Silent Night?

Some thoughts I recently shared with my congregation:

Merry Christmas and congratulations—you survived the day after Thanksgiving! Of course there are more days of shopping peril left, but ‘tis the season to take it one day at a time. Many of us need to take the Christmas season one day at a time just to maintain our sanity in the midst of the holiday busyness and the shoppers’ angst.

When we look at all we have to do between now and Christmas the temptation is to simply try to reach the end. You know what I mean, the relieved collapse on the sofa on Christmas night. For most of us the words to the beloved carol, “Silent night, holy night, all is calm…” have no meaning until December 26. In order to put the silent nights back into the Christmas season we have to take it one day at a time. We also need to practice self-discipline. Yes, self-discipline is a scary and foul word in our culture, about as welcome as a stale fruit cake this time of year. Even a little self-discipline, however, can bring some silence and calm back to our holiday season.

Take a time out every night until Christmas. Intentionally set aside a block of time to soak in the silence and calm, even 10 minutes will work wonders. No television. No cleaning. No wrapping presents. I enjoy turning all the lights off except the lights on the Christmas tree and in my mind traveling to Israel 2,000 years ago. I imagine being a shepherd watching my flock under the stars. I imagine the surreal wonder of looking on the Christ child and realizing what this gift means about God’s love for the world—God’s love for me. What if every night we took a moment to hear the still small voice of THE Reason for the season?

We won’t take this time out without self-discipline. We would all like to experience silent and calm nights but we forget and quickly give up. The best friend of self-discipline is often creativity. Make a sign saying, “Silent night, Holy night” and hang it on the refrigerator as a reminder. Get together with a friend or loved one to remind each other to take a time out at an agreed upon time. Leave a note on your pillow to jog your memory before bed. Even a short time of a “silent night when all is calm” will change your Christmas season—one day at a time. I guarantee it.

One of the high points of most Christmas Eve services is singing Silent Night by candlelight. Oftentimes the words to that song seem to be more of a far away pipe dream than the reality of our Christmas. What a joy it would be this year to sing Silent Night as an expression of what we have experienced and felt already in the days leading up to Christmas. I pray that this will be the case and that God would bless you with self-discipline and the wonder of His still small voice this Christmas season.

Dissertation Abstract

Haven’t blogged lately due to comprehensive exams and preparing my prospectus.  Here is a rough abstract of my dissertation. I welcome any input on potential sources or problems.  I am pursuing my Ph.D. in Biblical Studies at Southeastern Baptist Seminary. My focus is the Gospel of John.

THE REALIZATION OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE IN JOHN’S GOSPEL:

JESUS AND THE SPIRIT.

The Gospel of John’s pneumatology supports reading the “temple replacement” theme more accurately as the “temple realization” theme. When examined through the lens of Johannine pneumatology, Jesus comes into focus as the realization of the heavenly temple.

Many first-century Jews believed the true temple was located in the heavens and the Jerusalem temple was an earthly focal point of that heavenly reality. Jesus came from above as an embodiment of that heavenly reality, beginning the realization of the eschatological, worldwide spread of God’s glory.  In agreement with second temple Judaism, John presents the Holy Spirit as a necessary component to both the temple and the eschatological renewal.

Jesus, like the temple, is the gateway to the heavenly realm and the focus of God’s presence. Unlike the Jerusalem temple, however, Jesus descended from heaven and not only reflected heavenly realities, but was the heavenly reality. While the destruction of the second temple removed a man-made gateway to heaven, Jesus’ removal to heaven (or “glorification”) was a return to his original heavenly habitation. From above, the Spirit was poured out to wherever Jesus’ “name” dwelt.  Jesus embodied the more transcendent reality of the heavenly habitation and could therefore mediate the transcendent presence of the Spirit in an intimate way. In so doing, Jesus was not replacing the temple as much as being the eschatological realization of the temple in spreading God’s glory (which is also associated with his name, Spirit, and presence) to the ends of the earth.

John weaves his story such that Jesus replaces the temple in the first half of his Gospel and the corollaries of that are spelled out in the second half as Jesus prepares the community for his departure. Literarily, John removes the ambiguity of the Spirit’s ministry as Jesus’ glorification draws near.

NH’s Old Man of the Mountain

My wife and I recently visited New Hampshire’s White Mountains, home of the late “Old Man of the Mountain.”  The Old Man was a granite formation which hung on the cliff side of Canon Mountain. From Profile Lake, the formation resembled the face of a man and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Great Stone Face.”  The Old Man is NH’s state emblem and appears on NH license plates, road signs, their state quarter, and a myriad of tourist souvenirs. On May 3, 2003, after approximately 12,000 years (although his formation took place over millennia) the Old Man fell.

As I looked up to the barren cliff where the Old Man once hung, my mind was flooded with many thoughts.

Images of previous trips to this place came to mind – when the Old Man still stood and before my children were born.  These images appeared as from another life, a life when my marriage was brand new and my precious Abigail and Isaiah had not entered this world.  Yet there my wife and I stood, celebrating our 15th anniversary as we paid our respects to the dearly departed Old Man. What is 15 years? The passage of time feels like riding downhill on a skateboard.  The speed increases the longer you stay on the board.

In addition to the personal memories a deeper resonance (one not connected to physical senses) rumbled within my ephemeral mind. “What can be more certain than basing an identity, an emblem, on something that has stood for millennia? Indeed the bureaucrats were wise. Man-made things come and go but the Old Man, he is granite, he has watched over NH since before Columbus. The Great Stone Face will be the emblem; he will represent the great state of NH. Who can find a better, more stable icon than this Ancient Face of Granite?”

Yet, the Old Man has fallen. He had always teetered on the edge of a precipice. The Old Man is himself bound to the Earth which totters precariously on a skateboard as it races downhill.

“Lord, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days;

Let me know how transient I am.

Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths,

And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight;

Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.

Surely every man walks about as a phantom;

Surely they make an uproar for nothing;

He amasses riches and does not know who will gather them.

And now, Lord, for what do I wait?

My hope is in You.”

Psalm 39:4-7

Freedom

Some thoughts I will share with my church this month:

On July 4^th we celebrate the founding of our nation and the freedom that living in this country brings.  In America we have freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and free, democratic elections. As Americans, we have many institutional freedoms for which we should be thankful.

However, having all the external, institutional freedoms does not necessarily mean that we are living in freedom.  Freedom is not just an external situation that exists in some nations and not others.  Freedom is also an internal state, a way of living that contains many options that we can actually take. If we are enslaved to addiction can we speak of being free? If we can never live beyond self-centeredness or personal interest are we truly free? Where is the freedom in continually serving a falsehood? If life is confined to an 80 year sentence of meaningless existence, how free are we?

All the external freedoms we enjoy in America do not guarantee that we will live a life of freedom.  A part of the good news of Jesus Christ is that freedom can be a living, working reality in our lives.  Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” and “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:32,36). Before I took the Christian plunge, I had no idea what this freedom meant.  I thought I did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. In reality I was in a 5 ft, 8 inch cell of self (even if you are not as short as I am, you are still pretty restricted).  From my cell I had a very limited perspective – one small window.  All activities had to be approved by the twin guards of self-interest and expediency. Because I only knew cell life, I didn’t realize my lack of freedom until Jesus sprung me free.

I confess that sometimes the familiarity of the old cell beckons me to return and I have the freedom to go back.  But thank God I also now have the freedom to leave. This independence day I am so thankful for freedom, both external and internal.

The Dead Sea Scrolls as Mad-Libs.

Lately, my blog posts are infrequent as I spend most of my free time studying the Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I am currently at page 1221 of Martinez and Tigchelaar’s The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Martínez, Florentino García and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar. The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).  Although the study edition is organized well, with the Hebrew on the left page and English on the right, the nature of the scrolls can make the reading a bit tedious. Many of the scrolls are fragmentary and have lacunae. These gaps make it difficult to discern what the author was trying to say.  I find myself trying to “fill in the blanks” when words are missing. At first, these attempts to fill in the blanks were serious endeavors.  I soon realized that I really had no idea what belonged in those gaps.

Filling in the missing words reminded me of “Mad-libs”.  When I was a child, my brother and I often took Mad-libs on long trips to pass the time.  Mad-libs are little booklets that contain stories with missing words (examples at http://www.madlibs.com).   The fun happens when someone fills in the blank spaces with random words so that something zany and silly results.  Call it unscholarly, but some of the Dead Sea scrolls make great Mad-libs.  Try it out for yourself!

11Q18 (11QNew Jerusalem)

Fragment  7:  [____] on all the offspring of the children of [___] . [____] who shall eat [____} f0r them around [____]  hundred and fifty [____] on [____].

Fragment 11: [____] its four [____] were four cubits high [____]   [____] the … near the wall which surrounds [____] its width is two cubits and its height is two cubits [____]  and all is pure gold which [____] . [____]  of columns, turning from door to door [____] from door to door in the city-wall [____][____] with panels [____].

“I am saved . . . from religion.” Atheist billboard proclaims the gospel!

As I drove through Raleigh yesterday I noticed a new billboard put up by the Freethinker’s Society that read, “I am saved . . . from religion.”  The intention is to mock a question that Christians in the South often ask: “Are you saved?”  Ironically, however, this billboard proclaims the good news of Jesus!

The good news is that Christ saves us from religion.  What is religion?  One definition is that religion is doing a certain set of rituals or actions to earn favor or placate a deity.  For those who have tried religion you understand the dilemma. You can never quite know if you have done enough to make up for the selfishness and sin that seems to creep into your everyday living.

The good news of Jesus is that “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a GIFT of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9).  Jesus came as a gift to restore our relationship and standing with God because we can’t do it ourselves.  This gift is not earned, it is given in love and only has to be received.  If religion is working to earn God’s favor, the gospel contradicts religion because it is receiving the unmerited gift that you are favored and loved already.

Someone may object to my definition of religion and want to add: Even if “salvation” is a gift, one still has an external set of religious rules to follow.  One must repress their natural desires to follow this standard – doing what you really don’t want to do is frustrating! Once again, however, the good news of Jesus is that he also gives the Holy Spirit to indwell and transform us from the inside – out.  So the gospel is not about willpower and trying harder to follow an external standard.  The gospel is about transformation through the Spirit of God who works in us to transform our desires, values, and abilities beyond ourselves. The Spirit goes to the very core of who we are. Romans 8:15-16 promises, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as children by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’  The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.”  This passage culminates a description of how the gospel is not another religious system to follow, but a transformative gift.  This transformation includes changing our identity, renewing our minds, and giving us new desires.   This change is not a product of human willpower but the product of the Spirit’s power that transforms us from the inside – out, not the outside – in.   The gospel does not impose an external standard, it writes a new standard of love on the inside.

I am sure we could get down to a definition of religion that would include believing the gospel of Jesus. But by that time not believing would also fit the definition.  So I am thankful to the Freethinker’s Society for reminding me of my salvation from religion.  But I really rejoice not when I contemplate what I am saved from – but what I am saved for!

St. Patrick’s faith

Here are some thoughts I recently shared with my congregation regarding St. Patrick’s faith:

If we were to try to guess who St. Patrick was from the festivities that take place on March 17, we would come up with something like:  He was an Irish guy, who liked green beer, shamrocks, leprechauns, and parades in Boston’s south end.   There is more to the man St. Patrick, of course, than these things.  You don’t become the Patron Saint of an entire nation just for wearing green.

Magonus Sucatus Patricius, later to be known as St. Patrick, was born in Britain sometime around 390 A.D. to fairly well off land-owning parents. Patrick’s first trip to Ireland was not voluntary.  His family’s estate was located on the western side of Britain which made it susceptible to raids from Ireland.  Around the age of 16, Patrick was taken prisoner by Irish raiders and brought to Ireland as a slave.

During this dark time in his life, Patrick’s faith began to grow.  When Patrick’s life on the family estate was taken away, Patrick turned to the eternal life that thieves can not steal. Eventually Patrick escaped and, after a time in Europe, returned to his family home.  His family urged him to never leave again and oversee the family estate but Patrick had learned to:  “Trust in the LORD with all your heart – And He will direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5).” Amazingly, Patrick felt the Lord directing his path back to Ireland to share Christ with the very people who enslaved him.

Patrick actually wasn’t the first bishop of Ireland.  A man named Palladius went to Ireland before Patrick but died in only a year.  Ireland was a dangerous place and the local druids were hostile to Christians, but Patrick was unfazed.  Around 432 AD Patrick was appointed bishop to the few Christians in Ireland.  Once there, Patrick began a ministry that lasted 40 years.  He eventually converted the high king of Ireland and won many confrontations with the druidic priests.  He traveled the island preaching, baptizing and establishing churches.  By his own admission, Patrick baptized thousands.

Patrick’s story shows how tribulations, in the hands of God, can be a tool of transformation. His life displayed the truth that God directs the paths of those who acknowledge Him. Unfortunately, Patrick’s life of faith is largely lost in legends and the holiday that is held in his honor. But now that you know Patrick’s story, let it inspire you to persevere and trust in the Lord.

 

Kingdom Culture – Humility

Luke 14: 7-11. 7 And Jesus began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them,  8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him,  9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.  10 “But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you.  11 “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

 

We live in a culture of self-promotion.  Whether in business, social, or academic contexts our culture encourages us to promote ourselves and increase our standing.  In order to climb the corporate ladder or to increase our marketability we seek out influential people and places.  Prestigious titles, degrees, or positions can sure open a lot of doors.

In Luke 14:7-11 Jesus was at the house of a leading Pharisee when he noticed that the invited guests were “picking out the places of honor” at the table (7).  In Jesus’ time there was greater emphasis on honor and seating arrangements were just one of the many ways to display one’s social standing.  The better places at the table brought more honor, which opened more opportunities.

As the guests were vying for the best seats, Jesus began to talk about another type of dinner – a wedding feast (8).  At a wedding feast one should not take the seat of honor because it would be very dishonorable if someone with greater standing displaced you and then only the last seat remained.  Instead, go to the last place and allow the one who invited you to honor/promote you.  The point of this “hypothetical” situation was to illustrate that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (11).

In contrast to the honor-seeking culture of the day, Jesus was giving a lesson in Kingdom culture.  The kingdom of God was often depicted as a wedding feast and God (the host) opposes the proud (Is 2:11) but prefers the humble (Ps 37:10-11).  In Kingdom culture, one humbly repents and receives the honor of citizenship through Christ the king.  In Kingdom culture, one forgoes self-promotion and leaves it up to God to give honor.  The humility of Kingdom culture was not just decreed by God but displayed, when Christ left his place of honor and became a servant of humankind (Phil 2).

As citizens of Christ’s kingdom we follow and promote Christ, who himself followed a path of humility knowing that God would exalt him.  Are we displaying the Kingdom culture of humility in the people, places, and positions we seek?  Are we content with taking out the trash at church, with serving instead of leading, or with being passed over for recognition by people – knowing that our standing is determined by God?  The degree to which we have taken this Kingdom culture to heart will be reflected in the places we seek and the one we promote.

 

Social Networking Sites a Boon to Linguistics?

A couple different social network postings are making the rounds that remind me of the linguistic canon “Context is King.”  The meaning of a word is largely determined by the context in which it appears.  Our minds assign meanings to words only partially based on the actual letters of the word.  The following little paragraph illustrates this:

“AOCDRNDICG TO RSCHEEARCH AT CMABRIGDE UINERVTISY, IT DSENO’T MTAETR WAHT OERDR THE LTTERES IN A WROD ARE, THE OLNY IPROAMTNT TIHNG IS TAHT THE FRSIT AND LSAT LTTEER BE IN THE RGHIT PCLAE. TIHS IS BCUSEAE THE HUAMN MNID DEOSNOT RAED ERVEY LTETER BY ISTLEF, BUT THE WROD AS A WLOHE.”

 

The second little ditty touches on the enormous semantic range of some words.  The same word can have almost opposite meanings in different contexts.  Students of Greek will think of the preposition επι when reading the following paragraph:

“This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is ‘UP.’  It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v]. It’s easy to understand UP, meaning “toward the sky” or “at the top of the list,” but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen… We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing:  A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP!  When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, the earth soaks the rain UP.  When it does not rain for a while, things dry UP. One could go on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now . . . my time is UP! Now I’ll shut UP!”

For those whom precision trumps humor, we must concede that many of the above instances of UP would fall under the same semantic domain: a verb intensifier (how the Piel form functions in Hebrew).   Nonetheless, the above two social networking posts demonstrate that context is the key to assigning meaning. Lessons in linguistics come UP even on Facebook, but it is UP to us to be looking!

Book Review of “God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment.”

God’s Glory In Salvation Through Judgment: A Biblical Theology. By James Hamilton. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010, 640 pp., $40.00.

With God’s Glory In Salvation Through Judgment, James Hamilton has waded into the centuries-long debate concerning the center of biblical theology.  Hamilton responds to many contemporary scholars who have abandoned the quest for a center to biblical theology with the thesis that God’s glory in salvation through judgment constitutes that center. While the beginning and ending chapters discuss the nature of the debate, the greatest portion of the book “highlights the central theme of God’s glory in salvation through judgment by describing the literary contours of individual books in canonical context with sensitivity to the unfolding metanarrative” (44).  However one views the merits of positing the central theme to biblical theology, Hamilton’s chief contribution is in tracking this theme throughout the canonical texts.

Hamilton makes a strong case that God’s glory in salvation through judgment is, at the very least, one of the primary themes of scripture. A comprehensive biblical theology of this theme is therefore an important contribution towards balancing a big-picture understanding while studying particular books.  God’s Glory In Salvation Through Judgment could therefore serve as a “big-picture” reference tool to anyone studying the themes of God’s glory, salvation, or judgment.

Many proposed centers of biblical theology have sunk in the quicksand of the wisdom literature.  While Hamilton’s thesis sputters a bit in the wisdom literature, it fairs far better than many other purposed centers and remains viable.  An example of this viability is Hamilton’s observation that the book of Job addresses the “mysterious, hidden nature of the justice and mercy of God” (305). Hamilton’s interaction with the Song of Songs is not as strong.  He makes recourse to the serpent-seed motif of Genesis and the Song of Songs as a picture of the reversal of “the outworkings of the curses on the land and gender relations” (305).   This understanding is problematic because the biblical writer does not employ many lexical links that would clue the reader into this intended connection.  Although Hamilton similarly imports the serpent-seed motif of Genesis elsewhere, only in Song of Songs is it an important support for his thesis.

The only other problematic aspect of Hamilton’s work is he often seems to uncritically accept suggested chiastic structures when outlining a particular book. The most glaring example is in the book of Revelation (544).  Although the questionable chiastic structure supports his thesis, in a book such as Revelation God’s glory in salvation through judgment is so strong that even reservedly offering such a questionable chiasm detracts from his argument.

The above weaknesses aside, Hamilton fastidiously avoids side issues and continually draws the data back to the proposed theme.  The result is not only a strong argument but a cohesive work despite its large scope. Readers will benefit from Hamilton’s contribution to biblical theology even if they are not fully convinced of his proposed center.  Hamilton powerfully argues that God’s glory in salvation through judgment permeates the canon of scripture.