Bad pun

From the book I'm reading right now:

They [the Egyptians] oppress the Israelites harshly in order to reduce their population. When their plan fails, they take more drastic measures, requiring midwives to kill babies during parturition. After this plan is aborted, the Egyptians order the liquidation of all Israelite male infants. —p.93

<idle musing>
Bad pun, or unintentional one? Either way, it fits the Exodus story: Egypt tries to thwart YHWH's plan, but Egypt itself is thwarted. Indeed the theme of the entire Hebrew bible is the thwarting of man's and satan's plans and the fulfillment of God's.
</idle musing>

Quote for the day

"Mercy! Good God! What manifold misery I beheld! The common people, especially in the villages, have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine, and alas! many pastors are totally incapable and incompetent to teach."—Martin Luther

<idle musing>
Some things never change, do they?
</idle musing>

More from Ethics

“If we nevertheless must say that self-murder is reprehensible, we can do so not before the forum of morality or of humanity, but only before the forum of God. The self-murderer is guilty before God alone, the creator and lord of the person’s life. Because there is a living God, therefore self-murder is reprehensible: the sin of unbelief. Lack of faith, however, is not a moral fault; it can accompany motives and deeds that are both noble and mean. Unbelief does not reckon, in good things or bad, with the living God. That is its sin. Unbelief is the ground from which human beings reach out for their own justification and its ultimate possibility, serf-murder, because they do not believe in a divine justification. Unbelief hides from people in a disastrous way the fact that even self-murder does not deliver them out of the hand of God, who has prepared their destiny. Unbelief does not recognize, beyond the gift of bodily life, the Creator and Lord who alone has the right to dispose over creation. Here we come up against the fact that natural life has its right not in itself but in God. Freedom towards death, which is given in human natural life, is misused when it is not used in faith in God.

“The right to the end of life is reserved for God, because only God knows the goal toward which a life is being directed. God alone wishes to be the one who justifies or rejects a life. Before God, self-justification, and therefore self-murder, is the epitome of sin. There is no compelling reason for rejecting suicide as reprehensible other than that there is a God above us. Self-murder denies this fact.”

“…God gives people the freedom to risk their lives for something greater, but God does not will this freedom to be used arbitrarily against their own lives. As surely as one should offer one’s life as a sacrifice for others, so surely one should not turn one’s hand against oneself. A person should place earthly life utterly into the hand of God from which it came, even though it be a life of torment, and not try to be liberated from it by self-help. When dying, one only falls again into Gods hands, which had seemed too severe in life.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, pages 198-199, 200

A dad's bragging

We talked to our son, Ryan, last night. He's 22 and lives in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. He stayed there when we left Minnesota and came to Indiana 3 years ago. Anyway, as I've mentioned before, Ryan is on the leadership team for a ministry called God's Barn (as well as being the drummer for the worship band). OK, background out of the way, he called us last night all excited, because God's Barn had been written up in a regional paper. Here's some of what they said:

God’s Barn exists as a testimony to the promise of redemption, the hope of Christianity.

Like those the ministry would serve, the building’s beginning came near its end, and opposed all worldly wisdom, which with one glance screamed despair.

Swooning amidst 25 years of overgrowth, its broken windows, wet rotting wood floors, collapsing roof, back-arching walls and damaged support structure offered no promise of restoration or purpose.

But for Jim and Becky Leebens of Lakeville their years-felt desire to establish a ministry for at-risk youth centered on restoring the decrepit and battered barn, part of Becky’s family’s farm for generations.

“Everyone told us to just tear it down and build a pole barn,” said Jim.

But they say God was telling the couple to restore the old building, and they prayed for confirmation and clear direction...

God’s Barn opened without heat, electricity or insulation in January 2005 and was home to their (very cold) first small group.

Those first worshippers autographed the wall in marker, and since then, many more have written Bible verses on the wooden floor.

Greeting visitors entering the premises of God’s Barn is a statute of a lion of Judah; three crosses stand nearby the bright red barn’s front door.

Inside, at one end of the large space, microphones and band equipment stands ready; a much-utilized pizza oven is set up across the room and stacks of plastic chairs line a wall...

There are youth events throughout the year, although there is no formal advertising; teens arrive by word of mouth.

“It’s not like we have big events or big sports names out here,” said Fred. “We have simple bonfires; we talk and share our lives. If we share our life with them, we’ll share the Gospel.”

Too bad the picture from the print version isn't on the web. Jim and Fred refused to allow them to photograph them. Instead, they turned their backs to the camera and, wearing "God's Barn" jackets, pointed with raised arms to the barn that God had raised back up.

So, if you happen to be in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, run down I-35 South and see for yourself what God is doing.

For me this verse is more true each day: "No greater joy can I have than this, to hear that my children follow the truth." 3 John 4 (RSV)

Bonhoeffer yet again

“Individuals definitely may defend their natural rights. Whether, how, and when they should is another question to be decided later. Under all circumstances they must defend a right in such a way as to make it credible that God, not the individual, is standing up for the right.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 185

“Never may the killing of another’s life be one possibility among many, however well founded that possibility may be. Where there is even the smallest responsible possibility of allowing the other to stay alive, then the destruction of this life would be arbitrary killing—murder. Killing or sparing life are never equivalent alternatives in a decision. The preservation of life has an incomparable priority over destruction. Life may claim all grounds to validate itself, while for killing there is one single valid ground. Where this is not considered, one runs afoul of the Creator and Preserver of life. In supporting the right to euthanasia on several different grounds, one puts oneself in the wrong from the beginning, by admitting indirectly that there is no single absolutely compelling ground.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, pages 190-191

<idle musing>
If you want to read a very good argument against euthanasia (actually dysthanasia would be a better term), pages 185-196. Bonhoeffer’s argument wasn’t formed in an ivory tower; euthanasia was a living and active entity in Germany while he was writing.

I say dysthanasia, because the eu in euthanasia means “well, good” in Greek, whereas dys means “bad, evil.” Thanasia means death, so euthanasia literally means to die a good death. Talk about a misnomer!
</idle musing>

Complacency

There's a good post today over at The Heresy about complacency and the effectiveness of the evangelical church:

"...your average evangelical doesn't act differently than anyone else on a handful of major ethical issues, then the net impact of every evangelical ministry in America is almost nil. Every church, seminary, bible school and youth group is unsuccessful in facilitating the life transformation that would result in less racism, more generous giving or less broken families...

...It disturbs me that we are as comfortable as we are. More and more I struggle living in a world that assumes we are making a difference for the Kingdom of God while we remain largely safe, secure and comfortable collecting an income."

<idle musing>
I personally think it is because we settle for half the gospel. We are content to "accept Jesus" and go on our merry way expecting that we will make it into heaven at some point. We forget that we are "bought with a price." Repentance doesn't exist, you just feel sorry, but don't really repent.

I was just reading in I John this morning. Pretty harsh words in there about those who sin. We hang onto the soft words and ignore the strong ones. Selective reading, saying in effect, "Sure I believe the Bible, but only the parts that are comfortable and don't require me to die."

The scripture still stands, ominous and forbidding, but it stands nonetheless:
"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 10:37-39 RSV

The master summons us to a life of death to self. And we sit in our comfortable chairs and change the station via the remote to something less challenging, more comforting, more in line with bread and circuses—yet we still expect to reach the promised land!

I submit to you that if you aren't desiring to be in God's presence now, you certainly won't be happy in heaven. After all, if you look at Revelation, heaven is all about worshiping the Creator and bowing before Him day and night.
<idle musing>

Still more Bonhoeffer

“It is a commission of immeasurable responsibility given to all who know about the coming of Jesus Christ. The hungry person needs bread, the homeless person needs shelter, the one deprived of rights needs justice, the lonely person needs community, the undisciplined one needs order, and the slave needs freedom. It would be blasphemy against God and our neighbor to leave the hungry unfed while saying that God is closest to those in deepest need. We break bread with the hungry and share our home with them for the sake of Christ’s love, which belongs to the hungry as much as it does to us. If the hungry do not come to faith, the guilt fall on those who denied them bread. To bring bread to the hungry is preparing the way for the coming of grace.

“What happens here is something penultimate. To give the hungry bread is not yet to proclaim to them the grace of God and justification and to have received bread does not yet mean to stand in faith. But for the one who does something penultimate for the sake of the ultimate, this penultimate thing is related to the ultimate. It is a pen-ultimate, before the last. The entry of grace is the ultimate.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 165

Some more goodies from Bonhoeffer's Ethics

“The whole of the past is embraced by the word ‘forgiveness’; the whole of the future is preserved in the faithfulness of God. Past sin has been sunk in the depths of God’s love in Jesus Christ and overcome; the future will be, without sin, a life born of God (I John 3:9). This life knows itself stretched and sustained from one eternal foundation to another, from its election before the time of the world toward eternal salvation to come. This life knows itself as a member of a church and of a creation that sings the praises of the triune God. All this happens when Christ comes to each person. In Christ all this is truth and reality. Precisely because it is not a dream, the life of a person who has encountered Christ’s presence is no longer lost, but has become justified, by grace alone.

“However, not only by grace, alone, but also by faith alone. So scripture and the Reformation teach. Not love or hope, but only faith justifies a life. It is faith alone that sets life on a new foundation, and only on this new foundation can I live justified before God. This foundation is the living, dying, and rising of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without this foundation a life before God is unjustified; it is surrendered to death and damnation. The justification of my life before God is to live because of and toward the living, dying, and rising of Jesus Christ. Faith means to find, hold to, and cast my anchor on this foundation and so to be held by it. Faith means to base life on a foundation outside myself, on an eternal and holy foundation, on Christ. Faith means to be captivated by the gaze of Jesus Christ; one sees nothing but him. Faith means to be torn out of imprisonment in one’s own ego, liberated by Jesus Christ. Faith is letting something happen and only therein is it an activity. Yet both words together cannot adequately express its mystery. Faith alone is certainty; everything outside of faith is subject to doubt. Jesus Christ alone is the certainty of faith. I believe the Lord Jesus Christ who tells me that my life is justified. So there is no way toward the justification of my life other than faith alone.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, pages 147-148.

What's going on around

Some real good stuff around the blogosphere right now...

Jim Martin over at A Place for the God-Hungry has 2 posts from St. John of the Cross, The Seven Sins of the Spiritual Life (Part 1) and (Part 2). I hope he keeps going with it. If you want to read the whole thing without waiting for him to post, you can head on over to CCEL.

Dan Kimball at Vintage Faith has a good post on pastors:

In a small church, the "pastor" is slave to the people and their opinions of how things should be done, does most of the chores and jobs around the church and is on call at any time day or night for the people.

In a large church, the "pastor" is king of the people, and comes out once a week on Sunday to give a mesmerizing speech which woos the people and then he disappears for another week.

And Scot McKnight has a nice series going on women in the church, specifically from the book by Sara Sumner. here is the one from yesterday, a short quote is in order:

Here’s 1 Cor 11:7 (TNIV):

A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.

Sumner observes that “he” is the “image” of God while she is the “glory of man.” This led Augustine to comment on the text with two major implications:

First, that only Adam is the image of God; Eve is “image” only when in union with Adam. This drives the woman to be married to the man/male in order to form a complete identity.

Second, the “image” of God is the “rational” part of humans (males); females are more concerned with lower things while males with higher things. Women can “bear” the image of God; a man “is” the image of God. Women cover their heads in worship to cover their lower-focused heads/minds; men don’t cover their heads because they are focused on higher things.

<idle musing>
I think she is right on the money here...I like Augustine in some things, but his view on women is not one of them.
</idle musing>

And Ted Gossard has some insights into why less is more:

I'd rather give a one page handout, getting us into Scripture with some questions to facilitate discussion, than give a handout with reams and reams of material, that likely neither they nor I am really going to "get" very well. In this case, less is more, and more is less.

New catalog!

Yep, another one. Hey, we've been busy :) This one just arrived today. We're pretty proud of it, being in color and all. You can pick it up at AAR/SBL or ASOR, if you want to wait that long. Or, being the impatient people that many of you are, you can download it here

Get thee hence!

If you are running on Windows, you should download the latest Firefox update here, it is now version 2.0. If you are still using Internet Explorer, you definitely need to change to Firefox!

Google's custom search

I told you I can't resist beta software :)

Google has a new custom search, and I just couldn't resist it. Take a look on the right hand side of the page. So far it searches these sites:

Eisenbrauns
NT Gateway
Jim West's resource page
Abzu
this site

Want to help? Supposedly you can, but I don't know how to tell you to do it... If somebody does, feel free to comment. Otherwise, add the links to the comment section. I know there are some more out there, didn't somebody have a good bibliography on text crititcism?

Update:
Ok, thanks to Jim West, here's how you can help:
Go to the Idle Musings search home page and click on the button that lets you volunteer to help. Take it from there and add links to sites with good ANE and biblical studies resources.

Quote for the day

"Bury yourself in a lexicon and arise in the presence of God."—Sir Edwyn Hoskyns

Wanderings around Warsaw/Winona Lake

As I was walking to work this morning, I thought maybe people would enjoy a few insights into life in the town, so whether you wish or not, here we go...

There have been a few chain saw carvings lately. One is a violin, the other a trombone. here is the violin:

Stolen from our webmaster and graphic artist, Andy's post

Here is the trombone:

Compliments of Heather, one of our customer service reps, who was trying out the night settings on her new camera. She also took one of Princess Winona.

As I was walking to work through the snow flurries, I saw a cement truck getting ready to pour a new sidewalk. Now that is not a job I would enjoy today! I did enjoy walking through the leaves, though. Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. Saturday, Debbie and I took a bike ride and the leaves were wonderful, all kinds of yellows and reds, some green still sprinkled in amongst them. Good thing we went Saturday, because Sunday was rainy and windy. Lots of the leaves are now on the ground for me to crunch through on the way to work :)

There is a new Christian bookstore about to open, taking the place of the one that closed last spring. This one is hoping to draw more people by having a coffee shop and fireplace. Fireplace sounds good to me on a day like today. You can find more details here, complete with a picture of the plaza.

In other meanderings, Andy asks Would you go? I hope he finishes all the AAR/SBL graphics before the does! He assured me he will.

What I'm reading now

The rep from Abingdon gave me an interesting little book recently. I started it on Thursday and it is very good. Let me quote from the blurb on Abingdon's web site:

We need committed Christians who care for the common good, who seek to be uniters rather than dividers, in deed and not just in word, who let their faith modify their politics rather than the reverse, who are suspicious of "graven ideologies," and who love their political counterparts by refusing to see them as enemies, treating them instead as beloved neighbors. We need people of faith who search the Scriptures, not for proof-texts to support the policies about which they’ve already made up their minds, but rather for new truths that will stretch their political and social understandings beyond the planks of any party.

That describes Dr. Hunter’s aim in this important and well-written book.

In spite of the word "Democrat" in the title, Dr. Hunter isn’t interested in getting Republicans to switch parties. He wants to help Christians - and especially evangelical Christians - see that their first loyalty is to a King and kingdom higher than any "principality or power" on earth. If we get that straight, we can expect a revolution of goodness and peace to continually unfold. The effects of that revolution will make themselves felt in the areas of economics, ecology, sexuality and family, poverty, education, the arts, racial reconciliation, the media, religion, and yes, even politics.

You should read this book!

No, Eisenbrauns doesn't sell it. No, I don't get any commission. All I want is for people to move beyond the current mindset that seems too prevalent: "Republican = Evangelical Christian" and into a biblical mindset of "Christ only, Christ all!"

Back in the mid 1970's Billy Graham warned that the right has always tried to hijack the conservative christian cause. He said they did it in the 1950's, and then jettisoned the christians when it no longer suited their needs. Would that people has taken his warning to heart!

Hey, look at this post that just popped up on my RSS reader (it's a month old, but my reader is weird that way):

Remember, we march to the drum that the world cannot hear. It cannot join us. Except in Christ. Not either in the Democrat or Republican party. Nor through any other entity in this world. The victory of God in Christ is not a victory for either, or any of these.

Let's not forget it. Let's remember where our allegiance lies. And learn to live in that allegiance. As those in Jesus who have our feet on the ground, but whose orders are ultimately always from "God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords" (1 Timothy 6:15; TNIV)- Amen.

Oh, by the way, the name of the book is Christian, Evangelical, and . . . Democrat?

Church meanderings

Catching up on posts from this week, I noticed a good one over at House Church Blog on the basics of house church. Here is a sample:

* The "house church movement" is not about getting the church out of bigger buildings and into smaller, homier, ones. I would suggest that it is about seeing the church become a movement again as intended. In other words, the church is God's people lit up by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Our sense of this, from the New Testament, is that God intended his church, his people, to truly be a wildfire taking his life, power, and transformation from one person to the next until the world is engulfed with him. God was and is on the move through his people. A movement that is led by the Spirit of God (the church) can not be contained nor controlled without it losing its very essence. In that sense, he never intended for us to build fireplaces.

* Over the years we have, with very good intentions, become focused on building fireplaces. Much good has come from this. However, we have often found ourselves so busy with housing the fire that we have lost the intensity and fervor that fuels a movement. It is this movement that God has always been after and that he is restoring.

* Simplifying church back to its basics makes room for us to re-align our time and energy with God's purposes to fuel movements of his Holy Spirit everywhere. Just because we have simplified church does not mean this will happen. But it does provide the opportunity for us to put the priority focus back on those things that can facilitate that movement.

And then, there was an excellent post over at House Church Chronicles about being fed

Babies or the sick get fed. Healthy mature adults feed themselves. The church of our culture has done great disservice to the body of Christ by normalizing "spoon feeding" to those who should be feeding themselves…

One "bread" of our church culture is entertainment. Roman culture taught us to appreciate and be entertained by great oration. The resulting monologue has hijacked Christianity and formed how we "do church". Conversely, Hebrew and Greek cultures used dialogue for education. A good teacher in those cultures was one who could moderate a discussion and draw out the conversation of the participants. Then there is music. Our Christian culture is addicted to music. I am a musician and enjoy music from both sides of the guitar. The entertainment factor has dictated that only the big flashy shows will survive. After one gathering with His disciples we learn this of Jesus - "and after singing a hymn, they went out". No worship team, no rock-n-roll band, no expensive sound systems... Jesus could not compete in today's music market.

Another "bread" of our church culture is instant gratification. It is much easier to run by McDonald's and pick up fast food than it is to prepare a meal…

What more can I say?

Language musings

Over at Better Bibles Blog, there is an excellent post from a few days ago.

I thought that there was a little book written just for preachers that gave the instruction not to ever say "This is what the Greek actually says," especially if every single Bible translation that has ever existed in English does not mention that option for translating a verse.

<idle musing>
He goes on to talk about he misuse of Hebrew in a "women are a doormat" sermon he heard.

Excellent post, and worth the read, but the part I quoted is what caught me. Those of us who know Hebrew and/or Greek need to be careful how we use it. I have seen this knowledge used to skewer people who don't agree with a point at issue. I have seen it used as a badge of honor in order to look down on "hoi polloi" who don't know the languages. When I was in seminary, one of the Hebrew profs brought this up, pointing out that there are not two tracks labelled "dummies" and "brains," i.e., English Bible & original languages, but that they were meant to be complementary. Both were designed to teach people to do careful exegesis, with the ultimate goal of leading people to a deeper relationship with God.

When using the languages, the emphasis should be on the fuller understanding available—the full semantic range of the word in the original. People should know that they can trust their translations to be accurate, but they should also know that there is a much richer meaning in the original than can be conveyed without turning the translation into an expanded Amplified Bible.

Above all, they should not be made to feel like second-class citizens in the kingdom. If they are, then we who do it are guilty of the grossest Phariseeism and deserve all the scorn and condemnation that Jesus poured on the original scribes and Pharisees.
</idle musing>

More from Bonhoeffer's Ethics

The church confesses that it has looked on silently as the poor were exploited and robbed, while the strong were enriched and corrupted.
The church confesses its guilt toward the countless people whose lives have been destroyed by slander, denunciation, and defamation. It has not condemned the slanderers for their wrongs and has thereby left the slandered to their fate.

The church confesses that it has coveted security, tranquility, peace, property, and honor to which it had no claim, and therefore has not bridled human covetousness, but promoted it.

<idle musing>
I wish I could post the whole chapter entitled "Guilt, Justification, Renewal" from Ethics, but I would tire of typing long before the end...

He has gone from preaching and started meddling in this passage. Granted, it was written of the German church during Nazi times, but doesn't it ring true today?

Hasn't the church too often forgotten its prophetic calling and gotten too cozy with the status quo? Haven't we forgotten James' warning: "Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme that honorable name which was invoked over you?"
<idle musing>

One more quote from this chapter:

Not all wounds that were mad can be healed; but it is critical that no further wounds be inflicted. The law of retaliation, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,'is reserved for God, the judge of the nations. In human hands it only causes new disaster...

James Barr

<idle musing>
There are posts all over the Internet about the death of James Barr. You won't find more of that here. I only met him once and didn't really talk to him, so I'll let others sing his praises who can do a better job. No, these are thoughts along a different track altogether.

I used to work for a producer of video tapes and among the things produced were documentaries of famous people. We had a double video cassette documentary of Frank Sinatra, among others, but this one sticks in my mind. For good reason, at the time Frank Sinatra was quite ill and was in and out of the hospital and appeared about to die. So, the marketing director (not I), ordered several thousand copies to be duplicated, anticipating the nostalgia impulse buy. Sure enough, Musicland ordered 2 pallets worth of them, as did Best Buy. Frank Sinatra died about 2 weeks later.

That's not the point, though. What was sad was that every day the marketing people were fixated on whether or not he was going to die that day. At first they were hoping he would hang on long enough for the shipments to get to the stores, then they were hoping he would die before people lost interest and the videos got shipped back to us without selling. Pretty sad, isn't it? The life and death of a person was reduced to a few extra dollars in the bank—well, quite a few extra dollars, but you get the point.

How does this relate to James Barr? Well, we publish one of his books, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament. Now, do I run a sale on this book in honor of him? Or, will people think I am trying to cash in on the recent publicity and make a few dollars? In fact, I hesitated even linking to the book for fear that people would take it as a cheap plug.

When Erica Reiner died last summer, I decided not to run a sale or even mention it—and I actually knew her from my University of Chicago days at the Oriental Institute—for fear that it would be viewed as a cheap exploit.

The death of a person is not an opportunity to make money; it is a serious event, ushering them into their eternal destiny. For that reason, more than fear of misinterpretation, I have decided not to run a sale on the book.

What do you think? Am I creating a moral dilemna where none exists?
</idle musing>

Quote for the day

"There is no human perfection in this world and there are no golden ages in the life of the Church. There are simply moments when the Church is either less authentic or more authentic."—David Wells in Above All Earthly Pow'rs.