April 2008 Archives

Yesterday on our blog we had an interchange that I want to toss into the pot today for a discussion. I referred to 1 Peter as by Peter. Here's what one person said ... and let me add that the point is not to see who is right and who is wrong here but to generate a conversation about how we read the Bible and what role historical reconstruction plays when we read the Bible ... well, here's what one person said:

I like what you say about 1 Peter here, but honestly, after taking an Intro to the New Testament class at UNC, the first thing I noticed was that you acknowledged the apostle Peter as the author of this book when in fact the majority of New Testament scholars don’t believe that 1 Peter or 2 Peter were written by him. I’m not saying that everyone has to believe that 1 Peter and 2 Peter were written by someone other than Peter, but I now think it’s best to refer to the author of books such as these as simply “the author.” That’s how I refer to the author of the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) since most New Testament scholars are in agreement that those books were not written by Paul. I’m sorry if this comes off as overly critical, but I think it will make posts easier to read for those who have studied the New Testament in its historical context.

But, then another person asked this:

Why is it important, or even useful, in a devotional post to start off with caveats on authorship? Many of us know of these authorship debates – some know the issues quite well. But they muddy the waters of a devotional – that is not the purpose.

To which a third person adds this:

I understand your [2d comment above] perspective, but I think [the first comment] has a good point. Saying “the author” is a simple way to acknowledge the things we don’t know. Yes, this may be a devotional post, but a devotional reading of Scripture need not be divorced from an academic understanding of the texts. In fact, any devotional reading will be improved by such an understanding.

Perhaps the standard purpose of a devotional isn’t to teach about authorship, but given the Church’s lack of biblical studies proficiency at both ordained and lay levels, it actually might be a really good thing, perhaps, if those of us that did know more integrated it into our “devotional” writings, as well.

Now a fourth person adds ... and this one came when our site was down:

The only time I blink at authorship stuff in a devotional setting is when pressure is being applied about authorship that is tied to an interpretation that requires a certain belief about the author in order to make the devotional thought. Something that would not be true if another person was the author.

Did that make sense?

Otherwise, I have learned to bracket distractions so as to stay with the intention of the devotion. And when I just can't do that, I try to wait and say something about the distraction at the end.

Especially here because Jesus Creed is a place where lots of "common" folk stop to ponder what Scot has to say. And we're trying to learn to keep the conversation going with questions rather than stop the conversation with statements. (I'm still trying to apply this consistently, and most everyone is real patient with me.)

While I absolutely agree with you [first comment] about phrasing things as neutrally as possible -- and try to make those very same statements when I'm teaching something that is "disputed", maybe you need to build an internal "filter" or something that catches these things that trip you up.

I think you will be disappointed if you expect others in the blogosphere to readily adapt to your scholarship sensitivities, especially because our host is way more humble and gracious and approachable than most! ;)

So, back to our question: When you read the Bible, let's say for formation primarily, what difference does it make to you to ponder authorship or historical questions?

We finish up today our series on Darrell Cosden's fine book, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work. If you are looking for a book that "justifies" work, this is it -- and I think we need more of us thinking more deeply about this subject and we definitely need more preaching and church instruction on "work."

Genesis 1-11 contributes to a theology of work:

1. In ordinary work, we are God's apprentices, God's co-workers.
2. Work is not all there is to life.
3. Imaging God physically -- this is our destiny and our identity.
4. We live in a world that is redeemed and yet not fully redeemed.

Cosden emphasize God's judgment, but that judgment is not annihilationist but "transformative" so that we and our work are purged and transformed into something useful for eternity.

Here are three great quotations:

"it is largely (though not exclusively) through our work that we reflect God's image and co-operate with him in bringing people and the whole creation to humanity's and nature's ultimate maturity and future" (129-130).

"Mission is the work (God's work) for everyone created to be in God's image and indeed therefore for the whole people of God" (135-136).

"Work is the mission (God's mission) for everyone created to be in God's image and indeed therefore for the whole people of God" (136).

OK, I posted the Ictus Fair Trade coffee near the end of my supply of their beans, and I've already got a new coffee brewing -- and it is one good brew. Metropolis. We are brewing some Samba ... roasty, toasty, tasty, aromatic, great smooth drink. I've given my ratings on the top five before, but there's some tinkering going on now....

Here's my top five coffees. Am I missing someone or somebody's coffee?

1A. Intelligentsia
2B. Metropolis
3. Chestnut Hill Coffee Company
4. Ugly Mug Cafe
5. Doubleshot

By the time I'm done with this pound of Metropolis, I might have an internal war going on between Intelligentsia and Metropolis. I've got now a 1A and 1B, and the reason might be only that I've had much more Intelligentsia than Metropolis.

It makes me wonder why there are so many of you know what kind of coffee shops around. I mean, anyone who has had any of the above has no need for St-rb-cks!

We might not realize it today, but the most intense challenge the first followers of Jesus met was including Gentiles into the people of God, the ecclesia. No, even more challenging was loving those Gentiles. Peter points the way.

We find it in Acts 10 and I see four points (see 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed).

1. Peter learned that other people -- seen in this Gentile centurion Cornelius -- were seeking God (Acts 10:2): he was a "devout man who feared God" and who "prayed constantly to God."

2. Peter experienced his own resistance to boundary-crossing. "What God has made clean, you must not call profane" (10:15). Fine and dandy, until you are asked to eat pork.

3. Peter learned that God is impartial. "God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean" (10:28). And here's a statement that should give us all some pause: "I truly understand," Peter reveals, "that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (10:34-35).

4. Peter learned that God dwells with all. Peter prayed and the next thing you know -- Pentecost, or an extension of Pentecost, happened all over again -- "the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word" (10:44).

Theo Geyser, a pastor in Stellenbosch, recommended that I read J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace. It tells a story of South Africa, as one critic put it, a story that "brutal tyranny has been replaced by brutal anarchy." I don't know how to describe this disturbing novel, a novel that seared images into me the way Flannery O'Connor has done. The central character, David Lurie, seems unredeemable but there are moments -- just moments -- of hope sprinkled into the last half of the book.

Anyone out there a reader of Coetzee? Of this novel? Any thoughts?

Again, I won't betray the plot, but the absence of hope that we find in Cry, the Beloved Country, the almost apocalyptic shift in times from Alan Paton's days to J.M. Coetzee's, and the fuller, bolder, balder presence of dark crime created for me a sense of powerlessness and a grim acceptance of harsh realities. The violence against his daughter Lucy is unbelievably accepted into fatalism, a stance that for me betrayed any sense of justice and morality.

The themes of powerlessness and overt humiliation animate the plot, but what the story does is probe and probe into human nature. What is it, he seems to be asking, that makes us go on? What is it that creates the story we now experience? What can we do about it? Should we?

The two locations of the story, one in Cape Town at a technical college, and the other at a farm on the Eastern Cape, move (in themes) from traditional hierarchy to multi-dimensional chaos. In the former, he is professor; in the latter, he is father with his grown, independent daughter Lucy. And one who learns to discover himself and begins to learn to love by caring for dying dogs. And the irony Coetzee tosses into our eyes with his magnetic, smooth prose as he describes his ridiculous affair at the college and the violence against his daughter in the Eastern Cape force constant thinking and pondering. When Lurie longs for justice for his daughter, he meets a new world -- a world playing by different rules. Again, the fatalism disturbed me and seemingly caricaturizes South Africans.

The themes are dark; the realities of that world are dark. It takes a novel like this to explore it.