Spirit scholarship - NIV upgrade

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I've been purchasing a lot of teaching materials from Regent College in the last year.  It complements some  reading - in some ways has been a season for getting grounded more deeply. 

Also, I went to a few meetings a little while ago, a conference, where dimensions of the Spirit were very evident; healing and power and prophetic ministry.   

 Wrote some notes afterwards, on how i saw these things intersecting.  This was part of a broader discussion - what follows here is actually based on the fourth set of notes i wrote  describing aspects of the event. 

There is a lot going on when one event needs so much description! So i think this set might stand being turned into a post. 

The earlier notes had more direct description, so I'll only say  there were unusual dimensions of God present. Healings, prophetic activation (ie use of that gift and training as well etc), deliverance stuff during worship or ministry time (well handled as not the main focus of course).  Multiple rich prayer ministry times. Reconciliation with people i didn't know were going.

Whether we are unusual for thinking all that is unusual, is an interesting question. But i get ahead of myself - lets see what Jesus and Paul say.

 First, a Gospel verse.  (And i think its healthy to come to Paul with the Gospels in view- we too often go the other way I think). This verse was coming to mind:

As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.  (Matt 10)

What resonated here was the evidence of the Kingdom that the disciples were entrusted with . We could explain it away as ceased, but I’ve seen too many glimpses of it - including at this event  - to believe that is a good explanation. 

Which leaves the question of the biblical account of the dimension of the Spirit in this regard, in the Pauline churches.

 As it happened I went for a  run one morning during the conference – happened to be up to a commentary on Galatians on ipod in an NT survey i was listening to.

So, let me put it like this -  consider Gal 3:1  & 3:5

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. …. So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

So far sounds like good elements of 'reformation theology' I think.  By 'reformation theology' i mean the traditional protestant understanding of the Gospel - of justification by faith, (or better, by grace, through faith)  -  faith in the work of Jesus on the Cross - all of which i agree with.  But I'm also persuaded by current scholars that while the 16th Century Reformation retrieved many valuable keys; it did so in a way that also missed some of the larger picture - that it did not fully get all of Paul, dimensions of the kingdom, role of the covenants, nature of Israel, creation background, etc. I'm sure that's not controversial, and that scholarship since then has of course moved on - but the basic Protestant understanding of the Gospel, of justification, perhaps has not taken all of that in - we still  tend to read Romans like Luther did, as though Paul was really dealing with the corruption of the Catholic church and restoring the individual's path to salvation (will return to some of that in a moment).    

 Anyway, back to Galatians 3.1 and 3.5, where there certainly is a 'reformation like' focus on explaining Jesus death, a strong insistence that this is the main game. Indeed Paul is calling them back to this, away from those who want to put the pagan converts into a Jewish expectation of circumcision etc. 

But consider the middle verses which join it together; which confirm the promise is here and now, and still by grace and faith, rather than Judaic laws. 

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?  So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 

 So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”   

This is the core of the issue: most NIV bibles are now out of date here – the 2011 NIV has updated the translation of verse 4  (ie “Have you experienced so much in vain”  is now recognized as a better translation than the previous  “Have you suffered so much in vain” – the same word can mean either, but experience is now acknowledged as the better translation in this passage) 

This is a significant change to how that verse reads. And exactly the argument I was listening to as i ran early that conference morning (the recording was from 2006, pre the new translation).  Since then, I’ve heard another scholar teach exactly  that same point (series dated from the 1990s)

Somehow the teaching has more clout when you see it in black and white in the new 2011 version.  Can’t argue its just a few scholars with a particular bent.

Fee made the point (15 years ago) that scholars have mistranslated that suffering/experience word because our own experience - or more exactly, our lack of comparable experience - pre-conditions our reading.

That is, Paul says to Galatians, something many scholars of the era couldn’t hear:

Message of the Cross

        was validated among you by experience of the Spirit and miracles
           
thus confirms God gives righteousness -as evidenced by the gift of His own Spirit and Presence -  to Gentiles!  - through faith in the promise rather than the strictures of Torah  - and reads the key example of promise by grace back into the story of  Abraham.  

(So this is a telling of the national story that shows the promise and grace preceded the Torah and its function - and the experience of the Spirit, among Gentiles, is the practical confirmation that this is true.  Not "God said it and i believed it" - but closer to "God did it and we experienced it". 

                                   

So the true biblical account has  these “cross and justification” terms (classic concerns of ‘reformation theology') woven around an argument that depends, crucially, on an appeal to the experience of the Spirit. 

Various scholars (eg Fee, Watts, Wright) note Paul couldn’t make that argument to many modern churches - couldn't appeal to the dimension of the Spirit (those miracles & the reality of God in your midst) – because the experience of the Spirit is so often muted. Hence the debatable status of being "biblical" by just doctrine.  Here too is the risk of reading our hermeneutic- our interpretive principles - back onto the text. Our lack of experience means we are not equipped to deal with the nuances of Spirit experience which were evidently something Paul could just cite as evidence. 

Thus also the temptation to change ‘experience’ of the Spirit back to  ‘suffering’.  Paul teaches on suffering elsewhere of course - I'm not sidestepping that - but that's not the most likely meaning here. Spirit experience and miracles are the context.

 Paul’s point is the Spirit was not given even to Torah observant Jews – he of all people knows that, having ended up opposed to Christ – hence his argument on the futility of returning to those Jewish laws and customs (and Abraham is of course cited to illustrate that the promise of that blessing of all nations - now fulfilled in the outpouring of the Spirit - was originally given before the Law.).

A number of Fee’s other critiques seem to have influenced the 2011 translation as well (he was on the NIV translation committee) - or i guess the arguments are now  acknowledged as the consensus of best scholarship.  (For example, Paul knows nothing of such terms as a ‘spirit of unity’, or a ‘spirit of wisdom’ – pneuma is never used to mean 'spirit' in that generic way in Greek of the era – Paul always implies the Holy Spirit when he uses pneuma words– hence the capitalization of various spirit references in the 2011 translation.  Most of those instances have been updated - a few remain.
 (Similarly Paul is never far from Torah when he says Law - moral law in general is not usually the point.)  

I think the Bible – and true Pauline theology – is much more Spirit inflected than reformation theology has yet managed to get a handle on, by and large  - that for all the treasures that Luther and Calvin recovered re justification by faith, atonement, election, etc - perhaps there are some biblical dimensions of the centrality the Spirit in the church that they did not fully understand or experience, or perhaps just not emphasize in their writing given the debates of the day - and are still sidestepped in some quarters, given that's the heritage many think of as truest Christianity.   

And yes, my belief is conditioned by experience. But that cuts both ways  - its seems we've also endured poor translations due to lack of experience.   Just as Jesus referred to two sources of error in the Sadducees' reasoning: "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God" (Matt 22)   - we tend to think the scriptures are sufficient and we can  get it right on that alone; the mistranslation of this Galatians verse is one key example that shows its not the case.

Wright makes the point that the reformers would be the first to say keep deepening faith against the best readings of the Bible.  We shouldn’t ossify their position. 

For other areas where Reformation theology may not be fully biblical, and to return to the point above, consider Luther’s anti-Semitism. I gather this is not a personal blind spot - even less a sin against  the modern idol of 'tolerance'  -  as much as his need to see the Catholic church as the same sort of thing that Paul experienced in Judaism; an oppressive legalistic entity that has obscured the message of faith and grace. That is,  given the historical need to address the abuses of the Catholic church of the era, he identifies with Paul's critique of Judaism - and ends up missing some of what Paul is really saying about Torah and how Spirit fits in that argument.  There might be some parallels between the status of Israel and the Catholic church but a foreshortening results – an inability to see the nuances  - such as the places where Paul argues for the role of the God given Torah (the Law). Similarly I gather Luther tends to easily equate the 'law' with moral self effort in general, and focus on the individual  wrestling with this, and which grace breaks into by the Spirit. That was his story and he finds back it in Scripture - and following him we also find it in Romans. 

But all that perhaps also loses some of the focus of Paul wrestling with the biblical Torah as a  boundary marker of the covenant people, and of Jesus in the trajectory of Israel's history etc.  I don't deny any of the Reformation doctrine - justification by faith alone - I note various scholars are saying these traditional formulations are not incorrect, yet the way we get there can miss some of what Paul is actually saying.  And so for us the structure has got smaller – we hone in on certain polemics and principles in Romans and ignore or downplay others; tend to lose the big argument (the heart of the Gospel might not actually be all about individual justification, although it does include that). 

None of these observations are original of course .

Similarly i don’t think that 'charismatic dimensions' are somehow optional in a fully Pauline theology.

Its not a theory driving me here - this stuff matters. 

So I don't think it was coincidence i happened to hear that Galatians argument on Paul's appeal to the role of the Spirit and miracles in their midst - now upgraded into the NIV's use of experience rather than suffering  - on that morning where so much of it was demonstrated, as it might have been in a Pauline church.

These are deep waters, i guess, but also the children's bread and drink - and i'm not a biblical scholar - just someone rethinking experience in the light of scripture - noting whats happened in the latest version of the NIV.  On the other hand, the children who grow in such environments perhaps wouldn't need to argue their way into it, if it really is the biblical inheritance, as i think it is.

tuning in

its only a 5 minute taxi trip from the station to home ..

Too short for a meaningful conversation surely ...  and not many international drivers in this country town.. less likely to touch on the world of refugees and aspirational international students who are up for the deep exchange of world views. Just sleepy aussies.
 
How's the weather been, i ask the driver. I'm feeling a bit fried from a day of meetings,  the lack of sleep in motels, and the somewhat numbing effect of travelling home - taxi, plane, train, taxi etc

anyway, final taxi  ...  how's the weather been here?

perfect mate, he says, blue skies, not too hot

cool. first day of summer, isn't it, i say

um, don't know - i go by the solstice, he says

we talk about that - he knows the dates of solstice and equinox, and that 91 days on either side is a phase of some kind.  Somehow its not an approximation i've ever used, but 364/4 seems pretty good way to quarter the year. I do vaguely know there is a bablyonian origin to base 60 aspect of the 360 degrees / solar cycle etc, and i'm sure he would know that - his approach  has that sort of feel somehow. 
 
you from here? i ask - already knowing the answer will be no, or not fully  - since that sort of new age interest  - which shows in his face somehow, in addition to the solstice calculations  -  isn't something you expect in a country taxi driver. And indeed he is just back from 20 years in Melb. 

the fare is $10.10

i like that number i say  ... (and indeed i do often see it as an encouraging reminder of something)

he agrees  - yeah nice pattern.

you might not be into this, i say, but reminds me of John 10:10 in the bible - 'I have come to give them life, and life abundantly'

cool. yeah. 
all numbers have a hidden symmetry behind them, he says - and either he's deferring the surprise of hearing that verse, or its releasing him to go deeper into his own view, so he's running with the number symmetry thing again - telling me about a higher dimensional matrix that orders the frequencies of numbers

good thing i work in maths - we chat in the drive way

i agree to look at a mystical maths web site if he will look at John 10:10 - check he has a bible - he's happy to agree and seems interested enough that i think he'll do it.

the console $10.10  is looking like 101.0 during this conversation - as though we're tuning in to a frequency- not so much his number patterns though, though there is a Logos behind this and all such patterns - just with a different Name than he suspects.  

few other conversations this week had similar nice lead ins. all different angles.

 something cool is happening here:)

(eg another taxi driver turned out to be  Syrian. I ask about all that. About Damascus, which he is very proud of. Drop in Paul's conversion - and he's proud of that too - he walks that site often. Turns out to be son of a baptist leader who was expelled from Syria being too demonstrative - and he's homesick - would like to go back.  Clearly needs one of the two copies of Courageous Leadership that i happen to have with me.

 all these conversations end with a positive buzz to them. nice way to start or end the day.  And that's without the cool guidance  in some parts of  work. All of these are too short to be major in themselves - maybe less profound than the previous posts on this sort of thing - but as as scattering seeds, there is something potentially worthwhile in them; especially if the connections gets followed. Mustard seeds and all that.

of taxis and the gift of the Spirit

I've had to use taxis a bit in the last couple of years.  You get to talk to a range of drivers -  i reckon in Melbourne and Sydney maybe 80% are foreign born. The world comes to our doorstep right there ... i'm never going to get to all those countries, but they're right here. 
 
Typically when i get in a taxi,  I try to show some respect for the other human being  - and interest in their story. We tend to get chatting, often about his story - most drivers are male of course  - his story, country, family, job etc.

Sometimes feels like a blessing is present here  - affirming interest in stories and jobs and cultures that tend to be stereotyped or marginalized. Ask an Indian taxi driver where they're from and the young driver - who has often just finished an accounting or hospitality degree -  invariably winces.  So sometimes the ensuing conversation feels quite significant as we progress on to talking about family and background story, and the common humanity is drawn out.  Blessing another human being, just because they're also made in God's image. 

But i'm not often directly evangelistic in all this, in that i don't usually expect this to get into deep questions of faith.  (Oh, your daughter's name means Goddess of Beauty? I see. Thats, um, interesting).

Nor do i usually declare my own most significant story. 

But things are changing -  i'm more out there sometimes, these days.

 A while ago i'd been reading a book, "Prophetic Evangelism" (1)  on the way home. The author is an influential Anglican minister (Mark Stibbes, of Breakout lore (2)), and I'm sure he's evangelical in the sense of believing basic doctrine. But he's more than that - as well as sound evangelical doctrine, good as that is, he also has a charismatic formation.  

I should clarify some terms perhaps. One can be a not very evangelistic evangelical -ie  theologically 'correct' in the sense of being able to affirm the right things, without being evangelistic  - engaged in communicating those same things.  

For another definition, charismatic in my book simply means biblical, in the sense of not just believing propositional doctrine, but also expecting some of the same transactions and divine idioms of the Spirit that were so central in the biblical narrative, to still occur - ie honouring the fact the Spirit is given in this era as God's personal, powerful presence. Indeed not doing that is perhaps even missing the biblical formation.

(As an aside i think we wouldn't need these words - 'charismatic', 'pentecostal', if we simply took the biblical texts about the role of the Holy Spirit as normative - if we  simply were formed and informed by the Scripture, and the Spirit dimensions revealed there, rather than allowing an extracted theology to work against it.  I think Spirit movements and definitions - and the potential for over emphasis - perhaps only occur when the mainstream refuses to integrate them in biblical dimension - and themselves become excessively rationalistic, which many comment that the church, by and large, has become. (Jack Deere talks of a divorce between those who emphasise Word and those who emphasise Spirit - though of course both sides think they have both in appropriate balance - with the risk of one side going dry and overly cerebral, passive, non experiential, while the other is possibly loopy without some of the steadying theology - my terms for his summing up (3)). 

You are in error, said Jesus to the religious Sadducees, who had grown to like the arrangements and accommodations of the present age, because you don't know the scriptures or the power of God. Both are needed to get it right; scripture alone is not biblical; not according to Jesus (or Paul for the matter, who knew scripture backwards with a devout and monotheistic passion - until he experienced the risen Lord, and then consigned that era as being according to flesh,  belonging to the old dispensation which was inadequate to deliver the people into the fullness to which it richly pointed -  not itself the glorious Spirit indwelt formation of God's people, who have come to him via the death and resurrection of His son. Power of God indeed. Later he said the letter killed, and Spirit gave life; though he obviously wrote and wrestled with scripture more deeply than perhaps any other). 

Tom Wright comments that the basic meaning of Pentecost  is for all Christians -  all Christians are meant to inherit from the agricultural feast of Pentecost - 50 days after passover  -  now imbued with the meaning of a post resurrection, Spirit empowered, harvest of first fruits.  I'm beginning to think its a truncation, on both sides, to just take part of the experience and identify it as a feature for those identified as 'pentecostals' - who perhaps then risk overemphasising what others are denying or sidestepping. Thus 'pentecostalism' (which i know well from 13 or so years there) is perhaps an over focus on, in some ways, on what should be given to the whole church - partly because of the reaction against God turning up in present and dynamic way by the presence and power of the Spirit. (And maybe the movement is like a particle accelerator as well - one gains speed and is accelerated there, before being channeled off to other streams). And the middle ground is where this is re-integrated into mainstream charismatic expressions - the theology and the experiential dynamic belong together. As Wright says in a commentary on Acts, re theology and experience:  

the first day of Pentecost, and the experience of God's Spirit from that day to this, can no more be reduced to theological formulae and interesting Old Testament echoes than you can reduce a hurricane to a list of diagrams on a meteorologist's chart  .... its far more important that you're out there in the wind, letting it sweep through your heart, your life, your imagination, your powers of speech, and let it transform you from  a listless or lifeless believer to someone whose heart is on fire with the love of God. Those images of wind and fire are of course what Luke says it was like on the first day. Many Christians in many traditions have used similar images to describe what it is sometimes like when the Spirit comes to do new things in the lives of individuals and communities ... some of the creative power of God comes down from heaven to earth and does its work there (4)

 (So maybe some need to stop trying to lock the storm in the cupboard, and others need to map the storm as well as experience it) 

Anyway, the 'prophetic' aspect of the prophetic evangelism book was encouraging Christians to listen to God in the moment, for keys that might unlock a conversation. Maybe moving from asking for a drink of water - or your friendly taxi conversation -  to "you've had 5 husbands, and the man you're with is not your husband" (5)  -  not just teaching that passage in the 17 ways we've heard it preached  - all of which are good -  but also moving into the that dynamic of listening to the God who knows, who communicates. 

As i said, the author is a minister - a friend of mine goes to their church and told me this story about him:

We had a visiting preacher come to St Andrew's a decade ago. He was the health minister from Norway. Mark had met him on a preaching trip there, felt compelled by the Spirit to walk up to a total stranger while sight-seeing at the Norwegian parliament building and say "God wants to tell you, 'you will be PM soon.'" The guy was health minister and within a short period became PM!  (6)

That's starting at the deep end. And perhaps not many people will have such striking examples  - that is a particularly compelling example  (my friend was commenting on diverse ways God used some of their staff). But is certainly illustrates one dimension of the gifting to hear in the present moment.  

Some won't like that i think.  "Let me tell you the stories of those who wrecked their lives over this sort of prophecy thing". And no doubt thats possible. I can tell terrible stories about those injured by motor accidents too. I drove over the Harbour bridge a few days ago - and there was an accident there later.  So I'm all for seatbelts and road rules when i'm in a car. I'm also for weighing prophecy and employing all the biblical frameworks. Even after all that, there is still some risk - just as there is in preaching or any other way of hearing the Word. (The Word who came and dwelt among us - don't think theological systematising can ever make it totally safe, unless its not living).  Still, most of us choose to drive cars, despite some risk of being out there. Anyway, back to my taxi story.

So, i'm attracted by the concept of this mode of evangelism, described in the book i've been reading on the plane home one Friday night. I'm ok at the relational stuff, and believe i can hear God - often at work etc -  but rarely get into sharing the gospel explicitly. But the book stirs me to think, about connecting evangelism with that ability to hear God (often in work meetings for example, i have a sense of what to say, and there is a particular way i often sense God is guiding me. I sense some of it now, as i write. Not over the whole post - but these last three sentences say. The sense of having something to say at that point, of having 'current content' is impressed on me - not that I imply its therefore guaranteed to be expressed correctly, or that this post is other than a partial perspective  (i add the caveats to clarify i'm not claiming infallible inspiration of course - i'm not making that sort of claim, except that God does still speak and guide, and His sheep should hear and recognise his voice).

So I sat on the plane and  wondered, maybe i can work that current listening into evangelism as Mark Stibbes suggests. So i prayed and ask for an opportunity to do that. 

Half an hour later, i'm sitting next to my taxi driver. He's sitting quietly - doesn't seem to be into initiating any small talk. Been a long day for me - its already 8 pm and i could just sit quietly for the next 20 minutes as we go from airport to train station - where another 2 hour trip waits. But as i look at him,  i sense something. I can see something, something about him is highlighted or stands out to me.  I think i can see, that he seems to have a capacity to 'hear',  - dormant, but there.

I question it for a few moments myself - I wonder if maybe i'm just projecting what i've been reading about, on to him? But in ways that i can't describe except its an idiom i've been learning, i still think i can see something in him relating to that capacity.

"Can i ask you, do you dream?" i ask. (I didn't feel particularly led to say that, but i wanted to somehow kick it off down that sort of track - about hearing, and that seemed a possible way.)

He whirls around, eyes wide. "Why do you ask!"

I knew nothing about him - this was our first exchange -  but turns out, as we open a conversation, that he is from Sudan; family moved here as refugees, from war and conflict. He's Muslim, nominally, and who knows what their family must have seen in refugee camps etc. 

We're in for a good ride, though.  I tell him a little bit, and as the conversation goes, he tells me another Christian has shared with him, "he told me to open my up hands like this"  - he lays his hands open before him  -   (the opposite of crossed arms - a poise of open-ness)  - "and he told me secrets of my heart that know one else knew!".

The wonder of this is still very evident to him. I'm sure he doesn't know he's quoting almost verbatim what Paul said prophecy would do, lay bare secrets of the heart and convict non believers that God is really among us. (7)  

But he is still a bit fearful of all this  - having been raised in a culture that knew black magic/witchcraft, he tells me knew of the capacity for listening for revelation, but in evil ways. Who knows what counterfeit gifts were in the local witchdoctor,  in touch with who knows what.  

I explain to him (a) that Jesus is good, and has no darkness and (b) He is stronger than than devil and the spirits he has seen so (c) there is no need to fear, in that way, the source of these gifts in Christians. Its a simple chat - but he is not your typical materialistic westerner either.

I also tell him i think he has a latent gift for hearing. That's it not an accident that Christians are approaching him in this way; highlighting that channel of hearing.  He is, by now, all ears. As we arrive at the end of the trip I ask if i can pray for him, and do so, and he watches me pray, is deeply moved - wants the journey to go on, wants to know more, etc.  

So.  I'm glad i wasn't just a kind listening ear that day, hearing the story of Sudan  - oh you're a refugee, i'll listen to your story,  good as that can be -  that i dared to believe God might give me something as i listened to him in the moment. 

I also wish i had a lot more stories like that. Have a few, but not nearly as many as i'd like. Might have more if I trusted that dynamic of listening  in the moment more. I know its real  - i've been trained in hearing and speaking i think,  - this is not so unusual for me ..

Then the Spirit came on Amasai, chief of the Thirty, and he said:

  “We are yours, David!
   We are with you, son of Jesse!  (8)

A capacity to say things, is sometimes given, in ways that might not even look 'religious' at all -  one might observe that statement without knowing Amasai had been touched by the Spirit (even though in this case  he does go on to swear an oath by God - but affirming allegiance could be done without that).   (I don't know how Amasai found it, but i certainly make plenty of errors as well - one can go from there to ones own error quite quickly - as Peter knew (9)). (And yes, I know that allegiance to David could be taken as an illustrative foreshadowing of allegiance to a greater King; and also that Peter was in a different inter-testamental dispensation in terms of that revelation. But i know he moved into another, in Acts, that has not closed.  Its clunky to add these caveats, but maybe needed). 

 The world is coming to our doorstep - i might never get to war torn Sudan; but it will come to us in the local taxi driver. A friend of mine noted that the formal missionaries the church dutifully prays for ("God bless the Smiths in Turdikistan" etc)  - are often just making a life, living, working, and trying to share as opportunity arises. We miss the opportunity of owning that ourselves, if we think its all locked up in foreign and formal missionaries.

Just like pushing the biblical dynamic of the Spirit into another church subculture - such as  'pentecostals'-  can alienate the common inheritance of the gift of the Spirit - we should all own all of this.  Its all normal, biblically speaking. In fact, no Pentecost = no Acts - as many modern examples basically illustrate.  And Paul of course commanded the demon to leave the fortune telling slave girl (10)  -  there is no allegiance between the demonic things my driver had seen with the witch doctor, and the real gifts of God. Indeed the reality of these dimensions should displace, possibly in power encounters, the interest in counterfeit gifts; such things do still happen. The TV show "Search for Australia's number one psychic" just shows people hungry for experience, but gobbling poison.  We have the good food, if we can share it.   

(Note that I haven't called this "gifts of the Spirit" - as much they are drawn into what i'm saying - but the title is alluding to the gift of the Spirit, God's presence among us, first and foremost, as a distinctive and primary Christian reality- and what makes the good evangelical doctrine come alive to us). 

Only just finished writing that up - happened ages ago but i wanted to record something here -  when i have another similar experience. Who knows, I might even get good at this.


1. Prophetic Evangelism, Mark Stibbes
2. Breakout Mark Stibbes, Andrew Williams
3. Surprised the by the Voice of God, Jack Deere (last page)
4. NT Wright for Everyone Series - Acts of the Apostles.
5. John 4:3-30
6.  personal email
7. 1 Corinthians 14:25 
8. 1 Chron 12
9. Matt 16:16-23
10. Acts 16:16

Post Christendom theology of work and Spirit.

Had an interesting conversation 12 months ago.

Gordon Preece was teaching into a theology of work - been a recurring question for me and why this blog has the name (rainbows alluding to God's gifts distributed across creation- ie following God into all areas of life, and lasers being the tightly focussed times of training and celebration - and both being needed). Anyway, I'd gone to hear him teach on a theology of work - and got a clear and deep message.

(His background, incidentally, is full of innovation and prestigious positions at the boundaries of church, academia, business, outreach - including a prior executive director of the Urban Seeds movement where i heard him.  In what follows, the good ideas are his and the errors are mine -  he said it better and more graciously, so don't blame him. And I have of course checked if he is ok with being quoted in a blogging setting - and offered the chance to vet as well - but he was kind enough to say go for it.  (update : and even to endorse the  "nice dialogical feel" - ie the to and fro of discussion - of how I wrote it up, afterwards).  

So here goes. In a nutshell, he started by tackling the clergy / laity division. Interesting for an ordained minister :) - but made some things clear:  

• Biblically speaking, all Christians are called. (And 'calling' is first and foremost a question of being called to God, not to a function or region or ministry - that is a secondary thing. Calling to God is always primary).

• The biblical word for being called is cleros, from which we derive the word clergy 

• But biblically,  cleros does not mean a special class of 'ministers' who do the ministry.

• So all are called; all are cleros.

• Secondly, the word for laity comes from the word laos, which means people.

• The point: those we call clergy are of course part of the people, and thus laos.

• So the laity are cleros (called), and the clergy are laos (people). 

Well, i found that a clear and compelling, if somewhat provocative,  way to lay out the argument.

So i asked at the time,  .. given all this, and without meaning to be rude or disrepectful, but how do you function as an ordained  minister if this is true - kind of seems you've just undermined that whole distinction of a seperate role of clergy, as not really biblical?  He acknowledged the point - and commented along the lines of its currently most effective to change that thinking from inside that structure.

Also gave examples like this -  they had a woman in the church who was going to Queensland to do a biodiversity audit in a rainforest - so they interviewed her in front of the congregation about that work, and commissioned her to go and do good. 

Some will part company at that, no doubt.

But consider the alternative. Years of professional study, a sense of being called (cleros) in various areas, but nothing but a little bit of passing lip service to the significance of the role in the gathered community-  not the sense of such work being a full dimension where a calling might be worked out.

(week in, week out, emphasis on the centralised roles of clergy (good as they no doubt are) and relative silence about most other roles, emphasizes the sense of significance about which calling is most important - something i've observed in all varieties of church i've been in. )

Somehow, 20 centuries of religious practice has turned these words and roles into something different to their original meaning; where only some are cleros, as opposed to the masses who are laos (or the '4th order of ministry' or some such diminished term in some hierarchies etc). Conversely, we have an overworked religious class trying to stretch beyond whats possible as well.

I'm certainly not anti leadership - that's not my issue at all - my question is whether we're left with any kind of map or solid model to hold the significance of what most people actually do. I've had this questions for years;  every variety of church seems to end up suggesting that the 'ministry' - as done in the gathered body, usually by a limited professional class, is the main deal, even if its just by the relative silence and limited discussion about what most people do. I don't think its always intentional, but the logic and centralisation of the church meeting and institution contributes to this. 

but later i was troubled with some follow up questions emerging  .. and so i chased down some email   (very lightly edited for readability). Me: 

hi Gordon

enjoyed meeting you at seeds the other night

i was the one hanging round at the end, asking about thesis etc:)

loved the night : first (or maybe 2nd) discussion of a theology of work i've really heard

a follow up question if i may? you mentioned cleros means call (not necessarily clergy): and the audience response got a little enthusiastic on that point 

i guess [the response] was emerging from some sense of why is the accepted structure of church  functioning in a way that often seems to reproduce that clergy vs lay,  spiritual vs secular,  professional ministry vs flower roster: which can perhaps suppress the significance of a lot of significant work that Christians participate in (a little repressed angst at that on the night no doubt!)

but i was thinking afterwards : you mentioned Eph 4 and the equipping function of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers

question i had was: if those roles really did see their ministry as preparing God's people for works of service: and felt called to that equipping role: then the  critique of having clergy as a separate class that began  emerging on the night  (we're all called to God so is there is no special class of clergy) is maybe too simplistic

ie can we rehabilitate the sense of some being called, even set apart, to that role: called to teach, have prophetic voice etc: in preparing the wider body 

ie the scripture doesn't describe that fully democratic role we were all lining up to endorse the other night: there are still some given (called) to those roles: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers: whose role is to equip the rest of the body

so what should those roles look like?  perhaps they can function inside the traditional church leadership structure? 

do you see what i'm getting at : given we're all called (cleros) : yet some are called to equipping roles (which might look more like clergy? )  : even if more does need to done to avoid the secular / spiritual sense, and to endorse the calling(s) we all have 

(...)

(a good theology of work) has been a deep question of mine for a long time and this was first (or maybe second) well thought through presentation i'd heard (maybe 2nd) 

liked your comment too that those growing into such questions can sometimes forget the formative spiritual disciplines and experiences that helped them along the way

 His response (again very lightly edited for clarity)

( ... greeting etc ...)

re Eph 4:12 and particular calling of clergy to equip Christians - universal cleros-  to walk worthy of our calling in the Gospel and as God's people who are to follow Christ in filling all, according to Ephesians 1 (picking up on the creation mandate to fill the earth). There does seem to be some sort of foundational gifts model here, but its very different to the one-man band model. Its all plural, it includes women, it's focussed on equipping, talent-scouting, training, discipling. And when people then use their gifts they grow up together into the full stature of Christ's true humanity. So, while it's not hierarchical, there is a strategic laser-like role of focussing on and conveying the original teaching that is crucial. But as in other parts of Paul and Hebs 6 & Jer 31:31 the new covenant's the goal is that we will all teach each other, not be reliant on the priesthood. 

(... )

The primary language for who we are is 'laos' or people of God (including clergy who are laity biblically). Church or ekklesia (called out to gather) is the Sunday gathering, town hall meeting (see the assembly or ekklesia at Ephesus in Acts when Paul and Barnabas are in big trouble) of the citizens of the city of God we're moving toward. It's to prepare God's people for when they scatter, 2 by 2, as Jesus sent the disciples, into the world's various spheres of service. The saints prepared on Sunday, are meant to sanctify those spheres of creation and culture, making them suburbs of the city of God.  

This whole-of-life sanctifying process gets lost when the Corinthians in 1 Cor 11 think of the sacred meal of the body of Christ separate from the way they should discern the body of Christ, i.e. their latecomer brother and sister slaves left the dregs to eat outside. 1 Clement reverses Paul's intent: separation of the sacred meal now presided over by clergy, analogous to the magistrates in Rome, versus ordinary meals and the laity analogous to the plebs of Rome. This is reinforced in Constantine's Christendom where the laity's role is to pray, pay and obey, right down to the present day, despite the Refomatin 's partial reclamation of the priesthood of all believers. see www.lausanne.org - try 'marketplace ministry' its Lausanne Occasional Paper 40 for more detail.

lots in that: 

 Particularly like the idea that  "the saints prepared on Sunday, are meant to sanctify those spheres of creation and culture, making them suburbs of the city of God. "  

Personally, I have a desire or longing or hope for the church being effective in prophetic listening and speaking, exactly so we are effective at that wider task.

And while on that topic, who, by the way, is the first person in Scripture described as being filled with the Spirit?

Not a Levite, or a prophet, priest or king. Not David, Moses or any other well known figure.

Then the LORD said to Moses,  “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah,  and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—  to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze,  to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts (Ex 31)

A craftsperson / artist. A worker. Interesting. May God give us the ears to hear (the Lord said), and to "see ..."  what he is doing; whom his Spirit is preparing for significant things, maybe from unexpected quarters. 

Of course this discussion hardly fulfills the title of the blog post - maybe suggests some outline or sketch of such things. "Towards" a  theology of such things, might be more accurate, but its already a pretentious sounding enough title as it is. That bit was definitely me :).

Update: i forgot a follow up point thats probably relevant, re the roles mentioned in Eph 4 (ie apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher), which are given, according to that passage,  to prepare and equip God's people.  That is, those roles do not just do the work  - but are gifted to build up the body to do the work  - eg the evangelist also develops and trains for evangelism among the body, just as the apostle's pioneering of new ground opens  new ground for the rest of the body, and the prophet promotes that aspect of hearing and knowing God's heart.

Anyway, my question:

 no doubt you've read Shaping of Things to Come: would you consider that the teaching role of pastors and teachers has often taught out the role of evangelist prophet and apostle, as they seem to think?  (speculative text though)

[To round out whats behind that question, that book suggests that ministry training tends to be more about certifying learning and academia - thus reinforcing certain approaches and filtering out or truncating others - so less cultivating, even dismissal, of the range of vital gifts that is needed for the vital life of the church]. 

Gordon's response: 

re pastor-teacher being privileged over apostle, prophet, evangelist, there's a truth in that. Though i am a pastor-teacher we can easily end up just endorsing the status quo without the original energy of the apostolic, the powerful, unsettling word of the prophet, and the eye for the outsider of the evangelist.

(Although i suspect taking that point on personally might not do justice to his own story - sounds like the other things have been in the mix there).

Daniel

I wonder if those who aspire to the wisdom of Daniel; the noble character, resolute stand, the influence over government, would also be happy being known as 'chief among the magicians'? Thats not a fair question of course - obviously no one aspires to that, but perhaps a better question would be, do we give those who have seen counterfeit gifts a reason to think we have something better?

People can discern the reality of God at such times; as Daniel and Joseph both illustrate.

Nebuchadnezzar said, “Belteshazzar [Daniel], chief of the magicians, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and no mystery is too difficult for you. Here is my dream; interpret it for me." (1)

Without that ability - which gets him lumped with the psychics of his day -Daniel's radical promotions would not have come; each is linked to a use of an interpretive gift. Its a similar story with Joseph, who also interprets God given dreams for his pagan ruler.

Character matters and is a key factor in those stories. But its not only about that. The gift, the capacity to bring interpretation - which everyone acknowledges is from God - is a key in the change or reversal of fortunes in both cases.

Such gifts or abilities were evidently somewhat known among the pagans, to the point that Daniel's gift is classified along the 'magicians', but in him it is also recognized as being clearer and stronger; indeed of a different source. Nebuchadnezzar recognised it as being of the Holy Spirit who was in Daniel - or as close as the pagan king can come to saying that. 'spirit of the holy gods is in you' is not a bad recognition. (Similarly Pharoah said of Joseph: "Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?” (2))

Just as the magicians in Pharoah's court could go some distance down the track of trading weird signs with Moses, but ran out of steam (3), the fact that these things can exist in various other counterfeit forms does not invalidate the real version. As as is often said, a counterfeit 10 dollar note does not mean there is no real version; indeed it is only the real currency that can be counterfeited (there are no counterfeit nine dollar notes); the existence of counterfeits should get us looking for the real. (Similarly if i write the word 'prophecy' into gmail, the keyword trips all sorts of sidebar ads about psychics and so on. The counterfeits should alert us to the need for the real. The same applies when a new age festival offers multiple stalls of false gifts.) The fact that this space can be inhabited by occult or new age counterfeits is surely not a reason to vacate it; but to demonstrate the real version.

I don't see myself as Daniel or Joseph - but these gifts are distributed among the body of Christ ("you can all prophesy in turn" (4), was Paul's view of the church)  and as a people we - or some from among us - should be better at interpreting the dreams of our non Christian rulers, friends, employers, than the new age prophets who will otherwise fill the gap.

Some from our midst should be better and clearer and cleaner at interpreting dreams etc, than the psychics who are on late night TV - and on sale in every book shop; mainstream as well as 'new age' stores stock all this now of course. As a people we should raise the question in their minds of whether we have the goods; whether we can do so excellently for the employer or friend troubled with a vivid dream that they are also grateful to be brought into touch with someone with the real source.

Chesterton said people will gobble poison if the real food is not on offer - and indeed its surprising who you find dabbling in the false versions. So as well as warning against the counterfeit - 'stay away from' - we should have the real deal, a banquet of such gifts, among us. The response is still good - and the operation of such gifts still leaves people in awe of a God who knows them, as Paul said it would (5) (his context being the use of prophecy in the church, but its not so far from one to the other).

Dreams are both disturbing and commonly dismissed.



I don't imagine most need interpreting - but perhaps we can do more than leave people in ignorance of the disturbing ones that God is behind. Some think this is one of the most common ways that God is speaking -and many will know the sense of a puzzling, vivid dream, feel in receipt of an message but not know how to decipher it - and perhaps not ever understand the meaning.

The Word of course remains the primary mode and rule of revelation. All this is also somehow inside the Christian heritage - certainly in the biblical heritage -  so church is possibly a good place to start in cultivating this? I've certainly appreciated some training in all this in the past, known it to be real. 

1. Dan 4:9
2. Gen 41:38
3. Ex 7:8-12
4. 1 Cor 14:13
5. 1 Cor 13:25

the biblical nature of unexpected experience

Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

I have seen and I testify : a very biblical way of knowing.

But, we might say, that was John the Baptist; hardly your average benchmark? Surely we shouldn't expect any such dynamics today.

I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he

we should all have at least that testimony of seeing Spirit dynamics?

experience first.

But what of the treasured framework of scripture? Well yes, but the New Testament witness is that experience is constantly re-ordering the frame, reshaping what they thought they knew. Indeed the whole biblical narrative is doing that. What is God really up to?

How does Israel end up with a crucified messiah as the hope of the nations? Experience has to play its part, tell us how this works. Paul had better scriptural knowledge than most of us - and still had the wrong end of the stick - until an experience with the risen Jesus corrected him.

On reflection there is much of this in Scripture. Peter doesn't open the doors to Gentile mission after a 3 day conference on the missional implications of messianic fulfillment of Old Testament promise; pondering the meaning of the inclusion of 300 Philistines in David's bodyguard and the real meaning of the Abrahamic promise.

No - he has a vision that gets him out in a Gentile's house - where he sees the Holy Spirit fall on Cornelius and his household.

Those involved do not appeal to scripture as the verification - the argument hinges on experience.

"The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God."

We get the whole thing twice; an account of what happened, and then Peter's recounting to those Jewish Christians who aren't impressed by fraternizing with the Gentiles.

And so in recounting this to the Jewish Christians he cites the experience in detail:

"I saw a vision ..
"I saw something like ..
"I looked into it and saw ..
"Then I heard a voice ...
"I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! ..
“The voice spoke from heaven a second time..
"This happened three times ..
“Right then three men... stopped at the house where I was staying ..
"The Spirit told me..
"He told us how he had seen an angel appear ..
"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them ..

And acknowledges that only after experiencing all this did an understanding begin to form.

"Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ "
Thats Peter - who spent three years with Jesus.

And that dramatic story carries the day.

"When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.” "

We better be careful about dismissing the role of experience!!! - the biblical picture is that sometimes we work out what Spirit of God is up to through observing Him in action.

Certainly its Peter - a trusted leader among them - we don't want to be at the mercy of every untested claim. But even if we acknowledge that risk, we have to maintain an attitude and a mindset that is still open to the basic willingness to looks and see what God is up to. The desire to avoid errant or risky ideas of guidance might minimise that, or tend to relegate it to history.

Yet Peter is hardly going to say experience doesn't matter. Or his listeners ask, "When you walked on the water Peter, did you consider the biblical antecedents?" No, Jesus said come; the relevant biblical antecedent is that God's people follow Him, come what may - not that they have seen everything before.

The bible is all about unexpected experience. God is leading them out. The waters part. The Magii have come. Mary is pregnant. The Messiah is here. John is baptising. The Spirit comes upon Him. Jesus is transfigured. The body is not in the tomb. Paul is arrested on the road. The Holy Spirit has come as tongues of fire and a rushing wind - and now even on the Gentiles

Scriptural understanding and categories are always catching up with all this. And it must do so - i'm not at all dismissing the need for sound learning that draws out the resonances of these events. I love learning here - pursuing more. But ruling experience out of court as a primary witness, as the data that theology has to deal with, is a mistake. As is systematizing it all to a known quantity; can hardly be God's story if we manage to do that.

More formal ways to say that might be to claim the primacy of history as the ground of both being and knowing; of ontology and epistemology - though these hairy terms are useful only to buttress the simple claim that what actually happens is the primary evidence; the story, our story, matters more than just propositional truth. I'm reflecting on this again as i listen to a post grad series of lectures - the lecturer a continuing example to me- as he was 20 years ago - of reconciling academic intellect and pentecostal dimension. (I've worked in science and maths and IT as well as education since then, and certainly appreciate propositional truth - but can see the biblical story doesn't come that way. I'm not even sure the scientific one always does for that matter.) Or as Whitehead - who was certainly no anti-intellectual - said of philosophy, the primary appeal must always be to immediate experience. If the system can't explain that, its lacking in truth.

And we don't just want to talk about the story of the past. We want to be surprised by the dimensions of unexpected experience as God does something among us! That's biblical!

And not just dramatic moments or power encounters - though by all means lets not squeeze that out of the picture - but what is God doing in quieter ways in our daily lives. Can we see it?

(update - discussed more in the comments).

on power, sparks and trams

i remember watching a tram driving along Swan St, Richmond. As sometimes happens, it was making intermittent contact with the powerlines above, creating little showers of sparks, and jerking a bit, as the power it needed was momentarily disconnected.

I found myself thinking that the tram bouncing down the street, drawing attention to its power source with showers of sparks, is actually not using the power that effectively. A neighbouring tram quietly humming along might be less impressive, but using power more according to its design.

Made me think, since i was pretty immersed into a pentecostal world at the time. (As an aside, thats a fact i don't feel any need to retrospectively denigrate, rather much to retain - much was grounded there that i am still grateful for - not least dimensions of experience and teaching. (That includes the formal study i did there one year, all deepened under a teacher who is still a prime example of serious theology and Spirit empowerment; the trajectory to becoming an NT professor at Regent was already well underway, post his Cambridge phd etc - and having just downloaded a thirty hour teaching series i can see many of the same themes were already in place. Also found that another theological text i'm revisiting is cross linked against that time in various ways and levels of connection, even family members in the local church. So i'm willing to assert that simple dismissal of Pentecostal dimensions may turn out to be too simplistic - my own story there is more subtle than that).

Anyway the tram did make me think, back then, about the benefit of getting on with it in an empowered way, rather than needing to always have displays of power - that might even not be a good thing at times. Still a relevant observation - although maybe only needed if a church culture can tend to lean a bit too much that way (wanting to cultivate the sparks all the time).

Of course its biblical to see signs and wonders - and one form of evangelism pursues these 'power encounters' as a testimony to the God who is there and who cares. But there are also other trams full of evangelicals on their way to beach mission or work in the office or whatever it is. God bless them too.

And may we know when we are meant to be in one or other ... when a visible zap of electricity is needed, and when consistent faithfulness on the way to the daily destination is more what is needed. Both are good and to be developed. Demonstrations of power are not faulty - unless we're meant to be getting on with it today. Getting on with it is not bad, unless we sometimes need to stop and explain why we can do this - and touching the wire might be good to show that too.

evidence of power? consistent work? 'both and' - not 'either or'

the dog : suspicion as a way of life

I played an interesting mp3 while walking tonight

Mentions a 'hermeneutic of suspicion' being a typical post modern mindset.

Sees that hermeneutic as the legacy of post freudian, post marxist mindsets.

 Never mind all of the 'post isms' -even though i think there are a couple more that could be added - since those terms gets a bit too cozy sometimes.

The question of suspicion becoming a dominant principle is an interesting observation - the risk of getting too imbued with a spirit that 'won't be taken in again'

That is, its possible to be very critical of various things in the current state of the world on one hand - especially if the critique is presented in attractive form - say fitted out with new terms and analysis, touched with the appeal of a somewhat counter cultural presentation, and leaving us as the enlightened critic - and yet remain equally deeply moulded by its critical thought forms on the other.

I know something about that hermeneutic of suspicion. My way into faith went through a culture pretty influenced with this - which is only to say, a large uni. Having been broadly brought up in a weakening modernist framework (by which I mean a mindset where the big story of progress was good and we believed we could get there by working a bit harder etc, with a little dose of religion on the edges, so tending to the superficial Pelagianism of the age),  I'd been vaguely deferring significant questions. Then i went to off to uni where there was suddenly time and space see how the various ideas and contradictions played out; or really for them to press with new urgency.

So, for example, picking up the works of Nietzsche in a friend's room one night, as a 19 year old; attracted by the incisive writing, fragments of which was soon slicing into the tentative faith formulations i was beginning to investigate, even as i also naively ran into Pascal and Buber and Chesterton and others along that path of reading.

That hurt, was painful to have your beginning faith demolished and shaken to its core by such a potent set of counter ideas.

Working out what the impact of that sort of post modern hermeneutic is going to be - a world where all stories and claims are suspect - is accelerated in this environment, reading chunks of this sort of material. One senses the power and attraction of these modes of thinking, indeed lives inside them to some extent - attracted by both their critique of things and their promise of change -and surrounded by friends becoming socialists and militant feminists, or at least trying on these ideas - and later feeling the illusions, the over-promise, seeing what false dawns are offered and feeling the nausea of things still out of place.

When you're seriously debating your approach to life  - sounds overstated now, but did seem to have a lot riding on it - and have plenty of time to read and wander off the path, those years of academic incubation allowed you - allowed me at least - to try to see where these mindsets end up. Not that its as comfortable or clinical as that implies - a difficult and confusing, indeed sometimes painful and disorientating, process. (Learning piles of physics and chemistry was also interesting but often a lower priority and indeed possibility in the scheme of things; and so found myself picking up some 'history and philosophy of science' subjects as a path that also allowed me to engage some of these ideas by writing and reading etc).

So I began to see, to feel, that that this whole current of thinking can lead to a place where nothing can be asserted but all can be negated, where the best intellects seemed to have cornered the market -or at least blocked the path - as to why there can be no meaning, except another round of pulling things apart and reveling in the contradiction and demolition of yet another position. As a more recent example of the idea, we all see Shrek is fun as a reverse fairy tale, where we love the ogre and despise the prince, and prefer such complex stories to the brightly shallow alternatives - Wiggles should be banned for parents. And yet the same playful logic that is enjoyable in Shrek, has a more serious and surly older brother who plays that game for keeps; questions and reverses every cherished assumption till all is lying in shreds. Its not so cute when it presents the apostle Paul as the anti-hero, and his opponents as the real victims, whose useful perspectives we should try to recover as valid Christian experience, as i hear some post modern biblical studies have supposed. Not so cute -but basically the same method of reversing assumptions. Or the TV shows that invites you to have sympathy with a serial killer.

I wasn't studying theology, even though the Christian idea of God was often the target of similar approaches in various subjects. But certainly any 'convention' of nobility - even in fiction - indeed any stabilizing frame of reference in general, was often undermined with this sort of approach, this reading against the grain, and since the 'author is dead' and dismissed as providing any canonical reading or interpretive key, who is to dispute the approach - which first year will question the lecturer who suggests that when Shakespeare ('possibly a woman?') used the word 'die', we should substitute various explicit terms; and try reading various sonnets of beauty with that idea in mind. Enlightening.

So rather than reading great authors (another deconstructed concept) for their merits (likewise), this sort of thing tends to cultivate a mindset of suspicion as the dominant hermeneutic, wants to situate everything back in historical context, which is good in itself - but tends to operate from a framework where traditional morality and God are faintly ridiculous. Though by now i was evaluating all this by a better framework, having come back to do a dip ed after working in analytical chemistry for a few years; now a bit more settled in faith and church, just widening my studies to include an English method.

Anyway, i agree that the 'post' environment - the legacy of various intellectual systems that tend to parody the gospel with a structure of oppression (patriarchy, false consciousness) and redemption (feminism and revolution) - is something that cultivates suspicion.

This is all broad brush - I don't imagine all academics are subscribing to or promoting all of this - or even that its all wrong - and one finds some clear and well thought through Christian or kingdom counter examples, and people quietly working leaven into the lump - moderating the claims with sanity - but i wonder if a Christian world view is possibly easier to maintain in the sciences than some of these humanities.

And no doubt better grounded students might have filtered all of this off. But perhaps there is a reason why 'studies show' so many youth group christians claim to have lost their faith in the first few weeks of uni -saw that process in a few friends around me. I was going the other way, slowly and sometimes suddenly being called in against all the broken-ness and confusion that also went with my story; but i was always interested in the underlying assumptions of the thinking of all this.

As well as that academic mix, we're also double dipped in the mass media version of this cynical view point; as media endlessly celebrates the revelation that some other notable person is caught out and reduced to petty needs as well.

Tom Wright sees the academic fragmentation and deconstruction of postmodernism as the necessary judgement on the arrogance of modernity, with its false myth of progress, its tower of babel that seemed to organise the world around enlightenment premises, while still oppressing many. (Reminds me of someone having a go at the nice moral case studies of Victorian authors, conveniently skipping over the exploitation in the colonies; being the sort of thing that 'po-mo' wants to expose - how exactly are those lovely estates that the marriageable daughter and her family is aspiring to, creating a delicious tension between love and money, being funded, exactly? - who is suffering behind the scenes on the other side of the world, for this? )

But the post modern reversals are not, in themselves, enough - so while acknowledging that all positions are conditioned and are really 'perspectives' and that 'objective truth' is a often style of ideology, is all good as a corrective on modernist arrogance- yet the way this plays out often leads to fragmentation and despair; since what is left after all? What stands when all can be overturned like this?

Finding the edges and limits of post modernism ending in despair and confusion is not a new phenomenon -as old as Nietzsche breaking down and flinging his hands around the horse being whipped in the street.

The answer lies in a different place. We can't just analyse the contradictions. That probably has to be done, but its not enough.

Trust and love and redemption are the correction - not smuggling the hermeneutic of suspicion into our system - more of the world than we know in doing that.

We cannot fight suspicion with suspicion- can't hint suspiciously at the problems, just naming all this is of limited use - since finding a new angle to express this from, a new twist or take, is the endless game of post modernism; which lives, in that form, for the momentary justification and gratification of having exposed another position, revelling in the high moral ground that the critique temporarily enjoys - though of course its vulnerable as soon as it sets itself up as the next target to be critiqued. The solid verities of the past are useful for organising an anti movement - but once thats achieved, then what?

The corrective has to be more direct, more embodied, more relational. Expressing trust and love, by which example we expose the level of mistrust in all such mindsets as really akin to paranoia; as having eaten from the wrong tree, is the way that is suggested.

So, for example, perhaps we need to avoid buying into mindsets that correctly name an issue, but are full of suspicion - some of the emerging church critique of Christendom, for example, sometimes seem to lean this way. Not withstanding the accuracy of the diagnosis, and the discussions of what might follow, the attitude in which its done is equally important.

i'm wired to ask questions, so this is probably closer to home than i care to admit sometimes. Some of my blog posts never make it past being drafts, for that reason - i'm not sure sometimes i haven't stewed the wrong fruit.

Certainly we need new forms, clear critique and paths of action; but seems to me must be marked by love and trust, mercy and truth, power and grace, and by community and engagement - with all of the ambiguity and resolution that involves - not suspicion and mistrust. Indeed a people marked by righteousness joy and peace in the Holy Spirit, who engage and trust, feel whats wrong and hurt with the rest of the world, and express grace amidst that, but don't become bitter and suspicious - not least in how we relate to each other, are perhaps the antidote.

does this all matter? revisting this history is not helpful, its too long winded, if its just stops there. And understanding this - well - i'd be happy for my kids to bypass it, if possible, though i think its comes at you from the culture anyway - analysed or not.

But it is at the back of my mind, at some level. You don't just walk away without taking some this with you.

(and it is in the culture - i've found myself debating with my boss if Barthes really ended that article on the Death of the Author with one more reversal, ie a sly wink that undid the whole agenda).

Sometimes it seems what passes as 'watchman' style discernment in the church, too, can be more imbued with this critical spirit, is really more motivated by suspicion, than the spiritual gift of discernment - ie where nothing is right except our own little corner - and that applies to me as well of course.

So it seems to me as i walk the dog :)

waves of power in Aus - who knew?

Was doing some homework on a conference speaker we're probably going to listen to.

I downloaded a couple of mp3s to hear Ken Fish's teaching; seems fairly standard approach to prophetic gifts (given his background with Wimber etc) - which I generally agreed with, but it was not that that most got my attention.

What caught attention, was the comment on one of the churches where he had been a speaker.

Since June 2010, the Lord has been visiting Australia with waves of greater and greater power.

Really? I wasn’t aware, hadn't heard .. or seen
Goes on …

Many .. churches .. have experienced significant power encounters resulting in a large number of testimonies of healings and changed lives. This outpouring is now spreading to... churches in the eastern states and has been taken to Indonesia as well.

Well – how about that. Could this be on the move under my nose without knowing it? Probably.

When i think about it, a couple of friends in a local country church did describe a powerful leadership retreat – where God turned up in powerful ways - which had made me wonder if this dimension was again afoot - but basically i was ignorant of any widespread pattern.

Without being aware me having read any of this, Deb happened to download an mp3 from one of those churches mentioned above.

To paraphrase the first few minutes of the message she downloaded (which was basically teaching through early parts of Genesis) the pastor starts off by mentioning that someone in the congregation, earlier in the day, had had a word of knowledge: to the effect that God wanted to heal damaged knees. "Conservatively speaking", says the pastor, "we have had at least 11 full healings of knees today" - (5 in one service, 6 in another)– "excluding those who just felt quite a lot better etc".

No hype, relaxed down to earth tone, just a report of what God is doing, observing the increased level of healing that is now operative, noting the change of season it seems to be associated with. i know the church; friends know the pastor. Down to earth, balanced.

He goes on to say, there have been times that they would have thought 11 healings in a year was not bad; and 11 in a month was pretty good. But 11 in a day –seems a greater dimension of God's power and working for healing is happening.

Reminds me a verse in the Gospels:

One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick.

Seems that by and large we in the Western church have got used to the power of the Lord not really being there to heal the sick. Not that its that black and white – the teaching still impacts lives, hopefully, and other kinds of healing occur, we’re very blessed with medicine, there is still a trickle of testimony, of response to faithful prayer etc, still evidence of less dramatic but powerful healing, and occasional dramatic things - for all of which I’m very deeply grateful.

But its rarely like this obvious proclamation; not 11 healings following one word of knowledge in one day. So teaching through that passage would rarely be accompanied by the expectation that something similar might occur today. Also seems even those churches that are seeking and pursuing such things, often find 11 healings a year is more the norm.

These things are signs as well - they point to something. What could it mean here?

God's increased presence is one thing. Of course its hard to comment on that from a distance, and i personally have no idea of other or more subtle meanings. It will quite probably mean something more in the context of the local church where it occurred, given the culture and dynamics of their church community- though no doubt there is always some element of mystery and sovereignty around what God does.

But the large scale pattern, of God visiting Australia in power, is what I’m interested in –including the possibility of missing it altogether, as i seem to have been. No doubt much more will soon be heard, (and probably will soon be contentious among those who don't like their such dimensions and unpredictable experiences like this - who believe perhaps that the power of the Lord was with Jesus, but cannot be present in the current church in any parallel way).

The closest thing i've ever seen to revival broke out in a little Anglican church on the outskirts of Melbourne in the mid 90s. Incredible blessing for many people, me included - but i think it was costly for the leaders in the end. I gather their own oversight eventually found God turning up like this to be outside the acceptable norm and form; or decided it was not God etc, though i don't know exact details. It had spread to other churches by them of course, but did seem like this little church had been chosen out as the entry point into Melbourne. At least 10,000 people must have gone through there - week after week they were packed out several nights a week; always asking for a show of hands as to who was new - always half the crowd was. The gentle style of the ministry, and the deep power of God moving, was amazing. I spent hours being touched and healed by the Presence of God in that setting, being taught, and experiencing, drinking it in. 

I imagine the increased presence of God, and the strange ways He works, will always tend to be to something of sign that will be spoken against, revealing hearts, as that prophecy given to Mary about Jesus outlines. I'm not a naive enthusiast - there are always be risk of tares with the wheat, always possibility of counterfeit things and hypey or other human distortions that accompany this at some level - i can see some of that possibility just by looking at my own heart. But we have to decide if these are possible (and perhaps tragic) distortions around the edges, or go the core definition of what is happening. Even without knowing much of this current move, I think the core is real, mostly because i've tasted things like this before, have wrestled with how this reality intersects the biblical mandate etc, before.

And for those who want to go no further than the bible - i also like that principle. As long as we see whats really in there. We won't break the roof to lower people in, or see people healed by passing shadow or touch of an annointed cloth, unless God really is there in unusual dimension anyway. I haven't seen that much of those things, but enough to know it can still happen today, that its biblical, and to be desired.

humility is the first response - i don't want to miss what God is up to:)

kingdom is big

"most scholars agree that the kingdom of God is central to Jesus's ministry.

Unfortunately, there is no widespread agreement as to what the term and its cognate ideas actually mean. " Wright

so we have piestic traditions on one side (personal conversion, private devotions, spiritualised views of heaven) - and those agitating for workings of God in other spheres - political engagement and questions of justice - or even a well thought through theology of work and life in the world - often in another.

yet politics and salvation, theology and public life, work and religion, economics and morality, were not really separated out into different spheres in the original monotheistic Kingdom vision. And though Jesus redefines what that Kingdom is about (not another restoration of Israel's fortunes, but the deeper fulfillment of the original mandate in Israel's calling to be the chosen nation and light of the world) and how this reign is brought, the Kingdom still integrates these - all these concerns can at least be on the same page; we shouldn't frame a subset as the religious bit, as against the others.

the name of this blog is based on that instinct. Sometimes we are gathered church, where a laser like focus - all on the same wavelength - for say teaching or training in gifts etc - can be key. But we are also called to wider spheres: the light is diffused across other spaces. And we have to live in the rhythm of both.

that quote above from a lecture "what did Jesus mean when he announced the kingdom of God?"

Christians need a working answer to these questions i think. Much to learn. Actively seeking and reading and discussing.

of kids, coffee and creation

recently kicked off a midweek small group at our place. Early days but kind of fun to pack the house out with 6 additional kids on top of our two - bit of loaves and fishes in reverse there : packing them in - somehow they all go to sleep - and adults of course!

we got chatting over coffee, and conversation touched on blogging. Why would do people it? where is the boundary between private and public? between accountability to a local community, 'journaling style' for personal outlet and expressing burning questions; etc.

I've written a lot on an education blog. i used to wonder about those questions at the time. Why was I burning midnight oil chasing out possibilities in how IT and Maths overlap? i knew my posts were too long (the gurus say the optimum is considered 700 words, and at least weekly for interest). I wrote much more infrequently, and in much longer bites. but i wasn't really chasing followers : more exploring ideas.

i've recently come to see a bigger backdrop to it, perhaps even something that is found in Genesis:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

So it seems there is a sense there in which God inquires of Adam; what will you call this? how will you see it? its linked with the mandate to work in the garden.

We know before the fall there is meaningful work; Adam is given that purpose in the Garden. We can aspire to that again. And I see in this verse about naming, where God stands back to see what Adam does, what creative naming he will bring to bear, that there is also exploration and uncovering of the dimensions of creation.

I've come to suspect that in rattling on in the midnight hours about the possibilities of using IT in Maths ... i think i was trying to name something; exploring something under a redemptive influence, in the areas of education where God had and has me. (Practically it also had the unintended side effect of a being a helpful portfolio of interests when applying for an unexpected job a few years later.) And that aspect of cultivating inquiry is also something to weave into education in general; the redemptive leaven in education should mean we do more than transmit a certain fixed body of content, but that we model inquiry in the process.

Anyway, that personal snippet wasn't the topic of discussion except over coffee, and although its meaningful to me I wouldn't press it too hard as anything other than my own take on things: although it kind of relates to the study we did actually last night, which had big kingdom themes. Big enough to maybe warrant redoing here, so here goes:

Genesis implies a kingdom - first 3 days of creation sets up realms : light/ dark, sky/earth, water/land. Next three days set up rulers and creatures to occupy and fill: a great light to govern the day, a lesser another for the night. Birds for the sky, fish for the deep, animals for the land: all these fill and expand into the realms.

There is some implied dominion for the creatures in the blessing to 'be fruitful' in these realms; and in the lights 'ruling' over day and night.

And after this all goodness, mankind is made in His image, which i gather also implies as his representative - is given definite dominion to to rule and steward over all this.

Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

ruler over the other realms and creatures and authorities in those realms..

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

7th day is rest : God is over all.

There is a kingdom implied here: man as delegated ruler over creation, with God bringing peace and blessing overall.

So when mankind rebels to God and falls: creation falls as well. "Cursed is the ground because of you" enmity enters into the created order. Strain and struggle and toil - difficulty enters work, perils wrack childbirth - things go wrong on a cosmic scale; partly because mankind had that dominion and blew it; creation goes astray too.

Fast forward to the redemptive hope that is revealed through scripture (along the lines of Seth, Shem, Abraham, Israel --to the awaited Messiah) - and we find the reversal is also cosmic.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God

Somehow creation itself is caught up in the drama of redemption. All creation fell- and redemption is being demonstrated across different realms as well. The kingdom reality still resonates across the various dimensions of creation, wherever the people of God bring His light into darkness, or where-ever God's original frame is still respected or restored.

The end of the ages has been brought forward into the present : we get to taste and see and experience the redemption: and creation looks on, somehow knowing this is the hope of redemption for the whole created realm as well.

Yet we live, as it were, between the ages. The new creation has been inaugurated; we know it in our own lives, through the gift and witness of the Holy Spirit. And yet it is not yet complete, either for us or creation:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

The Spirit, the same Spirit who was hovering over the waters in the beginning, who was there as God spoke light into being, who knows all creation, helps us now:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Paul describes Jesus as the second Adam, says that we are a new creation if we are in Him, and sometimes describes new creation in ways that parallel the original creation language:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:6)

Our era is kind of ok with spirituality, as long as it stays as its own private domain.
That's not going work with a vision like this, where the Author of all also redeems it all, by bringing it all to head at the Cross. As much as the world would like us to squeeze religion to the margins, this can't be a bit of personal spirituality round the edges:

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
Col 1 (Msg)

A kingdom that was originally as wide as Creation; that fell and was in rebellion; is being and will be restored; and we're called into that story, included in that redemption and reconciliation for all people and creation. That must touch every sphere and area of life. (Though the message is also that some will resist and miss the hope and promise here).

And there also is a sense in which the reality of all this is hidden.

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.
(Col 3:3)

And while we're called to bring kingdom of God into our own worlds, its not a linear progression of restoration: more like Dickens 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times': the darkness deepens while the light gets stronger; both at once, as birthpangs of the end of the age intensify.

Its kind of mind blowing sketching it out: resonating the redemptive story across the creation wide kingdom. No wonder Paul prays for the Spirit to bring wisdom and revelation so we can grasp what is the height, width, depth of all this!! I quote the Message translation, not because it says anything different, but it cadences are less familiar and might startle us more with whats being said here in Ephesians!

so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength! All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence. (Eph 1)

got through something like that outline - slightly different path - a light rehash of topics from years ago with Rikki Watts; newly refreshed with NT Wright.

but less is more next week:)