Preston Sprinkle on First Century Greek and Roman Sexuality

Lately I've been doing a bit of research on the first century view of the nature of sexuality.  I'm particularly interested in this topic because of the recent debates in Christian circles concerning the biology of sexuality and our interpretation of the New Testament based on modern biological discoveries.  Today I came across a series of posts on this issue by Preston Sprinkle.  Click on these links to be directed to Sprinkle's posts: Part I, Part II, Part III.

I would add to Sprinkle's evidence the story told in Plato's Symposium explaining, mythologically, the natural tendencies of human sexuality. Click here to read that story in the Symposium (once you've navigated to the page, the text appears in short chunks.  In order to continue reading, you'll need to click the blue, right-facing arrow just above the English text.)

This is a concern that needs to be handled with careful love.  Please read these posts as parts of an ongoing conversation, and feel free to add to that conversation by commenting.

Sociologist Peter Berger on the Core of Christianity

Today on campus at Gordon College--our sister school just down the street--I had the honor of meeting Peter Berger. His life has been a rare combination of vocation and belief: while he's almost unanimously named the most influential sociologist of religion (perhaps of sociology as a whole) of the second half of the 20th century, he is also a believing Christian. During today's forum he told a story to depict what he calls the irreplaceable core of the Christian faith. The story also appears in his book, Questions of Faith, so I'll quote it from there.

In one of the campaigns to promote atheism a Communist official was sent into a village. The villagers were forced to attend a meeting. The official made an hour long speech, explaining how religion was nothing but superstition, designed to divert people from the task of building a better society. At the end of the speech he said, magnanimously, that the village priest would be allowed to make a rebuttal, but that he would be given just five minutes to do so. The priest, a very simple man, came forward. He said that he did not need five minutes. He turned to the assembly and said: 'Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen!' The villagers responded with the words of the Easter greeting: 'He is risen indeed!' The story does not tell what the Communist official did after that.

After Dr. Berger told this story he said, "If you lose that, if you lose the resurrection, you lose everything." And that is one of the most brilliant minds of our age. 

Don't forget to subscribe by putting your email address into the box on the left side of this page!  I'll do my best to keep it interesting and varied.

Quote of the Month about Jesus

I don't normally share such long quotations, but this particular quotation demands that the norms be broken. It comes from N.T. Wright's Resurrection of the Son of God, the third volume in his "Christian Origins and the Question of God" series, the first volume of which I reviewed, in part, in my last post.  Shameless plug: don't forget to subscribe by entering your email address into the box on the left side of this page.

For the earliest Christians, to speak of Jesus’ resurrection was to speak of something that, however (in our sense) earth-shattering, however much it drew together things earthly and heavenly, was still an ‘earthly’ event, and needed to be exactly that. It had earthly consequences: an empty tomb, footprints by the shore, and, at Emmaus, a loaf broken but not consumed.
....
History matters because human beings matter; human beings matter because creation matters; creation matters because the creator matters.  And the creator, according to some of the most ancient Jewish beliefs, grieved so much over creation gone wrong, over humankind in rebellion, over thorns and thistles and dust and death, that he planned from the beginning the way by which he would rescue his world, his creation, his history, from its tragic corruption and decay; the way, therefore, by which he would rescue his image-bearing creatures, the muddled and rebellious human beings, from their doubly tragic fate; the way, therefore, by which he would be most truly himself, would become most truly himself.  The story of Jesus of Nazareth which we find in the New Testament offers itself, as Jesus himself had offered his public work and words, his body and blood, as the answer to this multiple problem: the arrival of God's kingdom precisely in the world of space, time and matter, the world of injustice and tyranny, of empire and crucifixions.  This world is where the kingdom must come, on earth as it is in heaven.  What view of creation, what view of justice, would be served by the offer merely of a new spirituality and a one-way ticket out of trouble, an escape from the real world?

No wonder the Herods, the Caesars and the Sadducees of this world, ancient and modern, were and are eager to rule out all possibility of actual resurrection.  They are, after all, staking a counter-claim on the real world.  It is the real world that the tyrants and bullies (including intellectual and cultural tyrants and bullies) try to rule by force, only to discover that in order to do so they have to quash all rumors of resurrection, rumors that would imply that their greatest weapons, death and deconstruction, are not after all omnipotent. But it is the real world, in Jewish thinking, that the real God made, and still grieves over. It is the real world that, in the earliest stories of Jesus’ death and resurrection, was decisively and forever reclaimed by that event, an event which demanded to be understood, not as a bizarre miracle, but as the beginning of a new creation.  It is the real world that, however complex this may become, historians are committed to studying.  And, however dangerous this may turn out to be, it is the real world in and for which Christians are committed to living and, where necessary, dying.

Book Review: "The New Testament and the People of God" -- N.T. Wright

Fortress Press published The New Testament and the People of God (NTPG) in 1992.  It is, one might claim, an old book to be reviewing now.  But this review is timely, I think, for two reasons.  First, NTPG is the foundational volume of what has become a three--and soon to be four--volume collection by N.T. Wright, "Christian Origins and the Question of God."  My review of this first volume will set the stage for my review of the fourth--Paul and the Faithfulness of God (PFG).

Second, although it came out in 1992, the ideas in NTPG have not been discussed or applied practically as often as they ought by those interested in Christianity--whether that interest be related to theology or history or missions or apologetics.  Problematically, many have been deterred by it's difficult academic styling and seemingly impenetrable density.

But. 

Click to read more »

My Transition into Seminary

During the past few months I've been absent from the blogosphere.  I know, you've been struggling to fill the void my absence has torn into your heart, and for that I'm deeply sorry.  But--fear not!  Your satisfaction with life will, along with my blogging, soon resume.  Warning: Satisfaction in life can only actually be found in God.

I'm settling in at Gordon Conwell, preparing for my classes which begin Monday.  The books on my reading list excite me.  And they will, no doubt, stir up many a philosophical/theological thought, which will, in turn, find a way through my fingers and onto the screen before you.  So do be sure to put your email address into the box on the right that says, "Subscribe To Keep Up!"

I am still working on a review for N.T. Wright's New Testament and the People of God, but it has taken me longer than expected.  I'll be releasing the first part in the coming few days.

Quote of the Month about Jesus

Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian.

Can "The Wrath of God" and "God is Love" Be Reconciled?

This is a post for people who are curious about the core teachings of the Christian faith.  I'm not one to claim that I've got everything figured out, but I want to get you thinking.  Oh, and I changed the title of this blog because of a conversation with a friend today.

Over at The Blog for InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network I have been writing a review series on J.I. Packer's Knowing God, which is a collection of short articles on the nature of God and humankind.  Here I want to revise the series, but I'm going to do it backwards, starting with the final installment and ending with the first.


The Problem

There's a common thought among many outside observers of those following the Way of Jesus.  I've overheard people talk about Jesus' death as a strange act of cosmic child abuse, employed to change the mind of the angry God of the Old Testament.  But this, as J.I. Packer puts it, is a polytheistic misunderstanding of the gospel. Jesus is the same in character as the God of the Old Testament.  Jesus and the God of the Old Testament have the same essence.

Far from being cosmic child abuse, the death of Jesus was a self-sacrificial death.

Click to read more »