Comments Welcome

I do very much appreciate you taking time to read my blog, and especially those who leave comments.

However, recently, I've been getting a number of comments in a language I don't understand. It is some form of eastern character text which I don't recognise. I tried one of the translation sites but haven't been able to translate this text.
I'm not publishing such comments as I don't know what you are saying. I'm willing to publish comments that disagree with me, that's ok. But if I can't understand your comment I don't know if you are being rude, or unkind, or what.

So, comments are always welcome, but in English please.

NT Wright on Evil and the Justice of God

This is a short book on a big topic, only 109 pages. NT Wright gives his usual and expectedly thorough treatment of an important theme, evil, and its relation to the justice of God.

Beginning as a set of five lectures and then finding their place in a tv programme, this extended examination of this subject is well worth reading.

The challenge of evil is to be faced by our Christian living, our prayer and holy living in a world troubled by evil. Wright challenges Christians to imagine the Kingdom in which evil is no more and then to live as though it were already so. This is a creative use of imagination which I think will stretch many, but is worth the effort.
The chapter on forgiveness is very challenging, forgiveness set us free to live without the burden of evil and removes the bitterness of evil from our communities. Wright expands forgiveness beyond the inter-personal to our forgiveness as a nation of the unpayable debts of other nations, or the forgiveness of terrorists.

Two interesting points in passing.
"Within the larger cannonical context it ought to be clear that re-emphasizing the doctrine of creation is indeed the foundation of all biblical answers to questions about who God is and what he is doing." (page 41)
Whether in response to the strident atheism of Dawkins and others, or for some other reason, I sense that there is a lack of confidence in our confession of God as Creator. We must stand firm here, not least for the reason given by Wright. The constant refernecing of God as Creator in Scripture is not insignificant. Having created and declared it to be good, God is now at work renewing and redeeming creation for his own glory. Our salvation in Christ is connected to God being creator in ways that those trying to be Christian but denying creation do not yet appreciate.

"Indeed, we might even say that the gospel writers were telling their whole story so as to explain why the resurrection happened to make it clear that this was not simply an odd, isolated bizarre miracle, but rather the proper and appropriate result of Jesus' entire, and successful, confrontation with evil." (pages 55-56)
If we read the gospels with the question, 'Why did the resurrection happen?' at the front of our thinking, what difference does this make to the story we read? Is this God ushering in new creation (2 Cor 5:17) after judgment had fallen upon the old creation and the evil that rampaged through it?

As I say, a really good book and well worth reading.

Phil Wickham

At the Frenzy festival on 12 June i was able to go and hear Phil Wickham - a really great set of worship songs.

What struck my was the content of Phil's songs so often dealt with themes of heaven and glory, and my high trained heresy radar didn't go off once, unlike spending a whole week at the General Assembly. In general I find it rare that Christians talk about heaven without falling into some error or other, but Phil has managed it.

More importantly the songs are really good, full of energy and life. I would highly commend Phil and his music if you get the change to hear him. I picked up two cds, Cannons and Heaven And Earth. At present my favourite songs are 'Beautiful' and 'True Love' from Cannons and 'In Your City' and  'Because of Your Love' from Heaven and Earth (although all of Heaven and Earth is just great).

Vuvuzela

Sorry I've not been around much last week. Isn't the world cup great.

If you haven't heard this vuvuzela song take the time and have a listen, it will make you smile.

Music, Worship and Haiti

Tomorrow John and I are heading up to Edinburgh for two days of music and worship.

Tomorrow evening is the Heart for Haiti concert with Stuart Townend and Brenton Brown, and others. On Saturday we'll be at the final Frenzy festival.
The rest of our Ignite group at St Ninians are coming and I'm sure I'll meet up with lots of folks there.

I'm looking forward to spending some time with Ian and Jackie in Penicuik. A good time will be had by all.

Would the true God please stand up now!

The human imagination is a great thing. We are especially good at imagining god the way we want him/her/it/them (delete as appropriate) to be. This imaginative quality plays right into our present relativistic worldview, or perhaps that should be worldviews!

How do I know that the God/god I know is the true God? How can I ever say that what anyone else calls god is not the true God? Is it even possible to think of such a question?

The true God has made himself known. If he had not made himself known no human would ever be able to imagine him as he is.

While in Peru in 2004 I heard the story of an Inca chief just a few years before the Spanish arrived who went for three days alone to an island in the midst of a mountain lake. On his return he told his head men that he had watched the sun, whom they worshipped, rising and setting in the same places each day for three days. And he concluded that if the sun were the great god he would chose to exercise greater freedom, so there must be a greater God than the sun and he wanted to get to know him.
This, I think, is exactly what I mean by general revelation, or what is the main point of Romans 1. Into the fabric of creation the true God has built in evidence of his existence and his nature. Not a full revelation, but sufficient for us to know there is a God and something of his power and divinity.

To this God has added the special revelation which is Scripture, the 66 writings of the Old and New Testaments. In these writings, and in no others, had the true God specially made himself known. One of the best definitions of Scripture I know is, 'Scripture is the gracious self-revelation of God.'

In current debates, certianly within the Church of Scotland, there is much heat generated on the subject of the 'authority' of Scripture. It is, in my opinion, much more important to grasp what the nature of Scripture is. Once we see that Scripture is God making himself known, the 'authority' of Scripture becomes at the same time both clear and subordinate. Any authority Scripture has is a function of God who is revealing himself in Scripture.

I've also come to recognise that starting any kind of Christian theology with Scripture is unhelpful. We need to start with God and come to Scripture as a sub-set of our thinking about God. In this the Scots Confession of 1560 is to be prefered to the Westminster Confession of 1647.

The God I Don't Believe In

God has become difficult. When someone says 'God' to me I no longer have any confidence I know what or who they mean.

All our Christian confessions are that there is only one God. But, that does not mean everything, or everyone which goes by the name, or title God/god, is this one God.

Rather than a long negative list of elements of false gods, let me say something positive.

The one God is the Father of Jesus. This is how the one God has chosen to make himself known. I don't think any human could work out who God is by themself. God is known because he reveals himself, not because we discover him.

There are many things I want to say about God and who he is, God is love, God is just, God is true and good and right. But I find I need to say this first, God is the Father of Jesus. Saying this connects God to our humanity in the humanity of the incarnate Jesus. It opens for me and all others a way of knowing this otherwise unknowable God.
Anyone or anything named 'god' which is not the Father of Jesus is not God and is not worthy to be worshipped, served, adored, loved, depended upon.

A Good Book Finished

Yesterday, on the train to and from Edinburgh, I finished this excellent book by Eugene Peterson, 'The Word Made Flesh'.

I've posted on this book earlier - here - and don't want to over extend my comments here.

In the second major section of the book, Peterson writes about Jesus and his prayers. There is not so much on the language of Jesus in the section on his prayers, however, Peterson's insightful comments on prayer and Jesus as a teacher, example in prayer are so good you hardly notice.

Let me share one comment from this second part of the book, in the chapter on the Lord's Prayer on 'Thy will be done':
The mature, sane, enduring counsel of our best pastors and theologians is this: keep Jesus' prayer, 'Your will be done,' in the storied and praying context of the Holy Scriptures. Quit speculating about the 'will of God' and simply do it - as Mary did, as Jesus did. 'Will of God' is never a matter of conjecture. It directs a spotlight on believing obedience. (page 180)

Yes, obedience beats speculation any time. Just do it!

The Invisible Man

Peterson's chapter on Lk 16:19-31, commonly known as the Rich Man and Lazarus, entitled by Peterson 'The Invisible Man' is really good.

Before he is seen at Abraham's side, Lazarus is invisible to the Rich Man. This parable, however, is not a story about what happens after death, it is very much a story about what happens before death.

It is in this life that the Rich Man seals his eternal fate. Once you notice the connection between Lk 16 and Jn 11 is becomes more clear. Lazarus did rise from the grave, but they did not believe him, they plotted to kill him all over again! Jn 12:10-11.

This story of the Invisible Man only functions are part of a larger story, a meta-story, in the context of which we can find ourselves included in this particular story. Story requires our involvement, a better word than response, we need to join in the story.
In this story, the invisible question - did the five brothers ever repent? Did they hear this account and change their ways? Are we among the five brothers?

We need to do something

On Wednesday this week Cumbria suffered the latest of the UKs gun sprees as one man drove round the county apparantly shooting people at random.

How many more such tragedies must occur before something is done about the large number of guns in our communities?

Some questions,
1. Why does anyone other than a farmer, game-keeper or vet need to own a gun?

2. Why do we continue to allow guns to be used for recreation or sport?

3. Have we really lost all sense of the common good? Must all things submit to the great god of personal freedom?

Apart from my categories in 1 above I think I would ban all gun ownership. That way, anyone else with a gun is a criminal and intent on criminal activity. But I doubt that any Government of the UK would have the courage or political will to enact such a law.

So then, all we have left is to pray for the victims of this horrible deed. To pray for communities torn apart by another gun crime. To pray that God would so work in our nation as to remove the need for guns and weapons and end all violence.

Q - you are making it up now, aren't you?

I've previously commended Larry Hurtado's book - here, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, and rightly so, it is a very good book.

However, when serious scholars start devoting whole chapters to Q I begin to think the world has tilted somewhat.

I don't have a problem with Q, I know what it is, and that's not a soft-porn mag trying to pass itself off as a music mag! Q is the hypothetical 'document' used to explain the agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark in solving the Synoptic Problem. (In passing, I don't think Matthew, Mark and Luke had a synoptic problem, it is all our own.)

The problem I have is when you publish a critical edition of Q and start giving chapter and verse numbers to passages in this edition of Q, see e.g. JS Kloppenborg eds. The Critical Edition of Q, pub 2000.
If Q existed as a 'document' the only evidence we have for it is in the text of Matthew and Luke, and it is beyond me how you can reconstruct a 'critical edition' of such a hypothetical document.

Hurtado wrties, 'The christological categories used in Q are somewhat like those of the Synoptic Gospels generally.' P. 250 (emphasis mine)
How can anthing of Q be only 'somewhat like' or 'generally' related to the Synoptics? The only access to Q we have is those same Synoptic Gospels, or more particularly, Matthew and Luke. If Q is not exactly like or specifically the same as the text of Matthew and Luke then we really are making it up!!!

I don't mind anyone using Q to resolve the relations between the Synoptics. I wouldn't mind if Hurtado had commented over 3 or 4 pages that nothing in the hypothetical Q document was distinctive in terms of evidence of Jesus devotion from what is known elsewhere in the first century. But I fear that Q scholarship has circled Pluto and is heading for deep space where any kind of control or restrain is not applied.

Who Grumbles?

The first main part of this Peterson book is to walk with Jesus through Luke's travel narrative - Luke 9:51-19:44. This section of Luke is mostly unique to Luke and is framed by references to leaving Galilee (9:51) and arriving in Jerusalem (19:11, 28, 41).

In these chapters Jesus travels through Samaria, non-Jewish territory. Peterson takes this as his starting point to look at the stories Jesus told and how they will help us live in the non-Kingdom of God territories we find ourselves in day by day.

On Luke 15, Peterson draws our attention to v. 2, that the Scribes and Pharisees were grumbling. Peterson notes that this word is only used by Luke and that it appears in the Greek OT at Exodus 16:2-3:
Exodus 16:2-3  In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."

Putting these two groups of grumblers together, Peterson writes,
The people of Israel murmered not because they were bad and evil but because they were good and scared. The Pharisees and Bible scholars [scribes] murmur not because they were bad and evil but because they were good and scared. The murmurers in both cases are reverent and devout worshipppers of God, delivered from pagan superstitions and following God's leader. Both sets of murmurers can be given the adjective eusebeia, godly, righteous. But now something is taking place that turns everything topsy-turvy. Their self-image, righteous, by which they define themselves, is suddenly erased. They are disorientated, lost. They don't like the feeling and so they murmur, diegongudzon. Understandably so. (page 93)

Self-righteousness is a sin unique to to godly. Only within the church do we find self-righteous people who look down on others. When this self-righteousness is challenged, in any way, grumbling results.
The people with Moses, the Pharisees and Bible scholars, are followers, they are on the journey towars God's promise. But they fall into this defensive grumbling.

The first three stories in Lk 15 take that which is lost, in the place where grumbling might begin, and show how grace finds what was lost. The fourth story - of the elder brother - is openended, he is grumbling but we are not told if he will leave his grumbling and come into the Father's welcome and party. This draws the hearer and reader in, how will we respond?

Continuity In Daily Living

This is another must buy, must read book by Eugene Peterson.

From p. 4
God does not compartmentalize our lives into religious and secular. Why do we? I want to insist on a continuity of language between the words we use in Bible studies and the words we use when we're out fishing for rainbow trout. I want to cultivate a sense of continuity between the prayers we offer to God and the conversations we have with the people we speak to and who speak to us. I want to nurture an awareness of the sanctity of words, the holy gift of language, regardless of whether it is directed vertically or horizontally. Just as Jesus did.

Yes, we should not have a special speech for God-talk and a different, 'ordinary' form of speaking for non-God-talk. Who are we dishonouring if we use words and language like this? So no more omnipotent, or hypostatic, or whatever the phrase we love to use that is our in language.
Yes, we should not only be careful about our words and mean what we say when we talk to or about God. Integrity of language is vital in all our use of language. We honour those we speak with when we speak with integrity.

Peterson is writing about words and language, but once you catch the idea it doesn't stop. There is no religious secular divide. God loves us and cares for all our lives. God is interested in how we drive, what we do in our bedrooms, what we eat, how we talk, what we look at ... there is no part of our life that is beyond the love and care of our God.

This is the kind of Christian living that will impact the world with the good news of Jesus in ways that we presently don't recognise as evangelism, but which are profoundly a sharing of the good news of Jesus, who is God with us.

New Books on Reading List

Sorry I haven't been around the Corner recently, the General Assembly not only takes up time but takes time to recover from.

I missed my 20 posts a month target for May - well let's say it was an asperation, like 5-a-day on fruit and veg. So I'll try to keep up this month.

I've made some changes to my 2010 reading targets. I've removed the three volumes of essays that were on the list. Not that these have disappeared but being essay can be read at a different speed. I've added two books I bought at the Assembly from the Free Church Bookroom, for many years the best Christian bookshop in Scotland.

The first one is called 'Worshipping with the Church Father's' by Christopher A Hall, pub IVP 2009. I've been wanting to read some of Hall's work on the Church Father's for some time now and this looks like a very helpful volume.

The blurb promises a survey of the spiritual life of worship which will inform and challenge Christians in faithful living today. I hope the book lives up to the back cover - I'll let you know.

The second one is Tom Wright's 'Virtue Reborn'. Anything by Tom Wright, or NT Wright is worth reading. So far the only point of Tom Wright that I'm tempted to disagree with is his reading of 2 Cor 5, especially v. 21. Our present Christian living seems to fall either into licence or legalism. I'm hoping that Tom Wright will find a new way, or perhaps an old way, which is neither licence nor legalism. We need an authentic Christian living that displays the life of God in our communities today.