November 2007 Archives

Any time someone brings up the petitions in the Lord's prayer that concern God's kingdom coming and God's will being realized faces the inevitable: What does the Lord's Prayer say about political power and global issues? In chp 4 of Telford Work's book, Ain't Too Proud to Beg, Telford starts in the direction of "your will be done" and instead we get a detour -- a detour that deconstructs the church's strategies in wielding power.

Our next book will be Edith Humphrey, Ecstasy and Intimacy. It is a book about the Holy Spirit and the Christian life.

I believe it is impossible to read the Bible and to be quiet about politics. How can we read the prophets or Jesus and not think of political powers? The issue is how we engage the powers. The problem is how to avoid scuffles in doing so. Is there a way forward? What are your suggestions for engaging politics in the context of our communities of faith?

Well, back to Telford's book. He uses Walter Russell Mead's book called Special Providence to expound how the church has become complicit as businesslike Hamiltonians, missionary Wilsonians, protective Jeffersonians, and tribal Jacksonians. It would be too much to find a way to reduce all of this to manageable little chunks -- his discussions are lengthy -- but he sums them up in "self-" terms on p 102: "Yet each of these political visions centers on the self -- self-advancement, self-realization, self-protection, and self-assertion."

Thus, "Constantine is not the villain; we are" (103).

So, what is the alternative to complicity and villainy? To do God's will. What is God's will?

Here Telford has a theory I've not seen but which, the more I read it, got me to thinking. Here it is: "The will of the Father is none other than the Holy Spirit" (103). "When we pray the Father's will to be realized on earth, God's answer is nothing less than the third person of the Trinity" (106).

He gives some nice textual connections between the Father's will and what the Spirit does. E.g., the Spirit is the the finger of God, the Father's will to deliver and author the Torah (Exod 8:19; 31:18 and Luke 11:20).

The interplay of wills in the Trinity is the model of how we do God's will: I like this -- "in which the heavenly theocracy and earthly autocracies pursue their ultimate ends, expose their true natures, and by grace reconcile" (108).

The "Spirit" as the will of the Father -- now that's an idea worth pondering this day with friends.

The crisis Christian spirituality faces is how it came to pass that spirituality became separated from the divine embrace. This is discussed by Robert Webber in chp 2 of The Divine Embrace.

Webber summarizes lots of history in a few pages and I'm trying today merely to whet your appetite for his discussion and that larger history. The disconnection of spirituality from the divine embrace occurred through Platonic dualism. The connection was there, but it was lost. I cannot emphasize enough the value of this kind of exposure for how we need to understand the Christian life. The gnostics haunt far too much of Christian thinking.

The Gnostics challenged God as creator. It denied the body in order to release the soul. The Church responded, say in the Apostles' Creed, was to affirm creation.

The Arians challegned the Incarnation of God in Christ. Athanasius defended orthodoxy (one might say he created orthodoxy) and this is all bundled up in the creeds from Nicea to Chalcedon.

The divine initiative was challenged by Pelagius and Augustine met the Pelagian challenge with the teaching of God's grace.

The union of God and the human was challenged and the only fair resolution was to say that Jesus was 100% God and 100% Human.

The human will of Jesus was challenged: did he have a human will? Once again, the Church agreed that it was two wills perfectly united.

Theosis was the early church teaching: "participation in God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit" (41). This teaching has been the teaching of the Church from the beginning and it respects a proper human and a proper divinity so that a proper spirituality can arise. The earliest spirituality was a robust theological spirituality.

Two shifts messed us up -- both occurred in contemplation: the Platonic dualism frame and the medieval mysticism frame. God shifted from subject to object and we seek to attain to his location by escaping from this world. He finds traces in both eastern and western monasticism, including some extravagances in the desert fathers. Some of late medieval mysticism got too much into the self journeying and of the interior life. The focus needs to be on God.

Lukas and Annika are with us this weekend as they have come for their annual "Festivus: For the Best of Us and the Rest of Us." (I wrote about this in Jesus Creed.) Last year it had grown to over 200 people and who knows how many will show up this year.

We will also celebrate Christmas with them while they are here, since we won't see them until after Christmas. Luke couldn't wait to open his Nintendo Wii -- so he spent the evening playing golf, tennis, etc. on this new contraption. I'm not much for games, and when it comes to golf I prefer the real thing ... which gets me to wondering why it is that we live up here in the cold when my buddy, Kermit, lives in Phoenix and can play all year long.

Union with Christ, Andrew Purves argues in his book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, is "a key doctrine for practical theology and the faithful practice of ministry" (100). How does union with Christ work out for ministry?

Purves draws here on a sermon his wife, Cathy, preached. Rooted in Phil 3:12-14 ("I press on...") she speaks of the famous book many of us read as kids and read to our kids, The Little Engine That Could. It's the Protestant Work Ethic story.

But what Paul wants here is to know Christ, to run behind Christ, Christ crossing the finish line ... it is about Christ doing for us.

If Christ's humanity is vicarious, then our need is simply to be in union with the Big Engine That Did (that's my play on Cathy's image). It is about participation, not imitation.

Galatians 2:20 ("not I but Christ") teaches the same. Union with Christ is the whole. Then Galatians 4:6 that God sent his Son and the Spirit. And then to John 15:1-11 that we abide in Christ.

Union leads to transformation of mind, conversion of the will, and amendment of life,.

If this letter becomes as controversial as the letter on Monday then I'll have to rethink my strategies!

Scot,

Are there any in your library or that you have run across that are especially exceptional?

Dear Friend,

I get lots of letters out of the blue so no need to apologize.

Well, there are some exceptional ones and what I'll do is mention two for each book, but I must admit this is hard because the best commentaries are nearly always rooted in the Greek text. And it is always good to read commentaries that differ with one another and, if possible, that differ with you so you can be challenged to think. I'm favoring here evangelical commentaries since you asked to avoid the "secular." (I'll not touch that word in this context, but it might be interesting for you to know that the approach of most commentaries is actually quite secular since they frequently do everything they can to bracket off faith assumptions and larger theological issues ... but that's for another day.)

Matthew

R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew

Craig Keener, Matthew

Mark

M.D. Hooker, Mark

R.T. France, The Gospel of Mark [Though based on the Greek text, he doesn't overdo it.]

B. Witherington, The Gospel of Mark

Luke

J.B. Green, The Gospel according to Luke

D. Bock, Luke [This is on the Greek text, but readable; it is two volumes and you can chase down volume 2.]

John

R.E. Brown, Gospel of John [I see this is 40 years old; it is long and involved with some complicated theories; it is still the best theological commentary on John's ideas there is.]

D.A. Carson, Gospel of John [It is either this or Leon Morris or Carson's student, Andreas Koestenberger.]

Acts

D. Bock, Acts [This is brand, spankin' new.]

F.F. Bruce, Acts of the Apostles [I can't mention Acts without mentioning FF Bruce, for I cut my teeth on Acts with Bruce. Again, Ben Witherington has a nice commentary on Acts, too.]

Hope this gets you started. If you read the footnotes and the commentary interactions, you'll know what to read next.