Lately I have been digging into Paul's Epistle to the Romans like never before. This daunting masterpiece, this theological colossus, has often scared me to death in the past. How am I ever to understand the whole of what Paul is saying here? What do chs.9-11 have to do with the rest of the letter? What exactly is justification? righteousness? Flesh and Spirit? These are some of the questions that I have been staggered by in the past, and I'm sure that those who have seriously wrestled with this letter will understand.
Nevertheless, I've found myself drawn to it over the past few weeks. I'm not taking a class on it. It's not directly related to the thesis I'm writing this semester. And yet, I could hardly tear myself away from it last night after nearly 5 hours of wrestling with the letter in the Greek text. I've moved very slowly through the letter. And I think this is the key to reading Paul: You cannot move onto the next verse until you have understood the preceding one. This would seem like a very basic reading strategy, but I think most find this more difficult--especially with Paul--than it would at first appear. That is to say, for example, that you're not going to understand the "Therefores" (i.e. Rom 2:1; 5:1, 12, 16; 6:12; 8:1; 12:1; 14:13; 15:7) or the "What then?s" (i.e. Rom 3:1, 9, 27; 4:1; 6:1, 15; 7:7; 8:31; 9:30; 11:7) in the letter unless you understand the preceding statements that prompt Paul to write the "therefores" and the "what then?s". You have to track with the argument, and realize that the issues Paul is addressing may not be the issues you're bringing to the text. You must be willing to realize that not only your answers might be corrected by the Scriptures, but even your questions may be undone or redone. Paul may not be addressing what you hope to hear addressed. Will you listen anyway? Let me offer some insight into part of the main line of the argument in Rom 1-4 as I now more clearly see it:
ROMANS 1
Paul begins with an introduction that previews his main themes (1:1-7), a prayer of thanksgiving for the church he's addressing in Rome (1:8-15, a church, by the way, that he has never met!), and gives a summary of the basic argument of his letter (1:16-17)--namely that the righteousness of God is now revealed "through faith for faith." He then jumps into the main body of his argument.
Paul begins at the grand, cosmic scale (1:18-32), diagnosing the human condition as one fundamentally shaped by idolatry: we "serve the creature rather than the Creator." (1:25) Because of this fundamental idolatry, God's wrath is poured out on us. But what is this wrath? God's wrath is precisely his "giving [us] up" to our own idolatrous ways. (v. 24, 26, 28) The result of us having been "given up" to our own idolatry is the multiple collection of sins listen through the latter half of this section. (Which is actually quite the reverse of how this passage [1:18-32] is popularly preached. It is not that God's wrath is the consequence of these multiple sins, so much as it is that these sins are the result of God's wrath--that is God's "giving us up" to our own idolatry.)
ROMANS 2
Just in case any Jews (or perhaps Torah-abiding Gentiles) in Paul's Roman audience think they are exempt from this universal declaration of human idolatry, Paul begins chapter two by saying that "whoever you are who judge others . . . you yourselves do these very same things!" (v.1) Nobody is exempt from the description of chapter 1: We are all of us idolaters, Jew and Gentile alike. Then Paul jumps into a discussion about the final judgment (2:5-16)--a discussion that is apparently important enough for Paul to put toward the very beginning of his letter, but often very unimportant to those of us modern Christian readers who like to skip over chapter two to get to chapter three where we find that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." (3:23) Hear the radical (perhaps radically un-Pauline?) message of Paul chapter 2, though: There is a day coming in the future "when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." (v.5) The final judgment scene! And what will count on that day of final judgment? "For he [God] will repay according to each one's deeds." (v.6) Some, who seek good, will receive life; for those who don't, there will be "wrath and fury." (vv.7-8) Final judgment is coming, and on that day "God will repay according to each one's deeds." I make no attempt to paraphrase or interpret that because I want you to hear the full brunt of Paul's own words. "There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek." (vv.9-10) There is a verdict coming that will be passed on that last day upon each and every person--guilty or "righteous/justified" (which in Greek are one and the same word--dikaios). And the verdict will be passed whether you know the Jewish Torah or not: those who know it will be judged by it, those who don't will be judged by that "law" which is revealed in their very hearts. (vv.12-16). How is it that you can attain to the verdict "righteous/justified" on that day? "According to each one's deeds" is Paul's answer. "That doesn't sound like Paul!" someone objects. "Paul says that justification is by faith not deeds!" True, but maybe there's more to justification in Paul than we have yet recognized.
Since this post is already becoming quite longer than I intended, I leave you hanging here and hope that you'll return in the near future to read the conclusion to this little discussion of Romans 1-4. (Better yet, READ ROMANS FOR YOURSELF!) God bless.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Back to Share the "Big Story"
I've noticed that this blog continues to get hits despite the fact that I haven't written for some time now. I had come to believe that it simply wasn't worth my time to keep this blog up, that no one wanted to jump into the conversation. On the hope that perhaps this will change, I am again taking up my digital 'pen'.
Originally, I wanted this blog to simply be a place where I could share what I am learning (I am currently a second year graduate student of Biblical Studies at Olivet Nazarene University), and offer a forum for my friends and family (and others!) to dialogue with me. I want to continue toward that goal, and I feel I have some fresh insights to share. One other brief note, just to establish some credentials: I am not only a student any longer. I have actually been a teaching assistant at ONU for over a year now, but a few weeks ago I accepted an offer to teach, full time, Old Testament at ONU come next fall after I have finished my masters thesis. Such a privilege has caused me to think ever more seriously about how to most effectively present the Scriptures to a world (even a church!) that today is so biblically illiterate.
To that end, I offer here some of the insights that have refreshed me in my own study of the Scriptures recently.
Lately, I have found myself more and more compelled to ask myself, What is the "big story" that is to be found in the Scriptures? This question has been planted in my mind specifically by a prominent and prolific (yet very accessible!) scholar that I've had the opportunity to study at length during the past semester: N. T. Wright. After reading through his entire Christian Origins and the Question of God series this past semester--in addition to a few other smaller works--I have been convinced by him that there is to be found in the Scriptures a "big story."
Perhaps this doesn't seem like a very novel idea, but I think that it is. In fact, I think that one of the reasons why we Christians today fail to feel the full "umphf" of the Scriptures is because we are unfamiliar with this "big story." It occurs to me that 90% of the exposure that most Christians get to the Scriptures is either in daily devotional literature, Sunday worship services, or independent Bible studies. In each of these forums, it also occurs to me that the Scriptures are read in very small sections: perhaps a chapter, or a few verses, or even just one verse at a time. Moreover, we are encouraged to ask questions like, "What does this tell me about God today?" or "What does this mean for my life now?" These kinds of encounters with the Scriptures (in devotions, Bible study, and worship services) and these types of questions that we pose to the texts of the Bible are not bad. They do not, however, it seems to me, encourage us to see the "BIG STORY." Rather, they encourage us to find "principles", "teachings", "timeless truths" and the like--the same sort of thing that people seek out when they watch Oprah, for instance. The result is that often we are left trying to divorce the ethics of the Christian life from the story of the Christian faith. We try to extract the truth from the history of our faith. The result of that is that we try to be good people (good Christians, followers of Jesus) without any real momentum, and even often without any real knowledge of Jesus and what he came to accomplish. The proper momentum for living the Christian life, however, comes from knowing our story, and because so many of us do not know that story, we fail to recognize why we do what we know we ought to do.
So what is that "big story"? I believe it is all to be found in Scripture, but that we each need a guide (or rather several guides!) to help us to weed through our various mis-readings of Scripture to find out what Scripture truly says. As such a guide, I want to sketch one possible telling of that story, and argue that all of the Scriptures--from Genesis, through Isaiah, Haggai, and 2 Thessalonians, to the Revelation of John--can be understood within this story. The Christian story (which is history as we understand it) could be told something like this . . . .
There is one God, not many, but one. This one God has revealed himself to us as the Creator. He has created all that is--earth, sky, stars, space, us. And this God has revealed himself as a good God. He created all things good. (Gen 1-2) But humans were not content with the goodness of this God's creation; so we rebelled. We turned our backs on our own creator, and thus brought down a curse on ourselves and the rest of creation. (Gen 3-11) But God was not content to let us live in such a rebellious state. He purposed to restore his creation--ALL OF IT, including we human beings.
So this good God called out a man by the name of Abram, whose name he later changed to Abraham. (Gen 12, 15, 17, etc.) Abraham was to be the beginning of God's single plan to bring about the restoration of creation, to deal with the problem of evil thoroughly and completely. Abraham's calling was the beginning of God's answer to Adam's sin. This good God promised Abraham that he would have a great big family, and that through his family all of the other families of the world would be blessed. The fulfillment of this promise did not depend on Abraham's faithfulness, but on the faithfulness of this good God alone. No one would thwart this good plan of God. So Abraham did become a great family, which was given the name "Israel." God gave Abraham's family a way to live--Torah/Law (Exodus 20+)--and promised them that they would live in harmony with God, man, and all of creation if they lived in this way. Once again, this was all part of God's single plan to restore all of creation through Abraham and his family. Israel was to live in the "Torah" as a sign to all the other nations of the way God intended for humans to live.
But time and time again, Israel failed. She was faithless to this good and faithful God. Her long history (Deuteronomy--2 Chronicles) attests to the basic rebelliousness/sinfulness of humanity. God gave her every opportunity to live as mankind should live. He forgave her, restored her, sheltered her again and again; yet she continued to fail. This is the constant theme of the prophets of Israel (cf. esp. Hosea): despite the faithfulness of God, Israel is faithless.
So what about God's plan to restore all of creation through Abraham's family? God had promised that this would be the way the restoration would take place. God was faithful to his part of this "covenant", but Israel was faithless. Israel's failure under the Torah seemed to stall out the plan of God: how could the restoration of all creation ever come to pass when Israel was unfaithful to the plan? In order for the plan to go forward to all the other nations--in order for the full restoration of all of creation to take place--the plan demanded a faithful Israel. But Israel was not faithful, and the hundreds of years of her history suggested that she never would be without some sort of gracious intervention on God's part. The family of Abraham had failed to bless all the other families of the world, as God had promised they would. What was needed was a faithful Israel. In order for the plan to move forward and for God to keep his promises to Abraham, a faithful Israel was what was needed.
Enter Jesus. Jesus, as a Jew and as the Son of God, was faithful to God in every way that Israel was faithless. He steps in before God as a faithful representative of Israel, takes the curse that Israel deserved upon himself, and in so doing offers to status of "family of Abraham" to all nations (cf. Paul and esp. Gal 3-4 where pistis Christou ought to be translated "faithfulness of the Christ/Messiah" instead of "faith in the Christ/Messiah"). The one plan of God to redeem and restore all of creation through Abraham's family--which was stalled out by the faithlessness of Abraham's initial family, Israel--is renewed and expanded by the one faithful Israelite, who represents Israel before God. God himself gracious intervenes to renew the plan that he promised could not be thwarted.
The result of all of this is the offer of what Paul refers to as "justification" or "righteousness", which basically means "acceptance into the family of Abraham on the basis of the faithfulness of the Messiah, Jesus." All who believe in this Messiah are incorporated into this one family ("you are Abraham's descendants and heirs according to the promise!" Gal 3:29), which is empowered by the very Spirit of Jesus to carry forth the one plan of God--the restoration of all of creation--into the future. (This is basically what it means to live in the "Kingdom of God.") This one family now lives in a certain way (the ethics of the New Testament--i.e. the Sermon on the Mount and Romans 12-15) as a faithful witness to the rest of the world that God's plan of restoration is in fact going forth! Some day all of this will culminate in the full restoration of all things. (Rev 19-21) Christians will not "go to heaven" at the end of this process, leaving the world behind; rather, heaven will come to earth, and the entire creation ("heavens and earth") will be restored, reunited, redeemed. (1 Cor 15) We who call ourselves "Christians" are witnesses of this story, and embodiments of it. (We already are "new creations.") This is the reason we act the way we do.
So how about it? Do you know the story? If you do, are there parts of my telling of it that you would tweak? Do you know why we do what we do as Christians? Do you recognize that you are, if you are "in Christ"--that is "justified"/"righteous"--a part of something MUCH BIGGER than just getting individual souls to heaven when they die (whatever that means)? It seems to me that most of us have forgotten our story--largely from a neglect of the study of Scripture in general, or from a mis-reading of Scripture that sees as its central aim the extraction of certain "principles" or "truths" from the story of the Scriptures. But all that we are and do as Christians only makes sense in light of this story. The Scriptures present us with a story (truly history) that we can live forth from. Are you living this story, or are you living another story?
Originally, I wanted this blog to simply be a place where I could share what I am learning (I am currently a second year graduate student of Biblical Studies at Olivet Nazarene University), and offer a forum for my friends and family (and others!) to dialogue with me. I want to continue toward that goal, and I feel I have some fresh insights to share. One other brief note, just to establish some credentials: I am not only a student any longer. I have actually been a teaching assistant at ONU for over a year now, but a few weeks ago I accepted an offer to teach, full time, Old Testament at ONU come next fall after I have finished my masters thesis. Such a privilege has caused me to think ever more seriously about how to most effectively present the Scriptures to a world (even a church!) that today is so biblically illiterate.
To that end, I offer here some of the insights that have refreshed me in my own study of the Scriptures recently.
Lately, I have found myself more and more compelled to ask myself, What is the "big story" that is to be found in the Scriptures? This question has been planted in my mind specifically by a prominent and prolific (yet very accessible!) scholar that I've had the opportunity to study at length during the past semester: N. T. Wright. After reading through his entire Christian Origins and the Question of God series this past semester--in addition to a few other smaller works--I have been convinced by him that there is to be found in the Scriptures a "big story."
Perhaps this doesn't seem like a very novel idea, but I think that it is. In fact, I think that one of the reasons why we Christians today fail to feel the full "umphf" of the Scriptures is because we are unfamiliar with this "big story." It occurs to me that 90% of the exposure that most Christians get to the Scriptures is either in daily devotional literature, Sunday worship services, or independent Bible studies. In each of these forums, it also occurs to me that the Scriptures are read in very small sections: perhaps a chapter, or a few verses, or even just one verse at a time. Moreover, we are encouraged to ask questions like, "What does this tell me about God today?" or "What does this mean for my life now?" These kinds of encounters with the Scriptures (in devotions, Bible study, and worship services) and these types of questions that we pose to the texts of the Bible are not bad. They do not, however, it seems to me, encourage us to see the "BIG STORY." Rather, they encourage us to find "principles", "teachings", "timeless truths" and the like--the same sort of thing that people seek out when they watch Oprah, for instance. The result is that often we are left trying to divorce the ethics of the Christian life from the story of the Christian faith. We try to extract the truth from the history of our faith. The result of that is that we try to be good people (good Christians, followers of Jesus) without any real momentum, and even often without any real knowledge of Jesus and what he came to accomplish. The proper momentum for living the Christian life, however, comes from knowing our story, and because so many of us do not know that story, we fail to recognize why we do what we know we ought to do.
So what is that "big story"? I believe it is all to be found in Scripture, but that we each need a guide (or rather several guides!) to help us to weed through our various mis-readings of Scripture to find out what Scripture truly says. As such a guide, I want to sketch one possible telling of that story, and argue that all of the Scriptures--from Genesis, through Isaiah, Haggai, and 2 Thessalonians, to the Revelation of John--can be understood within this story. The Christian story (which is history as we understand it) could be told something like this . . . .
There is one God, not many, but one. This one God has revealed himself to us as the Creator. He has created all that is--earth, sky, stars, space, us. And this God has revealed himself as a good God. He created all things good. (Gen 1-2) But humans were not content with the goodness of this God's creation; so we rebelled. We turned our backs on our own creator, and thus brought down a curse on ourselves and the rest of creation. (Gen 3-11) But God was not content to let us live in such a rebellious state. He purposed to restore his creation--ALL OF IT, including we human beings.
So this good God called out a man by the name of Abram, whose name he later changed to Abraham. (Gen 12, 15, 17, etc.) Abraham was to be the beginning of God's single plan to bring about the restoration of creation, to deal with the problem of evil thoroughly and completely. Abraham's calling was the beginning of God's answer to Adam's sin. This good God promised Abraham that he would have a great big family, and that through his family all of the other families of the world would be blessed. The fulfillment of this promise did not depend on Abraham's faithfulness, but on the faithfulness of this good God alone. No one would thwart this good plan of God. So Abraham did become a great family, which was given the name "Israel." God gave Abraham's family a way to live--Torah/Law (Exodus 20+)--and promised them that they would live in harmony with God, man, and all of creation if they lived in this way. Once again, this was all part of God's single plan to restore all of creation through Abraham and his family. Israel was to live in the "Torah" as a sign to all the other nations of the way God intended for humans to live.
But time and time again, Israel failed. She was faithless to this good and faithful God. Her long history (Deuteronomy--2 Chronicles) attests to the basic rebelliousness/sinfulness of humanity. God gave her every opportunity to live as mankind should live. He forgave her, restored her, sheltered her again and again; yet she continued to fail. This is the constant theme of the prophets of Israel (cf. esp. Hosea): despite the faithfulness of God, Israel is faithless.
So what about God's plan to restore all of creation through Abraham's family? God had promised that this would be the way the restoration would take place. God was faithful to his part of this "covenant", but Israel was faithless. Israel's failure under the Torah seemed to stall out the plan of God: how could the restoration of all creation ever come to pass when Israel was unfaithful to the plan? In order for the plan to go forward to all the other nations--in order for the full restoration of all of creation to take place--the plan demanded a faithful Israel. But Israel was not faithful, and the hundreds of years of her history suggested that she never would be without some sort of gracious intervention on God's part. The family of Abraham had failed to bless all the other families of the world, as God had promised they would. What was needed was a faithful Israel. In order for the plan to move forward and for God to keep his promises to Abraham, a faithful Israel was what was needed.
Enter Jesus. Jesus, as a Jew and as the Son of God, was faithful to God in every way that Israel was faithless. He steps in before God as a faithful representative of Israel, takes the curse that Israel deserved upon himself, and in so doing offers to status of "family of Abraham" to all nations (cf. Paul and esp. Gal 3-4 where pistis Christou ought to be translated "faithfulness of the Christ/Messiah" instead of "faith in the Christ/Messiah"). The one plan of God to redeem and restore all of creation through Abraham's family--which was stalled out by the faithlessness of Abraham's initial family, Israel--is renewed and expanded by the one faithful Israelite, who represents Israel before God. God himself gracious intervenes to renew the plan that he promised could not be thwarted.
The result of all of this is the offer of what Paul refers to as "justification" or "righteousness", which basically means "acceptance into the family of Abraham on the basis of the faithfulness of the Messiah, Jesus." All who believe in this Messiah are incorporated into this one family ("you are Abraham's descendants and heirs according to the promise!" Gal 3:29), which is empowered by the very Spirit of Jesus to carry forth the one plan of God--the restoration of all of creation--into the future. (This is basically what it means to live in the "Kingdom of God.") This one family now lives in a certain way (the ethics of the New Testament--i.e. the Sermon on the Mount and Romans 12-15) as a faithful witness to the rest of the world that God's plan of restoration is in fact going forth! Some day all of this will culminate in the full restoration of all things. (Rev 19-21) Christians will not "go to heaven" at the end of this process, leaving the world behind; rather, heaven will come to earth, and the entire creation ("heavens and earth") will be restored, reunited, redeemed. (1 Cor 15) We who call ourselves "Christians" are witnesses of this story, and embodiments of it. (We already are "new creations.") This is the reason we act the way we do.
So how about it? Do you know the story? If you do, are there parts of my telling of it that you would tweak? Do you know why we do what we do as Christians? Do you recognize that you are, if you are "in Christ"--that is "justified"/"righteous"--a part of something MUCH BIGGER than just getting individual souls to heaven when they die (whatever that means)? It seems to me that most of us have forgotten our story--largely from a neglect of the study of Scripture in general, or from a mis-reading of Scripture that sees as its central aim the extraction of certain "principles" or "truths" from the story of the Scriptures. But all that we are and do as Christians only makes sense in light of this story. The Scriptures present us with a story (truly history) that we can live forth from. Are you living this story, or are you living another story?
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