Scot McKnight: June 2009 Archives

HT: :mic

I was invited by the good folks at Aldersgate United Methodist in Alexandria, VA, to be the Scholar in Residence last weekend -- and it was everything we hoped for and more. Though I joked with them about preaching a sermon four times, what really came home to me again was my tribute to the pastors who preach multiple times each weekend. So, to Dennis Perry and Jason Micheli -- my hat's off to your labors in preaching. (And Wesley did that for more than forty years on average! Dennis to the left, Jason below.)

Here's a sketch of what we did: Friday night we spoke to some leaders outside at a lovely home. I focused on ministering to 20somethings; Saturday night I preached on Jesus Creed, and did a variant on the Jesus Creed that the Lord prompted me as I was pondering and praying about speaking at Aldersgate. After the Sat evening service we had a public talk downtown Alexandria (Old Town) at the Athaeneum on engendering faith in your children -- it was a first for me, there was lots of Q&A, and I hope helpful to everyone. On Sunday I preached three times and then on Sunday evening, after the church barbecue, I did a public talk on Mary and the Gospel. Fantastic Q&A again. Monday morning I was interviewed by Taylor Mertins about various issues pressing the church and ministry today.

James assaults the hybris of the traveling merchants for their presumption, and his response to them is to consider the brevity of life (James 4:13-17).

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

Our concern today is a brief reflection on the brevity of life, something James had going in 1:9-11. As a flower's fading flowers indicate the brevity of life, so also the merchants need a big reminder and he finds it in the image of a fading mist. Life is like a fading mist.

Our weekly contribution from "PW" about life as a minister's spouse.

Historically, protestant ministry families have been paid in various ways for the work the pastor does in the local parish. Two to three centuries ago, some ministry families were paid once a year after the harvest. Some parsons were paid in chickens or produce. I am sure this brought about the thrifty and resourceful ministry families we see today.
 
Today, we receive garden vegetables, fruit, pastries, baked goods, labor for projects, and some gifts of money. We are extremely grateful for the financial provisions in our local church. Sometimes this has been a source of anxiety in lean times. Other times, there has been provision above and beyond what we can imagine.
 
What parts of ministry financial support are most freeing for you and your family? What parts of providing for the pastor are still a struggle for your local church? Are there new and creative ways ministry families are being provided for in the local church?

The sin of presumption, the sin of thinking our future is in our hands and within our grasp, irks James. Here are the words of James 4:13-17 again:

 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

Potent words indeed. I see several points and they will occupy our attention this week: (1) control, (2) the brevity of life, (3) the providential approach, and (4) a reminder of hybris.
 

This is a most interesting letter, and one I'd like to hear your response to... This young woman is a gifted preacher and pastor. Churches who are in the search process are figuring out how their congregation responds to a...

Mark Noll, in his new and paradigm-challenging book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, argues that American Christianity's influence in world Christianity cannot be explained adequately by the colonialism theory. Instead, he argues...

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving­kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives...

You can pick your friends,you can pick your nose,and now you can pick your friends'.... Kris and I are in Arlington Virginia at Aldersgate Methodist Church with Jason Michelli. But Weekly Meanderings go on! My three virgins.Andy's post isn't a...

OK, this is the last one... but you have to admit...One fine group!...

One is just not enough......

It's been too long since I listened to ABBA, clearly one of the great groups of rock history.Are you tapping your feet or dancing? Tell the truth.Mike Bird, how about you?Do I have a witness? ...

This summer, July 24th-26th, the annual meeting for Christians for Biblical Equality will be meeting in St. Louis -- and there are scholarships for those who are  full-time students and in financial need. Let's hear from those who have attended...

Introverts, Extroverts, and the Jesus Creed. On at least a couple of occasions, I have been asked whether I get energized (or re-energized) when I am alone, or when with others. It is a classic, yet simplistic indicator used...

We finish this series on Tom Wright, in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision . We will look into his treatment of Romans 6 and then offer his summary of what is being said:"Paul does not, 'I am in...

Here's a letter from a former student in response to one of the prayers we posted on Sunday as Prayer for the Week, which come from The Book of Common Prayer...Dr. McKnight, Why is that prayer is often called talking...

We turn now to a new section in James, to James 4:13--5:6. There are two paragraphs: 4:13-17 and 5:1-6. Each addresses a slightly different audience, the first one rich merchants and the second one rich farmers. The first is guilty...

I don't know if you have heard this, but many have charged missionaries with colonialism and with connecting the gospel to consumerism, mass communication, materiaism, individualism, and capitalism that damages native cultures.  In Mark Noll's new book, The New...

The Cubs!...

The good folks at Englewood Review of Books and I tried something: an interview on Twitter. The "twinterview" was about our Fasting: The Ancient Practices book, and Josh has an amazingly clever post of the tweets. John Frye has just begun...

Is this the API/Twitter revolution?...

Preachers and teachers (and writers and bloggers) need this reminder from James 4:12: There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?Several things come to...

This series is by my colleague in theology, Dr. Mary Veeneman, and she's guiding us through a brand new book by Brad Harper and Paul Metzger. The book is called: Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction . The question...

Another debate in the new vs. old perspective on Paul debate is how to understand Romans 4 and Abraham. Is he an example of faith? Or, as  Tom Wright, in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision , puts it: "Pull...

The Hartford Institute for Religion Research has a new study, available as a PDF, about megachurches. Here is the opening suggestive conclusions, and I'm wondering what you see here (or in the article itself)(HT: AR):A FEW OF THE MOST PROMINENT...

James says something in James 4:11 that can be confusing:Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not...

One of our constant readers and commenters is "PW", who is helping us think about the issues surrounding the spouse of a minister -- not always a female, we add. Do you tell your spouse everything? What do you keep...

Does counting missionaries help? In Mark Noll's new book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, the implication is that counting tells us some important things: the prominence of Protestant missionaries and the especially...

Here is a link to images of protest in Iran....

From the Morrisey column in the Chicago Tribune...The way Lou Piniella saw it Sunday morning, the media were paying entirely too much attention to the Cubs' unfortunate lack of hitting. Why don't we focus on the positive thing, which is...

James at times narrows his focus on the teachers, the tongue of a teacher, and the need for teachers to be conscious and intentional about what the say and how they say it.I believe James 3:1 all the way...

Here is a letter, published with permission, about the "spiritual leadership" of husbands and women in spiritual leadership at a church. What are your thoughts? What would you say to the person?Dr. McKnight, I am in the process of rethinking my...

One of the fiercest debates about the new perspective, from the old perspective angle, is the issue of double imputation and whether there are "two principles" at work in the human soul: the principle of works (self-merit) and the...

No kidding. One of our kind readers found my Fasting book on top of The American Patriot's Bible and rescued it (my book). Surely there are some parables or illustrations of deep truths here. Anyone have one? ...

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives...

David Letterman, who will do most anything to get a laugh, especially if he can do so at the expense of a public (and conservative) figure, spoke of Sarah Palin's daughter, who attended a Yankees game with her mother, being...

Chicago's summer skyline! A confession by an Afrikaner.Molly has a story to tell. KSZ's favorite.  Stephan Joubert and our global footprinting. Do you know about IBMR? (By the way, take that quiz on the page and see how you score.)...

What is the greatest, best, etc, movie ever?Let's make this fun: What are your top five movies of all time?It's Friday. When Kris and I go to movies it's always on Friday nights...  This is my favorite....

I see that many today do not want to call themselves "Christians" and are nervous about "Christianity." Instead, they want to call themselves "followers of Jesus."What are the major differences between "Christianity" and "following Jesus"?...

The following post is one of our "Friday is for Friends" posts written by friends of the Jesus Creed blog. Today's post is by Rachel Held Evans, and you can read more about her at her blog.Growing up in the...

We are looking at the new perspective debate and to do that we are working our way through Tom Wright's Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision.  Wright's argument is that one can't simply read 1:18 and then 3:19-20 and...

When it comes to commentaries on Ephesians, I still turn first to the Ephesians commentary that I first learned from so much... Markus Barth, but I'm getting ahead of myself. This series is intended to help pastors who are preparing...

The problem with John Mark Reynolds' new book, When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought , is that neither the title nor the subtitle is fulfilled in the book. The book is about Athens with hardly...

Today, a word for leaders, and it goes with the book I mentioned by Ruth Haley Barton. Spiritually formed leaders don't crave power, aren't envious of the successes of others, and desire to be in friendship with God. Here are...

We don't get the issues (behind the book) on the table with descriptive clarity until chp 4 in Mark Noll's new book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, and in my estimation Noll...

Our chipmunks? We've got them everywhere. I wonder at times if we don't have the ideal conditions for a chipmunk breeding ground: a porch under which they can burrow, birds who knock gobs of bird seed onto the ground, and...

James 4:7-10 contains a list of commands and prohibitions, with an occasional promise. Here is the text, and you can read it and see if you think here is a discernible structure:Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and...

"Someone has said that we are not human beings trying to become spiritual but spiritual beings trying to become human." I'm not quite sure what that set of options means, but it pushes against the tendency for Christian leaders to...

It is common to make two claims today: 1. That the Church in Europe is in a steady decline and heading toward distinction extinction. The dearth of births to Christians -- Italy's birth rate is at 1.28 while 2.1...

Kris and I know Jonathan Williams well, and we are huge supporters of his efforts to give back to Rochester what he received from Rochester -- and he is giving back by helping kids develop better life skills. His focus...

The following words, however clear they might be in an English translation like the TNIV, are much disputed:Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us...

Mark Noll, professor at Notre Dame and America's foremost church historian (or at least close), has a new book called The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, and the book explores how American Christianity...

I've recently heard about Ecto, but I'm wondering who knows what about it? Beliefnet.com uses MovableType, but I understand I can compose in Ecto and publish at Beliefnet? Anyone?...

James finds evidence of a problem in the messianic community, especially among the teachers, and he finds the source of the problem to be the yearning, desiring, and craving for power. He must tell them so (James 4:1-3). Next he...

I wonder about this myself quite often: Do pastors struggle dropping their "role" as pastor when they come home? When they are talking to their children and neighbors and spouse? Are pastors, as it were, always "wearing the collar"? Did...

Reading Paul in the context of the Bible's Story, with the result that Paul sounds like he fits into the concerns of the Bible, has been the intent of both the new and old perspective. Reading Paul's version of...

Terry Eagleton, on Richard Dawkins: "Without God, Dawkins would be out of a job. It is thus particularly churlish of him to call the existence of his employer into question."...

Victor Davis Hanson is one of the most articulate historians of war and the military and, whether you like this neo-con perspective or not, his voice is one to be heard. Moral equivalence seems to be the new label...

The NYTimes published a piece this week reporting a new school in Washington Hts (from the Equity Project) that has assembled a dream team of teachers, paid them 125 grand a piece with promises of as much as 25 grand...

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep...

Did you own a muscle car? Did you envy those who did? Muscle cars could be a thing of the past -- check out this display of muscle cars.Grease is the word....

Is anyone using Twitter for a class? Using it to connect students and professor? Using it for questions and quick answers? Brief note on an assignment?One would need to require students to have an @twitter.com account, but I'm wondering if...

We are seeing rhododendra yard by yard ... beautiful. And we're wondering why there aren't more of them in our neighborhoods. Anyone know much about them for the Midwest?...

Hout Bay near Cape Town.Memories: little Lucca, Theo and Wilma, three young African womenemerging from the waters singing from the depth of their hearts,and a good Sauvignon Blanc with our fish. Must read and must see. And with it: Redefining...

Good stuff, this Red Barn coffee. We are drinking Red Barn Espresso, dark roast, and it has a nice taste and great aroma. It's bold and zesty with just a hint of a smoky taste. It leans toward the burnt...

I am so grateful Chris Folmsbee is writing this weekly column for us about youth ministry. We need more focus on the next generation... so here goes... Let's hear your response.I've found a new hobby.  I have found absolute delight...

This is a two-part series by Logan Paul Gage, of the Discovery Institute, about Intelligent Design. We posted part one last week -- this is part two, and today's post covers two themes: God and beauty.Intelligent design and the deity...

One of the stickiest points in all of this new perspective vs. old perspective discussion is what to make of Romans 2:1-16, and Wright makes it clear that he thinks Paul means exactly what he says (Justification: God's Plan...

HT: MC...

I don't think prayer is mechanical. That is, I don't think if we "do" things right -- as the right way, use the right formulae, etc -- that we will get what we want. But James makes a mechanical point...

Here's the transcript of Obama's wide-ranging and peace-seeking speech in Cairo about tensions in the world. The Obama theme is clear: yes, we disagree on many important items; but let us build a better future on the basis of our...

Russell Moore is the dean of the School of Theology and senior VP at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He tells his story, personal and theological, of adopting two Russian children in his new book, Adopted for Life: The Priority...

The good folks at North Park University are drafting a list of values behind our @npu social-media presence and I'm hoping those who have experienced North Park (and the Covenant) can weigh in for us.What attributes do you think are...

What is it that leads Christians -- those who say they are following Jesus -- to go at one another, to being at one another's throats, to schism and division? Here are the words of James:What causes fights and quarrels...

The news media is obsessed now with Sonia Sotomayor. The newsfolks, ever out to gain some attention, are interviewing, or trying to set up, Republicans who will be involved in the process of approving her for the Supreme Court.Many of...

If you could give someone one item to learn about poverty in Africa, what would it be? What is the best way to teach about poverty and the global crises we face? What impacted you the most in learning about...

Tom Wright devotes no less than 70 pages to Romans in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision, and... well ... it is hard to sum up the denseness of this stuff without doing disservice to you, our readers, and...

I'm irritated with Thomas Nelson because they:(1) Chose to publish The Patriot's Bible, a Bible that draws the Bible's message and American nationalism as close as possible, and(2) Chose as the General Editor Richard Lee, a Southern Baptist pastor (nothing...

We need now to turn to the sadness of how the church appears to many, and to how the messianic community connected to James was behaving (James 4:1-3):What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires...

Andrew Marin's life is devoted to ministry with and to the GLBT community, and his approach to them is one of love, and his hope is to elevate the conversation. We conclude this series on his book, Love Is...

I coached high school basketball during the 90s. During that time I had many conversations with high school teachers, one of them had to do with the gradual elimination of shop classes. The big reason I heard was that, by...

We didn't finish this verse last week, so let's look at it again:Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.A few translations, including the NASB and ESV, are wooden and clumsy, but this TNIV captures the Greek well...

A letter from a reader, used with permission, and I'm wondering how you would respond....Dear Scot,I have a hard time reconciling in my mind that if God is an authorof peace and not confusion that he would allow 20k different...

In a remarkable piece of insight, Tom Wright once asked what Pauline theology would look like if we began with Ephesians and Colossians instead of Romans, and in just a few pages (168-175) in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's...

Here is a nice chart, by Patrick Mitchel, about Pauline theology that belongs in our new perspective discussion....