Through the Bible: Week 44 - Romans, part 3

Why Paul Wants to Visit Rome: “Eager to Preach the Gospel”

Romans 1: 8-17

Since it is not Paul’s practice to go where a church has already been founded (15:20), he explains his break from protocol.  He states 4 reasons for coming to Rome.  He comes in order to:

(1)    Impart a spiritual gift, to strengthen them (11).

(2)    For mutual encouragement, that each other’s faith will grow by interaction (12).

(3)    That he may harvest more people into the kingdom, thus fulfilling his apostolic      vocation (13).

(4)    Discharge his obligation to preach the gospel (14-15).

This last reason is elaborated in verses 16-17.  But note Paul’s change of perspective.  A Pharisee who was trained to keep strict boundaries of faith now finds himself outwardly oriented to others.  Paul’s own encounter with the risen Christ has transformed his outlook on life, in general, and other people in particular.  He is under obligation to both Greeks and barbarians, and he is eager to do so. 

Paul now, as a way of explanation, summarizes the nature of his gospel.  He is eager to preach it for the following reasons:

(1)    For he is not ashamed of it – even though he is a Jew living in occupied pagan territory, the gospel gives him a sense of triumph (cf. Psalm 71).

(2)    For it is God’s power of salvation.  The good news of Jesus death and resurrection is God’s dynamo to reorder the world.  Paul’s understanding of salvation is addressed more fully in chapters 5-8.  Note this ends with the redemption of creation. This message effects profound change.

(3)    For every one who believes – thus this is a universal message, not limited by ethnicity.

(4)    For God’s righteousness is revealed – God’s way of putting the world right is made manifest in the gospel.

Paul states finally that the gospel comes from God to humans by faith – from faith for faith.  Faith is the delivery system in the gospel.  Our openness and trust in God positions us to receive God’s gospel.

Through the Bible: Week 43 - Romans, part 2

What and Why Paul is Writing: “The Obedience of Faith”

Romans 1: 1-7

Paul has self identified as an apostle of “the gospel of God.”  He mentions several things about this “good news” which bears close scrutiny.

1. The gospel is good news not good advice.  It is a royal proclamation about what God has done to set the world right through his Son.  The gospel is first and foremost about what God has done not what should do.

2. The good news is long promised – thus Paul reviews Jesus’ pedigree (v3-4).  Thus we are introduced to the full humanity and deity of Jesus. 

3. The good news is closely tied to Jesus Christ.  The good news has him as its subject.  It is about his arrival, his death, his resurrection – and the implications of all that for the world. 

4. But there is an implication of this good news – “to bring about the obedience of faith.”  This phrase sandwiches the whole letter thus underlying its importance (16:26).

• “Obedience” – derives from the word “to hear.”  It is not performance in relation to a law.  It is a relational word and implies a willingness to be open and responsive to the communication of another.
• Sometimes Elizabeth asks me to “listen.”  If I don’t listen I cannot fully appreciate or relate to her in an appropriate manner.  Thus it is with God.   

      5.   This rendering of “obedience” fits the word it modifies – “faith”.

·         Faith is essentially a posture of “trust” or “openness.”

·         Example of interacting with estranged friend. 

·         Opens possibilities of insight and understanding; this insight comes from the other side of the world, as a distant One who comes close to guide and teach me. 

·         This experience of relatedness opens me to the other.  Faith implies a posture of other-orientedness.  My goal is sharing the gospel is not, first, to change another.  IT is rather, to share a common humanity that is estranged, in need of reconciliation.  We must experience a fraternity, beginning with the experience of the otherness of God.  What does this mean for us?  It means, even if we are different, that difference is much smaller than our difference from God.  Yet this God, the one revealed in Jesus Christ, has come close to decrease the difference.  God’s incarnation has made reconciliation possible.  There is hope that we can be reconciled to each other in Him.  We will pick this theme up next week. 

Through the Bible: Week 42 - Romans, part 1

 

Paul: A Slave of Jesus Christ

Romans 1:1-7

This is a conventional introduction to a letter, except it has been expanded (cf. Galatians and Philippians).  Paul spends more than the usual time introducing himself partly, no doubt, because the church in Rome has not had personal contact with him.  It should also be remembered that, in antiquity, letters always substituted for the actual presence of the author – an epistolary proxy. There are several words and phrases employed by Paul that merit close scrutiny.

“Slave of JC” = property of another.  By use of this word, in a very socially structured world, Paul is at once saying two things.  1^st, he claims to belong to another.  He is not, as the saying goes, “his own man.”  Rather, one cannot fully understand or appreciate Paul without reference to Christ.  2^nd, Paul is countering the imperial overtones of Rome by acknowledging another master.  Paul is at once humble and political. 

“Called to be an apostle” – Paul associate his vocation (apostle) with his conversion (Christian).  See Acts 9:15.  Paul viewed the Christian life vocationally – we are all called to represent Christ regardless of our occupation.  Some do it from a pulpit, some a desk, or from a tractor or a bench.  Paul took up tent making in order that people would not think his Christianity was merely professional. “Apostle” – comes from the verb meaning to “be sent.”  An apostle is a “sent one.”  Paul was especially sent to evangelize the Gentiles.  His Hellenistic background prepared him for such a mission.

“Set apart for the gospel” – a participle derived from the same root as the word “Pharisee.”  Before meeting the resurrected Lord, Paul had been set apart for the Torah.  Now this orientation of exclusive allegiance has been given to another.  The Lord takes Paul’s training and orientation and uses it for redemptive purposes.  “Gospel” refers to a glad announcement in Greek – either the birth of a royal child, or the ascension of a King, a royal marriage – something to bring blessing on the realm.  In Hebrew, gospel has specific reference to the “good news” that Israel is to return from exile (cf. Isa. 40:9). 

These self identifications help us to know how to read Paul, what are the best “lenses” for understanding him.

1. Personal lens – his encounter of the Resurrected Lord was revolutionary.
2. Social lens – he had the “mind of Christ” and knew how to humble himself so that he could communicate with those for who his message was intended.
3. Historical lens – the good news of Jesus Christ was the story through which he made sense of the world and by which he intended the world to understand itself. 

We will discuss the nature of this “gospel” – or good news – next post.  

Known for What We Are Against

 

The Great Evangelical Recession

A powerful diagnoses and prescription of evangelical Christianity in North America.

All of the vestry and staff are reading this book.  Check this link for a splendid synopsis and join the parish conversation:  http://crossmap.christianpost.com/news/christian-pastor-on-decline-of-cultural-influence-evangelicals-are-known-for-what-were-against-3888

Summer (and Fall) Reading

Top Ten

 

Jonathan Merritt has posted an inviting article about his favorite 10 religious books he has read in the past 10 years.  I invite you to share your favorite or most influential 10 religious books.  You can read his here: http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/07/15/top-10-religious-books-ive-read-in-the-last-10-years/ 

And mine are here:

1) Witness to Hope: Biography of Pope John Paul II by George Weigel.
The seminal biography of the most influential leader of the 20th century who was, among many things, the conscience of human rights in Eastern Europe as well as a strategic player in the fall of the Soviet Communist bloc.  But more importantly he saw around corners better than anyone and provided an antidote to the Western slide into the sexual nihilism we are now facing.  

2) Without End: New and Collected Poems by Adam Zagajweski
Outside of the Hebrew Prophets no poet has ever written so powerfully at the intersection of history and transcendence.  Zagajweski is our greatest living voice.  Along with four or five other Polish poets he has preserved his culture despite the collapse of his country - which is another similarity to the Hebrew Prophets.

3) Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the 21st Century by Harvey Cox
This swashbuckling account of the the Pentecostal movement is no mere chronicling.  Cox digs deep at the wellsprings of this revitalizing force within twentieth century Christianity.  Its essential reading for understanding Global Christianity in the 21st century.

4) Evangelical Disenchantment: 9 Portraits of Faith and Doubt by David Hempton
If surrender to the Holy Spirit is the primal source of enchanted Christianity, read this book to find out how the Church becomes "disenchanted." The American Church is increasingly in such a state and here is an important reason why.  (All the books on this list are antidotes to disenchantment).  

5) Desiring the Kingdom by James K.A. Smith
This is volume one of a planned trilogy whereby Smith explains how humans at the root are liturgical beings (we worship stuff) and who are constantly and subversively being shaped by cultural and secular liturgies (i.e. the mall, the stadium, etc).  The antidote is not first and foremost apologetics but proper worship of the God who became King and who embodies ultimate reality.  We become real by worshiping Him.    

6) How God Became King by N.T. Wright
I could put two or more books by Wright on this list, but this one in particular places a lot of his earlier and scholarly tomes into the reach of all of us.  I have a few quibbles with Wright, but this book inspires worship of Jesus and builds confidence in the goodness of the Good News. 

7) Introduction to Phenomenology by Robert Sokolowski
Three of my favorite twentieth century theologians - Pope John Paul II, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and  Dallas Willard - were all trained phenomenologists.  This book helped me to be a better student of their writings, to read them with more sympathy and understanding. 

8) Housekeeping by Marilynn Robinson
I liked Gilead and Home, Robinson's more well known novels but this her first novel is my favorite.  The book aroused a longing in me that was difficult to name.  Very memorable. Her essays also merit your attention.  I'd start with the Death of Adam.  She is my favorite living Calvinist writer. 

9)  Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird
This is an enormously wise guide on "apophatic" prayer - prayer that brings us into the ever present presence of God without the aid of images.  At the source of our being is the triune God and prayer is ultimately about coming into contact with the One who is our life. 

10) When God Speaks Back by Tanya Luhrmann
This is a fair and insightful study of Charismatic Evangelical Prayer in various Vineyard Churches in North America.  John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard, was also very influential in the charismatic renewal within Anglicanism.  Thus, this is an insightful guide into the prayer life of many of us at Truro.  It describes "kataphatic" prayer - prayer  that sparks off of interior images. 

Lack of clergy training partly to blame for tribal conflicts

Truro has several mission partners working in the Sudan: 5 Talents, Becky Shah and Tom Prichard.  Archbishop Moses Deng Bol traces much of the conflict in the region to an inadequate understanding of the gospel.  That is true not just in the Sudan but also in the USA.  Those who have a shallow and inadequate grasp of the gospel of peace tend to escalate rather than deescalate conflict.

Let us continue our work among the Sudanese as well as continue to grow with them in the work of peacemaking.

Read more here.

After DOMA: Our Missionary Future

Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled on two cases dealing with the issue of same sex unions.  Many scholars agree that the implications of those rulings will result in the full and eventual state recognition and sanction of “gay marriage.” 

At one level, the rulings are not surprising.  The Supreme Court is famous for following opinion and trends rather than leading it.  In these cases, a majority of our society has already accepted the logic and moral perspective of the “marriage equality” movement.  The Supreme Court has simply ratified a change in the culture that has already occurred.  The anthropological issues we are confronting – Where do humans come from? How do we live? What are we for? questions of desire, design and destiny –  have been with us for centuries.

Having placed these rulings in their proper context, the Court’s rulings this week cause us to reflect more deeply on what we believe and hope for.  To the degree one believes Judeo-Christian marriage is a) a common good for society, b) a sign from God intended to reveal his loving intentions for the world and his people, and c) a cultural achievement (heterosexual monogamous marriage must be taught, embodied and transmitted generationally), then yesterday’s ruling has enormous implications for the life and witness of the Church.  To the degree we at Truro believe we are called to promote the common good of marriage and to teach and embody the significance of Christian marriage, we must try to grasp the missionary moment before us.

For the past five years, Elizabeth and I have done extensive teaching and ministry on the matter of marriage.  In the past four years we together have led nearly 200 couples through the Marriage Course, we have counseled dozens of others at church and home, we have hosted three conferences on Marriage and Family and we have taught the Theology of the Body to show that our convictions arise from the deepest currents of Scripture and the Church’s Tradition.  It appears to me that God has been preparing us for this moment, so we can reach out to our culture in love and humility. 

The probing questions I lay before us now are these:  why have we, for a decade, been on this journey of proclaiming the goodness and divine origin and purpose of marriage, teaching marriage and rebuilding marriages?  Even now fourteen members of the parish are in Bovolone, Italy learning more on the sacred work of marriage.  Could this work be, in part, to prepare us for such a time as this?  Is God showing us our new missionary purpose and suggesting how we might build bridges of love and understanding to those who don’t know the reality of this “great mystery” (Ephesians 5)? 

Just as I believe God calls and equips individuals, in part, through the particular trials and tragedies they endure, I believe God calls churches and communities of believers through their collective trials.  God is the ultimate recycler.  Everything can be redeemed (and I mean everything) when placed on the altar of his perfect love and our humble obedience. 

Your brother in Christ,

Tory Baucum+