Blog Archives
1 Timothy 2 and the created order
Recently I started talking about the Biblical position on women bishops, and mentioned 1 Timothy 2:8-15, the passage which is generally the centre of the discussion around women in authority or leadership roles in the church. Obviously there is a huge amount that could be said about the whole passage: for example, there is some controversy over whether the word authentein (translated ‘to have authority’ in the 1984 NIV but ‘to assume authority’ in the 2011 NIV) means having authority in a negative sense. It’s a hapax legomenon - i.e., it only appears once in the whole New Testament, and (as far as I can tell) pretty rarely outside it. But, in general, the real clincher in the argument seems to be Paul’s appeal to the created order. Because, the argument goes, Paul talks about Adam and Eve, he must have in mind a universal principle rather than something specific to the Ephesian situation. So, what I’d like to do in this post is examine that specific argument: how does the argument work, and does it hold water?
Reverse Missionaries
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been watching a mini-series on the BBC called “Reverse Missionaries”. Unfortunately it seems to have disappeared from the iPlayer, but the basic premise was that three people from countries which were influenced by British missionaries (Jamaica, Malawi, and India) have returned to the places where those respective missionaries were from to try and return the favour. So, for example, in the second episode a pastor from Blantyre in Malawi returned to Blantyre in Scotland, to a church which was struggling, and tried to engage with the local community in the same way that David Livingstone (who was from Blantyre in Glasgow) did in Malawi.
Anyway, I have to say that I found the whole series very encouraging. Each of the churches that the reverse missionaries came to I think were ‘evangelical’ theologically, but in most cases had perhaps lost some of the desire for evangelism. In each case, the numbers at the church had dropped off significantly and there were very few young people there.
What the reverse missionaries did was go out into the community, meet people, and bring them into the church community. I think my favourite was the first episode, where a Jamaican pastor came to a small town in Gloucestershire and by the end of the two weeks had managed to get a football team going, brought in a few new people to the church, and generally made an impact!
Obviously, all of the reverse missionaries were not very British – I think I (and probably most British people) would generally not be very confident with going up to someone in the street and talking to them cold. But what struck me was that, in general, people were actually very receptive.
There are a couple of things I took from watching the series:
- The gospel is the answer to what people are looking for. This is something which I knew on an intellectual level, but it’s great to see it actually happening in the real world. The first episode showed someone hurting; he needed to know that there was a purpose in his suffering and a promise of release. The second episode showed a woman who had lost her husband; she needed to know the promise of resurrection and eternal life. The third episode showed a divided community; what they needed to know was “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
- The things that the reverse missionaries did were not magical, or only doable by an elite few – all they did was care for people, and try to reach out to them with the message of the good news. Now clearly they were gifted with people, which is something I’m not, but at the same time reaching out to people with the message of the good news isn’t rocket science. Sure, there will be different ways of doing it depending on context, but the important thing is not to become insular. I think the churches featured had all become somewhat inward looking, and that’s the worst thing that can happen to a church.
In general, in the midst of what’s been going on with secular society, HOTS and the like – it’s nice to be reminded (in an understated, unassuming way) that the good news is still good news, and that God is still working.
Love Lustres at Calvary
Easter Saturday is a slightly odd day, I find. It falls in between Good Friday, which is a very sombre day looking at the cross, and Easter Sunday which is joyfully looking at the resurrection. I find it’s not really a special day but it’s not a normal day either.
Given that I didn’t post anything up on Good Friday, and given that I won’t be around to post something up tomorrow, I thought I might post up a prayer from “The Valley of Vision”, a collection of puritan prayers. This is one which was given to us as part of a chapel communion service last term, and I find it very helpful.
My Father,
Enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips, supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at Calvary.’
There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son, made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;
There the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;
There thy infinite attributes were magnified, and infinite atonement was made;
There infinite punishment was due, and infinite punishment was endured.Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
cast off that I might be brought in,
trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,
surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best,
stripped that I might be clothed,
wounded that I might be healed,
athirst that I might drink,
tormented that I might be comforted,
made a shame that I might inherit glory,
entered darkness that I might have eternal light.My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
groaned that I might have endless song,
endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
bowed his head that I might uplift mine,
experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
expired that I might for ever live.O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,
All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;
Help me to adore thee by lips and life.
O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
my every step buoyant with delight,
as I see my enemies crushed,
Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross,
mighty to subdue, comfort and save.”
What it means to follow Jesus: Sermon on Mark 8:31-38
This is the text of a sermon I preached yesterday morning at at the 9:00 communion service at St Thomas’ Kidsgrove. It was the last day of their ‘week of events’ or mission which I mentioned in my post last week. (The week went well, by the way, thanks for asking.)
The passage is Mark 8:31-38, which it would be helpful to read before reading the sermon! And so, without further ado…
Gay Marriage and other lighthearted topics
Honestly. It feels like the news has gone a bit crazy recently, what with the ASA ruling that God cannot heal people, then the whole fracas about ‘militant secularism’, and now this: people going a bit crazy over whether the definition of marriage should be changed to include same-sex marriages.
It seemed to kick off a few days ago when Keith O’Brien wrote an article entitled, “We cannot afford to defend this madness“. After that, the atheist brigade on Twitter seemed to go mad; I saw a number of comments along the lines of “he believes in <x> (e.g. sky fairies) and yet he doesn’t believe in gay marriage”, etc. Most of what I saw written went way beyond what he actually said and ended up in ad hominem attacks or more general attacks on Christianity.
I don’t want to defend O’Brien’s piece because I don’t agree with all of it; although I do agree that redefining marriage would be a bad thing: the idea that marriage is between one man and one woman is an orthodox Christian belief.
That said, I do want to make a couple of points about people’s responses, one of which will seem oddly familiar if you’ve been reading my blog of late.
Firstly, the people who seem to be most vocal in their criticism of O’Brien (and the like) seem to be taking a ‘moral high ground’ position by claiming that it’s obviously right for marriage to be extended to homosexual couples. I would like to pose the challenge (similarly to my previous post on secularism): to what are you appealing when saying that one thing is more moral than another?
Secondly, I got thinking about marriage (as one does), and why it’s defined like it is. What is the point of marriage? Is it strictly a civil thing, or is there some deeper meaning to it? Why, indeed, does the government have to get involved in pronouncing people man and wife?
In fact, why should the government really be legislating on any kind of sexual activity (beyond, perhaps, sexual activity with minors and incest)? Come to think about it, why should polygamous marriages be disallowed?
It seems to me that the legal definition of marriage makes a few (generally Christian) assumptions about what is right and wrong in terms of sexual behaviour. If we start changing one of those assumptions, we may as well reconsider the others. Once again, it seems that secularism may well lead us down a path here where I don’t think we want to go.
Finally, Peter Ould has blogged some very good questions on “Gender Neutral Marriage” which I would recommend reading to get an idea of the scope of the issues.
This whole move by the government smacks of “Yes Prime Minister” – doing something to prove that the government is trendy and not the ‘old Tories’, rather than actually doing something because they’ve thought it through and believe in the principles.
Creation / Evolution 6: Putting it together…
This is the final post in my mini-series on “Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism.” In my last post I looked at what the ground rules would be for interpretation. So in this, the last post on the subject, I will give you the answer you’ve all been waiting for: all your questions about Genesis, Paul, Creation and Evolution will fall away and you will never have to wonder about it again! … I wish. Part of the frustration with a topic like this is that I don’t think there is a clear answer, a clear synergy.
That’s the main reason why I’ve been somewhat putting off writing this post – because I can’t really give “an answer”. However, I think there are some interesting things I’ve learnt along the way, which I will share with you.
At some stage in the future I will consolidate all these posts into one, hopefully iron out some of the unevenness which naturally arises from blog posts (well, my blog posts anyway). But for now, here we go…
Who was Adam?
There are a variety of explanations, some of which I think are more valid than others.
One explanation which in some ways is very attractive is that of ‘federal headship’. This is the view Denis Alexander explains in his book. He posits the view that God chose a pair of neolithic farmers (a man and a woman) to be ‘federal heads’ for all of humanity. They then sinned, and that then became the sin which Paul refers to in e.g. Romans 5. This view is attractive because it would fit in well with evolutionary history as far as we know, it would seem to explain about Adam and Eve being farmers at the approximate time period that the Bible seems to indicate they were around, and would seem to fit with God ‘choosing’ people (e.g. God chooses Abraham, God chooses Israel etc.) Under this view, Paul’s reference would not be to Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all mankind in a biological sense, but in a representative sense.
Such a view might also shed some light on Genesis 6:1-4: It’s an interesting exercise to read that passage in the light of this theory, the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men” … but then, it’s a very difficult passage to interpret any way you look at it. It would also seem to solve the perennial problem “where did Cain get his wife?”, although there are – again – all sorts of options on that subject for every view of origins.
I’ve heard that Alister McGrath is a proponent of a view like this, although I haven’t been able to find any hard evidence so I’m willing to stand up to correction on that one.
Of course, there are problems with this view, for example: it seems to do damage to a doctrine of original sin, and leaves unsatisfied the question of what happened to all the other neolithic people.
Another view is to place the creation of Adam way back approx. 150,000 – 200,000 years ago, to the first hominid pair. Although this would be much earlier than the traditional dating of Adam and Eve, if the Biblical chronology would allow a much longer period of time during Genesis 1-11 it would seem to gel more neatly. Apparently Hebrew genealogies don’t function in the same way that we might write a genealogy, they picked out key people and allowed for the possibility of gaps – of course, 150,000 years is a lot of gaps but then Genesis 1-11 is unique.
One suggestion which Henri Blocher made is that the reason for the slow development over the course of time after the initial Adam was to do with the fall – i.e. the fall impacted negatively the development of mankind.
Conclusion
I think it’s difficult to be proscriptive about the question of origins when there is so much that is still unknown. One thing I’ve been encouraged by is that a lot of the people I’ve read who are conservative theologically also take the question and science of evolution seriously: as such, people like C. John Collins, Henri Blocher and Tim Keller all seem to believe in evolution even if it’s not 100% clear how we fit it all together theologically. (I’ll link to some of the relevant books below).
What I’d like to conclude with is a quote from Henri Blocher’s essay in ‘Darwin, Creation and the Fall’:
We should not be embarrassed to conclude with uncertainty: it is a mark of a mature faith, properly based on adequate evidence and serenely bearing the tensions of a pilgrim’s progress by faith, not sight. Free from a neurotic need for certainty on every matter, we trust the trustworthy Creator and Redeemer.
Helpful Books
Here are a few of the books which I’ve found helpful:
- In the Beginning by Henri Blocher – scientifically a bit out of date, but theologically right on the money.
- Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? by C. John Collins – I found this book really helpful, surveying the relevant literature and Bible passages, as well as surveying some of the models of understanding Adam and Eve in the light of science. Doesn’t draw any firm conclusions but helpful to think some things through.
- Darwin, Creation and the Fall - a collection of various essays by several different authors, specifically about the problem of the Fall with respect to evolution. I found Blocher’s essay, once again, very helpful – although there were also a number of other helpful essays.
- Creation or Evolution: Do we Have to Choose? by Denis Alexander – I’m not sure about this theologically, but it’s well worth reading and contains lots of good info about the science.
- Should Christians Embrace Evolution? by Norman C. Nevin (ed) – the answer of this book is basically “no”; it was written as a response to Denis Alexander’s book. I found this book a bit uneven – I agreed with some of what was said, but I often think the authors went a bit too far in their critique of theistic evolution. That said, it’s still worth a read.
- Reclaiming Genesis by Melvin Tinker – in the introduction of the book, Melvin explains why Christians shouldn’t see the Bible as being in conflict with evolution. He then goes through and delivers expositions of Genesis 1-12 which are brilliant. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really talk about Adam and Eve and how we should understand them in the light of Paul – but if you want a good exposition of Genesis 1-12 this is good to go for.
Inerrancy, Augustine and UCCF
One of the problems with blogging is that of history. What do you do if you blog about something, then a while later change your mind on that subject? I’m contemplating such a problem right now. You see, in the past I’ve blogged about the UCCF Doctrinal Basis. Specifically, I didn’t like one of the points relating to Biblical infallibility. Well, I think the majority of the problems I had at the time have been resolved, and I’d like to share why I now think differently. [I did toy with just deleting the blog post, but I think that would be a bit dishonest.]
So, first of all, a couple of terms: Inerrancy - this is the belief that something is functionally without error. So, for example, I could say the statement “2 + 2 = 4″ is inerrant. Infallibility, however, is different. It means that something is without the possibility of error. So it’s actually stronger than saying something is inerrant. The ‘infallible’ claim is one which UCCF applied to the Bible in their Doctrinal Basis.
Before going any further, just a quick point on the ‘as originally given’ clause: obviously we don’t have the original copy of the Bible. That said, what with the number of manuscripts and so on we can be pretty sure what we’re reading is close to the original. This is in line with The Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, an interdenominational evangelical document produced in the 70s.
So, that said, there was something I found particularly helpful in my understanding of inerrancy. I think the main problem I’d had before was that I didn’t understand the concept properly: I thought of inerrancy in a pretty wooden kind of way, e.g. if you believed in inerrancy you had to believe that every single word of the gospels was literally true, and verbatim. In other words, if Jesus is reported to have said two different things in two different gospels, this would mean one gospel was in error – and thus inerrancy fails.
Now what I’ve found particularly helpful on this is studying Augustine. In our church history module at college we’ve been looking at a variety of early church writings, and last week we were looking at some of their writings on Scripture (i.e. what their view of Scripture was). I found Augustine very helpful when thinking about this topic of inerrancy. Here’s a quote from Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels, II. xii. 29 (he’s talking about the difference between what John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:11 and John 1:27)
But further, if, when he spoke of the shoes of the Lord, John meant nothing more than to convey the idea of His supremacy and his own lowliness, then, whichever of the two sayings may have actually been uttered by him, whether that regarding the unloosing of the latchet of the shoes, or that respecting the bearing of the shoes, the self-same sense is still correctly preserved by any writer who, while making mention of the shoes in words of his own, has expressed at the same time the same idea of lowliness, and thus has not made any departure from the real mind [of the person of whom he writes]. It is therefore a useful principle, and one particularly worthy of being borne in mind, when we are speaking of the concord of the evangelists, that there is no divergence [to be supposed] from truth, even when they introduce some saying different from what was actually uttered by the person concerning whom the narrative is given, provided that, notwithstanding this, they set forth as his mind precisely what is also so conveyed by that one among them who reproduces the words as they were literally spoken. For thus we learn the salutary lesson, that our aim should be nothing else than to ascertain what is the mind and intention of the person who speaks.
I’m sorry if that’s a bit hard to digest! – basically Augustine is saying what is important is the last bit – the mind and intention of the person who speaks. Essentially this is the way we are to understand inerrancy: not in the sense of ‘every word ascribed to Jesus must have been verbatim spoken by him’ but we can affirm what is said is nonetheless truth.
Our lecturer made the point that human communication doesn’t work in that over-literal way, and that inerrancy works within that framework of human communication.
I found this a very helpful way of looking at inerrancy, particularly when it comes to the gospels. I admit that the real issue here was what I was understanding inerrancy to be, so perhaps this will help someone else!
Creation / Evolution 5 – Ground Rules for interpretation
This is part five in my (not-so-mini) series on “Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism”. I’ve talked in previous posts (see that post for all the links) about why I think that so-called “Creationism”, more properly known as Young Earth Creationism or YEC for short, is not a sufficient explanation to account for both the Biblical and scientific data. Well, I’ve now done my assignment and the relevant reading for it and I think I’m in a position to at least move on slightly!
In my previous post I looked at Genesis 1 and how we might understand that from an old-earth and, I believe, a Biblical perspective. We now come to looking at the rest of the Bible, specifically, what do we do with the question of Adam and Eve? What do we do with the fall? Now I should say at the outset that anything I say here is not going to be anything other than tentative. The long and the short of it is, at the end of the day we just don’t know exactly what happened.
That said, I think there are a few points which we need to agree on before moving towards any kind of resolution.
Sermon: Matthew 3:13-4:11 – “A New Israel and a New Adam”
Tonight I preached a sermon at my placement church on Matthew 3:13-4:11. I don’t know whether it was recorded, I don’t know whether they have the facility to record there, so I’ve decided to upload the sermon as a PDF: you can download it here (PDF, 408K). That’s an approximation of what I said, by the way – I decided to preach from notes rather than a full script this time. (It seems to be working as well, my memory seems to be improving in that respect. It seems that you actually have to practice to improve your communication skills, who’d have thought it…)
I had some positive comments on it after the service, so that was positive. I felt a bit more nervous about preaching there than I have done previously, probably because I didn’t really know people so well. When I was preaching at Fordham I did at least know most of the people in the congregation. Still, preaching to a group of people who I don’t know is something I will need to get used to, so it’s not bad to have some experience in that respect.
Next week I’m preaching in chapel – it’s only a “Monday Meditation” (where basically the goal is to do as little talking as possible and get everyone to meditate while saying ‘Ommmm…’) but it’s still a pretty daunting prospect preaching to a bunch of people who are all studying theology and training to work in Christian ministry. People who have, for the most part, probably got more experience and learning under their belt than I have. Still, hey ho, experience is experience.
Hope you enjoy the sermon, if you read it. Let me know what you think.
Rev: The Rev-iew
Rev-iew. Rev review. Did you see what I did there? Hahahaha!
*ahem* Sorry.
The BBC series ‘Rev’ finished its second series on Tuesday with a Christmas special (although, as the character Nigel pointed out in the show, technically it’s not Christmas until Christmas day: it’s ‘Advent’ until then…) The series as a whole was well written, witty, and very moving in places. It also had some real moments of warmth between the characters – they were believable and I felt myself rooting for them. Essentially, the show was everything I think a sitcom ought to be.
But… but… there was something about the series which annoyed me. It irked me. It got under my skin and made me feel somewhat uncomfortable watching it. That element was there in the last series (see my review of series one on Crossring), but seems to have developed in this series. I’m not entirely sure why that is – possibly because I now am actually training to basically do Adam Smallbone’s [the vicar in Rev] job, it puts what Adam does into sharper focus. I’ve been thinking a lot about what my ministry would look like in the future, and comparing it with Adam’s it seems there are things missing from his ministry which I would like there to be in mine.
Last week, I attended an ordinand’s evening put on by Chelmsford Diocese (an ordinand is someone who is training to be ordained but isn’t yet). I got into a discussion with the Archdeacon of Southend about Rev – I said that I thought it was clear that the show was written by someone who didn’t really believe, because I didn’t feel like God was really working. The Archdeacon very much disagreed. His view was that Adam being there at the end, still pressing on as a vicar, meant that God was working: I think the Archdeacon saw a lot of churches like those in Rev, and basically Rev was much more of a documentary than a comedy! I’ve been reflecting on this over the past week, and I think my thoughts are now a little bit more clear.
I’m not entirely sure I can put into words exactly what I feel, but I think it boils down to the fact that neither Adam’s life or his ministry are characterised by the gospel. Let me try to explain what I mean by that.
Firstly, Adam’s life: I think the writer took so much trouble to paint a picture of Adam as an ordinary person that he just comes across as someone who is no different at all from ‘the world’, in Biblical language. The Bible often makes a distinction between those who follow Christ and ‘the world’ – see, for example, John 17 (e.g. v14 ‘I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.’)
Adam, on the other hand, smokes, drinks, and has outbursts like the one he has at church in the Christmas episode. I just feel a bit uncomfortable with that – although vicars are Christians like everyone else, sinners like everyone else, I would have just liked to see his life a bit more characterised by the gospel. As Paul puts it ‘… I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received’ (Ephesians 4:1). I’m not entirely sure I saw the holiness in Adam which I would like to see in any Christian, and particularly a minister of religion.
I do recognise, by the way, that vicars are people and have flaws, a characteristic of being human. I suppose the problem is at no point does he really seem to acknowledge that and confess that it is only by God’s grace that he can continue.
Any kind of Christian ministry is hard, and being a vicar especially can be tough, but his life just doesn’t seem to be characterised by the joy that comes of knowing God’s grace.
Which brings me to the second point – the fact that his ministry is not characterised by the gospel. He seems to have very little idea of what he is actually there for – what his role is all about. He says in Episode 5 “What is charity? … that’s giving alms, but I feel like I’m called upon to do more.” The thing is, I believe the ‘more’ he is called upon to do is to bring people into contact with the living God.
He just seems to have a very vague, generalised picture of his ministry as doing things which are basically Christian – such as visiting the sick, conducting church services, helping people practically – without anything which would give those things some weight. For example, in Episode 3 his friend Joan – an elderly lady – asks him if God will forgive her for some of the bad things she’s done. All he says is, “I think God will forgive you.” Sure, but on what basis? Why does God forgive? Is there anything that Joan needs to do?! I want him to answer those questions too!
In Episode 4 he is asked the question by one of the school children, “Do Muslims go to heaven?” And he says, “Yes, if they follow the five pillars of Islam.” Now I don’t want to get into the question of what happens to people who are from other religions, but I don’t know whether that would be an acceptable answer. If he honestly believes that people from other religions all go to their heaven, what is he doing there as a vicar? What is his role? It just seems that being a vicar in a Christian church demands we take the claims of Christ’s uniqueness seriously (e.g. John 14:6, “no one comes to the Father except through me”). If anyone goes to heaven it is because of God’s grace displayed in Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Essentially Adam’s work becomes reduced to going around trying to be a helpful person and offering a few platitudes here and there to do with God when people are feeling down. But they’re OK really – everyone will be saved in the end, except for perhaps a few really nasty people who don’t deserve it. I wouldn’t say that Adam was a universalist (i.e. believes that everyone will be saved) but practically speaking he seems to have no real motivation for evangelism.
Now the problem with all this is that I do realise there are different ways of looking at ‘Rev’ (see, for example, Grace and Truth in Rev – thanks @simonlucas). And, of course, it is ‘only a sitcom’… but it is apparently more based on real life than I imagined – viz my conversation with the Archdeacon.
The key thing is that when I look round the world and see people like those portrayed in Rev – ordinary people, ordinary lives – it seems to me (from my reading of Scripture) that their greatest needs are not physical but spiritual: they need to be brought into the Kingdom of God, and have their lives touched by the gospel. This is what I will strive for in any future ministry I will be involved with. And I just don’t see that happening in Rev: Adam Smallbone doesn’t have any good news.
