Restitutio

This is the fourth and final part of our Misunderstood Texts about Jesus series with Bill Schlegel.  In this episode he offers remarks on Philippians 2.5-6, Colossians 2.9, and Revelation 1.17.  After this, I ask him one of the biggest questions on this subject: if Jesus isn’t God then how can his sacrifice possibly pay for our sins?  As usual Schlegel points out that this is not a biblical question–Jesus never asked it, Paul never asked it, and John never asked it.  If no one ever makes this point in scripture, maybe we should wonder why our questions are so out of line with theirs?

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Repeatedly, Bill Schlegel calls us back to understand each verse within its immediate and canonical contexts, rather than reading in later theological commitments.

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This is part two of my series with Bill Schlegel, former professor of the Israel Bible Extension and long time bible teacher and geography expert.  Last time we discussed five major texts in the Gospel of John and this time we cover four or five more:

Next time we’ll discuss a number of more important verses in the rest of the bible.

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Today we are beginning a new series called “Misunderstood Texts about Jesus” with Bill Schlegel.  Professor Schlegel lived and taught the bible and geography in Israel for more than three decades.  Recently, he came to change his mind on the deity of Jesus, seeing him now as God’s man rather than a God-man.  Since he made this change, several friends and acquaintances have brought up a number of scriptures that they believe prove Jesus is God.  This podcast series is Schlegel’s opportunity to answer these commonly misunderstood verses and explain what they mean.  In this episode we discuss the following texts:

Next time we’ll discuss five more scriptures from John.

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Q: How do you know the bible is true?

Q: How do you know God wrote it?

Q: But, how do you know the bible is true?

Here we encounter the classic circular argument for the bible’s inspiration. Surely, there’s a better way to go about establishing God’s influence on this book.

In this episode we’ll take a look at three main comparative texts from the same part of the world and same time as the bible was written, including the Enuma Elish, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Ebers Papyrus. By comparing the bible to these Babylonian and Egyptian texts we can see just how unusual it was in its own context. This, in turn, helps up have more confidence that God in fact did work with the authors of his book, providing them with an alternative source of information that cut against the grain of wisdom of their age.

Stay tuned afterwards for a couple of event announcements

Winter Teen Camp

Revive 2019

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Our world seems intent on trotting out the same extremist examples of Christianity as either a homophobic religion (think Westboro Baptist Church) or a totally accepting faith (think Episcopalians).  However, these are not the only positions Christians take on this subject.  In this talk, Wesley Hill, assistant professor of biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry, not only advocates for but lives out a third way.

Hill identifies as gay while agreeing with the historic view of the church that marriage is only between a man and a woman.  Not only that, he wants to help other gay and lesbian people come into Christianity without compromising what the bible teaches on sexuality or lying to themselves about same-sex attraction.  Consequently, he is committed to singleness for life.  This is hard road to walk, but he believes it’s the best way forward.  Even so, he’s concerned about gay Christians getting their needs met for intimacy and friendship within the church.  How tragic would it be to heroically sacrifice marriage and parenthood on the altar of biblical faithfulness only to wake up at 65 years old, alone, single, isolated, and without meaningful connections to anyone?

Hill says the church needs to step up not only by rooting out homophobia, but also building and strengthening friendship bonds between singles and singles as well as singles and families.  He concludes, “God calls us precisely in saying, ‘No’ to same-sex marriage to say, ‘Yes’ to intimacy,  ‘Yes’ to Christian community, ‘Yes’ to same-sex friendship, ‘Yes’ to a life of love in the body of Christ.”

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Our culture longs for authenticity. We’re tired of fakers and phonies who say one thing and do another. People should just be true to themselves and have the courage to flout tradition when it holds them back from genuine self-expression. However, this mentality results in major individual and social problems from sexually transmitted diseases to sexual harassment to racism and mass shootings. Christianity offers a better way, by providing a standard to conform ourselves to that maximally enables human flourishing.

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Colossians 3:1-5 The terminology in v5 is excessively hostile: “put to death what is earthly in you.” Don’t reason with it, or seek to diminish its influence. Don’t try to understand it, or make excuses for it. Kill it! Put it down.

Colossians 3:6 God did not design us to behave this way. He gave us passions but placed boundaries on them. When people defy His original intention, it bothers Him.

Colossians 3:7-10 This is the language of clothing: put off and put on. We must strip off the old way of being a human (Adam) and clothe ourselves with the new way of being a human (Christ), which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its Creator—the way God originally designed us.

Colossians 3:11 Not only behavior but social barriers need to change. Ethnicity, social status, education, independence are all outshone by the splendor of Christ’s radiant glory, enabling harmony between us all.

Colossians 3:12-17 Imagine that there are two towns that live by each of these opposing ways: Freetown and Corpus Christi. Which would you rather live in? As you conform to the Christian lifestyle, it becomes second nature. It does not crush you or rob you of your humanity, but it provides the necessary boundaries to make human growth and flourishing possible.

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When it comes to Genesis 1, Christians tend to divide into two major camps: old earth and young earth creationists. The former sees the days as long periods of time (e.g. Hugh Ross) while the latter insists on literal twenty-four hour periods (e.g. Ken Ham). Professor John Walton of Wheaton College advocates for a different reading of the bible’s first chapter. By carefully comparing Genesis to other ancient near eastern creation texts, he proposes that it’s talking about God providing functionality to the already-existing cosmos rather than creating structures ex nihilo.

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Do you ever stop and marvel at God’s creation?  Are you in wonder at what he has made?  Too often we take God’s masterful creations for granted, instead of seeing them as pointers back to God’s ingenuity, generosity, and artistry.  Although we can’t always take time out to praise God for plums, palm trees, and panthers, when we can it’s helpful to meditate on his handiwork.

Here’s the video from this message that shows the relative sizes of our solar system’s planets and sun with other much bigger stars:

Here are a couple of praise songs that tap into the proper sense of wonder we should experience because of God’s works:

Notes

Psalm 19.1-6 The heavens declare God’s glory

Psalm 104.1-35 The psalmist works through creation, marveling at God’s manifold artistry and brilliance.

Psalm 8.1-9 Even though God is so powerful, so transcendent, so majestic, he still cares about us puny humans.

C. S. Lewis’ attention to God’s every-day marvels:

Lewis’s keen, penetrating sense of his own heart’s aching for Joy, combined with his utter amazement at the sheer, objective realness of things other than himself, has over and over awakened me from the slumbers of self-absorption to see and savor the world and through the world, the Maker of the world…

Lewis gave me, and continues to give me, an intense sense of the astonishing “realness” of things. He had the ability to see and feel what most of us see and do not see. He had what Alan Jacobs called “omnivorous attentiveness” (Alan Jacobs, The Narnian, p. xxi.) I love that phrase. What this has done for me is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and to be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the coldness of the wooden floor, the wetness of the water in the sink, the sheer being of things (quiddity as he called it). And not just to be aware but to wonder. To be amazed that the water is wet. It did not have to be wet. If there were no such thing as water, and one day someone showed it to you, you would simply be astonished.

He helped me become alive to life. To look at the sunrise and say with an amazed smile, “God did it again!” He helped me to see what is there in the world — things which if we didn’t have them, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He convicts me of my callous inability to enjoy God’s daily gifts. He helps me to awaken my dazed soul so that the realities of life and of God and heaven and hell are seen and felt. I could go on about the good effect of this on preaching and the power of communication. But it has been precious mainly just for living.

John Piper, “Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul,” Feb. 2, 2010, Desiring God Conference for Pastors

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Kenneth LaPrade lives in El Paso, Texas, on the border between the United States and Mexico.  His wife is Mexican and many of the folks in his house church are from Mexico.  In such a context, immigration is always a touchy subject, but lately some Christians have baptized certain political rhetoric and presented it as “the” Christian position on this complicated issue.  LaPrade sees this as merely one aspect of the much larger problem of Christians trying to take power in America as if establishing God’s kingdom here, now.  In this interview, he urges us to retain the bible’s teaching about the future kingdom and see ourselves as Christians first and Americans (or Mexicans) second.

Here’s the text of Ken LaPrade’s statement on how Christians should orient themselves politically that inspired this interview:

I honestly feel a bit frustrated concerning the following situation (which I will briefly describe), and I believe its persistence is related to Satan’s tricks to promote biblical unawareness concerning the priority of the future kingdom. I know that my attempted reminders, in certain cases, keep falling on deaf ears. Please, pray concerning this highly distracting issue.

I am earnestly still prayerfully concerned about so-called Christian efforts at erroneous “kingdom NOW” thinking – such as an obsession with American politics, either defending or demonizing “Trump” or current social or political trends.

I personally work with several immigrants who have been quite hurt by very strange, insensitive comments (even bullying remarks) posted quite publicly as if representing a “Christian” perspective!

In my estimation, ALL such misguided trends (either to justify or condemn pagan leaders in a pagan nation) are a failure (among so-called Christians) to really grasp the Kingdom of God as FUTURE!

Present hurtful rhetoric is tantamount (in my assessment) to the hypothetical absurdity of retroactively getting 1st century Christians to hotly debate whether Tiberius, Nero, or Domitian were better or worse for the Roman Empire! As is obvious, 1st century Christians were far too future Kingdom focused to be so distracted!

We, as 21st century Christians, do not help anyone by being seduced into speaking for one side or another of two (or more) warring camps of Gentile hate-mongers who are ruled in typically corrupt Gentile fashion!

“Christian” pop-culture labels pasted on political & social movements do not “Christianize” blatant disregard for Jesus himself. Neither do they “COVER” for outright demonic evil – whether from “the left” or from “the right.”

We’d be better off suffering NOW for obeying him, rather than getting bamboozled by a pseudo-Christian ( with NO Future Kingdom focus) bandwagon to get our way now – as if entitled …. by an “American idol.”

Biblically speaking, the USA, and all current nations (Gentiles by nature) await JUST dismantling when our true theocratic King (Jesus) comes to reign. I still pray that King Jesus’ perspective NOW have the priority that it should have, at least among those who try to faithfully await his much needed intervention.

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