Regnum Caelorum

The Jesus of Suburbia

2007-10-08T13:42:00.000-04:00

Mike Erre

I finished this book a little while ago, but for some reason, I'm just getting around to blogging about it. The subtitle of this book asks the question, "Have we tamed the Son of God to fit our lifestyle?" I doubt a single book published on the subject has answered "no" to that question, so it's not surprising that the theme of this book is that we have taken the Jesus of the Scriptures and conformed him into the image of a nice, happy Jesus that fits into the values of suburban culture.

There's really nothing ground breaking or revolutionary about this book. The ideas contained in it have been written by others for years, and many are common critiques of evangelicalism even from its staunchest defenders. For instance, the chapter entitled "The Danger of Theology" gives the same distinction between knowing God and knowing about God that has been explained by J. I. Packer and countless others within evangelicalism.

At the same time, however, this book packages these concepts into one book for easy consumption and digestion. Clearly the highlight of the book is its first chapter, entitled simply, "Revolution." The chapter does an excellent job of reorienting the evangelical portrait of Jesus around his revolutionary intentions--even the announcement of his birth would have been read as intentionally subversive to the reign of Caesar, and people gave their lives for the claim that "Jesus is Lord" as a result.

Other chapters highlight what to me are core convictions of the Reformed tradition--the dismantling of the sacred-secular divide in the church today, a treatment of mystery and paradox and how much of evangelicalism has tried to answer questions that need not be answered, and the mission of the church to live redemptively in culture. If you already have formed deep convictions in these areas elsewhere, this book may not add much to your convictions, but if you're looking for a book that packages it all together succinctly and simply, this is a good book with which to start.

The Conversion of the Imagination

2007-05-02T00:32:00.000-04:00

Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scripture
Richard B. Hays

R. B. Hays has written a book detailing the narrative substructure of Paul's letters. He argues with convincing clarity that when Paul quotes or cites Old Testament texts, he is not just prooftexting his own arguments. Rather, he is drawing them in, often quite subtly, to the narrative context of the Old Testament quotation. He may only cite one verse, but he will continue to use vocabulary from the Old Testament narrative to situate his readers within that narrative and give his audiences both identity and exhortation on the ground of their place in Israel's story.

Hays has done a remarkable job, and reading this book ought to cause us to have our own imaginations "converted" as we read both Paul and the New Testament. Hays notes that Paul does not quote the Law to command his readers, even when those laws would seem applicable. Rather, he draws them in to Israel's story, situates them in their proper place, and exhorts them on that basis--as the people of God living on this side of the cross.

The last essay is called "hermeneutics of trust." That essay is worth the whole book. He both critiques the postmodern "hermeneutics of suspicion" and also gives us a new way of looking at the Scriptures from the basis of faith. While not decidedly evangelical, and while he comes from the so called "new perspective," this is still quite an intriguing read.

Jesus' Tomb?

2007-02-26T16:54:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning to the Today Show telling me that they found the tomb of Jesus, his wife and son. Wow. I waited for the historian or archaeologist who made this discovery and found out it was James Cameron, the movie director who made Titanic. This "new" discovery has been around since 1980, and never was thought to amount to anything until Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici got their hands on it.

Here's my take on it: Suppose I'm looking for a guy by the name of John. I know he died a few decades ago, but I can't find his body. I know him to be a poor, unmarried man from Baltimore with no children. In my search I happen to find a family tomb in Washington D.C. where there's a casket with John's first name (I can barely make it out, but I think it's "John") and also the first name of his father. Then I find in the tomb another casket with his mother's first name on it as well as a casket with the name of one of his siblings. But then I find a couple other caskets with names on them that aren't is relatives (one of them might be that of his wife), and then I find a casket with his son's name on it. I further determine that this tomb is the tomb of a rich family, not a poor one, like the John I'm looking for. It would not be a difficult conclusion to reach to say that I have the wrong John. I'm not even sure the casket says John, and what I can tell about him is very different from the John I'm looking for.

Now it's possible that I have completely misunderstood John. He was posing as a poor, unmarried man from Baltimore with no kids. In fact, he had a whole secret identity. Yet without any evidence of that secret life, it's a really stupid conclusion to draw.

The fact is perfectly obvious, from the data that we have about this tomb of "Jesus," that this is a different Jesus from the Jesus of the Gospels. The Jesus of the Gospels is from Galilee, not Jerusalem. He and his family were also poor. There's no conceivable way a poor family could afford a wealthy family tomb just south of Jerusalem (and if they had come into money, they would have bought one in Galilee). Furthermore, he is presented as being unmarried with no kids throughout his whole life. The "Jesus" (if that is what the scribble on the ossuary says) of the Talpiot tomb was a wealthy man from Jerusalem who was married with a kid and had other relatives we don't know to be those of Jesus of Nazareth. The tomb contains the body of a man who is a different man than the Jesus of the Gospels.

Now perhaps the Gospels got Jesus all wrong, and he was in fact a wealthy man from Jerusalem with a wife and kid, but without any evidence to suggest that, it's a pretty dumb conclusion to draw from what we've found in that Talpiot tomb. And if the Gospels got all that wrong about him, why would we trust the names of his relatives as stated in the Gospels anyway?

That's my thought on the matter. Anyway, Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar whom I respect, has this to say about it: Ben Witherington's blog.

The Sacred Journey

2006-11-24T18:20:00.000-05:00

A Memoir of Early Days
Frederick Buechner

I don't read many autobiographies; this is the first one I've read in years. A friend of mine recommended Buechner's memoirs to me, and this is the first in a series of books in which Buechner reflects on the meaning of his life. He's convinced that God speaks in our lives, and the task before us is to learn to hear His words in and to us. In reading of his life, Buechner hopes that we to will catch glimpses of God's words to us and in us. The Sacred Journey describes in vivid detail the first 27 years or so of his life, focusing mostly from about the time of his father's suicide to his conversion experience. In hearing his story, we have the opportunity see the wonder of how God works in us, beautifully narrated in elegent prose. I highly recommend this book.

Far as the Curse Is Found

2006-10-18T14:28:00.000-04:00

The Covenant Story of Redemption
Michael D. Williams

This book is a fine introduction to reading the Bible as redemptive history, and it rightly focuses on God's plan of redemption for the entire cosmos, not just for human souls. It is good to see a book written for your average student of the Word that looks at redemptive history in that way. It is well written, relatively concise (for the breadth of what he's seeking to cover) and filled with good theology. I wrote of another book earlier, entitled The Drama of Scripture, that covers basically the same ground, but in far more detail. That book also gives a you a good history of the Bible, and is therefore a better book to book in that regard. Yet for a brief overview of the Bible's redemptive history, this may be the best place to turn.

The Faces of Jesus

2006-08-31T14:10:00.000-04:00

A Life Story
Frederick Buechner

This is one of the more intriguing books I've read recently. As you might imagine from the cover, it's a book about Jesus, and throughout the book, he's giving us a portrait of his "face"--his presence among us. Buechner is a wonderful writer, and his prose is simply filled with beautiful descriptions of certain aspects of his life and ministry for us. For instance, referring to Jesus' statement, "as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me," he writes, "Just as Jesus appeared at his birth as a helpless child that the world was free to care for or destroy, so now he appears in his resurrection as the pauper, the prisoner, the stranger: [he] appears in every form of human need that world is free to serve or ignore" (p. 92). It is pure joy at times just to read his prose and fall in love with the Christ who saved our souls.

Yet at other times, he seems to toss that faith to the winds. He qualifies his statements of faith: "it would take no less than God, if there were a God, to enable men to see God's glory in that shambles of a face" (p. x). A wonderful insight, but why would he have that insight and also question if there is a God? At other times, he leads us needlessly into critical discussions about the reliability of the Gospels, and at times will even pit them against each other. One senses a Barthian sensibility to his trust in the Gospels, and for me, I find it annoying that it is included in such beautiful prose like olives on a pepperoni pizza.

I hate olives. I pick them out of my pizza when someone foolishly thinks they might add to the flavor of the pepperoni. I eat the pizza and enjoy it, but there's always that slight tinge of olive flavor that reminds me of what I had to remove to enjoy it. So it is with this book. I truly enjoyed it, and will likely quote from it from time to time, but there was nothing I could do to fully remove the flavor of his critical allegences from the beauty of his prose.

Kingdom Come

2006-08-22T15:43:00.000-04:00

How Jesus Wants to Change the World
Allen Mitsuo Wkabayashi

There are lots of books on the Kingdom of God out there to read. Most of them are either highly academic and difficult to read or they simply have poor view of the kingdom of God. This book is probably the first book with great kingdom theology that is accessible to just about any reader who would be interested in reading about the kingdom of God.

The basic premise of the book is that the gospel is bigger than what we give it credit for. We tend to think of it as what we need to believe to get to heaven, but such thinking (as true as it is) alone does not compel us to live a life of mission. Allen is seeking to give us a fuller picture of the kingdom (or, better, reign) of God--that God "has broken into history in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The blessings, power and justice of the future kingdom of God have reached back into the present and taken root in our world" (p. 145). God's reign in this world is intent on reclaiming all that was lost in the fall, not just human souls (as important as that aspect of the gospel is). When we understand the nature of the kingdom and the message of the gospel, we are then compelled to live life with a sense of mission--seeking not only to care for the poor, but to get involved in redeeming the societal structures that cause people to end up in poverty to begin with.

Yet this is not bare theology. Woven throughout the book are helpful illustrations and life examples from even his own marriage, as he and his wife have needed to graple the reality of abuse and rape and the tension those realities create for what we believe about Jesus and His kingdom.

I have one issue with chapter 11 on "Conversion." There he seems to draw too hard a dichotomy (my guess is that it's not intended) between what Dallas Willard calls "gospels of sin management" and a kingdom-oriented gospel. To be sure, he and Dallas Willard are correct to point out that the problems we face in discipliship can be traced directly to the way we present the gospel--we tend to focus exclusively on having all our past, present, and future sins forgiven in Christ so that we can get to heaven when we die. If that's the sum total of the gospel, then there's precious little reason to live a holy life afterwards. New converts can easily balk at the cost of discipliship with the objection, "I didn't sign up for this. I just wanted to be forgiven so I could go to heaven and still live how I want."

He even gives an example of a girl who accepted his gospel presentation but later said she didn't want to stop sleeping with her boyfriend. He suggests that a kingdom oriented gospel would prevent the misunderstandings that she had--fair enough. But the solution is not to add to a gospel of forgiveness. I fear sometimes we forget the life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit (not our gospel presentations) that works through forgiveness. As Paul so aptly said, it was the kindness of God that led him to repentance. If we truly understood our own rebellion against God's kingdom (regardless of whether or not we engage in premarital sex), and if we truly understood the magnitude of our forgiveness in Christ (his righteousness has been imputed to us), then by God's Spirit our lives would change, and we would see his Kingship over us as the gracious loving reign that it really is. That's what causes change in us.

Nevertheless, I find it to be a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it for all interested in an accessible treatment of Christian living in the kingdom of God.

The Drama of Scripture

2006-07-12T09:33:00.000-04:00

Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story
Craig G. Bartholomew
Michael W. Goheen

There are lots of ways to talk about the teachings of the Bible. Most often the teachings are summarized in terms of systems of doctrine. This books is an attempt to organize the Bible in terms of acts of a Biblical drama. The Bible is a grand story, a drama of redemption in which the world was created good to reflect his glory, but mankind sinned and caused the fall both of our human nature and the world we live in. The Scriptures are the drama of God's redemption not only of us, but of the world we live in. Every single one of us has a story--our lives are in the process of telling a story. Yet we also view ourselves as being situated within a larger story--a story from which we derive meaning for our lives and interpret what happens in the world. "Basic stories are in principle normative--they define starting points, ways of seeing what is true--and they are comprehensive, since they give an account of the whole" (p. 20). The purpose of this book is to give us an understanding of the Biblical story of redemption so that we can understand our own stories in light of the that larger story, so that we can live for His glory in His world.

This book is written by both a biblical scholar and a missiologist, and so the book has a real sense of mission. The Biblical story is told in terms of six acts:

Act 1--God establishes his Kingdom in Creation
Act 2--Rebellion in the Kingdom at the Fall
Act 3--The King Chooses Israel: Redemtion Initiated
Act 4--The Coming of the King: Jesus, Redemption Accomplished
Act 5--Spreading the News of the King: The Mission of the Church
Act 6--The Return of the King: Redemption Completed

We, of course, are situated Act 5, and we ought to derive meaning in purpose for our lives by our place in the larger story of Redemption. The book helps us get a find of mission for our lives as we live in God's world for His glory, understanding that the whole story of redemption is about God reclaiming His world and His people for Himself.

This book, I believe, is an excellent treatment of the teachings of the Bible, though it is most useful for those who already have some knowledge of it. I may well use it for for training elders in the future, though there's another book, Far as the Curse is Found, that is shorter and covers the same kidn of material. I'll post on that when I finish reading it.

Not the Way It's Supposed to Be

2006-02-24T10:49:00.000-05:00

A Breviary of Sin
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

Finally a book about sin that refuses to limit itself to abstract formulations of theological terms. Finally a book about sin that surfaces then inner recesses of the heart to demonstrate in concrete terms the reality of the sinfulness behind all our thoughts, words and deeds. The most helpful aspect of this book, I believe, is the way he fleshes out his definition of sin as a disruption of shalom. When a boy steals a radio for instance, there is a sense in which the boy has broken God's law, and there's a sense in which that act reveals his pride and selfishness. Plantinga's work shows that his act as well demonstrates the fact that the boy considered his desire for that radio as more imporant than the shalom of his classroom. Sin is what vandalizes the shalom of the world. It seeks to disrupt and introduce chaos into the created order. From the initial sin of Adam and Eve to the ways we continue to sin individually, corporately, even culturally and nationally, sin upsets the created order. Plantinga's work is insightful, articulately written, well researched, biblically informed, and simply a joy to read, even if you find yourself wonderfully convicted as you read it.

This book is a must read, I believe, for the missional church. If the missional church desires that the gospel sink into all the cracks and crevices of society, being an agent of transformation in all facets of life in this world, we need to be aware of what we are seeking to transform. This book is a wonderful exposition of the fallenness of creation as well as the human heart. We must be transformed by the gospel, and then be God's agents in this world to bring the shalom of Christ to the cracks and crevices of a lost and broken world.

Incarnational Ministry

2005-12-23T09:21:00.000-05:00

I was having lunch with other missionaries on a mission compound in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I was enjoying getting to know these men and women that had given their lives in the service of the gospel in one of the poorest countries in the world. I was there with my friend Elias, and we were sharing with another missionary about the disabilities conference we were putting on for the churches in Addis. Joni Erickson Tada had come with us to Ethiopia to help us make the church aware of the need to reach out and care for those with disabilities among them. My role in the conference was to be a photographer and instructor on how the Bible calls us to serve “the least of these” among us. I told my new friend, “The conference is designed to equip churches with what they need to be able to serve the disabled all around them.” The missionary’s response was quite surprising: “Well, it’s all well and good to care for the poor and disabled, but that’s not the ministry of the church. The ministry of the church is to save lost souls.”

I was shocked. It doesn’t take but a glance on the streets of Ethiopia to see the pressing needs, yet as I spoke with this kind man, it became clear that for him there was a sharp division between body and soul, and gospel ministry was only about proclaiming a message by which souls would be saved (and, I presume, discipled). He reflects one side of the spectrum of how people understand gospel ministry. People simply need to be told they are sinners in need of grace, and the only way to have hope for eternal life after death is to trust in the atoning death of Jesus Christ on their behalf. Of course it is true that we need to hear this, but evangelism for some is thought of as a matter of plundering souls out of this world for heaven. Mercy ministry might be a good thing to do, but this world is going to be destroyed, so it is merely a platform for spiritual ministry—we feed the hungry so that they will sit and listen to the gospel. There may be no formal connection between “gospel ministry” and showing mercy to those in need.

I have also encountered missionaries from the other side of the spectrum. Here it seems that “gospel ministry” is nothing more than mercy ministry. This “social gospel” focuses on Jesus’ commands to minister to people’s physical needs—to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked and visit the sick and the imprisoned (Matt 25:35-40). Yet often times, any need to proclaim the gospel that people are sinners in need of the grace of Christ all but disappears. Ministry to people’s physical needs then replaces ministry to their spiritual needs. In other words, there may be no formal connection between “gospel ministry” and a need for the conversion of sinners.

I would like to suggest that both of these extremes fail to represent gospel ministry as it is presented to us in the New Testament. After all, the gospel is intended to correct a problem—a problem that began with Adam’s sin. God created the world and everything in it good, and he placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to fill the earth and govern His creation for His glory (Gen. 1:26-28). Yet at the Fall when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, human nature became subject to both sin (we are totally depraved) and suffering (we all experience both pain and misery), and the creation itself fell along with us in our sin (Gen. 3; Rom. 8:18-25). Yet, of course, this was not the end of the story. God intended from before the creation of the world to redeem what was lost in the Fall. He elected Israel out of the nations to be a light to the world, but the history of Israel actually culminates in the person of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

It is the incarnation that becomes the model for ministry the world. Jesus was born as a person with both body and soul; he ministered to us, died for us, and rose again from the dead in both body and soul. Where Adam disobeyed, Jesus fully obeyed God’s law to fully redeem all that was lost in the Fall. And He did so by becoming like us in every way, yet without sin. He entered our world, spoke our language, suffered our pain and died our death and rose again to secure our redemption. That redemption is not limited to saving souls for heaven. It includes the remaking of heaven and earth—“New Creation” as Paul calls it (2 Cor. 5:17)—and resurrecting all His people with renewed physical bodies as well as saved souls. Of course, that will not be completed until He returns, yet it should not be surprising that the Jesus who ministered to us as a whole person would call us to minister to others as whole people, including both body and soul, both in sin and suffering. For Jesus, gospel ministry anticipates the great climax of all history, when Christ will return and eradicate all sin and suffering from the world.

The apostle Paul summarized His ministry to the Corinthians as follows: “We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5). That statement brings together both sides of the spectrum into one focus. We cannot compromise the gospel message—Jesus came to deal with the sin of the world by giving Himself as the sacrifice for sin and rising again as Lord of heaven and earth. Yet we must also preach that message while giving ourselves as “your servants for Jesus’ sake.” Service and mercy are not just good tools to get people to listen to the gospel. When we serve each other and show mercy to those in need we give context and meaning to what we say when we tell others that salvation is to be found in the One who came “not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). It is a necessary outgrowth of gospel ministry.

Paul says this again in another way: “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us” (2 Thess. 2:8). For Paul, ministry flowed from love, since the Thessalonians had “become so dear” to him. Because of love, he delighted to share “the gospel of God” with them. However, he wasn’t satisfied with speaking words; he gave his life for those he loved. Evangelism was what overflowed from the love he had for the Thessalonians as he gave of his life for them as well. That’s incarnational ministry. We give ourselves for the sake of those around us, entering into their lives, their worlds, their sufferings, that the gospel might take flesh in their lives, and Christ might be exalted in the relationships we build.

In the mission of Christ’s church, we must keep both sides of this spectrum in one focus. Our primary aim in all Christian ministry is to love each other as Christians. Yet loving people as Christians means that we will, in appropriate times and ways, proclaim the gospel of God that “Jesus is Lord” and commit ourselves to become servants for Jesus sake—to “give our lives” for those we love. We cannot be satisfied either with serving physical needs with no gospel (the world can do that) or with sharing the gospel message without love expressed in service and mercy. After all, Jesus taught us, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:14-16).

Regnum Caelorum

2005-12-16T19:10:00.000-05:00

Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, 2nd Edition
C. E. Hill

Welcome to my theological blog page. The title Regnum Caelorum, meaning "kingdom of heaven," is taken from an excellent book written by one of my professors about the history and development of millennial thought in the early church. Hill's argument is that, despite popular opinion, there were many in the early church (particularly from the late first to third centuries) that were not "chiliasts" (or premillennialists by today's terminology). These non-chiliasts can be identified because they believed in a heavenly afterlife, as opposed to their chiliast bretheren, all of which believed they would rest in Hades after death. In fact, reading his book makes one believe that chiliasm was a development in early Christianity around the middle of the second century. I highly recommend it to those interested in the history of eschatology in the early church. For an overview of Hill's argument (both in this book and in a couple articles), click here.

However, I'm intending that the subject of this blog page to be substantially broader than that of the book. Instead of being concerned with particular millennial views, I intend to this blog to be a forum of discussion concerning what the church would look like if we consistently believed in covanental and reformed understandings of the kingdom of God and redemptive history. What is the kingdom of heaven like, and how are we to live in it? These are questions that I believe we need to ask ourselves, and I believe the answers will challenge the church to live in the world differently. We would give our lives in service and mercy to the least of these in our communities and around the world so that the gospel of the King who "came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" might be seen in the life of His Church, His body, His kingdom on earth, until He returns.

Regnum Caelorum

The Jesus of Suburbia

The Conversion of the Imagination

Jesus' Tomb?

The Sacred Journey

Far as the Curse Is Found

The Faces of Jesus

Kingdom Come

The Drama of Scripture

Not the Way It's Supposed to Be

Incarnational Ministry

More Ready than You Realize

Regnum Caelorum