by Dr. Edward W.H. Vick, retired professor and author of From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully, Philosophy for Believers, and more!
We have different purposes when we come to read Scripture. We may distinguish two approaches, by the individual and by the established community.
The Community
For many centuries the Bible was in languages the individual Christian could not understand. So what the Bible said was locked away from the majority. Greek, the language of the New Testament, Latin the language of the dominant church, and Hebrew the language of the Old Testament was available only for the few. So the church’s representatives who were able to communicate to the masses provided them with their favoured interpretations for acceptance buys those who had no reference to the text of Scripture.
The individual
There were champions for the individual however. But not till very late in the Christian story. Tyndale and Luther were passionate in believing that given opportunity the individual, humble however he might be, could readily read and understand the Christian teachings if they had access to the text of Scripture. They struggled to provide translations that the ploughboy could read and understand. Two names, among others stand out: William Tyndale and Martin Luther.
It is no longer the case that the text of Scripture is inaccessible to the majority of Christians. We may and must distinguish between two approaches to Scripture.
The individual reads Scripture for the spiritual and moral uplift and understanding it provides. The church community seeks confirmation of its doctrine by reference to Scripture. Indeed some churches claim that their whole teaching is based on Scripture. The serious question then is this: How does one approach Scripture so as to arrive at doctrines that the church teaches as essential? That is the problem that is addressed by the question: Which is a correct and valid way of so interpreting Scripture that what results is faithful to Scripture. This is the activity we call hermeneutic.
We can therefore examine not only the actual teachings, the doctrines of a community, but make clear the method of interpreting Scripture that has led to the production of such doctrines. Such methods of interpreting Scripture are often reflections of particular situations, as indeed the coming into being of the diverse ‘writings’ of Scripture was. To understand in asking the question about hermeneutic, we must examine the historical context in which the hermeneutic emerged. This we must of course do also with reference to the emergence of the many various ‘writings’ included in the biblical canon that we are interpreting.
Divergence
An interesting question arises. How might the devotional, individual reading of Scripture influence the development or acceptance of doctrinal positions? Individual believers as they give careful attention to what they are reading will relate what they understand Scripture to teach to the teachings of the church community of which they are members. Then they may make a decision. Do they correspond? If the reader discerns that they do not, he may resolve the conflict by rejecting the teachings of the church or by asking for consideration of alternatives. In this way the opportunity for the personal reading of Scripture poses a threat to a traditional church. Sometimes that produced determined opposition by the establishment to the translation of Scripture. The cruelty with which such opposition was exposed is well attested. Tyndale and his supporters provide an all too typical example. That is now in the past.
However, some churches have an orthodoxy they seek to maintain rigidly. The sad fact of the rejection of those who doubt and suggest alternatives is well attested. Sanctions of various kinds are applied to such people. A closed community then remains closed, enclosed by the insistence of holding rigidly to its traditions, sometimes defending its insistence by claiming that its doctrine is a direct and valid interpretation, i. rendering, of Scripture. Here there is conflict with the conviction of the individual reader. Sometimes it leads to reformation. Sometimes to emphatic insistence on maintaining the established teaching, to revival rather than to reformation.
Category: Theology
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Edward W.H. Vick: Reading Scripture
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William P. Tuck: Let's Come Alive to Life!
by Dr. William Powell Tuck, friarsfragment.com, retired pastor, professor and author of soon-to-be-released The Forgotten Beatitude: Worshiping Through Stewardship, A Positive Word for Christian Lamenting: Funeral Homilies, The Church Under the Cross, and more!
Suddenly it dawned on me I was dying. I was beginning to allow routineness, habits, a style of living, patterns of observation, daily practices, customary ways or methods, and orderly procedure to groove for me a rut for life which leads only to death. I was startled with the realization that if I were to live, I must come alive to life.Alan Torey caught this thought when he observed that everyone must learn to understand the “Ah!” of things. Instead of AH, our age is more accurately characterized by BLAH. As we have grown older, we have lost our sense of wonder, excitement, awe, and the very thrill of living itself. The world has grown black and gray before our eyes, and the breathtaking color of life eludes us as a cloud covers our eyes like cataracts. We go through life partially or totally blind to its marvels and wonders.
The other day I was carried back to the land of nostalgia as I listened to an old song over the car radio about a little boy playing in his tree house with a wooden toy horse and a purple bear named Biff. What adventures he engaged in! He fought off Indians, outlaws, and pirates along the flowerbeds, which became a pirate’s cove; the top of a lawn chair represented a mountaintop, and the flowers became a thick forest.
I remember well those years. We have grown older, you say, and we have put away such childish things. What a shame to lose our child-likeness as we outgrow things!
Is it not really to be dead already when you have lost your ability to be moved with awe by a sunset, stirred within by the beauty of the fall colors, a good book, play, movie or song, astonished continuously by the wonders of God’s creation and the inventiveness of humanity, awed with a sense of incredulity at the marvels of your own hand, your heart, a bee, an ant, a monkey, a skunk, a flower, or a newborn baby? You are no longer thrilled by your steamy breath on a glass door in freezing weather, the softness and whiteness of newly fallen snow, the unsure first few steps of a young child, or the breakthrough into the world of reading for a first grade child.
Oh, the wonder of it all! Life is so wonderful and awesome, why is it that most of the time we remain dead to it? We are surrounded by mystery and wonder, but most of us simply take them for granted.
Faith Begins in Wonder
Do you not suppose that this is at least part of what Jesus meant when He said that no one could enter His kingdom until he became as a little child (Matthew 18:1-3)? Genuine faith begins in a rebirth of the sense of wonder and awe. Jesus knew us well, didn’t He? He knew there had to be something radical in our lives – a turning around, a reorientation, a new direction, a, new beginning, a new start. Why remain in death when we can come alive to life?
Scientists tell us that there are at least three characteristics of all living things. Living things take in food or some kind of nourishment. The big fish feeds on the smaller fish. The smaller fish feeds off insects and other smaller creatures in the water. The owl and fox hunt for mice. Flowers draw nourishment from the sun and the soil. Some animals or insects pursue their prey, while others simply wait for it to come to them, and they catch it as it passes by or bumps into them. A rock does not eat; it is not alive. Taking in food is a distinguishing trait of living things. Growth or the repair of one’s organism is also essential for life. When a branch is broken off a live bush or tree, it will repair itself and grow a new stem with more leaves. New life will go on. That is true with some insects, animals, or fish. If a portion of their anatomy is broken off, the body will repair itself. Rejuvenation takes place and a new part is grown. By contrast, a smaller rock does not grow into a larger rock. If my leather shoe sole gets a hole in it, it does not repair itself. It is not alive. I have to get it repaired. Growth for human beings takes us through stages – from a baby, to a child, to an adolescent, and finally to adulthood. Growth is a part of being alive.
Anything that is alive also reproduces itself. Life continues through seeds, eggs, the birth of live babies to human beings and lesser animals. Reproduction is an essential quality of living things. Automobiles do not give birth to smaller cars. They are not alive; they are made.
Bring these characteristics of aliveness over into the spiritual realm, and you will note that all three are essential if you are to be alive spiritually. A person who is alive feeds upon spiritual food as well as physical food. We cannot be nourished and sustained without it.
When you and I were infants, we ate anything that we could get into our mouths. In fact, that is one of the things you have to do to protect a small child. You have to keep them from eating any and everything around them. When I was very small, one of my delightful delicacies was the black dirt underneath the front porch of my grandmother’s house. I enjoyed crawling under there and tasting that dirt. My parents had to keep me away from it. Children will sometimes eat paint off furniture, consume hair, swallow pennies, or all kinds of other things. We have to protect them from those harmful things, because we know that this kind of diet is not good for them.
Some of us wonder why we have such a hard time growing spiritually. Look at what many of us feed on spiritually. We consume only those things which entertain or delight us. We spend little time in nourishing the spiritual side of life.
Our desire for food arises out of a sense of need. We know that if we do not have food we cannot survive. This is also true with our spiritual life. Our spiritual appetite arises out of the need we have to be fed spiritually. This fall and into the season of Thanksgiving, I want to remain open to the wonders of the world around me and within me and be grateful!
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Bruce Epperly: First Do No Harm! (Job, Anne Graham Lotz …)
by Dr. Bruce G. Epperly, pastor, professor, and author of Finding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job, Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God, Healing Marks: Healing and Spirituality in Mark’s Gospel, and more!
One of the first principles of medicine and ministry is “first do no harm.” This is sagely advice, since it is easier to say things that harm than cure, especially in sermons, interviews, and books. Words matter and this is especially true when we try to explain the tragedies of life. The Book of Job is a treatise aimed at exposing harmful theology. While the Book of Job may not give us the right answer – and in some ways the text suggests that humans can never fully fathom the intricacies of creation and providence- the Book of Job, like the (possibly) contemporary dialogues of Plato uncovers the wrong answers to the questions of “why the righteous suffer” or frankly “why do we suffer period?” since, for the most part, the morally ambiguous often receive greater suffering than they deserve, and the downright violent and greedy often to get away scot-free in this lifetime, which for the author of Job is the only one there is.
Recently, Anne Graham Lotz, tried to explain the problem of evil as it relates to terrorism. She tied it to national infidelity. According to Ms. Lotz, when we turn from God’s way, “God abandons us and backs away, and takes his hand of favor away, [God’s] blessings. [God takes] his hand of protection away from us and abandons us…..We’re struggling with our own pride and self-sufficiency. I think that’s why God allows bad things to happen. I think that’s why he would allow 9/11 to happen, or the dreadful attack in San Bernardino, or some of those other places to show us that we need him. We’re desperate without him.” [link to Huffington Post report]
Ms. Lotz claims to have an orthodox Christian position and to be able speak for the God of Universe, discerning clearly God’s thoughts and inclinations. Frankly, that’s above her pay grade and mine, as the author of the Book of Job confesses. Still, her comment is worth considering, especially since the Book of Job is a sustained critique of literal acts-consequences approaches to the problem of suffering. According to the text, Job is the best of persons, and yet he suffers almost beyond his ability to endure. He recognizes that there is no justice in his suffering. Job’s experience is proof that “righteousness leads to rewards” and “sin leads to punishment” approaches to suffering cannot not be theologically sustained, if it taken literally. The majestic dialogue that crowns that climaxes the text suggests that in this intricately connected and wonderful world there are pockets of chaos with which God must even contend. Such pockets of chaos insure that, as Jesus asserts, the sun shines and the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous alike. Evil institutions and nations prosper, as do persons, and likewise faithful institutions, nations, and persons may also flounder. (Matthew 5:45)
Acts do have consequences and a nation’s fidelity shapes its future, to a certain extent. A godly nation – if there is such a one – creates a social order of hospitality, economic justice, and earth care that leads to flourishing. The quest for the peaceable kingdom that inspired the prophets – fair business dealings, concern for the poor, affirmation of the needs of vulnerable persons – leads to less violence in the streets, healthier relationships between law enforcement and minorities, and happier homes, but does not insure complete security for the nation and its citizens. Ms. Lotz’s linear cause and effect understanding of divine blessings and curses does not square with reality, either individually or corporately. Job is clear that it is the wrong answer; and a harmful answer.
Although the Book of Job struggles to find a compassionate God, the text leans toward a vision of God as creative, intimate, concerned with the details of creation, and caring for the world in all its diversity. This theological inclination renders Lotz’s pontifications problematic in terms of their characterization of God. While our actions may enhance or limit what God can do in the world, just as our behaviors place limits on the love others can manifest toward us, no good friend, parent, or grandparent “abandons” her or his child or friend because of her or his mistakes. The Good Shepherd seeks the lost one. The father runs out to greet his wanton (prodigal) son. Jesus is fully present on the cross, praying for the forgiveness of those who crucify him. My guess is that Ms. Lotz’s relationship to her own family is reflects a higher morality than she attributes to God.
If Jesus said anything about God’s morality and love, it is that God is more moral and more loving than we are. This is God’s nature, not something God can arbitrarily withhold. A deity who withholds his care to allow terrorist acts in Orlando, San Bernardino, or on 9/11 can be feared but hardly loved, and in character is little better than abusive parent whom we would prosecute for child endangerment and manslaughter.
The Book of Job reminds us to be careful about what we say about God. Our words about God can hurt or heal, can incite violence or promote love, can open the door to seekers or turn outsiders away. Popular religious leaders would do well to consult Job – and Jesus – before making pronouncements on the reality of evil.
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Edward W. H. Vick: Authority and Orthodoxy
by Edward W.H. Vick, retired professor and author of Philosophy for Believers, Creation: The Christian Doctrine, From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully and more!
The explanation of authority might sound like this.(1) God has called and appointed the elders as custodians of the truth. God has ordained the leaders of the community and given to the group (committee, council) special guidance. This person , this group, those with these gifts, are given a special status so that their decisions, their pronouncements have authority i.e. are to be accepted as the true expression of doctrine. That means that it becomes the orthodox teaching of the particular community. When that acceptance takes place the teaching assumes a kind of fixity. The group may not originate the teaching, but endorse it, sometimes in face of alternatives, indeed sometimes because of the threat of what is considered to be heresy!
(2) God has granted certain gifts to one particular person to enable that person to function as teacher, leader or prophet.
It is to be noted that the existence of writings held to be authoritative may be taken for granted, may be presupposed. In that case the person or persons having authority will be expected to provide correct interpretations of such writings. Their interpretations will be taken as normative.
Illustrations can readily be found of binding authority, sometimes virtual infallibility, for such interpretations: for (1) Church councils, e.g. Nicaea, Chalcedon, framers of the Westminster Confession and of the Thirty-nine Articles, contemporary doctrinal committees,
For (2) also examples can readily be provided for outstanding individuals, e.g. Luther, Calvin, modern ‘prophets’.
In every case the authority of the proposed teaching depends upon acceptance within the particular community of the status of the proposing group or person. That is often assumed, taken without question. But the believer should understand the situation and look for a justifying explanation to make clear why such status is granted. However, before it can be explained, it has to be recognised.
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Bob Cornwall: What Use is God?
by Dr. Robert D. Cornwall, pastor and author, from his blog, Ponderings on a Faith Journey. Author of Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer, Unfettered Spirit: Spiritual Gifts for the New Great Awakening, Marriage in Interesting Times: A Pariticipatory Study Guide, and more!
What use is God if God can’t or won’t prevent evil from occurring? That’s a question people have been asking for millennia. Theologians and philosophers have done their best offer answers defending God (the term for this is theodicy), but the question keeps arising. It would be easier if Christian theology allowed for the existence of two equally powerful gods, one good and the other evil (dualism). Then evil could be blamed on the evil god, leaving the God of love untainted. Unfortunately, that solution isn’t available to Christians, for like other traditional monotheistic religions, Christians believe that God has no ultimate rival. Therefore, we must look elsewhere for answers.
A seventeenth-century theologian suggested this is “the best possible world,” and so we should accept things as they are. This solution, however, ultimately failed to gain full support. Either God is capable of keeping evil at bay (omnipotent) and fails to do so, or God is too weak to address evil. If either is true, then why bother with God? (Read More … )
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Edward W.H. Vick: Interpreting Scripture
by Dr. Edward W. H. Vick, author of From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully, Philosophy for Believers, Creation: The Christian Doctrine and more!
Being Faithful to the TextSince the Scriptures are in some sense fundamental for the Christian theologian, how is he to be faithful to them in constructing theology? What does it mean for him to claim that what he says is in accordance with the Scriptures?
Is he simply to repeat what the Scriptures say? But that would not be to interpret. To repeat is not to bring us any closer to understanding, but only restates our problem, when we have difficulties with the text. But of course the theologian does not begin from scratch. He does not start on his own. He stands within a tradition of interpretation to which he is indebted both positively and negatively. He affirms and he criticises what that tradition says. If he is at all constructive he follows and he departs from the guidance it gives him.
The writer lived a long time ago. Is the temporal gap between him and us important or not? It may be. Time separates. I may be able to understand his meaning, and without any difficulty make it my meaning (whether I agree or disagree with it). But suppose his circumstances are very different from mine and what he said was closely related to his very different circumstances? Suppose indeed that what he took for granted can no longer be taken for granted since his culture no longer exists. How shall I interpret what he meant so that it has meaning for me? His words may well have a different meaning for me than they had for him. If that is the case, can we speak about being faithful to his meaning? How shall we know whether we are ‘taking’ his words correctly in our different situation? Note that the situation is different from one in which we want to know what the writer meant and could not (for various reasons) get him to pronounce on it (e.g. he was silent or he was dead). We are now asking whether there is a relation between his meaning and ours such that we may say that our meaning is a faithful interpretation of his.
‘Faithful’ here may mean: (1) that there is some common meaning or intention which we can specify between his meaning and ours; (2) that a generalization can be made to cover both meanings; (3) that our meaning is a possible derivative from his, that he may well have meant and understood what we understand by it if he were in our circumstances. In each case we have considered all the evidence available, historical, linguistic, literary, and theological. (4) that we in our time share the intention which the Biblical writer and in particular the writer of the New Testament shared and that we attempt to execute it in our context. The task is to interpret the revelation of God in Jesus Christ which takes place here and now. This involves presenting its meaning for us and its application to the situations which we now encounter. The continuity of the task is thus rooted in the continuity of God’s revelation in the past with his revelation in the present. This involves moving beyond strict ‘biblical’ theology to constructive or systematic theology.
Langdon Gilkey addresses himself to the question ‘how the theologian is “faithful” to the scriptural source and how he or she shows a continuity with the spirit of major elements of tradition.’4 He writes, ‘Does this mean the theologian copies or repeats the words, the categories, the propositions of Scripture and tradition; that he or she makes a précis of Scripture or writes a commentary on accepted dogma? If copying or repeating is futile because anachronistic, what is it that the theologian “draws” from this source and this resource?’5
He explains that the Christian tradition has a set of central symbols, through which it interprets the meaning of beliefs, values and goals.
‘In the Christian tradition these symbols find their normative expression, and for theology their source, in the Scriptures, since their primary reference is to the events of revelation to which the Scriptures witness. It is these symbols that are reinterpreted in various ways in tradition; and it is they that the theologian must reinterpret, re-present, in a manner intelligible to us and yet “appropriate” or faithful to their sense in their original locus.’6
The symbols to which Gilkey refers are such as the following: God as Lord, as judge, as electing, choosing, covenanting; God as giver of the Law, God as redeemer, God as faithful; the covenant, the elected people, the Messiah, the new age to come. These symbols familiar in the Old Testament reappear in a new pattern in the New Testament where they are centred around Jesus Christ. In turn, new symbols emerge: incarnation, atonement, resurrection, trinity, second advent.
He then explains the task of theology in reference to these symbols.
‘“Biblical theology” is the attempt to give a unified account of these symbols as they appear in the Old and New Testaments; historical theology is the story of these symbols as they have been reinterpreted in the tradition. Theology as a whole, then, concerns itself with these symbols and with their power to illumine our existence. The awesome and risky task of “constructive” or “systematic” theology is to provide or propose a unified contemporary understanding of that same complex of symbols, an understanding that is (a) faithful to their original sense in Scripture and tradition, (b) adequate to our own general experience, and (c) intelligible in our time.’7
Doctrine does not simply repeat or summarize the Scripture. For one thing, it uses language not found in Scripture. For another thing it is selective. How then does doctrine, theology, interpret Scripture? The task of systematic theology is to present the meaning for today of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. In doing so it uses language which the Bible does not use. The Christian Church has done that from the beginning. Such theology is constructive in that it does for us today what the writers of the New Testament were doing in their time: interpreting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What we are in our turn interpreting in expounding the New Testament writings is itself a series of interpretations of this fundamental event. That event is Jesus Christ. As history proceeds each particular church community reflects upon the meaning of Jesus Christ for itself, and relates that meaning to the special circumstances of its own history. It will also take account of, and select from, the long history of Christian tradition that which it finds amenable and suggestive for its doctrinal construction.
So what does it mean for a doctrine or a theology to be in harmony with, to be faithful to Scripture? Let us look at alternative answers to the question:
(1) repeating the original words of Scripture;
(2) repeating the original meaning of Scripture;
(3) making a direct application (where possible) of the original meaning of Scripture;
(4) making an indirect application of the original meaning of Scripture;
(5) providing meaning not contradicted by passages of Scripture, where there are such passages as treat of the same subject;
(6) providing meaning not contradicted by Scripture, for the reason that Scripture does not speak about the same subject;
(7) doing today in our way what the writers of Scripture did in their way, namely to interpret the meaning of God’s action in Jesus Christ as we have experienced it, and in meaningful contemporary language, addressing men and women who live in our world and in no other.
The right place to begin is with the last of these suggestions (7). We shall understand Scripture only if we know the reality they were proclaiming: the revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ and the faith which has responded to it. That happens now and the light from that continuing event illuminates the whole of life in our world: a very complex world. It is our task to show now how that event, that experience, casts light on our problems, for instance on our self-understanding or our understanding of our social relationships and on what we have learnt about it from the psychologist and the sociologist. How does the Gospel illuminate our world in which barbarity and oppression, affluence and abject poverty, hatred between human beings and totally inadequate social and political measures to cope with world problematic etc. etc., are so evident? It is this world of advanced knowledge scientific and technological that has made our outlook so different from ancient peoples in which we understand and present the Gospel of Jesus Christ as best we can. It is in this world that we address ourselves ever anew to the questions of humanity, Who is God? What is man? Why is there evil? Can there be hope? Who am I?
We shall as we do so construct our answers in different ways. Sometimes Scripture language will seem appropriate. At other times the language of Scripture will be very remote from the problems with which we wrestle. That is only to be expected. They did not live in our scientific, bureaucratic, technological and international world. But that to which they witness is that to which we witness. We are bound together in a common witness and in a common task.
To attempt to fulfil this task will obviously take us beyond the text of Scripture . It will involve us in construction of language and ideas, in the use of words and concepts from secular and non-theological spheres. But in being faithful to Jesus Christ, we are in our turn and in our way being faithful to the Bible.
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William Powell Tuck: There Are Many Lessons from Failure
by Dr. William P. Tuck, author of The Church Under the Cross, The Journey to the Undiscovered Country, Overcoming Sermon Block: The Preacher’s Workshop, The Last Words from the Cross, Holidays, Holy Days and Special Days: Preaching Through the Year and more! His blogsite is: friarsfragment.comMany people in life have experienced failure. Moses wanted to go into the Promised Land. He had led the Children of Israel for forty years to the Promised Land. God did not permit him to enter that land himself. He caught a vision of it from Mount Pisgah. David longed to build a temple for God. Because of his sin, he was not permitted to do that. But he still has influenced many through his leadership as king in Israel and through his many psalms. Jeremiah wrote about his own sense of failure. He had preached for thirty-eight years that the end was coming for the nation of Israel, but it did not. He experienced only rejection from the people. He felt that he was a failure. But history proved him correct in his prophecy.
Adoniram Judson wanted to go as a missionary to India with the gospel of Christ, but that door was closed and he turned to Burma. Caruso was told by a music teacher that he had no real potential as a singer. He didn’t listen to that word of failure but went on to be one of the greatest singers of all time. Einstein failed physics. Walter Scott tried to write poetry, but was unable to compose very good poems. Later he wrote novels and became one of the outstanding writers of all times. Georgia Harkness wanted to be a missionary but that door was closed. She went on in her education and got a Ph.D. from Boston University and later became the first woman to be a professor in a theological seminary and to be admitted as a member of the American Theological Society. Helen Montgomery was discouraged from translating the New Testament because she was a woman. But she finished her translation and it was widely praised and accepted.
Lloyd Douglas was a minister in California and resigned his church with a sense of failure as pastor. At the urging of his brother in law, who reminded him that he had always wanted to write a novel, he began to write. His first novel was the famous Magnificent Obsession. Edison wanted to be a newspaperman, but he spilled acid on the papers and was fired. Later when he was working in his lab and had failed eleven hundred times with various experiments, somebody asked Edison: “Doesn’t that mean that you have failed?” “No,” he responded. “It just means I know eleven hundred things that don’t work!” Charlotte Elliot was ill and suffered greatly but wrote over one hundred hymns.
Many persons have failed in their original goals. Few reach everything they aim for the first time. R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store caught on in New York City. Whistler, the artist, wanted to be a soldier but failed his chemistry exams at West Point. John Creasy, an English novelist, received seven hundred fifty-three rejection slips before the first of his five hundred and sixty-four novels was published. Babe Ruth struck out thirteen hundred and thirty times. But he also hit seven hundred and fourteen home runs.
Charles Kettering of General Motors, one of this century’s great creative minds, once wrote these words about the value of learning to fail:
An inventor is simply a person who doesn’t take his education too seriously. You see, from the time a person is six years old until he graduates from college he has to take three or four examinations a year. If he flunks once, he is out. But an inventor is almost always failing. He tries and fails maybe a thousand times. If he succeeds once then he’s in. These two things are diametrically opposite. We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
From your failures you can learn what doesn’t work and you can take another approach. There is more growth in risking something great and failing than succeeding at something easy or insignificant without cost or risks.
A Radical Idea
We may fail in one area of life sometimes. That failure, however, does not have to become final. We can learn from our losses and be better persons because of these experiences.
Wayne Dyer has challenged us to consider what he describes as a “radical idea.”
“There is no such thing as failure! Failing is a judgment that we humans place on a given action. Rather than judgment, substitute this attitude: You cannot fail, you can only produce results! Then the most important question to ask yourself it, ‘What do you do with the results you produce?’”
Whether it is learning to play the piano or guitar or taking up golf or mastering the computer or baking a cake, we may not do well at first. Do we look at the results of our efforts and then ask, “Where do I go from here? What have I learned to help me move further along?” Each ‘failure’ provides a learning opportunity to move us toward achieving better results next time.
In one of Paul’s Epistles he writes that John Mark had deserted him. He and Barnabas had a falling out over John Mark. Paul felt that Mark had failed him when he needed him. We don’t know why Mark deserted Paul. Was he homesick or afraid? We don’t know. Barnabas continued to work with Mark. Later Mark became one of the great saints in the early church and the author of one of the gospels. Paul changed his mind about him and requested in one of his last letters, “Bring John Mark with you, because he is a great comfort to me.”
Mark’s failure was not final. Like Mark and many others, we can learn from our failures to become stronger and better persons. “The value of a man,” (or woman) Paul Tournier writes, “is not to be measured so much by his successes as by the way he bears his undeserved failures, that nothing is more dangerous for a man than unlimited success.”
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Herold Weiss: Paul Did Not Teach Righteousness by Faith
by Dr. Herold Weiss, author of Meditations on the Letters of Paul
Martin Luther’s argument against the selling of indulgences to shorten one’s stay in purgatory before reaching heaven was a courageous and necessary attack on a grievous abuse of ecclesiastical authority. The ninety five theses he nailed to the door of the church at the university where he was a professor of Scripture presented his argument with meticulous precision. At its core, the point was that “works” were not what saved those doing them. In other words, paying for sins did not open the gates of heaven. Said positively, Luther’s argument has survived and become encapsulated and promoted as “righteousness by faith.” These days the phrase is understood somewhat differently by different Christians. Generally, it is understood to mean that to be saved one must believe that the death of Jesus on the cross pays for one’s sins and thereafter believers receive strength to live in conformity with the Ten Commandments. In other words, salvation is attained by faith in a substitutionary atonement, and the keeping of the commandments, made possible by Christ’s grace, keeps believers from sinning again.I find the above understanding of righteousness by faith only tangentially related to the theology of the apostle Paul. It is true that there are two texts in Paul’s writings which could be understood in terms of substitution, but such an interpretation is not demanded by them. One says that “God shows his love for [eis] us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for [hyper] us” (Romans 5: 8), and the other says that “the life I now live in the flesh I live by [the Greek says “in”] faith in [the Greek says “of”] the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for [hyper] me” (Galatians 2: 20). The English of the first text uses the preposition “for” twice, but the Greek has two different ones. The Greek preposition eis usually is translated “toward.” In this case it indicates that God’s love is directed towards us, it is aimed at us. The basic meaning of hyper is “on behalf of,” “having to do with.” In other words, Christ’s death had to do with us, had us in mind. It was concerned with us. The idea also appears in the earliest Christian confession known to us. Paul quotes it as the foundation on which to build his argument against those who teach that there is no future resurrection. It said, “Christ died for [hyper] our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and he appeared . . . “ (1 Corinthians 15: 3). The confession is formulaic. The formula “for our sins” is balanced with the formula “on the third day,” and both are declared to be fulfilments of the Scriptures. In summary, that Christ’ death had to do with “ us,” “me” or “our sins” was the customary way of affirming that Christ’s death had not been just a Roman execution, which in fact it had also been, but an event of cosmic significance in which God was involved. It was “concerned with” the life humans live under the power of sin. These texts do not show that Paul saw the death of Christ as a substitute for the death of sinners.
Paul is quite clear, however, on the necessity for all men and women to die with Christ. In other words, the predominant Pauline teaching is not that Christians need not die because Christ died for them, but that all must participate in the death of Christ in order to also live “in Christ.” He does not teach a substitutionary atonement but the need to die to life in the flesh and live free from the condemnation of the Law (Romans 6: 4-8; 8:1).
The first thing one should know about Paul’s understanding of faith is that for him it is not a noun but a verb. It is a serious handicap that English does not have a verbal form of the root “faith” as it has one of the root “belief.” Faith is not a belief. Faith is a way of being. As Paul says in the verse quoted above, I live “in the flesh” and “in faith.” To live in faith is to live in Christ by the power of the Spirit. For him salvation is not by faith as the adoption of a belief. Salvation is something God accomplishes for those who “live in faith,” that is, those who live faithfully in Christ. Righteousness is not a stamp placed on those who affirm a particular proposition as true, but something “attained to” (Romans 9: 30) by those who live in ‘a manner worthy of the Gospel” (Philippians 1:27).Paul defines the Gospel as “the power of God for [eis] salvation to every one who has faith” (Romans 1:16, RSV). The translation “to every one who has faith” provokes misunderstanding. Paul wrote, “to all the faithful.” Faith is not something to be had, something to be grasped intellectually. The Gospel is not information to be believed, but power to live faithfully (Romans 1:16). Paul says that righteousness can never be attained from [ek] works of law. It can only be attained through [dia] faith in Jesus Christ, or from [ek] Christ’s faith (Galatians 2:16; both expressions are found in this text). This is so because those who have been baptized and thereby have been crucified and raised now have Christ living in them and are guided by the Spirit that made them a new creation. They are “alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6: 11), rather than dead under the Law. Paul, quoting Habakkuk, says that the righteous live from [ek, out of] faith (Galatians 3: 11). In other words, for Paul faith is not a way of knowing but a way of living.
The mantra of righteousness by faith may be used to live unlovingly; it may serve as an excuse for living denying the Gospel’s power to give life. True Christianity is not a theological system, but a way of being. Paul emphasizes that Christians are those who crucify themselves with Christ and participate in the faith that brought about Christ’s resurrection and gives new life to the believers. That Christ died “for [hyper] all” (2 Corinthians 5:14), does not mean that therefore no one else needs to die. It means that his death was concerned with all, and all are welcome to die with him having the faith that Christ himself had in God when he died. Faith has to do with a manner of living and of dying.Paul makes very clear that at the Parousia all will have to appear before God’s judgment and give an account of what they have done (2 Corinthians 5:10). God’s judgment is definitive; therefore, Paul insists, no believer has the authority to judge another. God’s judgment, however, is not an evaluation of what people believe, but an assessment of whether or not they live “in the faith of Jesus Christ.” Since all believers are servants of their Lord Jesus Christ, only their Master has the authority to judge them (Romans 14:4, 10).
Paul also warns his converts of the necessity to live as members of the body of Christ who are guided by the Spirit. As such, they are empowered by the Spirit to discern the will of God (Romans 12:3). Living in the Spirit, guided by the Spirit is living “in faith.” It is living empowered to “approve what is excellent,” and thus be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ” (Philipians 1:10). The conduct of those who have Christ living in them is no longer determined by the conditions of life “in the flesh,” in which the Law of Moses rules. Those who live faithfully are beyond the power of the Law to condemn (Romans 8:1), but not beyond the judgment of God. The sins of the believers are the things they do which are “not of faith” (Romans 14:23). As Paul says, God’s righteousness has been revealed “apart from the Law” (Romans 3:21). According to Paul, those who live actualizing their faith and hope, that is, those who demonstrate the power of God’s promise to give life to the faithful attain to righteousness. That is Paul’s understanding of righteousness by faith. It has to do with the actions performed by those who live in the faith of Jesus when he faced death. It has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments and judicial declarations.
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Thomas Hudgins: Satan, Judas, and the Events Leading Up to the Cross
by Dr. Thomas Hudgins, translator of Aprenda a Leer el Griego del Nuevo Testamento
How did Jesus go from walking around Galilee, teaching the multitudes, healing the sick, and dining in people’s homes to having his body marred more than any other human in history and eventually giving his life for the sins of the world on the cross? Well, there are a number of ways we can approach this question, such as by focusing on the religious elite of Jesus’ day and how they wanted Jesus dead and out of the way. But I want to turn our attention to Satan and Judas Iscariot, paying special attention to where Judas’ life intersects with the workings of the evil one.
The Gospels tell us that Satan was actively involved in leading Jesus to the cross. Maybe you recall where it says in one of the Gospels that Satan “entered into Judas” during the last week of Jesus’ life. But this begs the question, “To which Gospel am I referring?” I say that because there are actually two references in the Gospels to Satan entering into Judas—one in Luke, and one in John. And there are a couple of details that make these reports difficult. So, let’s look at each account and then we can step back and make some observations. I have placed in italics the text indicating Satan entered into Judas.
The first report is found in the Gospel of Luke:Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was approaching. The chief priests and the scribes were trying to figure out a way they could put him to death; for they were afraid of the people. And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve. And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them. They were glad and agreed to give him money. So he consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray him to them apart from the crowd. Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.” (Luke 22:1–8)
The second report is found in the Gospel of John:
When Jesus had said this, he became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray me.” The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss to know of which one he was speaking. One of his disciples, the one who Jesus loved, was reclining on Jesus’ bosom. So Simon Peter signals to him, and says to him, “Figure out who Jesus is talking about.” He, leaning back on Jesus’ bosom, say to him, “Lord, who are you talking about?” Jesus then answers, “The one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when he had dipped the morsel, He takes it and gives it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. After the morsel, Satan entered into him. Therefore Jesus says to him, “That which you are doing, do it quickly.” Now no one that was reclining at the table knew for what purpose he had said this to him. Some thought he said it because Judas was in charge of money box, and Jesus was basically saying to him, “Buy the things we need for the feast”; the other option was he was saying Judas should give something to the poor. So after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night. (John 13:21–30)
Alright, so you can tell there is something going on here in the accounts that needs our attention. According to Luke, Satan enters Judas before the disciples sit down to celebrate the Passover. In fact, according to Luke, it takes place before the plans for the Passover meal are finalized. According to John, Satan enters into Judas during the Passover meal. Luke mentions demonic possession in a number of places (Luke 8:30, 33). John, however, makes no such mention in his Gospel, well except one. The sole mention of possession in the Gospel of John is this entrance of Satan into Judas. So how many times did Satan enter into Judas—once, twice, or never at all? And why did Satan enter into Judas, or, depending on how you answer the first question, why did the authors of their respective Gospels indicate that Satan did so?
I’m going to go ahead and show my cards. I think Satan entered into Judas twice. Part of the reason I answer this way has to do with what I think about the Scriptures. They are inspired by God and, as a result, they are true in the reports they present. They are totally accurate and the accuracy of their content flow out of the very character of God, for whom it is impossible to lie. Even if someone does not agree with this view on biblical inspiration, the evidence in John supports two entrances of Satan into Judas. John does not directly mention the entrance found in Luke. Why not? Well, John focuses heavily on sharing material that is not found in the other Gospels. And John focuses heavily on describing the events of the last night of Jesus’ life (John 13ff.). Even though John does not specifically mention the entrance found in Luke, he does seem to make an indirect reference to it. He writes:During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come forth from God and was going back to God, gets up from supper, and lays aside his garments; and taking a towel, he girded himself. (John 13:2)
When John indicates that the devil (i.e., Satan) had already put the desire to betray Jesus in the heart of Judas, he is probably referring to the account found in Luke. John specifically mentions Satan’s involvement in this desire. He put the desire inside Judas. And apparently he needed to enter Judas in order to accomplish this end. Satan enters Judas the first time to put the idea in Judas’ mind and heart. And considering how Satan is presented in other texts (e.g., Genesis 3; Matthew 4), he probably did everything he could to make the idea as appealing as possible. Just think, if Satan could take Jesus up to a mountain and show him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory (and offer them to Jesus in return for his worship), how appealing would he make this opportunity to betray Jesus and in exchange for what (though an offer is nowhere mentioned in the Gospels or elsewhere)?
So Luke records this first entrance. That moment is the first time Satan shows up personally and out front in the plan to get Jesus to the cross. Luke foreshadowed this moment after the temptation: “When the devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13, emphasis added). That first entrance into Judas was this opportune time, and Satan would take a very active role leading up to the cross from that point forward, both with the betrayal of Jesus and the temptation of some (possibly all) of his apostles. I say some of his apostles (plural), not one of his apostles. The reason is because Jesus told Peter leading up to the cross that Satan was going to tempt him and the other apostles: “‘Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you (plural) like wheat; but I have prayed for you (singular), that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers’” (Luke 22:31–32). The mention of the first entrance by Luke connects the dots from Luke 4 to Luke 22, and it reminds Theophilus and his greater audience that the cross has not only the attention of all of heaven, but that of all of the domain of darkness as well. John connects the dots as well. His Gospel in many ways is the “behind-the-scenes” Gospel, providing us with some very important and always interesting details about the life of Jesus. The second entrance of Satan into Judas is one of the many offered by John. In the first entrance, Satan plants the idea in Judas’ mind and heart. In the second one, he executes the plan and secures that Jesus will be taken into custody. -
Is Theology No Longer Needed?
by: Herold Weiss
Those who see themselves as the rescuers of the primitive gospel most likely proclaim a gospel that is only a century and a half old, and as such is quite irrelevant to those who do not sing in the choir of their churches. Claiming to have rescued the “eternal verities” of the Gospel they are actually proclaiming “truths” that are no different from the ephemeral truths of science. As is well known, all the truths of science are subject to change when new evidence comes to light. It is sobering to recognize that not too long ago eugenics, lobotomies and lie detectors were considered to be based on scientific truths, but fortunately they have been discarded as demonstrations of premature abuses of trust.
The history of theology is also full of debris left by the banks of the river of time. That the incarnate Son of God was considered by some to be the amalgamation of a human body and spirit with a divine mind (Logos) has been forgotten. That the Christian life is to be promoted by fear of Purgatory, in fact that there is such a place as Purgatory, is no longer held by most Catholic theologians. No one these days gets exited discussing the truth of consubstantiation versus transubstantiation. Most Christians don’t even know what the words mean. The same is true of the classic definition of the Trinity, even though Western and Eastern Christianity broke company charging each other of having a wrong doctrine of the Trinity. Sectarian movements have introduced new doctrines like the Rapture, the Investigative Judgment, Baptism on Behalf of the Dead, etc., but these have remained anomalous sectarian truths.
In his struggles with those who insisted that the Jesus Movement should remain a sect within Judaism, Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, three times says that he is defending the “truth of the Gospel.” The key word in the debate is “circumcision.” Is Paul saying that the truth of the Gospel is that Christians need not be circumcised? Of course not. For him, the truth of the Gospel is that the cross and the resurrection of Christ did not give Judaism a new definition, or a new lease on life. These acts of God constituted a new creation. The power of the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, now gives new life in the Spirit to all those who participate in Christ’s death and resurrection. In other words, the truth of the Gospel is not a piece of information to be defended, but an experience to be lived.
[ene_ptp]These considerations make evident that the Gospel cannot be locked in some of its past formulations. Even the mantra of “righteousness by faith” is now seen as a truth that needed very much to be proclaimed when it was, but which today is misused for modern agendas. The Gospel is not tied to any time, place or culture. It is capable of being expressed in any and all cultures, and needs to be expressed anew by each new generation of believers in their own culture. As the power that makes it possible to live in Christ guided by the Spirit, the Gospel needs to be proclaimed in terms that fit the conditions of human life at any given time and place. If believers are to live, as Paul says, “in a manner that is worthy of the Gospel,” the Gospel must be relevant to the conditions in which Christians live. This means that the will of God that is to be done on earth must be discerned by each generation. If the Gospel is the power that makes it possible to do the will of God, and each new generation finds itself living in a world that is different from the one in which their parents lived, then the actual performance of the will of God must be informed by a clear vision of what it demands from those living “now.” No generation lives at the time of the previous one. It is, therefore, impossible for the proclamation of the Gospel to be effective if it is bound to the past. Even if the death and the resurrection of Christ is a past event, it is also a present event in the lives of those who have died and been risen with him. The reality of this event is “the truth of the gospel.” The most pernicious temptation is to tie the Gospel to a formula and live as one pleases because what the formula says is not relevant to life today.
The Gospel is not information written on stone. The Gospel is power to live transposing faith and hope into acts of love that make the Risen Christ present in the world of quotidian living. This means that the task of Christian theology is never done. As the discourse that explains the will of God for today, theology is always in need of being done. One of the best known traditional definitions, given by Anselm in the XI century, says that theology is “faith seeking understanding.” Faith in God is the positive answer of the whole person to an encounter with God. As such it is a person’s immediate response to the call of God. This experience takes form at the level of the being who is now living in Christ, the whole person responds to God’s call and finds satisfaction and security in the new creation. Once the act of faith has taken place, the person then feels the need to examine what the experience involved by processing the memory of it through the mind. Going over the experience trying to make sense and determining its implications is the work of theology. It establishes the consequences and explores the meaning of living as a response to the call of God. In other words, theology is second level discourse about God. As such, theology is always in need of being done anew because, while God is always the same, each new generation faces God from a different situation, and each member of every generation has a peculiar faith response to God. Thus, every believer does theology in order to understand what life in God’s presence is all about “now.”
Theology is the act of reflecting on the significance, the implications and the consequences of having faith in the promise of God in Christ. This reflection has immediate consequences on the manner in which the one who has faith in God lives. Each believer, however, also talks with other believers and reads what previous believers say about life with God to evaluate his own understanding of God. Besides, theology needs to be done to coordinate the mind of the community of faith with the mind of the fellow human beings who need to know that God loves them. In our own time, when we are experiencing dramatic changes in the way in which we live on account of the rapidity with which scientific and technological advances are changing the way in which all humans around the world live, the need for imaginative and creative theological reflection is paramount. The significance of life in Christ needs to be explained to those who find themselves loaded with the burdens of post-modern life so that they too may experience the dynamic force of the Gospel to bring freedom and joy. Christians must be most seriously engaged in the task of making the life of faith understandable to unbelievers and believers alike. This cannot be accomplished by reliance on the theological formulations of the past centuries. It demands a presentation of the Gospel that is current and relevant to the situations in which women and men find themselves today. It is, therefore, quite evident that the doing of theology is never finished.
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