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Childish faith, embarrasement, and child-like maturity
Saw this yesterday and thought it was very appropriate for us. Beware the temptation of allowing embarrassement over who we were as younger Christians eat away at (what should be) our maturing thinking, and believing, today…
I recently ran into a woman who had taught me Sunday school as a child and was disconcerted to discover that she was not the simplistic thinker that as an adult I have taken her to be. I suspect that I had projected onto her the limitations of my own young self.
Perhaps when we think we are criticizing the narrow thinking of others, we are sometimes really just exposing the narrowness of perception of our past selves.
It occurs to me that it is precisely the fact that we are intent on teaching religion to the young that makes faith such a prime site for rebellion when emerging adults construct their own identities. As a peer reviewer for a publisher, I recently read the manuscript for a book that was an intellectual attack on Christianity. What struck me was that the sources for the skeptical views the author was commending were leading scholars, while the Christian beliefs were presented through recollections of what the author had heard various people say during his childhood.
Perhaps the most visceral reaction is the one that is rooted — unconsciously or otherwise — in embarrassment at our younger selves. This is hauntingly captured in the chorus of a Susan Werner song: “I’m sure that you remember I was weird in school / I’m sorry about Jesus and all that.” The fact that we enacted our faith in goofy ways as a teenager, however, should not discredit Christian belief as an adult option any more than the fact that we expressed our romantic desires in a cringe-worthy manner should permanently rule out love.
Christ calls us to become like children again. Counterintuitively, part of what this might mean is that there comes a time to get over our mocking, knowing, puncturing phase and learn to be true grown-ups. This is the maturity that once again allows us to proclaim truth in all simplicity, to be like children. To say it another way, true grown-ups can parent.
My students are often Christians who are old enough to mock mercilessly the people that gave of their time sacrificially to disciple them when they were young but who are not yet mature enough to be able to disciple others. I often find them quick-off-the-draw-ready with a forceful and sophisticated critique of most any traditional religious belief or practice.
They can be sadly flummoxed, however, by a simple request to explain what is true. If I wonder, “What are some problems with the doctrine of the atonement?” hands fly up all over the room, but if I straightforwardly ask, “What is the gospel?” the room falls strangely silent, and I find myself staring at rows of students quietly avoiding making eye contact.
To sketch what the gospel is would be to risk a rough draft that someone else would get the joy of critiquing; it would be to express a childlike faith; it would be to do the work of parenting.
— by Timothy Larsen
Notes from Last Night: 1 Peter 2:9-3:12
Last night we continued our study through 1 Peter. Here’s the outline:
Peter takes the concepts he was working with in the first chapter and a half of the letter and applies them to our most fundamental, everyday relationships. In 2:9-12 we really get a synopsis of the whole letter: You’ve been given a new identity as the people of God, which creates alienation from the cultural climate around you (the “strangers” theme), therefore live in such a way that, even though people misunderstand what a Christian is, if they observeyour lives, they can be won over to become God-praisers themselves. Key to this idea is that we all must “abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.”
Now, from 2:13 to 3:12, Peter moves through these social contexts to show, practically, how these lives of “honorable conduct” and “good works” actually look.
How our new identity will be lived out in ordinary life. (Or, what is the “honorable conduct” that will lead to non-believers glorifying God in the realms of…)
2:13-17 Christians and the Government: Submission & good works. God is the ultimate authority…then king, then governor…
2:18-25 Servant Christians and their Masters: Submission after Christ’s pattern. See especially the letter to Philemon, and 1 Cor 7:20-23.
The center: Christ (v.21-25). Christ took the lowest possible place. He accepted what the Romans called “the slaves death” and allowed God to use Him to accomplish purposes which would ultimately undo all oppression and bondage. So a person who submits to circumstances he can’t change is following in the same pattern Christ laid down, and is the example for what all Christians should be. And, just like in 2:13-17, God is the true King (so we submit to an earthly king) in 2:25, Jesus is the true Shepherd and Overseer, above all other earthly masters we may have to serve.
3:1-6 Christian Wives and their husbands: Submission and a Godly heart
- The goal is to win the husband (v.1)
- Sometimes words are not needed (v.2)
- Inner beauty is the ark of a Christian woman (v.3-4)
- Pick good role models (v.5-6)
- Give up anxiety (v.6)
3:7 Christian Husbands and their wives: Giving honor in understanding
3:8-12 Christians and other Christians: Unity and love. Let the world see the society we would create if we had our way.
Observations & Exhortations.
- Our new identity cuts both ways: towards God, privilege and high status, towards society, loss of privilege and lowered status. We live out our lives on the basis of these two axes. They have a correct order as well: namely, that we allow our “vertical” identity control how we view and live out our “horizontal” identity.
- We accept our social status as “strangers” and “foreigners” and we live accordingly. We accept the responsibility of proving out the value of what we say we believe.
- We take Christ as our great example, especially in His submission to God and to what God had planned for Him in the world.
- We see ourselves as “sent” into situations rather than “stuck.” We see we are plants, by God, in every place He scatters us. Our goal is that they would glorify God (2:12), commend us (2:14), be put to silence (2:15), be won (3:1).
- In a world that acknowledges no final authority for how humans should live life, we know where to find ours.
There is no such thing as being religiously neutral
This is some dense academic logic, but the main point here is to ponder if it is really true when someone says that they are going to “weigh evidence” for something from a completely “neutral” point of view. In his discussion about how some scholars view the origins of the group of books we call the New Testament canon, Michael Kruger points out that if someone claims to be analyzing the roots of Christianity from a purely neutral, historical or scientific point of view, they are actually making a false claim, since there is no such thing as “neutral” knowledge. See what you think…
The reason there is no religiously neutral approach to historical study is that there is no religiously neutral approach to anything.
Roy Clouser demonstrates that the Bible’s own epistemological position is that “there is no knowledge or truth that is neutral with respect to God.” He appeals to a number of scriptural passages that show that how individuals think about God affects their ability to have knowledge.
In Luke 11:52 Jesus says that when you take away the law of God, you “have taken away the key to knowledge.” And there is no reason to think only religious knowledge is intended. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 1:5 Paul reminds his readers that “in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge.” Other texts such as Colossians 2:3 affirm the same principle: “[In Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And Psalm 36:9 declares, “In [God’s] light do we see light,” showing that knowledge of God is the key to acquiring other kinds of knowledge. Clouser concludes, “The cumulative effect of these texts is to teach that no sort of knowledge is religiously neutral.”
The lack of neutrality among scholars raises questions about the effectiveness of purportedly neutral historical arguments to authenticate the [New Testament] canon. Even though many scholars (myself included) find the historical evidence for the apostolicity of the New Testament books to be quite persuasive, it is clear that many other scholars do not. Arguments that Christians find compelling often prove entirely unconvincing to the skeptic. Indeed, much of modern critical scholarship has rejected the apostolicity of many of the New Testament books and is quite confident that they are pseudonymous forgeries (more on this below). This has led Evans (and others) to observe rightly that such evidentialist-style arguments, ironically, have a substantial degree of subjectivity involved in them. Despite the claim that these types of arguments are more objective, and therefore presumably more acceptable, that has not proved to be the case.
Their effectiveness is always dependent upon the worldview of the one evaluating the evidence.
From Canon Revisited by Michael Kruger, Pages 78-79
Directions for Pursuing Unity
Here’s some great encouragement to pursue Christian unity, from an English Puritan named Thomas Brooks. This is taken from one of the “Pocket Puritan” paperbacks we have in the bookstore. They have small selections from highlights of the longer works by these old brothers. For directions on pursuing and maintaining unity among Christians, read on:
Satan has his devices to destroy the saints; and one great device that he has to destroy the saints is by working them first to be strange [that is, estranged from each other] and then to divide, and then to be bitter and jealous, and then ‘to bite and devour one another’ (Gal. 5:15).
Remedy 1: Dwell more upon one another’s graces than upon one another’s weaknesses and infirmities.
Remedy 2: Solemnly to consider that love and union makes most for your own safety and security.
Remedy 3: Dwell upon those commands of God that do require you to love one another.
Remedy 4: Dwell more upon these choice and sweet things wherein you agree, than upon those things wherein you differ.
Remedy 5: Solemnly consider that God delights to be styled Deus pacis, the God of peace; and Christ to be styled Princeps pacis, the Prince of peace, and King of Salem, that is, King of peace; and the Spirit is a Spirit of peace. ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace’ (Gal. 5:22).
Remedy 6: Make more care and conscience of keeping up your peace with God.
Remedy 7: Dwell much upon that near relation and union that is between you.
Remedy 8: Dwell upon the miseries of discord.
Remedy 9: Seriously consider that it is no disparagement to you to be first in seeking peace and reconcilement, but rather an honour to you, that you have begun to seek peace.
Remedy 10: Join together and walk together in the ways of grace and holiness so far as you do agree, making the word your only touchstone and judge of your actions.
Remedy 11: Be much in self-judging: “Judge yourselves, and you shall not be judged of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:31).
Remedy 12: Labour to be clothed with humility.
[Taken from United We Stand, Divided We Fall by Thomas Brooks. This is a chapter from his longer book Precious Remedies for Satan’s Devices.]
MIke Clark shares thoughts from last year’s weeked in prayer.
In preparation for this year’s weekend of prayer we’ll be having October 5-7, I asked Mike Clark to share some thoughts about his experience last year. This will especially apply to you if you’ve never been, since here he records his experience going for the first time, not knowing too many people.
Last year at the Young Adult prayer retreat the Lord met me in a powerful way. I had just turned 24, and though I had prayed for salvation at an early age, my walk with God was complacent at best for those years in-between. I had spent my life seeking joy and fulfillment in created things rather than the Creator, and put simply–my house was built on sand. In his mercy and grace, God let that life fall apart and in the months leading up to the prayer retreat I found myself crying out to God in desperation for the very first time.
The prayer retreat set the stage for my new life lived for Christ. He didn’t take away my trials, but brought me into Godly fellowship and opened my eyes to the joy and fulfillment that can be found in Christ alone. I wrote in my journal the following week, “I feel like the prayer retreat was a turning point for me…I am excited for the direction my life is going in for the first time in a long time.” I have been so blessed by God’s provision and faithfulness in the days since. The work that God did that weekend was itself an answer to my prayers.
God showed me through these experiences that if we truly seek him, he is faithful to meet us and lead us. This passage from Jeremiah sums it up best: “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.” – Jeremiah 29:12-14a
More info about the weekend is available here.
And you can also download the registration form here.
Notes from Last Night: 1 Peter 1:1-2:11
Last night we began our trip through Peter’s letter. Here’s the notes…
1:1-2 Notice Peter says, “obedience and sprinkling” — this is covenant language (see Exodus 24:3-8) So, Peter’s readers are out of place in this world, as disinherited sojourners (foreigners, resident aliens). But in Christ they are chosen people with a purpose.
1:3-12 What being part of this new covenant people means.
Though they are necessarily now strangers, believers are actually highly privileged:
v.3 We have a whole new birth (new identity)
v.4 …giving us an inheritance which can’t be touched
v.5 …which we can’t lose (like we can earthly things) because God keeps us
v.6 This lets us rejoice even in suffering! They had a new identity which led to their dispossession in this world, but the same new identity led to an eternal inheritance in the one coming soon. We are the same. “Suffering does not prevent joy.”
v.7 The best earthly possessions perish, but faith is eternal. Your faith gets you shamed here (they take your gold) but glory later
v.8 The glory comes when Jesus is revealed. You’ll be willing to wait for this if you love Him. Do you feel this way about Him?
v. 10-12 Though your identity is thought worthless here, and you’re shut out of the world’s plans, actually you’re part of something ancient and precious. And you’re in fellowship with the prophets, with the attention of the angels.
1:13-25 How we must live now, in light of this future focus:
v. 13 We put all our hope in that future inheritance. …by preparing our minds for action… exorcize mental resolve to think this way
v.14-16 …and by practicing self control, taking our Holy God as our example for, not our old way of life.
v.17 We remember that our Father is also the Judge.(so we both imitate and fear)
v.18-21 We remember that the price of our inheritance was Jesus’ blood. (see v.8)
v.22 We let this new birth and holiness flow over into real love.
v.23 …because if it was God’s seed in us, we’ll be like God, who is Love.
v.24-5 This Word of God is as eternal as the inheritance. Everything about the Christian’s life is eternal, from its start to its goal. So we can let go of temporary things in order to attain the eternal. We can love and rejoice through trying times because joy is eternal and suffering fades.
2:1-12 How we must live among people, in light of our new identity:
v.1 Picks up exhortation in 1:22…love!
v. 2 Lay aside these anti-love things, they fight desire for Spiritual things.
v.3 let the if you like God’s flavor, let it be yours.
v.4 you have been expelled from belonging in this world, but you are coming to Chris
v.5 new identity and social context: living stones part of a spiritual temple
v.6 shame for Christ is temporary
v.7 Christ was rejected, but is God’s chosen
v.8-10 …and we are the same
v.11-12 Just as we release our status in this world, we release lusts as well…
Peter Challenges Us:
- To contemplate the nature of who God’s word says He is, what He’s done, and Who we are as a result.
- To let what is coming dictate how we live now.
- To let God rule our thoughts as a way of letting Him Change our lives.
- To pursue these two primary things: Holiness & Love.
Holiness: 1:2 “sanctification”; 1:4 “former lusts”; 1:16 “Be holy”; 1:17 “Fear of the Lord”; 1:22 “purified souls”; 2:1 “laying aside”; 2:5 “holy temple & priesthood”; 2:9 “called out of darkness”; 2:11 “abstain from lusts”
Love: 1:8 “love of Christ”; 1:22 “holiness leads to love” & “love fervently”; 2:1 “lay aside lovelessness”
(Hopefully) Final Update: We’re meeting tonight, Inside
Update: Tonight Young Adults will meet in the CPAC amphitheater at 7:30. Park in the rear of the building and come in the Elementary (Sunday School) doors. We’ll have to postpone the grilling…
Things we need to remember.
Saw this on Justin Taylor’s blog the other day and loved it:
From a children’s book written over 100 years ago by husband-and-wife missionaries-to-Muslims Samuel and Amy Zwemer:
When you read in mission reports of troubles and opposition, of burning up books, imprisoning colporteurs and expelling missionaries you must not think that the gospel is being defeated.It is conquering.
What we see under such circumstances is only the dust in the wake of the ploughman.
God is turning the world upside down that it may be right side up when Jesus comes.
He that plougheth should plough in hope.
We may not be able to see a harvest yet in this country but, furrow after furrow, the soil is getting ready for the seed.
—Samuel M. Zwemer and Amy E. Zwemer, Topsy-Turvy Land: Arabia Pictured for Children (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1902), 116.
Some historical background for 1 Peter (and some encouragement)
On Monday, Lord willing, we’ll begin studying through 1 Peter. The first verse we’ll look at reads like this: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia…” Now, immediately, we might notice that we don’t really know much about these places Peter was addressing. (If you have a study Bible it will show you a map and tell you that they were all in the Roman Empire in what is now modern-day Turkey.)
Here are some insights into what kinds of places these were where the recipients of Peter’s letter were living. The second two paragraphs give some great encouragement for preaching and living out the Gospel in places where there are lots of obstacles to the message of Christ. Peter’s letter, and the Christians who read it, bore eternal fruit!
The picture that emerges of the regions to which Peter wrote is one of a vast geographical area with small cities few and far between, of a diversified population of indigenous peoples, Greek settlers, and Roman colonists. The residents practiced many religions, spoke several languages, and were never fully assimilated into the Greco-Roman culture. The problem of linguistic diversity would have been an obstacle to any evangelistic effort of the indigenous peoples, since Greek and Latin are poorly attested in vast areas of Asia Minor except among officials in the cities that became Roman administrative centers.
And yet this untamed region became the cradle of Christianity. From Asia Minor emerged people whose names are immortalized in Christian history. From Pontus came Aquila, the Jewish tentmaker and husband of Priscilla (Acts 18:2), as well as Marcion, the wealthy shipowner and Christian dissident of the second century who resided in the prominent city of Sinope. Aquila, the famous translator of a Greek version of the OT, hailed from Sinope as well. From Hierapolis in Phrygia (in Roman Galatia of the first century) came Epictetus, the famous Roman slave and Stoic philosopher, as well as Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, repeatedly quoted by Eusebius. In the fourth century came the Cappadocian fathers, such as Basil, bishop of Cappadocia’s capital city, Caesarea; his brother Gregory of Nyssa; and Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop of Constantinople – all three defenders of the Nicene Creed against the heresies of Arius.
To this remote and undeveloped region, the apostle Peter writes his letter to Christians whom he addresses as “visiting foreigners and resident aliens” (1:1; 2:11), scattered across the vast reaches of Asia Minor. We may surmise that, in no small part because of this letter and the faithfulness of those who received it, well-established churches flourished in all five of these regions by AD 180. Their bishops attended the great councils of the second through fourth centuries, where the doctrines were forged that Christians hold dear yet today.
–Karen Jobes, 1 Peter, pg. 22-23
Were there originally thousands of gospels?
I mentioned on Monday night that I read Michael Kruger’s book on the New Testament Canon over my vacation. Carli Milacci is typing out come of the highlights of the book for me, which I’ll post over the next few weeks here. I’m going to put up a bunch of information about this, becuase it really seems to be a key issue for speaking with unbelievers today. Especially if you’re in any kind of higher education setting, these are great things to be ready to speak about. Here’s a post from Kruger’s blog today:
One thing that I have observed over the years is that major media outlets love apocryphal gospels. Whenever the person of Jesus is discussed–usually at Easter and Christmas–there is always a discussion about how the real story of Jesus has been suppressed and can only now be found in these lost gospels. Sweeping claims are then made about how there was no agreement on much of anything in the first four centuries of the faith and that other stories of Jesus circulated by the thousands. Only after Constantine came along does the church decide which books to accept (and then subsequently denies all other books admission to the club).
When you think about it, this sort of historical reconstruction makes for an attractive magazine article or newspaper story for our modern media. The public loves a good conspiracy theory. People want to believe that there are “secret,” “hidden,” “lost,” or “forgotten” (the four most common words used in such stories) accounts of Jesus that will finally reveal the truth once and for all. And, of course, everyone likes to believe that the Church is just like all institutions–corrupt, authoritarian, and concerned only about preserving its own power.
In a recent blog article, Phillip Jenkins has pointed out that a major media outlet (the UK Daily Telegraph) has followed the apocryphal gospel playbook step by step. The Telegraph, when discussing the death of NT Professor Marvin Meyer, gives this assessment of gospels in early Christianity:
What we know as the New Testament – the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation – was actually born of thousands of texts and gospels circulated among the early Christians. Members of the new faith were subject to persecution, and the Church fathers felt that for the faith to survive, there had to be a unified belief system. Some time around AD 180, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon denounced all gospels but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as heretical. Later, about 50 years after Constantine’s conversion early in the fourth century, the New Testament became Christianity’s official text.
This sort of assessment is packed with misconceptions, many of which I dealt with in an article here. There were not “thousands” of gospels in early Christianity. Irenaeus was not responsible for oppressing these other gospels and choosing the canonical four. And the fourth century was not the time when Christianity first considered the New Testament books to be their Scriptures. Jenkins also provides a response:
Contrary to the Telegraph account – and good grief, this is a conservative paper – the reason early church leaders privileged those particular four gospels was that they were so evidently the earliest and most authoritative texts, without serious competition. No body of cranky patriarchs sat around and said, “Well, we have to vote out Mary because it’s, um, a tad sexual. John can stay because it spiritualizes everything, and that’ll be useful in a century or so when we get political power.” If you read the actual church debates over which texts should be canonized or excluded, you will be deeply impressed by the historical logic and good sense they demonstrate, and their powerful sense of history and chronology.
The bottom line is that the earliest Christians didn’t really have to “choose” the four gospels from among all the others. Rather the four canonical gospels were simply the ones that had been there from the very beginning. The early church didn’t pick the gospels, but inherited them.
When it comes to these sorts of questions, I like to remind my students of a very simple (but often overlooked) fact: of all the gospels in early Christianity, only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are dated to the first century. Sure, there are minority attempts to put books like the Gospel of Thomas in the first century–but such attempts have not been well received by biblical scholars. Thus, if we really want to know what Jesus was like, our best bet is to rely on books that were at least written during the time period when eyewitnesses were still alive. And there are only four gospels that meet that standard.
When this fact is kept in mind, the early church’s reception of just these four gospels doesn’t seem so arbitrary. Indeed, it seems to make perfect sense.