Text, Community & Mission

A post by my good friend Derek has had me considering and rethinking my thoughts on war, pacifism, and patriotism.  While I do not agree with all of Derek’s conclusions, I found his post to be thought provoking.  

Let me preface the following thoughts with this:  I am extremely grateful for the freedoms and privileges offered to me by my status as a citizen of the United States and I hope and pray that the God of the whole world will continue to bless the people of our country as He has for the past two centuries.

I will begin by explaining that my thoughts on war and patriotism are partially influenced by my experiences as infantryman in the US Army for nearly three years, one of which was spent in Iraq, where my unit was engaged in combat quite regularly.  (While these experiences have helped me form my views and opinions on these matters, I do not believe that those who have not experienced war or battle cannot hold informed or valid views on the topic.)   (more…)

Here is my modified translation of Romans 7.7-25.  This in not the final translation, but it does show the effect of some of my grammatical and syntactical work.  The final translation will be in the last post of this study and will be the culmination of the study, bringing to bear all the exegetical evidence in my attempt to best represent what Paul was trying to communicate in the original text.

⁷ Therefore, what will we say?  The Law is sin, it cannot be.  But I would not know sin if not through the Law.  For I would not have known covetousness, except the Law said, “Do not Covet.”  ⁸ But sin, taking the occasion through the commandment, worked itself in me all covetousness, for without the Law, sin is dead.  ⁹ But I lived apart from the Law at some time, but by the coming of the commandment, sin becomes alive, (more…)

Here are some of the grammatical and syntactical structures I have found challenging in this passage.

v. 10 –  eijV is used as a preposition of purpose instead of its usual spatial.  As a relatively new Greek reader, this is one of the first times I have run across this use of eijV.

v. 13a – Here, a˙gaqo;n, used as a substantive, is neuter, yet the attributive form it is connected to in v. 12 corresponds with its feminine noun hJ e∆ntolh;.  This seems to show that the neuter singular a˙gaqo;n refers to both the feminine hJ e∆ntolh; and the masculine oJ novmoß as set. (more…)

I am reading through An Introduction to the Old Testament Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard.  This introduction is quite good.  So far I have found it very readable and informative.  The authors write from an Evangelical viewpoint, yet still handle the critical issues of scholarship and do not shy away from the theological diversity of the Old Testament.

While reading the chapter on Leviticus I came across a very interesting paragraph concerning which animals were considered unclean and which were not in the Levitical law.  The authors first discuss the idea that certain animals were unclean because they were unhealthy to eat, which they find lacking due to the fact that may of those listed are quite good for humans.  Second, they discuss the view, which I was taught and held to, that certain animals were chosen to set (more…)

Two of my biggest interests in Biblical studies is the way the New Testament authors understood the Old Testament, and the literary and rhetorical structure they used to create their texts.  So far most of the reading and research I have done on these two subjects has been limited to the Pauline corpus (See my posts on Ps 68 in Eph 4.8), but while I was preparing to lead a discussion with the Young Adult group at my church, I ran across an interesting case in Matthew.

Many scholars have noted that Matthew forms chapters 3-7 as the grand announcement of Jesus.  This is usually explained as 3.1-11 as the introduction of Jesus from John, 3.13-4.16 as Jesus’ preparation for His ministry, 4.17-24 as Jesus’ announcement of His self arrival via calls for repentance and following Him, and 5-7 as the first teaching of Jesus. (more…)

I apologize for the length of this post, but I feel that it is necessary to post this section of my paper in its entirety in respect for the position and man I refute.  Hall W. Harris is brilliant and distinguished scholar, and I greatly respect his academic work and have been assured by many of his students, who have taught me, that he is a wise, humble and godly man.  Yet, my disagreement is below.  Thanks for reading if you make it all the way through.

The sixth and most common view maintains that the quotation is a correction of an errant first century Jewish interpretation that is evidenced later in Tg. Psalms.  The Targum resembles Eph 4.8 as it has the Hebrew verb that corresponds with e“dwken; a similarity first recognized by Henry St. John Thackeray.  He explains the change from the Hebrew text to the Targum as an accident, where in the paraphrast confused the two Hebrew words for “receive” and “give” because they contain the same letters but in a different order.  He also suggests that the idea of God receiving gifts would not have seemed orthodox to the paraphrast as it would seem to detract from God’s aseity.  The main proponent of this view is a recent work by W. Hall Harris.  Harris suggests that Paul is arguing against a contemporary Jewish interpretation of the Psalm that attributes Ps 68.18 to Moses’ ascent up Mt. Sinai to receive Torah from God and his descent back to the nation of Israel where he gave Torah, as a gift, to the people.  To support this theory, Harris also seeks to clarify Paul’s inclusion of an assumed descent in v. 9.  Harris suggests that the descent of Christ mentioned in Eph 4.8 is not one to death or the grave, but the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  In this model Christ ascended to heaven after His resurrection, and then descended again to the Church, as the Spirit, at Pentecost.  Paul’s corrected interpretation in Eph 4.8 then acts as a polemic against the Jewish interpretation and against Moses and Torah.  (more…)

In his article “Paul’s Use of Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8”, Gary Smith presents our fifth option.  In his interpretation, Smith attempts to draw a connection between the captives and gifts, as seen in v. 18, and the description of the Levites in Numbers.  Smith begins his exegesis of by stating, “The militaristic language is a frequent metaphor which should not be taken too literally”.  Yet he only supports this by saying that Yahweh’s presence was in the ark prior to His ascension at Zion and that this fact should lead the reader to concentrate on the presence of Yahweh throughout the passage.  He then states that if the military metaphor is seen too literally, the focal point of Yahweh’s entrance into His sanctuary at Zion is lost.  However, Smith does not seem to realize that the militaristic description of Yahweh leading His people through the desert is exactly what results in Yahweh’s ascent to His sanctuary.  Smith even mentions that Yahweh’s praise stems from His act of going before His people, but he misses the obvious militaristic allusion this phrase makes.  (more…)

Recently, I have been involved in a discussion with two good friends concerning how we present the message of Jesus and the motivation for repentance.  The comments of my friends were very challenging and caused me to tweak and adjust some of my thoughts on the topic.  However, I am still convinced that the standard way many of us who grew up in the Evangelical world were taught evangelism may not be the best way.  (I say it this way, because I do not see a command in Scripture to communicate the Gospel in one way and not another, nor do I hold to the Regulative Principal.  However, I do think that our techniques for following Jesus’ commands should be informed by the Scriptures.)

Most of us who were raised in the Evangelical tradition were taught evangelism with either the Romans Road, the Cross spanning the canyon between us and God or some other form similar to these.  The basic premise for all of these approaches is: 1. You are a sinner.  2. God is holy.  3. Because of 1 and 2 you will be judged and go to hell.  4. Jesus paid your penalty on the Cross so you do not have to go to hell.  5. If you believe (or for some, not all, say “The Sinner’s Prayer”) you can be saved from hell.  I realize not everyone who presents the Gospel this way uses these techniques, but I my experience this the normal paradigm.   (more…)

On Thursday night my wife, myself and friends from church attended the midnight showing of the new Batman movie The Dark Knight.  As a short review, the film was excellent.  Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was perfectly sinister and demented by not laughable in any way.  The story telling in the writing and direction was also superb.  While there may be movies with better individual action sequences, as a complete film I believe The Dark Knight is the best action movie I have seen.

As a self-professed Superman geek, I am quite familiar with the Messianic comparisons made to Clark Kent as Superman.  However, I have not heard of any influences of Jesus on the character of Batman.  I do not know whether the films producers intentionally inserted many ‘Christ-like’ attributes and actions into the character of the Caped Crusader, or if they just trying to portray a hero who incarnates the best qualities of humanity, of which Jesus is the complete example, but I could not help but see a number of similarities between the stories of Jesus and that of Gotham’s Savior. (This comparison will contain details from the film, so if you want to be surprised read this later.) (more…)

Many scholars have shown how Paul constructs his letters around a literary structure that serves the argument he is attempting to make.  While most agree that Romans is an excellent example of this, they do not all agree on how one should understand the structure or the argument.  Even a very simple description of the available options would require a lengthy post, so I will simply say that the way I believe Paul structured the argument of Romans, and the place 7.7-25 has in that argument, is influence by a wide variety of views on the letter. 

I see the argument of Romans up to 7.7 as follows:  Following a theologically rich greeting where he stresses Christ’s descent from David and his mission of apostleship to the Gentiles, a prayer and disclosure of a plan for a Spanish mission (1.1-17), Paul launches into description of the broken status of all humanity with respect to their status before God due to their sin and rejection of the Creator (1.18-3.20).  In 2.12-29 Paul describes how simply having the Law or being physically circumcised are of no value, for only those who do the Law and have their hearts circumcised will be made righteous.  In 3.1-20 Paul means to head off a possible misunderstanding of his previous statements in 2.21-29, namely that Jews have no advantage.  While he explains that Jews do have some advantage, that is, they were entrusted with truth about God, that advantage alone does them no good as they stand sinful before God.  In 3.20 we come the first occurrence of e[rgon novmou which I will take as referring to Jewish boundary markers vis a vis Jewishness.  This seems to be best evidenced by the immediate context of 3.1-20 where Paul is explaining that the Jewish advantage of having the Law does not transition to any advantage before God, and the broader context of 2.12-3.19 where, as we have already said, Paul argues that possession of Torah and physical circumcision are meaningless without the doing the Law and the circumcision of the heart as well as the context of the second use of the phrase in 3.28. (more…)