The Internet Monk Archives

iMonk Classic: Worshiping the Missional God

From a classic post by Michael Spencer — June 2007

I’ve been thinking about how much we can know about God. In particular, how does a deeply missional God work the knowledge of himself into a life like mine?

…I’m looking at Abraham, and I’m wondering what he knew about God and how that knowledge worked in his life.

Abraham is the person the Bible looks at most to demonstrate the life of faith. He was a person who began from point “A” with a missional God. In a lifelong journey, God revealed himself, one step at a time, as Abraham learns who it is who has called him and who it is that he trusts along the way.

God called Abraham, it says in Genesis 12, and told him what he would do for him if he left his family, city and security to bet everything on a God whose name he didn’t even know.

He told him nothing else. There had to be dozens — hundreds — of questions, all unanswered.

Abraham said yes to the One he knew. I’m sure it must have been hard to explain this to the rest of the family. “Not that God…or that one. Actually, I don’t know who I am dealing with here. It’s a God without an image or even a name.”

God took Abraham to Canaan, where the land promised was the land occupied, so immediately on to Egypt and Abraham’s first sincere, but boneheaded, attempts to make God do things his way. There it became clear that this wasn’t a God of the Egyptians either. This was a God without boundaries, powerfully in covenant with Abraham, but manipulated by and belonging to no one. A God with his own purposes, his own map, his own timetable.

It must have been a lonely road of faith. In Genesis 14, Abraham meets Melchizedek, the high priest of a God called El-Elyon. They worship together, and it seems that Abraham has learned that his God is the creator God of heaven and earth, and he is not alone in knowing him. Others worship and obey him; others know him in ways Abraham does not yet.

Still, this had to be a difficult journey. God talked to Abraham, but also left him on the silence of faith for years at a time. Abraham’s mistakes along that road are the mistakes of a man who yearns to know more, but can only see parts of the mystery. Most men look at Abraham and see themselves: yearning for God to speak, treasuring what he does reveal, but never connecting all the dots together into all the answers.

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The Homily

When Isaac grew old, his eyes were so bad he could see only shadows. He called his eldest son, Esau, to his side.

Isaac: My son.

Esau: I’m here.

Isaac: 2 You see that I am growing old now. I may die any day. 3 Take your hunting weaponry—your quiver and your bow—and go out to the field and hunt game for me. 4 Then prepare for me some savory food, just the way I like it. Bring it to me to eat so that I may speak a blessing over you before I die.

5 Rebekah was listening at the doorway as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went into the field to hunt for game to bring to his father, 6 Rebekah called her son Jacob.

Rebekah: I heard your father say to your brother Esau, 7 “Bring me game and prepare for me some savory food to eat, so I can bless you before the Eternal before I die.” 8 My son, listen and do what I tell you: 9 Go to the flock, and bring me two of the best young goats. I can prepare the savory food for your father from them. I know just how he likes it. 10 Then you take it to your father to eat so that he speaks a blessing over you before he dies.

Jacob (to Rebekah, his mother): 11 Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I have smooth skin. 12 If father reaches out and touches me, he’ll figure it out and think I’m mocking him. Then I’ll bring a curse upon myself instead of a blessing!

Rebekah: 13 If that happens, then let the curse be on me and not you. Just listen to me. Go, and get them for me.

14 Jacob went and brought the young goats to his mother, who prepared a mouth-watering meal just as his father liked it. 15 Then Rebekah took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which were with her in the house, and she put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She affixed the skins of the young goats onto the back of his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.17 Then she handed him the delicious food and the fresh bread she had prepared. 18 Jacob went in to his father.

***

11 Once there was this man who had two sons. 12 One day the younger son came to his father and said, “Father, eventually I’m going to inherit my share of your estate. Rather than waiting until you die, I want you to give me my share now.” And so the father liquidated assets and divided them. 13 A few days passed and this younger son gathered all his wealth and set off on a journey to a distant land. Once there he wasted everything he owned on wild living. 14 He was broke, a terrible famine struck that land, and he felt desperately hungry and in need. 15 He got a job with one of the locals, who sent him into the fields to feed the pigs.16 The young man felt so miserably hungry that he wished he could eat the slop the pigs were eating. Nobody gave him anything.

17 So he had this moment of self-reflection: “What am I doing here? Back home, my father’s hired servants have plenty of food. Why am I here starving to death? 18 I’ll get up and return to my father, and I’ll say, ‘Father, I have done wrong—wrong against God and against you.19 I have forfeited any right to be treated like your son, but I’m wondering if you’d treat me as one of your hired servants?’” 20 So he got up and returned to his father. The father looked off in the distance and saw the young man returning. He felt compassion for his son and ran out to him, enfolded him in an embrace, and kissed him.

21 The son said, “Father, I have done a terrible wrong in God’s sight and in your sight too. I have forfeited any right to be treated as your son.”

22 But the father turned to his servants and said, “Quick! Bring the best robe we have and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. 23 Go get the fattest calf and butcher it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate 24 because my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and has been found.” So they had this huge party.

(Genesis 27: 1-18; Luke 15: 11-24, both from The Voice)

Our New Testament reading this morning is a story we are very familiar with. We refer to it as the story of the Prodigal Son. A father has two sons, and the younger comes to him one day and says, “Dad, I wish you were dead. That way I could have my portion of the inheritance and be done with this lousy life I live here with you. I want to see the world. I want to make my own way. Gimme gimme gimme.” And his father does. He considers himself dead and divides his estate between his no-good, greedy son and the elder son who was doing all of the right things. The elder took his money and invested it in the running of the family farm, no doubt doing some improvements to the property (which was now his) and tightening payroll. He was, of course, glad to be rid of his slacker brother. There was no room for dead weight on his estate.

Continue reading “The Homily”

Saturday Ramblings 6.8.13

With the revelation this week that the NSA (No Such Agency) is spying on Americans by looking at their internet wanderings, I’m curious what our spymasters think of Internet Monk? Are there any who moonlight as commenters? Are they researching who this Mule Chewing Briars dude is? And what do they make of the Synonymous Rambler? For that matter, what do you make of the Synonymous Rambler? What do you make of the NSA and PRISM? What do you say … we ramble?

How much do you know about Calvinism? Do you know a TULIP from a daisy? Find out just where you stand by taking this short quiz.

How did you do? If you answered all of the questions correctly, you could be a Southern Baptist. This week in Houston, Baptists of the Southern persuasion will be gathering to discuss, among other topics, a report titled “Truth, Trust, and Testimony in a Time of Tension.” Seems that Calvinism is rising in popularity among some Baptist pastors and seminaries, thus causing the tension.

The Synonymous Rambler tells me that, in anticipation of the SBC’s gathering in Houston, there is a new Texas Bible that converts “you plural” into “y’all.” My only question is why it took someone this long …

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait until the Baptists start meeting in order to hear the latest proclamation from their pope, Al Mohler. Rev. Al has come down from the mount with this revelation: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 1) is not evangelical, 2) does not live up to Martin Luther’s convictions and faith, and 3) should not even be considered a church. Good thing these non-evangelical, Luther-hating, non-churches meet in America. Hey, one out of four ain’t bad.

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Christian Traditions 101: The Seven Cardinal Virtues, continued

In my last post I talked about the human virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. I pointed out that these are considered human virtues because all decent people recognize them as good things and in some way educate their children and design their laws to encourage them. We can’t stop there, though. We have to have the right motivations to be truly virtuous. As Christians we are warned against virtue motivated by legalism or competitive superiority. For us the reason to be virtuous is not to lord it over others less virtuous than we are. It is not even to console ourselves, with a bleak, stoic honor, that even though everything around us is in ruins, we at least are true to ourselves. The right motivation to be virtuous, as well as the antidote to legalism, pride, and despair, is provided by the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love.

These are in short supply today. I began thinking about the Seven Cardinal Virtues recently when I was reading the reasons people in Oregon chose physician-assisted suicide. I did not know those people personally and can’t and won’t judge their reasons for thinking what they did, but their statements betrayed a philosophy of utilitarianism that I think skews the thinking of all of us today. They didn’t want to go on living if they couldn’t do the things that made life worthwhile to them, if they were going to be a burden on others, or (the smallest number said this) if they were going to suffer physical pain. In saying these things they were on some level rejecting the virtues of fortitude, faith, hope, and love as well as the philosophy that the purpose of life is growth in virtue. They defined themselves only by the things they could do and their independence – or isolation – in doing them and not by their character as formed by both training and grace.

I must stress here that God’s grace is the source of all virtue, natural or Christian. We do not exist without God’s grace; we do not take a breath, make a movement, or eat a meal without God’s grace. I could no more be brave or temper my appetites without God’s grace than I could fly. Although the human virtues are recognized, admired, and taught by people who don’t know God, that doesn’t mean that they exist distinct from him – how could they?

Continue reading “Christian Traditions 101: The Seven Cardinal Virtues, continued”

Christian Traditions 101: The Seven Cardinal Virtues

Quick – name the Seven Cardinal Virtues. Can’t do it, can you?

It’s funny (or maybe not) that many of us can name the Seven Deadly Sins but have no clue what the Seven Cardinal Virtues are. It seems sins are still objective, nameable things, especially the deadly ones; post-modern people can still find some wisdom in identifying conditions of the heart that lead to wrong action and lack of action. Or maybe sins are just more familiar to us. But there are also foundational virtues that lead to right action. I think this generation has forgotten them partly because “virtue” has become a quaint, stiff, slightly embarrassing word that denotes virginity and connotes librarians, and “goodness” is seen as either a vague, pink cloud of niceness and tolerance or Randian self-fulfillment at all costs, and is no longer an objective standard one can train for.

But let’s buck the trend of our generation and consider the Seven Cardinal Virtues.

The word “cardinal” comes from the Latin root for hinge, hence the pivot on which all other things turn. These virtues are pivotal to our actions and understanding.
Like all elements of Christian tradition, they serve as checks or guideposts to keep us from veering off the narrow path after the enthusiasms of our own age.
They remind us that any virtue, even (especially) our favorite one, can be distorted into a vice when it’s not kept in balance with all the others.
It is an act of humility in us to remember and apply the wisdom of tradition rather than trying to reinvent wisdom every generation.
An acknowledgment of universal virtues presumes a realistic view of the world. The ancient philosophers, Church Fathers, and great souls of all times and places focused on training in virtue, because they knew that they had to prepare to live in a world of suffering, temptation, and imbalance. Confucius, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, St. Francis de Sales, and Gandhi all understood this.
For thousands of years people have thought that one of the reasons we exist was to develop virtue. Whether because developing virtue provided one with immortal glory or because it aligned one with the gods or God, generations have seen life as the battleground of character, not (as we do now) the playground of whim.
Finally, the Seven Cardinal Virtues give us a vocabulary to talk about an essential but neglected part of human history and human character. It’s a vocabulary that needs to be retaught, I think. The names of many virtues have fallen out of common use, which makes me wonder whether the virtues they represent are equally unfamiliar.

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Summer Sounds from CM 6/6/13

Here is one of my favorite old 60’s songs — and a great song for summer — covered by my favorite artist, James Taylor, who covers other people’s material just about as well as anyone. It was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and first recorded by The Drifters in 1962.

“Up on the Roof” has been been sung by many, but JT’s live version remains my favorite.

IM Book Review: Dallas Willard’s Best Book

The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives
by Dallas Willard

1988. HarperOne; Reprint edition (May 5, 1999)

Note: As of this writing, the ebook addition of this book is now available for only $3.99 on Amazon.

* * *

When we mentioned Dallas Willard last week, one of our commenters wrote and asked where the best place to start would be in reading his books. I know many folks like The Divine Conspiracy, and so do I, but before reading that fine work I would recommend one that sets forth Willard’s fundamental teachings about spiritual formation: The Spirit of the Disciplines.

Several sentences in the book’s preface summarize Willard’s perspective:

My central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing — by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself.

Faith today is treated as something that only should make us different, not that actually does or can make us different.

We have simply let our thinking fall into the grip of a false opposition of grace to “works” that was caused by a mistaken association of works with “merit.”

When we call men and women to life in Christ Jesus, we are offering them the greatest opportunity of their lives — the opportunity of a vivid companionship with him, in which they will learn to be like him and live as he lived. This is that “transforming friendship” explained by Leslie Weatherhead. We meet and dwell with Jesus and his Father in the disciplines for the spiritual life.

I want us to take the disciplines that seriously. I want to inspire Christianity today to remove the disciplines from the category of historical curiosities and place them at the center of the new life in Christ. Only when we do, can Christ’s community take its stand at the present point of history. Our local assemblies must become academies of life as it was meant to be.

Above all else, Dallas Willard believed that the new life in Jesus was meant to be lived, not just accepted intellectually or believed. In my view, Willard is simply reinforcing the teaching of Ephesians 2:8-10 —

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (NASB)

God’s grace that saves us in Christ is received by faith alone, but faith in Christ does not remain alone. God ushers us into a new life, a new creation, in which we are free to practice good works of love. In fact, God has already provided these works and prepared us for them, and it is our daily joy to walk with Christ in them.

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The Mule’s Bible

One of our regular commenters goes by the handle “Mule Chewing Briars.” He may or may not have a real name, but he does have a real style about him: He has something to say, and doesn’t mince words saying it. Mule is joining the iMonk stable of writers; we will hear from him most every week. Welcome Mule to the iMonastery, and enjoy chewing on what he has to offer.

The Bible has been a part of my life nearly as long as I’ve had a life. One of my earliest memories is a “Bible memory” from when I was four or five years old. My troubled parents moved to the nation’s capital in a fruitless attempt to halt my father’s descent into mental illness. Within a year they were divorced, and somehow, I discovered church. My poor harried mother brought my brother, my sister and I every Sunday to a local Presbyterian church. I was unceremoniously deposited into the nursery where, with dozens of other baby Baby Boomers, I was left pretty much to fend for myself.

There was a book of Bible stories in that nursery. It is likely familiar to many because I have seen the same volume in doctors’ and dentists’ offices. I believe it is published by the Seventh Day Adventists, and it is richly illustrated. At five years of age, the book’s illustrations seemed to me to be backlit with the very Uncreated Light of Tabor itself. The accounts of the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood ignited my young imagination and made me an instant evangelist. There was a young teenaged girl watching us in the nursery that Sunday, and I approached her with the book opened to the account of Noah and the flood. Breathlessly, I retold the story of how a man built a boat and God brought all the animals to him, and then he made it rain a long long time…

The teenaged girl looked at the book and smiled at me. With all the sagacity adolescence could muster over against the earnestness of childhood, she informed me: “That’s like a fairy tale, you know. It’s a nice story but it didn’t really happen.” When I returned to read the book, the Light had died on its pages. I threw the book into a corner and picked up some plastic dinosaurs. I still complain briefly about being exposed to the soul-choking infidelity and unbelief of mid twentieth century liberal Protestantism at its floodtide, but that is not what I remember about the incident.

What I remember is the Light.

That Light, I am convinced, is not of human fabrication or invention. It is that Light than convinces me, far more than any study of archeology, internal consistency, or ancient literature that the Bible, whatever process produced it, is not a human document. Now, I know know know know know that not everybody sees the same Light on the pages of the Bible that I do. The Gospel of St. John says that not everyone acknowledges the Light, because their deeds are evil. This verse has always been something of a mystery to me since my deeds are not noticeably purer than those of people who care very little about God, Jesus, church or the Bible, and I am not the least less attached to my evil deeds than they are to theirs.

Continue reading “The Mule’s Bible”

Meet The Team

As Chaplain Mike shared yesterday, he is stepping back from day-to-day writing duties here at the iMonastery in order to focus on his two “real” fulltime jobs. When we talked recently he said needed time to eat and sleep as well as work. I told him that was a personal problem and suggested if he was going to constantly whine he might at least bring some cheese, and in the end we settled on Chap contributing on Mondays and Thursdays. But as we would like you to visit us on the other days of the week as well, I will have to try and coax our other staff writers to sharpen their quills more often. After all, they are all getting paid … getting paid … well, actually, no one gets paid to be a part of Internet Monk. We all give our words as an act of love. And because I can badger and harangue with the best of them.

So I thought this would be a good chance for you, our fellow iMonks, to meet the team that keeps things going. I think it’s always helpful to put a face with a name.

First and foremost is Denise Spencer, the Mother Superior of our community. Denise flies from town to town as is her habit while wearing her habit. She corrects our grammar, washes behind our ears and makes sure we don’t slouch in our chairs. She has a real fondness for Jello-brand Pudding Pops because, as she says, “How cool is it to eat pudding on a stick?”

Next, of course, is Chaplain Mike. Mike got his start as a street evangelist perched in front of Chicago’s Billy Goat Tavern. Mike prayed with passersby to lift the curse of the Billy Goat from the Cubs. As that wasn’t working, he settled into his life’s vocation, praying for the salvation of souls. Mike echoes St. Paul when he says he would almost give up his place at the banquet table in Heaven to see the Cubs win a World Series. (Don’t worry—Mike will be at the wedding feast. It’s the Cubs, after all …)

The man behind the curtain pulling all of the levers and strings to keep iMonk running is Joe Stallard. Joe runs a convenience store in Grand Rapids, but practices computer programming on the side. If you need a web site built, or have a hankerin’ for a Slim Jim, Joe is the man to see.

Lisa Dye writes deep, heart-felt pieces for us as a diversion from her day job as a nuclear scientist. She has solved pi to 3,256 places, can pinpoint the exact date of the Big Bang, and can program a TV remote control.

Martha of Ireland is the pseudonym for Gladys Schmidtgal of Des Moines, Iowa. Martha/Gladys is a hairdresser, and one of her clients happens to be a Catholic priest. I think you see where this is going.

Adam Palmer tells people he is a “petroleum transfer engineer,” which sound impressive, doesn’t it? It means he pumps gas. But he does a really good job of pumping gas, and only once in a while does he confuse diesel with regular. But when he does, he gives the customer a free car wash, so it works out well.

Damaris Zehner is the Poet Laureate of the iMonk family. But she still hasn’t come up with a poem as lovely as a tree, though she did write one once that was prettier than some dead leaves that had gathered in the gutter. And she knows better than to try to rhyme with “orange.”

The Synonymous Rambler occasionally contributes a story to our Saturday Ramblings, and has even been known to author a post or two. The SR wishes to remain synonymous so she/he doesn’t besmirch his/her reformation. Don’t ask, just nod and play along.

And there is me, your abbot. I do my best to stay out of the way of all of the merriment, but I do enforce curfew and do bed checks. Sometimes I can even be talked into reading bedtime stories to the gang as they drink their Ovaltine. I can be seen most evenings knitting under the shade tree and playing fetch with Willy, the iMonastery’s dog.

Oh, one more introduction will take place tomorrow, when we unveil our newest teammate. The only hint I will give is his picture.

Thank you for your faithful reading and commenting and giving. We wouldn’t be here without you. And this time I’m being serious with you.

A “Biblical” View of Marriage?

NOTE FROM CM: The following article was written by Robert R. Cargill, assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Iowa; Kenneth Atkinson, associate professor of history at the University of Northern Iowa; and Hector Avalos, professor of religious studies at Iowa State University.

From The Des Moines Register:

The debate about marriage equality often centers, however discretely, on an appeal to the Bible. Unfortunately, such appeals often reflect a lack of biblical literacy on the part of those who use that complex collection of texts as an authority to enact modern social policy.

As academic biblical scholars, we wish to clarify that the biblical texts do not support the frequent claim that marriage between one man and one woman is the only type of marriage deemed acceptable by the Bible’s authors.

The fact that marriage is not defined as only that between one man and one woman is reflected in the entry on “marriage” in the authoritative Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000): “Marriage is one expression of kinship family patterns in which typically a man and at least one woman cohabitate publicly and permanently as a basic social unit” (p. 861).

The phrase “at least one woman” recognizes that polygamy was not only allowed, but some polygamous biblical figures (e.g., Abraham, Jacob) were highly blessed. In 2 Samuel 12:8, the author says that it was God who gave David multiple wives: “I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom. … And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more” (Revised Standard Version).

In fact, there were a variety of unions and family configurations that were permissible in the cultures that produced the Bible, and these ranged from monogamy (Titus 1:6) to those where rape victims were forced to marry their rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) and to those Levirate marriage commands obligating a man to marry his brother’s widow regardless of the living brother’s marital status (Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Genesis 38; Ruth 2-4). Others insisted that celibacy was the preferred option (1 Corinthians 7:8; 28).

Although some may view Jesus’ interpretation of Genesis 2:24 in Matthew 19:3-10 as an endorsement of monogamy, Jesus and other Jewish interpreters conceded that there were also non-monogamous understandings of this passage in ancient Judaism, including those allowing divorce and remarriage.

In fact, during a discussion of marriage in Matthew 19:12, Jesus even encourages those who can to castrate themselves “for the kingdom” and live a life of celibacy.

Ezra 10:2-11 forbids interracial marriage and orders those people of God who already had foreign wives to divorce them immediately.

So, while it is not accurate to state that biblical texts would allow marriages between people of the same sex, it is equally incorrect to declare that a “one-man-and-one-woman” marriage is the only allowable type of marriage deemed legitimate in biblical texts.

This is not only our modern, academic opinion. This view of the multiple definitions of “biblical” marriage has been acknowledged by some of the most prominent names in Christianity. For example, the famed Reformationist Martin Luther wrote a letter in 1524 in which he commented on polygamy as follows: “I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not oppose the Holy Scriptures.”

Accordingly, we must guard against attempting to use ancient texts to regulate modern ethics and morals, especially those ancient texts whose endorsements of other social institutions, such as slavery, would be universally condemned today, even by the most adherent of Christians.

* * *

What are we to make of this? Is there a “biblical” view of marriage? How do our cultural values and practices relate to what we see in the Bible? How can the church appropriately apply the Bible’s teaching to contemporary practices of marriage and family?