, John 1:1- 18, etc).

2 - The second is this: God speaks through broken vessels. The greatest speech/act of God can be found in the cross. God did God’s best work on the cross reconciling a stubborn, blind and rebellious humanity by forgiving them their sins.

The cross is the ultimate place of God’s brokenness. It is in this brokenness that we see most clearly the affection of God for humanity, an affection or love that takes even misjudgment, torture, humiliation and shame and still announces forgiveness.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 says we have “this treasure in clay jars.” This treasure is the gospel (vs. 3). If a jar could contain light, say, the light of the gospel, and it was perfect, then that light would not be seen, for it would have nowhere to shine through. If it is cracked, then there are places for that light to leak out and shine forth.

For me, Scripture is liked a cracked jar, it is because it is cracked that light is able to shine forth. If in our brokenness God shines God’s light in and through us, can we not also assert the same of the prophets and the apostles? Can we not say that we are most like God, not when we are whole, but when we are broken? Does not the Fourth Gospel (John) suggest as much in its view of the relationship between ‘glory’ (doxa) and the cross?

In other words, we do not need to have a theory of Scripture where the Bible must be perfect in order for God to reveal God’s self.

Some may object and say but if that is the case how do we distinguish between what is “man’s [sic] word” and what is “God’s Word?” This has already been answered by suggesting that revelation comes through the voice of the forgiving victim.

It is the Crucified that speaks the eternal word: shalom. The forgiveness announced by Jesus on the cross is no different than the ‘shalom’ announced by the Risen Jesus. They are flip sides of a coin. God is at peace with humanity.

For this reason, I see the cross as the evacuation of all concepts of divine wrath, existential and eschatological. There was no wrath of God poured out on Jesus on the cross; the wrath is strictly ours. Nor is there an eschatological wrath, as though God was only partly ameliorated at the cross but will make sure to vent holy anger come The End.

The cross is the death of all our god concepts, and we humans are the ones who, through the justification of scapegoating, believe that God is one with us when we victimize. After all, ‘God’ victimized plenty of people and people groups in the Old Testament.

This sacrificial way of thinking is terminated by the anti-sacrifice Jesus. Jesus’ blood covers our sin, not through some divine forensic transaction but as we lift our blood stained hands we hear the divine voice, “You are forgiven, each and every one of you, all of you.”

The New Testament writers say this was all done “for us” (hyper humon), for our sakes, for our benefit. This is what the Nicene Creed affirms when it says Jesus “who for us humans and our salvation came down from heaven.” Just as Hebrews 10:5-8 says, this coming was not to be a sacrifice but was the opposite, it was anti-sacrificial.

Jesus did not come to fulfill the logic of the sacrificial system (either Jewish or pagan) but to expose it and put an end to its reign in our lives.

The cross of Christ is the place of revelation, the resurrection of Jesus is the vindication of that revelation, and the ascension, where Jesus is given the Unpronounceable Name (Phil 2:5-11) is the place where that revelation is confirmed for all time.

This is the good news, this is the gospel, and this is why we trust God to use our brokenness to shine his light from our lives into the lives of others, just as God uses the broken prophetic and apostolic witness to continue to shine light to us and for us today.

How can we break through to this new reading of the Bible? What is it that hinders us from really seeing and hearing and experiencing the good news? What keeps us in bondage to our old sacrificial ways of thinking?

It is time to name the interpretive prison system in which Christianity finds herself. We must discern how the ‘satanic’ sacrificial interpretation manifests itself in our theology. Just as a prison has guards or warders so also sacrificial Christianity has warders that keep it bound to the false logic of sacrifice.

It is the revelation of the resurrected victim that creates the possibility, hitherto an impossibility, for reading texts outside the box of our anthropological mythmaking and justification of reciprocal vengeance.

Christopher Marshall also points to this way of understanding our changed relationship to God:

God’s perceived involvement in the infliction of violence is over. God no longer fights fire with fire. God has changed – or, perhaps more accurately, the human experience of God’s association with violence has changed. God no longer permits his identity to be defined by violence; God actively repudiates the violent behavior which has hitherto clouded his character so that the duplicity of violence itself may be exposed and defeated. (“The Violence of God and the Hermeneutics of Paul” in The Work of Jesus Christ in Anabaptist Perspective [Telford: Cascadia Publishing, 2008], 89.)

I suggest a correlation of hermeneutics with resurrection and discipleship as the three legs of a new paradigm of biblical authority. This anthropological reading of the text is a formative new paradigm for framing the specifics of how the Bible is to be read, understood and lived within the Christian communion.

It is a liberating paradigm for it moves beyond the contentious debates regarding the relation of truth to language and brings to the fore the key problem that has bogged down the church since Marcion on the relation of violence to divinity.

The lens of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus reveals our total sin and God’s total grace. It is a paradigm that calls for more than just intellectual assent; indeed it requires the risk of obedience to Jesus so that, just as he is the Light of the World, so we too, in listening to him and following him, may be light to our world.

- Michael Hardin

Kevin Miller and Michael Hardin - How Jesus Read the Bible?

(Gateway Alliance Church 29.09.2013)

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Michael Hardin on the Bible & Atonement

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2014/04/14/michael-hardin-bible-atonement/

April 14, 2014 by Bo Sanders Comments

Michael Hardin is the author of several books among others [you can find here]:

Stricken by God?: Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ

Compassionate Eschatology: The Future as Friend

The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus

He is the Executive Director of Preaching Peace, an organization co-founded with his wife Lorri. You can see all that they are up to at www.preachingpeace.org

“Our hope is to see the church re-examine its theology in the light of the good news of Jesus who proclaimed a truly distinct and unique vision of God. When we do so we encounter a God of radical free grace, forgiveness and love and our lives are transformed by the Spirit of God sent to us through Jesus.”

HomeBrewed Interview & Audio Link Here

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YouTube Vids

Michael Hardin: A Nonviolent Atonement

Published on Dec 11, 2013

Michael Hardin and Non-Violent Atonement (Nomad Podcast - 10 December 2013)

Tim and Dave (from Nomad Podcast) are chatting with theologian Michael Hardin, founder of Preaching Peace and author of 'The Jesus Driven Life'. The boys ask him whether God is really as violent as the Old Testament makes out, and whether he really had to kill his own son in order to forgive us.

Source: Nomad Podcast http://www.nomad.libsyn.com

The Jewishness of the Messianic Scriptures

Introduction

Long years ago I became inadvertently involved in the (Jewish) Christian-based Torah movement (see a sampling list of Christian sectarian and gnostic movements here). At the discretion of my pastor I put together a Passover Sedar Feast during an Easter celebration to a congregation of second- and third- generation Dutch immigrants steeped in Reformed doctrine. To be sure this would have been a very odd type of Easter observance to these Western European emigres steeped in Dutch Reformed traditions, and yet, when done, became a visibly moving blessing to all.

A year later I found myself and my family at a new church plant that quickly became involved (quite innocently) in a Gentile proselyte movement based upon Torah study and led by a sect of well-meaning Gentile Christians wishing to "touch the hem" of our Rabbi Jesus' garments in form, function, doctrine, and structure. They held to a type of pseudo-Christian teaching that pretended to be informed by a Jewish-mindedness but in actuality were bending the Scriptures to suit their favored outlooks and ideas about Jesus and the church, while willfully revising hoary orthodox doctrines based upon their sectarian outlook. All-well-and-good except for the fact that it smelled sectarian right from the outset.

For several years I personally resisted this group's skewed "Jewish" teachings of the Bible until finally my new church home came around to this same idea after having pursued it hard during this time of spell and entrancement. One of our favorite teachers to the church was a Mr. Robert Vander Laan from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, whose video I present below. He had a hunger for the Jewish God of Scripture, and in all things wished to "fill" the atmospheres of the church's New Testament witness with insightful Hebraic words and phrases, customs and traditions. Especially as they revolved around Jesus and New Testament Christology.

It was commendable but again, the sect of people he attracted were looking to aggressively re-write church doctrine in a decidedly unorthodox way. Eventually this interest within our very young church became a questionable fad and regrettably died away because of the tension it brought when attempting to rewrite Christian doctrines in sectarian fashion however its basis and foundation.

A Christian sect focused on Judaism

What tension? That Jesus was primarily looked upon as God's prophetic Rabbi (priest) rather than as humanity's Rabbinic Saviour. That the (Gentile) church was a dishonourable place of cultic worship and better located in home cell groups on a Saturday evening lighting candles, singing psalms, wearing tassels on one's clothing, and bedecked in yarmulkes (Jewish skullcaps). That the apostle Paul was a Jewish Christian heretic who didn't deserve to be read - only the gospels of Jesus alone - and that all of the NT Scriptures must be held in a forced subservience to the Old Testament teachings of Judaism as this sectarian  movement wished to interpret them. Ecclesiology was re-written. Eschatology was re-written. The Christian Gentile calendar scrutinized, criticized, and disavowed. And generally, there was a forced doctrinal migration back into Old Testament worship (however it was comprehended) which was strongly recommended and acceded to by all active participants in this group.

Here was an instance of trying to capture New Testament teachings through the eyes of Jesus and Paul gone awry. Rather than leading to a deeper grace of understanding with our wanna-be "Jewish" Christian brethren it became a steep divide demanding all Messianic Christians to become Jewish Christians. A divide that was misappropriated and finally fell apart under its own weight of conjectures and hot passions that would worship God in the "right way." The Jewish way. As they understood it.

Hence, as much as I would like to recommend Ray Vander Laan's Bible Lands series... I do so with reservation based upon the hindsight mentioned above. Rather than serving as helpful insight and instruction it became a misdirected passion by a sincere sect of Christians wishing to remake the Christian Church Jewish instead of Messianic. A group that perceived God's fullest blessings only upon those few Christian followers dedicated to a culture of Jewishness, rather than teaching that both Jews and Gentiles alike were equally blessed by the grace of the Saviour regardless of a culture participation or ethnicity. That would divide Scripture to exclude much of the New Testament (such as the apostle Paul's writings), while rewriting standard church eschatologies of Kingdom  theology in a purer, fuller strain of a Jewish Kingdom rather than as a combine traversing all nations, tribes, and people. That is, the gospel of Jesus, in accordance to His Kingdom teaching, is trans-national, trans-cultural, trans-temporal - and not Jewish only-and-ever-and-always. It was a sectarian movement that had grand motives but held very bad, unbiblical theology, as strange as it sounds. It was as much mystical as it was confounding and sadly bound by a hard-headed leadership intolerant of all things of the church that were non-Jewish and Gentile-based (which included most of the Western/European Protestant heritage and Eastern Orthodox traditions).

Hence, as much as RVL's videos are very good, one must remember he is self-trained and hearkens back as one of the progenitors of these well-meaning, but doctrinally misplaced, "Olive-Branched" church sects seeking "purity" of worship through acts of the flesh by donning Jewish dress and adopting a Jewish diet, calendar, attitude, and temper as they interpreted it. Whose height of information always flowed first-and-foremost from today's orthodox Rabbinic Judaism (which is a good place to begin if you are to begin somewhere in order to understand Judaism). But the emphasis was so one-sided in this effort that the old observations by Jesus in the New Testament about the Scribes and Pharisees were beginning to haunt the doctrines of this newer sectarian Jewish-Christian group. They were fast becoming guilty of the very things Jesus had warned the Pharisees and the Scribes about 2000 years earlier.

Since then, I believe RVL has parted ways from these kinds of Christian groups while moving into the larger streams of evangelicalism if I read his website accreditations properly. Now mindfully, this is not meant to be a diatribe against our Jewish/Christian brothers and sisters but against the practice of proselytizing Christians into a Judaistic-form of Christianity knit by an interpretive Jewish form and structure. It is one thing to understand the church's heritage and attempt to capture its meaning but quite another to subtend the church into divisions within the Lord's body. Where one group is more favored of God than another. Where only the "inner" sanctum of "true" believers receive God's fullest blessings.

This kind of attitude is what makes this religious effort more of a sect and not simply another kind of protestant denomination. It has moved away from mainstream Christian orthodoxy. And though I do not wish to muddle things up, we should also further distinguish between Messianic Christian fellowships with deep Jewish roots from non-Jewish Christian sectarian groups... the former being more orthodox than the latter. The one places emphasis on Jesus while the other places emphasis on tradition. The one brings its Jewishness to Scripture as part of its heritage while the other forces it in and all else out. It is a different attitude or spirit of worship from one to the other and stands readily apparent to the questioning eye.

But to those who would add to the Lord's salvation by works of the flesh let us not think that God favors only those Christians who become Jewish in their Christian attitude. Or that God's Kingdom-to-come is going to be strictly Jewish and not multi-ethnic or multi-national. Or that God's greatest favor is reserved to those church fellowships dedicated to a kind of Jewish-mindedness rather than a Messianic-mindedness. The task of the Holy Spirit is not to proselytize Christian Gentiles into becoming Jewish Christians but Messianic Christians who know-and-respect the Jewish background and history of the Scriptures without becoming perversely sectarian in perspective.

Jewish Orthodoxy's Historical Connections

At present, most of contemporary Jewish orthodoxy has been based upon Old Testament manuscripts that can go no further back in textual variant than to that of the 6th century AD. The orthodox church itself also has a similar association with that of its own New Testament Scriptures because of the ravages of time and space to ancient documents and human cultures. And thus, when speaking of Jewish orthodoxy we must realize that its own history was being consolidated around the same time of Christianity. Even though Judaism goes further back in time than Christianity in its present iterations of itself it is about the same age as that of early Christianity. Now this is a stunning statement so we should go on to explain what this means....

In Jesus' day the Judaism we read of in the New Testament was in its earliest forms. We speak of it as an incipient (= early) form of early Rabbinicism (cf, Wikipedia - Origins of Rabbinic Judaism) which means that it was yet in its infancy during Jesus' time and not fully developed until around AD 200. What helped propel its consolidation was the religious rivalry it was experiencing from the early Christian church as Jewish Christians spoke the same Old Testament Scriptures and preached Jesus from its pages as God's revealed Son and Savior. Those Jews not similarly convicted were then motivated to increase their efforts to centralize around prominent aspects of their Jewish faith as distinguished from early Christian interpretations and practices of an unbounded Judaism decoupled from tradition and bounded unto the person and work of Christ Jesus. (I would go further to testify that it was this Yahwistic faith that Ezra and Nehemiah preached that Jesus much later took and re-orientated towards Himself. For followers like John the Baptist's Essene fellowship this was an easy adoption to make. But for other Jews not so much so).

Hence, the consolidated Rabbinic faith of AD 200 is the one that now serves as the basic structure for today's Jewish orthodoxy seeking to re-capture any of its earlier traditions as it may through archaeological research and discovery, legends and traditions, even as Christianity does as well. A rich religious history that attests to the sad legacy of man's evil and hate upon cultures that can no longer remember its own histories having been ripped apart by genocidal rage and death. The Jewish culture has been on of those unfortunate people groups that have suffered for thousands of years from war, deprivation, lost of faith and hope, death, mass exile, and various forms of national resurrection.

Even so, the Judaism we read of in the New Testament Scriptures from Jesus' and Paul's day was one that was birthed during the Inter-testamental period between the Testaments. A period the church considers as the "silent" period between the Old and New Testaments when God did not speak to His people but one that actually was not so historically silent or so lost from God as once was thought. For it was within this time period that God began to resurrect His people and culminate His promises to them through His Son. It would be a period of restoration begun at Nehemiah and Ezra's separate returns from Babylonian exile (450-350 BC) and resulting in a number of Jewish groups of varying belief and religious structure.

That this Intertestamental period must be understood as a time when the ancient Jewish faith purposely gathered together its remaining documents and oral histories with a dedication of mind-and-will that sought to retain its very ancient, very fragmented, very fractured, and mostly lost, Jewish traditions. This we know as the Second Temple period after the Babylonian exile. A period where remaining Jews dedicated themselves to restoring their faith and traditions.

Traditions that would flow forward through a multitude of interpretive sectarian Jewish doctrines during those 350-450 Intertestamental years into the Gospel accounts of Jesus. Accounts that saw Jesus debating with the priests of His day as to their private understandings and interpretations of their ancient Jewish faith. From these debates we gather that the Jewish faith then was as divided as the church is today around its many doctrines of God and Scripture.

That John the Baptist's Essene group was but one of those divided Intertestamental Jewish groups. A group that was popular within some regions of Israel and happened to be the one that Jesus' cousin (John) would become involved with. A group from which even Jesus would teach some of their beliefs to His surrounding countrymen either as a way to start a discussion or to modify a debate (it made for good semantics and great contemporary discussion).

Accordingly, early Judaism (or incipient rabbinicism) was a movement that would continue to solidify after the early church's formation (thus, incipient Christianity between AD 26-36) to eventuate into a body of beliefs some 200 years later even as the early Church Fathers were doing the same for the Christian belief. It is this rabbinicism - or early Jewish faith - that forms so much of today's Jewish orthodoxy. An orthodoxy whose remaining talmuds and tanakh (the tanakh is the Jewish canon of Scripture composed of both the OT + the Jewish Apocrypha) can only extend to around AD 600 in testimony to its hoary Jewish texts and manuscripts blighted by the ravages of time and war, loss and death. (cf. Wikipedia - The Talmud is composed of (1) the Jewish Mishna which is the oral records of the Torah and, (2) the Jewish Gemara, which are the teachings or commentaries derived from the oral Torah).

An orthodox Jewish faith that appreciates Jesus' reform and the Apostle's message, but a faith that does not regard Jesus as their Messiah. Nor the Apostle's New Testament writings as their Scriptures. Which prefers Judaism in its own cultural right as God's saving function of grace while seeing God's redemption as proceeding through the nation Israel itself by its practices and beliefs, and not through the Church that was formed in the New Testament on the day of Pentecost by the Holy Spirit made of both Jew and Gentile.

And while it is true that we observe the same God, venerate the same Jewish traditions, and seek the shalom of God in truth and love with all of humanity, the dividing line - as with all things in life - is Jesus as God's Son and Saviour. Who encompasses in His Person all the Jewish traditions and customs by His Name, Acts, Word, Incarnation, Redemption, and Resurrection.

Who is the Holy Lamb of God become our High Priest, Holy Prophet, and glorious King, by Yahweh's will and Spirit. Who is very God of very God. And very Lord of very Lord. Who is one in essence with the Father, and in Triune fellowship with both Father and Spirit.Who forgives sin because He is the sin bearer, the atoning sacrifice, divine mediator and advocate of all creation. Who is, in Himself, our very Shalom.

Conclusion

Hence, we stand in sympathy with any Christian church or movement wishing to more fully understand the Judaism of the Bible.... Thus the emphasis today on the "New Perspective of Paul" (NPP) popularized by N.T. Wright, James D.G. Dunn, and E.P. Sanders. It is a movement away from our sparse Westernized view and enculturated Gentile traditions of Scripture back to its rightful (Ancient) Near Eastern (ANE) outlook and how that movement might helpfully informed the Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic traditions in thought, attitude, doctrine and grace. But without the spiritual or Scriptural demand that those past, or present, church traditions must be modified towards any pretended Jewish form-and-function. That all Gentile traditions past, present, and future, may be content in-and-of themselves without any lessening of the divine grace of God through His Son.

That by trying to religiously observe the ancient Jewish culture (as perceived through the eyes of Judaism's contemporary orthodoxy) as a Christian man or woman is no more an act portending God's favor and righteousness than any other human acts wishing to add to Jesus' atoning salvation. A salvation that is at once Spirit-wrought by divine hands and not by human hands alone (or by traditions, teachings, acts of the flesh, lifestyle, attitudes... all is of human pride and self-rigtheousness). Rather, we utilize those traditions, teachings, acts of the flesh, lifestyles, attitudes as a testimony to our humanness and God's great grace in accepting us as we are and how we are. Nothing more and nothing less.

That the Gospel of Jesus does not require Gentiles to become any more Jewish than Jews are required to be any less Jewish. That God's Kingdom is formed of all nations and will not be Jewish alone so as to be more pleasing to Him. That the Gospel is founded on Jesus alone and not on man's traditions, customs, or any one particular culture that is any more sanctified than any other cultural grasp of the Lord Jesus. As such, this is the type of postmodern movement that we can stand behind and rightfully commend to any Christian wishing to follow the God of the Bible in His ways, heart, passion, and graces.

R.E. Slater

January 16, 2014

RVL | ON Green Pastures

Uploaded on Jul 14, 2011

Sheep in desert pastures need a shepherd to lead them. There is sufficient grass, but it is sparse. Sheep left on their own will wander searching for grass and eventually die. Staying close to their shepherd is a matter of life and death.

This clip is an excerpt from Ray Vander Laan's full-length Faith Lessons™ Vol. 12, Walking with God in the Desert.

View more clips and access the full-length Faith Lessons™ video series at: http://rvl-on.com

View complete series here: http://followtherabbi.com/

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To read more about Orthodox Judaism go here:

Jewish Orthodoxy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_orthodoxy

The Jewish Talmud - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud#Manuscripts_and_textual_variants

Origins of Rabbinic Judaism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Rabbinic_Judaism

The Jewish Canon of Scripture, the Tanakh - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh

The Jewish Apocrypha/Pseudipigrapha (as part of the Tanakh) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_apocrypha
 and here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha (as distinguished from the Christian NT texts)