Getting into Paul's Letter to the Romans

At church, we are doing a sermon series on Paul's letter to the Romans. Below is some background material that I have found helpful.

First, here is Eugene Peterson's introduction from The Message.

"The event that split history into “before” and “after” and changed the world took place about thirty years before Paul wrote this letter. The event—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—took place in a remote corner of the extensive Roman Empire: the province of Judea in Palestine. Hardly anyone noticed, certainly no one in busy and powerful Rome.

And when this letter arrived in Rome, hardly anyone read it, certainly no one of influence. There was much to read in Rome—imperial decrees, exquisite poetry, finely crafted moral philosophy—and much of it was world-class. And yet in no time, as such things go, this letter left all those other writings in the dust. Paul’s letter to the Romans has had a far larger impact on its readers than the volumes of all those Roman writers put together.

The quick rise of this letter to a peak of influence is extraordinary, written as it was by an obscure Roman citizen without connections. But when we read it for ourselves, we begin to realize that it is the letter itself that is truly extraordinary, and that no obscurity in writer or readers could have kept it obscure for long.

The letter to the Romans is a piece of exuberant and passionate thinking. This is the glorious life of the mind enlisted in the service of God. Paul takes the well-witnessed and devoutly believed fact of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and thinks through its implications. How does it happen that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, world history took a new direction, and at the same moment the life of every man, woman, and child on the planet was eternally affected? What is God up to? What does it mean that Jesus “saves”? What’s behind all this, and where is it going?

These are the questions that drive Paul’s thinking. Paul’s mind is supple and capacious. He takes logic and argument, poetry and imagination, Scripture and prayer, creation and history and experience, and weaves them into this letter that has become the premier document of Christian theology."

Here is the poster from The Bible Project.

and the videos

 

 

 Here is a word cloud.

Visualising the church in first century Rome

 I watched the movie, Paul, Apostle of Christ, on Netflix. Here are a few things that I found helpful about the movie. Overall, it provided me with a clearer picture of what it may have been like to be a follower of Jesus in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. 

The Gospel was for "losers": the poor, oppressed, orphans, weak, powerless, children, widows, cripples, and dying. They were held in contempt by the Roman rulers, who were arrogant, ruthless, proud, heartless, pagan, and lovers of money and power. Being a Christian meant living in community, serving the marginalised, being willing to suffer, renouncing violence, and every day facing the possibility of a violent death.

There is a wonderful scene where Paul has a discussion with Mauritius, the Roman soldier who is the prison prefect. Mauritius cannot understand why Paul is a respected and influential leader of the Christians, is willing to suffer, does not gain financially from his ministry, and believes in truth.

Highlights from John's Gospel

The Gospel According to John is a rich narrative built around many stories, metaphors, themes, concepts, events, prayers, teachings, and allusions to the Old Testament. After reading and listening to it multiple times over the past month, it is hard to pick out what is most striking, meaningful, challenging, comforting, or confusing. My previous post provided some brilliant and helpful summaries made by others. To those, I add Eugene Peterson's brilliant discussion in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (pages 85-108).

Here are a few interrelated themes that stood out to me personally. They are so connected that it is hard to put them in a particular order.

Incarnation

The living Word of God became a living human in the form of Jesus. He was the embodiment of God's love, promises, character, power, mystery, grace, and truth.

Sin and salvation

Make no mistake. Humans are sinful. Sin is slavery, destructive, evil, dark, opposed to truth, and leads to spiritual death and judgement, both now and for eternity. Humans need to be saved and redeemed from these terrible consequences. Jesus offers salvation through his sacrificial death. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The whole second half of the Gospel centres around Jesus' death.

Belief, love, and obedience

These cannot be separated. Belief is not just intellectual assent to propositional truth. Belief/faith is trust and active participation. Belief, obedience, love, and personal revelation are synergistic and not sequential. "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me... I will love him and manifest myself to him." (14:21, RSV). (This verse was very helpful to me early in my Christian journey when I memorised it more than forty years ago). See also 7:18 and 8:31-2.

A new creation

John 1 echoes the creation account in Genesis 1, "In the beginning God created..." all life, something good, with powerful words. This creation continues in Jesus, the living Word, who entered this creation to make a new creation, an abundant life and salvation.

Abundant life

Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (10:10, NIV). John wrote his Gospel "that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (20:31, NIV).

Jesus does not just offer eternal life but an abundant life now, even though that may involve suffering, sacrifice, sickness, and death. It is now but not yet. Time and eternity come together in the incarnation, his death, his resurrection, and even in our own lives.

The Spirit

Jesus promised his followers to not leave them alone but to send the Spirit: his living presence, a comforter and advocate. The Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement. The Spirit guides us into the truth, reminding us of Jesus' teaching. The Spirit enables us to forgive others and can unite Christians. The Spirit empowers us for mission, enabling acts of service and bearing witness to the truth. (As the Father sent Jesus, so he sends us).

The characteristics above show that the Spirit is practical, concrete, and personal. This is far from some abstract, vague, and impersonal force. The spirit is not something special people tune into through some mystical process to provide some secret knowledge or an inner voice that will prompt them to take some action to enhance their affluent lifestyle.

False dichotomies and dialectic

The world [cosmos] is flawed, broken, evil, and opposed to Jesus and his followers. Yet this world is also created, beautiful, and redeemable. Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save it.

Jesus' Kingdom is for this world, but its' values are not derived from this world. It is an upside-down kingdom.

The abstract and concrete, the spiritual and material, time and eternity, faith and works. Each half of these pairs is often brought into tension or said to contradict the other half of the pair. However, in the Gospel of John, and ultimately in Jesus, they are brought together in beautiful life-enhancing ways.

Reading the Gospel of John

This month in the theology reading group, we are doing something different. We are not reading a theology book, but a book of the Bible! We will be discussing the Gospel of John. In preparation, I am listening to large sections.

Below is some material that I have found helpful concerning the big picture.

Here is an introduction written by Eugene Peterson for The Message.

"In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God is presented as speaking the creation into existence. God speaks the word and it happens: heaven and earth, ocean and stream, trees and grass, birds and fish, animals and humans. Everything, seen and unseen, called into being by God’s spoken word.

In deliberate parallel to the opening words of Genesis, John presents God as speaking salvation into existence. This time God’s word takes on human form and enters history in the person of Jesus. Jesus speaks the word and it happens: forgiveness and judgment, healing and illumination, mercy and grace, joy and love, freedom and resurrection. Everything broken and fallen, sinful and diseased, called into salvation by God’s spoken word.

For, somewhere along the line things went wrong (Genesis tells that story, too) and are in desperate need of fixing. The fixing is all accomplished by speaking—God speaking salvation into being in the person of Jesus. Jesus, in this account, not only speaks the word of God; he is the Word of God.

Keeping company with these words, we begin to realize that our words are more important than we ever supposed. Saying “I believe,” for instance, marks the difference between life and death. Our words accrue dignity and gravity in conversations with Jesus. For Jesus doesn’t impose salvation as a solution; he narrates salvation into being through leisurely conversation, intimate personal relationships, compassionate responses, passionate prayer, and—putting it all together—a sacrificial death. We don’t casually walk away from words like that."

Here is a word cloud for the book. 

Here are the poster and videos from The Bible Project

Part 1

Part 2

Participating in the Greatest Story ever told

What role should the Bible play in the life of Christians, individually and collectively? How is the Bible to be read, interpreted, applied, and lived out?

This month in the theology reading group, we are discussing Eugene Peterson's book, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.

It is the second book in a five-part series. Last year we discussed the first in the series, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

The title of the book is based on Revelation 10:9-10

...I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but “in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”’ I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 

Here are the main ideas from the book that stood out to me. They are interrelated. Some may seem basic or obvious, but they come alive through the power, creativity, and beauty of Peterson's prose.

1. The Bible must be central to the lives of Christians. It requires diligence for the Bible to not become peripheral due to the busyness of modern life and the seductive power of the self (the trinity of my Needs, my Wants, and my Feelings).

2. The Bible is to be lived. It is a great story that we are invited to participate in. This means obedience. Bible reading is not to be primarily about gathering information, but formation.

3. The Bible invites us into a "strange new world". [Here, Peterson is using Karl Barth's phrase.] It is counter-cultural to every culture of all time. To enter this strange world, we must read it as literature, having our imagination opened up by narrative, metaphor, and connectness.

4. The Bible is accessible to all regardless of their background (perspicuity). It can be and should be read by all. Just the plain old text! This accessibility does not preclude or diminish the value of careful and diligent scholarship.

5. Translation is necessary, subtle, and contentious. Translation is not just a technical exercise of precisely matching individual words in ancient Greek and Hebrew to words in modern English. Words are ambiguous. Phrases and sentences are even more ambiguous. "Context contaminates and interferes with precision" (p. 86) Translation matters because it makes the living Word of God accessible.

6. Lectio divina (reading spiritually) provides a model on "how to" read the Bible. But, it "is not a methodical technique... It is a cultivated, developed habit of living the text in Jesus' name." (page 116).  There are four elements, and they are not necessarily sequential. Lectio (read the text), meditatio (meditate on the text), oratio (pray the text), and contemplatio (live the text).

7. Bible reading is not just to be done alone. It is to be done in communities and out loud. The written word and the oral word are not the same. The original texts were largely read aloud and listened to by communities. Bible reading and liturgy should be inseparable.

Below are some choice quotes from the book.

“The Scriptures, read and prayed, are our primary and normative access to God as He reveals Himself to us. The Scriptures are our listening post for learning the language of the soul, the ways God speaks to us; they also provide the vocabulary and grammar that are appropriate for us as we in our turn speak to God.”

“The Bible is basically and overall a narrative - an immense, sprawling, capacious narrative.”

“All serious and good writing anticipates precisely this kind of reading-ruminative and leisurely, a dalliance with words in contrast to wolfing down information.”

“It is useful to reflect that the word 'liturgy' did not originate in church or worship settings. In the Greek world it referred to public service, what a citizen did for the community. As the church used the word in relation to worship, it kept this 'public service' quality - working for the community on behalf of or following orders from God. As we worship God, revealed personally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our Holy Scriptures, we are not doing something apart form or away from the non-Scripture=reading world; we do it for the world - bringing all creation and all history before God, presenting our bodies and all the beauties and needs of humankind before God in praise and intercession, penetrating and serving the world for whom Christ died in the strong name of the Trinity.”

“The Holy Scriptures are story-shaped. Reality is story-shaped. The world is story-shaped. Our lives are story-shaped. 'I had always,' wrote G.K. Chesterton in accounting for his Christian belief, 'felt life first as a story, and if there is a story, there is a story-teller.' We enter this story, following the story-making, storytelling Jesus, and spend the rest of our lives exploring the amazing and exquisite details, the words and sentences that go into the making of the story of our creation, salvation, and life of blessing. It is a story chock full of invisibles and intricate with connections. Imagination is required.”

“We are fond of saying that the Bible has all the answers. And that is certainly correct. The text of the Bible sets us in a reality that is congruent with who we are as created beings in God's image and what we are destined for in the purposes of Christ. But the Bible also has all the questions, many of them that we would just as soon were never asked of us, and some of which we will spend the rest of our lives doing our best to dodge. The Bible is a most comforting book; it is also a most discomfiting book.”

“Obedience is the thing, living in active response to the living God. The most important question we ask of this text is not, 'What does this mean?' but 'What can I obey?' A simple act of obedience will open up our lives to this text far more quickly than any number of Bible studies and dictionaries and concordances.”

Balance and emphasis are the impossible but necessary tasks of theology

Christian theology is talking and writing about the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). It has a history of two thousand years. There are multiple traditions: Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Reformed, Liberal, Evangelical, Feminist, Black, Liberation, Conservative... 

There are multiple sub-disciplines of theology:  Biblical, Old Testament, New Testament, Trinitarian, missional, spiritual, historical, pastoral, practical, political, ...

There are multiple topics: Trinity, creation, sin, redemption, revelation, the Cross, the Incarnation, soteriology, ecclesiology, Christology, eschatology,...

Denominations, churches, parachurch ministries, and careers are often built on making one of these theologies central and dominant.

There is endless jockeying and competition within the church and the academy for the relative importance and priority of one of these theologies. Fashions come and go. The "breakthrough" or "paradigm" of yesterday is today seen as a mistake or irrelevant or simplistic... However, it is amazing how in the long run people keep coming back to something basic that centres around the Bible and the theology of the early church, such as in the Apostles Creed.

Different factions critique one another, sometimes carefully and graciously. Sometimes critiques are harsh, aggressive, dogmatic, selective, and ill-informed. People talk past one another. Individuals and groups and their voices get marginalised within certain communities if they do not conform to the favoured "theology".

How do we make sense of all these competing voices?

Much of the difference between these theologies is of emphasis. One particular topic, concept, method, perspective, Biblical passage, doctrine, creed, or historical figure is claimed to be the most important and to provide the key to making sense of everything else. The problem is whether the emphasis is helpful overall or whether the emphasis distorts the overall picture in an unhelpful way.  

Where does this diversity come from?

We should not be surprised by this diversity of perspectives and emphases as the diversity reflects the nature of the object under study and the nature of the subject studying it.

The objects under study are God, humanity, the world, and their interplay. This is a multi-faceted reality. The complexity of these objects requires descriptions at multiple levels and perspectives. This leads to a multiplicity of questions, methods, and conclusions.

Just consider the Bible. It has multiple authors, and possibly editors, who wrote in diverse contexts over two thousand years. There is a multiplicity of genres: history, law, poetry, prophecy, pastoral letters, and apocalyptic. How is this canon of literature to be interpreted? Naturally, the text will mean different things to different people at different times and in different contexts. The text does not interpret itself. Readers will interpret the text drawing on a complex interplay of interplay of reason, experience, and tradition. Even interpreters who claim to be drawing on a specific tradition have to also interpret that tradition. Given our diversity of personalities, life histories, and contexts it should not be surprising that we disagree about questions of meaning and significance on the most profound topic of all: God.

Everyone is a theologian. We are all human and this means that our theology is constrained by our limitations, individually and corporately. On the one hand, human language is incredibly powerful and a testament to what makes humans different from other animals. On the other hand, language, particularly formal academic language, cannot fully capture complex and subtle realities. That is why we have poetry!

Given our finite mental and linguistic capacities we need simplicity. This leads us to develop models, metaphors, frameworks, doctrinal statements and creeds. All models are wrong, but some are useful. 

Theologies can reflect the fallen nature of humanity. Our reason and communication are corrupted by sin. This can lead to the narcissism of small differences. Eugene Peterson says "a sect is a front for narcissism."

What do we really need? 

Humility, grace, and love. We need to be humble about our own abilities, individually and collectively, to discern the truth. We need to be gracious towards those who have different views. We need to be driven by love, love for God and love for others.

That there is a plurality of theologies does not mean they are all equally valid. On the one hand, we should not deny subjectivity. On the other hand, a careful comparison and critique of theologies different to our own may show their respective limitations. Commonalities that transcend our contexts may be a signpost to the essential truths to emphasise. Our focus should be on being more faithful to the centre, rather than trying to determine and enforce the boundaries of acceptable belief.

We need dialectic. A problem with many theologies is that they are dualistic. They are either/or. They embrace false dichotomies. There is room for both/and. Consider the following pairings: the humanity and divinity of Jesus, free will and predestination (human agency and God's sovereignty), faith and works, grace and judgement, redemption now but not yet, creation and fall (humans being made in the image of God versus corrupted by sin), faith and reason, special and general revelation, ... They need to be held in creative tension. Finding such a balance is impossible to do perfectly. But it is necessary if we are to be faithful to our subject.

Balance and emphasis are the impossible but necessary tasks of theology.

Talk on Science and Christianity

Tonight I am giving a talk, Science and Christianity, at UQ Focus, a local Christian group for international students. Here is the current version of my slides.

Below is the video I will show in the beginning.

The beauty and messiness of church

At Village Church we just started a new sermon series on 1 Corinthians. Before I read a book of the Bible, study it, or hear a sermon series I try to do two small things to introduce myself to the book. The first is to read the short introduction to the  been written by Eugene Peterson as part of The Message. 

Here is his introduction to 1 Corinthians

When people become Christians, they don’t at the same moment become nice. This always comes as something of a surprise. Conversion to Christ and his ways doesn’t automatically furnish a person with impeccable manners and suitable morals.

The people of Corinth had a reputation in the ancient world as an unruly, hard-drinking, sexually promiscuous bunch of people. When Paul arrived with the Message and many of them became believers in Jesus, they brought their reputations with them right into the church.

Paul spent a year and a half with them as their pastor, going over the Message of the “good news” in detail, showing them how to live out this new life of salvation and holiness as a community of believers. Then he went on his way to other towns and churches.

Sometime later Paul received a report from one of the Corinthian families that in his absence things had more or less fallen apart. He also received a letter from Corinth asking for help. Factions had developed, morals were in disrepair, worship had degenerated into a selfish grabbing for the supernatural. It was the kind of thing that might have been expected from Corinthians!

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a classic of pastoral response: affectionate, firm, clear, and unswerving in the conviction that God among them, revealed in Jesus and present in his Holy Spirit, continued to be the central issue in their lives, regardless of how much of a mess they had made of things. Paul doesn’t disown them as brother and sister Christians, doesn’t throw them out because of their bad behavior, and doesn’t fly into a tirade over their irresponsible ways. He takes it all more or less in stride, but also takes them by the hand and goes over all the old ground again, directing them in how to work all the glorious details of God’s saving love into their love for one another.

The second thing I do is watch the relevant overview video produced by The Bible Project.

Here is the first sermon. It highlights both the beauty and messiness of church.

Wisdom in Weakness (a sermon)

Last Sunday at Village Church in Brisbane I gave a sermon, entitled the Wisdom of Weakness. In the beginning I talk about some of my own encounters with weakness through my struggles with mental health. I then looks at some Bible passages from 1 and 2 Corinthians that discuss weakness, particularly in light of the Cross of Christ.

The video recording of the morning service is below. (Sorry that the sound quality is not brilliant).

Here is the text of the sermon (including some material I cut out for time reasons) The slides are here.

Some local context is that a goal of the sermon was to help set the stage and pique interest in a forthcoming course the church is running on Mental Health and Pastoral Care.

The sermon has some parallels to a talk I gave a few years ago at Theology on Tap and led to a chapter in the book, Pub Theology.

Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf revisited

 This month's theology reading group discussed Exclusion and Embrace: A theological exploration of identity, otherness, and reconciliation by Miroslav Volf. Wikipedia has a useful brief summary of the book.

I first read the book and discussed it in a group twelve years ago and wrote several blog posts about it. I have significantly benefited from re-reading it. Late in life, I now see the immense value of re-reading excellent books, particularly dense and profound ones. Over the past decade, I have built a greater knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of theology and philosophy, and how they engage (for better or worse) with modernism and postmodernism. This has increased my enjoyment and understanding of the book.

The book is impressive for both its scope and coherence. It covers a wide range of Biblical passages, events, histories, philosophies, and theologies. Furthermore, these topics and themes are woven together in a coherent whole. By his example, Volf makes a strong case that Christian theology should be public, for the sake of pluralistic societies and for the sake of the church.

Volf makes a convincing case for the following ideas.

Conflicts, small and large, are intertwined with questions of identity and otherness.

The natural outcome of an encounter with the "other", someone with a different identity to us, is exclusion. Discrimination, violence, and genocide are manifestations of the drive to exclude the other.

The counterpoint to exclusion is embrace, even embrace of enemies. There are many complexities to working out what such an embrace looks like. This requires grappling with issues of history, memory, truth, justice, peace, and forgiveness.

Evil exists. It must be grappled with politically, philosophically, and theologically. Both modernism and postmodernism have failed in their woeful inability to seriously engage with the concept of evil.

The Cross of Christ provides the template and resources to grapple, both intellectually and practically, with why and how, we need to move from exclusion to embrace.

In spite of the claims of modernity to the contrary, discussions of truth and justice can only be and should be conducted with reference to a specific tradition. [This reiterates the perspective of Alisdair MacIntyre.] There is no "view from nowhere", i.e, a perspective that is completely objective.

To grapple with conflicting identities, traditions, and perspectives we need to  practice "double vision" [taken from Thomas Nagel] whereby I acknowledge I have "the view from here" and work hard to engage with "the view from there". In different words, I endeavour to put myself in the shoes of the "other", even when I consider them morally repugnant or intellectually flawed.

For a Christian, nonviolence is the way to work towards peace. This is rooted in both the Cross, the Ressurection, and the hope of the Final Judgement. Evil not only exists but it will be punished, and in a just way. But, fallible humans are prone to deception and revenge. And so, that final judgement must rest with God, as Jesus embodied and Paul taught.

What is it about the Gospel texts that I find so amazing?

The Bible contains four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each gives an account of the life and teaching of Jesus. There are many questions that we can and should ask about these literary texts. Indeed, over the past two thousand years, many people have explored questions and engaged in debates about authorship, historicity, divine revelation, moral authority, textual reliability, and the (im)possibility of miracles. 

In this post, I want to put aside these questions for now, and just focus on the Gospels as texts and public information. In a sense I am taking an empirical scientific perspective, viewing the texts as like scientific data, that is publically available. Everyone has access to this data. There is really little room for debate about what the data is. The debate is about how to analyse and how to interpret the data. 

Over decades I have read and re-read the Gospels and read what a range of people, both Christian and non-Christian say about them. Here I want to state some of the things that I think are truly amazing about these texts.

There is an incredible literary depth. Each Gospel interweaves different stories about Jesus, his teaching, and quotations and allusions to the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament). After two thousand years, they are still considered some of the best literature ever produced and still attract intricate and subtle analysis from literary scholars. In this regard, they are in a different league to any other literature unlike any other literature from two thousand years ago, including Christian literature.

I find the most amazing thing to be the teachings of Jesus. They are radical, counter-cultural (then and now), comforting, and challenging. Jesus' teaching provides an insightful description of reality: money, power, pride, evil, human nature, human dignity, relationships, forgiveness, competing values, and self-righteousness. Although sometimes abstract and difficult to interpret, Jesus' teaching provides a very down-to-earth and practical guide for daily living. Jesus' life also illustrates what this "good life" should look like.

I delight in the creativity and profundity of the paradoxes presented. The first will be last. The last will be first. The humble will be exalted. Become great by being a servant. Save your life and you will lose it. Lose your life and you will find it. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus is an upside-down kingdom, in stark contrast to the kingdoms of this world where money, power, privilege, and social status are exalted and determine who rules.

Jesus' upside-down kingdom is illustrated and embodied in his embrace of the marginalised: tax collectors, prostitutes, the poor, widows, orphans, Samaritans, cripples, and "sinners." This makes the empathetic part of my soul sing. There is hope. And, it challenges me as a child of privilege, to follow Jesus' example.

                                      Christ on the Cross by Rembrandt

The centrepiece and climax of the Gospel narratives are the Cross: the death of Jesus by crucifixion. He is publically humiliated and executed as a criminal and social outcast. There are many dimensions to what the Cross represents: an embrace of suffering, identification with the weak, and atonement for sin, ... It is the ultimate embodiment of the upside-down kingdom as it is about power through weakness, and wisdom through foolishness. For the time and place of Roman-occupied Palestine, the Cross is about as counter-cultural as possible. Jesus' death defines a model for how he wants his followers to live.

In the midst of a messed-up world, both then and now, the Gospels present me hope, through the resurrection of Jesus and the promise of a forthcoming just judgement. Evil will be punished. Those who have suffered unjustly will experience deliverance.

I have not encountered any other literature, from any age, or of any genre that compares to the richness and inspiration I find in the Gospels.

The impact of the Gospel narratives is amazing. The early church went from being a small rag-tag band of followers to a cultural force that ultimately transcended and outlasted the mighty Roman empire. This incredible influence has been well-documented by authors such as Tom Holland and Rodney Stark.

The Gospels exhibit an amazing universality in particularity. They were written in ancient Greek at a particular time, in a particular place, and in a particular religious, political, cultural, and economic context. Despite their particularity the relevance and impact of the Gospels are enduring, transcending time, space, language, context, and culture. They are "translatable" in every sense of the word. They are accessible to all, being both profound and simple.

These amazing things raise many questions for me. Why do the Gospels have such an impact on me and on others? What is it about them that makes them so unique? Why are the Gospels so superior to other literature, both past and present? Why do they resonate? inspire? comfort? transform people? 

Taken together all the features I have noted provide hints of transcendence. Perhaps the Gospels are something more than great literature and words on a page. Could they be a living word? And who was the person Jesus described in the Gospels? Was he something more than the creation of some great literary minds, or more than an extraordinary man? Could it be that the Gospels describe what actually did happen? Could Jesus' teaching actually be true?

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were two of the most creative literary minds of the twentieth century. They considered the Gospels to be the greatest story ever told. Here are some of Tolkien's reflections.

Of course I do not mean that the Gospels tell what is only a fairy-story; but I do mean very strongly that they do tell a fairy-story: the greatest. Man the story-teller would have to be redeemed in a manner consonant with his nature: by a moving story. But since the author of it is the supreme Artist and the Author of Reality, this one was also made . . . to be true on the Primary Plane. (Letters, 100–101)

 ‘this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused’ (‘On Fairy-stories’, 63).

Lessons from the ants for the Christian church

6 

 Go to the ant, you sluggard;  consider its ways and be wise!

It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,

yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

    Proverbs 6:6-8

Ant colonies are amazing. It is incredible what they can achieve. I love the video below. It highlights how complex structures and functions emerge in an ant colony even though there is no individual directing the whole operation. The colony can achieve much more than individual ants acting independently of one another.

Ant colonies are fascinating from a scientific point of view, particularly as they are a model for the concept of emergence. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Here, I explore how scientific observations about ant colonies might inspire followers of Jesus as they reflect on the church, its mission, its corporate character, being the body of Christ, and the living presence of God in the world.

Humans do not rule the world. Ants do! They have colonised every continent. There are more than ten thousand trillion ants on the planet. Their total body mass is comparable to that of the eight billion humans on earth. There are more than sixteen thousand different species of ant. Their survival, expansion, and impressive achievements are not the result of heroic gifted individuals, charismatic leaders, benevolent dictators, advanced technology, or great intelligence.

Rather the global success of ants results from cooperative action and individual self-sacrifice. It is not just a matter of strength in numbers. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Observations by entomologists and mathematical models show that it is through the synergy of cooperation that a colony produces new structures, functions, and achievements. These are qualitatively different from what is possible for a small number of ants. Each ant has a job to do. They just get on with it, cooperating with others in their immediate neighbourhood, and acting for the greater common good. 

Individual ants have limited abilities. Each ant has a specialist task. A colony is composed of several distinct classes of workers (castes): soldiers, excavators, foragers, garbage collectors, and gardeners. 

Ants are simple small animals. They have poor hearing and sight. They have limited ability to communicate. They use a few signals based on touch, but mostly communicate by producing trails of distinct chemicals (pheromones).  

Discoveries about ant colonies are leading biologists to rethink individuality and its role in the survival of a community. Individual ants do not seem to have "selfish genes". That is, they do not act in a manner oriented towards preserving their individual genetic lineage. Ants have a sacrificial existence. They appear to have no self-interest. They do not compete with one another. They have unwavering loyalty to their queen and to the preservation of the colony that she has given birth to. Some biologists refer to the colony as a superorganism.

No analogy is perfect. All models are wrong, but some are useful. Nevertheless, I think it is worth asking what lessons Christians might draw from the science of ant colonies? The author of proverbs would affirm such contemplation. The properties and workings of the created order may reflect important truths about how God wants his people to live.

A Biblical metaphor for the church is that of the Body of Christ. The body has many members. Each of these members has a special function and contribution to make. These members are to work together for the good of the whole body. There are many different gifts and abilities. No gift or individual is to be valued or elevated more than another. The weak are indispensable.

Humans are a lot smarter and stronger than ants! We have vastly more capabilities than ants. But, just like ants, individual Christians are not exceptional. They are finite and have limited abilities and strength. Paul pointed out to the Corinthian church their own severe limitations.

Not many [of you] were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.  (1 Corinthians 1:26-27)

Christians are to have an undying loyalty to their King, Jesus. Followers of Jesus are to live sacrificially. Jesus said

“If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it." (Luke 9:23,24)

Paul exhorted the church in Rome to live sacrificially, considering themselves as one body made of many parts, and to exercise the gifts God had given each of them. 

in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. ...I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think... Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. (Romans 12:1-8) 

Paul continues identifying specific gifts: prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and showing mercy. Each member of the body should use that gift. Paul expressed similar ideas to the church in Ephesus.

[God] gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, ...let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ. From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

Paul told the Philippians that it would bring him great joy if they had the same attitude as Christ,

thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:2-4)

Both the behaviour of ants and these Biblical exhortations are in stark contrast to the ways and values of the modern capitalist world. It worships the individual, promotes the rights of the individual, and motivates individuals with money, punishments, and the promise of celebrity.

Christians and the organisations that they start have a limited life span. People die. Even excellent institutions do not last forever, particularly in terms of having enduring relevance and impact. The goal of members of the Body of Christ is that during each of our lifetimes we should use our limited abilities and work together so that the community of our King endures forever. Ant colonies illustrate how with collective action and self-sacrifice much more can be achieved than through small numbers of independent individuals. Christians need to consider the ways of the ants. They can give us wisdom.  This may lead us together to achieve "far more than we can ask or imagine."

Many facets of the cosmos (world)

In the previous post, I reflected on the richness of the concept of the logos, a word that is at the heart of what universities should be about and central to Christian theology. In this post, I consider the word cosmos which is used extensively in the New Testament. In the third post, I will discuss ways to relate the logos (Word) and the cosmos (world).

According to the Wikipedia entry on cosmos,

The philosopher Pythagoras first used the term cosmos (κόσμος) for the order of the universe. The term became part of modern language in the 19th century when geographer–polymath Alexander von Humboldt resurrected the use of the word from the ancient Greek, assigned it to his five-volume treatise, Kosmos, which influenced modern and somewhat holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity. 

Humboldt University of Berlin is considered to be the model for modern research universities. It is named after Alexander Humboldt and his older brother, Wilhelm, who was its founder.

In the New Testament, the Greek word cosmos is widely used by the Apostle John and translated into English as “world”. Here are some examples.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. (John 1:9-10)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (3:16)

I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. (17:14-18)

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives for ever. (1 John 2:15-17)

Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, " The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever." (Revelation 11:15)

The New Bible Dictionary has an entry “WORLD” written by R.V.G. Tasker (1895-1976), Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the University of London, Here is some of the entry.

The Greek word kosmos means by derivation 'the ordered world'. It is used in the New Testament, but not in LXX [the Septuagint], sometimes for what we should call the 'universe', the created world, described in the Old Testament as 'all things' or 'heaven and earth' (Acts 17:2). The 'world' in this sense was made by the Word (John 1:10); …

But, because mankind is the most important part of the universe, the word kosmos is more often used in the limited sense of human beings, being a synonym for hē oikoumenē gė, 'the inhabited earth', also translated in the New Testament by 'world'. It is into this 'world' that men are born, and in it they live till they die (John 26: 21). It was all the kingdoms of this world that the devil offered to give to Christ if He would worship him (Matthew 4:8,9). It was this world, the world of men and women of flesh and blood, that God loved (John 3:16).

It is, however, an axiom of the Bible that this world of human beings, the climax of the divine creation, the world that God made especially to reflect His glory, is now in rebellion against Him…

 

And so, very frequently in the New Testament, and particularly in the Johannine writings, the word kosmos has a sinister significance. It is not the world as God intended it to be, but 'this world’ set over against God, following its own wisdom and living by the light of its own reason (1 Corinthians 1:21), not recognizing the Source of all true life and illumination (John 1:10).

Chris Wright has a helpful article, “The World in the Bible,” written in 2010 for the Lausanne Theology Working group. Wright notes that the Bible speaks of the world in five different ways. The world is the

• physical creation (the world in which we live);

• whole human race, (the world of nations);

• place of rebellion and opposition to God (the world of sin and judgment, the world of all the resulting suffering, poverty and pain);

• object of God’s love and mission of redemption in history;

• new creation (the world to come).

Wright states there is “a fundamental ambivalence in the biblical presentation of the world” and this is illustrated by contrasting how Psalms and John represent the world. The world

is simultaneously the wonderfully good creation of God and the horrendously wicked theatre of human and satanic rebellion against God. As we reflect on what it means to bring ‘the whole gospel to the whole world’, this is a duality that we must keep in mind. For it is this tension between the positive and negative conceptions of ‘the world’—both equally biblical—that drives so many dimensions of our missional engagement in and with the world.

The multi-faceted representation of the world in the Bible is underscored by the fact that besides kosmos there are five other Greek words in the New Testament that are translated as “world” in English: aion, ge, oikoumene, ktisis, and ta panta.

John starts positively… attributing the whole creation (panta) to the work of Christ ‘the Word’ (Jn.1:3). And we remain positive with the language of incarnation—the Word has come ‘into the world’ (kosmos; Jn. 1:9-10)—a note that is repeated to the end of the book, as Jesus brings light and life and truth into the world (Jn. 3:19; 6:33; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46-47; 18:37).

John uses the word kosmos 72 times, and more than 40 of those occur in chapters 13-17, describing Jesus’ final conversations with his disciples and prayer to his Father, and almost all… references to ‘the world’ are negative. … in 1 John, where kosmos occurs 22 times and all negative, except for the words of hope that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world (2:2).

Paul uses kosmos 47 times (and aion 31 times). As we have seen, Paul can certainly use kosmos to speak of the whole of God’s good creation (though he tends more often to use ta panta and/or ‘heaven and earth’ for that).

Nevertheless, the majority of Paul’s uses of kosmos speak of it as the place of sin, rebellion and the judgment of God (e.g., Rom. 3:6, 19; 5:12-13; 1 Cor. 11:32)

This tension between the positive and negative side of the cosmos must be kept in mind as we reflect on how to relate logos and cosmos, including how to relate theology and the sciences (academic disciplines). Considering the use of these two words in the New Testament suggests a rich and subtle relationship between theology and the sciences.

What is the logos (Word)?

The Greek words logos (λόγος) and cosmos (κόσμος) lie at the heart of both Christian theology and of universities. Both words have a long history of being associated with a diverse range of meanings, concepts, and entities.

I am particularly interested in these because I am involved in the Logos and Cosmos Initiative of IFES. In a series of three blog posts I will discuss separately what logos and cosmos each represent and then how they might interact with one another, and how this may be helpful in considering how theology and the sciences might interact with one another.

Logos can also be translated as “subject matter’’ and is related to the Latin word logia which is the basis of the English suffix -logy that is part of the names of many academic disciplines: sociology, anthropology, geology, ecology, biology, theology, and cosmology.

Logos in the New Testament

Logos is central to the Gospel of John, which clearly identifies Jesus Christ with it. In English logos is translated as "The Word”. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (1:1)

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (1:14)

Amongst other passages, logos also appears in the following verses.

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. (17:17)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1 John 1:1)

He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. (Revelation 19:13)

Translators of the Greek New Testament, from Jerome to Luther, have struggled to find a single appropriate word that captures the richness of the association between logos and Christ.

John’s choice to equate logos with Christ in John 1 was creative and profound as he achieved two things. First, he brought the Gospel into dialogue with Greek culture and intellectual life. Second, he made the point that the truth, wisdom, and meaning associated with the incarnation of God in Christ, was the ultimate knowledge and far surpassed the greatest human knowledge and wisdom of his time. To appreciate this it is helpful to survey how logos was used prior to John.

Logos in Greek and Jewish culture before Christ

The New Bible Dictionary has an entry LOGOS, written by J.N. Birdsall. He states that the Greek word, logos

carries a large number of different meanings: its basic translation is ‘word ', i.e., meaningful utterance, whence develop its many senses 'statement, declaration, discourse, subject-matter, doctrine, affair' and, by another development, 'reason, cause, sake, respect'. As a grammatical term it means a finite sentence, in logic a factual statement, definition, or judgment, in rhetoric a correctly constructed piece of oratory. 

Birdsall, says that the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535 - c.475 B.C.) used logos

to signify the divine power or function by which the universe is given unity, coherence, and meaning (Logos Spermatikos, 'seminal Word', which , like seed , gives form to  unformed matter): man is made in accordance with the same principle, and is himself said to possess Logos, both inwardly (Logos Endiathetos, reason) and expressed in speech (Logos Prophorikos). 

These ideas were then used by Stoic philosophers. 

The Septuagint (LXX) was the first Greek translation of the complete Hebrew text of the Old Testament, completed in the second century B.C. Many Old Testament quotations used by the authors of the New Testament are directly taken from the Septuagint. According to Birdsall,

In the LXX Logos is used to translate the Hebrew word dabar ( דָּבָר‎). The root of this signifies 'that which lies behind ', and so when translated as 'word' it, too means meaningful sound; it may also mean thing '. In accordance with a common feature of Hebrew psychology a man's dābār is regarded as in some sense an extension of his personality and further as possessing a substantive existence of its own. The Word of God, then, is His self-revelation through Moses and the prophets; it may be used to designate both single visions and oracles and the whole content of the total revelation and thus especially the Pentateuch. The Word possesses a like power to the God who speaks it (cf. Isaiah 55:11) and effects His will without hindrance. Hence the term may refer to the creative word of God. In the Wisdom literature the creative power of God is referred to as His wisdom, …

Isaiah 55:11 states, 

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

    It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Philo (20 B.C.–50 A.D.) was a Hellenistic Jew who brought together Stoic philosophy and exegesis of the Old Testament. Birdsall states that

Philo made frequent use of the term Logos, to which he gave a highly developed significance and a central place in his theological scheme. He derived the term from Stoic sources and, in accordance with his discovery of Greek thought in the Hebrew Scriptures, made use of it on the basis of such passages as Psalm 33:6 to express the means whereby the transcendent God may be the Creator of the universe and the Revealer of Himself to Moses and the Patriarchs.

Psalm 33:6 states, “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” Birdsall comments:

On the Greek, side Philo equates the Logos with the Platonic concept of the World of Ideas so that it becomes both God's plan and God's power of creation. On the side of biblical exegesis the Logos is identified with the Angel of the Lord and the Name of God, and is described by a variety of terms as High Priest, Captain and Steersman, Advocate (Paraclete), and Son of God. It is termed a second God and, on the other hand, described as the Ideal Man, the Pattern of God's earthly creation of man. In spite of all this terminology of personification however, the term remains inevitably, in view of Philo's staunch Judaism (at least, in intention) a philosophical and theological term and tool.

That is, Philo does not go as far as the Apostle John who identifies the logos with a specific person in history, Jesus. Reflecting on the use of logos in John 1:1, Birdsall considers that identifications of logos with dabar or with Wisdom in the Old Testament are not adequate.

Only the Philonic Logos-teaching provides a clear theological scheme in which the Word possesses a like unity with God and a like distinction from Him, and in which both creative and sustaining activity in the universe and revelatory activity towards man is ascribed to it. Further, the necessarily unique concept of incarnation is nevertheless a proper development of the identification of Philo's Logos with the Ideal Man. Either a direct use of Philo or a similar background in intellectual circles of Hellenistic Jewry may lie behind this.

Reflecting also on 1 John 1:1 and Revelation 19:13, Birdsall concludes that the three texts

illustrate how the fulness of Christ consistently exhausts all preparatory imagery and thought; and how many places need an exegesis which draws on many sources for full exposition. Jesus gives fresh meaning to terminology which prior to Him was expressive of lesser mysteries.

In conclusion, John’s use of logos provides a significant example of doing theology in cultural and intellectual context. Jesus Christ is the logos, the Word, the embodiment of all knowledge and wisdom.

Next post will be about cosmos.

The complete redemption of creation

 I earlier posted about how much I benefited from reading A New Heaven and A New Earth: Reclaiming a Biblical Eschatology by Richard Middleton, in our theology reading group. The book centres around elucidating the creation-fall-redemption-renewal narrative of the Bible.

This month we are reading and discussing the second half of the book.

The book can be viewed as an introductory text on biblical theology, as it attempts to provide a model for the narrative of the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

It is helpful for me to consider what the essential message of the book is. In some ways, Middleton is elucidating what the Bible really does say about the theological concepts of creation, fall, redemption, and renewal. He considers that he is correcting common misunderstandings about these concepts.

What is creation?

Sometimes Genesis 1-2 is read solely as a description of material origins. Where did humans come from? When did it all begin? Where did the earth, animals, and plants come from?

According to modernism, humans and nature are distinct (but connected) entities [e.g., they have the same DNA], and both are just material. Consequently, creation is equated with nature, particularly what humans have not touched or used. "Creation care" is concerned with being good stewards of the natural environment and its resources. However, Middleton considers that a more Biblical perspective is that creation (and the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28) is broader. Creation is not just objects (humans and "nature") but much more. Creation is also what humans create by their interactions with one another and with the non-human world: agriculture and art, institutions and ideas,... Creation is the entire human socio-cultural order. The doctrine of creation is not only concerned with some single event in the past, but also the  present and future: how God sustains the world, works in the world, and what God wishes the world would be.

What is the fall?

This has affected everything: humans, the earth, animals, plants,... Sin (the rebellion of humans) has not just broken the relationship of humans with God, but also humans with one another, humans with nature, and humans with themselves. The creation is no longer what God intended it to be, both what God created and the culture that humans now create.

What is redemption?

In Scripture, redemption is conceived most fundamentally as the reversal of the fall and the restoration of God’s good purposes from the beginning. By way of contrast, in our dualistic philosophical inheritance from Plato, redemption is conceived as transferal from a lower, inferior realm (variously understood as body, earth, matter, nature or the secular) to a higher, more valued or esteemed realm (understood as soul, heaven, spirit, the realm of grace or the sacred). This dualistic assumption is often simply superimposed over biblical texts that address redemption and so leads to a distortion of the Bible’s message. Whereas a dualistic understanding of redemption typically devalues the good world God created and encourages an aspiration to transcend finitude, the biblical worldview leads to an affirmation of the goodness of creation, along with a desire to pray and work for the redemption of precisely this world (including human, socio‐cultural institutions) that earthly life might be restored to what it was meant to be. Being aware of the distinction between these two conceptions of redemption helps clarify the significance of the creation‐fall‐redemption paradigm that is utilized by many who are interested in developing a Christian worldview.

This summary is taken from the paper by Middleton, that he developed into the book. 

The human calling is not just to create culture but also to redeem culture, by participating in its transformation. I find it interesting that this redemptive view drove many of the founders of modern science, as chronicled by Peter Harrison in The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science.

What is the final renewal?

What is the end of it all, the eschaton? Sometimes words such as consummation or re-creation, are used instead of renewal. How does this relate to the idea that "when Christians die they go to heaven"? There will be a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21) that will be free of sin, suffering, and death. Middleton gives particular attention to critiquing interpretations of 2 Peter 3, that claim that all of the existing creation is going to be destroyed/burned up/consumed and God will create something new from scratch, and the disembodied "souls" of Christians will live in a new place, "heaven". Rather, at the eschaton, God will complete the work of redeeming the fallen world that began with Abraham.

How did the Cross of Christ shape the Western mind?

 In the Western world today, certain values are dominant, even if largely implicit: human rights, equality, democracy, helping the weak, the rule of law, justice, ..

Where did these values come from? ancient Greek philosophy, the Enlightenment, cultural evolution, Judaism, Christianity? These are the questions that the popular historian Tom Holland grapples with in his recent book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. In the theology reading group we are discussing it over the next three months. In more than five hundred pages he offers a breath-taking and engaging ride through more than two thousand years of history. 

The main argument of the book is that "a cult inspired by the execution of an obscure criminal in a long-vanished empire came to exercise .. a transformational and enduring influence on the world.."

Last night we discussed the first one-third of the book, Antiquity, covering from 497 BC in Athens to 632 AD in Carthage. Here are some of the main ideas that stood out to me.

Image: Issenheim Altarpiece by Gruenwald

1. It all begins with The Cross of Christ. It leads to an intellectual, theological, cultural, social, and political revolution. Victory is found in defeat. God identifies with the weak, marginalised, poor, suffering, ...

2. Equality. All humans are made in the image of God. Hence, they are all of equal value and should be treated with respect and dignity. Followers of Jesus have only one identity: Christian, that transcends gender, nationality, citizenship, ethnicity, wealth, position, social class, ...

3. Followers of Jesus live to embody the Cross. They live sacrificially to serve the poor, share wealth and possessions, heal the sick (including in plagues), comfort the dying, rescue abandoned babies, liberate slaves,...

4. Although, the thinking and actions described above may seem admirable and heroic today, at the time they were completely counter-cultural: it went against Greek philosophy, Roman rule, and how people lived. Crucifixion was a brutal means to exercise political control: it involved not just incredible physical suffering but also public humiliation. The heroes were the strong. The most powerful became gods. Violence was good: a means for social control and stability. There was a "brute truth" that most in Rome "took for granted: the potency of a Roman penis. Sex was nothing if not an exercise in power" (p. 81). 

Holland illustrates how context matters. We need to understand the context in which the New Testament was written and how the development of different church doctrines and institutions, were influenced by their cultural and political context.

5. History shows that the church has an ambivalent relationship with wealth and power. The New Testament and the lives of exemplary Christians are incredibly radical and counter-cultural. Wealth and power are intertwined and have a pernicious ability to corrupt mind and spirit, even among the well-intentioned who seek to use wealth and power for the good of others. Church history is a continual cycle of radical service and renewal, institutionalisation, and corruption.

6. The church seems to have had the greatest influence when it was radical and on the margins and when it had an integrated approach combining head, heart, and hands. Or in different words, study, contemplation, and action.

If you want a brief introduction to the book see

A review in The Guardian by Terry Eagleton, a Marxist and distinguished literary critic.

An interview with Tom Holland at the Centre for Public Christianity and another on ABC Radio.

A related book, with a shorter historical scope, is by the sociologist Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity.

In another post, I will consider some missing dimensions to Holland's perspective on the Cross of Christ.

An integrated reading of Paul

I have now finished reading Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul's Theology and Spirituality by Michael J. Gorman

It is certainly one of the best and most influential theology books I have read over the past year. My theology reading group is an eclectic bunch and I think this may be the only book that every person in the group has liked!

A signature of Gorman's approach and thinking is that it is integrated and multi-faceted. He is not reductionist, into either/or categorization, and avoids false dichotomies. For example, the following paragraph may be representative.

For Paul the inseparability of justification and justice is critical,... The community of the justified is the community of the just, which is the community of those being transformed and glorified and recreated all in Christ. 

These are not different, competing soteriologies even quasi-independent slices of one soteriological pie. Rather they are intimately interconnected dimensions of one soteriological reality, such that one aspect to not be fully or adequately articulated without reference to the others. 

A comprehensive term or phrase is needed, or at least helpful, to keep these dimensions integrated... "corporate, cruciform, resurrectional, missional theosis,"... 

(italics are his, page 233-4).

The above occurs at the end of chapter 9, in which Gorman connects three passages from 2 Corinthians, to argue that the concept of theosis is central to Paul's theology and spirituality. Gorman considers the central verses for each of the passages are the following.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (3:18) 

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness [justice] of God.(5:21) 

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.(8:9)

The last verse is in the context of Paul's appeal to the Corinthian church to contribute to the financial collection for the poor in the Jerusalem church. 

"5:21 is a bridge from the heavenly glory of 3:18 to its practical, even mundane, embodiment in 8:9.'' It is "Theosis on the Ground: Cruciform Economic Justice."

I think such an integrated perspective is needed to avoid getting trapped in rigid dichotomies such as individual/community, faith/works, life/doctrine, predestination/free will, faith/reason, spirituality/mission, ....