All items from Bob and Terry Odle
As fallen human beings, we have “turned in on ourselves” (a phrase used by St Augustine to describe the human heart). We are unable to fully and consistently love God because the affection of our heart is relentlessly drawn toward the wounded self. In a complicated blend of willful arrogance and instinctive (subconscious?) self-preservation, much of our spiritual energy is directed inward rather than outward. The result is a human being tragically out of touch with its Creator and often hopelessly self-absorbed.
Christian discipleship calls us out of this condition and back into an open, intentional, disciplined, self-denying relationship with our Father. In the beauty of this relationship, and by the graceful power of God’s Holy Spirit, our hearts are healed and our minds are restored. It is here that we learn to think theologically.
To think theologically is to go beyond the popular question, “What would Jesus do?” Thinking theologically requires us to ask, “What is God asking me to do in this situation?” The challenge is that the disciple is not looking for spiritual principles that might apply to modern circumstance; she is looking for a specific revelation from God that directs her actions in her present situation.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrestled with this distinction. “[Bonhoeffer believed] that Christians cannot be governed by mere principles. Principles could carry one only so far. At some point every person must hear from God, must know what God was calling him to do, apart from others.” (Metaxas, 323). Of course, Bonhoeffer did hear from God—through prayer, meditation, Scripture, and fasting. His obedience to the word he heard from God led him to leave the safety of America (after only 26 days), return to Nazi Germany, and to his ultimate death.
Metaxas summarizes this astounding ability of Bonhoeffer with this:
All his life, Bonhoeffer had applied the same logic to theological issues that his father applied to scientific issues. There was only one reality, and Christ was Lord over all of it or none. A major theme for Bonhoeffer was that every Christian must be “fully human” by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some “spiritual” realm. To be an ethereal figure who merely talked about God, but somehow refused to get his hands dirty in the real world in which God had placed him, was bad theology. Through Christ, God had shown that he meant us to be in this world and to obey him with our actions in this world. So Bonhoeffer would get his hands dirty … because God was speaking to him about further steps of obedience (361).
By the end of his life, Bonhoeffer had very few friends, family, or colleagues who did not think he was taking his discipleship too far. Most of them had found subtle ways to compromise and survive. He refused to do so—and paid the ultimate price.
The parables that Jesus told are deceptively charming. At first blush they appear to be quaint little stories with a heavenly—highly moralistic—message. We most commonly use them to teach children.
Upon further reflection, however, we realize that these stories are power-packed. They change the world—they confront the world, challenge the world, subvert the world. Why is that?
Many of the parables come in response to questions from followers. For example, the parable of the Good Samaritan is in response to the lawyer’s questions, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” and, “Who is my neighbor?” The parable of the Unmerciful Servant is in answer to Peter’s question, “How many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me?”
These stories subvert my world because they are stories about another world, God’s world—the kingdom. They teach me how things would be if I would get down off the throne of my world and allow God to run the show as He desires. These stories reveal a cosmic clash between the values of my world and Kingdom Values.
Take the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard as an example (Matthew 20:1-15). Some were hired at 6:00 AM and promised a denarius—a normal day’s wage. Some were hired at 9:00 AM and promised that they would receive “whatever is right.” More were hired at 12:00 PM, another batch at 3:00 PM, and one final group at 5:00 PM. These final three groups were not told anything about their wages. They were simply hired and sent to work.
At quitting time the boss gathered all five groups together and began distributing their wages for the day. Shockingly, he began with those who were hired last—at 5:00 PM. Even more surprisingly, the boss handed these men a full day’s wage—a denarius. When those hired first saw this they expected to receive more. But, when they received a day’s wage they were outraged and grumbled against the owner of the vineyard.
Why did they grumble? Why were they so upset? Because from their perspective they had been cheated. “What’s in it for me” is the governing question (Matthew 19:27 puts this very question on the lips of Peter). My world is centered around me, myself, and I and for me, “What’s in it for me” rules the day.
But for God, His desire to give generously to all who choose to serve Him governs His world. He says, “I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I give you” (Matthew 20:14). In God’s world when quitting time comes He will not be distributing wages based on justice. He can’t. Why? Because He wants to be good to all of us who have chosen to serve Him. And if He were limited by principles of justice, none of us would get all that God wants to give us.
And so God has dealt with the requirements of justice in His Son, Jesus Christ. Once that was accomplished, God is now able to do as He desires—to distribute blessings to His children according to His goodness.
“What’s in it for me?” It all depends. If I come to God as I would a profane business transaction—demanding that I receive what I have earned—then what’s in it for me is disappointment. Why? Because even if I could earn God’s blessing (even if I were one of the ones hired at 6:00 AM, which I am not) I would receive only what every other person in God’s Kingdom receives, regardless of when he or she was brought in.
But, if I come to God on His terms, allowing God to deal with justice at the cross so that He can distribute blessings according to His grace, then what’s in it for me is God’s goodness. And since I was not hired at 6:00 AM, I have received God’s goodness as an undeserving recipient.
What difference does it make whether I was hired at 9:00 AM, 12:00, 3:00 or 5:00 PM? The fact is that none of us deserve a day’s wage; but we all receive a day’s wage because that’s just the way God rolls. What’s in it for me? Pure goodness, that’s what.
I’m starting a short series of sermons from the book of Ruth this Sunday. It is always a revelation to examine a familiar passage of Scripture again for the first time. What appears on the surface to be a sweet, moralizing, happy-ending story turns out to be a direct encounter with the Living God. May He never stop speaking to His people through Scripture.
I’m toying with what to title the sermon series. In 2007, Mark Driscoll preached a similar series and called it, Redeeming Ruth. I haven’t listened to all of his messages from the series but I understand where he got his title.
“Redemption” is the key concern in the story told. In its short eighty-five verses, the words “redeem” and its derivatives (“redeemer,” “redemption”) are used twenty-three times.
The challenge is knowing who is redeemed. With whom am I to identify in the story?
Most interpreters and every sermon I have ever heard or preached hold up Ruth as the model to follow. She is, as the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, an admirable character from an ethnic group despised and rejected by the “people of God” who trusted God and was rewarded for her faith. “Ruth believed, trusted, obeyed and was redeemed; therefore, go and do likewise.” Let’s stand and sing.
That is a fine way to approach the book of Ruth. Indeed, that is the way many interpreters approach it and many preachers preach it, myself included. But, I think there is a deeper level of meaning here.
I still have a lot of work to do—and a lot of praying to do—before I feel confident that I have heard the full word of God here, but here is my preliminary conclusion: the story is not about the redemption of Ruth. She maintains her integrity throughout the story. The story is about the redemption of Naomi. She is the one who turned bitter against God when He did not act as she thought He ought to act (see 1:19-21 for insight into her disillusionment with the goodness of God). And, surprisingly, she is the one—Naomi—who is said to have “received a son” at the end of the story (4:17).
So, another deceptively charming little story from the Bible that carries a supernatural punch. I’ll have more to share as the series develops.
The term eschatology comes from two Greek words: (1) eschatos, last, and (2) logos, speech, word, or discussion. Eschatology then is a discussion of the last things or the final age of human history. It is also a mindset, a way of looking at time.
Obviously it is difficult for those of us who have never known anything but time to speak the language of the One who lives beyond time. And yet the Timeless One entered into time to teach us something about time. It behooves us to make a sincere effort to embrace His teaching about time.
Theories abound on how we should properly interpret the New Testament’s presentation of the end of time (the eschaton). C. H. Dodd proposed a useful conceptualization of the end of time that he called Realized Eschatology. According to his proposal, since the end of the world has already been announced by God then the end of time has already been “realized.” Most reject this terminology (if not his idea outright) because it can be misinterpreted to mean that the end of time has already been realized—the end of the world has already occurred.
Oscar Cullman proposed a more useful term for (and a more coherent explanation of) the end of time. He argued that we should see things in terms of Inaugurated Eschatology. God has announced the end of the world; however, we should see that not as the realization of the end of time but the inauguration of the end. In other words, the beginning of the end has arrived but the end of the end has not.
Clearly God has established events and experiences that are to help us experience the “end of time” in the here and now. In the Lord’s Supper, for example, we celebrate our salvation now, we feast now, we experience forgiveness now and yet, simultaneously, we anticipate that Great Banquet at which the full realization of all these things will take place. In-time judgments (e.g., the destruction of Jerusalem) are also in-time events that carry with them end-of-the-world significance.
The importance of this discussion is in how we view our lives in relation to the end of time. Are we living in this present age? Or are we living the future now?
The experts tell us that the key to holding the attention of an audience is variety. A monotone speaker puts most of us to sleep. A similar writing bores us with its monotony. The key to effective public speaking and to interesting writing is variation.
Paul certainly would have pleased the experts with his writing in 2 Corinthians chapters 8-9. He uses the Greek word charis (grace) in so many different ways in these two chapters that falling asleep would have been impossible for the alert reader/hearer. Paul’s rhetorical expertise is not so obvious in the English. A Greek reader, on the other hand, is forced to stop and ask, “How is he using that word this time?” This is a highly effective way to make a point—and to keep an audience on its toes.
The word charis occurs ten times in these two chapters. Here are the locations and the translation decisions made by the translators of three major English versions of the Bible:
Verse: KJV NIV NASB
8:1 Grace Grace Grace
8:4 Fellowship Privilege Favor
8:6 Grace Act of grace Gracious work
8:7 Grace Grace of giving Gracious work
8:9 Grace Grace Grace
8:16 Thanks [be to God] I thank God Thanks [be to God]
8:19 Grace The offering Gracious work
9:8 Grace Grace Grace
9:14 Grace Grace Grace
9:15 Thanks [be unto God] Thanks [be to God] Thanks [be to God]
Grace still means “unmerited favor.” It still refers to God forgiving human sin. But, as the above passage clearly demonstrates, the word has a much broader range of meaning as well.
We often approach Scripture trying to “prove” something (often some relatively minor thing). For example, we “study” Romans 6:3-4 in order to prove that baptism is by immersion in water. We may be able to fashion such an argument and then prove it with Paul’s discussion in Romans 6; however, approaching Scripture in this manner deprives us in two fundamental ways:
- First, it is most likely that we will never arrive at a final answer to our question because the biblical writer is not specifically addressing our question in the first place; and
- More important (in my mind at least), in our obsession with the minutia we completely miss the penetrating, life-altering theological implications of what the biblical writer (Holy Spirit) is teaching in the larger passage of Scripture.
I must candidly confess that when I think about, teach about, or preach about Christian baptism I am doing exactly what the Bible does not do (and exactly what I try to avoid in my general approach to Scripture): quickly isolating individual places in the New Testament where baptism is mentioned, lopping them off from their larger context, and then extracting meaning from each one in order to “prove that we are right on this baptism thing.”
Nowhere do we find anything even closely resembling “Paul’s 13-Week Study on Baptism.” In order to understand Paul’s view of baptism, we must see baptism in its broader framework. In each of the sixteen places (Beasley-Murray, 127-209) Paul mentions baptism he does so within a broader, redemptive-historical framework. The purpose is to focus on the big picture rather than give us the externals of baptism.
But, if we back away and look at the big picture we see that
- God has broken into our history and accomplished human redemption through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- This feat of God finds human expression in the act of Christian Baptism.
- In redemption and in baptism God gives His People a new identity, a new ethic, and a new worldview.
- My baptism marks the beginning of my participation in God’s redemptive act. Baptism serves as my initiation into God’s redemption in Christ.
- As a baptized believer, my life is now a daily living out of God’s redemptive act.
- Remembering what God did to me at baptism helps me fulfill that purpose.
As I said in my last post, this view of baptism as the initiation into Christ is BY FAR the majority view. And, it is the ancient view, going all the way back to Paul and continuing right up to today. This is the view we gain when we compare all the New Testament passages on the topic, the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament, the early church fathers, the early Creeds, and even most of the reformers.
One thing I need to correct about my previous post: in it I intimated that John Calvin would agree that water baptism has nothing to do with salvation. That is incorrect. Both Luther and Calvin opposed Zwingli’s innovations on Christian baptism (as well as many of his other innovations).
My sense is that the battle cry, Sola Fide (faith alone) was taken to an unhealthy extreme by some second and third generation reformers. Faith alone does not exclude human participation—it never has and it never will.
Many scholars within evangelicalism are beginning to see this overreaction and are saying some very healthy things about Christian baptism as part of the conversion process. For examples see Moo’s commentary on Romans and Schreiner’s commentary on Romans.
The sad reality is that while these scholars are moving toward affirming Christian baptism as an essential part of the conversion process, many preachers within our fellowship are jettisoning baptism. Funny how that works.
After landing in the New World, the Pilgrims experienced nothing but hard times. Starting their new lives from scratch, they had to work hard just to satisfy their basic needs. Simple shelter and food came to these families only after strenuous toil and back-breaking labor. Many men, women, and especially children died of starvation. Their difficulties were real and their losses were many.
Yet, with an abundance of reasons to complain, they gathered together in thanksgiving. In the midst of almost unbearable hardship they maintained the ability to be thankful. That is precisely what God is asking us to do—be thankful. And being thankful is a choice—a choice we make in the midst of our human hardships; a choice we make in spite of the difficulties presented to us by our human experience.
Many of us have been through tough times and painful tragedies in our lives. We’ve lost family members, been wracked with health problems, and faced financial stress. Some of us have allowed these experiences to turn us bitter and resentful. When we speak we reveal the denial that resides in our souls; when we interact with others the resentment within us becomes apparent. As our approach to life is examined our feeble attempts at manipulation become clear.
Others of us exude warmth and love. We laugh often and have kind words to give to anyone willing to receive them. The joy that finds a home deep within our being percolates there and radiates a gentleness, kindness, and depth of character that speaks volumes about our relationship to God.
Every living human being has heart aches about which we can elaborate. The difference between a complainer and a thankful person is one of attitude. Some of us speak of the tragedy of life as if it alone defines who we are. Others of us choose to stay focused on God, His goodness, His beauty, and His gracious nature. These latter saints are those who have learned the secret of being thankful: it is a lifestyle that we choose to pursue rather than a state of being shaped by our circumstances.
What about us? Are we victims or victors? Are we focusing on the difficulties of a fallen life or are we keeping our eyes on the beauty and nature of a gracious God? Choose to rejoice and be thankful!
