Well, I couldn't resist responding to the second half of Caleb's comment, mostly out of a fiercely territorial love for the good Bishop. I think Caleb's concern over the "new perspective on Paul," lead by Wright, comes from a recent article on the subject in Christianity Today (in either case, I read the article, so I can address his concerns best through it).
As Caleb said, the article carried a tone of apprehension; the author definitely worried that Wright's emphasis on Paul's redefinition of Israel's key symbols came at the exclusion of any kind of emphasis on a spiritual renewal, or justification by faith.
As I read, I kept shaking my head, thinking, "This guy has it all backwards." It's absolutely true that Wright tries to fit the early church within the world of first-century Judaism; this does not mean that he abandons the concerns of contemporary theology.
(I should note here that I have not read any complete works of Wright's on Paul, but I have read several shorter papers, and a large tome he authored on the life of Jesus.)
Wright's "new perspective" begins not so much by redefining the gospel, as by redefining the Judaism it opposed. My own adolesence left me believing that Jesus came to found a new religion of grace and an inner spirituality, in opposition to Jewish legalism. This, Wright insists, simply was not the case. Jews have a deep appreciation for the grace of God--even the Sinai Covenant, called the "Covenant of Works" by the Reformers, comes in the context of grace. Just before he gives Israel the Decalogue, God reminds them how he "bore them on eagles' wings" out of Egypt (Ex. 19:4). From its conception, Israel was "blessed to be a blessing," redeemed by grace to showcase an alternative society, to remind the world of the true way to be human. Yet, Israel drastically failed in this vocation. "How can a city on a hill [unquestionably Jerusalem] be hidden?" Jesus asks. God gave Israel the Law, which essentially consisted of covenant boundaries: the complex interaction of moral and cultic precepts set Israel apart for a different kind of life. The Temple, Torah, sabbath, circumcision, and food laws all cried with the thunderous voice of symbol: "We are different! We are God's!"
Sadly, over time Israel came to believe that the symbols themselves represented an absolute guarantee of God's favor. In other words, the Jews focused on the "blessed" bit, to the exclusion of "to be a blessing." Wright summarizes this mindset in his exegesis of Jesus' action in the Temple in Luke 19. As he overturns stalls, Jesus quotes two passages from the Tanakh. One, from Jeremiah 7, contains a crucial episode in the life of Israel.
Jeremiah goes to the Temple, and there announces, "...Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal,...and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are delievered!'--only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?"
Jesus also quotes Isaiah 56:7, which reads, "For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."
So, Jesus storms into the Temple, and quotes these two passages. One represents the true vocation of Israel--to be the light of the world, the vehicle by which God will draw all men into covenant with himself. The other represents Israel's failure, her determination to go her own way, and to trust in her nationalist symbols as guarantees of a political protection she does not deserve. In fact, the word Jesus uses, generally translated "robbers," is the Greek lestai. In the first century, lestai almost always referred to brigands, highwaymen, particularly the Jewish Zealots who hid in the hills and attacked Roman caravans, seeking a military overthrow of the oppressor.
When Jesus stormed through the Temple, he was not aimed at reform--he was acting out the destruction God promised in Jeremiah 7 for Israel's waywardness. In fact, Jesus whole ministry focused on subverting Israel's symbols, and redefining them around himself. He, Immanuel, was the true Temple. He was the true Passover Lamb, the true Water and Bread (both important symbols of God's provision in the wilderness wanderings). His teachings constituted the new Torah (this is the best way to read the Sermon on the Mount). At the heart of these redefined symbols is the belief that the true Israel would use her covenant boundaries as symbols of God's loving inclusiveness--thus, the redefined covenant included all the wrong sorts of people: the sick, the poor (both often believed as suffering due to sin), the Roman, the Samaritan, the women, the children.
Another, more complicated strand of thought is Jesus' belief about his death and resurrection, which developed out of passages like Isaiah 53, Zechariah 13, and Daniel 9, but encompasses far more even than those. Jesus firmly believed that his vocation as Israel's true representative was to fight her decisive battle against the true oppressor (Paul's "powers and principalities"). The global mindset I outlined earlier made this battle a fight for the world, rather than for Israel as a political entity. On the Cross, Jesus broke the powers of darkness; in his Resurrection, he "swallowed up death forever" (Is. 25, 1 Cor. 15).
Wright does redefine the traditional understanding of justification by faith. "Faith" to Jesus and Paul meant one's faith in the power of the resurrection to redeem him from bondage, and to lead him out into a new kind of life, the life detailed in Jesus' redefined covenant.
Thus, the distinction the CT article makes between a cultural argument between Paul and Judaism, and our traditional understanding of justification, does not exist. Wright is every bit as concerned as Luther about grace and redemption; he just speaks about them a bit differently.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
A Personal Atonement
Dear friends, Caleb's recent comment has forced me to confront some weaknesses in my earlier post, "The Medium and Message of Scripture." I want to thank Caleb for sharpening me; hopefully I can iron out some of the rough spots in the first attempt.
I suppose I should have inserted the bit about my being a Calvinist-sympathizer earlier--I honestly have tremendous respect for Calvinist thought in general, and Calvin in particular, who was a wonderful saint of God, judging from all I've heard.
I began thinking about all of this in the context of communication theory, particularly McLuhan's famous remark, "The medium is the message." I've worried for a long time that the way the church communicates the gospel, whether in systematic theology or tracts, often diminishes, constricts, or even warps the mystery, romance, and power of Jesus' message. Thus, the main thrust of my post was a fairly simple observation--"God gave us a narrative, not a textbook."
Of course, not every line of the Bible is narrative, but most of it is, and the parts that aren't only make sense within the context of the greater narrative. The detailed instructions in the second half of Exodus for the construction of the Tabernacle become relevant only when we answer the question, "Why build a Tabernacle?" The answer (expressed incompletely, I suppose) relates to God's plan to dwell physically among His people as the crucial element in His redemptive covenant with Israel, through which He began the undoing of the Fall. Likewise, the genealogies in Chronicles are probably best understood as signs that God has fulfilled His promise of descendents to Abraham--again, we must resort to a narrative to find our understanding.
Regarding salvation--Caleb wondered if I believe that salvation is "merely an epiphany drawn from the biblical narrative." I think he feared that, in describing the Bible as a story, I had relegated its power to the first century, leaving it potent only for emotional inspiration. I assure, I believe nothing of the sort, and am horrified that I might have suggested it to my readers. When I insisted that the gospel is not primarily timeless truths about salvation, I did not mean that it is in no way true. I take issue with formulaic, timeless characterizations of the gospel, because I do not see that the Bible presents God's redeeming creation as in any way mechanistic, or timeless, in the sense of having no spatial reference. The most revealing aspect of sin is not the moral culpability it saddles men with, but the fact that it places them in bondage to darkness and death, opposing them to God's will. The problem the Bible addresses is not so much one of an eternal destination, but of an earthly dominion. The story of redemption is one of God's reasserting his rightful kingship over the earth, defeating the usurpers, and restoring men and creation to true fellowship with himself. The Cross was not a piece of machinery, but a weapon; the Resurrection was not a timeless mechanism, but a triumphant victory. Thus, we arrive at our predicament today--how do we take part in this renewal? When we place our faith in the victory of Christ, and commit ourselves to joining His kingdom, the power of the Resurrection works to renew our lives, so that, powerfully, mysteriously, we can claim a second birth. The Kingdom is not merely a new society; it is a new humanity. Perhaps I generalized too much--I grew up with a gospel that concerned itself mostly with an abstract salvation from a post-mortem punishment. The gospel I heard had only a tangential relation to the earth, whether to man's role in it, or God's concern for it.
I most definitely will not claim that the Bible is a story without themes, or that it is inappropriate to expound on those themes. I do see some discontinuity between biblical criticism and all other literary criticism: as much empathy as we may find with other stories, the Bible is in a profound way our story. Our thoughts on the story should come in the context of our living in it; as Augustine said, "I do not understand that I might believe, but believe that I might understand."
At the end of all this, I hope that any affection I have for narrative theology will not become another semantics game. Rather, I see in the sprawling story of God and creation a way to transcend semantics altogether. I think my initial allusion to the sovereignty/free will debate is telling--rather than arguing one side of an indivisible paradox, let's just embrace the mystery, and trust in God's will, while still keeping the thrill of uncertainty.
One last remark, and I'm through with this topic for a bit--Caleb raised a great objection to my description of the Bible as the "true story of humanity." In this case, semantics do matter--"God and creation" seems to capture the intent of Scripture more completely, I think. I certainly hope I don't espouse a man-centered gospel; in my own way, I think I care about the glory of God as much as Piper, Calvin, or whoever. However, I see no point in separating the glory of God from His love of creation, which He tends as a shepherd, or of men, whom He cares for as sons.
If you have any further objections to this, or any former post, please leave them as a comment. I do love a good firestorm of controversy (perhaps too much, in fact).
I suppose I should have inserted the bit about my being a Calvinist-sympathizer earlier--I honestly have tremendous respect for Calvinist thought in general, and Calvin in particular, who was a wonderful saint of God, judging from all I've heard.
I began thinking about all of this in the context of communication theory, particularly McLuhan's famous remark, "The medium is the message." I've worried for a long time that the way the church communicates the gospel, whether in systematic theology or tracts, often diminishes, constricts, or even warps the mystery, romance, and power of Jesus' message. Thus, the main thrust of my post was a fairly simple observation--"God gave us a narrative, not a textbook."
Of course, not every line of the Bible is narrative, but most of it is, and the parts that aren't only make sense within the context of the greater narrative. The detailed instructions in the second half of Exodus for the construction of the Tabernacle become relevant only when we answer the question, "Why build a Tabernacle?" The answer (expressed incompletely, I suppose) relates to God's plan to dwell physically among His people as the crucial element in His redemptive covenant with Israel, through which He began the undoing of the Fall. Likewise, the genealogies in Chronicles are probably best understood as signs that God has fulfilled His promise of descendents to Abraham--again, we must resort to a narrative to find our understanding.
Regarding salvation--Caleb wondered if I believe that salvation is "merely an epiphany drawn from the biblical narrative." I think he feared that, in describing the Bible as a story, I had relegated its power to the first century, leaving it potent only for emotional inspiration. I assure, I believe nothing of the sort, and am horrified that I might have suggested it to my readers. When I insisted that the gospel is not primarily timeless truths about salvation, I did not mean that it is in no way true. I take issue with formulaic, timeless characterizations of the gospel, because I do not see that the Bible presents God's redeeming creation as in any way mechanistic, or timeless, in the sense of having no spatial reference. The most revealing aspect of sin is not the moral culpability it saddles men with, but the fact that it places them in bondage to darkness and death, opposing them to God's will. The problem the Bible addresses is not so much one of an eternal destination, but of an earthly dominion. The story of redemption is one of God's reasserting his rightful kingship over the earth, defeating the usurpers, and restoring men and creation to true fellowship with himself. The Cross was not a piece of machinery, but a weapon; the Resurrection was not a timeless mechanism, but a triumphant victory. Thus, we arrive at our predicament today--how do we take part in this renewal? When we place our faith in the victory of Christ, and commit ourselves to joining His kingdom, the power of the Resurrection works to renew our lives, so that, powerfully, mysteriously, we can claim a second birth. The Kingdom is not merely a new society; it is a new humanity. Perhaps I generalized too much--I grew up with a gospel that concerned itself mostly with an abstract salvation from a post-mortem punishment. The gospel I heard had only a tangential relation to the earth, whether to man's role in it, or God's concern for it.
I most definitely will not claim that the Bible is a story without themes, or that it is inappropriate to expound on those themes. I do see some discontinuity between biblical criticism and all other literary criticism: as much empathy as we may find with other stories, the Bible is in a profound way our story. Our thoughts on the story should come in the context of our living in it; as Augustine said, "I do not understand that I might believe, but believe that I might understand."
At the end of all this, I hope that any affection I have for narrative theology will not become another semantics game. Rather, I see in the sprawling story of God and creation a way to transcend semantics altogether. I think my initial allusion to the sovereignty/free will debate is telling--rather than arguing one side of an indivisible paradox, let's just embrace the mystery, and trust in God's will, while still keeping the thrill of uncertainty.
One last remark, and I'm through with this topic for a bit--Caleb raised a great objection to my description of the Bible as the "true story of humanity." In this case, semantics do matter--"God and creation" seems to capture the intent of Scripture more completely, I think. I certainly hope I don't espouse a man-centered gospel; in my own way, I think I care about the glory of God as much as Piper, Calvin, or whoever. However, I see no point in separating the glory of God from His love of creation, which He tends as a shepherd, or of men, whom He cares for as sons.
If you have any further objections to this, or any former post, please leave them as a comment. I do love a good firestorm of controversy (perhaps too much, in fact).
Monday, September 3, 2007
The Upended World
It seems that Yeats waxed prophetic when, more than a century ago, he announced, “The center does not hold.” Americans increasingly inhabit a fluid world; where traditional industries wither like grass, and a new crop sprouts yearly; where technology unleashes a flood of possibilities, surging either to lift men, or to drown them. Predictably, such a world elicits mixed responses.
Lee works for the Ford production plant in Chongqing, where he earns about $200 a month (double the wages at his prior job), building the same cars that Dale once built for $2400 a month in Detroit. Dale’s union regularly called for reduced hours; Lee eagerly volunteers to work on Labor Day. Likewise, Pratini, an employee of Wipro Technologies in Bangalore, now handles the Delta customer services calls once answered by Patti from the Delta headquarters in Atlanta.
However, the departure of low-end manufacturing and services for the East by no means captures the essence of globalization. Consider this: Wipro, the seeming enemy of the Georgian workforce, is opening a development center in Atlanta, staffed by up to 500 domain experts and programmers, which will allow it to expand and personalize its “technology services business” in the Americas. Likewise, Infosys, a leader in service outsourcing, now also specializes in high-end business consulting for American firms. Take a deep breath, because your world has just somersaulted: the Indian outsourcer stole the chuck steak from Patti’s table, only to offer a sirloin in exchange; the upstart Third World company now tutors confused Californian start-ups in adapting to globalization.
Some perspective will help to untangle this mess. Between 2004 and 2014, America will lose about 80,000 production jobs, a decline of only .7%. However, growth in business management, healthcare, computer science, and other high-paying industries should add nearly 13.5 million jobs to the economy. Network analysis, a profession requiring only a bachelor’s degree, should grow as much as 55% in that time.
These statistics are merely projections, not promises. Americans must face an awful truth: Eastern workers do not want to build our cars, but to design them; not take our phone calls, but write our voice-identification software. However, the stories of Wipro and Infosys offer hope: by breaking down barriers, globalization can replace the zero-sum mindset of nationalist competition with imaginative, trusting collaboration and innovation. When fiber-optics allow technology firms to run 24/7 research programs across three continents, cutting development time by two months, and costs by 30%, everyone wins, be they in India, or Indiana.
Americans must abandon protectionist ideology, and embrace a vision of a seamless, digitally integrated world of wireless collaboration. They must realize this dream by renewing the Western passion for preeminence in math and science. They must aid the displaced, not by trapping them in stagnant industries, but by continually educating them for better work in emerging fields. Globalization has brought India and China to an arm’s length: our future depends on our embracing them as brothers, and working with them as friends.
Lee works for the Ford production plant in Chongqing, where he earns about $200 a month (double the wages at his prior job), building the same cars that Dale once built for $2400 a month in Detroit. Dale’s union regularly called for reduced hours; Lee eagerly volunteers to work on Labor Day. Likewise, Pratini, an employee of Wipro Technologies in Bangalore, now handles the Delta customer services calls once answered by Patti from the Delta headquarters in Atlanta.
However, the departure of low-end manufacturing and services for the East by no means captures the essence of globalization. Consider this: Wipro, the seeming enemy of the Georgian workforce, is opening a development center in Atlanta, staffed by up to 500 domain experts and programmers, which will allow it to expand and personalize its “technology services business” in the Americas. Likewise, Infosys, a leader in service outsourcing, now also specializes in high-end business consulting for American firms. Take a deep breath, because your world has just somersaulted: the Indian outsourcer stole the chuck steak from Patti’s table, only to offer a sirloin in exchange; the upstart Third World company now tutors confused Californian start-ups in adapting to globalization.
Some perspective will help to untangle this mess. Between 2004 and 2014, America will lose about 80,000 production jobs, a decline of only .7%. However, growth in business management, healthcare, computer science, and other high-paying industries should add nearly 13.5 million jobs to the economy. Network analysis, a profession requiring only a bachelor’s degree, should grow as much as 55% in that time.
These statistics are merely projections, not promises. Americans must face an awful truth: Eastern workers do not want to build our cars, but to design them; not take our phone calls, but write our voice-identification software. However, the stories of Wipro and Infosys offer hope: by breaking down barriers, globalization can replace the zero-sum mindset of nationalist competition with imaginative, trusting collaboration and innovation. When fiber-optics allow technology firms to run 24/7 research programs across three continents, cutting development time by two months, and costs by 30%, everyone wins, be they in India, or Indiana.
Americans must abandon protectionist ideology, and embrace a vision of a seamless, digitally integrated world of wireless collaboration. They must realize this dream by renewing the Western passion for preeminence in math and science. They must aid the displaced, not by trapping them in stagnant industries, but by continually educating them for better work in emerging fields. Globalization has brought India and China to an arm’s length: our future depends on our embracing them as brothers, and working with them as friends.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The Medium and Message of Scripture
I have many Calvinist friends, which means that I frequently find myself embroiled in intensely intellectual conversations that tend to drift off into realms of abstract spirituality. One such conversation sticks out particularly in my mind. My friend asked me bluntly, "Are you a Calvinist?" When, after a long pause, I replied, "No," he pounced like a wolverine on a mouse--"Why not? Which of the five points do you disagree with?"
In that moment, I had an epiphany--I suddenly saw that, for my friend, the essence of Christianity was accepting certain propositions about God or men as true. I saw that, for him, the five points of Calvinism represented the boundaries of the gospel, making intellectual apprehension the key to the Kingdom. Finally, I saw that the key to my disavowal lay in my faith in the ultimate authority of Scripture.
As my vision cleared, I slowly formed a response. "Well, it's not that I disagree with any of the points in particular, though I probably would in some places. I'm not a Calvinist because I take issue with the whole idea of boiling the gospel down to a few propositions. It's not just Calvinism--it's Arminianism, and the 'Romans Road,' and the Four Spiritual Laws."
I could see the word "heretic" turning over in his mind, so I quickly sought to clarify myself. "Listen," I said, "you believe in the authority of Scripture, right?"
He nodded slowly, as I might when conversing with a five year-old.
I continued, grateful for some breathing room. "Well, so do I. I believe that God meant to give us a long, messy, paradoxical story about how he is redeeming a good world gone bad. I don't think He meant to write the Five Points, or the Four Laws, but just couldn't find the right phrasing. No, he gave us a story, because only a story requires empathy. He did not give us five propositions to agree with, or a four step formula to follow, but a story to join."
At this point, my friend seemed to recover his former confidence: "So, you're saying you don't think the Bible is true?"
I had to smile: "I believe the Bible is the true story of humanity. The power of the Bible does not rest in the fact that it outlines the nature of God, man, or sin with peculiar clarity, though it often does those things. The Bible carries the redemptive authority of God because it is the true account of how a perfect creation fell from grace and was redeemed by a sovereign God. Let me put it this way: Jesus on the Cross did not create some abstract, spiritual machinery by which men could be forgiven from abstract sins, and freed from immaterial punishment. On the Cross, Jesus confronted the powers of darkness that held sway over the world, took upon himself the evil intended for men, and in so doing, 'swallowed up death forever.'"
My friend seemed to choke on these thoughts for a moment, before asking, "Well, if the Bible isn't primarily something we understand, how can we make any sense of it for today?"
"Well, first, I don't think that systematic views of faith do a great job of making sense of the actual story presented in the Bible. Consider the sovereignty/free will debate: it seems abundantly clear to me that God's sovereignty and man's free choice are both key themes of the Bible. I don't know how you can read passages like Genesis 3, Isaiah 50, Ezekiel 16, Hosea 2, or Colossians 3 without some understanding of free will, any more than you can read Romans 8-9, or Ephesians 1 without an appreciation of God's sovereign choice. Systematic approaches to theology inevitably seem to trivialize one side of the issue, when the reality seems to be that they paradoxically work together.
"Beyond that, when we begin with the narrative revealed in Scripture, we can move towards its contemporary relevance without demeaning the fact of the historical work of God. When we see spirituality primarily in terms of timeless truths, we can have a hard time making sense of the flesh-and-blood reality of God's work. God does not deal principally with the abstract: he enters history, clothing principle in human events. Israel was not merely an example of a people who knew more about God than others; they were the vehicle by which God would bring redemption to all creation (cf. Gen. 12:3). Likewise, Jesus was not some spiritual technician, operating the abstract machinery of atonement; he was God come to earth to defeat the powers of darkness, restore humanity to fellowship with himself, and finally, renew all of creation.
"N. T. Wright suggests that we read the Bible like a play with the middle cut out--we have the beginning, and the very end (which occurs on earth, not in some spritual realm, cf. Rev. 21), and our job is to improvise the middle, directed and cued by the Holy Spirit. That means remaining faithful to the themes we see acted out in Israel's history and Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. We must seek to live out our vocation as the people of God, moving history towards the renewal and healing we see in Revelation."
At this point, I thought to end with some sympathy. "Listen, I don't hate Calvinism; in fact, I deeply sympathize with a lot of Calvinist thought. When it helps us identify the themes of the narrative, without stealing our attention from joining our daily lives to God's story, systematic theology can be helpful. It's just that, at its best, systematic theology is only commentary. It's like the editor's preface to a story: you only read it so you can move beyond it, to the story itself."
In that moment, I had an epiphany--I suddenly saw that, for my friend, the essence of Christianity was accepting certain propositions about God or men as true. I saw that, for him, the five points of Calvinism represented the boundaries of the gospel, making intellectual apprehension the key to the Kingdom. Finally, I saw that the key to my disavowal lay in my faith in the ultimate authority of Scripture.
As my vision cleared, I slowly formed a response. "Well, it's not that I disagree with any of the points in particular, though I probably would in some places. I'm not a Calvinist because I take issue with the whole idea of boiling the gospel down to a few propositions. It's not just Calvinism--it's Arminianism, and the 'Romans Road,' and the Four Spiritual Laws."
I could see the word "heretic" turning over in his mind, so I quickly sought to clarify myself. "Listen," I said, "you believe in the authority of Scripture, right?"
He nodded slowly, as I might when conversing with a five year-old.
I continued, grateful for some breathing room. "Well, so do I. I believe that God meant to give us a long, messy, paradoxical story about how he is redeeming a good world gone bad. I don't think He meant to write the Five Points, or the Four Laws, but just couldn't find the right phrasing. No, he gave us a story, because only a story requires empathy. He did not give us five propositions to agree with, or a four step formula to follow, but a story to join."
At this point, my friend seemed to recover his former confidence: "So, you're saying you don't think the Bible is true?"
I had to smile: "I believe the Bible is the true story of humanity. The power of the Bible does not rest in the fact that it outlines the nature of God, man, or sin with peculiar clarity, though it often does those things. The Bible carries the redemptive authority of God because it is the true account of how a perfect creation fell from grace and was redeemed by a sovereign God. Let me put it this way: Jesus on the Cross did not create some abstract, spiritual machinery by which men could be forgiven from abstract sins, and freed from immaterial punishment. On the Cross, Jesus confronted the powers of darkness that held sway over the world, took upon himself the evil intended for men, and in so doing, 'swallowed up death forever.'"
My friend seemed to choke on these thoughts for a moment, before asking, "Well, if the Bible isn't primarily something we understand, how can we make any sense of it for today?"
"Well, first, I don't think that systematic views of faith do a great job of making sense of the actual story presented in the Bible. Consider the sovereignty/free will debate: it seems abundantly clear to me that God's sovereignty and man's free choice are both key themes of the Bible. I don't know how you can read passages like Genesis 3, Isaiah 50, Ezekiel 16, Hosea 2, or Colossians 3 without some understanding of free will, any more than you can read Romans 8-9, or Ephesians 1 without an appreciation of God's sovereign choice. Systematic approaches to theology inevitably seem to trivialize one side of the issue, when the reality seems to be that they paradoxically work together.
"Beyond that, when we begin with the narrative revealed in Scripture, we can move towards its contemporary relevance without demeaning the fact of the historical work of God. When we see spirituality primarily in terms of timeless truths, we can have a hard time making sense of the flesh-and-blood reality of God's work. God does not deal principally with the abstract: he enters history, clothing principle in human events. Israel was not merely an example of a people who knew more about God than others; they were the vehicle by which God would bring redemption to all creation (cf. Gen. 12:3). Likewise, Jesus was not some spiritual technician, operating the abstract machinery of atonement; he was God come to earth to defeat the powers of darkness, restore humanity to fellowship with himself, and finally, renew all of creation.
"N. T. Wright suggests that we read the Bible like a play with the middle cut out--we have the beginning, and the very end (which occurs on earth, not in some spritual realm, cf. Rev. 21), and our job is to improvise the middle, directed and cued by the Holy Spirit. That means remaining faithful to the themes we see acted out in Israel's history and Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. We must seek to live out our vocation as the people of God, moving history towards the renewal and healing we see in Revelation."
At this point, I thought to end with some sympathy. "Listen, I don't hate Calvinism; in fact, I deeply sympathize with a lot of Calvinist thought. When it helps us identify the themes of the narrative, without stealing our attention from joining our daily lives to God's story, systematic theology can be helpful. It's just that, at its best, systematic theology is only commentary. It's like the editor's preface to a story: you only read it so you can move beyond it, to the story itself."
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Dry-walling and Career Planning
Dale had a shriveled look about him; at 72, he resembled a dried corn husk, his deep brown skin stretched over bone and tightly-corded muscle, etched with a fine lacework of wrinkles. He could srtetch to 5’6’’, but a now permanent hunch left him stranded at about 5’3’’—on a windy day, I often imagined that Dale might blow away, like a maple leaf dried and driven by autumn.
However, I hadn’t worked an hour under Dale before I realized that appearances deceive: he was the foulest cuss I’d ever met. My first day on the job, as I helped Moses, the Mexican mudder (construction for “drywall finisher”) plaster an outside wall, Dale came around the corner, his gait short, bird-like, his left arm in a sling (he tore his rotator cuff throwing 100 lb. packs of shingles in a dumpster), his right arm protectively clutching a set of plans for the Mission. He let his wide, feral gaze trail across our wall, before wheezing casually: “Gawd, Moses, that looks like shit. That looks like the afterbirth of a bastard rat.” His words had not ceased chasing my stomach into my rib cage, before he resumed his steady progress around the building.
Yeah, Dale was a real character, but, I think my favorite that summer was Allen. I spent most of my days following Allen from site to site: he did whatever the corporate suits deemed unworthy of a subcontractor's time, and I did whatever he deemed unworthy of his time. We erected ornamental pillars, painted pool decks, installed doors, even delivered the boss' furniture.
Dale had a wild look about him; Allen always appeared mildly surprised. I could never tell for sure whether every occurrence actually stunned him, or if his inch-thick glasses merely saddled him with a startled expression.
Allen's ambiguous features notwithstanding, I can speak with authority on his favorite verbal expression: he responded to my lunch menu, and to news of a Cessna crashing into a house a mile away, with the same, semi-alarmed syllable—“Shit.” Allen had a way of milking the burst of profanity: when something truly shocked him, his jaw would hang slack, and the sound would trickle from him, effervescent as the fizz from canned soda. “Sheeet…you serious?” I would solemnly bob my head in affirmation, and he would reply with an incredulous shake of his head, perhaps even doffing his camouflage baseball cap to wipe away the sweat that trickled from his thinning, prematurely white hair, as though the very subject caused him to perspire in agitation.
“Prematurely white” pretty well summed Allen’s appearance—hard work, long hours, and the cares of the breadwinner had aged him before his time. Still broad-shouldered and bull-necked at 55, his hair, bleached white by stress, and his skin, browned and creased by the sun, easily could have passed on a 65 year-old.
I liked Allen, though. I liked him because he was funny, but didn’t know it. Allen had worked just about every job under the sun over his 35 year career, and, to hear him talk, he aspired to undertake the few remaining choices all at once. Allen had worked as a master electrician on an oil rig, a phone lineman, a mechanic, a carpenter, a concrete mixer, a trucker, and a few other jobs that hadn’t merited explanation. When I met him, he had settled in as our resident handyman, doing ten different jobs, and hardly getting paid more than a broom-pusher like me.
Allen spent the majority of our driving time plotting his next career move: he may have dreamed up several entirely new trades during the course of our travels (at least, I hadn’t heard of them). One day, Allen announced matter-of-factly, “I’m thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ into fixin’ golf carts.” That’s how these schemes always began, with Allen “gettin’ into” something, much as a ten year-old might land himself in a different scrape every day. After titling that day’s chapter, he would launch into a rapturous description of the intricacies of his new profession, painting visions of hydraulic lifts sending carts skyward, of tiny cranes heaving batteries from the plastic frame. Or, the next day, Allen would be “thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ into doors”—he would fabricate frames and stain the heavy oak, if he could only come up with $30,000 in start-up capital. A few days later, he was dreaming about cleaning and repainting grout—except that the work was tedious, and would be brutal on his already-mangled back. During the three months we worked together, I think we tracked up just about every building trade, revisiting our favorite haunts multiple times.
For the first month, listening to him complain about his current mistreatment, reminisce about the past, and dream for the future, I wondered why a guy with Allen’s skill, trying to raise a family, would work for the few pennies he earned. When I timidly asked him why he left his job as an electrician, my voice barely audible over the clanks and groans of his protesting work van, he looked over at me with a faintly puzzled expression. He stared ahead at the road for a minute, scratched his nose, and finally answered, “Well, I don’t know…I reckon I just got restless. I never been fired, but I never worked no job more’n five years. I always got to wonderin’ ‘bout new trades, new places, new people. The road’s always looked invitin’ t’me.” A strange solemnity descended over the van on the tails of that statement: for a long time, I could not look at George, whether from pity or awe, I couldn’t be sure.
However, I hadn’t worked an hour under Dale before I realized that appearances deceive: he was the foulest cuss I’d ever met. My first day on the job, as I helped Moses, the Mexican mudder (construction for “drywall finisher”) plaster an outside wall, Dale came around the corner, his gait short, bird-like, his left arm in a sling (he tore his rotator cuff throwing 100 lb. packs of shingles in a dumpster), his right arm protectively clutching a set of plans for the Mission. He let his wide, feral gaze trail across our wall, before wheezing casually: “Gawd, Moses, that looks like shit. That looks like the afterbirth of a bastard rat.” His words had not ceased chasing my stomach into my rib cage, before he resumed his steady progress around the building.
Yeah, Dale was a real character, but, I think my favorite that summer was Allen. I spent most of my days following Allen from site to site: he did whatever the corporate suits deemed unworthy of a subcontractor's time, and I did whatever he deemed unworthy of his time. We erected ornamental pillars, painted pool decks, installed doors, even delivered the boss' furniture.
Dale had a wild look about him; Allen always appeared mildly surprised. I could never tell for sure whether every occurrence actually stunned him, or if his inch-thick glasses merely saddled him with a startled expression.
Allen's ambiguous features notwithstanding, I can speak with authority on his favorite verbal expression: he responded to my lunch menu, and to news of a Cessna crashing into a house a mile away, with the same, semi-alarmed syllable—“Shit.” Allen had a way of milking the burst of profanity: when something truly shocked him, his jaw would hang slack, and the sound would trickle from him, effervescent as the fizz from canned soda. “Sheeet…you serious?” I would solemnly bob my head in affirmation, and he would reply with an incredulous shake of his head, perhaps even doffing his camouflage baseball cap to wipe away the sweat that trickled from his thinning, prematurely white hair, as though the very subject caused him to perspire in agitation.
“Prematurely white” pretty well summed Allen’s appearance—hard work, long hours, and the cares of the breadwinner had aged him before his time. Still broad-shouldered and bull-necked at 55, his hair, bleached white by stress, and his skin, browned and creased by the sun, easily could have passed on a 65 year-old.
I liked Allen, though. I liked him because he was funny, but didn’t know it. Allen had worked just about every job under the sun over his 35 year career, and, to hear him talk, he aspired to undertake the few remaining choices all at once. Allen had worked as a master electrician on an oil rig, a phone lineman, a mechanic, a carpenter, a concrete mixer, a trucker, and a few other jobs that hadn’t merited explanation. When I met him, he had settled in as our resident handyman, doing ten different jobs, and hardly getting paid more than a broom-pusher like me.
Allen spent the majority of our driving time plotting his next career move: he may have dreamed up several entirely new trades during the course of our travels (at least, I hadn’t heard of them). One day, Allen announced matter-of-factly, “I’m thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ into fixin’ golf carts.” That’s how these schemes always began, with Allen “gettin’ into” something, much as a ten year-old might land himself in a different scrape every day. After titling that day’s chapter, he would launch into a rapturous description of the intricacies of his new profession, painting visions of hydraulic lifts sending carts skyward, of tiny cranes heaving batteries from the plastic frame. Or, the next day, Allen would be “thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ into doors”—he would fabricate frames and stain the heavy oak, if he could only come up with $30,000 in start-up capital. A few days later, he was dreaming about cleaning and repainting grout—except that the work was tedious, and would be brutal on his already-mangled back. During the three months we worked together, I think we tracked up just about every building trade, revisiting our favorite haunts multiple times.
For the first month, listening to him complain about his current mistreatment, reminisce about the past, and dream for the future, I wondered why a guy with Allen’s skill, trying to raise a family, would work for the few pennies he earned. When I timidly asked him why he left his job as an electrician, my voice barely audible over the clanks and groans of his protesting work van, he looked over at me with a faintly puzzled expression. He stared ahead at the road for a minute, scratched his nose, and finally answered, “Well, I don’t know…I reckon I just got restless. I never been fired, but I never worked no job more’n five years. I always got to wonderin’ ‘bout new trades, new places, new people. The road’s always looked invitin’ t’me.” A strange solemnity descended over the van on the tails of that statement: for a long time, I could not look at George, whether from pity or awe, I couldn’t be sure.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Family, Society, and Saving the World
Have you noticed that most activism takes place in the spotlight? To end global warming, activists hold a huge concert (ironically leaving an environmental footprint the size of Massachusetts in their wake); politicians love to declare war on any and every social ill: poverty, drugs, terror. They propose sweeping reforms to end crime, touching small-arms, prisons, the courts, and public education.
Maybe good will come of all the above, but I doubt it. I think change gathers quietly, like the dew’s billion drops collecting to soak the ground. I think change is individuals learning to spend well, consume less, to care about one another, and the earth.
With that frightening truth in mind, I would like to offer you a quiet, even ponderous, yet crucial role to play in the redemption of all creation: get married, have kids, and teach them a better way to live.
No, Pat Robertson has not commandeered my keyboard—I mean this. The sociological data favoring the sacrament of marriage is staggering. I offer you a smattering of the more startling examples from the reams of facts I waded through…
A survey of 108 rapists undertaken by Raymond A. Knight and Robert A. Prentky revealed that…70 percent of those describable as 'violent' came from female-headed homes.
Children of divorce were six times more likely than children in
intact families to strongly agree "I was alone a lot as child." : Elizabeth Marquardt
"Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce."
Crown Books (September 27, 2005)
Students from intact families maintained grade point averages (GPAs) 11% higher than those of peers from divorced families. Source: Barry D. Ham, "The Effects of Divorce on the Academic Achievement of High School Seniors," Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 38.3/4 [2003]: 167-185.)
Children of divorce (whose parents divorced while they were children) are 62% more likely than children of non-divorced parents to no longer identify with the faith of their parents when they grow up.
Lawton, L. E., & Bures, R. (2001). Parental Divorce and the "Switching" of Religious Identity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40, 99-111.
Among long-term prison inmates, 70 percent grew up without fathers, as did 60 percent of rapists and 75 percent of adolescents charged with murder.
Source: Wade Horn and Andrew Bush, "Fathers, Marriage, and Welfare Reform,
The divorce rate is just absurd (sitting somewhere between 41% and 52% in 2003, depending on who did the math). More chilling than mere numbers, children of divorced parents are far more likely to commit violent crimes, suffer mental illness, resent their parents as adults, fall away from faith, perform more poorly in school, earn less as adults, and, finally, to experience divorce in their own marriages.
Divorce even affects the environment: in a married family, two adults and two children easily live in one house. A divorcee who leaves his former home immediately finds a new place to live: now the same four people have two houses between them. That’s two electric and utility bills; two TV’s running instead of one; two trips to the grocery store (if my experience serves, divorce does not guarantee that a family will spend less on food); along with the reliance on lower-quality products that comes from a reduction in income, and an increase in stress (during my middle school years, my family ate out as often as three times a week—between work and running around, my mom had no time to cook).
I do not write as a pundit; I have experienced the pain of divorce, lived through the painful dilemma, the tragic necessity, and the brutal consequences. My parents had a terrible marriage: I will not judge whether they should have married, or whether they should have stuck it out. My mom will always remain a symbol of strength and unshakeable resolve to me: she has borne more in silence, sacrificed more quiet pleasures, and committed more love and determination to running her practice, raising my sister and me, and rebuilding our house, than I suspect I could ever know.
Still, I will say this—their divorce damaged something in my nine year-old heart. About six months after the divorce, my dad disappeared, to remain hidden for nearly six years. I don’t remember ever crying after he left: I bottled up the anguish, the fear, the anger. However, these things force their way to the surface—within a few months, I developed a severe case of anxiety, often suffering near-panic attacks if my mom were late to pick me up (this problem was severely exacerbated by her belief that 45 minutes late was just “running a few minutes behind.”). I dealt with these fears by channeling them into obsessive-compulsive habits. Eventually, I went to counseling to work through these issues, but to this day I struggle against a lingering fear of rejection, a persistent sense of unworthiness. Every good thing in my life always seems on the verge of walking out the door. I was the consummate outsider for much of my adolescence, resenting families more whole than my own, and friends better-adjusted than myself.
Now, few of these facts would show up in statistics that would otherwise plot me as a typical bright, upper-middle-class undergrad. I have a girlfriend, great friends, a good relationship with my mom and sister—and I constantly fight to protect them against lies I embraced when I was ten.
I began to think about all this while driving, listening to the song “Teach Your Young,” by Zach Williams. If you want to change the world, tell your kids every day that you love them. Teach your young to love Jesus and follow in his way, to delight in growing things, to suffer and sacrifice for something beautiful. Teach them to recycle, to care for the poor and broken-heated, to love peace. Teach them to spend their money well, to live generously, to yearn for the shalom of the coming Kingdom.
Maybe good will come of all the above, but I doubt it. I think change gathers quietly, like the dew’s billion drops collecting to soak the ground. I think change is individuals learning to spend well, consume less, to care about one another, and the earth.
With that frightening truth in mind, I would like to offer you a quiet, even ponderous, yet crucial role to play in the redemption of all creation: get married, have kids, and teach them a better way to live.
No, Pat Robertson has not commandeered my keyboard—I mean this. The sociological data favoring the sacrament of marriage is staggering. I offer you a smattering of the more startling examples from the reams of facts I waded through…
A survey of 108 rapists undertaken by Raymond A. Knight and Robert A. Prentky revealed that…70 percent of those describable as 'violent' came from female-headed homes.
Children of divorce were six times more likely than children in
intact families to strongly agree "I was alone a lot as child." : Elizabeth Marquardt
"Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce."
Crown Books (September 27, 2005)
Students from intact families maintained grade point averages (GPAs) 11% higher than those of peers from divorced families. Source: Barry D. Ham, "The Effects of Divorce on the Academic Achievement of High School Seniors," Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 38.3/4 [2003]: 167-185.)
Children of divorce (whose parents divorced while they were children) are 62% more likely than children of non-divorced parents to no longer identify with the faith of their parents when they grow up.
Lawton, L. E., & Bures, R. (2001). Parental Divorce and the "Switching" of Religious Identity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40, 99-111.
Among long-term prison inmates, 70 percent grew up without fathers, as did 60 percent of rapists and 75 percent of adolescents charged with murder.
Source: Wade Horn and Andrew Bush, "Fathers, Marriage, and Welfare Reform,
The divorce rate is just absurd (sitting somewhere between 41% and 52% in 2003, depending on who did the math). More chilling than mere numbers, children of divorced parents are far more likely to commit violent crimes, suffer mental illness, resent their parents as adults, fall away from faith, perform more poorly in school, earn less as adults, and, finally, to experience divorce in their own marriages.
Divorce even affects the environment: in a married family, two adults and two children easily live in one house. A divorcee who leaves his former home immediately finds a new place to live: now the same four people have two houses between them. That’s two electric and utility bills; two TV’s running instead of one; two trips to the grocery store (if my experience serves, divorce does not guarantee that a family will spend less on food); along with the reliance on lower-quality products that comes from a reduction in income, and an increase in stress (during my middle school years, my family ate out as often as three times a week—between work and running around, my mom had no time to cook).
I do not write as a pundit; I have experienced the pain of divorce, lived through the painful dilemma, the tragic necessity, and the brutal consequences. My parents had a terrible marriage: I will not judge whether they should have married, or whether they should have stuck it out. My mom will always remain a symbol of strength and unshakeable resolve to me: she has borne more in silence, sacrificed more quiet pleasures, and committed more love and determination to running her practice, raising my sister and me, and rebuilding our house, than I suspect I could ever know.
Still, I will say this—their divorce damaged something in my nine year-old heart. About six months after the divorce, my dad disappeared, to remain hidden for nearly six years. I don’t remember ever crying after he left: I bottled up the anguish, the fear, the anger. However, these things force their way to the surface—within a few months, I developed a severe case of anxiety, often suffering near-panic attacks if my mom were late to pick me up (this problem was severely exacerbated by her belief that 45 minutes late was just “running a few minutes behind.”). I dealt with these fears by channeling them into obsessive-compulsive habits. Eventually, I went to counseling to work through these issues, but to this day I struggle against a lingering fear of rejection, a persistent sense of unworthiness. Every good thing in my life always seems on the verge of walking out the door. I was the consummate outsider for much of my adolescence, resenting families more whole than my own, and friends better-adjusted than myself.
Now, few of these facts would show up in statistics that would otherwise plot me as a typical bright, upper-middle-class undergrad. I have a girlfriend, great friends, a good relationship with my mom and sister—and I constantly fight to protect them against lies I embraced when I was ten.
I began to think about all this while driving, listening to the song “Teach Your Young,” by Zach Williams. If you want to change the world, tell your kids every day that you love them. Teach your young to love Jesus and follow in his way, to delight in growing things, to suffer and sacrifice for something beautiful. Teach them to recycle, to care for the poor and broken-heated, to love peace. Teach them to spend their money well, to live generously, to yearn for the shalom of the coming Kingdom.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Targum on Colossians 2:6-15
During the Second Temple period, many Jews throughout the Diaspora, and even some in Palestine, stopped speaking Hebrew, as Greek and Aramaic rose to prominence. To teach their synagogues, rabbis would craft a loose paraphrase of a Hebrew text from the Tanakh, often contextualizing or interpreting it for their audience. They called these works targums. This piece is an attempt to allow us to hear an ancient letter with new ears. (I owe a great debt in this piece to a wonderful book of targums and commentary, called Colossians Remixed, by Walsh and Keesmaat.)
Targum on Colossians 2:6-15
Remember, you gladly received the proclamation that Messiah Jesus has established a new Kingdom, that he, not the next President, or the next cool product, demands your absolute allegiance. If that still holds true, order your lives according to his Way, just as a disciple would follow his Teacher’s every step. Sink deep roots into the soil of Christ’s truth, and your life will burst with fruit; you will be like a house built on the rock, firm and unassailable. From birth, society has demanded unswerving loyalty from you: loyalty to the American Dream, loyalty to unthinking consumption. You were trained to dream of a life of wealth and independence, one in which you could quietly assert your superiority over your neighbor. Well, Christ demands the same kind of faithfulness to his Kingdom, but his subjects follow a different dream: they know that they have received graciously, and thankfulness so wells up within them that it pours out to bless everyone around them.
You know that the world does not control you with its guns; Empire in every guise has always held its citizens in sway by taking their imaginations captive, by convincing them that its rule is ideal, inevitable, and eternal. Do not let the world’s propaganda deaden your heart to the dream of a better Kingdom: the reign of God restoring wholeness to the earth. Do not allow the thousands of corporate logos crowding your brain convince you that your purchases define you. Do not let the roar of idolatrous whispers convince you that man, armed with newspapers, nukes, and Nikes, can promise the hope that only Christ brings.
If you want to see God’s true vision for life, don’t look to the latest philosophy, advertisement, newscast, or wild-eyed mystic—look to Jesus, whose life exemplified the character of God, who showed us how to live in God’s society, God’s economy, and God’s foreign policy. If that’s not shocking enough, remember that Jesus has filled us with his divine presence, by sending us an Advocate to guide us in the ways of the Kingdom. If the Master of the Universe dwells by your side, what other authority do you need to answer to?
If even this royal Advocate were not enough, God has set us apart from the world in another way. Israel circumcised themselves as a sign of their covenant with God; we have received a new symbol: the mysterious burial and resurrection of baptism, the rite that marks our passage into the Kingdom, as we forsake the world and all that it loves. As Christ submitted his body to torture and death for our sake, so we (formerly dead to God because of our disobedience) die to our old ways, never faltering for fear of similar agony that might fall on us, because of our steadfast trust in the power of God that brought Jesus back from the dead after three days in the earth.
Recall your beginnings—you were dead to God, addicted to a lifestyle that was destroying, first yourself, and then the world. The powers of darkness that rule the world as oppressors, merely using thrones, board rooms, and editor’s offices as puppets, have always used the written codes of the world’s laws—whether Caesar’s, America’s, or even Israel’s—to bind our hearts and hands, to mire us deeper and deeper in sin. To set you free, God first had to confront these oppressors, and the systems that kept them in power. Jesus took the worst punishment these laws could muster, and let all their power be nailed on the cross with him, to perish with him. Thus, at the moment when their victory seemed greatest, when their darkness seemed to have crushed even God, Jesus shamed those pompous authorities by returning to life, leaving their power behind him in death. Their worst weapon had become Christ’s power over them—they could only follow meekly in Christ’s wake, watching as he undid the effects of their rule, sowing trust in place of fear, love in place of hatred, even changing an implement of torture to a symbol of peace.
Targum on Colossians 2:6-15
Remember, you gladly received the proclamation that Messiah Jesus has established a new Kingdom, that he, not the next President, or the next cool product, demands your absolute allegiance. If that still holds true, order your lives according to his Way, just as a disciple would follow his Teacher’s every step. Sink deep roots into the soil of Christ’s truth, and your life will burst with fruit; you will be like a house built on the rock, firm and unassailable. From birth, society has demanded unswerving loyalty from you: loyalty to the American Dream, loyalty to unthinking consumption. You were trained to dream of a life of wealth and independence, one in which you could quietly assert your superiority over your neighbor. Well, Christ demands the same kind of faithfulness to his Kingdom, but his subjects follow a different dream: they know that they have received graciously, and thankfulness so wells up within them that it pours out to bless everyone around them.
You know that the world does not control you with its guns; Empire in every guise has always held its citizens in sway by taking their imaginations captive, by convincing them that its rule is ideal, inevitable, and eternal. Do not let the world’s propaganda deaden your heart to the dream of a better Kingdom: the reign of God restoring wholeness to the earth. Do not allow the thousands of corporate logos crowding your brain convince you that your purchases define you. Do not let the roar of idolatrous whispers convince you that man, armed with newspapers, nukes, and Nikes, can promise the hope that only Christ brings.
If you want to see God’s true vision for life, don’t look to the latest philosophy, advertisement, newscast, or wild-eyed mystic—look to Jesus, whose life exemplified the character of God, who showed us how to live in God’s society, God’s economy, and God’s foreign policy. If that’s not shocking enough, remember that Jesus has filled us with his divine presence, by sending us an Advocate to guide us in the ways of the Kingdom. If the Master of the Universe dwells by your side, what other authority do you need to answer to?
If even this royal Advocate were not enough, God has set us apart from the world in another way. Israel circumcised themselves as a sign of their covenant with God; we have received a new symbol: the mysterious burial and resurrection of baptism, the rite that marks our passage into the Kingdom, as we forsake the world and all that it loves. As Christ submitted his body to torture and death for our sake, so we (formerly dead to God because of our disobedience) die to our old ways, never faltering for fear of similar agony that might fall on us, because of our steadfast trust in the power of God that brought Jesus back from the dead after three days in the earth.
Recall your beginnings—you were dead to God, addicted to a lifestyle that was destroying, first yourself, and then the world. The powers of darkness that rule the world as oppressors, merely using thrones, board rooms, and editor’s offices as puppets, have always used the written codes of the world’s laws—whether Caesar’s, America’s, or even Israel’s—to bind our hearts and hands, to mire us deeper and deeper in sin. To set you free, God first had to confront these oppressors, and the systems that kept them in power. Jesus took the worst punishment these laws could muster, and let all their power be nailed on the cross with him, to perish with him. Thus, at the moment when their victory seemed greatest, when their darkness seemed to have crushed even God, Jesus shamed those pompous authorities by returning to life, leaving their power behind him in death. Their worst weapon had become Christ’s power over them—they could only follow meekly in Christ’s wake, watching as he undid the effects of their rule, sowing trust in place of fear, love in place of hatred, even changing an implement of torture to a symbol of peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)