tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67012650964110225812024-03-13T19:59:46.032-07:00Oculata FideReflections on the words and deeds of JesusTom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.comBlogger180125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-46055789136872027642023-05-07T18:54:00.004-07:002023-05-07T19:21:37.694-07:00Matthew 26 - The Last Supper - Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis<p> <span face="Arial, sans-serif">“In the institution of the Blessed
Eucharist at the Last Supper, … Jesus creates for himself a new form of
existence as food for man’s life. As
supreme culmination of the work of redemption, God the Word Incarnate takes on
the created form of greatest possible vulnerability by becoming edible and
potable, in an act of creative anticipation and transformation of what
would happen to him physically on Good
Friday on the Cross.” </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Source:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i>Fire of Mercy Heart of the Word Volume IV</i>, Gospel of Matthew, by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
(Ignatius Press 2006), at page 149.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><br /></span></p>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-31695083232417460362022-07-31T08:37:00.011-07:002023-05-07T18:52:21.045-07:00A Layperson Looks at Desiderio Desideravi<div><br /></div><div> Pope Francis published his apostolic letter, <i>Desiderio Desideravi </i>(DD), on June 29, 2022. At section 10, the Pope says:</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjs2GfR4Qvl2Ptrxmy6cndTaWlOroJZG7lg8tD7PwCPBU0iUKlPkrHpFcxB0N-2wHDJHR61I6TioxXT3KX7FeIg9TBYQCiUDjq3oexbCuTOXW1Wv-VFF_3z1CBpAI20imGTUJ44KBXTTph7E4mT9VgY-g1RtbJwajjSzKph0BpEGLzGeKqotg9TT36pwg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="885" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjs2GfR4Qvl2Ptrxmy6cndTaWlOroJZG7lg8tD7PwCPBU0iUKlPkrHpFcxB0N-2wHDJHR61I6TioxXT3KX7FeIg9TBYQCiUDjq3oexbCuTOXW1Wv-VFF_3z1CBpAI20imGTUJ44KBXTTph7E4mT9VgY-g1RtbJwajjSzKph0BpEGLzGeKqotg9TT36pwg=w145-h200" width="145" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ghent Altarpiece D- Adoration<br /> of the Lamb, by Jan Van Eyck<br />Credit: Wikpedia Commons</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span face="Tahoma, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 10pt;">Here lies all the
powerful beauty of the liturgy. If the resurrection were for us a concept, an
idea, a thought; if the Risen One were for us the recollection of the
recollection of others, however authoritative, as, for example, of the
Apostles; if there were not given also to us the possibility of a true
encounter with Him, that would be to declare the newness of the Word made flesh
to have been all used up. Instead, the Incarnation, in addition to being the
only always new event that history knows, is also the very method that the Holy
Trinity has chosen to open to us the way of communion. Christian faith is
either an encounter with Him alive, or it does not exist.</span></div></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face="Tahoma, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div><div>The Pope in DD presents his take on the Eucharist as an encounter with our Lord </div><div>in the Paschal Mystery. </div><div><br /></div>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-90747129217912157432022-01-08T13:38:00.002-08:002022-01-08T13:38:34.929-08:00Henri de Lubac - St. Ambrose<p>I have been reading a lot of Henri de Lubac lately.</p><p>Somewhere de Lubac quotes St. Ambrose who said:</p><p></p><p dir="ltr">
<span style="font-size: 13px;">"Et nunc deambulabat in paradiso Deus, quando divinas Scripturas lego."</span></p><p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">Even today, God walks in paradise, when I read the divine Scriptures. </span></p><br /><p></p>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-65174145722638340812021-08-29T07:55:00.000-07:002021-08-29T07:55:25.513-07:00Return of Jesus <p> From a recent<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Roboto, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> study of Psalms and Genesis, I see the divine entourage, starting with, "Let us make man in our image." And then in Ps. 82 - where the RC bishops' version of the Bible (NABRE) backs me up that this is the divine council - we see the harm caused by angelic "rebels" whom we later see in St. Paul, Ephesians ch. 6, the principalities and powers. There is a great deal of biblical support for this "unseen realm." Satan and his corp normally work as wolves in sheep's clothing ("unseen"), such as with the priests who are for the Constitutional right to gay marriage or who don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus, or with church leaders banning the Hail Mary and the St. Michael prayer from post-Mass prayers. But now we see the devil working out in the open, in the U.S. with law court attacks on the faith, and way more horribly in AFG where believers are being burned alive for their faith as we speak. I believe that we should keep an open mind, that in days like these Jesus may well return to the earth, as promised, and if he does the Book of Acts says that we will see him on the Mount of Olives. It's important to look to him and for him daily (the worship of the Lord); otherwise, I might miss him.</span></span></span></p>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-24983385464343721532020-10-25T07:59:00.003-07:002020-10-25T08:14:50.041-07:00Ps. 82 NABRE Notes <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><cite><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/0"><span style="text-decoration: none;">The New American Bible, Revised
Edition (NABRE)</span>,</a> </span></cite><cite><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal;"> is a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bible translation made available
online by <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the </span></cite><cite><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></cite><cite><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal;">United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops</span></cite><cite><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal;">. Their
footnotes to Ps. 82 echo Divine Council teaching which we get from Michael
Heiser and others, as you see here, where I quote from the NABRE footnotes: </span></cite><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 7.5pt 0.5in; mso-outline-level: 4; tab-stops: list 1.0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Footnotes</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 7.5pt 0.5in; mso-outline-level: 4; tab-stops: list 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+82&version=NABRE#en-NABRE-17357" title="Go to Psalm 82:1">Psalm
82</a> As in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.58&version=NABRE">Ps 58</a>, the pagan gods
are seen as subordinate divine beings to whom Israel’s God had delegated
oversight of the foreign countries in the beginning (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deut.32.8-Deut.32.9&version=NABRE">Dt 32:8–9</a>). Now God
arises in the heavenly assembly (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.82.1&version=NABRE">Ps 82:1</a>) to rebuke the
unjust “gods” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.82.2-Ps.82.4&version=NABRE">Ps 82:2–4</a>), who are
stripped of divine status and reduced in rank to mortals (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.82.5-Ps.82.7&version=NABRE">Ps 82:5–7</a>). They are
accused of misruling the earth by not upholding the poor. A short prayer for
universal justice concludes the Psalm (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.82.8&version=NABRE">Ps 82:8</a>).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+82&version=NABRE#en-NABRE-17361" title="Go to Psalm 82:5">82:5</a> The
gods are blind and unable to declare what is right. Their misrule shakes
earth’s foundations (cf. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.11.3&version=NABRE">Ps 11:3</a>; <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.75.4&version=NABRE">75:4</a>), which God made
firm in creation (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.96.10&version=NABRE">Ps 96:10</a>).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+82&version=NABRE#en-NABRE-17362" title="Go to Psalm 82:6">82:6</a> <b>I
declare: “Gods though you be”</b>: in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John.10.34&version=NABRE">Jn 10:34</a> Jesus
uses the verse to prove that those to whom the word of God is addressed can fittingly
be called “gods.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+82&version=NABRE#en-NABRE-17364" title="Go to Psalm 82:8">82:8</a> <b>Judge
the earth</b>: according to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deut.32.8-Deut.32.9&version=NABRE">Dt 32:8–9</a>, Israel’s God
had originally assigned jurisdiction over the foreign nations to the
subordinate deities, keeping Israel as a personal possession. Now God will
directly take over the rulership of the whole world.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.12px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.12px; text-indent: 0px;">Ps. 82 footnotes, New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE), </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.12px; text-indent: 0px;"> © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC.</span></p>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-30647368420252462962020-02-17T15:11:00.002-08:002020-02-17T15:30:01.674-08:00Kathleen Norris - Psalms<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The Jewish believers sang the Psalms. Jesus <span style="background-color: white;">sang the Psalms of ascent with his disciples (Matt 26:30). The Apostles sang Psalms (1 Cor 14:26). </span>That was also the practice of the ancient Christians. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">Kathleen Norris in her book, <i>Dakota: A Spiritual Biography </i>(1993) describes her time praying and singing Psalms at Benedictine monasteries. The pace of life is too fast, and as Norris wrote in 1993 she saw that people were coming to recog</span><span style="background-color: white;">nize that time at the monastery just might slow us down. Norris says: </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #111111; font-size: large;">The
attraction is real. For all our secular preoccupations, our fascination with
lifestyles of the rich and famous, twentieth-century Americans are
flocking to monasteries for retreats in record numbers. The poor and
humble are so popular, in fact, that when I tried a few years ago to
arrange on short notice a retreat at a monastery in New England, I was told an
apologetic monk that the guest facilities were booked solid for the next six
months.</span><span style="font-size: 18px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">**** </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Psalms are the word of God, which is alive and active. It's not surprising that for Norris the experience of the monastery is life changing:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">She says: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">Often,
when I’m sitting in a monastery choir stall, I wonder how I got there. I could
trace it back, as I can trace the route from back East to western South Dakota.
But I’m having too much fun. The words of Psalms, spoken aloud and left to
resonate in the air around me, push me into new time and space. I think</span> of
it as the quantum effect: here time flows back and forth, in and out of both
past and future, and I, too, am changed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-16997326892944187262019-02-16T11:30:00.003-08:002020-10-25T08:10:46.708-07:00Genesis Chapters 2 and 3 - JSB and Brueggemann<h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 2;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #222222;">Per the Jewish Study Bible (JSB), Judaism does
not see "the fall" in </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Genesis <span style="background: white;">chapters 2 and 3. The JSB claims that getting ejected from
the garden and then having to work hard and put on clothes reflects real adult
life. The Garden of Eden is like a child's place, where Adam and Eve don't even know
they are naked. I don't agree with this assessment of the rule violation of Adam and Eve. The world changes after this disruption in
the garden. The sin has a cosmic effect. The sin of Adam and Eve drives
them away from this great place. I'm going with the the Catechism of the
Catholic Church and St. Paul when it comes to original sin and the meaning of </span>Genesis<span style="background: white;"> 2 and 3. </span></span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 2;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: black; font-weight: normal;">The
garden is God's place. "They heard the sound of the Lord God moving about
in the garden." Gen. 2:8. He sets the boundaries. He is the
gardener. Adam and Eve live with him. Here you see the personal
relationship which God offers. Skipping ahead to Christian
application, this relationship provides the joy of the spiritual
life. There is only one rule in the garden. And they can't even handle
that. Human nature craves autonomy. The serpent stokes that fire. Who is
this serpent? The text does not say. And we can't know from this chapter alone, but other Bible study indicates that the serpent is a spiritual being, here embodied. One of the themes of this chapter is to avoid the tree of
knowledge. Is this a teaching of anti-intellectualism? No. Read Gen.
1:28 (master the earth) and Proverbs 3:18 (seek wisdom). But believers can't get anxious about what they do not know. We too live in God's world.
Will we respect his boundaries? <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 2;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: black; font-weight: normal;">Brueggemann
says in chapters 2 and 3 we have the horizontal (conflict between people) and
the vertical (conflict with God) which goes hand-in-hand, just as we see
with Cain and Abel and in the teaching of Jesus (love God, love
your neighbor). The relationship between Adam and Eve breaks down.
This is love of neighbor - not happening. Adam blames Eve in 3:12. And we see
the vertical, where Adam blames God in 3:12: He says, "The
woman you put at my side...." Adam does not love God. He does not
love his neighbor. <i>See</i> Matt 22:36. Eve comes off much better,
where she says in Gen. 3:13, "The serpent duped me." And that
is exactly what happened. She is just accurately reciting what
happened. And yet fake Christians over the centuries mistreated women
citing Genesis 3 as authority for a theory claiming
that from the beginning women could not be trusted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 2;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><br />
Chapter 3 presents a law court scene. God the gardener becomes the questioner. And
there is a judgment and a sentencing. They were supposed to die.
Gen. 2:15. That was the law. They had been warned. But God had mercy. He
even made clothes for their naked bodies. Gen. 3: 21: He "made the
garments...and clothed them." Here we see the love of God, and the
forgiving grace of God. They lived. They had children. I like what
the JSB says quoting a talmudic rabbi, that the Torah begins with God clothing
the naked, and it ends with him burying the dead (Deut 34:6 where God
personally buries Moses). The Lord here provides the example of how we are to
live- doing acts of unmerited kindness. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 2;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: black; font-weight: normal;">For
Christians Genesis 2 and 3 begins God's "salvation history." Man has fallen away from
his creator, but God is going to restore him. We see a glimpse of the
restoration in chapter 3 with his mercies to these his first people.
The Bible is the story of God. He is the central character. His people forsake
him, over and over, starting here, but he will not give up on them. He finally
wins victory over sin and death with the resurrection of Jesus. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif">Source:
</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background: white;"> Walter Brueggemann, <i>Genesis: Interpretation: a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching</i> (</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background: white;">2010). </span><img alt="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=intemonk-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0664234372" border="0" height="1" src="file:///C:/Users/TSCHUE~1/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_16" width="1" /></span></span></div>
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-44400942815034848662018-02-04T14:12:00.001-08:002018-02-04T14:12:29.493-08:00Dunn - Prophetic Calling of JesusFrom <a href="http://The%20Gospels%20also%20indicate%20that%20Jesus%20probably%20experienced%20something%20equivalent%20to%20a%20prophetic%20calling%20when%20he%20was%20baptised%20by%20John.%20So%20the%20Gospel%20writers%20could%20hardly%20fail%20to%20recount%20the%20beginning%20of%20Jesus%E2%80%99%20mission%20from%20his%20baptism%20by%20John/">Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels</a> by James Dunn:<br />
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The Gospels also indicate that Jesus probably experienced something equivalent to a prophetic calling when he was baptised by John. So the Gospel writers could hardly fail to recount the beginning of Jesus’ mission from his baptism by John.<br />
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-53386560808762953112018-01-26T14:02:00.001-08:002018-01-26T14:02:11.134-08:00Jenson - Role of Old Testament<span style="font-family: inherit;">For some reason Christians lose sight of the fact that the God who saved Israel from Egypt is the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Here Robert W. Jenson discusses the role of the Old Testament in the church: </span><br />
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[W]hat did and should it mean for
the role of the Old Testament in the church, that in some new way it is now
"directed to Christ"? We see that our question must be limited: we
cannot ask why the Old Testament is Scripture after Christ's resurrection, but only
about the way in which the Old Testament canon actually functions within the
risen Christ's community. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When the narratives of the
patriarchs' adventures, of the exodus, of the conquest of Canaan, or of the
Lord's judgments and restorations of Israel are felt as alien, one of two
things is likely to happen; both have actually happened, and both undermine the
faith. One possible and currently actual outcome is that preaching and
teaching construe "the New Testament's God" simply by constructing a
contrary of the supposed Old Testament God: the God of the gospel is pacific,
nonjudgmental, and in general a really nice person. In much of the liberal
church, in many Evangelical groups, and indeed among many
"progressive" Catholics, theology has thus been replaced by
sentimentality ....<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We must therefore be careful in
stipulating the difference that the crucifixion and resurrection made for the
role of the Old Testament. In the New Testament itself, the Old Testament's
theological authority is unaffected. The Old Testament's identification of the
Lord as "the one who rescued Israel from Egypt" is
indeed completed by "the one who rescued the Lord Jesus from
death"; but it is not replaced (Soulen, God); and in general the New Testament
simply assumes the whole of Israel's story about God's works with his people.
Whatever problems the Old Testament law made for a soon predominantly Gentile
church, Jesus' own remembered words confirmed that the law reveals God's will.
And Israel's prophets were the very teachers from whom the primal church
learned why Jesus is needed.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="font-family: inherit;">Canon and Creed (Interpretation) (Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church)</i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">by Robert W. Jenson (<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Westminster John Knox Press 2010).</span></span><br />
<br />Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-39385966137938634622017-11-19T09:44:00.000-08:002017-11-19T09:44:19.040-08:00Robert Jenson - God Enters History<div>
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I am reading Robert W. Jenson's great book of lectures to undergraduates titled, <i>A Theology in Outline: Can These Bones Live? </i>(Oxford University Press 2016).<br />
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Jenson says:<br />
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The God depicted in the Old Testament does not ride serenely above the happenings of the temporal world. Israel’s God lives the history of this world together with us. And that means he has to live by and with the particularities and singularities of history. He has to enter history the same way that anyone enters history: by taking a particular place and doing particular things. And he does that the way anyone does: by identifying himself with a particular cause or people or movement—in fact, Israel.<br />
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-10990947137672854752017-07-29T14:13:00.001-07:002017-07-29T14:17:21.700-07:00Ecclesia de Eucharista John Paul II<h2 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 5px; padding: 5px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">This week I have reflected on </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">John Paul II’s encyclical, “Ecclesia de Eucharistia,” published the Vatican April 17, 2003. This is a blog on the words and deeds of Jesus. Among his most important words were those spoken at the first Eucharist where he said of the bread, "this is my body," and of the wine, "this is my blood," and said "take and eat." </span></span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Section 22 explains how union with Christ makes his people a sacrament. The Pope cites John 20:21 (as the father has sent me, so send I you). The Pope says, “From the perpetuation of the sacrifice of the Cross and her communion with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the Church draws the spiritual power needed to carry out her mission. The Eucharist thus appears as both </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;">the source </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">and</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;"> the summit</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> of all evangelization, since its goal is the communion of mankind with Christ and in him with the Father and the Holy Spirit.”</span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Section 23 explains the communal aspect: “[O]ur union with Christ, which is a gift and grace for each of u</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">s, makes it possible for us, in</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> him, to share in the unity of his body which is the Church.”</span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">And the Holy Spirit? The Pope says, “God the Father is asked to send the Holy Spirit upon the faithful and upon the offerings, so that the body and blood of Christ “may be a help to all those who partake of it ... for the sanctification of their souls and bodies. The Church is fortified by the divine Paraclete through the sanctification of the faithful in the Eucharist.”</span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">And finally for this post I note section 24. The Pope is realistic. He knows that there is disunity in the world, and in the church: “The seeds of disunity, which daily experience shows to be so deeply rooted in humanity as a result of sin, are countered by</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;"> the unifying power</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> of the body of Christ. The Eucharist, precisely by building up the Church, creates human community.”</span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">What do I take from all of this? We have this great gift which brings Jesus close to us</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> and makes us more like Christ. It also creates a fellowship like no other among believers, a closeness. How do I make this happen in real life? I attend a large church, the largest church in the entire Milwaukee archdiocese, and I know very few people there. At Mass I am not sharing with people whom I know. How do I make what JP II describes actually happen? Start with prayer. Ask God to bring people into my life who will help with all of this. That should be a prayer that God will answer. But be patient. </span></span></h2>
Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-41235856753682298602017-03-31T10:20:00.002-07:002017-05-04T04:58:22.082-07:00Jesus in the GospelsHere is a long blog post from Larry Hurtado, which is wonderful:<br />
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<a href="https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/jesus-in-the-gospels/">https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/jesus-in-the-gospels/</a><br />
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Larry concludes:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #f9f7f5; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In short, it is a fallacy to pose a genuinely human Jesus such as we have in the Gospels over against the “high” Christology reflected in Paul’s letters and other various early Christian texts. Instead, at least in the various circles that comprised the emerging “proto-orthodox” Christianity of the late first century and thereafter, various affirmations about Jesus were seen as compatible and complementary, and various literary genres were appropriated to express Jesus significance.</span><br />
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-78833580588089561992016-09-05T08:53:00.001-07:002016-09-05T09:13:46.153-07:00John P. Meier - The Future Kingdom in the Beatitudes of Jesus<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is my second post on the book, <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><b style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><i><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Marginal-Jew-Rethinking-Historical-Miracles/dp/0385469926">A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus Vol. 2 - Mentor, Message and Miracles</a> </span><span id="goog_1872792330"></span><span id="goog_1872792331"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a>, </i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">by <a href="http://theology.nd.edu/people/faculty/john-p-meier/">Fr. John P. Meier,</a> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Volume 2 of Meier's five-volume study of the historical Jesus. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21.56px;">Meier provides background information on the structure of OT beatitudes in the Psalms and Proverbs. He states that "sometimes the reward or fortunate consequence of such wise action is mentioned in the context," as in verse 3 of Psalm 1 (shall be like a tree planted near streams of water). Meier at 324. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: alittleperspective.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21.56px;">What is a beatitude? In the OT and in the Intertestamental literature it is a </span></span><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">“cry of admiration, congratulation, and felicitation.” Meier at 323. The wisdom teacher describes the happy person and "while formally descriptive,” the </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21.56px;">beatitude is</span><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">“functionally parenetic.” P. 323. The happiness “explicitly described is implicitly held up as a goal to be pursued.” P. 323. While the OT </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21.56px;">beatitudes are "basically sapiential [focused on rewards in this life] rather than eschatological," the </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21.56px;">beatitudes of Jesus reflect the change that came post-exile. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21.56px;">After the exile, the beatitudes become more realistic (Book of Job), and then after the Seleucid persecutions with </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21.56px;">apocalyptic literature the horizon extends to the next world, and we see this view of the future kingdom in the beatitudes of Jesus. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus' </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21.56px;">beatitudes</span><span style="line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> come in this form: 1) the <i>makarios </i>(happy are), 2) followed by the designation of the sufferers and 3)</span><span style="line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hoti </span><span style="line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or causal clause which promises the reversal of their "present misery" by an </span><span style="line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">eschatological gift or action from God. Meier at 330. </span><span style="line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the background here is "the whole OT picture of God as the truly just king of the covenant community of Israel, the king who does what Israel's human kings often failed to do: defend widows and orphans ...." Meier at 331.</span></span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Jesus' beatitudes:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We begin to
see why Jesus was not interested in and did not issue pronouncements<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">about concrete
social and political reforms, either for the world in general or for </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Israel in <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">particular. He was not proclaiming the reform of the world; he was</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">proclaiming the
end of </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">the world.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Meier at 331. Here Jesus
differs from the prophets who were concerned about the social and political
evils of their day. Jesus, by contrast, did not denounce slavery,
Roman rule in Judea, unjust economic practices “oppressing the poor in
the face of inflation,” because: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
definitive arrival of God’s kingly rule was imminent; calls for social and </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">political <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">reform,
launched - and often botched - by human beings, were thus beside</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Meier at 331.</span></span><br />
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-49963561404340685082016-08-28T10:12:00.002-07:002016-08-28T13:49:30.133-07:00John P. Meier - Jesus' Two "You Petitions" <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For the next four weeks I will be posting on the
book, <b><i><a href="http://theology.nd.edu/people/faculty/john-p-meier/"><span style="color: windowtext;">A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus Vol. 2
- Mentor, Message and Miracles </span></a>, </i></b>by <b><i> </i></b><a href="http://theology.nd.edu/people/faculty/john-p-meier/"><b><span style="color: windowtext;">Fr. </span></b></a><b><a href="http://theology.nd.edu/people/faculty/john-p-meier/"><span style="color: windowtext;">John P. Meier</span></a>, </b>Volume 2 of
Meier's five-volume study of the historical Jesus. My citations to this
book will be to "Meier" or "Meier Vol. 2." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At page 317 Meier states: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[T]he
historical Jesus did expect a future coming of God's kingdom, and that kingdom
was in some way a transcendent one, surmounting this world's barriers of time,
space, hostility between Jews and Gentiles, and finally death itself. A
completely un-eschatological Jesus, a Jesus totally short of apocalyptic
traits, is simply not the historical Jesus, however compatible he might be to
modern tastes, at least in middle-class American academia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What does the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples tell
us about these kingdom expectations? Jesus begins the prayer with,
"Our Father," Greek <i>pater </i>which reflects Jesus'
"striking use" of the address, Aramaic "Abbe" which
means “my own dear father” for God. Meier at 294. The petitions of the
prayer "are meant to reproduce the trusting and unaffected attitude of a
child dependent on an all-powerful and loving father." Meier at 294. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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In the words of the prayer, “Your kingdom come,” we have a petition asking for this kingdom to come soon. Meier at 295, 297. The "symbol of God's kingship is
central to his message." Meier at 294. That may be common knowledge to
believers and we take that for granted, but God's kingship is a message which
is not central to the NT outside of the Synoptic Gospels and is not central to
the OT or to ancient Jewish literature. God's kingship soon coming to this
world was an expectation of Jesus that he brought to this prayer, the only
prayer in the NT which Jesus taught to his disciples. Meier at 294. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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There is beautiful parallelism in the two phrases: “hallowed be your
name,” and “your kingdom come.” Meier at 295. In both the Aramaic and the Greek
there are two beats in both, one on the verb and one on the noun, both ending
with the same sound (from the pronoun) and that creates a rhyme in the
prayer. Meier at 295. This
means that these two parallel lines go together and help to explain each other.
And what does this have to with Jesus'
thoughts of God's kingdom? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jesus says, "hallowed be your name." To hallow is
to sanctify the name of God. This means two things. First, Israel should
"sanctify God's name, as opposed to profaning it" (Meier at 295):
"This sanctification includes believing God's word, trusting his promises,
standing in awe of his majesty, praising him in worship, and observing his
precepts in cult and in everyday life."
Meier at 295. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Second, to sanctify the name of God means he manifests power
and glory "in the blazing of a theophany that can bring either salvation
or condemnation." Meier at 296 (citing OT). Meier discusses the
“equivalence of a person and the name of the person …” Meier at 296. God
does this "by manifesting his power, glory, and holiness (= his
transcendence, his "otherness," his "God-ness") ...."
Meier at 295-296. He sanctifies himself by a “powerful intervention.”
Meier at 296 (citing Ezekiel where God brings his scattered people home to
their own land). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Which of these two meanings of "sanctify your name" does Jesus have
in mind here? In the context of this prayer, the call to sanctify God's name
"is probably neither a prayer that people will honor and praise God's name
nor, as it were, an exhortation to oneself to do the same." Meier at 297.
For Jesus the "theological concentration" here (citing OT, Qumran
literature and the OT<i>) </i>is a petition for God himself to sanctify his
name: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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God alone can rightly and fully manifest himself in all his power and glory,
that is to say, God alone can sanctify his name, which, it is hoped, he will do
soon. This interpretation is supported by the close connection between the
first and second "you petition." Certainly only God can make his
kingdom come; the tight parallelism between the two petitions would seem to
argue that the same is true of sanctifying the name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meier at 297. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The prayer creates a picture of a great change coming, not from human actors but from God (“Abba”), our loving Father. For those who
are praying with Jesus, there is no need to fear.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-83662734008448922322016-06-08T16:15:00.001-07:002016-06-08T16:18:45.945-07:00Encapsulation - Surprised by Hope<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">One last thing, from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821">Surprised by Hope</a>, at page 122:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 9pt;">The word
eschatology, which literally means “the study of the last things,” doesn’t just
refer to death, judgment, heaven, and hell, as used to be thought (and as many
dictionaries still define the word). It also refers to the strongly held belief
of most first-century Jews, and virtually all early Christians, that history
was going somewhere under the guidance of God and that where it was going was
toward God’s new world of justice, healing, and hope. The transition from the
present world to the new one would be a matter not of the destruction of the
present space-time universe but of its radical healing. As we saw in the last
chapter, the New Testament writers, particularly Paul, looked forward to this
time and saw Jesus’s resurrection as the beginning, the firstfruits of it. So
when I (and many others) use the word eschatology, we don’t simply mean the
second coming, still less a particular theory about it; we mean, rather, the
entire sense of God’s future for the world and the belief that that future has
already begun to come forward to meet us in the present. This is what we find
in Jesus himself and in the teaching of the early church. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-15599901099916132142016-04-19T10:46:00.004-07:002016-04-19T10:46:38.274-07:00Easter 2016 - Back to Surprised by Hope <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">read N.T. Wright’s</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0010SIPOY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1">Surprised by
Hope<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></span></a></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">back in 2011 and decided
to come back to it this year as an Easter celebration over the 50 days of Easter, which run from Easter to Pentecost. </span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This time I’m reading the book along with occasional glances at the </span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BEICP0K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1">Surprised
by Hope Participant’sGuide</a></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, where at page 26 Wright says:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The
resurrection of Jesus is more than a belief that his body was dead and came to
life again, though this is quite true. It is an awareness that there was a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">cosmic explosion<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">when Jesus rose again, and the
power and repercussions of this reality echo through the ages to our day and
into eternity. From the earliest years of the church, followers of Jesus were
uniform in their affirmation and confidence that Jesus had raised, bodily, from
the dead. He had come through death, out the other side, and a new reality was
born. The tomb was empty! The risen Jesus had met with them, taught them,
shared meals, and instructed them. The one who had died on the cross was alive
again. Because Jesus has risen, we have more than confidence that our eternity
is secure. We have an invitation to become his ambassadors in the world today.
Through his church, Jesus wants to bring justice, lift up beauty, and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>lavish his gifts on the earth. And the
primary way he plans to do this is through you and me.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">As to that last sentence, the kingdom of God is not going to come "through you and me." God will finish that work himself. But I get Wright's point. Believers are part of God's plan of redemption, as participants in Jesus' "new creation" or what he called at his last supper the "new covenant." I've been listening to 1 Cor. chapter 15 over and over during this Easter time, where Paul calls the resurrected Jesus the "first fruits" of this transformed world. He is alive today and he continues to work, to "bear fruit," through his people. That's the message of <i>Surprised by Hope. </i></span></div>
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-84142510974958209372016-02-26T04:35:00.004-08:002016-02-26T04:40:07.130-08:00Richard Hays - Conversion of the Imagination<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #404040;">Here is a portion of </span><span style="color: #404040; line-height: 24px;">Colin James Smothers' blog post review of</span><span style="color: #404040; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #404040;"> </span><span style="color: #404040; line-height: 24px;">Richard B. Hays' book, </span><em style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #404040; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture</em><span style="color: #404040; line-height: 24px;"> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), describing St. Paul's method, which has been helpful to my study of First Corinthians: </span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #404040;">In Chapter 1, Hays turns to the book of
1 Corinthians to examine the question of the eschatological identity of the
church of Corinth in Paul’s correspondence. He begins by looking at the direct
quotation of Isaiah 45:14 in 1 Corinthians 14:25. Via the concept of
metalepsis, Hays analyzes the context of Isaiah 45, which is alluded to in
Zechariah 8:20-23 and Daniel 2:46-47, to point out that in their original
contexts these passages are about the Gentile outsider being brought to worship
Israel’s God after having recognized God’s presence with Israel (3). Hays
argues that Paul has intentionally placed the predominantly Gentile church into
the theological shoes of OT Israel by identifying the church not simply<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em style="outline: 0px;">with</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> OT
Israel but<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em style="outline: 0px;">as</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> OT
Israel. Hays calls this Pauline reading of these texts “apocalyptic,” since it
makes use of an “eschatological hermeneutic” that has been shaped by the
revealed event of the cross (4). According to Hays, this was “Paul’s missionary
strategy in his confrontation with pagan culture … [to] draw[] upon
eschatologically interpreted Scripture texts to clarify the identify of the
church and to remake the minds of his congregations” (5). Hays sees this
“hermeneutical move” deployed by Paul elsewhere—this time typologically—in 1
Corinthians 10:1-22. Here Hays argues that Paul describes the Corinthian church
in terms reminiscent of the wilderness generation, which again identifies the
church as occupying the theological space of OT Israel. Hays argues for the
same church-Israel re-identification in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 and 1 Corinthians
5:1-13, and from all of theses passages taken together Hays makes the case that
Paul intentionally connected the NT church with OT Israel in order to effect a
“conversion of the imagination” in NT believers, an imagination that allows the
NT church to read Israel’s history as their history, and even to read
themselves </span><em style="outline: 0px;">into </em>Israel’s
history.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://colinsmothers.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/a-review-of-richard-hays-the-conversion-of-the-imagination/">https://colinsmothers.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/a-review-of-richard-hays-the-conversion-of-the-imagination/</a></span></div>
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-7094128442964717372016-02-24T12:06:00.000-08:002016-02-24T12:06:01.983-08:00James Dunn <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Paul-Gospels-James-D-G/dp/080286645X" style="text-decoration: underline;">this</a> from James Dunn:</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Spirit opened up a whole new vista for the first Christians, and they were brave and bold enough to follow where the Spirit showed the way. If we are to fully appreciate Paul the apostle, Paul the theologian, Paul the church founder, we must take full account of this vital aspect of his gospel. Having been converted by the Christ to recognise that God’s saving righteousness reached out to embrace Gentile as well as Jew, Paul was also quick to recognise that God’s Spirit was breaking away from the old patterns established by scripture and sanctified by tradition. This is why Christians need to rediscover Paul and to let him provide a fresh challenge to our own traditions where they no longer express the life of the Spirit, and to restore to us a fresh vision of how the initiative of the Spirit may once again be taking us in unexpected directions. </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.3;"><span class="a-size-large" id="productTitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.3 !important; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Paul-Gospels-James-D-G/dp/080286645X">Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels</a>, </i></span><span class="a-size-medium a-color-secondary a-text-normal" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.255 !important; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">(William B. Eerdmans </span><span class="a-size-medium a-color-secondary a-text-normal" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.255 !important; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">2011) </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.3;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">by</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> </span><span class="author notFaded" data-width="" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><span class="a-declarative" data-a-popover="{"closeButtonLabel":"Close Author Dialog Popover","name":"contributor-info-B001IR1BCK","position":"triggerBottom","popoverLabel":"Author Dialog Popover","allowLinkDefault":"true"}" data-action="a-popover" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a class="a-link-normal contributorNameID" data-asin="B001IR1BCK" href="http://www.amazon.com/James-D.G.-Dunn/e/B001IR1BCK/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">James D.G. Dunn</a>. </span></span></span></div>
Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-74859834408198504652016-01-03T11:27:00.000-08:002016-01-03T11:27:43.867-08:00Richard Hays - First Corinthians<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m enjoying Richard
B. Hays’ fast-paced <a href="http://www.amazon.com/First-Corinthians-Interpretation-Commentary-Preaching/dp/0664234402"><span style="color: #cc0000;">commentary</span></a> on First Corinthians. The text of Paul's letter offers excellent support for Hays’
comments on the “conversion of the imagination,” as this passage illustrates:</div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', serif;">But, as it is written,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', serif;">“What
no eye has seen, nor ear heard,<br />
nor the human heart conceived,<br />
what God has prepared for those who love him”—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1 Cor 2:9 (NRSV). In <i>First Corinthians</i> Paul challenges the believers to see with the "eyes of faith" realities which appear foolish to the people of that day. Hays states, for example, <span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">“The scandal of this message is difficult for Christians of a later era to imagine. To proclaim a crucified Messiah is to talk nonsense.” </span>Here from Hays’ comments to chapters 1 and 2 are beautiful remarks on
what First Corinthians opens with and promises to deliver:</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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“By
the end of the first nine verses [of ch. 1], Paul has sketched a sweeping
picture of the Corinthian church’s calling: They have been called by God to
participate in a movement, along with others all around the known world, to
extend the destiny of Israel by living as a covenant people set apart for the
service of God. God has lavished upon them spiritual gifts that enable their
mission of bearing witness to the grace of Jesus Christ, and God supports and
strengthens the community during the present age, while they await God’s final
judgment of the world.”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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…
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“</span><span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Consequently, to enter the symbolic world of the
gospel is to undergo a conversion of the imagination, to see all values
transformed by the foolish and weak death of Jesus on the cross.”</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hays, Richard B.,<b> </b><i>First Corinthians: Interpretation: A Bible
Commentary for Teaching and Preaching </i>(Westminster John Knox Press 2011). </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyScipKBBJwSUts1WtR7lndPkpvA7FVNglcnVpvvZU4G6QmczjPlWzdPWsE8MVPqtYtgiXPhakMpvAL_igj_IZO6RjNIVRRQM0K8sX1XHJ8gNBeQFlVYdwRQi80XmiC4cU7htmZsZZ2qX/s1600/Hays_Suit-Preferred70.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyScipKBBJwSUts1WtR7lndPkpvA7FVNglcnVpvvZU4G6QmczjPlWzdPWsE8MVPqtYtgiXPhakMpvAL_igj_IZO6RjNIVRRQM0K8sX1XHJ8gNBeQFlVYdwRQi80XmiC4cU7htmZsZZ2qX/s1600/Hays_Suit-Preferred70.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Richard B. Hays Credit: <a href="https://divinity.duke.edu/academics/faculty/richard-hays"> </a></span><a href="https://divinity.duke.edu/academics/faculty/richard-hays">Duke Divinity School</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-12534801048279494652015-11-14T10:37:00.005-08:002015-11-22T17:38:36.763-08:00Paris November 13 and George Eldon Ladd's The Gospel of the Kingdom<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After what just happened in Paris, today is a good day to reflect on the words of Jesus in the Olivet Discourse (Mark 13, Matt 24 and Luke 21). George Eldon Ladd wrote: </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The Kingdom is
assaulting the kingdom of Satan. This conflict will last to the end of The Age.
Final victory will be achieved only by the return of Christ. There is no room
for an unqualified optimism. Our Lord’s Olivet Discourse indicates that until
the very end, evil will characterize This Age. False prophets and false
messiahs will arise and lead many astray. Iniquity, evil, are so to abound that
the love of many will grow cold. God’s people will be called upon to endure
hardness. “In the world you have tribulation” (John 16: 33). “Through many
tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14: 22). We must always be
ready to endure the tribulation as well as the kingdom and patience which are
in Jesus (Rev. 1: 9). In fact, our Lord himself said, “He who endures to the end
will be saved” (Matt. 24: 13). He who endures tribulation and persecution to
the uttermost, even to the laying down of his life, will not perish but will
find salvation. “Some of you they will put to death.... But not a hair of your
head will perish” (Luke 21: 16, 18). The Church must always in its essential
character be a martyr church. As we carry the Gospel into all the world, we are
not to expect unqualified success. We are to be prepared for opposition,
resistance, even persecution and martyrdom. This Age remains evil, hostile to
the Gospel of the Kingdom.</span><o:p></o:p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The visible Church,
we are told, is to be completely leavened by evil doctrine. Apostasy is so to
pervade the Church that only a small remnant will be found faithful to God’s
Word. The closing days of This Age will be the Laodicean period when the entire
professing Church will be nauseatingly indifferent to eternal issues. In such a
portrayal of the last days, God’s people can expect only defeat and
frustration. Evil is to reign. The Church age will end with an unparalleled
victory of evil. Sometimes so much stress is laid upon the evil character of
the last days that we receive the impression (unintended, to be sure) that the
faster the world deteriorates the better, for the sooner the Lord will come. It
cannot be denied that the Scriptures emphasize the evil character of the last
days. In fact, we have already made this emphasis. The evil which characterizes
This Age will find a fearful intensification at the very end in its opposition
to and hatred of the Kingdom of God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP1kHZbdASDwMJ-PySsxArceMQbq5ZUZjmcNrYS5YILAjO90rOQIYzEJ30stjMEWqoFQ1U57gb60u2fWyD4nJ-pjdwFyX_AKGHMzhur-K_Vuq5On1i_2aVBy4Og1IMiqTMCWbrl9sTg3DU/s1600/Ladd+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP1kHZbdASDwMJ-PySsxArceMQbq5ZUZjmcNrYS5YILAjO90rOQIYzEJ30stjMEWqoFQ1U57gb60u2fWyD4nJ-pjdwFyX_AKGHMzhur-K_Vuq5On1i_2aVBy4Og1IMiqTMCWbrl9sTg3DU/s1600/Ladd+pic.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">George Eldon Ladd - Credit <a href="http://www.babelio.com/users/AVT_George-Eldon-Ladd_1316.jpeg">babelio.com</a></td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">This does not mean,
however, that we are to lapse into pessimism and abandon This Age and the world
to evil and Satan. The fact is, the Gospel of the Kingdom is to be proclaimed
throughout the world. The Kingdom of God has invaded This present evil Age. The
powers of The Age to Come have attacked This Age. The last days will indeed be
evil days; but “in these last days (God) has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb. 1:
2). God has given us a Gospel of salvation for the last days, a Gospel embodied
in One who is Son of God. Furthermore, “in the last days it shall be,” God
declares, “that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2: 17). God has
spoken for the last days; God has poured out His Spirit in the last day to give
power to proclaim the divine Word. The last days will be evil, but not
unrelieved evil. God has given us a Gospel for the last days, and He has given
a power to take that Gospel into all the world for a testimony unto all the
nations: then shall the end come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">Ladd, George Eldon.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i>The Gospel of the Kingdom</i><em>: Scriptural
Studies in the Kingdom of God </em> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959) (from chapter
9, titled, “When Will the Kingdom Come?”).
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-41130928261440832872015-08-29T08:39:00.001-07:002015-08-29T08:40:05.354-07:00Newbigin - The Christian Congregation<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.7999992370605px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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This is a Bible blog. But compare the importance of activities such as Bible study, or blogging, with the importance of the Christian congregation. Lesslie Newbigin, in <em style="border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Gospel in a Pluralist Society </em>(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), at page 227 writes: </div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">"I have come
to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking
for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. How is it
possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe
that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man
hanging on a cross?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">I am
suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a
congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. I am, of course,
not denying the importance of the many activities by which we seek to challenge
public life with the gospel– evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and
Christian literature, conferences, and even books such as this one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">But I am
saying that these are all secondary, and that they have power to accomplish
their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing
community.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-28734931851105369412015-07-13T07:00:00.004-07:002015-07-13T09:22:27.772-07:00Feed My Lambs - Agnes SanfordPeter loved Jesus and told him so, as we read in John 21. The response of Jesus was, "Feed my lambs." Jn. 21:17. This order that Christian leaders should help people, should feed the lambs, inspired Agnes Sanford to to do her work. I'm reading Sanford's books again, which brought to mind this post from 2012:<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">I</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">n a previous post dated July 10,2012, I thought of Peter who had to live with memories of his denials of Jesus. Jesus intervened after his resurrection by assuring and challenging Peter as described in John chapter 21. This John chapter 21 encounter raises a good issue: Do the healing effects of new life in Christ include healing of bad memories? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> The place to start here is with new creation theology. In 2 Cor 5:17, <st1:city><st1:place>St. Paul</st1:place></st1:city> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">writes, "So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come" (</span><st1:stockticker style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">NAB</st1:stockticker><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">). We see this in the words and deeds of Jesus as well, in John chapter 3, where Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs a new birth. When a person converts to Jesus, all is new. The past does not matter. But how deeply into the mind does the healing light of Christ penetrate?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> One fascinating response to this question comes from the famous spiritual healer, Agnes Sanford (1897-1982). I remember reading her autobiography, <i>Sealed Orders </i>(Bridge-Logos 1972)<i> </i> in 1976 when I was 20 years old. At that time I knew a few people who thought they had the gift of healing and who made prayers for "inner healing" of bad memories part of their ministry. That was not for me. But I was enthralled with <i>Sealed Orders. </i>It is the great story of a hopeful Christian who writes with the descriptive skills of a novelist.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><st1:city><st1:place> Sanford</st1:place></st1:city></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> was raised in China as the child of a missionary. After she married an Episcopalian pastor she lived in <st1:place>New England</st1:place>. At 20 years old, I did not have much theological sophistication, or ability to scrutinize the pros and cons of the spiritual healing ideas of Agnes Sanford. Many have been critical. See <a href="http://hbcdelivers.org/?p=732" style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none;">http://hbcdelivers.org/?p=7</a><a href="http://hbcdelivers.org/?p=732" style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none;">3</a><a href="http://hbcdelivers.org/?p=732" style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none;">2</a> (concluding that Sanford's </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> inner healing is a dangerous combination of psychology and new-age spirituality). But at that time I missed the new-age issue. For me reading <i>Sealed Orders</i> was an experience of reading simple and beautifully stated eyewitness testimony, describing people who saw their emotional lives turned around for the better after Sanford's prayers to Jesus for this kind of spiritual healing. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> My memories of reading <i>Sealed Orders </i>35 years ago are of a person frustrated with Christians who lived as though Jesus never rose from the dead. She believed that Jesus is alive, and that he offers his healing touch today just as he did during his public ministry on earth - a touch that included this "inner healing" of bad memories. If Agnes Sanford had lived in the days of Acts chapter 6 I bet that she would have gone over with the Hellenists who with their free spirits and visioning of the risen Jesus (Stephen) felt constrained and limited by the <st1:city><st1:place>Jerusalem</st1:place></st1:city> </span>church. See Martin Hengel, <i>Between Jesus and Paul: Studies in the Earliest History of Christianity, </i>Trans. John Bowden. <st1:city>London</st1:city>: <st1:stockticker>SCM</st1:stockticker>, 1983 [German essays <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">1975-83].</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<u1:p></u1:p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Yes, the church rightly puts a check on those who would claim the ability to solve complicated mental health issues with prayer. But if Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth, can be surprising in the ways that he heals and changes people, then even if I may not go along with all of their ideas I like to keep an open mind and listen to the voice of healers like Agnes Sanford. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Here is Agnes <st1:city><st1:place>Sanford </st1:place></st1:city> thinking back to her days in <st1:country-region><st1:place>China</st1:place></st1:country-region> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> when she first considered the possibility that healing was part of the Christian life. She recalls wondering if as a young girl she with prayer could have helped a women who suffered from severe depression: </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, serif;">It would have been easy to heal this lovely lady even as I long afterword was healed. If only some one of God's ministers had known that he himself was a channel for God's power and had laid his hands on her and prayed for the love of Jesus to come into her and lift her out of darkness into his light! All my life I have grieved that no one knew how to pray for her. But for the first time now, as I write this down, I wonder: could I myself have prayed for her and channeled God's power into her? I knew nothing about healing. …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Could I have prayed for her daily in silence and in secret as I prayed for the young man? Was that what God wanted me to do? </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Perhaps the reader is thinking, “Well, of course!” But in those days it was not, “Of course.” We were fundamentalists. That meant that we believed implicitly in every word in the Bible, yet we did not believe in healing through prayer. We were supposed to obey Jesus in every word that He said. Yet, when He said, “The works that I do shall ye do also,” we didn’t obey Him, and indeed considered it heresy that any one should try to do His works.” </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sealed Orders</span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">, p. 49.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Today if you use the word "channel" in Christian circles, there will be raised eyebrows, and I suppose there should be. But in 1972 Agnes Sanford thought of herself as a channel not as a new-ager but as a matter of simple obedience to Jesus. When St. Francis said, "Make me a channel of your peace," nobody questioned his orthodoxy. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> This subject is not a matter for intellectual curiosity or theological speculation. We are talking about people's lives here. After writing about Agnes Sanford I got home to find the July 23, 2012 issue of the <i>TIME</i> magazine on the kitchen counter, and I saw on the cover “One a Day - Every day one U.S. soldier commits suicide." In the <i>TIME</i> story by journalists Mark Thompson and Nancy Gibbs, they write: “The U.S. military seldom meets an enemy it cannot target, cannot crush, cannot put a fence around or drive a tank across. But it has not been able to defeat or contain the epidemic of suicides among its troops.” Agnes Sanford says about the Chinese woman, “I have grieved that no one knew how to pray for her.” And now with these children of our friends and neighbors who have served our country, do we still not know how to pray and reach out with a healing touch?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>A version of this blog post was originally on this blog site July 13, 2012.</b></span><br />
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-85917693922378277452015-06-22T07:39:00.002-07:002015-06-22T07:39:34.956-07:00Word of God and People of God - Rabbi Sacks <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18.0960006713867px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What we call the OT has inspired many, even no-nonsense "unspiritual" intellectuals like Hobbes:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">However, if we look at the “birth of the
modern” – at figures like Milton, Hobbes and Locke in England, and the founding
fathers of America – the book with which they were in dialogue was not Plato or
Aristotle but the Hebrew Bible. Hobbes quotes it 657 times in The Leviathan
alone.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This too is the meaning of Isaiah’s remarkable
statement: “You are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God” (Isaiah
43:12). In its collective fate and destiny, Israel will constitute the most
compelling evidence of divine involvement in human history. It will reach
heights of achievement, and sometimes depths of degradation, that have no
counterpart in the fate of other nations. As Tolstoy once wrote, “The Jew is
the emblem of eternity.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21.5599994659424px;">Jonathan Sacks, <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21.5599994659424px;">Covenant and Conversation Exodus: The Book of Redemption</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21.5599994659424px;"> (Maggid Books 2010). Al</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18.0960006713867px;">though I am not Jewish, I agree with Rabbi Sacks that the Hebrew Bible and the history of the Jewish people are compelling evidence of God's involvement in human history. </span></span><br />
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Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-17541923791537177952015-05-01T13:58:00.000-07:002015-05-03T18:45:39.172-07:00After Egypt - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the Book of Exodus God calls his people to leave Egypt, and set out on a journey to a better place. It's a mysterious journey because the destination is mainly "beyond the horizon" but not totally so. Because of the "Sabbath" experience along the journey the covenant people get a a glimpse of that destination every week. Rabbi Sacks puts it this way:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">There is thus
every indication in Exodus that freedom will involve a long journey. It is fair
to say, thirty-three centuries later, that we have still not arrived at the
destination. But freedom is not a blind journey, a road without a map. The
destination is clearly signalled, though it lies beyond the horizon. It is the
promised land, flowing with milk and honey, the land Moses spent his life
leading his people towards but was not privileged himself to enter. One of the
underlying themes of the book was best stated in a later age by Rabbi Tarfon:
“It is not for </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background: white;">you to complete the task but neither are you
free to desist from it.”</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The path
to freedom is travelled one step, one generation, one era at a time, never
losing heart or forgetting our aim. The key to Exodus politics, as it is to
Judaism as a whole, is what elsewhere I have called “Utopia now.” That is
the significance of Shabbat, whose presence looms large in the book. It was the
first commandment the Israelites received in the wilderness. It holds a pivotal
place in the ten commandments. It is repeated immediately before and after the
episode of the Golden Calf. It is central to the politics of freedom. On
Shabbat we rehearse utopia, or what Judaism came later to call the messianic
age. One day in seven, all hierarchies of power are suspended. There are no
masters and slaves, employers and employees. Even domestic animals cannot be
made to work. We are not allowed to exercise control over other forms of life,
or even forces of nature. On Shabbat, within the covenantal society, all are
equal and all are free. It is the supreme antithesis of Egypt. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Jonathan
Sacks, <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i>Covenant and Conversation Exodus: The Book of
Redemption</i>, 13-14 (Maggid
Books 2010).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701265096411022581.post-46941624415543417092015-04-15T06:39:00.004-07:002015-05-01T14:19:59.658-07:00Moses and the Stone Tablets - Inspiration from Below <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Exodus 34:1 states: "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt;">Carve out two stone tablets like the first
ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which
you broke." Rabbi Jonathan Sacks finds great meaning here:</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11.0pt;">Hence the paradox: the first tablets, made by
God, did not remain intact. The second tablets, the joint work of God and
Moses, did. Surely the opposite should have been true: the greater the
holiness, the more eternal. Why was the more holy object broken while the less
holy stayed whole? This is not, as it might seem, a question specific to the
tablets. It is, in fact, a powerful example of a fundamental principle in
Jewish spirituality. The Jewish mystics distinguished between two types of
divine-human encounter. They called them itaruta de’l’eylah and itaruta
de’letata, respectively “an awakening from above” and “an awakening from
below.” The first is initiated by God, the second by mankind. An “awakening
from above” is spectacular, supernatural, an event that bursts through the
chains of causality that at other times bind the natural world. An “awakening
from below” has no such grandeur. It is
a gesture that is human, all too human.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11.0pt;">Yet there is another difference between them,
in the opposite direction. An “awakening from above” may change nature, but it
does not, in and of itself, change human nature. In it, no human effort has
been expended. Those to whom it happens are passive. While it lasts, it is
overwhelming; but only while it lasts. Thereafter, people revert to what they
were. An “awakening from below,” by contrast, leaves a permanent mark. Because human beings have taken the initiative, something in them changes.
Their horizons of possibility have been expanded. They now know they are
capable of great things, and because they did so once, they are aware that they
can do so again. An awakening from above temporarily transforms the external
world; an awakening from below permanently transforms our internal world. The
first changes the universe; the second changes us.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Jonathan Sacks, <i>Covenant
and Conversation Exodus: The Book of Redemption</i>, 271-272 (footnotes omitted)
(Maggid Books 2010).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Tom Schuesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02112618027073825226noreply@blogger.com0