Will God create a world where all these things are perfect and jobs aren’t needed? Maybe. Or maybe God will have us doing it forever, and it’ll be the joy of our hearts.
Either way... I'm in.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Whole Bible Points to Jesus
Trying to imagine what it may have been like walking the 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus...
Luke 24:26-27
"Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
This could have been part of what Jesus shared:
Genesis 3:15 points to Jesus as the seed of the woman, coming to destroy the work of the devil but to suffer as he conquers him.
Genesis 22 points to Jesus in the life of Abraham, as the ram who would be our substitute, offering himself up in death to God.
Exodus 33 Moses points to Jesus as he intercedes for God’s people, offering to sacrifice himself if God won’t forgive them.
Leviticus as a whole points to Jesus as our high priest and our sacrifice, making us acceptable to God and mediating with God on our behalf.
In Numbers, we recognize that Jesus suffered so that God’s people could enter the ultimate, heavenly promised land. He is also the bronze serpent, raised up in death, to which if anyone looks, he or she is healed of their sins.
In Deuteronomy, we recognize that Jesus’ takes on the punishment we deserved and his life grants us the blessings of God.
Joshua pictures Jesus, who leads us in the discipling of not just one nation, but all the nations of the world.
In Judges, we recognize that Jesus redeems us through his death and resurrection when we are being oppressed by our sins and enemies.
In Ruth, Jesus is pictured as our kinsman redeemer, giving us an inheritance through his death and resurrection when we have lost ours.
In 1-2 Samuel, David points to Jesus as the king after God’s own heart, whose faith leads him in triumph and who leads us to be faithful.
In 1-2 Kings, Jesus brings unity, not division through his blood, making one united family out of all the nations of the earth (Eph 2:11-22).
In 1-2Chronicles, we see that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s love continues even after we’ve experienced his discipline and correction.
Ezra pictures Jesus whose death and resurrection makes his people holy and extends the holiness of God into all the nations of the earth.
In Nehemiah, we see that Jesus through his death and resurrection is rebuilding the people of God to serve and worship him and bless the nations.
Esther points to Jesus as the one who received the death penalty for pleading for the life of his people.
Job points to Jesus who was the ultimate undeserving sufferer, yet trusted God in his suffering and blessed his friends.
In the Psalms, we see the prayer life of Jesus, and we see him taking the punishment due to the wicked so that the blessings of the righteous might be given to sinners like us.
Proverbs shows us Jesus, the embodiment of wisdom, taking the punishment of the fools so that they might become wise and receive the blessings that accompany wisdom.
In Ecclesiastes, we see Jesus as the one who worships God and keeps his commandments, which gives us meaning and purpose in a life that often seems meaningless. His life shows there is meaning, his death and resurrection show that God will restore and redeem life under the sun.
In the Song of Solomon we see that marriage, love and sex honor God, and this points to the greater love that Jesus showed us by dying for us on the cross to make us his beloved.
Isaiah shows us Jesus as God with us, who comes to rescue his people by suffering for their sins.
Jeremiah shows us that Jesus keeps the New Covenant for us, guaranteeing blessings to us by removing our sins and restoring us to fellowship with God.
Lamentations shows us the heart of Jesus, who weeps over our brokenness and whose death and resurrection replaces our mourning with joyful song.
Ezekiel shows us that Jesus offers himself in death so God could bring us back to life and strengthen us by his Spirit to be his people filling the world.
Daniel shows Jesus as the king who suffers and is vindicated by God to reign over a kingdom that ends up filing the whole earth.
Hosea shows that Jesus’ death and resurrection redeems us from spiritual slavery and prostitution.
Joel shows that Jesus’ death and resurrection brings the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to strengthen the church.
Amos shows Jesus confronts hypocrites and dies to forgive all who return to God.
Obadiah shows that God will love his people and free them from oppression through Jesus death and resurrection.
Jonah shows that Jesus has to pass through death and resurrection to save us from our self-righteousness, so we can bless the nations around us.
Micah points to Jesus as the descendant of king David, who would come forth from Bethlehem and through his death and resurrection would re-establish the kingdom of God to bless the nations.
Nahum points to Jesus as the coming judge of all the earth, whose death and resurrection seals the judgment against all of his enemies.
Habakkuk shows us Jesus’ death and resurrection guarantees God’s blessings no matter what life’s circumstances.
Zephaniah pictures Jesus as the coming Lord who, in the midst of judging the nations and the hypocrites of Israel, will undergo death and resurrection to restore his people to blessing.
Haggai pictures Jesus as the head of the church who calls and empowers his people to build up the church, so that the blessing of God’s presence might be seen and experienced by all.
Zechariah shows Jesus, our high priest, was pierced for our sake, taking our filthy stained garments of sin and giving us a spotless robes of righteousness.
Malachi shows us that Jesus is coming, and in his death and resurrection he opens heaven to let the blessings flow.
Luke 24:26-27
"Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
This could have been part of what Jesus shared:
Genesis 3:15 points to Jesus as the seed of the woman, coming to destroy the work of the devil but to suffer as he conquers him.
Genesis 22 points to Jesus in the life of Abraham, as the ram who would be our substitute, offering himself up in death to God.
Exodus 33 Moses points to Jesus as he intercedes for God’s people, offering to sacrifice himself if God won’t forgive them.
Leviticus as a whole points to Jesus as our high priest and our sacrifice, making us acceptable to God and mediating with God on our behalf.
In Numbers, we recognize that Jesus suffered so that God’s people could enter the ultimate, heavenly promised land. He is also the bronze serpent, raised up in death, to which if anyone looks, he or she is healed of their sins.
In Deuteronomy, we recognize that Jesus’ takes on the punishment we deserved and his life grants us the blessings of God.
Joshua pictures Jesus, who leads us in the discipling of not just one nation, but all the nations of the world.
In Judges, we recognize that Jesus redeems us through his death and resurrection when we are being oppressed by our sins and enemies.
In Ruth, Jesus is pictured as our kinsman redeemer, giving us an inheritance through his death and resurrection when we have lost ours.
In 1-2 Samuel, David points to Jesus as the king after God’s own heart, whose faith leads him in triumph and who leads us to be faithful.
In 1-2 Kings, Jesus brings unity, not division through his blood, making one united family out of all the nations of the earth (Eph 2:11-22).
In 1-2Chronicles, we see that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s love continues even after we’ve experienced his discipline and correction.
Ezra pictures Jesus whose death and resurrection makes his people holy and extends the holiness of God into all the nations of the earth.
In Nehemiah, we see that Jesus through his death and resurrection is rebuilding the people of God to serve and worship him and bless the nations.
Esther points to Jesus as the one who received the death penalty for pleading for the life of his people.
Job points to Jesus who was the ultimate undeserving sufferer, yet trusted God in his suffering and blessed his friends.
In the Psalms, we see the prayer life of Jesus, and we see him taking the punishment due to the wicked so that the blessings of the righteous might be given to sinners like us.
Proverbs shows us Jesus, the embodiment of wisdom, taking the punishment of the fools so that they might become wise and receive the blessings that accompany wisdom.
In Ecclesiastes, we see Jesus as the one who worships God and keeps his commandments, which gives us meaning and purpose in a life that often seems meaningless. His life shows there is meaning, his death and resurrection show that God will restore and redeem life under the sun.
In the Song of Solomon we see that marriage, love and sex honor God, and this points to the greater love that Jesus showed us by dying for us on the cross to make us his beloved.
Isaiah shows us Jesus as God with us, who comes to rescue his people by suffering for their sins.
Jeremiah shows us that Jesus keeps the New Covenant for us, guaranteeing blessings to us by removing our sins and restoring us to fellowship with God.
Lamentations shows us the heart of Jesus, who weeps over our brokenness and whose death and resurrection replaces our mourning with joyful song.
Ezekiel shows us that Jesus offers himself in death so God could bring us back to life and strengthen us by his Spirit to be his people filling the world.
Daniel shows Jesus as the king who suffers and is vindicated by God to reign over a kingdom that ends up filing the whole earth.
Hosea shows that Jesus’ death and resurrection redeems us from spiritual slavery and prostitution.
Joel shows that Jesus’ death and resurrection brings the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to strengthen the church.
Amos shows Jesus confronts hypocrites and dies to forgive all who return to God.
Obadiah shows that God will love his people and free them from oppression through Jesus death and resurrection.
Jonah shows that Jesus has to pass through death and resurrection to save us from our self-righteousness, so we can bless the nations around us.
Micah points to Jesus as the descendant of king David, who would come forth from Bethlehem and through his death and resurrection would re-establish the kingdom of God to bless the nations.
Nahum points to Jesus as the coming judge of all the earth, whose death and resurrection seals the judgment against all of his enemies.
Habakkuk shows us Jesus’ death and resurrection guarantees God’s blessings no matter what life’s circumstances.
Zephaniah pictures Jesus as the coming Lord who, in the midst of judging the nations and the hypocrites of Israel, will undergo death and resurrection to restore his people to blessing.
Haggai pictures Jesus as the head of the church who calls and empowers his people to build up the church, so that the blessing of God’s presence might be seen and experienced by all.
Zechariah shows Jesus, our high priest, was pierced for our sake, taking our filthy stained garments of sin and giving us a spotless robes of righteousness.
Malachi shows us that Jesus is coming, and in his death and resurrection he opens heaven to let the blessings flow.
Monday, April 13, 2009
"Third Ways," Hegelian Syntheses, Tri-Perspectivalism, a Church War, and a New Book
GLOSSARY FOR THIS POST:
Third Way--an approach that seeks to find a middle road that affirms the good of the two opposing sides and seeks to blend them into a new approach that the two sides can agree to.
Hegelian Synthesis--19th century philosopher Georg Hegel conceived all of history as the successive emergence of third ways. Ideas would polarize and a synthesis would be formed. The new synthesis would be opposed, ideas would polarize, and a new synthesis would be formed. (I know I spelled this differently in the Title--in the title, it's plural).
Tri-Perspectivalism--all of life can be seen and evaluated from three different perspectives: the Normative Perspective (the vision or rules governing the way things ought to be), the Situational Perspective (how the vision or rules ought to apply in a given situation, or the plan for how the vision or rules could be accomplished), and the Existential Perspective (the way we experience life). John Frame has made this Tri-Perspectival approach famous (John is the Normative), Dick Kaufmann has applied this approach to the three offices of Jesus--Normative is Prophet, Situational is King, and Existential is Priest (Dick is the Situational), and we get to enjoy a greater understanding of life as we learn to think about life in these categories (we are the Existential). Think of triangles, where the three perspectives are the three corners of the triangle. In short, the three perspectives are Prophet, King, and Priest which correspond to Vision, Plan, and Fuel.
THE NEW IDEA
I was just thinking about the idea of a third way and it connected with the tri-perspectival approach. Third ways are seeking some king of Hegelian synthesis between two perspectives that have merit.
THEORY: All polarized opposites that need to be synthesized are actually reflections of two corners of the triangle that need the third to balance each of them out?
EXAMPLE: The Emerging church seems to have been birthed by a recognition that there are a lot of people who simply haven’t found genuine spirituality in the traditional church. Thus, a strong Existential (priestly) need arose that the Emerging church has met. The Emerging church recognized that it was meeting this need, so it felt affirmed by God to keep going.
The Traditional church saw this phenomenon and panicked because it couldn’t understand why all these people weren’t being ministered to by them. The Traditional church had a ministry design (kingly) that had weaknesses that kept it from actually fueling the people who left for the Traditional church, but it responded with defensiveness, digging its heels deeper into the structure of its traditional ministry programs, and began to cast stones when the Emerging church began to do things differently. Instead of adapting some of its Situational programs to accommodate the Existential needs of its people, it began to throw theological stones at the Emerging church.
This drove the Emerging church theologically to find other safe havens. This is how the rift that was really about the Existential and the Situational fell into the Normative. It’s interesting that this happened because the Normative was probably the thing that the Emerging folks cared about the least, but it was “home field advantage” for the Traditional church, since it has majored on Normative feuds for a long time and it feels very comfortable fighting on that turf.
As the sides have begun to form, the Emerging church has felt more justified in leaving the Normative of the Traditional church, since it has concluded that the real reason for the Existential and Situational problems in the Traditional church are actually the result of its Normative stance (it’s theology). “You see, it’s the rigidity of their theology that continually causes these problems. These are Machen’s warrior children and we don’t want to have anything to do with Machen’s theology, because its fruits are obviously bad.”
The Traditional church then felt justified in condemning the Emerging church because of their theological liberalism. “You see, we knew they were really just liberals in the first place. Their departure from our theology only shows what they have been from the beginning.” But their liberalism was greatly caused by the caustic response of the Traditional church in the first place!
So you’ve got the Existential in a fight with the Situational, but the war is being fought in the territory of the Normative. It seems to watchers that they are now actually fighting over the Normative, but they aren’t. The war that is being fought is simply the Normative explanation of the Existential needs of the Emerging church vs. the Normative explanation of the Situational needs of the Traditional Church. Both of these can be defended Normatively (biblically), but this will never help because the Emerging folks are on the Existential field and the Traditional folks are on the Situational field. It’s tragic that both teams continue to declare victory when they both think they’re playing home games and the other team isn’t showing up!
When you add to this misguided fight the defensiveness that exists on both sides (and the reality that both are really protecting different perspectives), this is what creates a situation where both are talking past each other, both feel like they aren’t being heard by the other, and both are fully convinced they are right and wonder how the other side can be so stupid.
And into this darkness and chaos comes a new book: Deep Church, by Jim Belcher. Jim is a good friend and colleague (I worked with him at Redeemer Church in Newport Beach, CA). Jim is presenting a Normative Third Way that validates the Existential Needs of the Emerging church (while critiquing their currently inadequate Situational solutions) and validates the Situational Needs of the Traditional Church (while critiquing their currently inadequate Existential solutions).
So the war over two corners of the triangle (Situational and Existential) is being answered by third corner (Normative), and answered in a way that joins the two other corners and calls them to move forward.
Graphically this becomes interesting when you think about it this way. A third point on an equilateral triangle is better than a mid point on a continuum because it shows that you are actually moving the conversation forward.
Plus, it's also psychologically more effective for the folks who are at war with each other. Typically it’s better to have the two sides focused on a third thing that they can both agree with, rather than having them facing each other at all. Better for them to grow closer to each other as they approach the third point, recognizing that they’re getting closer to each other as they are moved forward.
So kudos to Jim for his forthcoming book (Situational), and also for the more general insight that it exemplifies (Normative), so that we can experience greater unity in the church and the world (Existential).
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Church-Beyond-Emerging-Traditional/dp/0830837167/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239648638&sr=1-1
Third Way--an approach that seeks to find a middle road that affirms the good of the two opposing sides and seeks to blend them into a new approach that the two sides can agree to.
Hegelian Synthesis--19th century philosopher Georg Hegel conceived all of history as the successive emergence of third ways. Ideas would polarize and a synthesis would be formed. The new synthesis would be opposed, ideas would polarize, and a new synthesis would be formed. (I know I spelled this differently in the Title--in the title, it's plural).
Tri-Perspectivalism--all of life can be seen and evaluated from three different perspectives: the Normative Perspective (the vision or rules governing the way things ought to be), the Situational Perspective (how the vision or rules ought to apply in a given situation, or the plan for how the vision or rules could be accomplished), and the Existential Perspective (the way we experience life). John Frame has made this Tri-Perspectival approach famous (John is the Normative), Dick Kaufmann has applied this approach to the three offices of Jesus--Normative is Prophet, Situational is King, and Existential is Priest (Dick is the Situational), and we get to enjoy a greater understanding of life as we learn to think about life in these categories (we are the Existential). Think of triangles, where the three perspectives are the three corners of the triangle. In short, the three perspectives are Prophet, King, and Priest which correspond to Vision, Plan, and Fuel.
THE NEW IDEA
I was just thinking about the idea of a third way and it connected with the tri-perspectival approach. Third ways are seeking some king of Hegelian synthesis between two perspectives that have merit.
THEORY: All polarized opposites that need to be synthesized are actually reflections of two corners of the triangle that need the third to balance each of them out?
EXAMPLE: The Emerging church seems to have been birthed by a recognition that there are a lot of people who simply haven’t found genuine spirituality in the traditional church. Thus, a strong Existential (priestly) need arose that the Emerging church has met. The Emerging church recognized that it was meeting this need, so it felt affirmed by God to keep going.
The Traditional church saw this phenomenon and panicked because it couldn’t understand why all these people weren’t being ministered to by them. The Traditional church had a ministry design (kingly) that had weaknesses that kept it from actually fueling the people who left for the Traditional church, but it responded with defensiveness, digging its heels deeper into the structure of its traditional ministry programs, and began to cast stones when the Emerging church began to do things differently. Instead of adapting some of its Situational programs to accommodate the Existential needs of its people, it began to throw theological stones at the Emerging church.
This drove the Emerging church theologically to find other safe havens. This is how the rift that was really about the Existential and the Situational fell into the Normative. It’s interesting that this happened because the Normative was probably the thing that the Emerging folks cared about the least, but it was “home field advantage” for the Traditional church, since it has majored on Normative feuds for a long time and it feels very comfortable fighting on that turf.
As the sides have begun to form, the Emerging church has felt more justified in leaving the Normative of the Traditional church, since it has concluded that the real reason for the Existential and Situational problems in the Traditional church are actually the result of its Normative stance (it’s theology). “You see, it’s the rigidity of their theology that continually causes these problems. These are Machen’s warrior children and we don’t want to have anything to do with Machen’s theology, because its fruits are obviously bad.”
The Traditional church then felt justified in condemning the Emerging church because of their theological liberalism. “You see, we knew they were really just liberals in the first place. Their departure from our theology only shows what they have been from the beginning.” But their liberalism was greatly caused by the caustic response of the Traditional church in the first place!
So you’ve got the Existential in a fight with the Situational, but the war is being fought in the territory of the Normative. It seems to watchers that they are now actually fighting over the Normative, but they aren’t. The war that is being fought is simply the Normative explanation of the Existential needs of the Emerging church vs. the Normative explanation of the Situational needs of the Traditional Church. Both of these can be defended Normatively (biblically), but this will never help because the Emerging folks are on the Existential field and the Traditional folks are on the Situational field. It’s tragic that both teams continue to declare victory when they both think they’re playing home games and the other team isn’t showing up!
When you add to this misguided fight the defensiveness that exists on both sides (and the reality that both are really protecting different perspectives), this is what creates a situation where both are talking past each other, both feel like they aren’t being heard by the other, and both are fully convinced they are right and wonder how the other side can be so stupid.
And into this darkness and chaos comes a new book: Deep Church, by Jim Belcher. Jim is a good friend and colleague (I worked with him at Redeemer Church in Newport Beach, CA). Jim is presenting a Normative Third Way that validates the Existential Needs of the Emerging church (while critiquing their currently inadequate Situational solutions) and validates the Situational Needs of the Traditional Church (while critiquing their currently inadequate Existential solutions).
So the war over two corners of the triangle (Situational and Existential) is being answered by third corner (Normative), and answered in a way that joins the two other corners and calls them to move forward.
Graphically this becomes interesting when you think about it this way. A third point on an equilateral triangle is better than a mid point on a continuum because it shows that you are actually moving the conversation forward.
Plus, it's also psychologically more effective for the folks who are at war with each other. Typically it’s better to have the two sides focused on a third thing that they can both agree with, rather than having them facing each other at all. Better for them to grow closer to each other as they approach the third point, recognizing that they’re getting closer to each other as they are moved forward.
So kudos to Jim for his forthcoming book (Situational), and also for the more general insight that it exemplifies (Normative), so that we can experience greater unity in the church and the world (Existential).
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Church-Beyond-Emerging-Traditional/dp/0830837167/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239648638&sr=1-1
Friday, March 6, 2009
Work is the Curse
Isn't this what we think? Isn't this how we think? Before our primordial first parents blew it for the rest of us, Adam and Eve had the luxury of basking in paradise--eating grapes and every fruit but one, lounging around, being together, having shameless sex with THE best looking member of the opposite sex on the planet. What were they thinking, anyway? How in the world was one more fruit a temptation when they already had the LIFE? That's a digression... The point is that life before the fall was joy-filled paradise enjoyment, without a care or responsibility in the (newly created) world. Work? No where on the horizon. Not until the fall, that is. Work was the curse.
And deep within us, our hearts tell us this is true. We all long for rest. We long for retirement. We live for retirement--the day when we stop working and can finally rest.
Well, hold on. What is retirement, anyway? Do we spend the whole time resting and lounging, with people serving us? I don't know anyone who is doing this. More importantly, I don't know anyone who would really want this.
Now it's true that people do want to rest from the grind that has been their vocation. People long for the freedom to rest from the drudgery of work. But most people, after getting a sense of rest, soon grow restless (an interesting word to describe this phenomenon). They find that rest as not having to do anything isn't satisfying. They find that responsibility-less life is not restful. Inevitably they begin to do something that seems completely backwards and counter-intuitive: THEY WORK!
Some people actually get a new career. Others volunteer. Others take up hobbies that require significant time commitments. The choices multiply, but the reality is that retirement means more work. The major difference is that now there is freedom to work in the way you want. There is freedom in the choice of work. This makes a huge difference because people are able to choose to do things that mean more to them.
This change in thinking about the ongoing desire that we have to work—even beyond retirement—finds more support when we look back at what the Bible has to say about it. When we look at the first two chapters of the Bible, we don’t find that the picture of our first parents is one of luxurious paradise-living where there was nothing to do but get a sun tan. Can you guess one of the fundamental identifiers of the human race? WORK!
Genesis 1:28—be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
Genesis 2:15—God put the man in the garden to tend it and to guard it
This is work! This is an incredible amount of work! Can you imagine the responsibility to take the created world and cause it to reflect more and more of God’s image? This was the responsibility given to humanity.
So why do we have so much trouble with work today? According to the Bible, it’s because of the fall. When Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, sin has corrupted everything. Sin brings with it a curse—the curse of destruction. And this affects work as much as it affects relationships, our personal identity and sense of self-worth, and our relationship with God. This, in fact, is exactly what we find when the Bible describes the impact that sin has on work itself.
Genesis 3:17-19—17 And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Here it is. The ground is cursed. You’ll continue to eat of its fruits, but it will be through pain. It’ll bring out thorns and thistles—our efforts will be frustrated and frustrating. It will be toilsome and require strong effort. Ultimately, it will claim us as its own.
There is a lot to be said of this, but here's the meat of the point: It is not that “Work is the Curse." Rather Work is Cursed. Don't conclude that because work is frustrating that work is the curse. Both Scripture and our hearts testify that there is work apart from the curse, and we should be careful how we think about work. To not do this would put us on a path of frustration in this life that will have no end in sight.
More to come...
And deep within us, our hearts tell us this is true. We all long for rest. We long for retirement. We live for retirement--the day when we stop working and can finally rest.
Well, hold on. What is retirement, anyway? Do we spend the whole time resting and lounging, with people serving us? I don't know anyone who is doing this. More importantly, I don't know anyone who would really want this.
Now it's true that people do want to rest from the grind that has been their vocation. People long for the freedom to rest from the drudgery of work. But most people, after getting a sense of rest, soon grow restless (an interesting word to describe this phenomenon). They find that rest as not having to do anything isn't satisfying. They find that responsibility-less life is not restful. Inevitably they begin to do something that seems completely backwards and counter-intuitive: THEY WORK!
Some people actually get a new career. Others volunteer. Others take up hobbies that require significant time commitments. The choices multiply, but the reality is that retirement means more work. The major difference is that now there is freedom to work in the way you want. There is freedom in the choice of work. This makes a huge difference because people are able to choose to do things that mean more to them.
This change in thinking about the ongoing desire that we have to work—even beyond retirement—finds more support when we look back at what the Bible has to say about it. When we look at the first two chapters of the Bible, we don’t find that the picture of our first parents is one of luxurious paradise-living where there was nothing to do but get a sun tan. Can you guess one of the fundamental identifiers of the human race? WORK!
Genesis 1:28—be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
Genesis 2:15—God put the man in the garden to tend it and to guard it
This is work! This is an incredible amount of work! Can you imagine the responsibility to take the created world and cause it to reflect more and more of God’s image? This was the responsibility given to humanity.
So why do we have so much trouble with work today? According to the Bible, it’s because of the fall. When Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, sin has corrupted everything. Sin brings with it a curse—the curse of destruction. And this affects work as much as it affects relationships, our personal identity and sense of self-worth, and our relationship with God. This, in fact, is exactly what we find when the Bible describes the impact that sin has on work itself.
Genesis 3:17-19—17 And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Here it is. The ground is cursed. You’ll continue to eat of its fruits, but it will be through pain. It’ll bring out thorns and thistles—our efforts will be frustrated and frustrating. It will be toilsome and require strong effort. Ultimately, it will claim us as its own.
There is a lot to be said of this, but here's the meat of the point: It is not that “Work is the Curse." Rather Work is Cursed. Don't conclude that because work is frustrating that work is the curse. Both Scripture and our hearts testify that there is work apart from the curse, and we should be careful how we think about work. To not do this would put us on a path of frustration in this life that will have no end in sight.
More to come...
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Hebrews for Gentile Christians
As I’ve been thinking about Hebrews, it occurs to me that there’s something wrong with the notion that it was written to Jewish Christians who were tempted to return to the Old Covenant. Here are my thoughts.
1. Jewish Christians were allowed to continue practicing Old Covenant rituals and ceremonies (Acts 15; Rom 14-15). They weren’t threatened with falling away from the faith to do so.
2. It seems that the harsh language with regard to observing Old Covenant practices was reserved for Gentile Christians, who were not under any circumstances to become Jewish as a method for following Jesus (Gal 5:2-4).
3. It seems that this letter would rather be aimed at Gentile Christians who had been studying the Old Testament, or who were under the influence of the Judaizers (thus making it parallel more with the situation of Galatians). Gentile Christians reading the Old Covenant Scriptures would make more sense to me since it might provide an explanation of why the argument of the book brings up the Tabernacle instead of the Temple that would have been much more a part of their current experience.
The only way I could imagine this book fitting what the rest of the New Testament says about observance of the Old Covenant for Jewish Christians would be if somehow the Jewish Christians’ needed to separate more fully from the Old Covenant law either right before 70AD. Maybe this was somehow part of the preparation to respond to the coming destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem. But I haven't read anyone who talks about this.
So how about it? Gentile Christians!
1. Jewish Christians were allowed to continue practicing Old Covenant rituals and ceremonies (Acts 15; Rom 14-15). They weren’t threatened with falling away from the faith to do so.
2. It seems that the harsh language with regard to observing Old Covenant practices was reserved for Gentile Christians, who were not under any circumstances to become Jewish as a method for following Jesus (Gal 5:2-4).
3. It seems that this letter would rather be aimed at Gentile Christians who had been studying the Old Testament, or who were under the influence of the Judaizers (thus making it parallel more with the situation of Galatians). Gentile Christians reading the Old Covenant Scriptures would make more sense to me since it might provide an explanation of why the argument of the book brings up the Tabernacle instead of the Temple that would have been much more a part of their current experience.
The only way I could imagine this book fitting what the rest of the New Testament says about observance of the Old Covenant for Jewish Christians would be if somehow the Jewish Christians’ needed to separate more fully from the Old Covenant law either right before 70AD. Maybe this was somehow part of the preparation to respond to the coming destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem. But I haven't read anyone who talks about this.
So how about it? Gentile Christians!
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