Saturday Ramblings 1.19.13

RamblerIt’s that time of week once again. Time to do a little sprucing up here at the iMonastery. Many hands make … uh, it easier to play the piano? it necessary for many gloves? There’s a saying in there somewhere, but I just can’t find it. Light work. That’s it. Many hands make light work. So iMonks, get your hands around a mop or a broom—with or without gloves—and let’s ramble.

Monday is the Presidential Inauguration, a time once every four years when we get to debate why one person and not another was selected to “pray” (read: give a religious-sounding short speech that won’t offend anyone except, we can assume, God) for the president upon this grand day. There is also the National Prayer Service held the following day, where Methodist preacher Adam Hamilton will speak. Here’s a shout-out to my boy Adam, a fellow graduate of Oral Roberts University. No, I don’t know Adam Hamilton. But he gets to preach to the president and the nation on Tuesday, which probably means he has never said anything controversial before in his life. And that, to me, means he’s never said anything. Am I wrong?

Lance Armstrong says he fibbed when he said he had not taken performance-enhancing drugs. In other news, it has been determined that ice is cold. Armstrong went on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network (which presumably has such low ratings that Winfrey took out national ads prior to the Armstrong show to tell people how to find it) and answered some questions. But did he confess? Are there outward signs to observe when deciding if someone’s confession is genuine, or are we best to accept it at face value and let God determine the sincerity level?

Meanwhile, the Manti Te’o girlfriend hoax story is just, I don’t know, creepy. Although I do like the cheekiness of this picture.

alabamasnark

 

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iMonk: “What Is the Bible?”

Rau-Emil-Kitchen-Conversation-Oil-Painting
Kitchen Conversation, Rau

From Michael Spencer’s classic post, A Conversation in God’s Kitchen

* * *

What is the Bible?

When I was a senior in high school, I made it into an Advanced English Class taught by Mrs. Vista Morris. Mrs. Morris taught us to research, to write and to speak. Oddly, we never left her room, because all of our research and work was done in a little room adjacent to her classroom, full of several sets of books called “The Great Books of the Western World.” Britannica publishes this set, and I own the books today.

At the time, I had no idea who these 73 authors were or why they were significant. I recognized a few names- Shakespeare, Aristotle- but most were alien to me. They were, of course, what Harold Bloom calls, “The Western Canon” of intellectual life. These Great Books- which by the way included the Bible- were a “Scripture” of sorts for a true Western education.

There were three books in the set that were different. Two were monstrous index volumes, where the Great books were broken up into explorations of over a hundred topics vital to the Western intellectual tradition. These books allowed you to delve into the Great Books by themes, and to hear what all the authors had to say on God, government, angels, war or close to a hundred other topics. I treasure these two volumes today, and count minor water damage done to one of them while caring for a plant to be among the great criminal acts ever committed.

The other volume was the slim first volume in the set, a collection of short essays on the purpose and use of the Great Books. It was called “The Great Conversation.” The authors suggested we approach these books not as a single narrative, or as an education by installment, but as a great, roaring, unruly conversation across the ages. Greek dramatists debating with English scientists. Russian novelists sparring with German psychologists. Gibbon debating Homer. Augustine versus Tolstoy. It was a conversation that never occurred, but was allowed to occur by bringing all these writings together, and then studying them to hear what each writer had to say.

This idea, of a great conversation taking place over time and culture, and then selected and presented for my benefit, has become my dominant idea of what is the Bible. It has proven increasingly helpful in a number of ways.

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Two Books of the Bible Nobody (really) Likes to Read (Part 2)

Chagall_Marc-Moses_and_the_Tablets_of_the_Law
Moses and the Tablets of the Law (detail), Chagall

“When the Gospels or the Apostle or the Psalms are read, another person joyfully receives them, gladly embraces them….But if the book of Numbers is read to him, and especially those passages we have now in hand, he will judge that there is nothing helpful, nothing as a remedy for his weakness or a benefit for the salvation of his soul. He will constantly spit them out as heavy and burdensome food.”

– Origen

* * *

In his Interpretation commentary, Dennis T. Olson notes that some call Numbers, “the junk room of the Bible,” with a structure and combination of materials that they consider nearly indecipherable. Olson proceeds to show that there is indeed a coherent plan to this book, though it may not be as obvious as the patterns of the other books in the Torah.

Olson says that the primary structure and theme for the book of Numbers involves the transition from the old generation of Israelites in the wilderness after Mt. Sinai to the new generation of hope and promise who camped on the edge of the Promised Land. He has an extensive list of parallels that shows how each part of the book both echoes and parallels the other part. For example:

  • Stories of the old generation are told in the first half of the book (1-25), the new generation in the second half (26-36).
  • Each generation, respectively, is introduced by a census list of the twelve tribes (Numbers 1, 26).
  • In both sections there are laws and instructions about various offerings and ceremonies, and provisions for the Levites.
  • However, the first half records stories about the failures of the first generation, whereas the second part is “uniformly hopeful and positive in tone” with accounts of legal disputes resolved, victories won, and crises averted.

The following simple chart further divides the first part of Numbers into two sections. The story of the wilderness generation is portrayed (1) as they were getting ready to leave Mt. Sinai, and then (2) as they wandered in the wilderness.

  • The first ten chapters portray the preparations for leaving Sinai, and they are orderly and organized.
  • However, chapters 11-25 describe Israel’s journey in the wilderness: a section that is characterized by rebellion, plagues, and death, though there are some glimmers of hope along the way.

The narratives about the new generation are presented in one cohesive section. They are no longer in the wilderness, but gathered together “in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho” (Num. 26:3). They have reached the edge of the Promised Land, ready to be counted anew before they enter the place God promised them.

The Old Generation I

An Obedient Beginning

Numbers 1-10

 The Old Generation II

A Rebellious Journey

Numbers 11-25

The New Generation

A Fresh Beginning

Numbers 26-36

 
Let me share with you just a couple of lessons I have come to appreciate from this book that many of us tend to ignore.

Continue reading “Two Books of the Bible Nobody (really) Likes to Read (Part 2)”

Saving Evangelicalism, Part Two

evangometerHi. I’m Jeff, and I’m an evangelical.

Hi Jeff.

I realize that it is not a fashionable thing to admit these days. It’s about as acceptable as ordering a hamburger at a PETA convention. But I am an evangelical at the time of the collapse of evangelicalism. We can toss more gasoline on the fire and watch it all burn, or …

If this Christian movement is to be saved or revived—and I believe it can and should be—then we need to make some changes. Last week I shared some ideas that evangelical church leaders could implement. Today I’d like to share some things that I and other individuals who identify with evangelicalism can and must do in order to get this movement pointed in the right direction.

Is there any reason you should listen to my thoughts and ideas? Well, I’ve identified with evangelicalism for nearly 40 years. I have been a part of the Christian entertainment complex in broadcasting and publishing. I’ve worked with pastors of megachurches as well as bestselling authors and musicians. I know the “backroom workings” of evangelicalism. I’ve seen how sausage is made, and I still eat it. Is that good enough for you?

Yes, I know I am painting with a rather wide brush, and no, not all evangelicals are as I describe here. Yes, I know that many, if not all, of the critiques I make about evangelicals can be made about Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists—even Lutherans. But today I am looking at how to save evangelicalism for no reason other than I think I am some ideas worth considering.

There have been times when I considered jumping ship. Catholicism has many qualities that attract me. And I’m very curious about the Orthodox church. But for better or worse I remain on the USS Evangelical. Yet it is weighted down with so much unnecessary freight it is about to sink. So here are my thoughts on how to shore up the boat to keep it from slipping under the icy waters. (How is that for sticking with a metaphor?)

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iMonk: “Getting Better?”

THE LAST POT

 From Michael Spencer’s classic post, When I Am Weak

* * *

Evangelicals love a testimony of how screwed up I USED to be. They aren’t interested in how screwed up I am NOW. But the fact is, that we are screwed up. Then. Now. All the time in between and, it’s a safe bet to assume, the rest of the time we’re alive. But we will pay $400 to go hear a “Bible teacher” tell us how we are only a few verses, prayers and cds away from being a lot better. And we will set quietly, or applaud loudly, when the story is retold. I’m really better now. I’m a good Christian. I’m not a mess anymore. I’m different from other people.

Please. Call this off. It’s making me sick. I mean that. It’s affecting me. I’m seeing, in my life and the lives of others, a commitment to lying about our condition that is absolutely pathological. Evangelicals called Bill Clinton a big-time liar about sex? Come on. How many nodding “good Christians” have so much garbage sitting in the middle of their lives that the odor makes it impossible to breathe without gagging? How many of us are addicted to food, porn and shopping? How many of us are depressed, angry, unforgiving and just plain mean? How many of us are a walking, talking course on basic hypocrisy, because we just can’t look at ourselves in the mirror and admit what we a collection of brokenness we’ve become WHILE we called ourselves “good Christians” who want to “witness” to others. I’m choking just writing this.

You people with your Bibles. Look something up for me? Isn’t almost everyone in that book screwed up? I mean, don’t the screwed up people- like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Hosea- outnumber the “good Christians” by about ten to one? And isn’t it true that the more we get to look at a Biblical character close up, the more likely it will be that we’ll see a whole nasty collection of things that Christians say they no longer have to deal with because, praise God! I’m fixed? Not just a few temper tantrums or ordinary lies, but stuff like violence. Sex addictions. Abuse. Racism. Depression. It’s all there, yet we still flop our Bibles open on the pulpit and talk about “Ten Ways To Have Joy That Never Goes Away!” Where is the laugh track?

What was that I heard? “Well….we’re getting better. That’s sanctification. I’ve been delivered!” I suppose some of us are getting better. For instance, my temper is better than it used to be. Of course, the reason my temper is better, is that in the process of cleaning up the mess I’ve made of my family with my temper, I’ve discovered about twenty other major character flaws that were growing, unchecked, in my personality. I’ve inventoried the havoc I’ve caused in this short life of mine, and it turns out “temper problem” is way too simple to describe the mess that is me. Sanctification? Yes, I no longer have the arrogant ignorance to believe that I’m always right about everything, and I’m too embarrassed by the general chaos of my life to mount an angry fit every time something doesn’t go my way. Getting better? Quite true. I’m getting better at knowing what a wretched wreck I really amount to, and it’s shut me up and sat me down.

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Two Books of the Bible Nobody (really) Likes to Read (Part 1)

Chagall-Featured-moses
Moses (detail), Chagall

Meet Leviticus and Numbers, infamous killers of countless New Year’s resolutions to read the Bible through in a year. These two books, the third and fourth portions of the Torah, are sections of the Bible that most people, if they were honest, could do without.

Oh sure, there are parts of them that we all appreciate: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” for example, comes from Leviticus (19:18). We think the year of Jubilee is pretty cool (Lev. 25), and we know that all those sacrifices have something to do with Jesus, though it’s hard to figure it out just reading the various rules and regulations for performing them.

Numbers has some good stories, but getting through all the census lists and laws and offerings is mind-numbing. It is also notoriously difficult to detect the structure of the book of Numbers — and so the book about wandering in the wilderness is an easy one in which to get lost!

At least the structure of Leviticus is clear: sections of laws and regulations are followed by narratives or regulations that relate to the previous section of statutes.

Statutes: Offerings

Lev. 1-7

 Statues: Clean/Unclean

Lev. 11-15

 Statutes: Holiness

Lev. 17-24

 Statutes: The Land

Lev. 25-26
Stories: Priests

Lev. 8-10

 Ritual: Day of Atonement

Lev. 16

 Story: Eye for an eye

Lev. 24:10-23

 Conclusion: Vows

Lev. 27

 
That, of course, doesn’t make it any easier to read this material, to understand why all the detail has been preserved, and to assess its relevance to today’s readers. As Christians, especially with the assistance of the book of Hebrews, we accept that the Levitical priesthood and sacrificial system foreshadows Christ. We can also pick out certain ethical principles — especially in such chapters as Lev. 19 — but that still doesn’t help us understand what we should think about or why we should care about becoming unclean from bodily discharges, not having sex during our wife’s menstrual period, wearing garments made of two different materials, enacting the death penalty for certain kinds of sexual sins, or being able to calculate the various valuations of different kinds of offerings, vows, and tithes. Nor is it exactly clear why all of these details would have been preserved in the final form of the Torah for the post-exilic community.

Walter Brueggemann suggests the following:

intro to OTThe book of Leviticus articulates an old and perennial agenda in Israel in which there is an awareness of the radical “otherness” of YHWH who cannot be approached casually, but who can be hosted only with rigorous, disciplined intentionality. This agenda is rooted in Israel’s profound sense of the character of this God who is, at the same time, faithful and ominous. That sense of God is perhaps intensified in a season of cultural danger. This reality may provide a clue for our appreciation of the codification of older materials in exile or son thereafter. It is curious of course that by the time of the exile, perhaps by the time of the final form of this text, there was no longer a temple in Jerusalem where sacrifices could be offered and cultic holiness could be practiced. This may suggest that the extended inventory of sacrifices and related materials in the book of Leviticus is to be understood not as a manual for practice, but as a liturgical, aesthetic act of imagination of what the world of Israel is like when it is known to be focused upon glad responses in obedience and sacrifice to YHWH. In this horizon there is no other chance for entry into the presence except through disciplines of holiness. While the book of Leviticus is remote from our contemporary world, its issues inescapably persist because the otherness of God persists in the world of faithful interpretation.

– An Introduction to the Old Testament

iMonk: “Choose death to anything but grace”

Flower-Growing-in-a-Crack

From Michael Spencer’s classic post, Our Problem with Grace

* * *

I’ve thought a lot about grace as I’ve gotten older and lived the Christian life longer. I see and hear young, fired up, Pentecostal preacher boys, full of sermons about what will happen if we will pray more, live holy lives, get extreme, go the distance and all that fizz. It doesn’t get to me anymore. I am slowly living past the point of being affected by all the rah-rah Christianity around me.

I know I am not very obedient. I know my sinful patterns and my perennial laziness. I know where I fall short. I am well acquainted with my lusts, my pettiness and my stupid pride. I may make more progress on these things, but honestly, I doubt it. My efforts at obedience have about run their course. Most of what I am going to be as a human being living as a Christian on this planet, I’ve probably already achieved. I want all the years God has for me, and I want to honor and glorify him, but if I am going to learn about grace, now is the time. I need it now.

There is a passage that I’ve thought about a lot lately.

2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

And, this little statement, from I Corinthians 15:31: “I die daily.”

Here’s where I am. When it comes time for me to die, I’ll only have one work to do. All the options will be gone. We don’t like to think about that, because we like to see our lives as full of all the options of youth, vigor, work, opportunity to change and the results of effort. We’re going to do better, we say. But in the end, the only “work” we can do will be to trust ourselves to God. Simple. Beautiful, in its way.

Faith will be the only work. Exactly as Jesus said in John 6:28. “Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.””

Scripture says that life now is to be a death. We die daily, scripture says. Not just at the end, not just on our deathbeds. But now, today. Tomorrow. In every moment of time and breath that God gives us, we are to die, to do the one work of faith that trusts God in Jesus to be the all in all for us.

flowerJesus’ death is a grace to us. In his death we are safe, and in his life we have it all, now and then. Everything that God’s love graciously gives us and Christ’s work guarantees us. None from obedience. All from grace. The grasping hand of work never finds it. The empty hand of faith cannot miss it.

So die daily. Die to the works that we think bring God’s blessing. Die to the works that attempt to steal significance from our own obedience–obedience made possible only because of grace upon grace. Die a little at a time, one day at a time, practicing for the big one when grace will come lapping at your door like a rising tide, and you will have nowhere to go to run away from it. A gracious flood come to take you home from this troubled world to the place Jesus has prepared for you.

Get ready for the time when resting in the arms of God and grace will be all you have to do. And it will be more than enough to see you home.

Choose death to anything but grace, so you can one day be alive in nothing except grace.

There’s no problem with that.

Creation, Tabernacle, and New Creation

Chagall Moses Beholds
Moses beholds all the work, Chagall

“At this small, lonely place in the midst of the chaos of the wilderness, a new creation comes into being. In the midst of disorder, there is order. The tabernacle is the world order as God intended writ small in Israel.”

– Terence Fretheim, Exodus (Interpretation Commentary)

* * *

As Walter Brueggemann observes in his OT Introduction, the book of Exodus has three major divisions.

  • The first tells the story of Israel’s redemption through the Exodus from Egypt (ch. 1-18).
  • The second part is the account of the covenant God made with the Hebrew people at Mt. Sinai, including the laws he gave them (ch. 19-24).
  • The final division, also set at Mt. Sinai, involves the instructions for and the building of the tabernacle, the site where God made his presence known among his people (ch. 25-40).

Genesis 1 tells the story of God ordering the chaos of the world by preparing a good land and transforming it into his “cosmic temple” (John Walton’s term). This liturgical narrative of creation celebrates the one true and living God, who made the universe back in the beginning. It also tells us that God prepared a special place in the world, a land, to be his temple. Like a King and master workman, he first prepared the site for this land by transforming an uninhabitable wilderness (“formless and empty”– Gen. 1:2) into a “good” (habitable) place. He then filled it with essential elements for life and worship, formed living creatures to dwell in it, and blessed them. He made humans in his image, blessed them, and made them his royal and priestly representatives to care for the land and its creatures. The blessing he gave to humans, to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” shows that he intended his blessing to be extended throughout the whole world. At the completion of his work, God took his place of rest, sitting down on the throne in his temple to rule and receive the praise of his creatures.

In Genesis 1 (as well as chapters 2-3) there is pervasive temple imagery. It is not surprising then, to discover that the narratives about building the tabernacle (Israel’s “wilderness temple”) should contain a number of verbal and thematic ties with the creation story. The world of Genesis 1 reflects the sanctuary. The sanctuary of Exodus 25-31/35-40 reflects creation.

Continue reading “Creation, Tabernacle, and New Creation”

Guest Book Review: Miguel Discusses “Broken”

brokenBroken: 7 ”Christian” Rules That Every Christian Ought to Break as Often as Possible
by Jonathan Fisk
Concordia Publishing House (2012)

Reviewed by Miguel Ruiz

* * *

Broken: 7 “Christian” Rules That Every Christian Ought to Break as Often as Possible by Jonathan Fisk is a spirited romp through the circus of American Christianity taking aim at the sorts of things that drive Evangelicals into the wilderness. But it is so much more than another “the problem with the church today is…” type of book, because it does not offer any new secret or silver bullet for the answer. Instead, Fisk points us back to an ancient understanding of the nature and power of God’s Word as the source of the Christian’s faith and knowledge.

The book is a popular level explication of the distinction between Law and Gospel modeled after The Quest for Holiness by Adolf Köberle. Let the reader be warned: this book is unabashedly Lutheran, yet somehow I believe it fails to mention that. The reason is that joining the Lutheran church is not the answer, and by no means are LCMS congregations above his critique. Law and Gospel are presented here in terms that can be understood, appreciated, and applied by all manner of Christians, and he does so with all the style and flair that keep the attention deficit returning for his 20 minute vlog lectures on Greek etymology and syntax. Never before has straight up Lutheran doctrine been written in the lingo of surfer dudes (the book features a “Whatup” instead of a foreword, preface, or introduction).

One particular feature of this publication that sets it apart from others of similar theme or style is the doctrinal review process. Most popular level theology books written by celebrity pastors are ultimately accountable to corporate boards interested in selling copies. Being published by Concordia Publishing House means that it is accountable to the LCMS for its theological integrity and professional church workers have had the opportunity to review the teaching it presents for conformity to Scripture and the Lutheran confessions. (You can learn more about the process at: http://www.cph.org/t-about-doctrinal-review.aspx) There is nothing new being said here.

Continue reading “Guest Book Review: Miguel Discusses “Broken””

A Note to Newcomers

monk pray
I have noticed that we’ve been getting quite a few new readers and commenters over the past couple of months, so it’s probably the right time to do an iMonk 101 post restating who we are and what we are all about here at the strange and wonderful world that is the Internet Monk blog. Perhaps it might serve as good review for many of us “oldtimers” as well.

I’m Chaplain Mike, the lead writer. Jeff Dunn is our “Abbot” who oversees the blog. We have several excellent writers who contribute regularly and we often ask guests to contribute posts when we find their insights compelling. We put up at least one post each day, and often two. I write every day except on Thursdays and Saturday mornings, when Jeff weighs in. Our other writers and guest posters contribute when they can or when we solicit material from them. We also regularly feature articles from the archives by Michael Spencer, who founded the blog in 2000. He is, and always will be, the Internet Monk.

Anything you see here that is in red ink is a link. As a start, I encourage all newer visitors to Internet Monk to read the following posts:

To learn more about Chaplain Mike’s journey, I would suggest reading the following posts:

There are also a few key posts explaining why we do some of what we do here on Internet Monk and posts that will give you a good overall perspective of our founder, Michael Spencer’s outlook and approach:

If you would like a full-length treatment of Michael’s thinking, his book Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality will give you that. (BTW: the link takes you to Amazon, which is offering the book at a bargain price at this time).

Continue reading “A Note to Newcomers”