Y Safle

Keith Schooley has an interesting article on his blog about a new documentary (presumably released in the US as I have heard nothing about it here) about the supposed discovery of Jesus’ family tomb.

Keith argues for a presuppositional viewpoint – that clearly the claim must be false, because we know that the tomb was empty. On the other hand, his article links to Ben Witherington’s analysis which includes some very interesting comments looking at the claims in terms of actual likelihood, using among other things some statistical analysis.

The point is that this tomb is no more likely to belong to Jesus of Nazareth than the discovery of a grave in the UK of a William married to a Mary might indicate that this is the grave of William of Orange.

The problem is that these are common names.

But could we even entertain the possibility that this could be Jesus’ tomb? Should we do so?

Well clearly Keith has a point that we really shouldn’t bother. But how would we convince an atheist who presented this as evidence? Let us suppose that we felt it necessary to provide an answer to such a person, then apart from all the statistical evidence, we must also deal with both additional names that we know nothing about and the absence of others. We must also explain why the family tomb of Jesus of *Nazareth* is in Jerusalem, and with how the body of Christ that was known to have vanished managed to turn up, and then (if the disappearance were a hoax, why they saw fit to inscribe his name on an ossuarie).

But most of all, we know that the Jesus ossuarie was not actually found in this tomb! (and there is doubt about the inscription).

So really this whole story falls apart on close inspection (as described on the blogs I have linked to). Were an atheist to raise this argument, we could give it short shrift.

And that is a good thing, because when looking at the claims of Christianity, it is the ressurection of Jesus that is the "elephant in the room". Christ’s resurrection is central to Christianity both because of what it achieves, and because it is God’s affirmation of Christ’s ministry. It is central because it does not matter what evidence atheists bring to bear on the creation account, the old testament narratives or anything else: if Christ was raised from the dead then he is Lord indeed.

And it is central because there are no other plausible explanations for the events of the first century. How a world could be transformed by people willing to die for their belief in a God who had died in shame but risen again in glory.

So maybe we should discuss this family tomb, because it allows us to discuss the death and ressurection of Christ. And that can only be a good thing.

In My last post I spoke about preachers appealing to the Greek of a verse to make a point, but I used as my example 1 Corinthians 7 verse 1 (explaining the findings of Greek scholars including C K Barratt and Gordon Fee that the Greek term “to touch a woman” is idiomatic for “to have sexual relations”). What I did not do was provide an interpretation for this passage that makes sense of it armed with this knowledge.

So here is my view (which I think is quite clear once the idiom is understood).

The passage reads:

Now concerning the things about which you wrote, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”

But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.

The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Notice I have added some quotation marks. The Greek text has no quotation marks – they hadn’t been invented yet! So it is only conjecture, but I think it is a good one, that Paul immediately quoted from the letter that the Corinthians had sent to him.

He has dealt with many other issues in the preceding chapters – issues that had been reported to him. But now he turns to the Corinthian letter and he says:

“Now about the matters you wrote to me about. You said ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations’”.

And then he immediately answers this point “*BUT* because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife” and he goes on to say that husbands and wives should fulfill duties to one another.

So what is going on here?

It seems that some of the Corinthian Christians had come to the conclusion that sexual relations were not appropriate for Christians *within* *marriage*. One or other of a couple were advocating sexual fasting within marriage, and had written to Paul to commend this practice.

This interpretation fits with what we know of the Corinthian church. They were proud of their spirituality, whilst embracing practices that we would find astounding in today’s church. They also had a pre-gnostic theology that might have led them to disdain the flesh and thus God’s gifts within marriage.

We also know that some of them were sexually immoral, and it may be that part of the reason that there was sexual immorality in the Corinthian church was because one partner in a marriage was denying the other their “conjugal rights”.

So Paul’s prescription: He agrees that celibacy is a wonderful option, but argues that where couples are married, to avoid the temptation to immorality, they should not deny their partners (except perhaps for short periods, when devoting themselves to prayer).

Read the passage again with this interpretation in mind, and I think you will agree that it makes much more sense than the NIV’s interpretation that Paul is talking about marriage.

(Incidentally, the passage quoted above is taken from the NASB, which is a literal translation. The RSV and AV (KJV) which are also literal translations, read almost identically.

I have a rule of thumb when listening to a sermon. If the pastor or minister starts talking about how the original Greek of a passage says something other than what our translation says, then he does not know what he is talking about!

Before I completely offend everyone who has ever delivered a sermon before, perhaps I should go into some more detail.

My point is that one
often hears sermons in which the preacher digresses into a discussion
of why one Greek word was used over another. I think such digressions
are *always* questionable, and often completely wrong.
At best, I will look up the passage in a good commentary later to see
what others have said about the subject, but often I ignore such
points made.

But what if the different versions of the Bible translate
differently? A case in point might be 1 Corinthians 7, where my RSV
and other literal translations say “it is good for a man not to touch
a woman”, but the NIV jumps to “it is good for a man not to marry”,
and other versions say “it is good for a man not to have sexual
relations”. What do we make of this jumble of interpretations?

I think we can note several things:

Firstly, the difficulty of the passage is demonstrated by the
disagreement of Bible translators on the point. We can see the
disagreement from the English translations. No need for Greek yet.

Secondly, if the translators cannot agree, then a basic competance in
Greek is probably not going to help much. Appeal to the Greek text in
this case reveals that the literal translations (KJV, RSV, NASB etc.)
are indeed translating literally. The passage does indeed say “it is
good for a man not to touch a woman”.

Now a commentary can be of great assistance here, because appeal to a
commentary will show that the term “to touch a woman” was a first
century idiom that referred to sexual relations. When learning a
language, one must learn many idioms before one can gain fluency in
the language (One of my favourites is the Welsh “dros ben llestri”, which is
idiomatic for “over the top” – although literally it is translated as “over the head of the dishes”!).

Armed with this information about the idiom (the Greek one now, not the Welsh one!), we are able to do an
exegesis of the passage, without appeal to the Greek words used.

However, I can envisage examples where one might wish to quote what
the commentators say about the original Greek. In such circumstances,
I think the quote should be properly referenced.

If a preacher says “the original Greek actually suggests this…” I
will assume the preacher is working on their own knowledge (and
probably out of their depth). If they say “Barret tells us, in his
commentary on 1 Corinthians, that the original Greek form used was an
idiom for this…” then I can evaluate the quality of the source of
the information, and even check it out for myself later – an important
stage in the process of critical appraisal of the information we
receive.

So I am not actually saying we can never preach on what the original Greek says – but as most preachers are not experts in Koine Greek, we must acknowledge our sources and alternative interpretations when we do so.

Warren Wierbse says in his introduction to “The Best of A. W. Tozer,”

He was not afraid to tell us what was wrong. Nor was he hesitant to
tell us how God could make it right. If a sermon can be compared to light, then A. W. Tozer released a laser beam from the pulpit, a beam that penetrated your heart, seared your conscience, exposed sin, and left you crying, “What must I do to be saved?” The answer was always the same: surrender to Christ; get to know God personally; grow to become like Him

Tozer also said to an acquaintance:

“I have preached myself off of every
Bible Conference platform in the country!”

Because the popular crowds do not rush to hear a man whose convictions make them uncomfortable.

So when somebody said to me:
>It’s just too bad that the author of Born After Midnight and The Root of
>The Righteous [i.e. Tozer] never took Galatians 5:22-23 to heart and asked the Lord to
>develop the fruit of the Spirit in them. Their writings would reflected
>it.

I think the point is that Tozer did indeed take Galatians 5:22,23 to heart.
Instead of using it as a balm for a guilty conscience he understood the
underlying message as written: Those who have the Spirit of God will
demonstrate the fact with deeds worthy of repentance. Christians are called
to bring forth fruit, and we know what Jesus said of the tree that brought
forth no fruit.

Tozer’s writings are a wake up call on a par with those of Leonard
Ravenhill. His book “Keys to the Deeper Life” should be compulsory reading
for all Christians (it is only about thirty pages long after all).

Again the point is that so much that passes for modern day Christianity
would be disowned by our forefathers as carnal and ungodly. Believers take
other believers to court. Believers live in immorality but are allowed to
arrive each week at the communion table [or whatever your church calls it].
Christians step on each other in their rush to “the top”. Christians ignore
justice and mercy, and reflect in so many ways the attitude of the world
around them.

To repeat Tozer’s quote:

> We modern Christians are long on talk and short on conduct

We love to talk and debate, but how many of us are doing things practically
in our own situations? How many of us are making a difference in our own
communities, for no reward but to know that we serve our LORD?

We can talk much of working out our salvation, but our Christian faith is no
academic exercise, but a practical walk. This site is meant to be about "practical
Christian life" and the reason is that a Christian life that is not
practical is also not alive.

Faith without works is dead, being alone.

So let us examine ourselves and consider how we could better serve God in
the family of the Church. Don’t talk about it. Do it!

It is trendy these days to wear fashion accessories with the letters
WWJD written on them. The letters stand for
“What Would Jesus Do”?

This question is a pertinent one. In any situation, we should ask, what
would Jesus believe was the correct course of action? If we follow him,
then we need to know what he would do, so that we too can do it.

But I would like to add some extra letters: DWRHAC – “Do we really have
a clue”? Have we any idea what Jesus would do about the illegal and
immoral detention of people in Guantanamo bay? Do we know what Christ
would say about going to war to secure oil supplies in Iraq? Do we know
what his view would be on the destruction of our environment? Do we know
what he would say about mortgage debt? Social security? Health care?
People using the asylum system to escape economic deprivation? The EU
and U.S. trade rules and dumping of food that keep Africa poor so that
we can stay rich?

How do we know what Jesus would say on an issue? Only by studying
the message of the Bible *and* studying the situation. Even then
there is often room for doubt, which is why Christians can disagree. We
have the Holy Spirit as our guide and the Bible to teach us, but what
would Jesus do about Guantanamo bay (where no doubt the prisoners are
being tortured too)? I have no idea.

But one thing I know – he would not do nothing. It was not within him to
turn his back on injustice, and that is the Christ I would follow.

Have you ever wondered where we get the term “freelancer”?

In the fifteenth century, warfare was changing. The arrival of gunpowder, and especially of cannon, had changed everything. The fall of the great city of Constantinople in 1453 – the final destruction of the Roman empire – served as a demonstration of how cannon could achieve what no army had ever managed – to breach Constantine’s massive fortifications.

Before this final siege, defenders had always held the advantage in a siege situation. Attacking armies were in the field, exposed to counter attack and at the end of long supply trains. But now with cannon the tables were turning. It was now possible to breach the mightiest of defensive walls.

European warfare had also, over the centuries, concentrated on cavalry. Knights, who could ride and fight atop horses, were drawn from the aristocracy, and were a warrior elite that had held sway in a time when there was no money for standing armies. Peasants could be archers, and these were important, but with the return of sufficient currency in europe to pay for them, another important force arose – infantry.

Swiss infantry quickly became some of the most sought after – mercenary armies of infantry who would fight for anyone with sufficient silver to pay their wages, and throughout Europe wars were now won or lost by infantry, and not cavalry.

The reason for this was easy to see. These infantrymen, with their long pikes and spears, if they stood their ground, were nearly impregnable. No cavalry could force their horses to throw themselves on those pikes, and so the cavalry charge was blunted. The independent infantry – the free lancers – were what every army needed.

But there was an important proviso here. The infantry had to stand together. If they lost their nerve – even just a few of them – and broke ranks, then the formation would collapse, the defense would be lost, and the infantrymen could be picked off one by one on the field of battle.

Every free lancer knew what it was to entrust his life to his comrades. The same was true in the defeat of the highlander charge at the battle of Culloden. The charge was defeated because each rifle man was tought to put his bayonet not in the man running at him, but the man immediately next to him. Thus the bayonet could bypass the highlander’s shield. But every infantry man on the field had to entrust his life to his neighbour. This took courage, but also an exemplary level of trust.

So how much do we trust *our* peers? More to the point, how much can they trust us? Could we be faithful in such situations?

Peter said he would stand by Jesus, but when the soldiers came, he departed and denied his Lord. But never again. Peter later stood firm in his testimony and he died for his trust in the Lord who would save him. Indeed, nearly all the disciples of Christ were eventually martyred for their faith in him. That was trust.

John Wesley was approached by the customs and revenue officer, raising taxes. He was asked what silver he had that he might be assessed for taxation. As a clergyman, it was expected he had reasonable wealth. Wesley replied that he had a teaspoon.

Like so many other Christians, Wesley trusted in God to provide for his needs, and saw no profit in hoarding wealth. He knew where true wealth lay, and did not need the crutch of materialism. That too was trust.

History is replete with examples of people who trusted God to meet their needs, because they understood what trust was.

When we speak of fighting the good fight, do we have any vision of what it would be like to be a free lancer, having the tide of battle wash over us, trusting in those around us to stand firm with us?

An enjoyable childhood in which children are encouraged to play is not necessarily a bad thing. Children are designed to learn through play, and imaginitive play is a very important part of this. Of course, if we just buy all the latest toys, where does the imagination go? Hannah loves being pushed around in the laundry basket, and both girls like to climb onto a blanket and “fly away” to exotic places. We don’t need a filght simulator to make that work!

Video games are also an issue because of the time they waste, and the sedentry lifestyle they encourage. But I don’t think we need to ban video games – we just need to keep the balance right. The same for television and just about everything else.

But where I think our society is going wrong is in the whole notion of “youth culture” as something different from our current culture. The reason these young people are not growing up, and are learning to behave like debauched idiots is because they are associating only with other young people. They disdain contact with more mature adults, and nothing in our society really forces them to associate with adults any more.

Now it is basic human nature that we conform to our societal norms, because (in the absence of Christ at least) we derive our sense of significance from our standing in whatever group or society we inhabit. So if you get groups of young people, they derive significance and a sense of self worth from one another by behaving in a manner that idolises what sets their group apart (their youth). And so they act more like immature people – because they need the sense of self worth that this brings them.

So how do we change it?

In our churches we have “youth work”, which is important. But youth work that separates the youth from the Church and never attempts to integrate them into the larger body is counter productive. It becomes increasingly secular and often embarrassing. It dishonours God.

So bring the youth work back into the life of the Church. Involve the pastor and everyone else. Have joint events, and fund raising by young people working with or for the older people.

Any other ideas? Please add them in the comments.

We know that scripture does not contain all prophecy. Scripture tells us of
people who prophesied but whose prophecy is not recorded.

It seems to me (and I derive my view from, I think primarily, Wayne Grudem [see:
Systematic Theology, Grudem, IVP] ) That New Testament prophecy differed from
Old Testament prophecy. The Old Testament prophets had a specific role in
bringing us the special revelation of God. They tell us of his character,
his workings in the life of man, and particularly they point to the
incarnation as the focal point of history. The time when our saviour would
come and usher in the kingdom of God. They knew that Jesus would be our
salvation, and they pointed to him over and over until John the Baptist, the
last “Old Testament” prophet came to prepare the way of the LORD.

Jesus has now come, and we live in his kindom already. The Kingdom of God is
both hear, and yet it is to come. We are already living in the kingdom and
yet it is not here (the so-called eschatological hope).

What this means for prophecy is that it is no longer required (at least,
there was a requirement in the 1st century for prophecy specifically
relating to the work of Christ, but that prophecy is given – the task of it
was given to the apostles). The view is usually stated: “we have the
scriptures, we do not need further infallible revelation”.

This is quite true, but I would suggest that New Testamant prophets were not
the same as OT prophets. Note the Apostles gave us the NT scriptures, not
the people who prophesied.

So what did they prophesy?

Literally prophecy is the telling forth of God’s word. It is a forthtelling,
not a foretelling. There may be occasional prohecies that appear to be
foretellings. Charismatics would usually call these “words of knowledge”.
Whether the label is correct is not too important, as it is possible to
preach the word of God straight from the Bible “prophetically”. The prophecy
comes in the action of the Holy Spirit in applying the infallible scriptures
to a situation and a specific people. It is a telling forth of God’s word
that will indeed not return void.

Again, prophecy is not infallible revelation at all. It is a forth telling
of the very words of God into a situation.

It is a widely held belief amongst pentecostals and charismatics that one can receive the gift of tongues and a prophetic interpretation of those tongues.

Tongues are a contentious issue in the modern Church. Indeed they always
have been. Our largest problem with modern day tongues speaking is that we
cannot be absolutely certain how people spoke in tongues in the days of the
apsotles. Thus we must be careful that we do not claim passages to support
our practises that actually mean something slightly different.

I am of the view that tongues probably did sound much like the tongues we
hear today, but we ascertain from scripture that the use of tongues was
primarily as a prayer language (1 Cor 14:14). When someone speaks in a
tongue they speak to God. They are praying. It is not God speaking to them
but them speaking to Him.

We should not be surprised that prayer formed a part of corporate worship,
but notice what was happening in Corinth. People were puffed up with pride
in their spirituality. They came together and spoke in tongues together so
that no one could say the “amen” to their prayers. They were showing off.
This sinful and
proud use of this gift was of no benefit to anyone. There was no one who
understood the prayer and could say “amen” to it.

What does Paul say? That he would pray with his spirit and his mind also. He
tells the congregation that any tongue must be interpreted before the
congregation can move on. There is no point meeting together and all
speaking in tongues so that no one can understand, because no one is
edified. They might as well all sit in their own prayer closets and pray in
private. Why did they meet together in this way at all? Won’t an unbeliever
on seeing it say “they are all mad!”?

So tongues are prayers from the spirit of the man to God, enabled through
the Holy Spirit. The interpretation is just a making known of the prayer, so
that we can say “amen” to it.

The question is asked, why did Paul call this prophecy? The answer being
that he did not. 1 Cor 14:5 simply says that prophecy is greater than
tongues unless there is an interpretation. Paul never says that the
interpretation makes the tongue prophecy. He merely says that the value of
tongues is increased enormously by the interpretation, putting it on a par
with prophecy.

I see no reason why heartfelt and Spirit inspired prayer to God should be
thought to be less important than prophecy, and Paul seems to agree.

‘We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace. Be peaceful, therefore, in warring, so that you may vanquish those whom you war against, and bring them to the prosperity of peace.’

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, vol. 3 (quoting St. Augustine)

Augustine’s Just War theory still is at the heart of ethical justification of many of our wars, but is the teory sufficient? Augustine argued that Christians should rather suffer loss than go to war, but did not make the same case for the head of a Christian state. Rather, the head of state may declare war in the interests of maintaining peace. If our peace is threatened, or if we have suffered grave loss, then our head of state may declare war.

I am not particularly happy with the just war theory, and part of my objection lies in this statement, made by a friend:

> A pretty standard observation is that non-combatants get
> killed in wars of any “stripe”. That is often said as if it
> were a surprise. The important question, it seems to me, is
> whether fewer civilians get killed in a Just War than would be
> killed if there were no war.

There is an issue of responsibility here, and we should note that humans
are not like beans that can be counted and weighed one against another.
If there is a room full of unconcious people who are about to die in a
fire, and I throw them from a window so that half of them survive,
whereas half of them die from the fall, then I have indeed saved half of
them, and my actions – it seems to me – are ethical (assuming there was
no better means to save them available to me!).

But now consider this same room, and I decide I will save these people
by releasing a flood from some water tanks that will quench the fire. I
do so knowing I will drown several other people in another room. Is it
now ethical for me to spend the lives of other people to save these?

If one volunteers for action then one says that their life is available
to be laid down for the cause for which the action is prosecuted. But
what of those who do not volunteer for this action and do not want it?
What right have we to lay *their* lives down for the sake of others?

This is the kind of messy ethical situation one finds oneself in when
attempts at a peaceful resolution to a festering problem are abandonded
for the economic, logistical and political expediency for war.

I think it is a mistake to try and shoehorn our actions into Augustine’s
Just War theory – we may manage to do so, or we may not, but the danger
is that in uncritically accepting a theory from another age, whose
underlying ethics we have not investigated, we may attempt to abdicate
our responisbilities as Christians to consider the issues carefully for
ourselves in the light of a fundamental biblically derived Christian
ethic. In the case of the invasion of Iraq, such a Christian ethic would need to examine everything from our
current lifestyle, our culture and its assumptions as well as the
morality of both the Iraqi and western regimes.

Saddam Hussain wore his immorality on his sleave, and a reading of
Amnesty International reports is terrifying, but let us not fall into
the trap of imputing some overarching morality on our own nations – many
of Saddam’s atrocities were perpetrated with western backing, and using
western weaponry. The massacre he was executed for was perpetrated under the noses of the US army, and with their permission given to Saddam to breach the no fly zones to perpetrate the massacre.