Confusing Judaism's Covenantal Nomism with Evangelic Terms

Challenging the New Perspective on Paul

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/09/26/challenging-the-new-perspective-on-paul/

 

by Scot McKnight

edited by R.E. Slater

Sep 26, 2013

Comments

E.P. Sanders, and then following him J.D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright, challenged the traditional Christian consensus of how to “read” Judaism at the time of Paul (and Jesus) in 1977 with his well-known and must-read Paul and Palestinian Judaism. The consensus was that Judaism was a works-righteousness religion in which Jews, not on the basis of their covenant-based election by God but on the basis of merit and works, sought to earn favor with God. While there was nuance, and dissenting voices like G.F. Moore, this was the ruling paradigm. So, when Paul said “not by works of the law” most people thought they knew exactly what Paul meant: human pride, self-justification, and weighing one’s merits in a scale so the tip favored the human’s accumulation of merits.

Amazon Book Links

 

Paul and Palestinian Judaism

Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People

Jesus and Judaism

Sanders proved that Judaism was far more complex than this and that its “pattern of religion” was in fact a covenant based summons by God to obey the Torah. So Sanders said Judaism’s pattern of religion was not merit seeking but instead “covenantal nomism” (covenant-based call to do the Law [nomos]). This required a re-evaluation of what Paul was opposing and what “works of the law” meant and whether or not the opponents of Paul were seeking to establish themselves by earning favor with God.

 

Sanders won the day; the vast majority of NT scholars believe today that Judaism was not a merit-seeking system and, in fact, if one is not careful one ends up either in anti-Semitism or its softer version anti-Judaism or in some kind of Marcionite denial of the truth of the Old Testament. [This paragraph deserves extensive commentary but this is not the place.]

 

But Sanders and the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” were challenged by some, most notably Reformed or Calvinistic thinkers and exegetes. I am persuaded that the “problems” for the NPP are far more problems for Calvinists and Lutherans and much less so for Arminians, who have never had as much of a problem with the issue of obedience and works, and in some ways for Anabaptists, who valued obedience and discipleship as central to what faith means. (Frustratingly to many of us, many critics repeat talking points and have not read the Jewish evidence at all.) The most recent challenge, a nuanced one, comes from Preston Sprinkle, Paul and Judaism Revisited: A Study of Divine and Human Agency in Salvation (2013). It’s a good book though whether or not his proposals will satisfy deserves more than can be said here, and whether or not his sketch of Paul would fit Jesus is yet another one worthy of discussion. [Preston and I have corresponded about this review and his comments made this post better.]

 

Preston’s big ideas:

 

The Old Testament, when it comes to “divine and human agency” (how much are humans involved in salvation? how are they involved?) and “continuity vs. discontinuity” (how different is Paul from Judaism?), reveals two major strands of thinking. Preston calls these the “Deuteronomic” and the “Prophetic.” By these he means that one must repent before one gets restoration or salvation and the other that it all comes from the grace and intervention of God (so that repentance is not the precipitating factor).

 

He then examines these themes, examining what the Dead Sea Scrolls teach and comparing that with what the apostle Paul teaches: the curse of the law, the eschatological spirit, anthropological pessimism, justification, and judgment according to works. Each of these concludes with admirable nuance for each side of the comparison — Qumran and Paul.

 

His fundamental conclusion is that pockets (sectarian elements) of Judaism are Deuteronomic, or mostly so, while the apostle Paul is Prophetic, with some nuances all over the place. In essence, then, he comes out suggesting that the New Perspective overcooked “continuity” between Paul and Judaism and undercooked the discontinuity and that while Judaism has a stronger emphasis on human agency Paul had a stronger emphasis on divine agency in salvation.

 

A few questions:

 

1 - An Artificial Division.

 

I wonder if Deuteronomic vs. Prophetic doesn’t deny the coherency of these two themes in the authors of the Old Testament and therefore the coherency of grace and election and covenant and the simultaneous demand of repentance and obedience for salvation. In other words, at times some suggest Judaism’s emphasis is Deuteronomic without the Prophetic. I doubt any Jewish text is entirely Deuteronomic and I doubt any Prophetic text is not also Deuteronomic. One text he saw as almost entirely Prophetic has some core statements about covenant that are relentlessly Deuteronomic, and Preston Sprinkle is aware of such texts and offers reasonable explanations. Notice  Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4; where covenant election and grace are set up in conditionality, and the point must be seen: we are dealing here with covenant status dependent upon or shaped by or conditioned by obedience:

Jer 7:23 But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” 

Jer 11:4 which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron-smelter, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God…

At work here in theological hermeneutics is what is sometimes called the “failure” of the Mosaic covenant and the completion (words are important here and I chose a neutral one) of that covenant with the New Covenant. This entire approach is shaped by Augustinian, Lutheran and Calvinist hermeneutics. Part of the NPP is that those categories do not emerge sufficiently from a 1st Century Jewish framework. I will emphasize that Preston knows these texts and seeks to resolve them within his Deuteronomic and Prophetic approach.

 

2 - The Many Faces of Salvation. The bigger issue for me is that this term “salvation” is slippery. Frankly, the OT texts are not about personal salvation but about Israel; so too Judaism mostly. But the NT stuff is more or less taken to be personal and individual. What happens, then, to “restoration” or “salvation” when it is more corporate focused?

 

At work, as well, is that soteriology is shaped by discussing in the OT how covenant people are restored (top of p. 34). I wonder if that how most in the Protestant tradition understand “salvation” in the NT — in fact, I’m confident they see it as “entry” into the covenant. Hence, for me there is a lingering question: Are we comparing the same senses of salvation?

 

3 - Evangelic Terms Do Not Equate with Biblical Terms. I do wonder how much rhetoric and choice of terms shapes how much “works-based” stuff we see in Judaism, and now that Gary Anderson has virtually proven that “debt” and “merit” were the new commercial metaphor at work in Judaism for “sin” and “obedience” (see his book Sin: A History), I have to ask if we have not overdone the works element in Judaism while ignoring the covenant and grace themes. To his credit, Preston works hard to nuance works and grace and divine and human agency with variety in each text. But for me the positing of the Deuteronomic over against the Prophetic is shaped by that very issue — how much is human agency involved?

 

4 - The Use of Law within the NT. But this simply misses how we have learned to read our own faith. Read the Gospel of Matthew (e.g., Matthew 6:1, 2, 5, 16) and watch this word “reward” on the part of Jesus. Is Jesus Deuteronomic? (Preston doesn’t answer this but I don’t know how one could read Jesus and not see his term Deuterononomic instead of Prophetic.) And doesn’t Paul say our final state is on the basis of works in his judgment by works texts, like 2 Cor 5? So, are we minimizing the Deuteronomic in our faith and maximizing it in Judaism? All in the attempt to prove we are better and right?

 

This is a big one: Let us assume my suspicion is right, namely, that Jesus fits the Deuteronomic paradigm. What does that say about Paul? That he departed? That we need to re-visit Paul? (This is what the NPP does, after all.) Or does it suggest the Deuteronomic and the Prophetic fit more closely into a single coherency? Anyway, the two approaches to OT themes sure makes me wonder what Preston does with Jesus.

 

5 - The NPP Remains a Tour de Force. OK, there’s something at work here in Paul especially about grace that shapes the whole system of thought. And there is discontinuity here. But in my judgment the New Perspective offered an important and enduring correction from which we cannot move back. Sprinkle’s effort here is a good one with plenty of sensitive nuance, but this is not the final word.


 

Understanding Christianity's Jewishness

 

Christian Judaism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/03/20/christian-judaism/

 

by Scot McKnight

Mar 20, 2012

Comments

 

E.P. Sanders famously said the problem with Judaism for contemporaries of Paul was that it was not Christian.

 

Sanders was a lightning rod, and at the same time, a lighthouse, for scholars in the late 1970s and 80s, and his legacy — usually called the “new perspective” (language used by Tom Wright and Jimmy Dunn) — has been that while there is a clear difference between “Judaism” and “Christianity,” that relationship in the 1st Century — and perhaps a lot longer — was not so much two kinds of religion but varieties within one religion, namely Judaism.

 

So the debate is often, Do we call “it” Christian Judaism (a Christian form of Judaism) or Jewish Christianity?

 

[My own opinion is to call it "Messianic Christianity," even as our faith is the same, making both one and the same, and placing the onus on us to understand the Jewishness of Christianity; and on the Jewish Christian on understanding its transnational, transcultural, transtemporal implications. - res]

 

And what are the consequences of seeing Christianity — the 1st Century kind — as a kind of Judaism?

 

Daniel Boyarin, in his new and (for the first time for Boyarin) accessible book, The Jewish Gospels, proposes his way of understanding the relationship of Jesus-following Jews in the context of non-Jesus-following (or is that Jesus-non-following?) Jews. His book deserves a wide reading, even if I think there a chunks of chunks of issues not covered and crying out for some explanation. Boyarin is one of my favorite Jewish scholars who interprets earliest Christianity, though I have to admit that his writing is often very difficult to comprehend. His first work, The Radical Jew (about Paul) and then his Border Lines are important contributions to understanding the original relation of the two groups — Jesus followers and those Jews who did not follow Jesus.

 

I make the following observations from his book:

 

First, for Boyarin the key or secret to comprehending earliest Christology — how Jesus became a “part” of God (his word, an odd one to be sure) — is Daniel 7. Over and over he takes the reader back to Daniel 7 to explain how Jesus understood himself and his mission in his Jewish world.

 

Second, Boyarin belongs in a history of religions school that contends ancient Israel combined El with YHWH, and at least one main version was that El was the older god and YHWH the younger one, though eventually YHWH takes over El. This version of how God developed among Israelites finds a similar version in the relation of the Ancient of Days with the “one like a Son of Man” in Daniel 7, and he makes the thoroughly acceptable suggestion that the Son of Man is “part” of God — sometimes he says a “second God” — because the only one who rides on the clouds of heaven in the Old Testament is God. That makes Son of Man divine.

 

So, when Jesus uses Son of Man, he is referring to Daniel 7 (this is a major issue for many NT scholars), and if he is then “Son of Man” is a divine title while “Son of God” is a kingly, more human, Davidic title. So Boyarin is turning simplistic but quite traditional theology on its head.

[e.g., The traditional understanding is that "Son of Man" refers to Jesus' affinity with humanity - His human-ness; whereas "Son of God" referes to Jesus' affinity to divinity - His God-ness. However, this is simply read by our English eyes and ears ("man," "God") whereas by Boyarin's account, we are to read those titles biblically - in their context with Scripture. One that I much prefer, even though I understanding the practical symantic purpose of relating our English preference for Jesus' hypostatic union - that He is fully, and equally, both God and man, in His spirit and flesh. - res]

 

Third, there is good Jewish evidence supporting this kind of Christology at work in Judaism well before Jesus, so when Jesus called himself Son of Man, and with that meant divinity and messianic vocation, there was nothing offensive or non-Jewish about his claim. Boyarin points to 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, and he’s right here — if it can be proven that these texts are pre-Jesus [and hence, apolcalytic - res].

 

Fourth, Jesus lived an entirely kosher life. Mark 7: 19′s famous statement is not about making all foods clean — so that he was saying you can eat bacon and eggs with milk and still be kosher — but about saying that foods are not sources of purity but instead morals are. Bodily fluids make one unclean; food doesn’t. Food is kosher but this is not the same as purity. Jesus was contesting the addition to the Torah — making foods purity/impurity — by the Pharisees. (Foods are either permitted or not permitted; foods are not clean/unclean or pure/impure.)

[In my church experiences, many times I have found well-meaning Christians making this same mistake; esp. my Christian Torah brethren, who emphasize the importance of observing diets, dress, calendar dates, and other such Jewish decorums for Christian rigor. Under Jesus and Paul, each say this is not necessary. For myself, I have decided my Christianity is Jewish, but that I am not a Jewish Christian, but a Messianic Christian, freed from all laws except God's law to love. - res]

 

Fifth, suffering was an element of the messianic vision in the Jewish world — and here he sketches stuff in Isaiah 53, how Jews read Isaiah 53, how messianic Jews today are keen on this connection (he says this is a bit embarrassing to some orthodox Jews), how Isaiah 43 was messianic for Jews … etc..

 

The result for Boyarin: it was the 4th Century and 5th Century that split Judaism into two religions, Christianity and Judaism. The heresiologists of those days said one had to believe one version of the Jewish vision of Jesus (Trinitarian version) or they were not Christian; and Jewish scholars then pronounced such views heresy. Thus we have two religions.

 

There are problems in his theory, not the least of which is the relationship of Jews and (non-Jewish) Christians already in the 2d Century — Justin Martyr et al — but the big vision is right: Christianity was part of Judaism and everything about Jesus was within the Jewish story.

 

 

 

The New Perspective Revised - "Paul and Messianic Judaism," Parts 4-1

Messianic Judaism: An Introduction

PART FOUR
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/02/19/messianic-judaism-an-introduction/

 

by Scot McKnight

Feb 19, 2013 @ 0:13

Comment

 

If you want to know what Messianic Judaism was (in the New Testament era) and what it is today, here’s the book: David Rudolph and Joel Willitts, Introduction to Messianic Judaism: Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations. The book is afloat with excellent studies about all the crucial topics — both today and in the 1st Century.

 

Over the years I’ve read a number of books on Messianic Judaism, including the important study of Daniel Cohn-Sherbok, but this book both “supersedes” (excuse me) that one and introduces us to a critical juncture in Messianic Judaism studies. In five or ten years this book may well need some new legs because MJ has become a serious field in itself and developments are happing rapidly. Decisive in all of this is the “Jewish Turn” in biblical and theological studies — that discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the aftermath of the Holocaust led to renewed scholarship bent on relearning how to examine the Bible in Jewish context, and then from EP Sanders (1977) on New Testament studies experienced a revival of interest in re-framing NT history and theology in light of the Jewish Turn. This book floats well in these waters.

 

A sampling of studies in the book: MJ synagogues, worship and prayer, Scripture, Jewish tradition, ethics, outreach, women, MJ in the Land of Israel, national organizations, MJ and the Jewish World, MJ and the Gentile World, Jewish-Christian dialogue. For the NT stuff: Matthew, Luke-Acts, James, interdependence and mutual blessing, Israel and the church, equality, mission-commitment, and the issue of supersessionism.

 

What then is Messianic Judaism? This statement, from the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, and found on p. 136 in Rudolph and Willitts, states the issues well in that it defines the Messianic Jewish community as “a distinct part of the Body of Messiah”:

Jewish life is life in a concrete, historical community. Thus, Messianic Jewish groups must be fully part of the Jewish people, sharing its history and its covenantal responsibility as a people chosen by God.

At the same time, faith in Yeshua also has a crucial communal dimension. This faith unites the Messianic Jewish community and the [Gentile] Christian Church, which is the assembly of the faithful from the nations who are joined to Israel through the Messiah.

Together the Messianic Jewish community and the Christian Church constitute the ekklesia, the one Body of Messiah, a community of Jews and Gentiles who in their ongoing distinction and mutual blessing anticipate the shalom of the world to come.

Do you think separable bodies — the Gentile Christian Church and the Messianic Jewish community — fractures the One Body? Do you think it is what Paul had in mind in his mission?

 

 

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Where Christians Got it Wrong with Paul

PART THREE
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/08/20/where-christians-got-it-wrong-with-paul/

 

by Scot McKnight

Aug 20, 2012 @ 5:08

Comments

 

 

Mark Nanos is on a mission to expound for readers of Paul a Paul who never broke from Judaism. His project, and here we are sketching some of what he says in the book edited by Mike Bird called The Apostle Paul, is both about rhetoric and theology. Nanos, who plays golf well and is a Jewish scholar of Paul, has been stumping for his themes for more than a decade.

 

The rhetoric is clear: Christians have explained their faith, in particular the theology of Paul, at the expense of Judaism. They have made Paul a champion of freedom by arguing Judaism was slavery, Paul a champion of universalism by arguing Judaism was exclusive and ethnic, and Paul a champion of a religion of grace, faith and love while Judaism comes off looking like a religion of merit, works and legalism. In a strange irony, Nanos then says “those values that Christians champion… are instead inferior to the values Jews actually uphold” (163). I get his point, but he’s done the same thing he’s accused Christian scholars of doing: comparative descriptions come off as comparative denunciations. But Nanos has the larger end of the stick on this one; he’s right; Christians have failed to comprehend Judaism because they’ve settled for caricatures that they can use to champion their own faith. Though Luke Timothy Johnson, in his response, thinks Nanos has kept a binary opposition by talking about Judaism as if it were “normative Judaism.” Johnson’s contention is that Judaism was more diverse than Nanos suggests. And Campbell thinks this perception of Judaism derives from Melanchthon.

 

Can you point to a text or texts where you think the Jewish apostle, Paul (or Peter), did not observe Torah? Do you think Paul observed Torah completely? Would you say Paul’s gospel is a kind of Judaism, but still Judaism? Or did he crack the door?

 

The theology of Paul, then, needs another explanation. If the traditional view made Jews legalists, the new perspective (Nanos argues) makes Jews ethnocentric. He wants to argue neither of these categories belong on the table.

 

Paul never left Judaism and the only difference between Paul and other forms of Judaism is that Paul’s Judaism had Jesus as the Messiah. Paul was Torah-observant, never left being Torah-observant [I'd quote Acts 23:6 here, but he doesn't; there Paul says "I am a Pharisee"], and Paul’s mission was to expand the Shema faith of Judaism — One God — to include Gentiles. So, Paul’s mission was including Gentiles into one Judaism. Freedom from the Torah is only for non-Jewish Christians; Jewish Christians remained under the Torah. Schreiner’s response focuses on Paul no longer being Torah observant, and he points to Peter in Galatians 2:11-14 (eating with Gentiles) and Paul saying in Romans 14:20 that all foods were clean.

 

It is big, then, for Nanos to say a major cutting edge between Paul and other forms of Judaism was that Paul permitted Gentile “conversion” without becoming “proselytes” to Judaism. You could convert to Judaism but did not have to become a Jew by undergoing circumcision. Paul opposes proselyte circumcision for Gentile “converts” to Judaism, because circumcision entails Torah observance, and Gentiles don’t have to obey the whole Torah.

 

Nanos, then, has a narrowed meaning for “works of the law”: it’s about circumcision. Works of the law ultimately leads to changed ethnicity or to ethnic Jewishness.

 

Nanos is not alone in thinking Paul didn’t have a “conversion” but instead a “calling” to the Gentiles. I think Nanos’ point can be sustained in some ways but his perception of “conversion” could benefit from conversion theory studies themselves, in which conversion is measured by identity change and not by swapping religions. So, I would argue was converted to a whole new frame of mind but that doesn’t necessarily mean he changed religions, which is the (anachronistic, a la LT Johnson’s response) categories he presses into service. Nanos thinks the term “conversion” muddies the water, and he’s right. So he uses “calling,” which I think muddies the water. Paul’s change is more than simply vocational. He saw everything anew through and in Christ. So convert is a good word, but I would want to respect Nanos’ concern to make sure this does not necessarily mean Paul swapped religions.

 

The issue, for Nanos then, between Paul’s Judaism and others is “chronometrical”: What is appropriate now that the crucifixion and resurrection have occurred? Are we in a new era or not? Paul says Yes, others say No. In other words, it is eschatological. Or, perhaps even more nuanced, hermeneutical. How do we explain where we are in God’s plan? And it revolves around whether or not Jesus is the Messiah.

 

The big issue of this whole discussion can be expressed as questions: Did the apostle Paul think all Jews had to believe Jesus was the Messiah to be saved, or to enter the kingdom of God, or the Age to Come? Did he think non-messianic Jews were just as saved as messianic Jews? Was historic Judaism sufficient or did one have to embrace messianic Judaism? Johnson thinks Nanos doesn’t give sufficient attention to the newness in Paul’s gospel.

 

 

 

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The New Perspective Revised

PART TWO
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/08/14/the-new-perspective-revised/

 

by Scot McKnight

Aug 14, 2012 @ 0:20

Comments
 

 

In my life time the most significant book on Paul has been E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977) because it both shifted interest in Judaism but completely shook up how scholars understood Paul. Since Sanders there have been major articulations of Pauline theology, including those of J.D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright, but they build on and take further what was said by Sanders.

In Mike Bird’s new book, The Apostle Paul, there are four views of Paul: the Reformed view by Tom Schreiner, the Catholic view by L.T. Johnson, the post New Perspective view by Douglas Campbell, and the Jewish view of Mark Nanos. Today’s post will look at Campbell’s piece.

 

What do you see as the major problems with the traditional reading of Paul? What do you see as the major problems with the New Perspective on Paul? Do you think Campbell’s reading helps us forward?

 

In essence, and Campbell gets this right when many don’t, the core of the New Perspective is a new view of Judaism and a new view of Paul rooted in that new view of Judaism. The “old” perspective on Paul, it is argued, overcooked Judaism into a works-based religion. This led to religion being man’s attempt to justify himself, and the whole gospel of Paul was read as a response to this fundamental anthropological pride. Hence, we read in folks like Tim Keller of two options: performance vs. grace/faith. I see this all over, so Keller’s not alone. The New Perspective calls this into question because it argues that this “performance” stuff emerges from a false view of Judaism and therefore from a Judaism Paul could not have been opposing. Paul’s concerns were elsewhere. Put differently, the old perspective thinks Paul’s concerns were anthropology: the human arrogance of self-justification before God, and that means the essence of gospel preaching is to get humans to perceive their pride. Again, this is not what the New Perspective thinks Paul was on about.

 

Campbell, however, goes beyond anything being said by the New Perspective, though he agrees completely with its view of Judaism. He thinks the New Perspective explanations of Paul — Dunn, Wright, oddly not really dealing with Sanders — are not good enough and so he revises those explanations. I would say he radically revises.

 

1. Campbell thinks Paul’s theology turns on three axes: that it is revealed by God to him, that it is Trinitarian (and here he is thoroughly Nicene and orthodox), and missional (his message arises from his mission).

 

2. Campbells thinks soteriology and gospel are one and the same. [I disagree, but only in emphasis or order.] And he thinks that gospel is found, not in Romans 1:18-3:26, which is classic, but in Romans 5–8. He finds here a God whose work in us cannot be stopped, and he finds an ethic that transforms through the Spirit and transcends the Jewish Torah. [This last point leads to Mark Nanos' strong disagreements.] He is Barthian and Torrancian in his approach.

 

3. Campbell doesn’t really follow the assignment, which was followed by Schreiner and Johnson, which means we get his closer reading of how to read Romans 5–8.

 

4. The three persons of the Trinity are indistinguishable in Romans 5–8. Humans are fundamentally relational beings. Christ determines humans not Adam. Since Christ is the solution, Moses is not. (He calls this “thinking backward,” which is a variant of the “from solution to plight.”) The ecclesial approach of Paul is family and he uses the term “brothers” for the Body of Christ.

Both Johnson and Schreiner criticize Campbell for insufficient attention to the rest of the Pauline corpus.

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Finding the Apostle Paul

PART ONE

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/08/07/finding-the-apostle-paul/

 

by Scot McKnight

Aug 7, 2012 @ 0:03

Comments

 

 

Paul gets bashed a bit these days as more and more Christians realize the anchor of their faith is Jesus. But all orthodox Christian faith is at the same time rooted in the biblical witness and not just historical methods. Biblical faith deals with Paul because Paul’s letters — thirteen of them in traditional counting — not only take up lots of pages in your New Testament but his mission and message shaped 1st Century Christianity at deep levels.

Which of these readings of Paul do you think is most like Paul, or most accurate? Why do you think Paul has “fallen out of favor” with so many today? Why do you think others make Paul so central, even more central than Jesus/Gospels?

Biblical faith, then, deals with Paul. Careful readers of Paul’s letters know that there are some major, major disagreements over how to interpret Paul. So the question is not Jesus have I loved, Paul have I known, but which Paul? Last week we sketched the 1st chp in Michael Bird’s edited volume, The Apostle Paul, another Zondervan Counterpoints book. That chp represents a Reformed, or Calvinist, reading of Paul. Today we look at Luke Timothy Johnson’s study of Paul. Three quick facts: Johnson is Catholic; he is one of the most prolific and significant NT scholars; his sketch of Paul may be Catholic but it shows that when it comes Catholicism, Paul’s letters are not the primary source for creating Catholic distinctives. So, in the end, this is the historian’s Paul, the Paul who emerges from the canonical letters who also thinks — contra many in the academic guild — Paul wrote all thirteen letters.

1. Too many of those who sketch Paul’s theology limit the evidence: he was not a systematic thinker; each letter emerges in context and in contact with issues at hand for his mission; there was a school around Paul; Paul prefers personal relationship and communication.

2. Those who find a “center” in Pauline theology are mistaken, and here he pushes against finding it in Epicureanism, Stoicism, Palestinian Judaism, or apocalyptic — or his struggle with the law or the narrative theology of the new perspective. If we consider all letters, we don’t have a center but themes of a missional apostle.

3. Johnson thinks we have to find the matrix of personal religious experience, the religious experience of his readers, and the compex of traditions and practices already in play at the time of Paul.

4. Christology: an exceptional sketch of Paul’s christology, focusing not so much on Christ as on Lord but it all begins with the resurrection. Holy Spirit is prominent in this sketch. Jesus’ resurrection was an eschatological event. Jesus has representative significance.

5. Cross: a scandal for the Jews; supreme sign that God did not spare his Son, was a sacrifice for sin; an expression as well of Jesus’ faith in God and love for others. It is about his faithful obedience. And the cross is a pattern for human behavior: cruciformity.

6. Salvation: it is accomplished by God and it is not about the accidents of life but basic existential existence; his death was not primarily liberation from systemic powers but from sin and sinfulness. Nanos’ response pokes Johnson for inconsistency here since the remaining portions of this chp seem to move in a more social, if not political, direction. He’s not a proponent of the empire theorists today. Salvation does not just rescue but transforms. The language of salvation explores five different metaphors, none of which is sufficient but each of which is adequate and pointing us to the fuller realities of salvation: diplomatic, economic, forensic, cultic, kinship. He sees an inaugurated salvation: here and not fully complete yet. But salvation is social in that it ushers people into the new community. Schreiner’s response calls out Johnson for a lack of attention to the grace of God and to the importance of faith for justification and to Johnson’s emphasis on corporate (not individual) election.

7. Church: the local assembly; mostly Gentile churches; sketches leadership in elders and superintendents and servants… more than a voluntary association but derives from the call of God. Paul dealt with boundaries over against both Gentile/Roman world and Jewish world. Jewish believers follow Torah; Gentiles believers need not. Paul had egalitarian ideas that crashed at times against social realities, and Douglas Campbell thinks Johnson needs to work more on this element of his chp as Campbell thinks the social tensions arise in the non-Pauline letters.

Surprisingly, hardly a thing on eucharist or baptism.


 

A Jesus Theology: "To Love God and Neighbor"

A Jesus Theology is one that continually seeks to "love God" and "love your neighbor". It was Jesus' very broad re-interpretation of the Torah that set the Pharisees and Sadducees on a direct path of conflict with Him. Why? The latter group read the Torah as a set of decrees from God that must be practiced in order to maintain holiness and receive God's blessing. Whereas Jesus said, this is impossible (as was reiterated time-and-again in Paul's letters). We cannot find holiness through obeying God's decrees because those same decrees will show our inability to maintain them. Though commendable, true holiness could only be found in Jesus' Himself... (yet another heresy to Pharisaical ears!).

 

Incredulously, it was the radical Jewish sect, the Essenes (John the Baptist was one), that heard Jesus' interpretation of the Torah and found relief from the law of God in Jesus, who become God's atoning sacrifice for our sin. And it is to Jesus that a Christian looks to today for empowerment and witness, mission and a semblance to all that life brings. Knowing that with Jesus comes God's Kingdom built upon love, sacrifice, and service. Not upon rules and regulations that are unattainable to keep.

 

Thus, to subscribe to a Jesus Theology is to subscribe to Jesus' sublime phrase, "Love God, love your neighbour." Which any good theology should hold at its heart, and commit itself through prayer and practice . And it is this theology that forms the heart and mission of today's postmodern Emergent Theology. A theology that preaches the love of God with the responsibility of man to love one another. This is the baseline definition of an Emergent Christian (and for that matter, any Christian knowing Christ as Savior and Lord).

 

May it then be so observed by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit granted all of God's children through Christ.

 

R.E. Slater

February 6, 2013

 

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Pharisees: Revisiting an Old Problem

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/02/04/pharisees/

 

by Scot McKnight

Feb 4, 2013

Comments

 

Introduction

 

It’s time to revisit the Pharisees, in part because their story needs to be told so we don’t forget. And in part because some like to use the [term] “Pharisee” in ways that concern me. It is a standard procedure to say “Pharisee” and mean “legalist, bigot, hypocrite, or picayune meddler into other people’s religious business.” Look at any dictionary. But this is in and of itself a caricature and stereotype, for no one (I hope) would think that all Pharisees have always been religious bigots. Such language spells danger down the road in ways that might surprise us. Even more, we have tended to download anger or extreme disagreement with others onto this term “Pharisee.” So, when I call someone a Pharisee I do not mean anything nice or even charitable. Which, in and of itself is dangerous because no group (well, there are exceptions) is always wrong and always bad.

 

Martin Luther — and this was all charted out in 1977 in EP Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism – tended to equate the Roman Catholic establishment with the Pharisees of the Gospels. Everyone should read this book, regardless of all the scuttlebutt about his ideas ever since. The invective of Luther against the Roman Catholics in the 16th Century then was downloaded onto the Pharisees of the New Testament.

 

Here’s the problem: the impact of our use of Pharisee is that we have learned to call all Jews and anyone we think is too conservative a “Pharisee.” This can get very close and often actually is anti-Semitism.

 

Now another point: this kind of rhetoric is what is called “labeling.” To label someone is to put them in a category, or a box, or a corner, and then slap a sticker on their head so we know what to think and how to think about such a person. Labeling is inherently unChristian, and it is what Jesus fought against constantly — and this means we have to see what Jesus meant by “Pharisee” and what he didn’t mean by “Pharisee.”

 

So, I am asking for the many who are still using “Pharisee” in the old-fashioned “religious bigot” sense to be much more careful. I won’t give names, but I’m seeing it on blogs and in books in a way that 15 years ago would have not been the case.

 

A brief look at what Josephus, a 1st Century AD Jewish chronicler, has to say about the Pharisees. Josephus takes two pictures of the Pharisees, one in Bellum Judaicum (=BJ) book 2 (162-4) and one in Jewish Antiquities (=Ant), book 18 (12-15). I’ll limit my comments here, and the goal is for us (1) to have a more accurate view of the Pharisees so we can (2) speak more intelligently and respectfully of this ancient, revered, and respectable form of Judaism.

 

“Jewish philosophy,” he says, “takes three forms… the first school are called Pharisees, of the second Sadducees, of the third Essenes” (BJ 2.119).

 

1. They are considered the “most accurate interpreters of the laws” (BJ 2.162).

 

2. They are the leading sect of the Jews (BJ 2.162) and “extremely influential among the townsfolk” (Ant 18.15).

 

3. They attribute everything to Fate and to God (BJ 2.163; Ant 18.13).

 

4. Proper behavior is mostly human responsibility but partly Fate (BJ 2.163).

 

5. Every soul is imperishable but the soul of the good alone passes into another body while the soul of the wicked suffer eternal punishment, and that there will be rewards or punishments in the afterlife on the basis of behavior (BJ 2.163; Ant 18.14).

 

6. They live simply (Ant 18.12)

 

7. They live according to the commandments that their doctrines teach (Ant 18.12). [No doubt a reference to their concern with teaching and unfolding what the Bible says.]

 

8. They are respectful of elders (Ant 18.12).

 

9. Their influence is great enough that prayers and rites of worship are according to their teachings (Ant 18.15).

 

Now, let’s put this together. According to Josephus, the Pharisees are the most influential sect of the Jews and their first characteristic is that they are devoted to the Torah (Law), to its interpretation, and to living life as closely as possible according to the Torah. They believe in a cooperation between Fate (his Greek-sounding category for God’s sovereignty) and human will, but clearly lay emphasis on human will.

 

 

A few more ideas from Josephus:

 

At various points in history they had more power than at others, but that they wanted to be in charge. (Neusner said they moved from “politics to piety.”) Neusner’s theory is less persuasive today, and most adhere to a more moderate position: the Pharisees had power at times, but wanted it most of the time, but never significantly withdrew from society to form table fellowship groups. Which means their “influence” is probably overrated by Josephus: sometimes, yes; othertimes, not so much.

 

When it comes to Torah obedience, the Pharisees were “democratizers” in the sense that they tried to make the Torah practicable for all (by interpreting and applying it). The Sadducees focused more the priestly obligations to the Torah. The Essenes were more rigorous and sectarian in their interpretation and practice of the Torah. Which means, in pretty stereotypical and simplistic terms, the Pharisees were the “liberals,” the Sadducees the “conservatives,” and the Essenes the “radicals.”

 

The Pharisees passed on their teachings from generation to generation through an oral tradition. (Everyone did this; there was no other way; they didn’t codify and write these traditions down until the 3-4th Century AD, in the Mishnah and the Tosefta, and then a century or two later, in the Talmuds.) See Ant 13.297.

 

They followed the food laws and purity laws in the Torah, but it is unlikely they were as strict as the priests in the Temple. They washed their hands ceremoniously before they ate. They weren’t that far from the Zealots in essential beliefs and practices. (Many have suggested that the Zealots are an extreme form of Pharisaism.) They conflicted with the Sadducees sometimes over Temple regulations. It is likely that they formed associations with one another; that they ate with another and followed their customs when they did; that they frowned upon eating with those who flaunted the normal eating customs of the Jews.

 

 

Now to Jesus, and some highlights of what Jesus says about the Pharisees.

 

Gospel evidence, tilted as it is toward [the Pharisee's] their conflict with Jesus, and that “tilt” means we tend to lean with the tilt so we see all Pharisees as they are presented in the Gospels, which as I say, has some clear (negative, labeling) tilt.

 

1. Pharisees, with others, opposed John and Jesus for their kingdom ministry (Matt 3:7).

 

2. Pharisees had a “righteousness” that Jesus said was inadequate (Matt 5:20).

 

3. Pharisees opposed Jesus and his followers for eating with the wrong sorts (Matt 9:11).

 

4. Pharisees had a different fasting routine (Matt 9:14).

 

5. Pharisees accused Jesus of exorcising demons in allegiance with Satan (Matt 9:34).

 

6. Pharisees opposed Jesus and his followers for their sabbath practices (Matt 12:2).

 

7. Pharisees wanted Jesus to attest to his vocation with a sign (Matt 12:38).

 

8. Pharisees opposed Jesus and his followers for their lack of handwashing before meals (Mt 15:1-20).

 

9. Pharisees taught things Jesus thought were contrary to God’s will (Matt 16:6, 12).

 

10. Pharisees tested Jesus’ “theology”/”practice” on divorce (Matt 19:3).

 

11. Pharisees wanted Jesus put away (Matt 22:15) and Jesus knew it (Matt 21:33-45).

 

12. Pharisees were accused of hypocrisy by Jesus (Matt 23).

 

13. Pharisees are nearly absent in the trial scenes of Jesus. [They did not have the power to put him to death.]

 

 

Here are some global observations:

 

1. Pharisees were focused on the whole Bible (Torah), its interpretation and practice. This is why Paul says in Phil 3:5: “as to the law, a Pharisee.” To say one was a Pharisee was to make a claim on a certain kind of interpretation of the Torah.

 

2. Pharisees opposed different interpretations and practices of the Torah, and this led them into conflict with John, with Jesus, with Jesus’ followers, and with others who differed from them (like the Sadducees).

 

3. Pharisees were specific and careful in their interpretive practices, and they apparently passed on their interpretations to one another (and anyone who cared to listen and know) by word of mouth and argumentation.

 

4. Pharisees thought they were right in their interpretations.

 

So, here is a thumbnail definition of the Pharisees: “a Torah movement (group) deeply devoted to knowing, interpreting, and applying the whole Torah to the life of Israel in order to restore the fortunes of Israel.”

 

(Now this last part, “in order to…”, I have added because I’m sure they had some sort of purpose in wanting everyone to live according to the Torah. This is not my view; it is standard, even if not held by all scholars.)

 

Jesus and the Pharisees got into it with one another at a deep, deep level because: (1) both were committed to the revelation of God in the Torah, but (2) they differed radically on how to interpret that Torah.

 

Let this be clear, though: they did not differ that it was the Word of God, they did not differ on the importance of Abraham, Moses, David or the Prophets. They differed, and you will know this if you know about The Jesus Creed, because Jesus thought the Torah should be interpreted in light of Deut 6:4-9 and Leviticus 19:18 (Love God, Love others). It is simplistic to talk like this, but it is essentially on target to say that Jesus thought the Torah was about loving God and loving others, and the Pharisees saw the Torah more as a comprehensive listing of God’s will.

 

(Let me back down a bit: the Pharisees did dispute about what was the most important commandment and the like, but when it comes down to it — and you can see this in Josephus, in the Gospels, and in the Mishnah/rabbinic traditions — they saw the Torah as a comprehensive treasure trove of God’s will, while Jesus thought that treasure trove was to be approached through the Jesus Creed itself.)

So, what they of the charge of hypocrisy?

 

Five observations, leading to a summary definition of what Matthew (Jesus) meant by “hypocrisy.”

 

 

Hypocrisy is…

 

1. Inconsistency between what one teaches and what one does (23:3-4)

 

2. Desire for prestige and power and congratulation (23:5-12)

 

3. Abuse of teaching authority through both false teachings and false practices (23:13, 15, 16-22, 23-24, 25-26, 27-28).

 

4. Overconcern with minutiae and lack of focus on the major issues (23:23-24, 25-26, 27-28): that is, moral myopia [("limited sight, a narrow vision of field, nearly to blindness") - res].

 

5. Inconsistency between appearance and practice (23:27-28).

 

Put together, Jesus accuses the Pharisees for “hypocrisy” because they had abused their teaching authority by teaching false things, not living according to what they taught, and for the desire for power. In addition, their teaching was a focus on minor issues to the neglect of major issues.

 

To be “hypocrite” is to be a false teacher who leads both self and others astray from the will of God. The term should not be limited to “contradiction between appearance and reality.”

 

Should we call anyone “Pharisee”? Be careful, that’s my rule. Think historically, my second rule. If some insist on finding contemporary counterparts to the 1st Century Pharisees, here are more suggestions:

 

First, use it only for those who are committed to the Torah as a comprehensive explanation for the will of God. (In this sense, it is pretty hard to use for any Christian.)

 

Second, use it only for those who through the abuse of their teaching authority are leading people astray. (In this sense, it is fit most for heretics.)

 

Third, never use it as a synonym for “Jews,” “Judaism,” or any other generic Jewish group. It refers only to one group of Jews, and that group eventually morphed into the rabbis but that morphing involved major shifts and moves. [Overall, consider it a highly offensive term - esp. to a Jew. - res]

 

In 1907, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, said, “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.” There you have a quintessentially view of a Pharisee, someone who both believes in the Torah and who believes its meaning is determined by its interpretive tradition.

 

On the other hand, a Sadducee would simply say, to use Chief Hughes’ terms, “We are under a Constitution.” We don’t need an interpretive tradition for we need only to seek out the original intent.

 

Pharisees were judicial activists; Sadducees were judicial conservationists. Now stick this in your pipe for a puff: Jesus was more critical of the liberals than the conservatives! And I’m willing to bet money that most think Jesus was opposing the conservatives when he took a swat at the Pharisees. Or did Jesus think they weren’t liberal enough or for those who didn’t get their liberalism right? Precisely.

 

Consequently, the Pharisees built up a body of interpretive tradition, which today is called the Mishnah and the Tosefta, with an even larger body of anecdotal reflection in the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud.

 

At the time of Jesus, this interpretive tradition was merely oral tradition, but it carried the day. So, this permits us to see the Pharisees as those who both believed in the Torah but who knew it needed interpretation, applications, and it needed to do so along careful lines of thought and procedure.

 

 

 

The Failure of Christianity is a Modern Myth

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/04/26/the-failure-of-christianity-is-a-modern-myth/

by Scot McKnight

April 26, 2012

Comments

If you are, say, Voltaire, or a postmodern journalist, then the failure of Christianity is the way to tell the story of the course of history. Of course Christianity gets muddled, but there’s far more in that story about love and creativity and beauty and justice and healing and education and hope. So N.T. Wright, in How God Became King (p. 162-163). The world without the gospel of Jesus, Wright claims, would be “the cultural and ideological equivalent of those horrible 1960s buildings that were structures without spirit, boxes without beauty, all function and no flourish” (163).

The Enlightenment had to tell that story because it had to tell history with itself as the goal and the center, while Christianity had an entirely different eschatology — so the Enlightenment pushed religion into the private world and told it stay put. The storytellers may say otherwise, but the Christian story is good and goes on because it has an anchor in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, because Jesus is the reigning king, and because the kingdom will come.

How do you differ Wright’s kingdom theocracy with the four views below? How and why have the cross and the kingdom been separated?

But too much of Christianity bought the Enlightenment’s story and it led to dualities: cross Christians with saving-for-heaven agendas and religion vs. kingdom Christians with social justice agendas and politics. Tom Wright’s thesis — of all his writings mind you — is that kingdom and cross belong together and that the kingdom vision is simultaneously social and spiritual.

Which just shows one more time how important eschatology is: the NT eschatology is one in which the kingdom has already begun to appear but still will happen completely in the future. But what has happened is not just the internal, religiousness or spirituality but instead the kingdom has been inaugurated holistically — social, cultural, political, cosmic and spiritual.

Wright steps up his critique of how the church has read the Gospels, though there are exceptions: Wilberforce, Tutu, William Temple, Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. [I wonder what N.T. Wright thinks of Wesley, of Edwards, of Kuyper, of Finney.]

Wright finds four reactions to what has happened in modernity:

1. “This” [world, kingdom, etc] doesn’t matter; we’re going to heaven when we die; we’ll leave this old world behind us. Wright accurately observes this gets too close to gnosticism.

2. Neo-Anabaptists: get the church in order, live as a beacon of light, “but without actually engaging with the world.” Well, that is precisely not what the Neo-Anabaptists argue or do; instead Tom is here speaking of some forms, perhaps most, of Anabaptism. The original Anabaptists — we’re speaking here of Grebel, Blaurock, Hubmaier — were social protesters fighting Catholic taxes. Anabaptism did go through a quietist and sectarian, separatistic period, but the modern “Neo-” Anabaptists are anything but quietist and uninvolved. Think Sider and Yoder or Claiborne and McKenna… very involved.

3. Right-wing Christian activism. Those who exulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden; FoxNews.

4. Left-wing Christian activism. Those often fighting for the poor and pushing a new sexual ethic are often aping liberal modernism (166). The UK Christians are grumpy pragmatists, Tom says. He parrots them with a caricature: “What do we want? Gradual change! When do we want it? In due course!” [LOL]

5. And there are the Reformers (who assumed by justification what late medieval theologians meant and were discussing) and the modern proponents of empire criticism (who assume when Paul spoke into empire that he meant by that term what we mean today).

So we need to read the New Testament afresh.

The Jewish vision was a theocracy — an on-earth, creational theocracy, ruled by image-bearers (Eikons of God). This is not what left-wingers today perceive. He sees a temptation toward anarchy in the left-wing. [Well, yes, but also strong centralization.] Nor is the right-winger small government the solution. So, in spite of the Anabaptists who gnarl at Tom on this one, creational monotheism works best with humans ruling as wise stewards under God.

Power isn’t the problem; the problem is who does what with that power. In other words, the biblical approach is not a fear of rule or power or leaders; it is a fear of bad rule. Neither anarchy nor small government is the way forward; the way is good government. Theocracy, then, is the right word.

And the right theocracy is messianic rule by the Messiah/King.

N.T.Wright - "What Sabbath was, What it is now; and What it isn't any longer"

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/06/01/tom-wright-scripture-and-gods-authority/

by Scot McKnight

posted June 1, 2011

The biggest problem many of us have with how we frame the “doctrine” of Scripture is that it isn’t adequate to how Scripture arose as our Sacred Text or how it operates either in the church or with us as Bible readers. Here’s the traditional model: it’s a top-down deposit or transmission of information. In other words, Scripture is framed as revelation.

I, too, would place Scripture within a framework of revelation, but that’s not enough, nor is it the primary framing. [Handmade chart with Penultimate app on the iPad.]

What is your model? What model is most “biblical” for you? And, what do you think of Tom Wright’s take on Sabbath as an illustration of how his model of Bible reading works?

Scripture flows out of the Trinitarian inter-communicative Logos and it is connected to the Holy Spirit and it is a “product” as well of the church. The revelation model has a top-down model that moves from God to revelation intent to inspiration and author/text and inerrancy and authority and reading. It’s all framed as a top-down revelation. It’s inadequate because God chose to manifest truth and grace and redemption through history, at specific moments and over time and through authors and through a community, and that history is nearly eliminated in the revelation model. The model needs supplementation to frame a view of Scripture that is organic to how Scripture came into existence. This top-down model is too much golden tablets dropping from the sky.

But Scripture at the organic level emerges from authors who are part of God’s People (Israel, Church), and the books in Scripture arise out of particular circumstances and are written by authors with intent and agenda, and the individual authors interact with one another (Micah, Isaiah, Matthew, Romans, Hebrews, Revelation) and carry the Story forward so that the last version of the Story can reframe the former versions. And then there is the ongoing life of the church — and tradition. Many of us think the revelation model tells us very important things, but it is inadequate.

That is why so many of us value the voice of Tom Wright in this discussion. His newest book, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, is both a revision and an expansion of his former book The Last Word.

This book of Tom’s both revises and expands and, in particular, adds chapters that are test cases for how his theory of Scripture works out. He examines two topics, Sabbath and Monogamy. Today I will look at his Sabbath chapter, but first a brief on the big ideas of the book.

The expression “authority of Scripture” is shorthand for “the authority of the triune God, exercised somehow through Scripture” (21). There is something important here, for Wright acknowledges that authority is God’s — and derivatively of Scripture. Any time someone equates the two, there opens the possibility for idolatry to occur. Furthermore, Wright is keen on showing that this authority of God is God’s authority in working out the Kingdom mission for his people and creation. Scripture, then, is a sub-branch of mission, the Spirit, eschatology, and the Church itself (29). Again, very important.

When Wright comes to sum up his entire argument, on pp. 115-116, he says this: The authority of Scripture is “a picture of God’s sovereign and saving plan for the entire cosmos, dramatically inaugurated by Jesus himself, and now to be implemented through the Spirit-led life of the church precisely as the scripture-reading community.” Thus, the “authority of Scripture” is put into action in the Church’s missional operations. Scripture, he says, is more than a record of revelation and was never simply about imparting information — it is God’s word to redeem [and involve!- res] his people as God works out his plan for the entire created order. And you may know how the Bible teaches what Tom calls a 5-Act play: creation, fall, Israel, Jesus, Church. We are in the 5th Act now....

The Sabbath -

What it was, What it is now, and What it isn't any longer

Now to Sabbath. Tom provides an exceptional illustration of how both to read Sabbath (i) in its OT setting, (ii) what Jesus and Paul “did” to that teaching, (iii) how the Jubilee principle extends the Sabbath principle, and (iv) how Jesus is the transition to a new kind of time — death and resurrection and new creation, and thus how the Sabbath principle finds fulfillment in Jesus himself, and then he probes (v) how to live that Sabbath principle out in our world. Here are some highlights:

1. In the OT Sabbath was a strong commandment, it was the day YHWH took up abode in the temple of creation (here he chimes in with John Walton) and asked image-bearers to enjoy that same rest.

2. Sabbath shows that history is going somewhere, it is a temporal sign that creation is headed toward that final rest, and it is sacred time.

3. Sabbath has to be connected to Jubilee, and therefore to justice and compassion for the poor, and that means Sabbath and Jubilee point us toward the restoration of creation.

4. Jesus thought the entire Sabbath principle pointed toward himself. Time was fulfilled in him; a new kind of time begins with him. Paul does not seem to care about Sabbath, and he observes its absence in Romans 13:9; Col 2:14-16; Rom 14:5-6. I have to be brief: it’s about time’s fulfillment. Sacred time finds its way to Jesus Christ and new creation.

5. To continue celebrating sabbaths is to focus on the signposts when we have already arrived. Thus, “Come to me and I will give you rest.” You don’t need the alarm clock when the sun is flooding the room with its light. [Sabbath has occurred. Restoration has come. - res]

6. The early Christians didn’t transfer Sabbath to Sunday. [Nor do we - res].

7. We don’t need to back up into a Sabbatarianism. [sic, Christians do not need to become Seventh Day Adventists; nor Judaise or prosyletize their Christian faith backwards into the restrictive/antequated OT regimes and lifestyle observances; etc. - res].

8. We “celebrate” instead of “rest” — a kind of celebration rest. We reserve this day for new creation life. Music, the meal, family, service, peace, justice, love — these are the notes of Sunday for those who see the fulfillment of Sabbath in Jesus.

We live in a perpetual sabbath.

*res = re slater