I regularly get to interact with people from across a continuum of spiritual development -- from unbelief to new belief to obedient discipleship, and many points in between. While I can become intellectually & spiritually exhausted at times, every single relationship is truly a privilege. I have a host of teachers.
In recent months I've contemplated a lot upon the journey that many experience from complete unbelief to belief in Christ, and I've felt sadness for those who's journey is unlikely to lead to belief which leads to faith which leads to hope. The more I've thought about it, three key questions keep coming to mind, and each of these questions have implications.
*1* Is there a God or, more succinctly, a Creator?
Countless arguments have been made for God's very existence. Centuries ago, philosophers argued in favor of a prime mover. In other words, who or what set all this in motion? Someone, they argue, had to turn the universe on. Today, Christian physicists have marveled at contemporary theories for the universe indeed having a beginning, and scientists like Francis Collins argue that our hunger for transcendence is embedded in our DNA. That is, as hunger is linked to food and as sex is linked to intercourse this hunger for divinity must have an eventual point of connection at the other side of the human urge as well. Even if debatable, these are intelligent arguments. Simply put, is there God?
*2* If we conclude that it is more than likely that a Creator must exist, then another question looms in our imaginations. How does God reveal himself to his creation? If we are created being and if there is a Creator, then we are most fully human when we encounter this Creator. When we seek God, we are also in search of our own humanity because when God reveals himself, he is revealing the source of our very being.
*3* Did Jesus raise from the dead? This is unlikely to be the first question that pops into someone's head emerging from unbelief. However, it is a question that we must make a decision about. If he did raise from the dead, the most obvious explanation is to validate the claims of Jesus. If he raised from the dead and validated his identity with God as a result, then to know Jesus is to encounter the fullest revelation of God accessible to us, and the early witnesses of the fact are informants of a profound revelation of God. Much discussion for nearly 2000 years has gone into Jesus' resurrection, and N.T. Wright has written a convincing 900 page text on the topic during the last decade.
Is there a Creator? If so, we are created beings and would do well to yield to the Creator. How has he revealed himself? Understanding his revelation is a realization of what is most real about our world if he is indeed at the source of its existence. Did Jesus raise from the dead? If so, Jesus very identity seems to be validated, and that's a pretty big endorsement.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Incarnation & Scripture
In a post-Christendom age Christ-followers face the uncomfortable task of having to explain the authoritative importance of the Biblical text. "Because the Bible says so..." carries little weight among those who don't believe the Bible to start with, and yet, as followers of Jesus we claim the Bible as our authoritative guide. For those who already presuppose the authority of the Biblical text, the need to re-establish the Bible's position can truly be a frustrating endeavor. The gap in worldview with others is quite real. Nonetheless, it is a necessary pursuit. But where do we begin?
Interestingly enough, I first began contemplating the nature of the Christian Scriptures while involved in dialog with Muslims. I was trying to sort things out in my head when a Christian scholar pointed out to me that we often get the comparison backwards. We want to compare book to book, but theologically speaking, that is not an accurate comparison. He explained, the Quran is to the Jesus as Muhammad is to the Bible. In other words, Jesus is the revelation, and the Bible is the written witness of God's revelation. (In an Islamic worldview, the Quran is the revelation while Mohammad is the witness of that revelation.) I'm indebted to him for this insight, and it launched me into contemplating the nature of Christian Scripture. It launched me into a deeper appreciation of the importance of the doctrine of incarnation and just how central that theological tenet is indeed.
Jesus is the embodiment of God's revelation. That is, the Creator revealing Himself to His creation. God reveals Himself to human witnesses. Those witnesses pass on the stories of God to others and on through generations, and some of these early witnesses write down what they saw and heard. Jesus is the pinnacle of God's revealed self, so the writings that have proximity to that Revelation embodied in Christ speak the most authoritatively to us. Does God speak today? I believe He does, but we measure what we perceive to be God's revealed action today by the stories and teachings of those that have the most proximity to God's primary revelation to humanity. New Testament writers, within one or two generations of Jesus, have passed onto us the measure & standard of our belief and practice.
It's not that God can't or doesn't make Himself known now. It's not that everything He did before Jesus gets thrown out. Just the opposite. We simply begin with Jesus at the center and work our way outward. Jesus is the central and primary revelation of God. This is nuanced, of course, in that Jesus endorses the Scripture that came before Him -- while yet re-interpreting portions of it -- and He set in motion of movement that would go beyond his physical presence. As we continue His work, we discern contemporary action or doctrine based on that central revelatory manifestation in Christ. We understand Christ in His historical setting as well, and in His historical setting He helps us understand how to apply the Hebrew Scriptures in contemporary settings as aliens and exiles. We read the New Testament letters as authoritative case studies laid out by contemporaries (or perhaps near contemporaries in some cases) of Christ. We receive Paul, a gift to the church, and discover Christ in the world of first century Jewish scholarship being worked out practically in the ethics of the first multicultural church networks in the cities of Pax Romana.
We, free church believers, sometimes appear obsessed with the first century or so of Christianity. We are insistent on the authority of the New Testament text. Indeed, if we embrace the reality of Jesus as the apex of God's revelation, then the witness closest to that center is vital to us. And if we recognize the implications of incarnation (faith in action in culture), then we also seek diligently to understand Jesus in His historical cultural setting. And as we discover Jesus interacting with the theological ideas of his time, we discover the importance of the Scriptures before Him but equally recognize how easily misguided we can become in their interpretation. We take all of this and open ourselves up to be shaped and changed by it for the work of redemption in our contemporary world. The real questions to wrestle with are those centered around the reality of Jesus. If Jesus is revelation through incarnation, the Biblical witness becomes exceedingly important to us and indeed does speak authoritatively. To continue this refining work of living into that story so that it lives through us today with the help of Jesus' Spirit in us, that is the challenge worth living for.
Interestingly enough, I first began contemplating the nature of the Christian Scriptures while involved in dialog with Muslims. I was trying to sort things out in my head when a Christian scholar pointed out to me that we often get the comparison backwards. We want to compare book to book, but theologically speaking, that is not an accurate comparison. He explained, the Quran is to the Jesus as Muhammad is to the Bible. In other words, Jesus is the revelation, and the Bible is the written witness of God's revelation. (In an Islamic worldview, the Quran is the revelation while Mohammad is the witness of that revelation.) I'm indebted to him for this insight, and it launched me into contemplating the nature of Christian Scripture. It launched me into a deeper appreciation of the importance of the doctrine of incarnation and just how central that theological tenet is indeed.
Jesus is the embodiment of God's revelation. That is, the Creator revealing Himself to His creation. God reveals Himself to human witnesses. Those witnesses pass on the stories of God to others and on through generations, and some of these early witnesses write down what they saw and heard. Jesus is the pinnacle of God's revealed self, so the writings that have proximity to that Revelation embodied in Christ speak the most authoritatively to us. Does God speak today? I believe He does, but we measure what we perceive to be God's revealed action today by the stories and teachings of those that have the most proximity to God's primary revelation to humanity. New Testament writers, within one or two generations of Jesus, have passed onto us the measure & standard of our belief and practice.
It's not that God can't or doesn't make Himself known now. It's not that everything He did before Jesus gets thrown out. Just the opposite. We simply begin with Jesus at the center and work our way outward. Jesus is the central and primary revelation of God. This is nuanced, of course, in that Jesus endorses the Scripture that came before Him -- while yet re-interpreting portions of it -- and He set in motion of movement that would go beyond his physical presence. As we continue His work, we discern contemporary action or doctrine based on that central revelatory manifestation in Christ. We understand Christ in His historical setting as well, and in His historical setting He helps us understand how to apply the Hebrew Scriptures in contemporary settings as aliens and exiles. We read the New Testament letters as authoritative case studies laid out by contemporaries (or perhaps near contemporaries in some cases) of Christ. We receive Paul, a gift to the church, and discover Christ in the world of first century Jewish scholarship being worked out practically in the ethics of the first multicultural church networks in the cities of Pax Romana.
We, free church believers, sometimes appear obsessed with the first century or so of Christianity. We are insistent on the authority of the New Testament text. Indeed, if we embrace the reality of Jesus as the apex of God's revelation, then the witness closest to that center is vital to us. And if we recognize the implications of incarnation (faith in action in culture), then we also seek diligently to understand Jesus in His historical cultural setting. And as we discover Jesus interacting with the theological ideas of his time, we discover the importance of the Scriptures before Him but equally recognize how easily misguided we can become in their interpretation. We take all of this and open ourselves up to be shaped and changed by it for the work of redemption in our contemporary world. The real questions to wrestle with are those centered around the reality of Jesus. If Jesus is revelation through incarnation, the Biblical witness becomes exceedingly important to us and indeed does speak authoritatively. To continue this refining work of living into that story so that it lives through us today with the help of Jesus' Spirit in us, that is the challenge worth living for.
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