Barth for today

"In 1932 I did not know the Fundamentalists so well. The Fundamentalist says he knows the Bible, but he must have become master over the Bible, which means master over revelation… I consider it just another kind of natural theology: a view of the modern man who wants to control revelation."—Karl Barth

Quote for the day

“Only that which participates in Christ can endure and overcome. Christ is the center and power of the Bible, of the church, of theology, but also of humanity, reason, justice, and culture. To Christ everything must return; only under Christ’s protection can it live.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 341

Eisenbrauns 2 week sale

For the next 2 weeks (December 11-26), Eisenbrauns is offering 30% off on volumes 1-9 of the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archaeologie. Details here

Call it an early Christmas present for Assyriologists!

Reflecting on The Great Giveaway

I just finished The Great Giveaway by David Fitch, published by Baker Books. I found it a very stimulating book. His basic thesis is that the Evangelical Church has given away the formation of disciples of Jesus Christ to popular culture. Specifically, we allow the values of capitalism, consumerism, democracy, self-actualization, materialism, and patriotism as found in popular culture to influence our life more than we do the Christ in the Bible.

We form our churches on the model of big business, with our pastors expected to be CEOs, without even thinking about how that changes the focus of the church (as an aside, I know of one church that justifies the multi-million dollar per year salary of their head pastor on the basis of the pay for the CEO of a similar size business!). We give away counseling to psychotherapists, even Christian ones, who are trained to focus on the self as the source of solutions instead of taking the necessary time to see if the problems are sin issues, economic issues, etc., in stark contrast to Christ’s command to die to self. Seems that listening to the voice of someone/thing other than God is what got us into this whole mess in the first place (Genesis 3). The list goes on.

I basically agree with his analysis of the situation, but his solution is equally problematic. He wants to return to liturgy, catechesis, etc. He freely admits that his answers are not necessarily the best, but they are the ones he is using in the church he pastors. He also has some other suggestions, some good, some not as good. I think in some cases he goes too far; in others, not far enough.

<soap box alert>
For example, he wants to change the sermon to make it more relevant and less spoon feeding of propositional truths to hearers. I agree, we should change it, but the best change is to abolish it! We need to have teaching as interaction, not teaching as lecture!

Think about the last conversation you had. Do you remember more clearly what you said, or what the other person said? Exactly! The Socratic Method needs to be brought back into the church (DIALOGOS, in its best Greek meaning).
</soap box alert>

There are a few nitpicky things that bothered me about this otherwise very worthwhile read:
1. Use footnotes, not endnotes! The notes are essential to forwarding the argument of the book in many places. Don’t relegate them to the back of the book.
2. Edit out the department of redundancy department phrases. The book could have benefited dramatically from a heavier editing. The book could easily have lost 50 pages if the editor had made him clarify his thoughts. Of course, that same editor would probably have made him incorporate some of the notes into the text, so the end result would be a book of the same length. : )

But, the book is definitely worth the read. I have already offered it to 2 people, and no, Eisenbrauns doesn’t sell it!

Update:
I was catching up on a blog whose RSS feed doesn't work, and ran across this:

Alternatives to monologue preaching
Both the New Testament and church planting movements offer very effective alternatives to the monologue. As mentors of emerging leaders of new congregations, we should be able to train others in these alternatives.

Dialogue. (Acts 17:2; 20:7; 17:11; 24:25) The apostles preferred to “dialogue” with both seekers and believers, both individuals and groups. Dialogue, conversations with a purpose, allow a teacher to answer folk’s questions, allay their fears, inform their ignorance, appeal to their conscience, and help them choose what they will do. Believers are to teach and instruct “one another” (Col. 3:16; Rom 15:14). Dialogue is easier to do in small groups than in big congregations. Since most folks already know how to dialogue with their friends and relatives, doing so is a superior way to share about Jesus and the way of life that He calls everyone to follow.

You should read the rest.

Emerging?

Hmmm...there has been a bit of noise around the blogs this week about the emerging church. It appears that a well known radio preacher has sent out a fund-raising letter blasting the emerging church as heretical, or at least dangerous, doctrinally. Nice response here by Dan Kimball, and another one here from Leighton Tebay. Very nice responses, so I won't add to them.

<idle musing>
This does raise a very interesting question, though. What is the biblical basis for fund raising letters for oneself/one's own ministry?

I know that Paul writes about money a good deal, and we would do well to take it to heart. But, does Paul ever ask for money for his own stuff? I don't recall it. He asks on behalf of the church in Jerusalem, which is loaded with theological significance to him, since it is the first fruits of the inflow of the gentiles described in the prophets. But, does he ever ask for it on his own behalf?

Maybe I am wrong (wouldn't be the first time), but I tend to think the model shown by George Mueller and Hudson Taylor is more scriptural. They made their requests known to God, and he supplied their needs.

In fact, if you read Hudson Taylor's biography, you will see that he was more concerned that God would send the right people than he was with money. At one point he had more money than missionaries to use it, which caused him to opine that he always figured that when God sent the person, the money would follow and that money was of secondary importance.

Perhaps our current obsession with fund raising letters is a result of how we view the church. Is the church the organic body of Christ, or is it just another organization to be run on American business principles? How we answer that question is foundational to how we act. Are "decisions for Christ" what the church is all about? Is spoon feeding hearers propositional truth what the church is all about? If so, then business principles might apply. If, however, the church is about relationships between people and between people and God, then we need to seriously reexamine how we "do church." To run a church (or ministry) on business principles, complete with surveys and 5 year plans and mass mailings and logo-ed charge cards(!!! don't get me started on that one) is to do violence to the concept of the kingdom of God present in an assembled body of believers.

How can we expect to bring about the kingdom of God by fleshly effort and methods? Well, the subject of that sentence says it all, doesn't it? Anytime the subject of the sentence is anything other than the triune God, results are, at best, poor substitutes for the presence of the living God in the church as a body of believers (2 or more!).

Now there is a radical thought—two or more. That means that when I am with my wife, or my kids, or co-workers, or friends, we are "doing church." Kinda blows the mind, doesn't it? Drop the dichotomy of secular-sacred and walk in the presence of God all the time! Wow! Sounds so—well, scriptural!

OK, enough rambling for one day...
</idle musing>

Inside Eisenbrauns, update

For those of you following the continuing saga, I present the evidence. Below is Travis' declaration of independence, complete with bad grammar.



Poor, misguided young lad! He doesn't know how much he needs our assistance. Those of us who are part of the coalition to re-annex the Independent Office of Travis Spangle are committed to doing so peacefully, if possible.

As a show of good will on our part, we translated our Petition into Wingding, the official language of said office. Since there is no Google Language tool or Babelfish for Wingding, We enlisted the skills of our resident linguist, John Cook. John put forth significant effort, the results of which are below.

Inside Eisenbrauns

As you probably know, we hired a programmer last Spring. He has assisted us greatly in bringing such things as the RSS feeds to life. He does have a problem: he can't spell and his English grammar sometimes needs a bit of help.

In the interest of assisting him, some of us began editing his e-mails and returning them to him, in the hopes that he would take to heart our assistance. Sorry to say, he did not appreciate our attempts. In fact, he issued a statement of secession! He posted it on his office door, complete with bad grammar and spelling mistakes. It has remained there for over a month.

Today, in an attempt to help him see the error of his ways, a petition was posted on his office door, encouraging him to return to the Eisenbiz.



I will keep you updated as the situation escalates :)

Used books on sale all December

I almost forgot to post this...I must be too busy.

For the entire month of December, Eisenbrauns is offering 15% off the price on all used books. Be sure to take advantage of this chance to save even more on the already low cost of our used books. Complete details can be found here

Pride redivus

Monday night I was going through some archived data, trying to find something that Debbie needed. In the process, I came across some stuff I had written back 6 years ago, and some stuff from 3 years ago. What an arrogant jerk I was! I couldn't believe the pride that emanated from the writing.

Well, maybe I can, because it opened a door in my soul that stuck with me throughout Tuesday. I found myself acting in a way and saying things that were arrogant, inconsiderate, uncaring, and unloving. It wasn't until last night that I realized how I had been acting all day. I had to spend a bit of time with God, allowing him to once again crucify what I had thought was dead—and it was/is dead according to scripture. I just chose to live outside of what Christ has already done, and once you do that...well it ain't pretty.

Quote for the day

“The New Testament answers quite unambiguously the question about what love is by pointing exclusively to Jesus Christ. Christ is the sole definition of love. But everything would be misunderstood once more if a general definition of love were to be derived from looking at Jesus Christ and Christ’s doing and suffering. Love is not what Christ does and suffers, but what Christ does and suffers. Love is always Jesus Christ himself. Love is always God himself. Love is always God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.” —Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 335.

OK, I fell for it

I just couldn't resist...

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Book Snob
Dedicated Reader
Literate Good Citizen
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Hmm, the colors didn't seem to come through. Just so you know: The very top one is at about 85-90%. Of the five below it, the top two are at about 75%, the third one at 50%, and the other two have nothing.

No surprise, is there?

HT: Rick Mansfield

Quote for the day

Thus says the Lord:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
and make mere flesh their strength,
whose hearts turn away from the Lord.
They shall be like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see when relief comes.
They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit.
The heart is devious above all else;
it is perverse—
who can understand it?
I the Lord test the mind
and search the heart,
to give to all according to their ways,
according to the fruit of their doings.

Jeremiah 17:5-10 RSV

Ethics

“It is evident that the only appropriate attitude of human beings toward God is doing God’s will. The purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to do it (see the ending of Matthew 7!). Only in doing does submission to the will of God happen. In doing the will of God, human beings completely relinquish any right of their own, nay justification of their own; in doing, they humbly subject themselves to the gracious judge. Holy Scripture insists so emphatically on our doing because it intends to deprive us of any self-justification before God that is grounded in our won knowledge of good and evil. It seeks to prevent human beings’ own deeds from being placed side by side with God’s deed, even if as thanksgiving or as sacrifice. Instead, Holy Scripture puts human beings completely within God’s doing, and subjects human doing completely to the doing of God. The mistake of the Pharisees was not their adamant insistence on the necessity of doing, but rather that they themselves did not get around to doing actual deeds. ‘They say and do not do it.’

“In demanding the deed, scripture actually does not point people to their own capacities but to Jesus Christ himself. ‘Without me you can do nothing’ (John 15:5). This sentence must be understood in the strictest sense. There really is no doing without Jesus Christ. All the multiple activities that otherwise have the appearance of doing, all the countless tasks, are considered in Jesus’ judgment as if nothing had been done.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, pages 326-327

Ethics for a Monday

“The freedom of Jesus is not arbitrary choice of one among countless possibilities. Instead, it consists precisely in the complete simplicity of his action, for which there are never several possibilities, conflicts, or alternatives, but always only one. Jesus call this one option the will of God. He calls it his food to do this wil. This ill of God is his life. He lives and acts not out of the knowledge of good and evil, but out of the will of God. There is only one will of God. In it, the origin of everything is regained. It is the source of freedom and simplicity in everything that is done” —Bonhoeffer, Ethics, page 313

Ethics for December 3

“It is the encounter of Jesus with the Pharisees that most clearly highlights the contrast of the old and the new. The proper understanding of this encounter is very important for understanding the gospel as such; the Pharisees are not an accidental historical phenomenon of Jesus’ time, but human beings for whom nothing but the knowledge of good and evil has come to be important for their entire lives. The Pharisee is the epitome of the human being in the state of disunion. Any caricature of the Pharisees takes away the seriousness and importance of Jesus’ confrontation with them. Pharisees are those human beings, admirable to the highest degree, who subject their entire lives to the knowledge of good and evil and who judge themselves as sternly as their neighbors—and all to the glory of God, whom they humbly thank for this knowledge. For Pharisees, every moment of life turns into a situation of conflict in which they have to choose between good and evil. In order to avoid wrongdoing, all their thought day and night are intensely focused on the unfathomable number of possible conflicts in order to think them trough in advance, come to a decision, and determine their own choice. Innumerable facts have to be taken into account, weighed, and distinguished. The more minute the distinctions, the more indisputable the correct decision. Life in all its variety is certainly taken into account.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, pages 309-310

<idle musing>
Wow, talk about an impossible task! But, that seems to be what a lot of christians do. They want to make sure that God is pleased, so every possible scenario is examined under a microscope…Bonhoeffer is calling us to freedom. The freedom of surrendering all decisions to the grace of God. Listening to the Spirit and walking in true freedom. I’ll take that any day over hyper-analyzing every decision.
</idle musing>

Revival thoughts

Over at The Heresy Leighton Tebay has some good thoughts Reconsidering Revival. The post is about a week old now, but I have been digesting his thoughts since last weekend.

It is thought that if we pray the right way, or have the right anointed leader, or have attained enough spiritual authority revival will come.

Spiritual authority is a concept that shifts from group to group. Some believe that there is a hierarchical governing authority to everything flowing down from apostles to prophets to pastors to elders to men to women and finally children. Others also believe that through a spiritual process individuals or groups gain more authority to break down oppressive spiritual strongholds. For revival to come they must go through a continual process of empowerment and refinement. Leaders must strive to achieve a level of prophetic clarity so they can hear God accurately and speak powerful words. When they reach a certain level they will be able to pull down the spiritual strongholds that hold a particular geographic area captive. The strategy employed to do this is called spiritual mapping. When this is successful the spiritual bonds that keep people from Christ are broken, the Holy Spirit floods out and people flood back in to the church.

How this looks in the real world is sometimes far from the ideal. In all my years of observing such groups the spiritual breakthrough has never arrived. Some maintain that it is still coming...

I think the overwhelming message of the Spirit these days is "clean up your act and get your show on the road". It is a terrible mistake to hide behind safe walls in sheltered enclaves waiting for something to happen. I think the impetus behind an obsessive focus on intercession and spiritual warfare could be a terrible deception designed to keep spiritually empowered Christians away from the rest of the world.

I believe the most powerful vehicle for building the kingdom of God that we can employ is the local church. As a simple church advocate I'd say the local church can be something very small and relatively unstructured and still be a church. I've lost a lot of faith in independent ministries and para-church organizations. It feels odd for me to say this because the best influences in the first 10 years of my Christian life were para-church ministries. I really think all these smart gifted people that are frustrated with the inaction of the church need to find their way back. Things like evangelism, teaching and discipleship work best in a community of believers that are actually committed to each other.

Some might think I would oppose a revival if one actually occurred. I'm not against it because a true revival will be the work of God. I believe it has become an idol in some elements of the Christian church. Our focus on what we want God to do (through us usually) has distracted us from stepping out in faith and doing what we know we are supposed to do. I don't believe God would bring a flood of people in to a church that is already full of people indistinguishable from the world.

<idle musing>
I come from a revivalist background. I firmly believe in revival. But, Leighton's comments are right on. Some of us have idolized revival and made it the answer instead of Jesus. Jesus is always the source of any revival that there might be. The surest way to experience revival is to surrender our will to his and allow the Holy Spirit to transform us.

Obedience, not manifestations or experiences, is the evidence of revival. As long as there is no difference between those in the church and those outside the church, don't look for a revival in the land. The revival must begin in the church. I read once that the best way to pray for revival was to get down on your knees on the floor, draw a circle around yourself and start praying for revival within the circle! And that revival will be a fresh realization of who Jesus is and what he demands from us–not a feel-good experience that allows us to continue to wallow in our sins.
</idle musing>

Bonhoeffer's Ethics returns

“Only by the call of grace heard in Jesus Christ, by which I am claimed, may I live justified before God as slave or free, married or single. From Christ’s perspective this life is now my vocation; from my own perspective it is my responsibility.

“This rules out two disastrous misunderstandings, that of cultural Protestantism and that of monasticism. People do not fulfill the responsibility laid on them by faithfully performing their earthly vocational obligations as citizens, workers, and parents, but by hearing the call of Jesus Christ that, although it leads them also into earthly obligations, is never synonymous with these, but instead always transcends them as a reality standing before and behind them. Vocation in the New Testament sense is never a sanctioning of the worldly orders as such. Its Yes always includes at the same time the sharpest No, the sharpest protest against the world…Vocation is the place at which one responds to the call of Christ and thus lives responsibly. The task given to me by my vocation is thus limited; but my responsibility to the call of Jesus Christ knows no bounds.”—Bonhoeffer, Ethics, pages 290-291

Biblical Studies Carnival

Jim West has posted the latest Biblical Studies Carnival, and what a carnival it is. AAR/SBL makes the sideshow...

With the expansion of blogdom, I find these helpful in keeping track of what is happening and where. Thanks, Jim, for an entertaining update.

How do you follow up AAR/SBL?

Choosing a sale after AAR/SBL is always a dilemma. A large percentage of our customers attend AAR/SBL and have just purchased a fair number of books at a good discount. So, that pretty much eliminates Eisenbrauns titles and the newer distributed books. It also eliminates most other publishers' books, too, since they can offer a deeper discount than I can.

So, what to do? One obvious answer is to put used books on sale. Nobody was selling used books at AAR/SBL, so that market is open. So, watch for that to happen on Monday. Meantime, what to do for a 10 day sale? It's too late to give me feedback for this sale, but I still have 2 more before the end of the year.

What would you like Eisenbrauns to put on sale (and why)?

Quote for the day

The stuff of which the future society will be made is Man himself and you cannot build a marble temple with a mixture of mud and manure. — Eugene O'Neill