Worship?

Out of Ur has a good post on a talk given at the National Pastors Convention. Here's a part of it:

Drawing mainly from the Old Testament prophets Daniel and Isaiah, Labberton built a case for thinking differently about worship. “Worship reorders reality to help us see what is true,” he said. It should reorder our priorities and help us see the world differently. But quite often worship is simply a baptized version of our culture. In our worship we simply mirror what is all around us—worship of self. This, he says, is “illegitimate worship.”

“Fear of God is what matters most,” says Labberton. “The failure of our people to live this way is a failure of our worship.” The solution is not making our worship louder, faster, or more spectacular as many are in the habit of doing. Rather, we need to reevaluate what our worship is forming within our people. “Does our worship impact our view of our neighbor?”

<idle musing>
Worship in not a song, not even a fast song. Worship is about a life lived in subservience to God; in obedience to our creator. It is not about music; it is not about choirs, or good voices; no, it is not even a good sermon. It is about God, and it is a part of life Monday through Saturday even more than it is about Sunday. God commands us to love our neighbor—in practical ways. And what he commands us to do, he enables us to do via the power available in the Holy Spirit. It is not another thing I have to do; it is about surrendering my self to the cross and allowing Him to do it through me. Me dead, Christ alive (Galatians 2:20).
</idle musing>

Quote for the day

Allegories are the natural mirrors of ideology. — Agnus Fletcher, Allegory

HT: John Cook

Wittenburg door image

Tyler at Codex has put up my favorite image from the Wittenburg door. Truly appealing! A must read.

Snow!

It is finally winter here. It has been snowing continually since about 2:30 this morning and is supposed to continue for another 10-12 hours! Because of the wind, just about everything is closing down. Here's a picture of one of the doors to the warehouse



They had predicted 12-16 inches, and we might actually get somewhere in the 8-10 inch range. That would be a first for my 4 winters here in Indiana.

I think I'm starting to come down with a severe case of snowshoe-itis. The only known cure is a morning off of work walking in the woods on snowshoes...

Quote for the day

“Understand now what lying is. Any species of designed deception. If the deception be not designed, it is not lying. But if you design to make an impression contrary to the naked truth, you lie. Put down all those cases you can recollect. Do not call them by any soft name. God calls them LIES, and charges you with LYING, and you had better charge yourself correctly. How innumerable are the falsehoods perpetrated every day in business, and in social intercourse, by words, and looks, and actions, designed to make an impression on others, for selfish reasons that is contrary to the truth!”—Finney in Lectures on Revival, lecture 3

<idle musing>
Pretty stringent definition, isn't it? Finney doesn't leave a whole lot of wiggle room when he starts naming sins. All of lecture 3 is about what is sin. He lists over 15 different categories, of which this is but one. Too bad the book isn't in print anymore; of course, that might be why. It is too convicting for our middle-class comfortable christianity.
</idle musing>

BookNews subscribers tops 2000

BookNews, the Eisenbrauns bi-weekly e-letter is over 2000 strong! Andy tells me that sometime last Thursday afternoon, our 2,000th subscriber signed up.

How does that compare to other e-mail lists? Well, the Biblical Studies list is 606 strong; ANE-2 has 758 subscribers; Classics-L is over 1500 (not sure of the exact number); Crosstalk2 is over 500. I have no idea how many subscribe to B-Greek.

So, I guess we compare pretty favorably. Of course, who doesn't want to get books at a discount?

The American Dream

There is a nice post over at The Community of Jesus about the "haves and have-nots." You should definitely read the whole thing, but here is a snippet:

When we see wealthy nations doing whatever it takes to guarantee their continued lifestyle and "way of life", while other peoples are left (with many excuses for that) behind, like in Darfur. I find this as just one of the scandals of living in a fallen world.

Being a good Samaritan begins at home. What about in our neighborhood? Among those we know? In our church? City? This is where we need to begin. As well as giving to those who help the poor, such as World Vision.

And I write off political candidates who call themselves "pro-life", yet say nothing about addressing this problem.

<idle musing>
I was reading in Finney's Lectures on Revival yesterday. In it he asks how we can consider ourselves a Christian and not care for the poor both among us and in foreign lands. The evangelical movement, starting with the Wesley's, was very concerned with social justice. It continued with abolitionists in the U.S.; the Salvation Army began as an outreach to the poor and homeless.

What happened? Now all Evangelicals talk about is abortion and gay marriage. Those are important, but not the only things that are. We need to move beyond those and address other problems as well.

We need to understand that abortion and gay marriage are but symptoms of a deeper problem—the sinful self. As long as we only address those two issues, and not the other ones, we can feel good about ourselves; unless we happen to fall into those two categories... But, God is calling us to examine our own lives and see where the sinful self rules in our decisions, from the most minor decision of what to eat, to the major decision of where we live. Can we cut down on consumption and take that extra few dollars and give to someone?
</idle musing>

Jeremiah 17, slightly revised

Jim West has decided that Jeremiah 17 is too harsh in the original, so he revised it a bit for the modern reader. Here's a bit of it:

5Thus says the Lord: Coddled are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. 6They shall be like a giant shrubbery in the well watered desert, and shall not see when trouble of any kind comes because God would never allow anything bad to happen to anyone...10I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings. And that means he will just make everyone as happy as they want to be, because, after all, God is here for us- and we aren’t here for him.

Definitely modified! But, it is what we want to hear, isn't it?

Sight reading in Ezekiel

As I have mentioned before, we are sight reading in Hebrew and Greek each Thursday. We are still slogging through Mark in the GNT, but in the HB, we are now in Ezekiel. We made our way through Ruth, then voyaged through Jonah, landing on the banks of the Chebar river in Ezekiel. John assured us that it was readable.

Right! It might be readable, but is it understandable? Between convoluted syntax and changing genders on the pronouns, I'm not sure I understood a word we translated. Of course, you have to add all of the interesting comments Zimmerli (the BHS editor of Ezekiel) makes, deleting every duplicate, rearranging other ones, emending the text (when it doesn't agree with him!), and you have the perfect setting for a laugh fest. And that is exactly what happened yesterday. We were all laughing at our feeble attempts to understand a description of a supernatural vision in a dead foreign language 2500 years old. Now I understand why there is a Jewish tradition that you should never read the visions in Ezekiel until you are over 40!

Quote for a Thursday

Continuing on in the same chapter of Lectures on Revival:

A revival of religion is the only possible thing that can wipe away the reproach which covers the Church, and restore religion to the place it ought to have in the estimation of the public. Without a revival, this reproach will cover the Church more and more, until it is overwhelmed with universal contempt. You may do anything else you please, and you
may change the aspects of society in some respects, but you will do no real good; you only make it worse without a revival of religion. You may go and build a splendid new house of worship, and line your seats with damask, put up a costly pulpit, and get a magnificent organ, and everything of that kind, to make a show and dash, and in that way you may procure a sort of respect for religion among the wicked, but it does no good in reality. It rather does hurt. It misleads them as to the real nature of religion; and so far from converting them, it carries them farther away from salvation. Look wherever they have surrounded the altar of Christianity with splendor, and you will find that the impression produced is contrary to the true nature of religion.

<idle musing>
How much closer to the mark could he get? He was writing in the 1840’s, but it sure sounds like a description of the church in 2007. We have people working diligently to change society; we have people building huge church buildings; the church has scorn heaped on it by society. And the whole time we “do no real good” rather we “only make it worse” because we are trying to do it our way instead of God’s way.

The first place a revival has an effect is the church. How many of us are willing to admit that we have been cherishing “little” sins in our heart? How many of us are willing to admit that we have been comparing ourselves to those around us, assuming that God grades on a curve? We forget that we serve a holy God who demands (and imparts) holiness of heart, not just behavior according to a set of rules on a checklist.

There is a reason that II Chronicles 7:14 starts with “my people who are called by my name” are called to “humble themselves…turn from their wicked ways.” This was addressed to God’s people then, and it is still addressed to God’s people today. Romans 2:24 says, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” It was true in Paul’s day, it is only too true today. But, it doesn’t have to be! Romans goes on to say in chapter 8 that we are “more than conquerors through him who loved us.” It is available to us by faith; we need only believe it and live in it.

Revive your church, O Lord! Forgive our complacency; renew our love; fire our passion for you; may we experientially know the truth that we are dead to the world, but alive in Christ.
</idle musing>

Unicode

Over at deinde Danny Zacharias has a post about publishers accepting unicode in submissions. Since it is directed against publishers, Eisenbrauns (in the person of Jim Eisenbraun) chose to respond. I quote:

Your comments on the virtues of Unicode and OpenType are well placed. However, your comments on publishers being unwilling to move forward are not. Almost all publishers in this field would love to move directly to Unicode and OpenType. The problem is not that publishers are slow to embrace these standards: the problem is that publishing software lags behind. Yes, InDesign handles Unicode quite well. However, Adobe created InDesign first of all to serve the general (consumer) magazine market, not the academic publishing market. In academic publishing, much more is required than getting the font/glyphs right. One has to index; create cross-references; generate tables of contents; include footnotes. Until the latest version of InDesign (CS 2), it could not do footnotes! Now, in the CS 2 revision, it will do footnotes. But it still cannot do cross-references. It cannot do more than one index (without doing so manually; suppose you want more than a Scripture index? or an author index?). (Plug-ins are available from third-party commercial companies to do these things, but they are expensive and very very slow. In fact, InDesign suffers from what I would call software piggishness: it's very fat. An example: the same file in the older publishing software that Eisenbrauns has used for 15+ years if recreated in InDesign will require a file size that is roughly 10-20x the disk space. That by itself is not much of an issue any longer, but the fact that the software is very slow and unwieldy (in comparison) simply raises costs signficantly. The list of things that InDesign will do is long.

In short, biblical studies publishers would very rapidly embrace OpenType/Unicode--and we all will. We believe that it is the future (at least I do). But the creation of true professional publishing software lags the development of this encoding standard. We're quite frustrated with this fact. But I would remind us all that academic publishing is less than 1% of the general publishing market. We feed on the scraps that fall from the table of big business. -- Jim Eisenbraun, Eisenbrauns

I encourage you to read the whole post.

Quote for today

From Finney’s Lectures on Revival, chapter 2, When a Revival Is to Be Expected:

“When there is a worldly spirit in the Church. It is manifest that the Church has sunk down into a low and backslidden state, when you see Christians conform to the world in dress, equipage, and “parties,” in seeking worldly amusements, and reading novels, and other books such as the world reads. It shows that they are far from God, and that there is great need of a revival of religion.

“When the Church finds its members falling into gross and scandalous sins, then it is time to awake and cry to God for a revival of religion. When such things are taking place as give the enemies of religion an occasion for reproach, it is time to ask of God: ‘What will become of Thy great Name?’”

<idle musing>
Seems like that would be now, doesn’t it? Even so, come Lord Jesus! Awake your slumbering church! Give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf that your great name may be lifted high above the earth.
</idle musing>

Unity of what spirit?

Over at Milk Fusion there is a very perceptive post on the unity of the body of Christ. Here are a few snippets:

…in our desperation to create community, to succeed in our efforts and carve out a "space" where we can find shared life and unity, the temptation is always before us to cultivate a sense of it through other things; shared interests in sports, shared hobbies, social service experiences, shared cultural backgrounds (high school experience, tv shows, movies, etc), shared meals, musical tastes, demographic-specific needs or any one of thousands of peripheral things that tempt us to 'major' our unity in while 'minoring' unity in Christ: where awaits the tangible power of endless life. We do lots of stuff and always try to mix in a little Jesus somewhere.

And then there is the mother of all shortcuts to unity: the party. We might not use that term exactly, but its [sic] what we end up creating. Unity in "good times" for the sake of "good times" modeled after sanitized patterns defined for us by the world. It is somewhat intoxicating, almost universally appealing and easy. A short cut. An age-old version of joy without all that bothersome ownership of other people's pain and ugliness. All we wanna do is have some fun and we all know we are not the only ones. Unity lite: low in sodium. Savor free. Ready to be trampled.

…So what might this path look like? First of all, answering "what-does-it-look-like" questions is sometimes dangerous because giving the answer tempts people to start imitating the fruit without developing the root…

We talk too much. We have too much knowledge and not enough substance. Partying with our knowledge is dangerous. A true spiritual unity will not be what the world would label a "party" by outward appearances. The apostles may have been mocked on the day of Pentecost as being "drunk with wine" but even such a label could not encompass the flood of thousands of souls rushing into the Kingdom because of their searing words that burned into hearts like hot metal on flesh.

In our day of digital self-service and sensory self-indulgence we are not in need of raising a pint of Guinness together and declaring "God is good." Rather, we are in need of beholding God as he is, being shaken by that vision to collapse on our faces and cry "Woe is me! He is Holy!"

Repentant lives, being washed clean of our tolerated sins that suddenly appear terrifying by the searing light of His countenance, are shown how to pay the price to enter in that fellowship that discovers and partakes of the unspeakable union found only between the Father, Son and Spirit. We err in our concocted "unity" based on our human devices. How quickly we exit the spirit that leads us into the purity that abides the presence of a God that is a consuming fire.

HT: Alan Knox

New wine

I recently ran across this post on the M Blog about a conference he just got back from. Much wisdom here.

All the speakers and workshops were great but will share just a bit of what Wolfgang [Simson] had to say. He spoke about the fact that we are in a new phase of Christian history where a new OS (computer operating system) of TRUST IN GOD will replace the old OS of knowledge. Listening to God as He leads step by step will become more and more the basis for ministry replacing plans, programs, strategies, etc.

When we feel that nothing is happening it is when God is most active. What is happening in these "silences" is that God is in the process of replacing our old operating systems for the new one that will carry us into the greatest harvest the world has ever seen.

How does one implement this new OS? Wolfgang shared that we must slow down and do less. We need to detox and allow God to replace the old OS with his new one. It's not about speeding up and trying to do more; rather get in tune with what God is wanting to do and follow Him step by step--listening carefully and trusting that He will bring about His Kingdom here on earth.

Much more. Read it all here

Media in the sanctuary

Interesting post over at Out of Ur

My childhood church had a silver cross suspended in the sanctuary. It was the visual focus of our worship. I recently returned to the church and the cross was still there, but few people notice it anymore. A large screen now hangs in front of it.

Read the rest, especially the comments section. This comment especially:

When the associate pastor of my former church (Mennonite Brethren) became the senior pastor a number of years ago, he had an 'old-rugged cross' constructed and placed in the middle of the stage. The base upon which it stood was large and during his sermon he would often stumble over it. At first we thought it was an accident, but then he began speaking of how in every aspect of life we need to 'stumble' over the cross. It is a reminder to keep us on the straight and narrow way. The congregation hated it and in less than two years he was gone. We did not like to be constantly reminded of our sin nature and the price that had to be paid for it; nor did we want to be reminded of the need for true Christians to be obedient to God's written laws.

It keeps going. Quite perceptive, eh?

Just arrived!

I walked over to the warehouse just now, looking for a book. As I entered, I looked at the stack of boxes that came in today and saw two from Pontifical Biblical Institute.

Hmmm...what could that be? Usually shipments from Italy take 3 months. Well, I opened the boxes up, and sure enough—there it was, Muraoka's new version of Jouon's Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, and in cloth, too. I thought it was going to be a paperback and didn't expect it for at least another month. I haven't had a chance to look it over thoroughly yet, after all I've only had it for about 1/2 hour, but one nice feature is an index of modern authors and a bibliography through 2003. Here are the details:

A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew
2006 one volume edition
Subsidia Biblica - SB 27
by Paul Jouon and Takamitsu Muraoka
Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2006
xlvi + 772 pages, English
Cloth
ISBN: 8876536299
Your Price: $78.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~JOUBIBLIC

Quote for the day

In the time of our first perplexity and helplessness we prayed much to God, and God answered and God blessed, and our organization became perfected, and our band of workers became large; but gradually the organization and the work and the rush have so taken possession of us that the power of the Spirit, in which we began when we were a small company, has almost been lost.—Andrew Murray in Absolute Surrender

<idle musing>
I have seen this happen repeatedly. When I start something big (or small), I know I can't handle it, so I depend on God. But, once I have it figured out, I rush in and take over. Basically treating God like a master with me as an apprentice. The difference is that I decide the length of the apprenticeship, its terms, and once I "figure it out" I dump the master. I sign my own papers on my own authority. Then, of course, when things go wrong, it is God's fault!

Hmmm, count the number of times the first person pronoun occurs in the preceding paragraph. Kinda scary, isn't it?
</idle musing>

I'm a grandma!

Well, actually, I'm still a grandpa :) But, Renee and Joel had a baby girl last night at 6:43 Central time. She was two weeks early by the doctor's calculations, but right on time by God's. Everyone is doing fine.

Quote for the day

“Think of the church at large. What divisions! Think of the different bodies. Take the question of holiness, take the question of the cleansing blood, take the question of the baptism of the Spirit - what differences are caused among dear believers by such questions! That there are differences of opinion does not trouble me. We do not have the same constitution and temperament and mind. But how often hate, bitterness, contempt, separation, unlovingness are caused by the holiest truths of God’s Word! Our doctrines, our creeds, have been more important than love. We often think we are valiant for the truth and we forget God’s command to speak the truth in love. And it was so in the time of the Reformation between the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches. What bitterness there was than in regard to the Holy Supper, which was meant to be the bond of union among all believers! And so, down the ages, the very dearest truths of God have become mountains that have separated us.”—Andrew Murray in Absolute Surrender

It's still Winter

It snowed most of last night; just a light one, amounting to about 1.5 inches. But, it sure was beautiful. Andy took this picture of the front of the building this morning after he finished sweeping/shoveling the walk.

Quote for today

In a book I was reading over the weekend, the author made a comment about our conception of angels, especially the Valentine's day type. You know which ones I'm talking about; they have the little wings and diapers on. I thought his critique of the "Gerber baby" angels was too priceless not to post...

Those were not Gerber babies that sang around the manger the holy night Christ was born; those were mighty, warring heavenly beings singing in awe of the sacrifice of the great King.

Just once some Christmas I would like to see a real angel show up on top of the tree just as I plugged in the light—bam!—nuclear glory radiating, instantly frying the Christmas tree into a skeleton of smoldering sticks; everyone in the family slain spiritually, unable to move for hours under the weight of the angelic presence. A true "touched by an angel" episode and a Christmas to remember!—Francis Frangipane

Winter!

Finally, 2 months late, but I think it might be here. This morning was 8 degrees F; a nice crisp day. We were at Debbie's parents last night and came out to about an inch of fluffy snow on the car. When we went for our walk last night, the temperature was about 12 F, the sky was clear and the moon was reflecting off the snow. As we walked, the snow crunched under our feet. A few deer were feeding in the woods. What more could you ask for?

This morning on the way to work, there was ice on the lake, white snow on the ground, not too windy. A beautiful day for a walk. It's a good thing it didn't snow enough to go snowshoeing, or I would never have come in to work...time to bring out one of my favorite quotes (from Space for God).

"When rain turns to ice and snow I declare a holiday. I could as easily resist as stay at a desk with a parade going by in the street below. I cannot hide the delight that then possesses my heart. Only God could have surprised rain with such a change of dress as ice and cold...

"Most people love rain, water. Snow charms all young hearts. Only when you get older and bones begin to feel dampnesss, when snow becomes a traffic problem and a burden in the driveway, when wet means dirt--then the poetry takes flight and God's love play is not noted.

But I am still a child and have no desire to take on the ways of death. I shall continue to heed water's invitation, the call of the rain. We are in love and lovers are a little mad."

Quote for today

As [C.J.H.] Wright [Deuteronomy, NIBC, pp. 50-51] aptly notes,

the contrast is not between visible and invisible, or between spiritual and material, but between the visible and the audible. Idols have “form” but do not speak, Yahweh has no “form,” but he decisively speaks. Idols are visible but dumb. Yahweh is invisible but eloquent.

As we have seen, the words of Yahweh are the means by which his presence is manifest in Israel. So, making an image would be an attempt to actualize Yahweh’s presence in a manner that is, first of all, contrary to the means he desires. It would be an attempt to substitute the speaking Yahweh who confronts, rebukes, demands, and challenges. Attempting to represent Yahweh with a lifeless image would serve to ‘gag’ him.”—Vogt in Deuteronomic Theology and the Significance of Torah

Brief review of Bonhoeffer “Reflections on the Bible”

As you can see from the quote of the day for the last week or so, I have been reading Reflections on the Bible. It is a short little book, only 128 pages, of selections from many of the volumes in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works series. The book was put together in celebration of Bonhoeffer’s one hundredth birthday in 2005; since the English translations for some of the Works aren’t done yet, the quotes are direct translations from the German edition.

I must say, I am ambivalent about the book. In many ways, it is a wonderful distillation of Bonhoeffer quotes. In other ways, it is far too short, and I would have chosen some other writings to include instead of what they chose. Of course, that is the nature of a short anthology–everyone has their own favorite passages and wants to see them included. Since I didn’t choose them, I will find something “better” that should have been included.

The other thing is the price; at a list price of $9.95 for 128 pages it seems overpriced. But, when the alternative is to buy all 17 volumes of Bonhoeffer’s Works ( or Werke since some are still only in German), and then find the time to read them–and mark the best passages…Well, $9.95 suddenly doesn’t seem too bad.

Although I enjoyed reading it, I probably won’t keep the volume in my library, but will pass it on. After all, why should I have the short one when I have the English volumes of Works already (and bookshelf space is at a premium in our house)?

<cheap plug>
So, watch for it to appear on the Used Books section at Eisenbrauns in the next few days—which reminds me, you definitely should subscribe to our RSS feeds : )
</cheap plug>

Quote for the day

God said—and we know it from the Bible—”See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). This is what God made come true at Easter. Would not this message appear even more impossible, strange, bizarre than the whole story of King David, which is almost harmless by comparison?

The only thing left is the decision whether we are willing to trust the word of the Bible or not, whether we are willing to let ourselves be held by it, as by no other word in life or in death. And, I believe, we can find true joy and peace only when we have made this decision…—Bonheoffer in Reflections on the Bible

<idle musing>
Hmm...we not only accept Easter, but say our faith hangs on the empty tomb. But, David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc., didn't really exist? Doesn't there seem to be a disconnect here?

Jesus said "And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” Matthew 22:31-32 (RSV)

So does that mean that:
a. Jesus didn't know what he was talking about?
b. God is a liar?
c. We know better, because we live in the 21st century?
d. Bultmann was right, after all?
e. none of the above
f. all of the above
g. ???
</idle musing>

Quote for the day

If I am the one who gets to decide where God will be found, then I will always find a god there, a god who some way or other is the kind of god I am looking for, a god I like, a god appropriate to my own nature and personality. But if God is the One who says where he will be Found, then this will very likely be the place that at first does not at all fit my own nature and character, a place I probably will not like at all. This place is the cross of Jesus. And those who want to find God there must take their place under the cross, as demanded by the Sermon on the Mount. This does not at all correspond to our nature; it is exactly contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New Testament but also in the Old Testament (Isaiah 53!). in any case this was the understanding of both Jesus and Paul: in the cross of Jesus the Scripture, that is, the Old Testament, is fulfilled. Thus the whole Bible is permeated by the divine intention of being that word in which God wants to be found by us. No place that seems pleasant to us, or that at first even seems reasonable to us, but a place in every way strange to us, totally alien to us. Precisely there is the place God has chosen to meet us.—Bonheoffer in Reflections on the Bible

Instant Greek?

There is a very interesting post at Better Bibles Blog about "Sunday School Greek."

The premise, put forward by Hank of Think Wink, and warmly received by the ESV Bible blog is that eve[r]yone in the church could learn Greek and Hebrew in Sunday School. And then people could decide for themselves all the sticky translation issues. The democratization of exegesis! We might wake up one day and find out that the world really is flat.

<idle musing>
Right! On the basis of how much Greek and Hebrew? I am all in favor of people learning the languages, after all, I was a Greek and Latin teacher, but let's be realistic about expectations here. One of the hardest things already about a language is managing expectations. A person outside of a consistent, almost daily, classroom setting has to be very highly motivated to learn a language, any language.

Furthermore, you can't do exegesis well with only 1-2 years of Greek or Hebrew, let alone judge translational issues. Not infrequently there are textual issues, as well as language issues. How many second year Greek or Hebrew students use the critical apparatus and understand what it means?

I have seen some of the translations that first and second year students come up with! Phooey, I remember some of my own!

By all means, learn the languages, at least enough to understand how to use the tools. But, don't assume that because you know a little of the language you can correct the translators. More accurately, you begin to understand the semantic domain of a word in the Greek/Hebrew and understand why the translations might disagree on the exact English word or phrase chosen.
</idle musing>

Quote for the day

Or—I might as well go ahead and ask myself now—am I perhaps already living so much within the framework of my own principles that I might not even notice if one day God should withdraw his living word from me? Perhaps I would just continue living by my own rules, but God’s command would no longer be with me. God’s command is God’s personal word to me for this day for my life here and now; it is, to be sure, not today one thing and something else tomorrow that God wants of me. In itself, God’s command is one. But the decisive difference is whether I obey God or live by my own principles. If I am satisfied to live by my own principles, then I cannot understand the psalmist’s prayer [Psalm 119:19]. But if I allow God himself to direct my way, then I am totally dependent on the grace that reveals itself to me or withholds itself from me, then I tremble at every word I receive from the mouth of God, tremble at the prospect of the next word and whether I will be maintained in grace. Then I am bound by grace in all my ways and decisions, and no false certainty can lead me astray from this living communion with God.—Bonhoeffer in Reflections on the Bible

Quote for the day

We have been getting together with Debbie's parents every Sunday evening to read from The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, a classic from 1875. We have been reading from 1-4 chapters each time and discussing them. There were some real gems last night, but here is one of them:

The standard of practical holy living has been so low among Christians that the least degree of real devotedness of life and walk is looked upon with surprise, and often even with disapprobation, by a large portion of the Church. And, for the most part, the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are satisfied with a life so conformed to the world and so like it in almost every respect, that, to a casual observer, no difference is discernible.

Emerging

Out of Ur has an excellent article by Scot McKnight about the emerging church. Definitely worth the read.

Here are his main points, but take the time to read the whole thing. Don’t let the stereotypes you are hearing blind you to what God is doing amongst the emerging.

Following are five themes that characterize the emerging movement. I see them as streams flowing into the emerging lake. No one says the emerging movement is the only group of Christians doing these things, but together they crystallize into the emerging movement.

Prophetic (or at least provocative)
One of the streams flowing into the emerging lake is prophetic rhetoric. The emerging movement is consciously and deliberately provocative. Emerging Christians believe the church needs to change, and they are beginning to live as if that change had already occurred. Since I swim in the emerging lake, I can self-critically admit that we sometimes exaggerate.

Postmodern
Mark Twain said the mistake God made was in not forbidding Adam to eat the serpent. Had God forbidden the serpent, Adam would certainly have eaten him. When the evangelical world prohibited postmodernity, as if it were fruit from the forbidden tree, the postmodern "fallen" among us—like F. LeRon Shults, Jamie Smith, Kevin Vanhoozer, John Franke, and Peter Rollins—chose to eat it to see what it might taste like. We found that it tasted good, even if at times we found ourselves spitting out hard chunks of nonsense. A second stream of emerging water is postmodernism.

Praxis-oriented
The emerging movement's connection to postmodernity may grab attention and garner criticism, but what most characterizes emerging is the stream best called praxis—how the faith is lived out. At its core, the emerging movement is an attempt to fashion a new ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). Its distinctive emphases can be seen in its worship, its concern with orthopraxy, and its missional orientation.

Post-evangelical
A fourth stream flowing into the emerging lake is characterized by the term post-evangelical. The emerging movement is a protest against much of evangelicalism as currently practiced. It is post-evangelical in the way that neo-evangelicalism (in the 1950s) was post-fundamentalist. It would not be unfair to call it postmodern evangelicalism. This stream flows from the conviction that the church must always be reforming itself.

Political
A final stream flowing into the emerging lake is politics. Tony Jones is regularly told that the emerging movement is a latte-drinking, backpack-lugging, Birkenstock-wearing group of 21st-century, left-wing, hippie wannabes. Put directly, they are Democrats. And that spells "post" for conservative-evangelical-politics-as-usual.

The reformation

<idle musing>
Over the last year or so, I have been reading in different books that the reformation is over. There are various reasons advanced for it, such as postmodernism, or the "new" perspective on Paul, or this or that. Let me advance a slightly different reason.

I think the reformation is over for Evangelicals because they are just as much an administratively top heavy church, complete with their own "popes" as the Roman church is.

When I was in college we had a speaker in chapel once who talked of the "papacy of the popular paperback." That stuck with me, not just because of the alliteration, but because he spoke the truth. Well, I can say we have moved beyond that. Yep, it is no longer the papacy of the popular paperback, it is now the hegemony of the hottest hardback (I should copyright that!). As evangelicals, we have advanced to hardcovers! Isn't that a stride forward for the kingdom!

I would say the semper reformandum is no longer the cry of the Evangelical, or protestant for that matter, church. It is now "protect the status quo!" Let me keep my powerbase and extend it—all for the kingdom of God, of course! Is it not interesting that the very things that the late pre-reformation popes were accused of (loose sex, ostentatious living, building earthly kingdoms) are the very things that are now engulfing the big names in Evangelicalism? God is not mocked.

And where is the new reformation? Same place it always is, among the unnoticed things, the simple things. Look at the emerging church and the house church movement. That is where the new reformation is happening. Sure, they are less than perfect, but so was the 16th century reformation, and every one before and after it. But, if attacks from the established powers are any indication, it stands in the same tradition. Mind you, in a generation or three, this reformation movement will become the establishment and will probably end up persecuting and attacking the next reformation.
</idle musing>

Quote for a Friday

God’s word is sown not in my intellect but in my heart. Not as something to be analyzed to death but as something kept alive in our hearts like the word of a beloved friend or member of the family that rests gently in our heart even when we are not consciously aware of it—this is the goal of the word that comes to us from the mouth of God. If I only keep God’s word in my intellect, then my thoughts will often be occupied with other matters, and what God has to say to me will miss its target. So we are never finished with God’s word when we merely read the Bible; it must penetrate deep within us, dwell in us like the Most Holy Place within the sanctuary, so that we do not go astray in our thoughts, words, and deeds. It is often better to read only a little in Scripture and wait until it has penetrated deep within us than to know a lot about God’s word but not ‘treasure it in our hearts.’”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Aghh!

I am trying to prepare the next Scholar's Source for press. Normally it is a pretty straight forward procedure, everything announced in the last 3-4 months gets included. Then it is just a matter of deciding which ones to feature, usually a pretty easy decision. But this time...

The first catalog of the year is always our software update, so I have to set aside space for all the software. And, we always have 7 pages of Eisenbrauns titles. All this is normal stuff, but this year there seems to have been more books than normal. I have reduced the featured books to a minimum, almost everything is line listings, and I am still 2 pages over–and that is without adding any software! And, with all those extra line listings, the index will take an extra page, too...

Maybe we should do like the Oxford English Dictionary does with the 2 volume edition, include a magnifying glass. Then I could reduce the type and get all the listings on fewer pages. What do you think? I didn't think you'd agree. Oh well, back to slicing and dicing...

The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings which are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) 12:11-14 (RSV)

(extended) Quote for the day

"We come unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions. The first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm assurance that they are pleasing to God. These are the sacred acts and they are usually thought to be prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and such other acts as spring directly from faith. They maybe known by the fact that they have no direct relation to this world, and would have no meaning whatever except as faith shows us another world, 'an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' (2Co_5:1)

"Over against these sacred acts are the secular ones.They include all of the ordinary activities of life which we share with the sons and daughters of Adam: eating, sleeping, working, looking after the needs of the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength. The upshot of this is that we are uneasy most of the time. We go about our common tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively that there's a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly shell and be bothered no more with the affairs of this world.

"This is the old sacred-secular antithesis. Most Christians are caught in its trap. They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims of the two worlds. They try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their outlook confused and their joy taken from them.
I believe this state of affairs to be wholly unnecessary. We have gotten ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, true enough, but the dilemma is not real. It is a creature of misunderstanding. The sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament."—A.W. Tozer in Pursuit of God

Bless your kids!

Debbie and I have great kids. We love them dearly and pray for them regularly. They both love Jesus and aren't afraid to say so. I'm sure those of you who have kids feel the same way about your kids.

Jim Martin has a great post (part 1) on how to bless your kids here.

2. Prepare them for the battleground, not the playground. Some parents constantly buy their children toys, gadgets, candy, McDonald’s, etc. The kids then get into their high school years and the pampering continues. Only now, the toys are much more expensive. What does that communicate to these children?


Meanwhile, other parents prepare their children for life on the battleground where a spiritual battle is taking place. These parents realize that children need more than toys. They need to be equipped for life so that they will survive the difficulties and trials they will face.


3. Deal with your issues. There are no perfect human beings. Yet, if you don’t deal with your own issues (your sins, your insecurities, your feelings of inadequacy, etc.) these can impact your children. They may end up having to deal with some of the very issues which you would never grapple with.

I look forward to the remaining 5.

Quote for the day

“…has it not again and again become terribly clear in all that we have said here to each other that we are no longer obedient to the Bible? We prefer our own ideas to those of the Bible. We no longer read the Bible seriously, no longer read it as against us but only as for us.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reflections on the Bible

<idle musing>
It is so much easier to read the biblical text and find what I want, rather than what God is trying to say to me through it. When Bonhoeffer says against us, he means against our flesh, against our ideas, against all that would exalt itself against God.

Proof texting is a dangerous game, in doing it, we remove a word from its context and re-form it into our word instead of a word from God. We take the Holy Spirit breath away from it and breath on it the breath of hell instead. That is what Bonhoeffer saw happening, the church ceased to stand against the wickedness of society and instead endorsed it—even Nazi theology. But, before we condemn the German church, let's look at ourselves. When was the last time we even stopped to think before indulging in something that society would say is "normal?" We need to stop and ask what God says is normal, taking our definition of normal from the scriptures, instead of from the scripts that society reads to us all day and night.
</idle musing>

ANE Thought and the OT, part 3

This is the third and final post concerning John Walton’s Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament and will discuss part 5: People. This is by far the longest section of the book, constituting over 1/3 of the book (over 100 pages). He divides it up into 6 chapters: 2 concerning how the ancients understood the past, with a good chapter on historiography; 3 concerning the present, including divination and omens, cities and kingship, and law and wisdom; and finally, one concerning the future.

The chapter on historiography is very good, nothing earth shattering, but a good overview. The chapter on divination and omens has two interesting “Comparative Explorations” which I will comment on.

The first one, on pages 257-258, takes Jeremiah 31:33 and re-examines it in light of ANE traditions. The metaphor of “writing on one’s heart” is well known from scripture and is usually interpreted as a metaphor for memory or intimate familiarity. The problem is that in Jeremiah 31, YHWH is the one doing the writing, not the individual. Walton claims that this should cause us to look at the divination texts for a context, since it was believed by the ancients that the deities wrote on the exta of animals. He argues that NTN and KTB as verbs, with a preposition and QEREB and LEB as the objects, reflects the same idea as the deities writing on the exta of animals. He is quick to point out that there are significant differences, but the point is that YHWH writes torah on the hearts of his people. “People with the law written on their heart become a medium of communication. Writing on the heart replaces not the law, but the teaching of the law. The law on stone had to be taught and could be ignored. The law on the heart represents a medium of modeling, in which case it is not being ignored.” (italics his). A provocative interpretation.

The second “Comparative Exploration” begins on page 262 and discusses Joshua 10:12-15, the sun and moon standing still. He says we should examine the text in light of the world of omens, instead of physics. To that end Walton refers to the Mesopotamian celestial omen texts and compares the verbs used there with the ones in Joshua. His conclusion is that it refers to a non-propitious day, with the sun and moon both at the horizons, although opposite ones. He refers to his article inFaith, Tradition, and Historyfor more details–an Eisenbrauns book I haven’t read!

In the chapter “Law and Wisdom,” he offers an alternative understanding of Job, based on the shurpu incantation series. Walton claims that what Job’s friends are trying to do is convince him that he should make a blanket confession, thus placating the deity and being returned to favor. Or, to put it another way, say you were wrong somewhere so that the god stops persecuting you and instead begins to bless you. Just exactly what the adversary was saying: Job serves god for the benefits only! Righteousness didn’t matter, just rewards, the classic do ut dar [I give that I might be given] as the Romans used to say. “This modification, rather than offering a revised theodicy, seeks to reinterpret the justice of God from something that may be debated to something that is a given.” (page 308)

The final chapter, on death and life after death, reviews the little that we know (outside of Egypt) about what the ancients thought about the afterlife. He concludes that the Israelite view was very similar to the Mesopotamian view, bleak.

He ends the book with a postscript and an appendix listing the major Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Canaanite gods. The bibliography runs about 10 pages and is quite thorough. A scripture, foreign words, modern author, ancient literature, and subject index are also included.

I found the book a delightful read and a good synthesis. I know (as does Walton) that many don’t believe we can make a synthesis of this type, but I disagree. It is better to try to create a synthesis, acknowledging how much we don’t know, than to wait until we have enough data—whatever that means—to attempt it at a later date.

Quote for today

"Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and the servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

"When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the 'and' lies our great woe. If we omit the 'and', we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing."—A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God

A Grand Liberation!

“I threw myself into the work in a very unchristian and rather arrogant manner. A mind-boggling ambition, which many have noticed about me, made my life difficult and separated me from the love and trust of my fellow human beings. At that time I was terribly alone and left to my own devices. That was really a terrible time. Then something different happened, something that has changed my life, turned it around to this very day. I came to the Bible for the first time. It is terribly difficult for me to say that. I had already preached several times, had seen a lot of the church, had given speeches about it and written about it—but I had still not become a Christian, I was very much an untamed child, my own master. I know, at that time I had turned this whole business about Jesus Christ into an advantage for myself, a kind of crazy vanity. I pray God, it will never be so again. I had also never prayed, or at least not much and not really. With all my loneliness, I was still quite pleased with myself. It was from this that the Bible—especially the Sermon on the Mount—freed me. Since then everything is different. I am clearly aware of it myself; and even those around me have noticed it. That was a grand liberation.”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote for a Saturday

“The Divine life within us comes from God, and is entirely dependent upon Him. As I need every moment afresh the air to breathe, as the sun every moment afresh sends down its light, so it is only in direct living communication with God that my soul can be strong.”—Andrew Murray

Forthcoming Greek and Hebrew tools

These wide margin or loose-leaf editions have recently been announced. You might find them useful:
Hebrew:

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
Wide Margin Edition
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Forthcoming March 2007
lvii + 1574 pages, Hebrew
Cloth
ISBN: 9781598561999
List Price: $69.95
Your Price: $52.46
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BHSWIDE
This is based on the standard edition, but with a wide margin for notes.

Greek:

Novum Testamentum Graece
Wide Margin Edition
27th edition
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Forthcoming March 2007
812 pages, German, English, and Greek, Cloth
ISBN: 9781598562002
List Price: $59.95
Your Price: $53.96
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~NESNOVUMWIDE
This is a wide margin edition of the NA 27 Greek text.

Greek New Testament with Dictionary (Loose-leaf) Loose-Leaf Edition
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Forthcoming March 2007
600 pages, Greek
5 hole-punched pages, 8.5 x 11
ISBN: 9781598562019
List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $37.15
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~ALAGREEKLOOSE

I saw page proofs of these at AAR/SBL in Washington in November. They use the same fonts and pagination as the original, just with more space for notes.

More from CT

Christianity Today recently posted an interview with N.T. Wright, here's a good reflection on Gnosticim:

The Gnostic conspiracy theory says that orthodoxy hushed up the really exciting thing and promoted this boring sterile thing with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And of course there's a great lie underneath that. In the second and third centuries, the people being thrown to the lions and burned at the stake and sawed in two were not the ones reading Thomas and Judas and the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. They were the ones reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because the empire is perfectly happy with Gnosticism. Gnosticism poses no threat to the empire. Whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do. It's the church's shame that in the last 200 years, the church has muzzled Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and turned them into instruments of a controlling, sterile orthodoxy. But the texts themselves are explosive.

Dethroned

There is a very good excerpt from Christianity Today entitled Dethroned. Here's a short quote, but you really should read the whole thing:

When I started getting interested in politics and national affairs, I once again was brought up short by the claims of Jesus. To affirm that Jesus Christ is Lord is to acknowledge that no political leader, party, flag, nation, or ideology can share lordship over my life. The one who confesses Christ alone as Lord cannot simultaneously affirm utmost loyalty to another idea or person.

This realization has constricted my understanding of politics. I've learned to fear the seductive power of political ideologies, the temptation to idealize political leaders, and the amoral bloodlust of partisan politics. Perhaps I have overreacted.

My study of German churches under Nazism has certainly formed my understanding of how disastrous the confusion of loyalties to God and country can become. But especially around election time, I feel my blood run hot for politics once again—so a reminder that Jesus Christ is Lord is very timely.

Quote for today

“Worship is more than just singing. Worship is an entire life devoted to living in a way that honors God. It is any decision we make that demonstrates Jesus Christ is the Lord of our lives. The definition of worship is simple: it is any act that tells God he is important to us. And as we live our lives in a way that brings honor to God, we transform every place we are – every part of our lives ndash; into a place of worship. To put it another way, everywhere becomes a sanctuary, and there are always seats available for us to fill…” jacket of a church’s worship CD

Dose of Tozer for today

Ryan (our son) called us last night asking for prayer for a difficult meeting he was going to. While I was praying for him, my eyes happened to glance at a beaten up old copy of Pursuit of God that was sitting on my bookshelf. Here is what I opened to:

The doctrine of justification by faith--a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort--has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be 'received' without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is 'saved,' but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.—A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God, chapter 1

<idle musing>
Incidentally, the meeting was about that very thing!
</idle musing>

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, continued

I'm reading Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament right now, and this is part 2 of my impressions.

A brief recap from last time:
The book is divided into 5 parts:
1. Comparative Studies
2. Literature of the Ancient Near East
3. Religion
4. Cosmos
5. People

Last time I mentioned parts 1 & 2 and a brief note on part 3. One thing I failed to mention is that the bibliography in the book is great. The footnotes are very helpful, pointing to sources for further reference.
<cheap plug>
Of course, John is a longtime Eisenbrauns customer and it shows in the breadth of his sources.
</cheap plug>

The section on Religion deals with the state cults as well as personal deity/family religion. It is very interesting reading; a good introduction for those new to ANE and OT studies. John is well aware of the dangers inherent here, for example this quote on prayer: “Most of us would have trouble making such distinctions [between true piety and prudence] in the roots of our own prayers and should be reluctant to draw conclusions from the literary prayers that are preserved from the ancient world.” (page 146). His emphasis is on defining in what ways the ancient Israelites were in continuity with their neighbors and in what ways they were not. To that end, there are periodic “Comparative Exploration” boxes throughout the book. These take a topic that is being discussed and highlight how the ANE and Israelite outlooks were similar and different.

I just finished the Cosmos section and John does a good job of highlighting how differently we think from how the ancients thought. We think in terms of substance—dirt, rock, iron, flesh, but the ancients thought in terms of function—“In other words, something exists when it has a function, not when it takes up space or is a substance characterized by material properties. . . The physical aspects of the cosmos did not define its existence or its importance; they were merely the tools the gods used for carrying out their purposes. The purposes of the gods were of prime interest to them.” (page 167)

He has several “Comparative Exploration” boxes related to Genesis 1 in this section. This is one of his main interests, as reflected in the NIVAC Genesis commentary that he did and in at least one forthcoming book on the cosmology of Genesis (not yet announced). I’m not a big fan of the NIVAC series, but I might have to get the Genesis volume after reading this book. The information in the book is sufficient for his purposes, but it piques my interest for further reading.

Part 5 is People; I hope to read that section this week and post on it over the weekend.

New Interpreter's Bible on sale

For the next 10 days, Eisenbrauns is offering the New Interpreter's Bible at 40% off, both print and electronic version.

To purchase, or see the graphics, go here

Here's what's on sale:

"The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 1: General and Old Testament
Articles; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus"
by Terence E. Fretheim, Walter Brueggemann, and Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
New Interpreter's Bible - NIB 1
Abingdon, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0687278147
List Price: $70.00 Your Price: $42.00

"The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 2: Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Introduction to Narrative Literature, Joshua, Judges,
Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel"
by Thomas B. Dozeman, et al.
New Interpreter's Bible - NIB 2
Abingdon, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0687278155
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"The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 3: 1 and 2 Kings,
1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther,
Additions to Esther, Tobit, Judith"
by Choon-Leong Seow, et al.
New Interpreter's Bible - NIB 3
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"The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 4: 1 and 2 Macabees,
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by Robert Doran, et al.
New Interpreter's Bible - NIB 4
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"The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 5: Introduction to Wisdom
Literature, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Book of Wisdom, Sirach"
by Richard J. Clifford, et al.
New Interpreter's Bible - NIB 5
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Literature; Isaiah; Jeremiah; Baruch; Letter to Jeremiah;
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"The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 7: Introduction to Apocalyptic
Literature, Daniel, Twelve Prophets"
by Frederick J. Murphy, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, and Gale A. Yee
New Interpreter's Bible - NIB 7
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"The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 8: General Articles on the
New Testament, Matthew, Mark"
by M. Eugene Boring and Pheme Perkins
New Interpreter's Bible - NIB 8
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by R. Alan Culpepper
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"The New Interpreter's Bible, Volume 10: Acts, Introduction to
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"The New Interpreter's Bible: Complete Twelve Volume Commentary
on CD-ROM (Windows and Mac)"
Abingdon, CD-ROM. English.
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Quote for the day

This is the final quote from the Conversations of Practice of the Presence of God:
“Brother Lawrence felt it was a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times. We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action, as by prayer in its season. His own prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of God, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine Love. When the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with God, praising and blessing Him with all his might. Thus he passed his life in continual joy.”

Sunday evening reading

Last night we got together with Debbie’s parents again to continue reading through The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, reading more 5 chapters. We are now half way through the book, which is very strong on faith. Here are a few excerpts:

Your idea of faith, I suppose, has been something like this. You have looked upon it as in some way a sort of thing, either a religious exercise of soul, or an inward gracious disposition of heart; something tangible, in fact, which, when you have got, you can look at and rejoice over, and use as a passport to God’s favor, or a coin with which to purchase His gifts. And you have been praying for faith, expecting all the while to get something
like this, and never having received any such thing, you are insisting upon it that you have no faith. Now faith, in fact, is not in the least this sort of thing. It is nothing at all tangible. It is simply believing God, and, like sight, it is nothing apart from its object. You might as well shut your eyes and look inside to see whether you have sight, as to look inside to discover whether you have faith. You see something, and thus know that you have sight; you believe something, and thus know that you have faith. For, as sight is only seeing, so faith is only believing. And as the only necessary thing about seeing is, that you see the thing as it is, so the only necessary thing about believing is, at you believe the thing as it is. The virtue does not lie in your believing, but in the thing you believe.

When a believer really trusts anything, he ceases to worry about that thing which he has trusted. And when he worries, it is a plain proof that he does not trust. Tested by this rule how little real trust there is in the Church of Christ! No wonder our Lord asked the pathetic question, “When the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?” He will find plenty of activity, a great deal of earnestness, and doubtless many consecrated hearts; but shall he find faith, the one thing He values more than all the rest?

<idle musing>
Scary indictments, yet I fear only too true. The book was written in 1875, but it feels like it could have been written yesterday (apart from the archaisms in the language). We could substitute programs for activity, and it would describe the average church today.
</idle musing>

It seems strange that people, whose very name of Believers implies that their one chiefest characteristic is that they believe, should have to confess to such experiences. And yet it is such a universal habit that I feel if the majority of the Church were to be named over again, the only fitting and descriptive name that could be given them would be that of Doubters. In fact, most Christians have settled down under their doubts, as to a sort of
inevitable malady, from which they suffer acutely, but to which they must try to be resigned as a part of the necessary discipline of this earthly life.

<idle musing>
Ouch! And we’re only halfway through the book! Stay tuned for next week’s installment, or buy/download the book for yourself and read it.
</idle musing>

Brother Lawrence on sanctification

“Our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works. Instead, it depended on doing that for God's sake which we commonly do for our own. He [Brother Lawrence] thought it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works which they performed very imperfectly by reason of their human or selfish regards. The most excellent method he had found for going to God was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men but purely for the love of God.”— Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

<idle musing>
Wise words. God is there in the ordinary, taking it and making it holy. We need to let go of the Greek dichotomy of secular and sacred. In the biblical world view, all is sacred, since all was created by and for God.
</idle musing>

Latest on Renee

I appreciate all the prayers that have been offered. This will probably be the last I post on this, unless the situation changes.

Happy Friday morning! Renee has just come off the magnesium sulfate that decreased the contractions. She's pretty happy to be off the IV, and might get a wheelchair ride down to the nursery! Now she will be monitored for the few hours to see how she does on her own. If the contractions do not flare up we will be able to go home, hopefully yet today, with an oral drug to inhibit the contractions. She'll be placed on bed rest for a couple weeks. The baby could be born safely today but would have to stay in the hospital for a week after its born.

<snip>

We've had peace so far as long as we do not look to the right or the left at the potential worries, but keep our eyes straight ahead on Jesus who isn't worried. Renee says she keeps running into this wall of peace. I guess that would be the strong fortress.

Quote for the day

“Brother Lawrence said that many do not advance in the Christian progress because they stick in penances and particular exercises while they neglect the love of God which is the end. This appeared plainly by their works and was the reason why we see so little solid virtue. He said there needed neither art nor science for going to God, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him and to love Him only.” —Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

Update on Renee

I just received an e-mail from Joel & Renee:

Renee is doing well, the contractions really settled down and the doctor is excited about that. She will receive another shot for development of the baby's lungs this morning, and have to wait another 24 hours on the magnesium sulfate IV til we see if [we] can go home.

It looks hopeful that we'll go home tomorrow, but Renee will be on moderate bed rest, whatever that means. Now she can only get up to use the bathroom. Which is quite the process considering all the hoses and cords, and that the medication is making her weak.

I'm glad I'm here to help. With some sleeping pills and Tylenol she was finally able to sleep last night despite the nurses checking on her and the bright computer lights. We wish we were here having a baby, but its best if Sweet Pea comes full term.

Moderate bed rest with a 21 month old son? Hmm...We really do appreciate all your prayers.

Eisenbrauns' January Sale

For January, Eisenbrauns is having a clearance sale!

To help make room for all those great new titles coming in 2007, we are offering 17-77% off on 59 titles that are overstocked. The sale is limited to the quantity on hand, first come, first served, so hurry.

To see all the sale items, please visit: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~~~SPECIAL

I'm not making money on most of these, so you probably won't find a better deal anywhere else. For example:
eBible Platinum Edition on CD-ROM (Windows)
Thomas Nelson, CD-ROM. English.
ISBN: 0785250247
List Price: $399.99 Your Price: $136.99 (66% savings and about $100 cheaper than anybody else!)
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~CDWEBIBLE

Tozer on the self

The recent Tozer quote over on Jim West's blog led me to scanning back through Pursuit of God over the weekend. I ran across this quote:

"For sin has played many evil tricks upon us, and one has been the infusing into us a false sense of shame. There is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without doctoring up the impression. The fear of being found out gnaws like rodents within their hearts. The man of culture is haunted by the fear that he will some day come upon a man more cultured than himself. The learned man fears to meet a man more learned than he. The rich man sweats under the fear that his clothes or his car or his house will sometime be made to look cheap by comparison with those of another rich man. So-called 'society' runs by a motivation not higher than this, and the poorer classes on their level are little better…

"This unnatural condition is part of our sad heritage of sin, but in our day it is aggravated by our whole way of life. Advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense. 'Courses' are offered in this or that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim's desire to shine at a party. Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are peddled, by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we are not. Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at Jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness. Then we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased. Then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are."—A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God, Chapter 9

What more is there to say?

A Jerusalem view

Lawson is back to blogging again, and has a good post from Jerusalem, where he is leading a group of seminary students. Here is a snippet from a very good post concerning the theological only view of the biblical text:

They rightly realize that faith cannot be tethered to the ephemeral whims of scholarly fashion. Unfortunately, they choose to ignore that insisting on the historical character of biblical truth does not necessitate enslavement to scholarly fads—unless one assumes naively (and many them do) that "the latest is the greatest" mistaking present trends for perennial truth. Similarly, to rate historical truth highly in theological interpretation doesn't necessitate historiography being a "tether" or "basis" for faith. Historical study typically enriches and enlarges, often correcting and focusing interpretations the truths already clearly implied in the text. They also get it right that the Bible's primary reference is to theological truth, but again, they ignore the centuries-old recognition, going all the way back to the Church Fathers, that the Bible refers to theological truth by means of historical reference. It is a mediated revelation: truth comes via historically shaped texts to alert, investigating, thoughtful faith. St. John says "The Word became flesh" not "The Word became text."

He has more, have a read.

Prayer request

I just received a phone call from Debbie. Renee (our daughter) is on her way to the hospital in Duluth (2 hours away from where they live in Grand Marais, MN). She is in labor, six weeks early. I would appreciate your prayers.

Update: The doctors have given Renee something to cause the contractions to stop. Apparently, they don't want the baby to be born yet. She is going to stay in the hospital overnight and then return home. I appreciate the prayers that people offered. If anything changes, I will post it here.

Quote from Brother Lawrence

“He [Brother Lawrence] said that as far as the miseries and sins he heard of daily in the world, he was so far from wondering at them, that, on the contrary, he was surprised there were not more considering the malice sinners were capable of. For his part, he prayed for them. But knowing that God could remedy the mischief they did when He pleased, he gave himself no further trouble.” —Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

New blog

I promised him I would wait until there was more than one post up before I announced it...Eisenbrauns acquisitions editor, John Cook, in association with one of his sons, Colin, has started a new blog entitled Beginning of Wisdom.

Here is how he describes it:

Having enjoyed a Latin Proverb of the Day blog and noting that nobody is doing anything similar for ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature, Colin and I have launched a new blog (mainly he picks the proverbs to discuss and I write up the post after we've discussed it over dinner).

Be sure to add it to your blogroll and check it out often. John is an excellent Hebraist and a good teacher as well.

Quote for the day

Over the weekend, I re-read the "Conversations" in The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. It is a delightful little book, and I will be posting quotes from it over the next few days. Here's the first one:

“Instead of taking faith for the rule of their conduct, men amused themselves with trivial devotions which changed daily. He[Brother Lawrence] said that faith was sufficient to bring us to a high degree of perfection. We ought to give ourselves up to God with regard both to things temporal and spiritual and seek our satisfaction only in the fulfilling of His will. Whether God led us by suffering or by consolation all would be equal to a soul truly resigned.”

What I'm reading now

As you probably gathered by the quote from the afterword, I have finished Bonhoeffer's Ethics. I am currently reading Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament . As I read it, I will be making brief comments; here is the summary of the first 100 or so pages.

The first part, consisting of 2 chapters, deals with comparative studies and examines the historical uses, both those who have attempted to defend the historicity of the text and those who have sought to show it wasn't historical. Walton defines a third alternative, which is his purpose, illuminating the text in order to avoid exegetical missteps.

The second part is a brief summary of the available literature from the ANE, complete with bibliographical references for those who wish to go deeper. The summary fills the purpose of the book fine, but if you are really interested in the wealth of material available, then Sparks, Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible is a better source.

The third part, where I am currently reading, consists of 3 chapters on the religion of the ANE. I found this quote, relating to the function of gods, especially interesting:

“Since their ontology was function oriented, a god who does not function or act fades into virtual nonexistence.” – page 94.

<idle musing>
Hmm, how is that different from now? Most people in the U.S. are functioning atheists (including many christians). They don’t believe that any deity can affect their lives on a day to day basis, so for all intents and purposes, a god doesn’t exist. Their ontology is strictly self-oriented and self-contained. The only time they trot out their god is for patriotic events, or in an emergency, or Sunday, or to impress others with how religious/ethical/moral they are. Far cry from real Christianity, at least as portrayed in the biblical text, where God is a daily reality and prayers are offered and answered.
</idle musing>

New Year's Eve

Last night we went over to Debbie's parents place for dinner and to watch the new year come in. After dinner, we decided to read a chapter in a book that we had read the first chapter in on Christmas Eve, each of us taking a turn reading about a page out loud. Well, it turned into 4 more chapters, and we probably would have read another 1-2, except the neighbors came over.

The book is an old Christian classic called The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life, available just about everywhere, including online. We were reading from the Barbour edition. Here are a few choice quotes:

A keen observer once said to me, “You Christians seem to have a religion that makes you miserable. You are like a man with a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but it hurts him to keep it.”

The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and our peculiar temperaments, our inward affairs of every kind, these are the things that perplex and worry us more than anything else, and that bring us oftenest into bondage and darkness. In laying off your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You must hand yourself and all your inward experiences, your temptations, your temperament, your frames and feelings, all over into the care and keeping of your God, and leave them there. He made you, and therefore He understands you and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it.

“According to our faith,” is always the limit and the rule.

But this faith of which I am speaking must be a present faith. No faith that is exercised in the future tense amounts to anything. A man may believe forever that his sins will be forgiven at some future time, and he will never find peace. He has to come to the now belief, and say by faith, “My sins are now forgiven,” before he can live the new life. And, similarly, no faith which looks for a future deliverance from the power of sin, will ever lead a soul into the life we are describing. The enemy delights in this future faith, for he knows it is powerless to accomplish any practical results. But he trembles and flees when the soul of the believer dares to claim a present deliverance, and to reckon itself now to be free from his power.

Sight is not faith, and hearing is not faith, neither is feeling faith; but believing when we can neither see, hear, nor feel is faith; and everywhere the Bible tells us our salvation is to be by faith. Therefore we must believe before we feel, and often against our feelings, if we would honor God by our faith. It is always he that believeth who has the witness, not he that doubteth.

On the whole, a most enjoyable way to bring in the new year! We plan on reading about a chapter each week together.

Catching up

Life is getting back to normal now. Over Christmas we had our 7 month pregnant daughter Renee, our son-in-law Joel, Joshua (their 21 month old), and our son Ryan visiting us. And on Christmas Eve, Debbie's parents came over. So, there were 8 of us around a 42 inch round table. Well, really only 7, because Joshua sat off to the side on a booster chair with a tray. Still, quite a few people around a table designed for 4. We had a grand time, though.

After dinner, we had a time of worship with Joel on the guitar and Ryan and Renee on the hand drums, some sharing of what God has done in our lives, and then communion. One of the joys of having adult children is being able to see and share in what God is doing in their lives. We rejoice in His goodness to us. The verse that I have always torn out of context (hey, eisegesis is good sometimes!) and asked God for in my children is III John 3 "No greater joy can I have than this, to hear that my children follow the truth." (RSV) God has answered that prayer abundantly and we praise him for it.

The continuing saga of programmers who can't spell

After a quiet few weeks, Travis is at it again. This time, though, it is a cry for help. Yesterday he posted this flyer on his door:


Since he has declared himself an independent state, he can't use company funds, I guess. Anyway, I did my part, I gave him a 10 cent Euro piece. So now he only needs $98.77. I doubt that a one day seminar is going to teach him to spell and write, though...

Why Bonhoeffer?

Why Bonhoeffer?
<idle musing>
That is the question some of us were discussing the other day. Why not Brunner, or Barth, or Moltmann, or…the list could go on ad infinitum. They are all good modern theologians, but why does Bonhoeffer seem to have something a bit different?

I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but there is something about Bonhoeffer that is unique and grabs me in a way that the other ones don’t. He seems more alive, more in touch with everyday life; his faith made a difference in the way he lived. I think that is why I like him. There is a passion that shines through in his writings; a conviction that ignites the soul and makes it feel alive.

As you read Bonhoeffer, you can sense that he had an encounter with the living God that was still alive in him. You see the difference in his writings after 1932. As Bethge (one of his students and his biographer) said of him: Before 1932 he was a good theologian, but once he encountered God, he became a Christian theologian.
</idle musing>

That’s my view anyway, anyone care to comment?

New CAD volumes arrived

Finally, after over 6 weeks delay at the printer, The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary volume T and Tet just arrived.

Chicago Assyrian Dictionary T
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary - CAD 18
Edited by Martha T. Roth
Oriental Institute-Chicago, 2006
510 pages, English
Cloth
ISBN: 1885923422
Your Price: $145.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~CADT

Chicago Assyrian Dictionary T. [Tet)
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary - CAD 19
Edited by Martha T. Roth
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Forthcoming December 22, 2006
170 pages, English
Cloth
ISBN: 1885923430
Your Price: $105.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~CADTET

Update: It appears that I had the wrong prices! I have corrected them downwards!

Quote for today

“If Jesus is not the Lord of every part of my life, then He is not Lord of any of it. This is true salvation—true faith—true obedience. Yes I must die to my life, my interests, my will in order to abide in Him. However, I will make a greater exchange—my life for His. I will acquire a greater prize; for He is faithful to return to me more than I have given Him.” Marilyn Howshall, The Mystery of the Gospel

Quote for today

“Not I, but Christ. This is the rest of faith in which a man rests from his works. With the unconverted man it Not Christ, but I. With the feeble and slothful Christian, I and Christ: I first and Christ to fill up what is wanting. With increasing earnestness it becomes Christ and I: Christ first, but still I second. With the man who dies with Christ it is, Not I, but Christ: Christ alone and Christ all. He has ceased from his work: Christ lives in him. This is the rest of faith.” Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All

Quote for today

“The point of departure for Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s concrete ethics is the theological question of how the reality of God revealed in Jesus Christ can take form in human life in the world. Bonhoeffer’s ethical reflection tries to understand God’s will and the world’s reality here and now, together, the one not without the other. Rather than treating the reality of the world as a matter of indifference—it is in fact disclosed completely anew—and rather than eclipsing it in some fashion, Bonhoeffer confronts the reality of the world with the Yes and No that God’s presence means for it.”—Editors’ Afterword to the German Edition of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, page 409 of English edition.

Quote for today

“The church does not have a twofold word, the one general, rational, and grounded in natural law and the other Christian—that is, it does not have one word for unbelievers and another for believers. Only a pharisaical arrogance can lead the church to withhold the proclamation of Christ from some but not from others. The word of the church is justified and authorized solely by the commission of Jesus Christ. Therefore any of its words that fail to take this authorization into account must be just empty chatter…Only by fulfilling its own mandate can it legitimately question the government about fulfilling its mandate.” —Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 399

Quote for the day

“Where private confession and church discipline have been lost, there God’s commandment in the sermon is merely understood as a proclamation of general moral principles, which as such are void of any concrete claim.” —Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 395

Ethics for today

“Even a master has a Master, and this fact alone makes him a master and authorizes and legitimizes him vis-à-vis the servant. Master and servant owe one another the respect that springs from their respective participation in God’s mandate.” —Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 391

Quote for the day

A Chinese house church leader once visited some major mega-churches in Los Angeles, California and when asked, “What do you think?” he responded with, ‘It’s amazing what your American Churches can do without the Holy Spirit.”

Bonhoeffer's 4 mandates

“The commandment of God revealed in Jesus Christ embraces in its unity all of human life. Its claim on human beings and the world through the reconciling love of God is all-encompassing. This commandment encounters us concretely in four different forms that find their unity only in the commandment itself, namely, in the church, marriage and family, culture, and government.” —Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 388