Car Theft!

Injustice plagues society like a disease

Evil lurks around, eats us like fleas

Favourite hoody just got snatched

Feel the anger inside me, it just got hatched

Insurance can’t replace what I just lost

Sentimental value - can’t repay the cost

I don’t want another, I want what’s mine

Probably sold my goods for under a dime

Kodak the digital camera is no more

It was lying in my car, on the floor

Smashed up glass with a broken window

Who really did this? I don’t know

“Get busy living or get busy dying”

Is on a head - while I be crying.

Is this for real, what the heck!

Ripped out its socket is my tape deck

Shattered pieces on my front seat

It’s all messed up, nothing is neat

It’s just like society – it’s a disease

The darkness lurks, just like fleas…

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Thoughts on McLaren

Brian McLaren is an engaging character, with a passion for the church and a heart for people. He listens carefully, honestly and courageously. I was quite impressed, even though at times I part ways with his understanding. I won't summarise his session, but rather point to something similar he did with my former teacher and emergent guru, Steve Taylor.

Brian has apparently just retired from full time pastoral ministy and is now in a liminal space, a place of transition into ________ He doesn't know. Possibly full time writing, possibly consulting, but he just doesn't know.

His topic was Being a Missional Church. Obviously being in South Africa, he engaged with David Bosch's seminal study: Transforming Mission. Brian worked through this powerpoint, which was quite helpful. Most helpful however was an off-hand remark about Michael Polanyi - with a quote from Polanyi's celebrated: Personal Knowledge. For ease of reference, I'll quote a little more than what Brian noted:

An art which cannot be specified in detail cannot be transmitted by prescription, since no prescription for it exists. It can be passed on only by example from master to apprentice. This restricts the range of diffusion to that of personal contacts.

It follows that an art which has fallen into disuse for the period of a generation is altogether lost. There are hundreds of examples of this to which the process of mechanization is continuously adding new ones. These losses are usually irretrievable. It is pathetic to watch the endless efforts -- equipped with microscopy and chemistry, with mathematics and electronics -- to reproduce a single violin of the kind the half-literate Stradivarius turned out as a matter of routine more than 200 years ago.

To learn by example is to submit to authority. You follow your master because you trust his manner of doing things even when you cannot analyse and account in detail for its effectiveness. By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. These hidden rules can be assimilated only by a person who surrenders himself to that extent uncritically to the imitation of another.

... practical wisdom is more truly embodied in action than expressed in rules of action... [1] Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-critical Philosophy (1958) pp. 53-54

This applies not only to the art of exegesis [Recall Ben Witherington's comment: Good exegetes are not born, they are made and moulded, and the process is more helpful and less painful if you are learning from the best.] but also to our relationships, and to authority. In fact, thoughts are brewing in my reflections as to how this relates to Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine. But maybe more reflections on that, later...

McLaren finished his discussion with some helpful comments on how this relates to discipleship and working together. Although I think McLaren is at his best when he's writing, hearing his voice was a deep reminder that here is someone who is trying to take Jesus and the Kingdom seriously, even if I part ways on one or three issues... So well done Brian!

26% Evil!

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

Well, at least I'm not as bad as Chris! And at least, I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you [IN ME!] will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

a day with McLaren

Well, I spent the day with none other than Brian McLaren today. [Why don't any serious NT Scholars come to Africa?] It was rather fun, with presuppositions and assumptions flying all over the place and being questioned left, right and centre. It was great fun. He spoke on Is Jesus the Only Way, and in characteristic form -> changed the question, addressed another question and left the audience with some more questions. Kinda like Jesus, but not as good as the Master. I'll hopefully post some more tomorrow after a session on "Being a Missional Church" which is his series title...

Setting the Record Straight

I'd like to publicly announce that Chris Tilling got it wrong, and that Eddie got it right! But then Eddie failed to notice a most heinous theological blunder which Chris made, which puts Eddie in the same category! What am I talking about, you may be asking yourself. Well, let's take a closer look....

Who said?

"True respect for the mystery can express itself, among other ways,

just in the attempt to understand it fully."

Well, Eddie was right: Wolfhart Pannenberg, and I think he said it in: Jesus: God and Man. But who said:

"It's Question that Drives us"

Certainly NOT Morpheus. And I'm shocked that no-one has picked this up. I think a healthy dose of The Matrix and repentance is in order... Shame on you... :)

Scripture

Listen to these wise words from the eminent historian Craig Evans

A rigid, conservative view of Scripture is suspicious of the data concerning scribal errors, corrections, glosses and the like, in the transmission of biblical manuscripts, and very suspicious of the data indicating the activity of early scribes, including the evangelists themselves, in editing the final product, before being transmitted as authoritative Scripture. In the conservative mind, Scripture is not supposed to be this way—and usually ideas akin to dictation theories of inspiration are entertained. Conservative Bible teachers may assure students that dictation is not correct, but their treatment of some of these critical aspects of Scripture may well leave students with the impression that Scripture should be viewed in such a way. I find it intriguing that the admissions of people like Robert Funk, James Robinson, Robert Price, and Bart Ehrman, who describe their drift from their conservative Christian roots, run along these lines. When they discover that the contents of the Bible did not in fact drop down from heaven, they have a crisis of faith. When it turns out that not everything attributed to Jesus in the New Testament Gospels actually derives from the historical Jesus, they collapse. What a pity. I invite them to read again Acts 2 and perhaps a few of Paul’s letter. Christian faith is a response to the good news of what God has done in Christ, including above all the resurrection. Christian faith is not suppose to be a response to an inerrant New Testament which contains four Gospels that can be perfectly harmonized, free from scribal errors, emendations, and glosses.

Christian faith does not rest on a particular view of Scripture, as though it must be inerrant if the gospel message is to be true. I remind my students that Peter in Acts 2 proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus and his divine sonship; he did not proclaim the inerrancy of Scripture. In my view, Christians create a lot of their own problems by advancing a dubious apologetic concerning Scripture. This dubious apologetic sometimes comes back to haunt students, who in later years and after more study find their earlier teaching unpersuasive.

Thanks to Alan Bandy for making this available to us.

The Cambridge Companion to the Gospels

Series: Cambridge Companions to Religion Edited by Stephen C. Barton

The four gospels are a central part of the Christian canon of scripture. In the faith of Christians, this canon constitutes a life-giving witness to who God is and what it means to be truly human. This volume treats the gospels not just as historical sources, but also as crucial testimony to the life of God made known in Jesus Christ. This approach helps to overcome the sometimes damaging split between critical gospel study and questions of theology, ethics and the life of faith. The essays are by acknowledged experts in a range of theological disciplines. The first section considers what are appropriate ways of reading the gospels given the kinds of texts they are. The second, central section covers the contents of the gospels. The third section looks at the impact of the gospels in church and society across history and up to the present day.

• The contributors include not only New Testament specialists, but also theologians and ethicists
• The essays address subjects not usually covered in standard introductions to the gospels, including their impact on Christian lives, spirituality and worship
• Interdisciplinary and international, the book will be of interest to an unusually wide audience, including theology students, religious professionals, academics, and theologically literate lay people

Contents Introduction Stephen C. Barton;

Part I. Approaching the Gospels - Context and Method: 1. What is a gospel? Loveday Alexander; 2. The fourfold gospel Francis Watson; 3. The canonical matrix of the gospels Richard B. Hays; 4. The gospels and ‘the historical Jesus’ Stephen E. Fowl; 5. The gospels and the reader Sandra M. Schneiders;

Part II. The Gospels as Witnesses to Christ - Content and Interpretation: 6. The Gospel according to Matthew Stephen C. Barton; 7. The Gospel according to Mark Joel B. Green; 8. The Gospel according to Luke John T. Squires; 9. The Gospel according to John Marianne Meye Thompson;

Part III. The Afterlife of the Gospels - Impact on Church and Society: 10. The gospels and the development of doctrine Frances Young; 11. The gospels embodied: the lives of saints and martyrs David Matzko McCarthy; 12. Praying the gospels: spirituality and worship Gordon Mursell; 13. Living the gospels: morality and politics Scott Bader-Saye.

αγαπην εν πνεθματι

Paul writes: ο και δηλωσασ την υμων αγαπην εν πνεθματι [Colossians 1:8]

Dunn [Colossians, pg. 65, italics mine] notes that:

The love that mirrors the love of God in Christ can only be aroused and sustained by the Spirit of God. The phrase carries overtones of an inspiration that wells up from within, charismatically enabled (Rom. 2:29; 1 Cor. 12:3, 9, 13; 14:16; 1 Thes. 1:5), and that depends on continued openness to the Spirit if its quality of unselfish service of others is to be maintained.

May your love in/by the Spirit be made known to others...

Revelation and Scripture

Chris Tilling offers some open and honest reflections on Propositional Revelation and Scripture, and a 2nd installment on the same theme. I must confess that I am close to Chris' position, but further nuancing and additions are inspired... [By his comments and not necessarily by GOD, of course!]

For example, I am quite happy to affirm that in the gospels we have the voice of Jesus, and not necessarily the words of Jesus. Although, even this dichotomy needs to be challenged at times. For the gospels may convey Jesus' teachings in Greek [assuming that Jesus didn't speak Greek, contra Stan Porter], but if they communicate the same thing, then they are still the words of Jesus. If I write: "Ek is lief vir my vrou." or "I love my wife." [Words I hope to announce in the future!] I am still communicating the same thing, despite the fact that it is in another language.

But let's take this further. If I was to act this out, or tell a story that somehow still conveyed this, then I am still communicating this. And unlike forms of postmodernity, I would contend that there are limits to interpretation so as to guard us from misunderstanding. In this way, I would suggest that the gospels, and their writers, adequately and sufficiently communicate what Jesus had communicated to them. So even if Jesus had told the story of the prodigal son in a vastly different manner, the way Luke has told it still captures the point(s) and message that Jesus was communicating. And that furthermore, the Spirit has adequately and sufficiently communicated to us a message from YHWH [however contextual] in the writings of scripture.

Of course, I have moved from Chris' original point at this stage of my comments, but this would be my $0,25 to add to the conversation.

Who Said?

And where did he say it?

"True respect for the mystery can express itself, among other ways,

just in the attempt to understand it fully."

I'll give clues later, but I'm actually quite serious in not knowing where he said this, I have an inclination towards a certain publication, but certainty alludes me...