Phill Sacre

Tag: bible

  • The Woman at the Well

    Photo by moregoodfoundation on Flickr.

    And by ‘the woman at the well’ I mean the ‘woman of Samaria’ of John 4. You know, the fattest woman in the Bible (the “woman of some area”… geddit? GEDDIT? HAHAHAHA! Sorry.)

    Anyway, we were studying John 4 in our class a couple of weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it. In our class on John, each of us has been assigned a commentary to look at and every week we look at it and write a couple of sheets summary on what it says, any exegetical issues and questions we have etc. I’ve really benefited from it – I’ve been using Andrew Lincoln’s commentary, which I’ve found to be excellent. Although I don’t agree with everything – he probably takes a more ‘open’ evangelical line on certain issues, and if you don’t know what that means don’t worry – but in general his exegetical insight and theological grasp of the text have been very helpful to me.

    This chapter is a case in point. As with virtually every chapter in John, it is theologically rich and there is much you could say about it.  I’m going to restrict myself to one topic though, something which I don’t think the ‘blessed Don’ (as our tutor describes Don Carson) picks up in his commentary: the idea of this passage being a betrothal scene. When I say ‘betrothal scene’, I mean an Old Testament betrothal scene like that described in Genesis 24.

    First things first, wells / cisterns in the Old Testament are often a symbol of faithfulness, i.e. marital fidelity. So, Jeremiah 2:13 “‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Or Proverbs 5:15 “Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.” (It’s in the context of marriage, see vv16-20, but I think the idea is pretty clear…)

    It should also be noted that Jesus, when he performed his first miracle (or ‘sign’ in John’s gospel) at Cana – turning water into wine – was performing the role of the bridegroom: apparently, it was the bridegroom’s job to provide wine at a wedding in those days.

    So, given all that, let’s take a quick look at some of the parallels between this passage and Genesis 24:

    • Jesus sits down by a well, tired; in 24:11 Abraham’s servant makes his camels kneel by a well (presumably tired, near the end of the day!)
    • Jesus asks a Samaritan (a woman not from his own country) for water; in 24:17 the servant asks Rebekah for water
    • The Samaritan woman goes back to the town to tell everyone about Jesus; in 24:28 Rebekah runs off to tell her mother’s household
    • Jesus is urged to stay for two days (he is offered hospitality and talks about ‘food’); in 24:54 the servant stays the night with Rebekah’s family after a meal.

    What I find fascinating about all this is how the betrothal scene is taken and widened / subverted. For example, whereas in the standard betrothal scene the bridegroom is offered a meal, in John 4 Jesus says “my food is to do the will of him who sent me” (v34). The chapter in Genesis portrays Rebekah as a virtuous woman, whereas in John 4 the Samaritan woman has had five husbands, and is living with a man who is not her husband (v18).

    Now all this is very interesting, but what does it actually mean? I think this is where we get the payoff from this particular passage. At this point, I’m just going to quote from Lincoln because I don’t think I can do better:

    Jesus, as the unique representative of God who is one with God, is presented as the bridegroom seeking a bride, the new people of God. Represented by the Samaritan woman, the new bride turns out to include women as well as men, Samaritans as well as Jews, and those with dubious pasts who would normally have been considered to be impure. Jesus overturns the usual conventions in choosing his bride. His new covenant bride transcends ethnic, gender and purity divisions so that Jesus as bridegroom can be confessed as truly the Saviour of the world. In this light the water he offers is neither simply that which quenches thirst nor that which gives rise to sexual overtones but represents the revelation from God that is life-giving and that is mediated by the Spirit.

    Isn’t that amazing? A simple scene at a well – but where Jesus reveals himself to be the bridegroom, who is seeking at bride. (This is particularly profound when you consider that marriage is often a Biblical picture of Christ and the Church – see Ephesians 5:25-33; Revelation 21:1-4). The bride is actually not perfect – not a perfect model of beauty, not someone the world might consider desirable – but whom Christ has chosen to redeem. The views of the world are overturned as Jesus seeks the weak and despised things of the world to shame the strong.

    I find it quite staggering that one can read such profound theological truths from a story about a woman and a well. But I found it helpful to think about this, and once again it makes me thankful for the riches of God’s word!

  • The Mountain of Joy

    What with the one thing and another, it’s been a bit doom and gloom here lately. Every so often I see or read something which really strikes me in a positive way, and I had that experience a couple of days ago. I was reading through the New Testament, preparing for a test next week. We’ve been asked to prepare from Hebrews to Revelation, which is probably a section of the New Testament I’m not quite so familiar with. On this occasion I was reading through Hebrews – a book which I think probably isn’t taught or read as much as it should be – and realised again how breathtaking it is theologically and in terms of imagery.

    This passage from Hebrews 12 really hit home. I make no apologies for the length of the quotation, because it is stunning:

    You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”

    But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24 NIV)

    I think sometimes the Christian life appears to be a slog. It’s a constant battle against, in the words of the Litany from the Book of Common Prayer, ‘the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil’. It’s easy to forget – particularly when going through hard times – that this life is not all there is.

    What I found helpful about this passage from Hebrews is that it focusses my eyes on the unseen truths of the gospel – that we have come to a joyful heavenly assembly, to the Judge of all, to the mediator of a new covenant, who has brought us into his kingdom.

  • Merlin vs God

    Have you been watching the BBC Series ‘Merlin’? Mrs Phil and I have been watching it virtually since the beginning, and very much enjoy it. It’s silly, it’s a bit of fun, but it has some great moments in it.

    Obviously the programme has its flaws… as someone pointed out the other day, for a show which is supposed to be about Merlin – at the end of five series he’s still in the same position, whereas all the other characters have grown and developed. It’s also frustratingly contradictory at times, and this is something I want to pick up on today: what does Merlin (the show, not the character) say about God?

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  • Positions on Scriptural Authority

    A few days ago, after the news about women bishops had broken, I had a very interesting discussion on Facebook about the decision. One of the interesting things to come out of that was the positions that people had on Biblical Authority. It seems that this is an area where people have major disagreements: do we treat the Bible as a relic of a previous time, which we can safely ignore now (or at least, we can ignore the bits we disagree with); or is it the literal word of God – was it basically dictated by God from heaven, and do we have to obey every last word of it to the last letter?

    There is a huge spectrum of belief within the Church of England – and even within ‘evangelical’ circles. When I say ‘evangelical’, I’m referring to the dictionary definition: ‘belonging to or designating the Christian churches that emphasize the teachings and authority of the Scriptures’.

    For example, the Evangelical Alliance – an organisation which would encompass a broad spectrum of evangelical belief – has as point three on its statement of faith:

    The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.

    (Other organisations hold to a similar view – the Baptist Union has a similar statement, for example, as does the FIEC.)

    Notice that phrase ‘the written Word of God’ – essentially evangelicals are saying that the Bible, although written by humans, is the written word of God himself. It’s not just an ‘old book’ which we happen to love because we like the language (which, I do admit, annoyed me with the KJV anniversary celebrations last year: people seemed to love the language, not what it actually meant.) I came across 1 Thessalonians 2:13 yesterday, which I think sums it up quite well: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” The Word of God – not something which is dead and irrelevant, but something which is at work in believers. As Hebrews 4:12 says:

    For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

    Well, this is all very interesting… but what does this have to do with the debate I was having? The key question we were talking about is: what does the Bible being the word of God actually mean when we come across passages which are seemingly difficult, such as 1 Corinthians 14 or 1 Timothy 2? Are we free to say “Paul was wrong” or “Paul was writing into a cultural context which is no longer relevant?”

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  • House, Marriage, and Grace

    Over the past few months, Mrs Phil and I have been watching through “House, M.D.” If you’ve never watched the series before, I can recommend it – it is pretty compelling! That said, some of the time it is a bit frustrating: the series as a general rule seems to buy into many of the popular misconceptions about relationships. One which particularly irks me is the idea that relationships seem to be totally in the hands of fate – “let’s get together and see how it works out.” Which is perhaps fair enough for a while, but after a few years – and even after getting married? No, that’s not how it works.

    I think all of this has got to me a bit more than usual because last year I read Tim Keller’s excellent book on marriage, and then earlier this year I read John Piper’s book “This Momentary Marriage” (which is also excellent, and currently available as a free PDF from that link). Couple that with the government’s discussions to redefine marriage and it seems that this year I’ve been thinking about marriage quite a lot! What does marriage mean? What does it teach us?

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  • Bigoted, Homophobic… and proud?!

    Thought that title would catch your attention! One thing which annoys me about the whole furore surrounding the government’s proposals to redefine marriage (which I’ve blogged about before) is the careless way people use words like ‘bigoted’ and ‘homophobic’. Particularly the first one: these days, if you are opposed to anything which society in general seems to be for, you are ‘bigoted’. For example, Marcus Brigstocke tweeted about a month ago, “Hey The Church – heres a thought – man up and own your bigotry.” Is that fair?

    Let me borrow the definition of ‘bigot’ from the online dictionary:

    a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

    Many say that because the church don’t want the government to redefine marriage, they are bigots. So they are ‘utterly intolerant of a different belief or opinion.’ The problem is… the idea that marriage should be a lifelong partnership between one man and one woman is an opinion – a belief. But the idea that marriage should be ‘egalitarian’ and allowed between any two consenting adults is also a belief or opinion. Unfortunately, the two opinions cannot co-exist legally – in a country such as the UK, it’s up to the government to pick a position and enforce it. In the past, such opinions have largely been drawn from a Christian view of the world (or at least, quasi-Christian). And many people still have that Christian moral framework in place, even if some of the distinctives have slipped out.

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  • Sermon: 2 Thessalonians 1 – Persecution and God’s righteous judgement

    This morning I preached a sermon on 2 Thessalonians 1. At college this term I’ve been learning about Homiletics, and as part of the assessment for that I had to deliver a sermon – which involved doing lots of diagrams as part of the preparation process (it’s Chris Green’s 12-step process for doing sermons).

    To be honest, I found the 12-step process quite hard: it didn’t really gel naturally with how I would ordinarily like to prepare a sermon. Some of it was useful, but some was a bit of a struggle! – so when I delivered the sermon this morning, I felt like I wasn’t completely sure if it was any good or not. Not because I think I said anything wrong, but just because it had been prepared in a different way and as such it felt a bit … unnatural.

    Anyway, it seemed to go down relatively well, I had a couple of positive comments afterwards! Anyway, if you’d like to have a read of it to tell me what you think, you can download it in PDF form. Feel free to leave comments afterwards, although please be nice!

  • God’s Image and Women Bishops

    A few days ago I had a leaflet in my pigeon-hole at college entitled “Male & Female in God’s Image“. It was published by Reform, and (strangely enough) written by my placement supervisor. (He didn’t specifically give it to me, by the way; it was given to all students at Oak Hill).

    The main claim in the leaflet is that if we accept women bishops, then we will damage our understanding of the Trinity. This is what the leaflet says:

    Genesis 1:27 does not teach the sameness of men and women. In fact the asymmetry of the words used point to the differentiation in the Triune God which in turn lies at the basis of the differentiation between men and women.

    But if our society views men and women as having no significant differences and this is then pursued as an axiomatic principle within the Christian community, it is inevitable that our view of the nature of God will change.

    So, what we see is the asymmetry between male and female relationships being a sort of picture of the asymmetry in the Godhead. He goes on:
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  • 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. [The original blog post has been deleted; apologies, but it was getting too many hits from Google without this post being read!]

    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!