Tag: pattern

A meaning in the patterns

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Preface

A meaning in the patterns

One of the patterns of history is that humans have been a mess since the beginning of humanity. The mess shows up throughout biblical history, church history, and even today. Another pattern is how God has been working his plan throughout that messy history – and his plan uses those messy humans to carry out his plan. The charge He gave to the first humans to be stewards of His creation was never revoked. Neither was His love and faithfulness that has persisted despite the persistent rebellion of generations of His image-bearers. And biblical history and church history and the history we make today reveals the pattern of His continued faithfulness.

Patterns of community

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Preface

Patterns of community

[Bible ref: Hebrews 10:23-25]

After decades of learning the Bible and church history, I could see the pattern of how the everything connected all the way from Genesis to Revelation and to all of church history, past and present. In preparing this project, all those patterns were reinforced in ways I never expected. One of the patterns that we see from the beginning is the use of stories. God is complicated and we are complicated, and we find that stories are sometimes the best way to explain everything from who God is to who we are.

To best understand the complications of who God is and who we are, this book is best processed in a small group setting so that we can work our own ideas with the ideas from other people. Furthermore, in our Western culture which prioritizes individuality, we sometimes find it hard to see the significance of the Biblical texts being addressed to the church rather to individuals within the church. We can better understand the texts if we can grasp that aspect.
Lastly, as we study the Bible, we need to remember that the goal of any Bible study is not to love the Bible but rather the One who gave it to us. That means, though, that we should love the church, which is Christ’s Body, Christ’s assembly of believers whom He loves.

And that love is not just an emotion or an idea, but a lifestyle of joy and self-sacrifice, receiving and giving, caring in word and deed, engaging with an interdependent community and with God in a dance, the Kingdom Dance, participating with God in restoring the Kingdom, turning the mourning of a broken world into the joy of a reunited heaven and earth.

Reflections – The Life Map exercise

The first step to see how our life’s story fits into God’s story, is to take the time to see how God may have already been working in your life. Plan on at least a half hour for this exercise.

Brainstorming:

Use only single words, short phrases or quick sketches to make these lists. Jot these items down as they come to you.

  • Make a list of significant things (events, people, places, etc.) in your life. People may include family members, influential people, teachers, authors, or influencers. Places may include where you’ve lived, places you’ve visited, places you want to go. Events may include family life and traditions, marriages, divorces, education, church, social organizations, jobs, or hobbies.
  • Make a list of successes or failures. These can include things that delighted you or disappointed you, relationships, things that you’ve done or things that have happened to you.

Rearrange the items in these lists in chronological order. Take some time to think of how God may have directed you in the midst of your story and talk to him about it. Think of how you would tell this story to other people.

There are other resources on the internet about make Life Maps:

Revisit in the future: As you work your way through Dancing in the Kingdom, you may want to further reflect on or revise your Life Map.

Patterns in the text

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Preface

Patterns in the text

[Bible references: 2 Samuel 11]

It should not be a surprise that although the Bible has some facts about the nature of the world, it is not a science text. Neither should it be a surprise that although the bible contains narratives of historical events, that it is not a history book. It should make sense that the Bible is primarily a theological text. When read carefully, the biblical text reveals patterns, patterns that are not only in the text (and they are abundant), but patterns for us to live into.

The careful attention to the sevenfold structure indicates that Genesis in its final form is a liturgical text. We may go further and state that, in fact, Genesis 1 reads as a sort of liturgical hymn.[1]

One of the problems that has obscured our understanding of the biblical text is the way we tend to read that text through modern western eyes instead of how the text was meant to be read when it was written 2000-3500 years ago. The historical accounts contained in the Hebrew Bible are not framed in a modern historical chronological framework, but are historical accounts written in a theological framework.

Biblical authority is tied inseparably to the author’s intention … when we read Genesis, we are reading an ancient document and should begin by using the assumptions that would be appropriate for the ancient world. We must understand how the ancients thought and what ideas underlay their communications … although the Bible is written for us (indeed, for everyone), it is not written to us … If we read modern ideas into the text, we skirt the authority of the text and in effect compromise it.[2]

This is not to say that the chronological and other details or those accounts did not happen as recounted but were framed for us to remember within a theological framework. The Bible is, in fact, a sophisticated book using literary techniques that were ahead of its time.

The Bible’s verbal artistry, without precedent in literary history and unrivaled since, operates by passing off its art for artlessness, its sequential linkages and supra-sequential echoes for unadorned parataxis, its density of evocation for chronicle-like thinness and transparency. Yet those who are take in will rarely fell the difference, however much they may miss, because they will not feel out of their depth.[3]

One such technique that is remarkably present in the book of Mark,[4] but also is used in the Hebrew Bible, is the technique of inserting a story within a story, and done is such a way, that sometimes it is obvious that the way the story is presented is not the exact chronological sequence of events.

Another technique is the heavy use of patterns such as the pattern of 7[5]. In Genesis 1 there are several items that occur 7 (or a multiple of 7) times:

  • 7 words in Gen 1:1,
  • 14 words in Gen 1:2,
  • 7 commands “let there be”
  • 7 paragraphs in Gen 1:1-2:3 marked by the phrase “evening and morning,” 
  • With the concluding (7th) paragraph begins with 3 lines of 7 words
  • the words “God” appears (7×5) 35 times, “land” (7×3) 21 times, “skies” (7×3) 21 times.

The ubiquitous use of these patterns can make one wonder whether such details exactly portray what really happened or whether the narrator of the Biblical text adapted the details to make a particular theological point. While it is impossible to verify what actually happened, we don’t need to question the reality of the basic events recounted but we can accept the events as given, trying to understand the theological points being presented. So, as we encounter patterns within the historical accounts, we should keep in mind that events are not necessarily organized in a chronological framework, but rather organized in a thematic framework, where themes are used to organize how events are presented, in our case, theological themes. The chronological context of the biblical narration is secondary to theological themes.

In modern days, we sometimes remember events, not on the actual calendar date of the events but according to some other scheme, like we want to remember the event on a Monday because of the priority of the weekend. It is similar In Biblical texts, where events are remembered in a theological context. This is particularly evident in Exodus where theologians through the years have recognized that the events are not narrated in the actual chronological order. [6]

Another aspect to consider is that the Hebrew Bible, more typically referred to by Christians as the Old Testament, is a collection of Ancient Near East texts that were originally not so much designed to be read but rather to as to be listened to and meditated upon. If we examine those texts in that light, we can see how literary techniques are used to connect passages together and deepen the meaning each text.[7]

As you study scripture, be on the lookout for themes that get repeated.

———————

You will find that there are patterns in this book as well. They are there for a reason. There are many ways to tell our own story and God’s story and one goal is to give everyone an opportunity to see different ways to see God’s story so that we can figure out how to fit our story into God’s story. It turns out that most of us learn best by hearing stories which is why TV channels are primarily filled with different kinds of stories. So we can best understand God’s story if we can see how our story fits into it.

[1] Morrow, Jeff. “Creation as Temple-Building and Work as Liturgy in Genesis 1-3” Wisdom in Torah Seton Hall University www.wisdomintorah.com/wp-content/uploads/Creation-as-Temple-Building-and-Work-as-Liturgy-in-Genesis-1-31.pdf

[2] Walton, John. “The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Proposition 1: Genesis is an Ancient Document” InterVarsity Press. 2015 Kindle Edition.

[3] Sternberg, Meir. “The Poetics of Biblical Narrative” Ecosophia 2004 www.ecosophia.net/civilizations-fall-theory-catabolic-collapse

[4] Edwards, James R. “Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives” 1989 Novum Testamentum XXXI, 3 193-216 jbburnett.com/resources/mark/Edwards_Markan-Sandwiches.pdf

[5] Rodriguez, Angel Manuel. “Genesis 1 and the building of the Israelite sanctuary” Ministry: International Journal for Pastors Feb 2002 www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2002/02/genesis-1-and-the-building-of-the-israelite-sanctuary.html

[6] Sailhammer, John. “Introduction to Old Testament Theology: Appendix B: Compositional Strategies in the Pentateuch ” Zondervan 2010.  This thematic arrangement is also evident in the different Gospel accounts where the different authors related the events of Jesus’ life according to their own particular theological context.

[7] Palmer, Stephen. “Biblical Chiasm Exchange”; Christadelphians www.chiasmusxchange.com. One of the common literary techniques is the use of Chiasms. This website shows the extensive use of chiasms throughout both the Old and New Testaments.

Pattern finding creatures

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Preface

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15; Psalm 33:1-22]

Pattern finding creatures

Humans are particularly good at finding patterns[1], even to the point of finding what appear to be patterns when there are none.[2] The pattern finding ability gives us the ability to learn various languages even while we are young children. We have the capability of visualizing someone’s prominent features, drawing those features in simple but exaggerated ways as a caricature, and then other people are able recognize who the caricatures represent.[3] This pattern finding (and conversely, pattern creating) ability extends into all sorts of areas and at many levels of abstraction.

Our exceptional pattern-finding, pattern-creating ability comes from our role as creatures who are privileged to bear within our own being, patterns of the image of the very One who designed and created the cosmos, who gave us the ability to love even as He loves. We are also given the ability to be stewards for the Creator, assisting Him in work of creating a flourishing, ordered and amazingly complex world.[4]

[1] Barkman, Robert C. “Why the Human Brain Is So Good at Detecting Patterns” ” Psychology Today 19 May 2021 www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singular-perspective/202105/why-the-human-brain-is-so-good-detecting-patterns

[2] Peterson, Ashley L. “What is … Aophenia (Finding Patterns Where None Exist) Mental Health @ Home 10 Dec 2021 mentalhealthathome.org/2021/12/10/what-is-apophenia

[3] Lorussa, Lorenzo., Lorch, Marjorie., Wade, Nick. “Seeing Caricatures” Neuroscience by Caricature in Europe throughout the ages neuro-caricatures.anaath.at/seeing-caricatures

[4] Ritenbaugh, Richard T. “What the Bible says about Stewardship” Bible Tools www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/2166/Stewardship.htm

Patterns of love

The young women will dance for joy, and the men—old and young—will join in the celebration. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing. (Jeremiah 31:13, New Living Translation)

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Preface

Patterns of love

[Bible references: Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:19; Deuteronomy 4:37; 5:10; 6:5; 7:8-9; 10:12, 15; 13:1-4; 30:6,16-20; 1Kings 8:23; Nehemiah 9:17, 32; Psalm 17:7; 23:6; 33:18; 36:5; 103:1-17; Lamentations 3:22, 32]

The theme is love

The hardest thing to understand is the one thing we need to understand for the world to be understandable, to make us understandable, and it provides the themes for what we write the most poetry and songs and fiction about. And it’s even the hidden feature behind many non-fiction books.

We have this desire to express love and be loved but most of the time we are confused about what love actually is. We sometimes get analytical about it but only to wind up with a mix of

  • it’s an emotion that happens to us,
  • it’s something we choose to do,
  • we just fall in it,
  • we have to grow into it

We can’t pin it down, but it’s so much of who we are that we end up writing stories about it. The interesting thing about those stories is that we are creatures who desire to love and be loved but we all seem to be broken when we try to give and receive that love.

That brings us to another thing that seems so hard. Most of us are aware of this thing called “the Bible” or “the Holy Bible” but there seem to be confusing things about that Bible that seem to lead to many ways of trying to interpret it—and if “experts” can’t agree about it what chance do most of us have?

The Bible is about love as well, but it doesn’t get analytical about it, it basically just tells stories:

  • stories about God and the creatures he designed for love,
  • the Kingdom he desired to build with them,
  • how that love got broken,
  • and how God put a plan in place to restore that love and restore His Kingdom.

From the beginning, the Bible lays out patterns of all the practical ways to live out the Christian faith today. These patterns can be followed through the Bible itself as well as through church history. At one level, those patterns make it possible for the average reader to discover the Bible’s basic meanings while, at another level, scholars can discover the Bible’s richly intricately woven literary text and its patterns of clues and links that can lead to deeper understandings of God, of His Creation and of us.

The goal is of this book is to allow a more average reader to begin to uncover some of the literary richness of the Bible and see how the patterns laid out in Genesis trace not just through the rest of the Bible but also through church history and even provide guidance for us to live today.

Once we begin the process of finding pattern and discovering their meanings, we can discover that God of Creation has provided abundant patterns that could fill an encyclopedia, more than enough to fill our lifetimes. The full complexity of who God is, of His Creation and who we are is beyond our grasp, but He created us to be His Friends and the Stewards of His Creation. We can look forward to a joyous eternity of discovering and living out all He has laid out before us.

For people who want to love

Many of us look at the Bible and we can love some things … but other things are not so easy. Most of the time we find it easy to love Jesus … most of the time. But some things that the apostle Paul writes about? And the Old Testament can be tough; some things are so violent and there are those religious practices that we can’t relate to.  Are they even relevant?

How are we to understand how the apparent conflicts in the Bible: the stories of an angry God in the Old Testament and the merciful Jesus in the New Testament, the violence in the Old Testament and the message of peace in the New Testament; a story of creation that doesn’t seem to match the findings of science; the meaning of the laws in the Old Testament when the New Testament tells us we are not under the law; why Christianity of the New Testament seems so disconnected from our Jewish roots in the Old Testament.

And then, if we can get by all that and learn how to love the Bible, how do we move beyond that and love the church when so many people over so many years seemed to do so many wrong things. And even if we manage to love some of our people in the church, all those other people in the church are hard to love. It doesn’t help that over the years it has seemed that the church has divided up into so many denominations that we can’t even count them never mind trying to get to the point where we could love them.

On top of all this, who has the time to do all the reading to put all this together enough so that we can understand how the processes God’ started with image-bearing creatures in Genesis follow through to Revelation and then through church history to the processes and problems we can follow today.

From a writer who loves

More than 45 years ago, I was, in one moment, in such a bitter spirit that my brother warned his Christian friends to stay away from me, then in another moment I found myself sneaking into his room to start reading some of my brother’s books like Basic Christianity, Mere Christianity, Knowing God, and Evidence that Demands a Verdict. Somewhere in that reading my heart softened until I acknowledged Jesus as my Lord. Somewhere in that reading I also seemed to grasp that the story of Jesus began in Genesis and that the Old and New Testaments made a complete set.

In my first year as a Christian, I found myself in a small group that took an entire year to work their way through the four-page book of Philippians because Philippians seemed to be a portal to many other parts of Scripture and also to their lives. Also, in that first year (in fact, the first semester of that year), I had a Sunday School teacher who assigned a five-page writing assignment on one of the attributes of God. I didn’t know any better about how unusual all of that was. I just soaked it all in.

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity for more than 45 years to serve the church in different ways including church governance and teaching different levels of Sunday School and Bible studies. I was ever curious to learn and to read about the Bible and the church because to me it always seemed that there must be a whole story to connect from Genesis to today even if I didn’t know all the pieces.

It seemed like such a large task. I also had a large problem which I will share later in the book. As we all know, the ones you love the most can hurt you the most. And so, in the reality of church family, as in all families, there is ample opportunity to get hurt. It is in the processing of that hurt that gave me a chance to learn how to truly love the church.

The impetus for this book started in 2017, when I participated in a 9-month (12 if you include the pre-class summer reading) journey in theology. The course was designed to provide, through group discussions, readings and practice of the spiritual disciplines an

“understanding of the scope of the Good News of Jesus Christ: By his death and resurrection, his renewing his people and the world. We want participants to see how their individual faith stories are part of the larger story of God’s redemption so that they find new freedom and boldness to serve the church and to engage every aspect of culture.”[1]

The intensive course required 4000 pages of reading, but I even read more. I also had the desire to bring this kind of knowledge to others who did not have the time for such expansive reading. It is therefore, the intention of this book to provide a manageable way for the average person to explore breadth and continuity of the biblical story, how that story has been expressed by the church through the years and how our individual stories can fits into that original story, so that we can look forward to participating with God in bringing His kingdom into the world.

This book can be read at different levels. To make this book more accessible, most theological terminology is minimized while at the same time terms that are commonly used (e.g., church, bible, etc.) are explained. People who have less background or have less time can get all the essential information by simply reading through the text without using footnotes or appendices. Those who have more background or have more time can explore the Bible references, appendices and more than 500 footnotes. Again, to make the book accessible, the footnotes point to online resources whenever possible.

For deeper exploration, discussion points are available at the end the chapters which have thought provoking questions designed for group study, challenging readers to engage scripture and their own thoughts and to share thoughtful responses within a group. This approach recognizes the value we have as interdependent parts of the Body of Christ and the value we each have as creative and capable image-bearers of God.

There is also a journal available, Dance Steps, for a day-by-day closer reading of the book and how it may apply to your life.

I bring no special academic credentials to this project. I do bring a love of the church, of teaching, and of reading widely. The research needed to create even this short book is shown by the extensive footnotes referring to experts from many different fields such as biblical studies, ancient near east languages and cultures, linguistics, church history, anthropology, psychology, science, Judaism, philosophy, etc.

I love the Bible, the church and the One who gave us both. I love reading, and teaching and the One who gave me both abilities.

[1] The class, called Brooklyn Fellows, was offered by a church network, Resurrection Brooklyn in Brooklyn NY. Special thanks to Marc Choi who led the class and my fellow students who gave their time and attention to all the necessary reading and gave their input and questions. The journey of the church network that gave rise to Brooklyn Fellows has ended, but God continues his work through those people.