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.

NT Wright is an Anglican? - part 1

i notice many Anglicans looking beyond Anglicanism for inspiration. i get that. Partly the era - a healthy cross fertilization of movements is at work.

(i did have a comment in here about my early experience of Anglicanism; schooling etc; but think it may possibly confuse the issue, so its gone. At least for now. )

Anyway, i wonder what would happen if Anglicans wrestled more with NT Wright - an Anglican theologian and bishop. Might be less need to always look elsewhere; good as the cross fertilization can be (and of course crossing these boundaries has been my story).

i've read a few of his books in last couple of years -enjoying these riches - Justification, Surprised by Hope, The Cross and the Fire, some of his articles, and some mp3s on parables, kingdom of God etc - and feel like i'm only skimming the surface.

so much richness and depth and critique and promise and hope in here

Surprised by Hope: have we misunderstood what heaven is all about? If we use the biblical, rather than the popular, images, then perhaps we have. 'Going to heaven when you die' is not the main use or focus of the term in the scripture - its not untrue, but hardly the point of most of the usage: inaugurating a new creation here and now, and exploring the fullness of what that means, what God is up to, is a better focus. Much follows on that: and it widens the dimensions of redemptive living.

Similarly in Justification he makes a compelling case for a scriptural critique and refinement of reformation doctrine; that we have extracted doctrines that are not wrong, but not as biblically based as they could be. The counter arguments - that its awfully unsettling to tinker with centuries old tradition, and it makes reading the text less transparent if we have to know something about 1st century Palestine or the whole bible, or 'look, this bit does say what we think it says' - seem less substantial than Wright's defence that he is following the original reformers' own agenda: deepening faith and practice against the bible itself; letting it be the guide, according to the best understanding that faithful scholarship can furnish.

The 16th C reformation formulations recovered much that we rightly treasure, but seems to me Wright rightly divides the places where they (and tradition) tightened the perspective into too narrow an arc; over stress certain terms and themes at the expense of underplaying others. If it turns out this can be conclusively demonstrated - and i for one think the arguments seem sound, we should let a fuller and better understanding of the text reform our categories. Not least, a fuller and more central doctrine and role of the Holy Spirit, and a stronger frame for the large scale redemptive story, across all creation.

The result is similar : we end up with all of the key doctrines intact, just reshaped in more biblical form - and surprisingly liberating to give other epistles their voice, not just Romans as the de facto base line to interpret the rest of the NT.

Of course that's potentially quite a large re-orientation: and he hardly needs a blogger pushing his work - he has some stern words for the vitriolic and unaccountable critiques that can issue from the blogosphere - but i write for my own reflection, and perhaps - hopefully - some local engagement and discussion.

The counter reaction to his work on Justification seems largely to derive from adherence to tradition: one hears comments like "don't touch this, or how i've got used to it, or how my parents and their parents saw it" (or, more generously, 'this might have some truth, but really, pastorally, don't unsettle the flock with the need for re-learning things they thought were bolted down').

Which is ironic indeed - as if protestants are now too invested in tradition (a charge they would previously have raised to catholics) to let relatively recent doctrine (16th C is still very late) be opened to fresh discussion by first-class biblical (and evangelical) scholars; to look again at the authentic 1st century usages and understanding? (I say evangelical, though part of the difficulty is his work might unsettle some of the things evangelicals thought they had all sorted out).

Perhaps we want to know all the answers already, in some prized areas, rather than risk the uncertainty of going deeper; but we might be holding something that is a little out of focus; and find there are dimensions we had truncated, which come back into focus, be restored to more biblical dimension, if are willing to let go of some of that 'certainty' and come back to the text, with all of its resonances.

Justification is not a light read, but carries the day for me in discussing this - and is itself only a summary of his more substantial work and research into Paul's use of various terms.

He's resigned as Bishop of Durham to take up full time academic study and work on Paul again, in his 60s. Admirable!

and here's a wonderful discussion of what biblical authority might really mean ...

so much to quote: the whole thing sings

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm

i picked up my blogging pen to comment on that article and what i'm finding: but it will have to be the next post.

So if all his discussion and theology is Anglican, well and good -and it seems maybe we could draw more deeply upon it. If not, guess i'll need to be shown where its not biblical:)

(i know people will perhaps point me at Piper for that though; and while he has much great to say, at this point i think Wright has the better of the (courteous) disputation where they differ- the counter arguments* alluded to above are not as strong, in my view. How can a non scholar judge such things? In the last resort, by what seems most resonant with reality. It seems to me to be likely that evangelicalism has backed itself into a few corners, and the bible is bigger, and more integrally connected, in the way that his careful scholarship is unpacking. Not that i can do any more than enjoy reading and working through his texts).

I guess evangelicalism is in the DNA of many churches - and the challenge of some of his work would resound widely - and surely at home in his Anglican tradition first?

* just ran across this, after posting : its a mini summary by Wright of the differences with Piper as expressed in Justification; though the book itself obviously is a better exposition.

** and also, lest all this maybe sound like an academic orientation is needed to get to terms with his approaches, he has a whole range of materials: i've only touched some of the less heavy and more accessible - but just found the 'nt wright for everyone series' his study guides on various biblical books; more accessible still - ordered some to have a look :) . So i see that one can enter at various levels : complaining that he's too difficult might we mean jumped a step i guess - but he certainly does provide accessible ways