Don’t Make It What It’s Not

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

(Psalm 19:1, ESV)

I just finished teaching a three-week intensive course at Point titled Scripture: How We Use It. It is a required course for students at Point if they are not biblical studies majors. We use a textbook in the course written by Ben Witherington III, Reading and Understanding the Bible. One of the important items Witherington addresses early on is that when we make the Bible something it isn’t, we do it nor God a favor.

One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 19. I read it often, think about it practically every day. The first stanza of the psalm (1-6) is focused on creation – its glory in proclaiming the glory of God’s  handiwork. The second stanza (7-11) is focused on the “law of the Lord” and the great value such Law has for God’s people. The psalm ends with these words – words many of us have memorized:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in your sight,

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

It seems to me that when I put these two stanzas together – the testimony of creation and the testimony of God’s words -  I can truly petition God to let my words and thoughts be acceptable to Him. (As a side note, I would encourage you to spend more time outside in the midst of creation’s testimony while reading Scripture!)

Unfortunately, some would interpret words like those in verses 1-6 (and other places in Scripture where the world is described) in a way that makes the Bible something it isn’t. The Bible’s kind of naked-eye description of parts of the universe weren’t intended to be chapters in a modern science textbook – and when we make them that, we miss the point.

Psalm 19:1-6 isn’t giving a technical description of the place the sun occupies in the universe nor how it works. But, if we listen to David’s words, we see a Spirit-inspired interpretation of what the universe means! Apparently, regardless of the mechanics of how, God intends creation to be a voice that points to His glory. How many times a day do we see some part of this marvelous universe in ways that convince us of the greatness of our God?

God reminded Israel, through Isaiah the prophet that we humans don’t always think and behave like He does. (55:8-11) Thus we were given “His Word” so we could learn to think and behave as He does. It is that “Word” that often interprets creation for us. Not so much in terms of mechanics as in terms of God’s divine intention at creation.

My summer session students almost always seem like a little light bulb is going off in their still young brains. Use the Bible as it was intended to be used and it becomes this marvelous collection of words from God, given through a number of different humans He used to write them down, that can change life!

If that is going to happen in our lives, we have to learn not to make what it isn’t!

The Son of Man Will Suffer

The gospel text a few Sundays back was Mark 8:31-38. While it probably shouldn’t be over emphasized, I find it intriguing that Mark places this text – and Peter’s confession that precedes it – almost exactly in the center of his story about Jesus.

Mark begins with a bang – “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1, NRSV) Early on (his first story about Jesus) John baptizes Jesus and a voice from heaven declares “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:9, NRSV)

From there, Mark begins a rapid fire journey in which Jesus calls disciples, casts out demons, heals people, and cleanses a leper. He steps out of the comfort zone of most Jews of that day and calls Levi the tax collector to be a disciple. He addresses questions about fasting and hints of a new age coming that could never be contained in the old, stretched out wine skins of another age. He even declares that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath!

When accused of being the most detestable of demonic agents – working by the Power of Beelzebul, He reminds His accusers that “no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man.” (3:27, NRSV) The parable of the sower, perhaps among the most crucial of His kingdom parables, sets an agenda which depicts God’s interruption of human history where “seed” will be sown anywhere and everywhere – some of which will produce an unbelievable harvest.

The journey keeps moving and almost unexpectedly, Jesus stops to summarize – debrief the disciples. It boils down to this: “Who do you say that I am?” (8:29, NRSV) We all know Peter’s answer on behalf of the group, and likely have repeated it ourselves on multiple occasions. Christ. Messiah.

Most of us would probably not plan on the follow-up that Jesus planned. He immediately tells them that they are headed to Jerusalem, and things will become very difficult. How quickly we go from “You are the Christ” to “I will be killed.”

Peter found that a bit discomforting – we can all understand. But Mark will have Jesus repeat that prediction in chapter nine and again in chapter ten. In chapter eleven, they arrive in Jerusalem and what happens is testimony that Jesus was not overstating reality in His predictions. 

If the season of Lent is to remind us of our own mortal natures and the fact that to follow Christ requires dealing with that mortal nature – then perhaps Mark’s arrangement of things can remind us that if the Son of Man Himself suffered before glory, then our own lives may be no different. We aren’t likely to face the intensity of what our Lord did – but Jesus seems to want us to remember that before glory, there is struggle.

Some scholars suggest that Mark is writing down Peter’s recollections about life with Jesus. Perhaps they are in Rome in the post burning of Rome period when Nero decided Christians ought to be persecuted. What if some of the believers there, not unlike we are sometimes, are wondering how the Jesus story could be true if their lives were so difficult?

One of my favorite things about Jesus is that He never asks of us more than He Himself has already done – and then some. The gospel of Mark is great testimony to that reality. 

May the season of Lent continue to motivate us to follow in His steps – and avoid the tendency to think that all of life should be easy and simple. We know by experience that it isn’t – may we learn by faith to accept that and allow Jesus’ example to form our own lives.

Clashing Cultures and Christian Theology

For a number of years I taught a course at Point (ACC at the time) titled Life and Literature of Paul. It was a fun course to teach – albeit a challenging one – and I was grateful for the opportunity to teach it. I decided that one of my personal goals would be to try and figure out “what made Paul Paul.” I still don’t think I can completely answer that question, but I’m confident I learned some things about him.

About a week ago, HarperOne published Paul: A Biography by N.T. Wright. As is always the case with his work, Wright’s biography is amazing. Some of what I think I learned in teaching that class has been confirmed by Wright’s biography. Then, I’m reading lots of stuff that makes me think “Why didn’t I think of that?”

One of the best things about the scholarship of N.T. Wright is that he actually believes in the church and its mission to the world. That means when you are reading him, even his more academic stuff, there is always a connection to the real world of trying to follow Jesus in a world that is so challenging. 

Here’s an example. He is describing the early Christian community in Antioch of Syria in the days before Barnabas goes to Tarsus to get Saul. Actually, the chapter on Antioch in the book is worth the price of the book. This is one of the best of many good comments in the chapter:

If a community like the one in Antioch was to keep its balance as a group of Jesus-followers in that world of clashing cultures, its members would need to grasp two things. On the one hand, they would have to put down roots firmly into the Jewish traditions, into the scriptures. On the other hand, they would have to think through what precisely it meant that Israel’s Messiah, the fulfillment of those same scriptures, had been crucified and raised from the dead. (page 92)

In Wright’s imaginative telling of what could have been “the story line” at that moment, Barnabas knew no one was better prepared to lead the believers in Antioch “to keep its balance” than his friend Saul. Having grown up in the sophisticated university town of Tarsus in a Pharisee family, then sent to study under the greatest Jewish teacher of the day Gamaliel, Saul of Tarsus knew the scriptures of Israel in ways beyond the average person’s greatest dreams and the experience on the Damascus Road had brought to reality that the Jewish Messiah had been crucified and raised from the dead. He could interact with the world around him – Jewish and Roman – with that information. 

Everything has changed. Wright sees this moment as a kind of birth of Christian theology, and his phrase “clashing cultures” to describe the world into which Christian theology was born sounds like it came from the front page of today’s AJC. 

All of this has me thinking. How do we do Christian theology in a world of clashing cultures? If I listen to the news – be it CNN, MSNBC, FOX, or one of the broadcast groups – I almost always think “that’s not my world.” I watched some of the Oscars Sunday evening, and I think, “that is not my world.” Every day when I read what is going on in the Georgia legislature, I’m thinking “that’s not my world.” Social media is no more convincing either. The stuff people post on social media, “Lord, have mercy. That is not my world.” When I look at much of what passes for justice in our culture, I think, "that's not my world."

 

Unfortunately some of the most offensive signs of “clashing cultures” are the things some Christians say about each other and what other Christians say about the world. What could be more of a “clashing culture” moment than Christians ignoring “the common good” around us and instead of “making disciples as we go,” we pronounce judgment on one and all – except those like us? 

The emerging church in Antioch, like would be true for hundreds of other similar kingdom outposts planted all over the Greco-Roman world in the last half of the first century, flourished not because the Roman Senate passed a law to protect them or made certain immoral behaviors illegal. They flourished not because they retreated from the world around them and built isolated fiefdoms of people already like them.

They flourished because they dove head first in to the world of Scripture and discovered a promise God made to Abraham and Sarah that all the world would be blessed through their descendants and realized that Israel’s Messiah, crucified, buried, and raised was God’s absolute assurance that the promise had been kept. With that message, they were willing to take whatever risks necessary to engage culture for the sake of the Kingdom of God. 

Christian theology might very well have been born in Antioch. The marvelous mind that God gave Saul of Tarsus, along with his training, his study of Scripture, and the presence of God’s Spirit in his life made it possible, to borrow Wright’s words, for the church “to keep its balance as a group of Jesus-followers in that world of clashing cultures.” 

Because of that kind of faith, issues of gender, geography, and group identity melted away in the glorious good news that “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Galatians 3:26ff. ESV)

It is that kind of Christian theology that creates community, not individualism. It is that kind of Christian theology that is rooted in Scripture, not systems. It is that kind of Christian theology that reflects the politics of Jesus (think John Howard Yoder’s great book) not party politics.