Thinking like God

Jesus and his disciples went to the villages near the town of Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, "What do people say about me?"

The disciples answered, "Some say you are John the Baptist or maybe Elijah. Others say you are one of the prophets."

Then Jesus asked them, "But who do you say I am?"

"You are the Messiah!" Peter replied.

Jesus warned the disciples not to tell anyone about him, and began telling his disciples what would happen to him. He said, "The nation's leaders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law of Moses will make the Son of Man suffer terribly. He will be rejected and killed, but three days later he will rise to life." Then Jesus explained clearly what he meant.

Peter took Jesus aside and told him to stop talking like that. But when Jesus turned and saw the disciples, he corrected Peter. He said to him, "Satan, get away from me! You are thinking like everyone else and not like God."

So when the time came, the chief priests and leaders took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst." A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn't find the body of the Master Jesus.

They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." Then they remembered Jesus' words.

They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn't believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up.

But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that's all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head.

That same day two of the discples were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was.

He asked, "What's this you're discussing so intently as you walk along?"

They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn't heard what's happened during the last few days?"

He said, "What has happened?"

They said, "The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn't find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn't see Jesus."

Then he said to them, "So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can't you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don't you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?" Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.

They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: "Stay and have supper with us. It's nearly evening; the day is done." So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.

Back and forth they talked. "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?"

So they didn't waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: "It's really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!"

Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.

Easter Egg

Amen.

UPDATED: What?! Twice in 48 hours? The words Eschaton somehow seemabout right ...

The other side of Christmas

Some of you will remember that at Christmas last year (2006) I wrote a 6-part series on Christmas and the wrath of God. And it turns out that we should be rejoicing at Christmas because of the wrath of God and what that child that no one seemed to be waiting for mean when you put them together.

Listen: in spite of neo-puritanical objections that Easter is a pagan holiday, this is where the filling gets put into that apple pie. This is where the real choice meat gets put into the stew. Because while the child who should have been served by angels allowed Himself to be made in the form of a servant is good news, what happens here on Good Friday is even better.

We could recount it from the Gospels, or watch Mel Gibson’s snuff picture on the subject, but I have a different idea. Paul says this in Col 2:

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him [that is, Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Listen: this beautiful child who was born to a carpenter and his wife waited until the time was right. (Rom 5:6) He told men who God was, and what God wanted, and some thought that meant He [this Jesus] was going to establish the throne of David immediately and start handing down the Law, opening up the wine press where the grapes of wrath are stored, and da-da-da-dada-da-da His terrible swift sword (in the Aramaic original, of course, which didn’t rhyme like that).

But that’s not what Jesus came to do at all. Not that first time. Jesus came to do something necessary for that ultimate goal to be achieved: in Him, the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands was nailed to the cross. And in having that debt cancelled, Christ put the “rulers and principalities” to shame in a public way – by triumphing over them.

In a way, I wish I had started this earlier so that we could talk about why the matter of legal demands is relevant to us sophisticated TV-watchers and iPod listeners, but that would just bog down the point here.

On that feast day of the Jews, when Jesus hung on the Cross and died, something was happening which is unimaginable: the sins of men, item by item, were punished and paid in full by that one man who was innocent of any guilt.

But what seems to me to be the most serious aspect of the cross is this: Christ did not die just for Sin. That is, Christ did not die just to give us a new nature or a new attitude. Christ died for our sins. He died for the record of our trespasses. He died for that “slip of the tongue” yesterday when I said the F-word out of anger; he died for the furtive looks of lust; he died for every lie, one by one. He didn’t just die for a metaphysical state: He died for what is done, what really happens in this world.

Listen: Easter is not about eggs or bunnies or whether there’s a supernatural piece of the Trinity in your wafer. The death of Christ is about the things that we do which make us enemies with God, and the lengths to which God has already been willing to go to make a clear offer of forgiveness and then actually forgive those who repent and believe.

Stop pretending you “get” this stuff. You don’t get it. Personally, I confess: I don’t get it. If I did, I’d go out of my way more often to act like someone for whom God has spilled His own blood. Jesus bore the wrath of God not just for the state of the fallen world but for the sins of the world, the list of things which we all have done which is long and petty and sad and personal.

If you read this, and hear it today, Christ did this for those who will believe. Believe it – do better than I do with it and repent. Become a disciple not in some monastic or liturgical way: be baptized and proclaim His death, and then we can talk about what happens on Sunday in no uncertain or indecisive terms.

This weekend, if you have never done it before, be in the Lord’s house with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s day. And if you have done it before, welcome the strangers and tell them about the love you received when Christ died for your sins.

Do not be offended

iMonk has axed a question over at BHT:

So what’s going on here? With John. (And, yes, the rest of the chapter is applicable.)

11:1 When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.

2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers [1] are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

This is of course Matthew 11:1-6, for those who prefer the ESV popup. In the interest of promoting better Bible reading, here’s my answer:

[1] John’s in prison.

[2] John is dispatching his own disciples to Christ.

[3] John is a little put off by having to serve prison time while Christ is free to walk around all of Judea.

And why not? Which prophet didn’t give God a little sassy-mouth with a side of angry-eyebrow for having to suffer for the sake of being the divine messenger? Elijah sure did – and that was after seeing the prophets of Baal burned while their god was not listening in the potty. (1 Kings 18:27; 1 Kings 19:14) And let’s not bring up Jonah again, yes? So John here wants to know if the Christ is come – and, of course, that the captives will be delivered, starting with the one who was a voice crying out in the wilderness – or what.

And I think iMonk’s point in asking is this: if John is allowed a little doubt, isn’t everyone allowed a little doubt? That would make sense in the personal context of the barkeep. If he has a broader question, I’d be willing to field that, but here’s where I think that original thought goes.

The question has to be, “was John allowed a little doubt, or was John rebuked for having a little doubt?” Because Jesus doesn’t say to John, “Cousin, I’m sorry you are having a hard day and I’ll try to make it up to you.” What Jesus says – and I’d compare this to what Jesus says over and over to the Pharisees who keep demanding a sign, or that Jesus spell it out about this Messiah thing – is, “John, these are the signs of the times [with the implication that you know what they mean], and if you have to suffer a little for my sake, count it as a blessing and not as an offense.”

Jesus tells John that doubt is not warranted, and that his concerns – like the concerns of the Prophets before him – ought to be weighed against what he knows for certain to be true. And because John is John – who saw the spirit descend like a dove, and who called Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” – Jesus doesn’t pronounce the 7 woes upon him for being a malcontent and an unbeliever. But at the same time, Jesus also tells him flatly that he shouldn’t be doubting what God is about to do.

And I think that’s a great way to set up a Good Friday post, so I’ll leave it at that for the day.

Meme Awards

Big-time, fancy-schmancy blogger Rebecca from Rebecca Writes just tagged me with the award you see to the right, and apparently one is obliged to tag others with said award when one receives it.

Rebecca said this about me:

Okay, I’m going to give an award to Frank Turk of ...and his ministers a flame of fire, although he’s probably too fancy-schmancy big-time to play along or even pay this award any mind whatsoever. What can I say? His posts always cause me to think, even when my main thought is, “How long did it take him to come up with that turn of phrase?” And I really like that the gospel is front and center, right to left, top to bottom on his blog.

Which is very nice. For the record, Rebecca, I have a staff of apostate jesuits who spend 10 hours a day reading the Bible, Piper, and George Bernard Shaw, 5 hours a day watching 30 Rock and reruns of ST:Voyager, 5 hours a day reading blogs, one hour each writing and 3 hours sleeping. I read their daily output like some mad Johnny Carson and glean the best for my blog.

As for those who will get my nod for this thinker's award, here's my short list:

• My good friend Dan Phillips who is a much better homilist than I am. He's far less scatter-brained and far more shrewd. You should read his blog more often.
• Doug Wilson's blog, because you don't come across his brand of evil genius every day. I'll probably never make it to Idaho, but I'm going to enjoy singing presbyterian hymnody with Doug at the wedding feast of the lamb.
• Mark Horne is a pretty good read, but his blog is so weaponized with links and advertisements, you had better protect yourself.

I'd list the sidekicks, but lately their blogs have been a little flat. And of course, I'd list Desiring God, but they don't need any awards and you're reading them already.

Don't be offended if I didn't list you. Very few things really start my wheels turning, and usually it's not people who agree with me so much that make me engage the cognitive engine.

Thanks Rebecca.

Even a Child ...

Al Mohler does more for biblical hermeneutics than most pastors have ever done by quoting the post modern icon Stanley Fish. It's amazing what you can learn when you read.

Gospel Bomb

Well, I left some comments on Kim Fabricius’ blog this morning, and he replied, and I have some stuff to say about what he said, so I’ll post it here:

I would hardly call, for example, the Civil Rights movement, at least the one led by King and co., or the Christian opposition to the war in Vietnam or Iraq, "theologically bankrupt".

Let’s first admit that KF’s comments here are, by his admission, “brief”, so beating him up for short hand would be a little ungracious. However, reducing the religious left’s lifetime achievements to the Civil Rights movement (which would be good) and political pacifism (which would be bad – and frankly untenable) is in the best case optimistically reductive. What about the broader results of religious liberalism – like the denigration of morality in the public square? See: it’s easy to be all sermon-on-the-mount when one wants to run off the racist or the sexist, but what about when one finds one’s self talking to the abortionist or the libertine?

So I say without any restraint that if the Civil Rights movement was the result of theological liberalism, nice work – now take the whole picture into consideration and ask yourself: was the devastation of the family unit and the end of public morality worth it? The right answer is that it ought to have been able to be achieved without the destruction of public morality, but unfortunately it was done the way it was done. Now we have to assess whether we can fix the tools which gave us one good things and a plethora of evils.

Which is not to deny that the church's most political activity is simply(!) being the church ...

Amen. To the (!) even.

...and thereby showing the world an alternative polis. But the church does not believe that the Sermon on the Mount is only an in-house ethic (Matthew certainly didn't think so: the disciples have a ring-side seat, but there are Gentiles in the arena of Galilee). As Yoder observes, "That there could be a distinction between ethics for Christians and ethics for the civil community had not been a constitutive part of Christian social thought since Augustine." And withdrawal or quietism is quite out of the question - and so too is not working with the "godless" (as you call them - in my view there is no such thing as a "godless" person)...

Which is interesting because the category of “godless” is repeated over and over in Paul – and is the basis for man’s need of the Gospel. Because man is without God, and opposed to God, man requires the love of God or else be damned.

...for parabolic social transformations.

This is actually one of my favorite objections of the theological liberal: that somehow the statement that the church has to mind the church first (that is, first and not only) is some kind of bunker-withdrawl from society – when what I would advocate is that the church not require the state to do what the church ought to be doing.

The irony is that while liberal political activism is clearly lauded by guys like KF, they look down their noses at conservative political activism – as if they were not simply the same thing. Listen: any time anyone wants to make the state the executor of the church’s mission, I think they have flopped off the page of the Bible and into the spittoon next to the desk. It was a mistake in the Medieval period, and it is a mistake today.

And I disagree that we should - not least because we can't - simply "change people first", the discredited strategy of a certain kind of evangelicalism, as if people were monads detached from social institutions and structures (cf. Paul's "principalities and powers"). Add up all the born-again Christians in the US and you don't approximate the kingdom of God; indeed it's more like the Other Place (and I don't mean Cambridge!).

That’s actually quite funny because KF simply says all “born-again Christians” are apparently not the “kingdom of God” – and yet he is calling for the “Kingdom of God” to take political action! Who’s he talking to, I wonder? Can he tell us?

Again, the problem is a reductionistic view of what he’s talking about which only credits his “side” with answers and only debits guys like me with “problems”. It’s classic partisan tunnel vision. Which really leads to the next point quite well ...

Regarding ecumenism, I believe that ultimately there can be no unity without truth - but also no truth without unity. But my main point is simply that discipleship trumps citizenship. I consider cross-and-flag Christianity an idolatrous oxymoron. That seems to me to be theologically indisputable, but it is more honoured in the breach than the observance, particularly in the US. If it weren't, I think it would make an enormous difference to the political scene. Interestingly (as I pointed out in "Ten Propositions on Ecumenism"), Martin Niemoller said that because he was an ecumenist he became a pacifist.

And somehow, Rom 13 never comes into it – which is because it is an inconvenient monkey wrench in these high ideas.

It is also important to note that the reflexive axioms KF tosses around here are not compatible. You cannot reconcile these two things – because truth is not dependent on unity; it comes ontologically first. First there is truth, then there may be unity. But to say that if there is unity there must be truth – that’s laughable. Someone take a look at the far left of the blogosphere and its reflexive unity against everything it is against, and tell me: do they have this reaction because they believe something true, or do they do that because they are united no matter what?

Your position sounds like a two-kingdoms theology (not Luther's own doctrine, which later Lutheranism misconstrued). There is the "world" and there is the "church", to be sure - the two are not the same - but Christ rules the latter as well as the former with truth and grace, and Christians should engage with the world accordingly.

Actually, I think there is the Gospel, and there are all other cultures. The Gospel stand opposed to all man-made cultures, seeking to overcome them and redeem them. What is at stake is exactly Paul’s idea of “principalities and powers”, but not in the vulgar sense which the political pragmatist would employ them.

The Gospel is not a bunker: it is a bomb. It enters in and takes people out. But the irony is that the Gospel takes people out of death and into life rather than destroying them.

Getting spanked

It's funny that, in our culture, we can say "not that there's anything wrong with that" to divorce, homosexuality, abortion, strident political activism, iMonk, etc., but when we come to spanking kids, somebody always wants to make it illegal.

Our friends over at SFPulpit have published this piece on a recent book which looks at one argument against spanking and finds it lacking. It's worth a read.

TIWIHW

"TIWIHW" = "Things I Wish I Had Written".

The first entry in this category is this post by Mark Horne. He's not even Baptist anymore, and he gets it.

I can only add this: what's the purpose of the Southern Baptist Convention? Is it conformity to some allegedly-theological fundamentals which don't really produce anything but people with identical wardrobes, homiletically and clothing-wise? Or is it to open the inerrant Bible for the purpose of curing and redeeming all cultures that do not have Jesus as Lord and Christ?

The Gospel is the solution to SBC culture. Someday, those with an inerrant Bible will open it and find that out because they will have read the Bible rather than wave it around -- as if it was an AK-47 or a picture of Che or something.

Book Recommendation

There are a ton of books on hermeneutics in the marketplace, and most of them are so high-brow that you -- the person who has a life not revolving around a college classroom or your tenure maintenance -- can't really use it. The rest are frankly useless programs for passing your eyes over texts in the hopes that something will get past the back of your eyeball to your brain by some black box process.

Graeme Goldsworthy's Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics is frankly the first book written by someone with academic muscle on this topic which I would recommend to anyone who simply does not understand how to read the Bible.

Goldsworthy wields an intelligent yet understandable vocabulary to direct the reader through his theses which range from whether it is necessary to have a hermeneutic, to why other hermeneutics fail to deliver substantive and lasting results, to what a hermeneutic must deal with in the broad range of what kinds of literature occurs in the Biblical text.

It's brilliant. Buy one for yourself, one for your pastor, and one for the next person to whom you have to deliver the Good News of Jesus Christ. This book is required reading.