We resumed our series on Ecclesiastes in WELD looking at chapters 5 &6. As we did, we revisited the sinister nature of greed and the driving power of faithful satisfaction.
¡Sí Se Puede!
January 5, 2010
¡Sí se puede! -César Chávez
Forgive me for missing last week – I spent it in Mexico on a very-short (though clearly inspirational) mission trip. Nevertheless, as I seek to equip people to read God’s Word for themselves, there is one substantial assumption inherent in my attempts; namely, the Bible was written to be understood. That is, the Bible was written to be accessible to the masses rather than simply the elite. That doesn’t mean that everyone who sits down with Bible, pen, and notebook will come away with a valid and complete understanding of what’s going on in a passage of Scripture. But it does mean that anyone can be taught to read the Bible as it was intended to be understood, beginning with a very simple set of tools and assumptions.
While I recognize (and often experience) that the Bible can be downright confusing, this is rarely intentional on the author’s part. Instead, the Biblical writers used very common language and very common literary devices and forms (many of which we’ll cover in this series) for the purpose of clearly and effectively communicating very specific messages. What does that mean for us? Above all it means that the Bible’s authors wanted their readers to clearly understand their messages! So say it with me, “¡Sí se puede!”
Say What Now?
December 22, 2009
Literally Greek to Me
I’ve been reading a marriage book lately and while I’m really enjoying it, I keep finding strange little uses of the Bible that get stuck in my craw. For example, the author comments about how husbands and wives get caught in the back and forth of disappointing and discouraging one another:
The Crazy Cycle is, indeed, “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25; Eggerichs, 2004, 16).
This kind of quotation illustrates some of the greater frustrations I had to work through as I learned to read the Bible. While the author wants to argue that a husband and wife going around in circles is insanity, he interestingly cites (and only cites) a passage that speaks first about Solomon’s pursuit of wisdom, and second (if one were to press a relational inference from the following verse), the importance of avoiding an ornery woman.
I’ve noticed many Christian authors and speakers seem to think that nothing can be said on any authority other than the Bible and that presses them to find something (anything!) in the Bible that kinda-sorta sounds like what they want to say. An unintended consequence of taking passages out of context like this is confusion rather than clarity (both for the Word and the point being made).
This can go in a number of directions, two stand out: (1) The author/speaker who sought authority from the Bible loses authority with the audience or (2)—and here is the problem this used to cause for me (and I assume still does for many others)—since we can’t understand the connection between the Scripture cited and the point being made, we assume we must not understand this portion of the Word of God.
In this next series I’m going to go over a series of key ideas that are imperative for reading and understanding the Bible so that hopefully we’ll all be a little less prone to option (2).
Discussion: What’s most confusing about the Bible for you?
10 Reasons Jesus Returns in 2010
December 15, 2009
The Last Judgment, Michaelangelo
Yeah right! No way I’m touching that!
Besides the fact that I’m no prophecy nut, I’ve seen enough Christian authors and pastors make complete fools of themselves by predicting the Apocalypse and seeing each of those days go past (each one no doubt thankful that we no longer stone false prophets!). While the 19th century was littered with cults whose origins were mired in false predictions of Christ’s return, a stunning [semi-]recent example is a fellow-graduate of mine from Dallas Theological Seminary (though some 4 decades earlier).
In 1970 Hal Lindsey published The Late, Great Planet Earth in which he concluded that the end of the world would begin sometime in the late 1980’s . This he based on the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the mish-mashing of a number of unrelated Biblical texts. Treating the Bible like a jig-saw puzzle, Lindsey concluded (and many others too, let’s be fair…) that within a generation (i.e 40 years) after the re-establishment of Israel the End would soon begin with the Rapture. Rather than bringing heavenly paradise and the end of the world, the close of the 80’s only brought Nirvana and the end of hair metal.
So what do we essentially believe about the End of all things? In short, Christians believe in the physical return to the earth of Jesus Christ, who will judge all people, rewarding the faithful with joyful eternity in God’s presence and the faithless with eternal punishment. Exactly when, how, and by what means have been the subject of [largely] fruitless debate for as many years as Christians have been arguing about unknowable particulars.
Discuss: As always, I’ve erred on the side of brevity; what have I left behind (perhaps the re-creation of Heaven and earth; what else)?
Trail of Blood or On the Origin of Denominations
December 8, 2009
John Baptizes Jesus -David Bjorgen
Looking something like a biological taxonomy, the relationship between Christian denominations is fairly clear: since the beginning, Christianity has experienced constant change, development, and bifurcation leaving us with uncounted denominations. The major events that produced our largest classifications were the East-West split in the 11th Century and the Protestant Reformation in the 16th. While any church could theoretically trace its lineage back to a common ancestor, some are troubled by the thought of bearing relation to those they consider unbelievers. Enter Trail of Blood Baptists.
In 1931 J. M. Carrol published Trail of Blood about the origin of denominations. Based in his disgust for Rome and her sins, he has refused a place in the “tree of Christianity” for Baptists and has claimed a unique lineage clear back to Jesus’s cousin. The title refers to the martyrs that he assumes have existed since the beginning of the church and who were persecuted by the Roman Church but for which he has no consistent proof. Whether or not he could ever prove such a lineage, the need for a pure lineage free from the faults of church history is misplaced, as the people of God have never been free from gross failure (Judges, anyone?).
So what do we believe about the people of God? Without respect to denomination, the people of God are those individuals spiritually joined by their common confession in Jesus the Second Person of the Trinity who bore the cross for our sins and was raised from the dead. In obedience to God’s word we are baptized, worship regularly, and take communion, but none of these things (nor their lack) supplants that confession (aka faith).
Discuss: How else would you limit or describe the people of God?
