Category Archives: BIBLE AND FAITH

Upgraded Humanity: What was Biblical history for? (Part 1)

One of my favorite novels of the nineties was the “cyberpunk” thriller Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. (Content warning: not a Christian book.) The most unrealistic element in the book, however, was the posited “true meaning” of the story of the Tower of Babel. In the book’s retelling, humans used to be programmable using something a lot like machine code. Consciousness and free will came about through a virus introduced into the human race at Babel.

To repeat: this was the most unrealistic part of the novel, but it allows conflict as Hiro Protagonist (his real name—the novel doesn’t take itself too seriously) discovers a global conspiracy to reverse the virus and make humans programmable again. I took it as a metaphor for the quest for unity versus the value of freedom despite the social costs.

How Do You Upgrade Human Software?

But recently I’ve been thinking again about this fictional alternative to the Biblical story and the Bible’s own information about how humans are upgraded. After all, at Babel, something like a change in human “software” did miraculously take place. God wiped out a vocabulary and rules of grammar in people’s brains and uploaded new words and grammar rules in their place. The analogy to computer programs isn’t that much of a reach.

But when God called Abram (the story that follows the story of Babel and the scattering of humans into diverse nations), he does so in a way that makes clear that Abram is his “tower.”

And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:3-4; ESV)

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3; ESV)

We know from the miracle of Pentecost that God wanted the divisions imposed at Babel to be ameliorated so that a unity could be provided through the Gospel.

But what was the purpose of history between Babel and Pentecost? What was God doing?

Maybe we should ask ourselves how human “software” is normally “installed” or changed. Unlike what some science fiction may lead you to imagine, one can’t change thinking and behavior simply by plugging the brain into a computer. Brains are part of bodies, not machines.

How do people normally acquire language. Outside of the events of the special creation of Adam and Eve and the tower of Babel, we get our language from being immersed in a speaking and acting culture from the time we are born. We learn language not only by listening, or listening and watching, but by bodily interacting with others. We learn through our bodies.

And perhaps that’s the answer. Consider what the Bible tells us about God feeding Israel with manna in the wilderness. He gives them food to gather day by day six days a week. Any attempt to save up for the next day is frustrated because it becomes inedible except on the sixth day. On that day, they can gather for the daily bread and for the seventh day. And on the seventh day no manna appears on the ground.

God didn’t simply tell the people to work six days and rest on the seventh; he trained them to do so.

Israel’s Program: A New Humanity

The bodily training involved in manna is obvious. For decades Israel’s nourishment required six days of gathering in the morning with only the sixth day allowing for saving for the next day. By the time God stopped providing manna there were adults in Israel in their late thirties who had been raised taking a break from manna gathering on Sunday because it wasn’t available then.

Yet, even that simple routine had more implications than just taking a break from one chore. It was intended to change the way they exercised authority over others:

“‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15, ESV)

We can’t know how different it was for a generation to hear that command after a generation of manna-training, but it obviously made some difference. Rituals often have wider implications in a community and in each person.

So, what about the rituals that Israel was given without much explanation?

The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.’

“If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.” (Leviticus 1:1-9; ESV)

It is totally inadequate to say that these sacrifices are pictures of the work of Christ. (The statement would be constructive if it was framed as a confession that we don’t understand much of the work of Christ, but that never happens.) There are details here that are more complex than a simple message of substitutionary atonement.

But more importantly: if the meaning of the sacrifices was simply a theological message about a future event in which God would save believers, why not just verbally communicate that message?

God wanted generations of Israelites to slit animal throats, smell the entrails being cut out, and watch the smoke rise from the altar. He wanted generations of their young children to feel the thrill of terror to learn that they would be required to stand by a bronze altar but be killed if they touched it.

Readers today have a text, but generations of Israelites and visiting foreigners had a network of customs and rituals that they lived out through a cultural tradition.

What would be the effect of centuries of sacrifices, cleanliness rules, dietary requirements, and all the other routines of the Mosaic covenant?

The goal was a new upgraded human being and a new human culture.

See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?  And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? (Deuteronomy 4:5-8; ESV)

This took faith. It was not obvious how banning your wife from Passover because her period came early would be wisdom that was recognized as such by the other nations. But that was the path that God promised would lead to a new level of glory.

And the Bible shows us how it worked out when the tribal confederacy of Israel reached the next stage.

TO BE CONTINUED

(Also posted at Kuyperian Commentary.)

Stop it! That has nothing to do with gluttony! re: In Praise of Fat Pastors.

In Praise of Fat Pastors was a great post at the Gospel Coalition. But then Jared Wilson had to go and ruin it for me. Last paragraph:

So no, I am not advocating gluttony here, just a Christward self-disregard, a godly un-self-consciousness…

No, you’re not advocating gluttony because nothing you are writing about has anything remotely to do with gluttony. The Bible never associates gluttony with fat but with profligate spending and thus the temptation to crime as a way to support oneself. It associates gluttony with the laziness of refusing to work for a living, not a refusal to use the gym.

Here is the data. Tell me where I’m wrong.

Since I’m posting on this anyway, I’ll make another comment about Jared’s post: It is simply a fact that fat or otherwise unattractive pastors are rarely going to be hired. If you want to get into ministry and are not young or hip or skinny or handsome you need to go into a denomination where you get assigned to a congregation by a bishop or some other authority. If you are relying on a congregation to call you, you are up against bad odds. Jared’s anecdote about the pastor who wore his pants too high is nice, but that’s an anomaly.

The people who cultivate the godly attitude, which Jared rightly commends, are people who don’t have calls and are working odd jobs to pay off money borrowed to pay for a useless seminary degree.

Nothing Jared said is wrong; but I’m telling you the way it is.

I suppose my advice would be to cultivate self-disregard and then cover it with a layer of savviness about acquiring gainful employment. I guess that means your example will be somewhat distorted. So you’ll have to decide what you think about the trade-offs in your quest for a church ministry.

And now I realize I am blogging again!

 

“Transformationalism” Is A Derogatory Term for The Great Commission

crosscrownOne of the ways that Dispensationalists pretend their position is not only right, but the standard for orthodoxy, is to give a novel name to traditional Christian theology. Rather than admit that the Church throughout the ages, outside of their own recent sect, has understood the Church as the new Israel, the label such a view “Replacement Theology.”

Within the Reformed Tradition, the attempt to import Dispensational ideas about the difference between law and gospel is using a similar tactic. People who believe, as Christians have always believed until recently, that Jesus is Lord of all of life, are being called “Transformationalists.”

READ THE REST: “Transformationalism” Is A Derogatory Term for The Great Commission.

Surprised by John Calvin

jcalvin

I picked up John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion some years back. Dipping into it, I anticipated a dry, grim, and doctrinaire treatise. Perhaps because I came to it with such low expectations, the books surprised me. I found the Institutes surprisingly accessible, written by a lively, engaged mind. I anticipated the argument of the books to be tightly wound around the theme of God’s sovereignty—with the focus on God’s glory coming at the expense of humanity’s abasement. Instead, as in Martin Luther’s treatment of predestination, I found that God’s sovereignty and the doctrine of predestination played a manifestly pastoral role in Calvin’s theology. The focus was not on obliterating the human, but rather underscoring God’s great love for his people in rescuing humanity from death, darkness, and despair. The upshot of the doctrine as I read Calvin was “This is a God you can trust.”

READ THE REST Credit the Calvinists | First Things.

Since the FV disinformation campaign hasn’t stopped yet

super-calvinSimilarly, although the PCA issued a fevered condemnation of Federal-Vision theology at the national level, she hasn’t been able to find any local individual who holds to what she condemned. Men tried for Federal-Vision leanings are always exonerated.

via Christian Medical and Dental Association doesn’t want abortion to divide Christians… | BaylyBlog.

In this post, on a different topic, a denomination (The Presbyterian Church in America) that makes a general statement about an alleged movement is compared to WalMart having a national return policy that individual stores won’t uphold.

The analogy is breathtaking. Rather than criticize it, I will simply point out a couple of other analogies that are more apt.

One is the child-abuse hysteria of the nineties where we would see huge media stories about satanic covens, ritual abuse, and all sort of other even weirder allegations. Then when it came time to prosecute in a court of law, it was all revealed to be a tissue of insane falsehoods. Naturally, the prosecutors never backed down even after being humiliated, and kept braying about he guilt of the people whose lives had been ruined by their own gossip production.

But there is another element. It is really like a law that bans violence against homosexuals where the law is vague enough that, if they can get the jury to cooperate, it will actually be possible to prosecute people not for real violence, but rather for Christian ministers preaching against homosexuality from their pulpits on the basis of the Bible. Then, when the juries refuse to convict these ministers, the prosecutors loudly complain about lawless judges and/or juries who refuse to uphold the law.

The fact is the PCA acknowledges on Bible and one group of doctrinal standards (Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms). When a man is tried by a presbytery it is according to Scripture and the secondary standards. There is a process for reforming those standards, but it can’t be done by one General Assembly voting to approve one study committee (even if that study committee hadn’t been stacked to get the “right verdict” beforehand). So when it comes to trial, you actually have to prove a case. The GA can’t send out a drone to assassinate your target for you.

How American Christians Get Fooled Into Being Pro-War: A Few Ways

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  1. God is a warrior; therefore war is good. But warriors don’t think all war is good. When Joab was ordered to get Uriah the Hittite killed in war, he followed orders but he didn’t like it. When Saul tried to get Jonathan executed for violating orders in a war their fellow warriors got in the way and told Saul to back off and back down. The fact that God is a warrior no more makes him pro-war than the fact that God commands capital punishment makes him approve of Charles Manson. The question is always: Which war are you talking about? In the US other than a rare Teddy Roosevelt or a veteran, many wars are promoted by people who have not only never seen military action, but who were careful to avoid it.
  2. War is good because we have to defend America. When? Mostly that has been done adequately by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. One noticeable exception was Pearl Harbor. But in response to a few thousand people in a military target, we laid waste to all of Japan, indiscriminately killing both civilians and soldiers together, bombing major cities. (This is all in addition to the nukes we used when they were asking for surrender terms.) The fact is Japan had no resources to seriously invade us. War as a reprisal and demand for satisfaction was amply justified. War as a crusade refusing to give terms of surrender was not defense. The War wasn’t in self-defense; it was the excuse everyone acknowledges that FDR was looking for in order to re-make the world. One other time we got attacked from overseas, on 9/11/2001, we decided to invade and occupy a country that had nothing to do with it, and left it much worse off than it was before (Really. Just do some basic research). So, in theory, a war could be justified on the grounds of defense, but when has that ever actually happened to us?
  3. War is right because pacifism is wrong. Other than to recruit enough weirdos to continue the movement, pacifism exists to legitimize imperialism and murder in warfare. Think about it. If all war is equally and always immoral, then killing civilians, murdering children in mass numbers with fire from the sky, etc is the same as killing soldiers (thus, again, our response to Pearl Harbor, as one example). By being pulled into this stupid dichotomy Christians end up supporting all sorts of homicidal atrocities because they are not pacifism and we all know pacifism is wrong.
  4. Without war there would be no civilization. Civilization merely survives war; it is war that depends on civilization. It is production and trade that provides the food and tools and men that war requires. War relies on civilization; civilization never relies on war. Yes, specific groups need defense from other specific groups. But that doesn’t mean that war gets the credit. When someone uses this argument they are typically doing so because they want to justify aggression and conquest. For an argument the supports national self-defense, it is overkill.
  5. War is right because God wants the government to defend the people. Sure, but God also specifically prohibited any king from building up a standing army or assembling a war machine (remember horses are tanks and F-16s). Yes, the people were supposed to defend themselves, and the government could lead and help in that process, but the people themselves were supposed to fight. No one was supposed to rely on a standing army and a peacetime arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Nor were they supposed to be transported to the other side of the planet in the name of an infinitely elastic definition of “the national interest.”
  6. I should defend my neighbor when he is attacked; so our country should go to war to right wrongs. First of all, if your neighbor is being attacked by an enemy you can do something about, then yes, you should help. But I don’t think you are obligated to go on a suicide mission that will only get your whole family killed. Secondly, the whole point of modern war is that it is far away from any personal knowledge or influence. You are told that they were killing preemie babies by taking away their life support units to leave them gasping and dying. You are told they have weapons of mass destruction they can bring to our Eastern seaboard by unmanned aircraft. When you can’t see for yourself what is going on the people who want your money and your blood are able to lie to you and make you think the country is facing a simple situation akin to seeing a neighbor attacked. Don’t let your real duty to love your neighbor be baited and switched into support mass slaughter overseas.
  7. We must go to war to prevent the use of WMD. Say citizens of the only country on earth to use the worst of them. (Perhaps I’ll make this its own post some time soon. Obviously, there is more that could be said).

 This is only the beginning. What would you add to the list?

Dr. Robert L. Reymond, R. I. P.

robertreymondMy first seminary course was at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I got to participate with Dr. Reymond in a radio program he hosted in which he taught Habakkuk and promoted the seminary (I had a very small role in the program but I got to listen to him). However, my main memory of Dr. Reymond was the first sermon he preached at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church where I was a member.

Jennifer and I were not dating yet, but I seem to remember sitting near her that Sunday. Maybe that’s an impression left over from us discussing it at work (she was my immediate supervisor at Coral Ridge Ministries; let the wisecracks begin). Whatever: I remember we both really were transfixed and enthusiastic about his preaching.

I found another version of the sermon on Sermon Audio: “Our Man On Top of the Hill.”
He preached this version when he was 43, which I think means it was done earlier than the version I heard at Coral Ridge.

I listened to it and really appreciated his words. I don’t remember some of the things he mentioned, either because this version is different or because remembering a sermon from 1991 is probably above my pay grade. But it was good and edifying.

I don’t know if I ever told him how much I appreciated the sermon. But that doesn’t matter now. He’s hearing about what a great job he did from someone a lot more important than me.

Rest in peace, Dr. Reymond.

 

Worship: The Time & Place of Personal Integration – Kuyperian Commentary

One of the Apostle Paul’s most famous descriptions of the church involves an individual human body:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27, ESV)

One could easily think that Paul is arguing from the premise that every human person is a unified body. In a biological sense that seems self-evident. But the Bible can speak of people as driven or controlled by various body parts. Paul must be arguing here from the ideal human person–the one who has matured. Paul himself is a large part of the Scriptural witness that affirms that human beings are often bodies in which the parts are at war with one another.

READ THE REST: Worship: The Time & Place of Personal Integration – Kuyperian Commentary.