Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law (1)

Today's lecture is the first in the series of five, more detailed lectures (last Tues was an overview).

'Circumcision is nothing'...

There is certainly a complex subject and also one in which there is a good deal of 'taking sides'. Brian wants to offer a bigger view of the subject. It is the theological equivalent of Fermat's Last Theorem. Brian doesn't think he's giving us a 'solution to the problem', but rather a more worked out version of what others have said in passing.

'You would've thought we'd have it sorted by now' (Geogre Athas)

So how do we proceed?

Three methodological points.

1) look at ALL the evidence. IE< not just 'nomos'. What does Paul DO with law, and what doesn't he say about the law, and what does he say about other things that you'd expect him to say about the law?

2) use Biblical Theology. Jewish and intertestamental texts, and the way of using Paul's own terminology.

3) allow Paul to say one thing at a time. That is: when Paul says 'we aren't under law!' let him be a passionate rhetorician. A coherent but not systematic thinker. See Romans 5 - Paul sound universalistic, but if you read him patiently, you see that he isn't.

4) treat the law as a unity.

SO: some definitions.

Paul: "I mean both the Jew who was seized by Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:12) and became his apostle to the Gentiles and the letters he wrote which are collected in the New Testament. In a theologically conservative college this might seem like a formality. But it needs to be said, and carried through. It’s remarkable how most scholars work with a truncated Pauline corpus when looking at Paul and the law. And as we’ll see, some texts in the later Paulines shed much light."

LAW: what is the content of the study of 'the law'? BADG = three general meanings.

“The ‘law’ in Paul’s writings frequently refers to the sum of specific divine commandments given to Israel through Moses.” (Stephen Westerholm)

That is, 'law' denotes the Torah, or the Pentateuch in its entirety, not merely the legal material therein. Legal material in the Pentateuch doesn't decribe, say, most of Genesis and Exodus. Law is embedded in a historical narrative. 'The law' doesn't mean 'the laws'. Test case: Galatians 4:21 - Paul uses law to refer to the narrative of Hagar and Sarah.

There are two exceptions to this. Yes, nomos is not less than Torah. But sometimes: nomos is GREATER than Torah. Rom 3:19 (quotes from the Psalms)... 1 Cor 14:21 (from Isaiah). According to BAGD, this is nomos used in a wider sense employed on the principle that the most authoritative part gives its name to the whole. That is, it is a synechdoche. The text in Rom 3 is the conclusion to Paul's argument in that part of the letter. The law of Moses in the rest of the chapter functions as 'law'.

So,

Not, which bits, but as what?

"For Paul νόμος “is always the same collection of texts, but the import of those texts shifts dramatically in accordance with the hermeneutical perspective at each stage of the unfolding drama.” (Richard B. Hays)

The law is upheld by Paul not as a demand but as something else. Paul is positive about the law as prophecy or wisdom.

1 Cor 7:19: is Paul in contradictory mode? “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God.”

In this passage- - the big idea is 'stay as you are'. What matters is that you walk by faith, not your status. Circumcision and slavery are illustrations. These don't matter - it seems like a digression, but it isn't quite.

For Paul to say circumcision is nothing is truly remarkable. It was a sign of membership in the covenant community and virtually all Jews considered it a principal command. When Antiochus Epiphanes wanted to eradicate Judaism, one of the things he did was have all those who circumcised their children killed (1 Macc. 1:60-61). Philo firmly criticizes some who argued that the Mosaic laws (including that regarding circumcision) had merely symbolic significance and thus did not need to be literally obeyed (Migr. 89-93). Jubilees 15:33-34 warns against “children of Israel … [who] will not circumcise their children according to the law.” 1 Maccabees 1:15 denounces Jewish men who remove the marks of circumcision. As Räisänen points out, for a Jew to be selective about the law was tantamount to disobeying it. To abandon circumcision was as good as annulling the law. In Acts 21:20-21, Paul telling people not to circumcise their children = turning away from (the Law of) Moses. This is confirmed in Acts 21:27-29, where Paul accused of teaching “against our (Jewish) law.”

Paul is expressing a sharp paradox (in the words of NT Wright). Circumcision is nothing, but keeping God's commands is everything? So, is he FOR Moses or against him? So what does Paul mean here, by 'keep'? Is Paul doing a 'threefold division of the law' thing - dividing between moral, ceremonial, civil? This approach seems to fly in the face of Paul's absolute statements against the law. Not a paradox but a polemic (say Brian). In 14:37, Paul say 'what I am writing to you is the Lord's command'... so here: keeping God's commands can mean something else.

1 - there's a polemical repudiation here. Circumcision is NOTHING! is pretty radical.
2 - radical replacement.
3 - wholehearted reappropriation.

So: what does he want us to do? Various options put forward by scholars. Ciampa and Rosner note that 'flee porneia' seems to dominate this section. In the broader context of marriage + singleness, it makes sense. That is: marriage or singleness are nothing, but keeping sexual purity is what counts...

SO: repudiation/replacement/reappropriation: the following lectures will trace through these themes.

The pillars of Judaism: how was Paul's perspective on his Jewish faith changed in the light of his conversion? Three pillars: election, torah, temple. He seems opposed to these.

Of course, Christianity is not the only 1st cent sect to challenge these. See the Qumran community. There were several alternative temples running around!

That is, practices of reappropriation and replacement were around... there was already the conceptual possibility of the parting of the ways. What Paul does with the law seems to fit with how a group fissures from the original faith.

“Paul’s controversial view of the Law was inextricably bound up with the significance which he ascribed to Jesus as Messiah and with the challenge this issued to all the fundamental symbols of Jewish life.”

(W.D. Davies)

What about what Paul DOESN'T say? A Jew like Paul could be expected to refer to a number of practices that have to do with the law. Boasting, for example. But Paul never uses that language to Christian believers. His unconscious lexical choice: he never says 'we can boast in the law' 'we can walk by the law etc.



MPJ's questions:
1) use of intertestamental literature in 'biblical theology'?
2) what about law in Romans 2? Seems to be an implicit division. Right?

Mike Ovey on the UK riots

Perceptive stuff

Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God

This lecture is the first, overview lecture, in Brian Rosner's Annual Moore College Lecture series for 2011.

Brian starts by saying 'what was I thinking?' This is indeed a complex study. Critical to our understanding of the early church - Paul's scraps with the churches and the false apostles. The charge of Acts 21:28 - this man teaches against our law. Paul's view of the law plays a big part in understanding how Christianity splits off from Judaism.

It is critical to: his view of salvation, salvation-history, the church, anthropology, Israel etc. There's a lot at stake here. Walter Kaiser: 'how does (evangelical theology) relate to God's gospel of grace'?
Accusations of all kinds fly around. No aspect of Paul's thought is so disputed?

Why? Either people think the free gift of salvation has been compromised, OR the basis for Christian obedience? Lawlessness, or, legalism?

Matched by complexity. The scholars agree: it is complex (see Witherington, Hagner, Carson, Dunn, Raisanen, Wright).

So: what was he thinking?
Study of Paul is dense with thickets of secondary literature. The debates rage about various cruces of interpretation. Hasn't everyone been here before? Acres and acres of cultivated fields. Well entrenched positions! An equivalent of the battle of the Somme...perhaps?

Brian hopes to circumvent the problem! But what IS the problem? Paul seems to contradict himself. In some parts Paul is positively approving the law. In others: he critiques it ('an enslaving power'). Eph 2:15 'Christ has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances'. Ie, the WHOLE THING. Echo of Dt 6:1? 'Abolished' seems pretty unambiguous. The law has been set aside in its entirety. BUT - he also says, in Eph 6:1-2: 'Children obey your parents - the first commandment with a promise'. He cites this law approvingly... 1 Cor 7:19 'Circumcision is nothing - but keeping God's commandments matters'. Is this a 'Pauline paradox'? Sheer contradiction?

Are we to keep them - observe, retain?

Some kind of synthesis is what all scholars search for. But this leads to various divergent views according to how they resolve this tension.
1) Lutherans: Paul abolished the law. The law is a counterpoint to the gospel. The law plays no role in the Christian life.
2) Reformed: After beings saved, we must follow the moral law.
3) New Perspective: Paul's opposition to the law is on account of its ethnocentricism.

Yikes (says Brian). [exegetical method: Yikes. Hmm. Aha! Or Yeah right!]

Titus says 'avoid quarrels about the law!' :-)

You need to do three things:
1) Look at all the evidence. Most scholars talk about Romans and Galatians. nomos occurs there more than anywhere. BUT this is too narrow. It cuts Paul off at the knees. We should consider what he DOES with the law as well as what he says about it. And what he DOESN'T say about the law ought to be added on. The later Paulines are considered non-Pauline, and so we often get a truncated view of Paul and the law. Shame.

2) A Biblical-Theological investigation. Difficult theological issues need biblical-theological responses. Not to deny the usefulness of Systematics or Ethics. But work with the text as much as you can. What terms does Paul use? We lose sight of the Jewish context. It can be helpful to compare Paul with the non-canonical Jewish stuff.

3) Treat the law as a UNITY. What are we talking about? The lexicon defines nomos three ways. Most treatments take 'law' as legal system. Ie law as 'commandments'. See Rom 9:4 - Moses giving the law. Gal 3:17 etc. Parts of the Pentateuch readily fit this description of laws. BUT Brian wants to take 'law' not merely as 'laws'. Narrative dominates Gen, Ex, Numbers (1st half), Deut etc. Laws are embedded in a narrative. Law denotes the Pentateuch together - as a literary whole. We see this approach in the NT itself. Paul (Brian thinks) deals with the law as a unity. He is happy to appeal to law as narrative - see Gal 4:21, 'what the law says' (ie Sarah and Hagar).

So Rosner has a hermeneutical solution: the law should be treated as a WHAT. He cites Hays, Carson, Hagner, Bruce and himself in support. Hagner says the law negatively is as commandments, positively as Scripture.

Paul is negative about the law AS law, but positive about the law as prophecy and wisdom. (3 categories)

The key word is 'as' = in the capacity of, from the perspective of ...

Jews in Paul's day treated the law as a unity in just this way.

So: what does Paul do with the law AS law? We could get stuck if we just went to Romans and Galatians. Loads of negative material is there. But how absolute is his rejection? It seems pretty absolute.

Paul quotes Lev 18:5: 'the one who does these things will live by them'. In the New Perspective it means 'those who do these things will live in accordance with them when they live in the land'.
Brian wants to understand it as 'will have life because of them'. He cites contemporary Jewish literature - Qumran docs; Psalms of Solomon; etc. You will get life if you live according to the Jewish law'. Paul pits this way over and against a different way = the way of faith: 'but the righteousness that comes by faith'... Gal 3, for example. What Paul has in mind is eternal life. Therefore, Lev 18:5 is law qua law: a failed path to life. Paul quotes it in the opposite way to contemporary Jews. It is all about doing, therefore it is a disaster!

1 Tim 1:8-10 - a neglected text because it is seen as unPauline: 'the law is good if anyone uses it lawfully... not laid down for the righteous but for the lawless'. That is, when it is used lawfully it isn't for believers but unbelievers. This verse is translated 'lawfully' as 'legitimately' or 'properly'. In Philo and Josephus it is 'according to the laws'... The law was thus not set up to bind the righteous.

Now, an argument from silence...important not to exaggerate this. BUT - how might a Jew like Paul have been expected to relate to the law? We know from his own writings that he expected Jews to obey the law etc. But he never says that Christians should keep the law... he does say 'fulfill' the law, but that's different. He is not real big on the law as something Christians should obey.

Where does Paul get this view of the law from?
1) from his Calling and conversion. See Martin Hengel. It presented a soteriological alternative. Was the law life, or some other option?

2) from some prophetic texts. Jer 31:31-33, Ez 36:22-32, Dan 9:9-16a, 18b. The 'gracequake' of the new covenant.

So - Paul's postive stance? Prophecy and Wisdom.

See the prophetic character of the Pentateuch. See Gary Millar and Sailhammer. In Dt, there are some pessimistic elements that point beyond the book. The new covenant is anticipated in Deuteronomy - see 4:30. Paul as a minister of the new covenant can read it this way. See Acts 28:23 - he testifies to the koG from the LAW of Moses and the prophets. Rom 3:21-22 - the prophecy predicted by the law and prophets. He puts law and prophecy together. The law now functions as testimony, witness and promise.

The law as wisdom. Wisdom is indeed a key motif in Paul's letters. Moses makes you WISE (Dt 4:6). The torah psalms, Ps 19 and 119 - label law as wisdom. What does reading the law as wisdom look like? It's an approach to the law which notes the character of God and the moral framework stiched into the creation. The laws have an appeal to the moral reality all about us.

See Tithing: the practice of tithing is found in the OT. Does Paul recommend it for Christians? Despite having many opportunities to do so, he doesn't. But in 2 Cor 9, he says something very different. Does this mean he considers it irrelevant? No - he recommends deliberate managed giving... the laws are there to teach us, to make us wise.

Stealing - in Rom 2, he accuses his Jewish opponents of transgressing the law against stealing. But he tells Christians not merely not to steal but exhorts them to get a job! It functions as admonition, instruction and so on.

SO - Paul's letters present both negative critique and positive approval of the law. Brian offers a hermeneutical solution. Not a radical one, admittedly. We don't think we are under it as Christians, but we do think it is valuable... and it points to Christ of course! It is possible to dispute some details and still go with Brian's thesis.

Piece on NT background

Carson vs Piper

Review of Bible – The Story of the King James Version by Gordon Campbell

Feeling enthusiastic about writing this review, I emailed David Marr and said:

I was wondering if I could trouble you for a brief comment about Patrick White and the King James Version that I could include in my piece? It seems to my amateur’s eye that The Tree of Man and Voss at the very least contain a self-conscious echo of the rhythms of KJV prose. I would even venture to say that The Tree of Man echoes the narratives of the latter half of the book of Genesis. Would this be wide of the mark?

This was going to be my scoop: the Australian connection. A great deal has been written about the influence of the 1611 Bible on the West without referencing antipodean literature. Very kindly, Marr replied. But the reply from White’s biographer wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. Marr said

Patrick was never shy of listing his influences but I can’t remember him ever citing the Bible.

And he went on to explain that, even so, that if you wanted to write a creation epic such as The Tree of Man, you could scarcely avoid drawing on the ‘epic simplicity’ of the King James. There just aren’t that many models for epic in our culture. But at the same time, it would be hard for a writer to cite the Bible as an influence because it would sound a little like you were shaping your own prose to be heard as if it were the Word of God.

That is to say: it just isn’t particularly newsworthy to proclaim that the KJV Bible has had an influence on the literature of English-speaking authors from the mid seventeenth century till the mid twentieth including of course Australian ones. It was the bible of English speakers for more than three centuries, until competitors emerged at the end of the twentieth century.

Since that time, if the KJV has had an influence over writers it is because they deliberately and consciously sought it out. For example, Helen Garner spent months reading the King James in preparation for writing her novel Cosmo Cosmolino. But for the generation of Patrick White and for centuries before him, the KJV was part of the language itself. That we have spent so much effort pointing this out on the 400th anniversary of its publication says perhaps more about our contemporary cultural amnesia than anything else.

This is my chief problem with Gordon Campbell’s book Bible – The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011. It is a beautifully produced and thoroughly researched book that is itself a lovely object to hold. It is meant to serve as a companion to the Oxford University Press’s King James Version – 400 Year Anniversary Edition. This is a role it serves admirably, by acting as a storehouse of interesting facts about the commissioning, translation, publication and even printing of the KJV. It might be best characterised as an ‘affectionate biography’ of the KJV. But it lacks a thesis beyond the observation that the KJV has been very important in the life and language of English-speaking peoples.

Campbell is very good on tracing the complicated path of reprints, new editions and new formats. He retells the story of the ‘Wicked Bible’, so –called because in this edition the printers mysteriously left the ‘not’ out of the seventh commandment, such that it read ‘Thou shalt commit adultery’. Unsurprisingly, there are only a handful of this edition that have survived the horrified reaction of the publishers.

Campbell is also able to reveal a good deal about the reception history of the KJV. A romanticised vision of the KJV might think of it as constantly revered by English-speaking peoples. In the eighteenth century, for example, the KJV had many detractors on the grounds that its language was ‘obsolete and uncouth’. They had a point. What could ‘In measure when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the East wind’ (Is 27:8) possibly mean, just to cite one example. It was also the case that scholars had begun to notice inconsistencies and infelicities in the translation of the Hebrew and Greek text; and to point out that the so-called ‘Textus Receptus’, the form of the original language text from which the translators had worked, had been proven to be inaccurate at many points by the discovery of new manuscripts.

That the KJV resisted these attacks and became so dominant for so long was not the result of its superb prose style but as a result of the way in which for so many people it conveyed spiritual truth. It was the language of their spiritual birth. One of Campbell’s great strengths is that he understands belief and believers and does not patronise them. He grasps that the greatness of the KJV lies not in its literary style and its influence on authors of novels, but in its role as the sacred book of the English-speaking peoples. Unlike many commentators, he is even-handed with regard to those contemporary Christian groups who are ‘King James only’.

The story that Campbell tells is told just as well by David Daniell in his 2003 book The Bible in English: History and Influence (New Haven: Yale). The advantage of Daniell’s book is that it is not merely the story of the King James Version but of the Bible in English in its many versions. As Campbell recognises, the KJV transmits and refracts the influence of the translations that went before it – most especially the work of the remarkable and brave William Tyndale who was martyred in 1534. The story of the KJV is really a part of a larger and more significant story – the story of how the English-speaking peoples came to hear the Scriptures in the language of their heart, and the story of how so many of these people came to know a spiritual transformation in the hearing of these words.

My piece on John Stott

Christ Abolished Death: John Stott, 1921-2011

Heidegger (the other one) on the use of reason in theology

"Illumined reason is of no contemptible use to theology. And its chief use consists in that it brings forth from its own treasury arguments on behalf of faith. This happens in four ways. Firstly, reason urged and directed by the Spirit of God through sure and undoubted criteria and signs of divinity discovers that he who reveals the way of salvation, God, is not an imposter, demon or man suspected of falsehood. Secondly, illumined reason puts forth arguments for the principles of the Christian faith by which it shows to the unbelieving of those who embrace it its worthiness of credit, which is not a thing impossible, irrational or contrary to man's uncorrupted nature; and it dissolves subtleties adduced to the contrary by a perverse reason. Thirdly, reason occasionally proceeds in accordance with its own principles by collecting suitable arguments on behalf of faith., in those matters which are known both by faith and by reason; or arguments at least known by faith, which stimulates reason in many, are confirmed by reason. Fourthly, in a word reason, accompanying the use of words and of the things signified by these words, whether natural ideas and reasons which we have of and for the things and which revelation presupposes, has power of judgment on equal terms, ie, those considered apart from construction of conjunction. Use is the judge in familiar words which are not proper and peculiar to revelation. Faith alone judges upon the supernatural construction and conjunction of simple words or terms which belong to revelation alone. The Holy Spirit alone secures our right use of reason and the propriety of our faith."

Johannes Heidegger, Corpus Theologicae

Whom can we believe?

My piece at Anglican Media Sydney

Greg Clarke - Les Murray's Vernacular Version

Murray, like the KJV seeks connection to the divine in the vernacular.

Greatest Aussie poet - see Derek Walcott's verdict. Murray is a Catholic who dedicates his poetry to the glory of God.

A religious upbringing - Presbyterian religion terrified him. A spine chilling sermon from 1 Kings - 'the cloud no bigger than a man's hand'.

He knew the KJV - 'the first poetry I encountered'. Religion and poetry are linked in a particular way. 'Religion is a big metaphor taken all the way to identity'. The more rationalising, the more he ran to his faith. The harder it is to believe, the more he wants to! It's a challenge after all. A perverse resistance to the enlightenment. He is a trenchant critic of the 'trends'.

'Poetry and Religion'

Religion are poems... etc

'God is the poetry caught in any religion'.

Greg calls this the vernacularisation of religious expression.

The Catholic tradition caught his eye, not the Protestant. See 'Distinguo': 'Prose is Protestant-agnostic. .... but poetry is Catholic.

But in the KJV do you not see story AND presence come together? Perhaps.

The Australian spirit: can it find a home in the biblical tradition. He points to the quest for a national identity, drawn from the broad Christian tradition.

'The Quality of Sprawl' -

Being roughly Christian, it scratches the other cheek
And thinks it unlikely. Though people have been shot for sprawl.

A vernacular vision of the Sermon on the Mount? And grace. Going the extra 100 miles!

The mirth of Aussie spirituality is what may be its greatest contribution.

Murray seeks to revernacularise the vernacular tradition.... to bring the spiritual back into the secular vernacular.

See his 'Translations of the Natural World'.

The divine will in fact be revealed in the natural - by its sensual and metaphorical power. To speak of a bean... may be to speak something of God.

The translator's preface to the KJV: using metaphors to press home the point about something being spiritually revealed. Murray wants to translate the natural world to show who it is 'revelatory'. See 'Bat's Ultrasound'. 'Broad Bean Sermon'.

Greg Anderson - The KJV and English Liturgies

For many people the KJV and BCP would go hand in hand.

But it isn't the whole story.

The work of Bible translation was well established by the time KJV came along. The 1559 BCP was in use when James ascended.

How was the Bible used?

1. Lectionary required daily readings.
2. Psalms in a monthly cycle. Other Psalms and canticles. Used in other services.
3. Lessons related to the occasion.
4. Single verse related to a theme. - Sentences
5. Prayers themselves - from Tyndale, or from Vulgate.
6. influence of biblical passages - documented in mid-19th cent

What version?

Coverdale (1539).

Bishop's Bible (1568, auth. 1571) - used for lectionary readings alone.

Until 1662, the Biblical material was not KJV.

When the 1662 was published - most extracts were taken from the KJV. But some not: Psalms, 10 C's, sentences, the grace and the Lord's Prayer.

Epistle and Gospel readings and other extracts were from the KJV. Psalter and Morning Prayer used different versions of the same Psalm.

Surely, this change was very noticeable.

So: to the nitty-gritty of these changes.

What about when you had Luke 1 and 2 read in KJV and then in Great Bible in the BCP?

It is difficult to judge whether it sounded deliberately archaic or not. And yet the change for readers and hearers must have been quite intense.

Liturgically the KJV did not sweep all before it. There's one thing to learn - to have the liturgy so thoroughly imbued with the Bible must be to the benefit of all!

Dr John Harris: the Power of the Word: The Bible and the Struggle for Freedom in Australia

The KJV changed the way people faced God, life, death...

It was the book. The recorded their births, marriages and deaths. They learnt to read.

People began to feel they had the right to question ... authority. 'Oppressed people found in it the source of freedom'.

Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King and their great speeches...'justice rolling down like waters'. See also Nelson Mandela... the book he had read in prison.

Having said all this: a word of caution.

The Bible does proclaim freedom from oppression BUT: we cannot control who can use the Bible. What of 'Let my people go?' The Boers also used it as a mantra of their own Exodus. It is used on both sides of the gay debate. How easily the Bible's phraseology and imagery can be used by all manner of people.

1788 - Richard Johnson 'What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?'

But this wasn't a particularly Christian place. The European invaders = 800 convicts and 300 jailers. The founding of Australia was almost aggressively secular.

Johnson was the only clergyman who would come. Few records of pleasing piety exist. Rum became the currency. There were sincere and committed Christians, but ... not many.

Governor Macquarie - his wife noted the lack of Bibles. She urged for a meeting to form an auxiliary of the Bible Society! 1817 - a committee of 43 citizens. The oldest existing registered organisation in Australia. Visit of homes to see need for Bibles. Results were evident.

Instance of the press response to the Myall massacre. Sydney preachers united to condemn settler brutality. John Dunmore Lang and Saunders (Baptist) - forthright in condemning the approval of the massacre. Using the Bible to make their case.

But also, the Catholics pressed for the massacrists to be condemned. See Bishop Polding. This came from Catholic teaching rather than direct from the Bible, to be fair.

People became very familiar with the Bible. WG Spence (trade union movement). Regarded as a good and godly man - cared about improving the lot of working class families.

Chifley's 'Light on the hill' speech.

The indigenous Christians raised on Missions. Had a deep grasp of Scripture. See Aboriginal leaders like William Ferguson. 'a labourer is worthy of his hire'.

Mark Strauss - 'The KJV and the Politics of Bible Translation'

[At the Moore Library KJV conference, July 7, 2011]

Translation is obviously effected by all kinds of social, political factors. See the 'Conservative Bible'!

Even the most venerated of English versions is effected by political considerations.

KJV is still a best seller. Some people follow it fanatically. 'God wrote only one Bible!'

The KJV arose from the tumultuous period of Elizabeth's reign.

The Puritans in Elizabethan England -

it was in a sense a golden age and saw the rise of England's power. But internally - we see the struggle between Puritans and conservatives. Elizabeth demanded a maintenance of traditions. When Elizabeth died, the Puritans saw their opportunity with James of Scotland - who had reigned in a Presbyterian system in Scotland. But - he hated it! And he especially hated the Geneva Bible.

It had been published in 1560 - with its extensive system of notes and commentary. This made it popular; Shakespeare used it.

But this irked the Anglican leadership. James wished to see its demise - see Psalm 105 'touch not mine anointed': Geneva interpreted it as 'the people'.

The Hampton Court Conference of 1604: the Puritans had hoped respectfully to push for their demands. James was willing to deal. He presided at the conference. The puritans were lead by John Reynolds, and the Anglicans were lead by Richard Bancroft. Bancroft was able to convince James in a middle path between Puritans and Catholics. The deck was stacked against the Puritans. The council began with a long speech from James defending his right as King to run the church.

Puritan demands:

1 - doctrine church preserved

2 - good pastors

3- church govt = presbyterian

4 - BCP revised (or abolished)

SO: Reynolds proposed a new Bible translation for the whole Church. Bancroft didn't like it: 'if every man's humour were followed, there would be no end of translating'.

James saw a chance to throw the Puritans a bone. And also it might render the Geneva redundant.

SO:

The production of the KJV:

47 Bible scholars

six panels of translators, three for the OT, two for the NT, one for the Apocraphya

two at Westminster, two at Ox, two at Cam.

Translation rules set out:

1 - Bishop's Bible to be followed.

3 - old ecclesiastical words to be kept

6 - no marginal notes at all to be affixed (except for explanations of Greek and Heb)

The reception of the KJV:

little initial interest. The Pilgrims didn't take it on the Mayflower.

Hugh Broughton (scholar) didn't like it: 'it is so ill done'.

The eventual triumph of the KJV... the Geneva was banned from printing by James in 1616. But they were imported. It was cheaper, clearer and smaller. Charles 1 appointed Laud to Canterbury - continued to suppress the Geneva. KJV sales started to grow.

Under Cromwell the Geneva had lost influence. With the Restoration, along with all things Puritan, the Geneva was rejected. It succeeded because it was finally now associated with a popular regime.

Mostly in early times people didn't comment on its noble prose. McGrath: how did the adulation grow? Was it is that it became a 'classic'? It became embedded in the memory.

Indeed, it is the noblest monument of English prose!

Apostrophes. NOT apostrophe's.

OK, listen in. I want to clarify this once and for all. I mark maybe a million words a year. And the person who bothers to get apostrophes right is the EXCEPTION rather than the norm. It would obviously save me a good deal of bother if people took two minutes to learn the rule.
I really don't think that it matters more than global warming or people coming to know Jesus. But it matters in its own way, because clear and accurate communication is what separates us from the grunting barbarians. The more we let things like this slide, the more likely we are to eat each other with ...knives and forks.
So here we are.

There are two uses for an apostrophe:

1 - contraction (didn't, let's) = there's a letter missing.

2 - possesives (Michael's, Jesus's/Jesus') = someone owns something.

NOT for plurals, or other 's' endings (gets, flowers)

And that is all there is to it.


[NB People are totally confused by its and it's.
Just remember: Its is the possessive. It's is the contraction. If you can't turn its into it is in the sentence you are writing, write its.]

Why Theological Education?

(Being some notes of a seminar given at the Sydney Uni Evangelical Union's Annual Conference)

1. Theological education - meaning 'tertiary level academic theological study' - is under attack, from forces both within and without the church. It is seen by some as too expensive. Other see it as too impractical and too inflexible, in that theological education providers cannot give them the educational setting they would like in an area where online degrees and part-time study is proliferating. It is too academic and therefore too unspiritual in the eyes of some. And it is too slow for impatient young church planters or would-be church leaders who don't want to waste valuable gospelling years in the study.

2. Why do we need theological education?
a) for the spiritual health of churches, and the Christians in them. Knowledge and learning are not the whole of what it means to grow spiritually in the NT, but they are certainly major components of spiritual health and growth. Paul spends three years teaching the Ephesian elders, for example. Jesus gives the apostles 40 days - Peter's Acts 2 sermon didn't come out of nowhere!
b) for effectiveness in mission Once again, being well thought-through and informed is not the be-all and end-all of mission. But it sure helps! Paul is determined to 'take every thought captive' for the sake of the gospel of Christ (for example). And if we believe that the gospel applies accross cultures and times then we commit ourselves to the difficult work of contextualisation.

3. Who needs theological education?
The short answer: all Christians need to see themselves as learners and in the market for some theological education of whatever kind. And this means that church leaders - pastors, bible study group leaders, lay preachers - are in particular need of a more concentrated level of theological study. It is also the case that those who have particular opportunities to witness in their workplaces would benefit enormously from some higher level theological study - especially teachers and academics, but also many others too.

4. What to avoid in a theological education
a) an institution that majors on flexibility - if an institution is determined to give you what you want and to ask nothing of you, don't go there. Education in general has become a market, and students have become consumers. This has been a not entirely welcome change - because true education actually asks us to become disciples and to submit to a process of learning from authoritative teachers.
b) an institution that makes sure you don't meet other students
c) an institution that doesn't have ministry in view as the goal of theological education - not just professional ministry of course, but the ministry that all Christians share in.
d) an institution that doesn't care or cares little about academic standards.

5. What to look for in a theological education
a) is the whole Scripture central and authoritative in the institution?
You can't claim to be studying the knowledge of God if you aren't taking the Scriptures with utmost seriousness, or if you are prizing other sources.

b) is it theological?
I object to the term 'bible college' because the purpose of theological education is not to know the Bible better: it is to know God better. The word 'theology' indicates that study of the texts is the means and not the end. It also indicates that there will be a prayerful integration of the curriculum, and that the confessions and creeds of church history will have their place.

c) are the original languages emphasised?
Not every Christian or even every Christian leader needs to learn Greek and Hebrew to have an effective ministry, but I don't theological study is really serious if it does not ask you to learn at least one of these languages. Given the choice, most people would NOT learn even Greek. Don't take the easy option - because serious study of the Scripture by someone who would teach God's people demands the harder path!

d) are Church History and Ethics and Philosophy a part of the course?
These subjects are all auxiliaries to the study of Theology in a way. But without them the theological task is scarcely complete.

e) is community life emphasised?
The nature of theological knowledge is that it is a shared knowledge - learning it on your own is counter to the kind of knowledge it is.

f) is there regular corporate worship and prayer?
Goes without saying.

g) are the practical ministry subjects taught in a theological way?
You aren't going into theological education to learn secular counselling methods, or bits of pop psychology.

h) is the theological curriculum calibrated for ministry and mission?
I would asking why a theological curriculum does not address itself to the context in which those who are studying it are going to have to work. These days, it is simply not enough to say 'we teach the theology stuff, you work out how to put it into practice where you are'.

A clue is to ask current or recent students about their studies. If they say 'it was hard, but it was good' - then I think you have found a good place. If they say 'we had a ball' - I'd be worried. Proper theological education ought to be an uncomfortable exercise - it ought to stretch the student and challenge the student in ways that are sometimes unpleasant!

But having said that: there ought to be a joy in theological education. The knowledge of God ought to be joyful because it is the knowledge of God - the God of all mercies. There ought to be many many glimpese of his glory in the experience of theological education!


I wanted to conclude with something Kamal Weerakoon said:

Why theological education? Because our natural pride makes us think we know everything. The best kind of theological education broadens the mind appropriately: not to accept error, but to appreciate the riches of other people's reflections on the bible, both in the past and present.'

The cost of bad meetings - oh, the humanity!

"'bad meetings exact a toll on the human beings who must endure them, and this goes far beyond mere momentary dissatisfaction. Bad meetings...generate real human suffering in the form of anger, lethargy, and cynicism. And while this certainly has a profound impact on organisational life, it also impacts people's self-esteem, their families, and their outlook on life..."

From Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni

The Doubting Believer 2 - Ecclesiastes

I
Well: we are all still here.

According to Harold Camping and his followers, this certainly shouldn’t be. When he fronted the media on Sunday morning the 89 year old evangelist was reportedly ‘flabbergasted’ that the rapture had not occurred on 21st May as he had predicted.

Never mind that this one of the issues that Scripture quite clearly states is (to use the words of that eminent theologian Donald Rumsfeld) a ‘known unknown’. The declaration of a timetable for the end times evidently touches a need that people have for certainty about these matters.
It was only two weeks ago that I was in Strumica in rural Macedonia of all places and I saw the missionaries of 21st May handing out leaflets on the street. It made me angry: in a land where the evangelical churches cling to some kind of legitimacy by the skin of their teeth, this was the crazy face of evangelicalism that was being presented to their neighbours. So I leaned out the window of the car when we were stopped and the lights and said to one of them ‘hey, Jesus says ‘no-one knows the day or the hour!’ doesn’t he?’ But the guy was ready for this one: and he said ‘Yes but in Ecclesiastes it says…’ and I couldn’t hear the rest because our car moved on.

I would have been fascinated to hear where the 21st May appears in Ecclesiastes, of course, but I am still wondering, and Harold Camping isn’t returning my calls at the moment.
The 21st May crew are easy enough to ridicule. But their persuasive power, such as it is, lies in tapping into a feeling that is widespread – a feeling that we probably ought to own up to. And that feeling is, I think, best characterised as a disappointment and a frustration with the uncertainty that necessarily accompanies faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Basically, we just want more certainty than we have been given. We know that, as James says, ‘the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind’. And yet, we cannot, we do not, have a knowledge of everything we would wish to know about. This leaves us – well, where does this leave us? Feeling insecure perhaps – or at least, with an insecurity that we seek to fill with certainties. We would like to know because a little extra knowledge would surely anchor our faith more securely against the winds of doubt that come blowing through from time to time.
Are we believers no better off, then, than our anxious unbelieving neighbours? Without belief in a personal God, the unbeliever has to reckon with whatever blind forces control the universe, a prospect that many people evidently find terrifying. The great Australian novelist David Malouf writes:

What most alarms us in our contemporary world, what unsettles and scares us, is the extent to which the forces that shape our lives are no longer personal – they know nothing of us; and to the extent that we know nothing of them – cannot put a face to them, cannot find in them anything we recognise as human – we cannot deal with them. We feel like small, powerless creatures in the coils of an invisible monster, vast but insubstantial, that cannot be grasped or wrestled with.

Are Christians in a better position than this? And if so: why do we have so few clear answers to our most difficult questions? Isn’t the Bible the answer book to all life’s problems, the road map to life, the solution to all our difficulties? Why has there been such a delay between Jesus’ first and second coming? Why does a loving and powerful God permit terrible tsunamis to sweep away small children? Why don’t people respond to the gospel if it is so evidently the truth?
These are all legitimate and profound questions for which there are no easy answers or cheap shortcuts. In fact, if they don’t trouble us, then I think we haven’t really been reading Scripture all that closely. There is in Biblical faith, I would like to suggest, a right doubting. There is an appropriate reticence to it, a reluctance to say more than it rightly knows. Christian theology, it turns out, is about learning to say ‘I don’t know’ as much as it is about saying with confidence ‘I know’.

And the important lesson of this right doubting is that we don’t alleviate the uncertainty we feel by creating false certainties. Rather, our faith is strengthened, amidst the turbulence of this world, by fixing our gaze more closely on the object of our faith.

II
Strange as it may seem for the May 21st guy, Ecclesiastes is exactly where I want to begin this second exposition on the theme of doubt, in chapter 11. I want to look at this text because the Teacher in Ecclesiastes illustrates the kind of ‘right doubting’ I am talking about.

The teacher is wisely aware of the limits of human wisdom when it comes to the world. As he says in 8:7, about the future:
Since no one knows the future,
who can tell someone else what is to come?

And in 8:16-17 he says he is sceptical about human claims to know everything:
When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man’s labor on earth—his eyes not seeing sleep day or night— then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.

But when we get to chapter 11 we find that the lack of understanding of all things is also a lack of knowledge of God’s ways. The first two verses sound quite fatalistic, as if they are asking to accept some karmic principle:
1 Cast your bread upon the waters,
for after many days you will find it again.
2 Give portions to seven, yes to eight,
for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land

It’s investment advice that protects you from an unknown future – from the next GFC that comes along. ‘Cast your bread upon the waters’ sounds a bit like feeding ducks. Perhaps the NNIV clears it up for us by translating this verse as ‘Ship your grain across the waters’ – whatever the case, it stands as a kind of advice to trust the forces that undergird the world – ‘you never know what may occur if you invest yourself’. If that seems almost naïve, vs 2 offers the more pessimistic version: you need to forestall the coming of disaster by investing yourself across a broad portfolio – by ‘giving portions to seven, yes to eight’.

There is a pattern and an order to the way the world works, but the totality of it is concealed from human eyes and beyond human knowing. Observe the patterns:
3 If clouds are full of water,
they pour rain upon the earth.
Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where it falls, there will it lie.

These are almost truisms, aren’t they? If a tree falls, that’s where it lies; if clouds are full, they will wet the ground. The natural world has a rhythm and an order that does allow us to predict it to some extent.

But if you are caught gaping at the world trying to predict it and to outwit it, you will never plant your crops or gather them in (vs 4):
Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

It seems that the teacher is giving us something with one hand, and taking it away with the other. There is definitely an order to things, so you can act according to some kind of regularity and pattern; but there is also a sense in which the whole picture is ever concealed from human beings, and so we can do nothing more than secure ourselves against the unknown and unpredictable.

Which leads us to the verse that seems to provide a key to the others, vs 5:
As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.

It is not just that we cannot see the totality of the order of the things, though we can see that there is order and rhythm; it is not just that we cannot know the future. It is that we are profoundly ignorant of the work of God, the Maker of all things. We cannot understand him. Our ignorance of the workings of the natural world – of the path of the wind and of the formation of babies – is but an illustration of our ignorance of the workings of God.

Now it is worth just pausing a moment here, because as modern people we might actually and validly say wait a minute: isn’t it actually the case that we now can trace the path of the wind and that we do know how a baby is formed in its mother’s womb? Haven’t the bounds of ignorance been beaten back by the advance of science. And if that is the case, does the analogy hold up? Hasn’t this attitude of ‘there are some things we’ll never know’ been discredited by the power of investigation and theory? And if this is the case: can’t we also say that the possibility that we might ‘know the mind of God’ is ever closer?

Of course the analogy our other draws here is taken from the world of his own experience, where winds and births were untraceable. I don’t think there is anything in his writing or in the wisdom literature more widely that would prohibit proper human investigation of the created world. In fact, the presumption of order that he works with proved to be the foundation of scientific discovery in the seventeenth century and beyond. But the principle that he outlines here is still true: because there is not merely a force or a system at the heart of the universe but a Creator, human beings will only ever know things as parts of a whole.

In fact, our author is saying, God reveals himself and declares himself maker and judge of all things. But that does not give us access to his inner workings, to peer at his notebooks or to trawl through his hard drive. So he tells us:
Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let not your hands be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well.

There is no option for human beings but to do what they can – to work hard, given that we can’t predict the future.

How is this different from the despairing anxiety of our neighbours – the kind of view of fate that leads them down to the club to put their Centrelink payments through the pokies?
The teacher is not a fatalist – and this is vital to what he wants to teach us. He knows what he knows, and he knows what he doesn’t know. He knows that God has the measure of all things, and that God will judge. As he says in 11:9:
Be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
God will bring you to judgment.

And in 12:14:
God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

This is a doctrine of providence, in other words. We do not have total knowledge of the ways of God. We cannot from our perspective ever successfully calculate the way in which the hand of God will direct the future - of our own lives, let alone the planet’s.

But what we do have from Qoheleth the teacher is the knowledge that all things are in the hands of a God who brings things to their proper account. We do not know the plan; but we know that there is a plan – and that the plan belongs to the God whose divine nature and eternal qualities are on display all around us; and whose determination to save for himself a people echoes down history.

III
And that is perhaps where we need to modify what we have said about our knowledge this morning. For indeed we have been presented with a powerful revelation of God’s nature and his purposes in the coming of the Son – the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his being. We have in Christ the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past (as Paul calls it in Romans); Paul prays for the Colossians to ‘have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God’; and that they be ‘filled with the knowledge of God’s will’.

This mystery? It is the gospel of Jesus Christ – which is the revelation of God’s plan for all things from before the foundation of the world. We are privileged beyond even the angels, as Peter says. We stand in a place that the patriarchs and all the prophets could only dream about.
And what is it that we now know? The mystery is that the judgement of the judging God is not merely a balancing of the scales or a bringing of everything to account, but a great act of grace and mercy. The righteousness of God, from God, is revealed to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ who died for sin, so that God could be just and be the one who justifies the ungodly. It is in him that his reign over all things is established and in him that lies the future of all things.

But what we have here is and isn’t. It is decisive knowledge. The most vital thing to know about living on earth has been revealed to us. The deepest truth of all truths, the mystery of all mysteries, has been written in the sky for us – not as some arcane secret that you can only know if you swear on your mother’s grave by the light of a full moon, or that you can only know if you are inducted into the highest level of our club. We know this mystery because it has been exposed to the full light of day – the greatest Wikileak of all time.

But notice what this knowledge is not. It is not comprehensive knowledge. It is not knowledge of the movement of the planets or of the paths of electrons or of how the mysterious patterns of the DNA code combine to form our individuality. It is knowledge of the destiny of all things but it is not knowledge of the future. It is not even really an answer to the problem of evil – why does God do it that way? The knowledge given to us by faith in the gospel is not the removal of all uncertainty or the answer to all our questions.

Paul – even the Paul who could talk about the revelation of the knowledge of God’s will, even he, the apostle to whom had been given a special, unique experience of Jesus Christ, even he drew back from explaining all the ways of God. In Romans 9-11 we see him wrestling with the mystery of Israel’s hardenness of heart. Why would God do that? When he reaches the end of his discussion he throws up his hands and delivers this extraordinary sequence (Romans 11:33-36):
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
"Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Even we who have the knowledge of God’s will in Jesus Christ cannot presume to know the particular plans of God, what the theologians call the ‘secret will’ of God. Outside of Christ we cannot declare that this or that is his will, or not. We cannot predict what may happen. We cannot explain the inner workings of providence. We cannot explain history. In fact, to attempt to do so is a kind of blasphemy. If we could explain God in this way, or know his mind, he would not be truly God.

But notice how this lack of certainty does not leave Paul in an anxious state – just as it did not concern the Teacher. Like our secular contemporaries, we believe we are in the grip of a power that is beyond our control. But unlike them, we are not in the grip of an anxiety of unknowing. The difference is that we know the crucial piece of information: we know what this power is like. We know that in ‘all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’.

The gospel, even the gospel, does not remove all uncertainty from us. And so it is right that we express bewilderment when we are bewildered. It is right that we say ‘I don’t know’ when we actually don’t. In fact, it is a grave temptation that Christians face to say too much – to try to explain everything. It is a temptation to which Christians have frequently succumbed with embarrassing or devastating results, as church history will tell us.

We feel this particularly acutely at moments of great crisis: when the medical diagnosis is not what we had prayed for, or when the earth moves under our feet, or when we are overwhelmed by the flood: what can we say? How can we explain the plans of God? What can the plan of God be in such moments? How can I really have confidence in God when there is so much that is unknown to me? How long, O Lord? I know for some of us here those moments of bewilderment are very real and very immediate.

But the Scriptural response to these doubting moments is not to resort to cheaply won answers; just as it is not to wallow in despair. Rather, our focus is drawn to what God himself has done, and to things he has revealed. The ground of Paul’s confidence is not in an explanation for everything that removes all doubt, but the knowledge that God has revealed the true righteousness of his purposes in just and merciful gospel of his Son. So his counsel to those in the grip of terrible affliction is this (2 Cor 4:17-18):
…our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Body and Soul

Here's my piece on body and soul.