sunday encouragement from 1453

One of my favorite quotes.  It was written in 1453 by an Italian Christian, Nicolas Cusanas (1401-1464), in his major philosophical treatise De Visione Dei, "On the Vision of God."  Cusanus is considered the "principle gatekeeper between medieval and modern philosophy" (H. Lawrence Bond).

O Lord, how inclined you are to show your face to all those seeking you.  For you never close your eyes, never turn them elsewhere; and although I turn my self away from you when I direct my attention entirely to something other, yet notwithstanding this, you change neither your eyes nor your gaze.  If you do not look upon me with the eye of grace, I am at fault because I have separated myself from you by turning away toward some other, which I prefer to you.  Yet, even so, you do not turn completely from me, but on the contrary, your mercy follows me so that should I ever wish to turn back to you, I would be capable of grace.  If you do not regard me, it is because I do not regard you but reject and despise you. [...]  Everyone, therefore, who is seeking seeks only the good and everyone who seeks the good and withdraws from you withdraws from that which one is seeking.  (Translated by H. Lawrence Bond)

Death is dead.

Begin with part one of this series here.  Or, read this, and if it happens to interest you then go back to part one later.

The grasshopper-eating vagrant is down by the river again. People are gathered around; some are watching from a distance with folded arms, others are pressing in, water to the ankles, straining to get a closer look.  Some are well dressed, others look as if they've just awoken from a drunken slumber somewhere nearby.  It happens today that a certain young man has joined the interested crowd. Perhaps he's standing next to you and the warmth of his arm on your skin is lessening the shiver.  Then, suddenly, he steps forward to be put into the water, joining the ranks of those who've gone before.  He's placed himself as one of them.

***

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sin, death and the salvation of the cosmos. part three

-----The following is part of an ongoing process of discovery taking place in my inner recesses.  That said, these topics are still being wrestled out in my mind and heart and are in no way definitive.  This particular series has been written with much wrestling and reading, and I have no doubt that some of the statements contained herein will be tuned and transformed over the course of my life with God.  If you have anything to add or comment, I would appreciate it greatly; even if you disagree with the whole thing, tell me that too.  Wrestle with the truth alongside me.-----

you might want to start with part one here.

 

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you."

(Ezekiel 36:25-29)

"When, Lord?" Cried his people.  "When will you make us clean from this creeping death, all these dichotomies of good and evil?  This life is painful.  Help us."

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...and the shimmers of a new birth. part two of three.

-----The following is part of an ongoing discovery that has taken place inside my mind for the past five years, before which I couldn't have possibly cared any less about any of this religion talk.  That said, these topics are still being wrestled out in my mind and heart and are in no way definitive.  This particular three part series has been written with much wrestling and reading, and I have no doubt that some of the statements contained herein will be tuned and transformed over the course of my life with God.  If you have anything to add or comment, I would appreciate it greatly; even if you disagree with the whole thing, tell me that too.  Wrestle with the truth alongside me.-----


Read Part One Here

God's just and loving character went uncompromised through the whole story of Israel.

Here's a little pop culture button-art.  Did you know--MLK had a PhD in Theology from Boston University?

mlk

After the exodus from Egypt, led by Moses and his brother Aaron, God called Moses to a mountain top (mount Sinai) where he gave him a list of commands.  The "Ten Commandments" or "Decalogue" made up only a small portion of these commands.  The books "Exodus," "Leviticus" and "Deuteronomy" contain hundreds of them...

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death, exile, and the shimmers of a new birth; part one

-----The following writing has been developing in my mind over the last five years or so, before which I couldn't have cared a bit less about this religion talk.  That said, these topics are still being wrestled out in my mind and heart and are in no way definitive.  This particular three part series has been written with much wrestling and reading, and I have no doubt that some of the statements contained herein will be tuned and transformed over the course of my life.  If you have anything to add or comment, I would appreciate it greatly.  Even if you disagree with the whole thing, tell me that too.  Wrestle with the truth alongside me.-----

Part One

Several days ago I wrote a post on ignorance in Eden.  You can read it here before continuing on with this post.  I recommend it, if only for the sake of your understanding where I'm going with the following paragraphs.  It's short.

This is how the post ends:


"The leaves of the Tree of Life, from which we were once banished, are now for the healing of the nations.  The first exile was from Eden, from that place of no dichotomy [between good and evil], to a place of dichotomy.  If 'place' is confusing, then think of it as a state of being.  We are exiled out of the intended state of being -- that of no moral distinction between any word or deed -- and into a place running rampant with gross manifestations of evil, full of dichotomies.

One who walks in the power and knowledge of Jesus the Messiah is brought out of that exile.  There's a new Exodus, and it's happening right now.  I suggest you get your staff and satchel and join us, we're learning to bear the light of love and justice in this strange and dangerous planet."


This place of no moral discrimination, now and still to come, is the gift of all Christians.  Let me explain...

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women and men in a world of despair.

As a married man and a leader in campus ministry and local church, allow me to attempt a response to the question of men and women.

I can't say that I speak for the whole of the Christian Church, but I do speak for a large part of it when I say what I'm about to say.

God created a man and then proclaimed that it was not good for him to be alone.  So, to complete the picture of humanity, he created a woman.  The man was ecstatic. "This is flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones," he exclaimed.

And God saw what he had made, and it was very good.

Humanity.

One entity, two parts.  We are, first and foremost, a community.  I don't know a whole lot about cars, so I take mine to a mechanic or to my father-in-law's garage.  If everyone had to do everything, society would be stuck in the stone age.  On this point I think we all agree.

This integral separation within the community of global humanity stretches all the way down to the smallest part.  One man and one woman.  The two are different.  But they are necessarily so.  Even biologically, the differences are required for the production of children.  It doesn't stop with biology.  Anyone who has been around young children for any length of time recognizes differences between the sexes...

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the knowledge of good and evil

A few days ago I wrote a short paper on the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden.  The last comment that my professor made at the end of the paper was this:  "Is the Genesis narrative somehow suggesting that the ideal life is eternal ignorance?"  My professor's question warrants further discussion.  Is eternal ignorance the ideal?


In Ajax, one of the seven tragedies by Greek playwright Sophocles (5th BCE), the central character, Ajax, says the following to his baby boy:

"O my son, may you become more fortunate than your father with respect to wickedness, but like him in other things!  Please don't become wicked!  Even now I have jealousy for you, in this at least: that you perceive nothing of wicked things.  For the sweetest life rests by no means in understanding, it lasts until you learn joy and sorrow" (550-555; my translation).

It is not eternal ignorance that is ideal, but the ignorance of good and evil.  That is to say, ignorance of the dichotomy separating something "good" from something "evil."  If there were no evil, no rebellion, then there would be no dichotomy.  This is what I will call "the ideal of Edenic ignorance."  Once more, this is not "ignorance" as it is generally construed, but the ignorance of the separation between something "good" and something "evil," which, if evil exists, is a necessary distinction.  Only after humankind disobeyed this all-good God of love, through temptation and mistrust, was there a need to distinguish the "moral quality" of actions.  In Edenic ignorance these primeval humans only needed to know (intimate, personal knowledge, not academic) the good God who walked with them in the cool of the day--and, of course, the names of all the rad animals.

And that very God is remaking it all.  Right now.  The leaves of the Tree of Life, from which we were once banished, are now for the healing of the nations.  The first exile was from Eden, from that place of no dichotomy [between good and evil], to a place of dichotomy.  If 'place' is confusing, then think of it as a state of being.  We are exiled out of the intended state of being -- that of no moral distinction between any word or deed -- and into a place running rampant with gross manifestations of evil, full of dichotomies.


One who walks in the power and knowledge of Jesus the Messiah is brought out of that exile.  There's a new Exodus, and it's happening right now.  I suggest you get your staff and satchel and join us, we're learning to bear the light of love and justice in this strange and dangerous planet.


It begins now and continues into the not-yet.  Live here, today.  God is here now.

The knowledge of God is where we begin:

“Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul."  J.I. Packer, Knowing God

thoughts on the resurrection.

Justin Martyr, second century CE. 

 “And to any thoughtful person would anything appear more incredible, than, if we were not in the body, and some one were to say that it was possible that from a small drop of human semen, bones and sinews and flesh could be formed into a shape such as we see? For let this now be said hypothetically: if you yourselves were not such as you now are, and born of such parents [and causes], and one were to show you human seed and a picture of a man, and were to say with confidence that from such a substance such a being could be produced, would you believe before you saw the actual production? No one will dare to deny [that such a statement would surpass belief]. In the same way, then, you are now incredulous because you have never seen a dead man rise again. But as at first you would not have believed it possible that such persons could be produced, so also judge ye that it is not impossible that the bodies of men, after they have been dissolved, and like seeds resolved into earth, should in God’s appointed time rise again and put on incorruption” (Apology One; cp. 17).


Thanks to www.apologeticsuk.blogspot.com for this reminder.  Keep reading below for more on the question of  the historical accuracy of Jesus.

john

an argument about justification between two really wise people.

Two Christian thinkers with some insights on what a certain part of "being saved" might look like; to use the lingo, "Justified."

Also, see Ian Campbell's post for more detail on N.T. Wright's view.


N.T. Wright:

John Piper:

Here's one more set:

N.T. Wright:

John Piper:

Thoughts?  feel free to comment.

Science and the Bible.

I sit down with a cup of coffee.

I open Paul's Letter to the Romans.  There before my eyes--

--first, let me to introduce some thoughts of Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California.  (Much of the following argument is taken from his thoughts)

"Many fear that the physical universe, being what it is, makes communication with God impossible.  It puts him too far away.  Even some who understand both the lowliness of God's greatness and the greatness of God's lowliness and who really live to do the will of God are still troubled by the thought that brutal nature imposes itself as a barrier between us and him" (Willard, 1999; 71-72).

This fear is a direct result of the impact of secularistic modernism (see my essay below), even in the church. (Since the existence of God cannot be tested for in a physical science lab, then it cannot be considered.)  This fear is also one of the primary causes of the anti-intellectualism in the church today.  Many are afraid that if they investigate the sciences and history and philosophy, they'll surely lose their faith. 

Let me assure you, with an open mind the opposite occurs.  An unbiased observer, walking in and looking around at the world, would be shocked at the order of our universe.  He would wonder who made these laws that control what we see. 

Willard reminds us that when we think about the process that is necessary for any physical communication (like talking), we remember that soundwaves must be bent; the physical universe must be altered.  But, "is this the only way in which God can communicate with us?" Willard asks (Willard; 73).  Then he gives us a bit of wisdom from Blaise Pascal (1623-1662):


"When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.  I see other persons around me made like myself. I ask them if they are any better informed than I am and they say they are not.  Then these lost and wretched creatures look around and find some attractive objects to which they have become addicted and attached. For my part, I have never been able to form such attachments and, considering how very likely it is that there exists something besides what I can see, I have tried to find out whether God has left any traces of himself" (Pensées, or, "Thoughts").



Contemporary physics gives us some insight.  

Physicist Jack Sarfatti (1939-present) offers the following window into a trend in contemporary physics:  "'an idea of the utmost significance for the development of psycho-energetic systems ... is that the structure of matter may not be independent of consciousness'" (Willard, 76).  That is, the universe is more like a mind than anything else.  Willard stresses that he isn't arguing that contemporary physics proves theological questions.  

What he is saying is that "... there is, so to speak, an inside--or better, a nonside or an unside--to matter that allows for a non-spatial and yet causal dimension to be in action within the physical world" (ibid.).  Thus, this allows for a direct connection between the "mind" of God and the mind of the apostle Paul, the self-proclaimed chief among sinners.

Like Willard, I'm not arguing that this proves direct communication, but that God could have communicated to the apostle directly through this "unside" of matter.



Okay, back to reading.


I take a sip of coffee and open Paul's Letter to the Romans.  There before my eyes--if my argument about the historical accuracy of the New Testament convinced you--are the words of Paul, or, for the skeptics among us, someone who wrote and thought just like Paul.  

Paul as he saw it.  This letter contains direct theological statements about creation and Abraham,  exodus and Moses, covenant and command, sin and death, Jesus and glory, predestination and freedom, and so on.  

Did God have direct access to the mind of Paul?

Maybe.  Any firm answer to that question, be it a yes or a no, rests on faith.

I take a sip of my coffee and begin reading.  And I have faith that God, by his Holy Spirit and through the language of an first-century Jewish Christian, encounters my mind.

"3:21 But now athe righteousness of God bhas been manifested apart from the law, although cthe Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—22 the righteousness of God dthrough faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. eFor there is no distinction: 23 for fall have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 gand are justified hby his grace as a gift, ithrough the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God jput forward as ka propitiation lby his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in mhis divine forbearance he had passed overnformer sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."  (Romans 3:21-26, ESV)

Book Review

Check out Nijay Gupta's review of DeSilva's new book.  This is some excellent historical research!

http://nijaygupta.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/desilvas-jewish-teachers-of-jesus-book-review-part-ii/