Tag: scripture

The context of theology

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 13 – Distinctives within the body of Christ

The Context of Theology

[Bible references: Matthew 22:37-39; John 13:34-35; 15:1-17; Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12; 13; Ephesians 4:11-16]

More than doctrine

Everybody has an opinion of some sort when it comes to ideas about God. That is, everybody practices theology. According to one classical definition, theology is “faith seeking understanding.”[1] The only question is. whether our theology is good or bad. That said, there are some who may question whether or not to make a big deal of theology because it seems to create such divisiveness and others think that we should just keep everything as simple as possible.

We were created by God with mind, body, and soul – and it is through all those means that we can come to know God. The formal field of study that we call “theology” has often been restricted to academia, focusing on the intellectual – the mind; but as beings created in the image of God it would be a mistake to restrict our theology to just our mind. It is through our whole being that we can come to know and be transformed by God. Jesus once said that this transformed people would be recognized not by their knowledge, but by their love. Although it is beneficial if our love is informed by our knowledge, love is expressed in its action. In fact, Jesus identified the greatest commandments as loving God and loving our neighbors. Therefore, the practice of following Jesus (aka discipleship) is something we practice in community.

Once we understand all this, that our understanding of God requires the effort of our whole being, then we can see that while theology may have an academic component, it is more than an intellectual exercise. In fact, our soul, or spirit, is the first place in our being to examine our theology. Our theology is lacking if our God’s love is not overflowing through us into the rest of our lives.

To evaluate what our overflowing love might look like, we can consider the descriptions we find for the “fruit of the spirit” as shown in Galatians 5 and in 1 Corinthians 13: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, does not envy or boast, is not proud, rude or self-seeking, is not easily angered, takes no account of wrongs, takes no pleasure in evil, rejoices in truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. We can also consider how we express our love through the various gifts of God that He provides each one of us for the purpose of building each other up in the faith: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophets, discernments, tongues and their interpretation, leadership, serving, exhortation, giving, mercy, helps apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher.

It is interesting that many non-Christians, even those with limited knowledge of the Bible or of the church, are able to critique Christians by contrasting Christians with Christ. They may possibly misunderstand Christ, but because they have been designed as image-bearers of God, even they have some basis to compare the behavior of others to Christ.

The whole of faith

Meanwhile, in this in-between time, even disciples of Jesus are affected by sin and our theology is subject to corruption. We misuse theology in various ways: sometimes using it as a tool to achieve something else such as gaining power or justifying bad attitudes (e.g., arrogance or hatred), sometimes by focusing on just the academic side while neglecting the spiritual or practical aspects; or sometimes neglecting the academic side and try to avoid the truth or complexities of theology and simply stop asking questions, preferring instead to yield to fideism, which can be described as the “exclusive or basic reliance of faith alone” [2]

A robust faith is not a blind faith, but rather a thinking faith, a faith with eyes wide open to the realities of life’s circumstances and the reality of God’s providence,[3] a faith that seeks God with our whole self: body, mind, and spirit. So, we should not ignore the academic side of our faith or our theology. The process of taking all the knowledge we have gathered about God and then using that to “build up into an organic and consistent whole all our knowledge of God and of the relations between God and the universe” is called systematic theology.[4]

The all-encompassing nature of systematic theology requires care. Scientific models are helpful in understanding natural phenomena but are limited in predicting future behavior because the models are only approximations of the phenomena they describe. Similarly, our systematic theologies are helpful in understanding the infinite God and his works, but we need to be aware of its limitations. One of those limitations is how our perceptions are influenced by our particular personality, our particular environment/culture, our particular language, and our particular historical context.[5]

The problem of the other

Ever since the creation of humanity, we have continually chosen to idolize ourselves and to not love God, which also meant we have chosen to not love others. This mindset then causes us to blame whatever problems we have on others or even to blame God. It is this sort of mindset that would cause the New Testament church to disconnect itself from its Judaic heritage, setting the church up for continued divisiveness in the future. So it is worth exploring what led to the church to the severing its Judaic roots.

We know that Jesus spoke of how scriptures – and he could only be referring to what we call the Old Testament scriptures – pointed to him and his ministry, and how he was the fulfillment of those scriptures. That would mean that Jesus’ ministry was a continuation of God’s love and grace as set out in the Old Testament. Later on, as the ministry of the church strongly expanded to Gentiles, the apostle Paul spelled out that the Gentiles in the church were like the branch of a wild olive tree being grafted into nurtured tree; the tree being the Jews that were in the church and whose roots went back to the Old Testament people of faith. Paul then warned the Gentiles not to become arrogant about any of the other branches that were broken off because God is capable of grafting the original branches back onto the tree.

As the ministry to the Gentiles proceeded and expanded, Christian Jews still met in the temple and the synagogues with the non-Christian Jews, increasing their ministry there even as many of the non-Christian Jews strongly resisted. But there were two events that would change the trajectory of the church.

In AD 66 the zealots started to revolt against the Roman government. The Christians in Jerusalem want to avoid getting caught up in the rebellions and moved to Pella, causing tension between the zealots and the Christians. After the rebellion was defeated by the Romans in AD 70, the temple was destroyed and the Jews were scattered, but now there was increased tension between the Christian and non-Christian Jews.

Later on, in AD 132, a zealot nicknamed Bar Kokhba (meaning “son of the star”) arose to start another rebellion. He, with the support of a prominent rabbi, declared himself a messiah. Now, the Christian Jews not only did not want to participate in a rebellion, but they had to refuse to acknowledge a messiah other than Jesus. And the zealots, who supported Bar Kokhba, declared Bar Kokhba as messiah, thus rejecting Jesus as messiah, which quickly led to a hardening of those non-Christian Jews against the church, making them more resistant than before to the gospel. When the Romans defeated the zealots, Jews were now banned on penalty of death, from entering Jerusalem.

After this point, when leaders in the church tried to reach the Jews with the gospel, they encountered hardened hearts. However, instead of the recognizing that it had been foretold that Jews hearts would be hardened until the time of the Gentiles was over, the leaders in the church now arrogantly hardened their own hearts and became increasingly anti-Semitic. This resulted in the church increasingly turning away from their own roots and thus becoming susceptible to increasing influence of Greek philosophy. This would create dramatic effects in the development of theology in such areas as the rejection of the human body and sexuality as evil and sinful, and the conversion of asceticism from a form of spiritual discipline to a rejection of the pleasures God created as good things.[6]

The limits of language

Early on, in church history, there was an attempt to overcome the problem of the language barrier in the church. It was thought that the church could be united if theologians across the church world could use a common theological language. This attempt in the 5th century, when the languages included Aramaic, Greek, and Latin as well as all the local languages, did make it easier to find solutions to theological problems, but the negative consequence was that differences in theological views became heightened, leading to what may be the inevitable schisms in the church.

Theologians believed that one faith has to be expressed in one language … Distortion of language, they believed, inevitably leads to distortion of the common faith … ‘Byzantine scholasticism’ emerged in the post-Cyrillian era. This shift had both positive and negative consequences. The positive ones were that theologians started speaking one language. This helped them to easier find solutions to theological problems … The negative consequences of language-centrism were that when theologians disagreed on terms or categories, the regarded their disagreements about theological formulas as essential theological difference. This became one of the most important reasons of the church schism in the post-Cyrillian era.[7]

We cannot approach any field of study as a blank slate. All of our particular factors contribute to which particular theological method people may choose to use. Charles Hodge identified three general classes of methods used within the field of systematic theology: Speculative, Mystical, and Inductive.[8] Given all of that, we can see that there can be many approaches to even framing the questions we might ask about God, never mind the types of answers towards which we may lean. Engaging in the quest of trying to understand the current multi-faceted state of the current church can be overwhelming and most people don’t have the time to study a typical church history book of 800-1000 pages. To make this task more bearable, the approach here will not be to present a comprehensive study but to develop an overview of the church by focusing on 1) the internal and external issues that affected the development of the church, and 2) the main questions that the church has asked and briefly sharing the different answers formulated by different congregations.

[1] Migliore, Daniel L. “Faith Seeking Understanding”  William B. Eerdmans Publishing, third edition. 1991

[2] Amesbury, Richard. “Fideism” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ©2016 plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism

[3] Migliore, Daniel L. “Faith Seeking Understanding” William B. Eerdmans Publishing, third edition. 1991 (pp. 3-5)

[4] Bible Study Tools “Chapter III – Method of Theology” Bible Study Tools www.biblestudytools.com/classics/strong-systematic-theology/part-i-prolegomena/chapter-iii-method-of-theology.html

[5] Migliore, Daniel L. “Faith Seeking Understanding” William B. Eerdmans Publishing, third edition. 1991 (p.205) Confession of Jesus Christ takes place in particular historical and cultural contexts … our response to questions of who we say Jesus Christ is and how he helps us will be s shaped in important ways by the particular contexts in which these questions arise … all theology is contextual

[6] Dualism rejects the physical world as evil or not desirable. “Mystery of Wisdom.” (p. 166)

[7] Hovorun, Cyril. Studia Patristica Vol. LVIII, Volume 6: Neoplatonism and Patristics, Peters 2013.  “Importance of Neoplatonism on Formation of Theological Language” (p. 17-28)

[8] Hodge, Charles, “Systematic Theology” (Chapter I: On Method) Eerdmans Publishing Company, (Chapter I: On Method) 1940

Reflect

How can love affect your ability to know someone?

Observe

Read John 15:1-17; Ephesians 4:11-16. How do these passages relate to each other?

Baptism, Anointing Temptation     

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 11 – The Kingdom Enters

Baptism, Anointing Temptation     

[Bible references: Genesis 3:6; Mathew 3:13-17; 4:1-11]

Jesus’ ministry was inaugurated when John baptized Jesus. When Jesus submitted to the baptism to “fulfill all righteousness,” Jesus testified that John’s baptism by water was ordained from heaven. The Spirit then affirmed Jesus’ ministry by coming down and anointing Jesus.[1] The baptism was at once followed by the Spirit leading Jesus to the desert where Jesus fasted for 40 days and submitted to being tempted by the devil. Like David, Jesus responded to the temptations by waiting for the Father. In the first temptation, Jesus waited for the Father to feed him instead of trying to satisfy his need by himself apart from the will of the Father. In the second temptation, Jesus trusted God by not testing God and foolishly putting himself in danger. In the third temptation, Jesus refused to worship and serve anybody but Yahweh. In all these cases, Jesus confirmed Hebrew scripture to be the word of God by using Hebrew scripture to refute the devil.

[1] Biblehub “Matthew 3:13” Bible Hub biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/3-13.htm

Observe

Read Matthew 4:1-11; Genesis 3:6. What is similar to the temptations of Jesus and the temptations of Adam and Eve?

Looking for Messiah

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 11 – The Kingdom Enters

Looking for Messiah

[Bible references: 1 Samuel 8:5; 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 9:6-7; 52:13-53:12; Matthew 2:2; 3:16; Luke 1:23-33; 1 Peter 2:24; John 6:15; 1 John 5:1-13]

During all the messy history, Yahweh was working to bring his plan into fruition. His end goal was to create a new heaven and a new earth but there were things that needed to happen first, including the removal of the power of sin over his people. His solution was to lay aside some of his power and enter history as a human, not only so that he could identify with his image-bearers but so that we would be challenged to choose his authority as a matter of faith – not a blind faith, but a faith based upon recognizing God’s work.

In the writings of Hebrew scripture there were clues and prophecies about the Redeemer that Yahweh would provide: the Redeemer that would be anointed by God, the Redeemer would rescue people from sin and the Redeemer would restore their relationship with Yahweh. The charts in Appendix D show many of those prophecies. These prophecies created an air of expectation. While it’s easier for us who are looking back to see how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, at the time that Jesus was born there were differing expectations about how those prophecies would be fulfilled.

One thousand years previous to Jesus’ birth, the Israelites thought that their problem was that they didn’t have a king “like everybody else” Now once again, many still thought that their problem was still a political one and that what they needed was the kind of Messiah that would throw out the Roman government.[1] (There were also some other various controversies swirling around which we will discuss in more detail in the next chapter.) Nevertheless, people were looking for a Messiah.

[1] Bible Study Tools “John 6:15” Bible Study Tools www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/john-6-15.html

Observe

Read 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 9:6-7; 52:13-53:12; Matt 3:16; Luke 1:23-33; 1 Peter 2:24. What kind of Messiah was expected to come?

Reflecting God’s paradoxes

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 3 – The image-bearers

Reflecting God’s paradoxes

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-32; 2:4-7,15-25; Matthew 22:36-40; John 15:8-11; Romans 8:20-21; Galatians 5:22-23]

Understanding the character of God, can help us understand what he has intended for creatures that are made in his image. Image-bearing creatures are not gods or duplicates of God, but they are imbued with the character of the God that made them.

It was into this good universe that God prepared beforehand that God created creatures to bear his image. Good creatures, image-bearers, who were given the task of taking care of the good creation that God blessed them with – and God declared his creation to be very good. The image-bearing creatures were created in the complex image of God – the one God who was a community within Himself, the God who was immensely creative, the God who was generous and loving beyond imagination, the God who is sovereign over the universe, the God who is above all things.

There was a danger in God creating image-bearers. To make creatures that were lovers – just as He was a lover – meant giving these image-bearers the freedom to choose whom or what to love. Since we are created as lovers, we are compelled to love, so when we choose to not love one thing  or one person it is only because we have chosen to love someone or something else. Because God’s image-bearers were the capstone of creation, their option to love something more than God risked an awful catastrophe, a catastrophe that could affect the entirety of creation itself. The good creation, all of it, would become not so good.

And so it was, after creation was prepared for God’s image-bearers, those creatures who were created in the image of the loving God were given instructions to be stewards of the world God had made. Everything was good, and the first human couple had free access to the provisions in the garden prepared for them. Only one restriction was placed before them, a restriction not meant to deprive them of anything good but meant to provide the opportunity to test their love, by testing their obedience to the one who created them.

We all now know that those creatures failed their test, and we daily experience the consequences of that failure. We also daily experience our own incapacity to restore holiness on our own efforts, our own inability to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and our own inability to fully love God or to fully love our neighbors as ourselves.

The mystery of who we are has to worked out between all the goodness we are endowed with as creatures who bear the image of God and all the evil we are encumbered with as creatures who innately rebel against that same God. Traces of heaven and hell run through each of us and are manifested in our everyday lives. The tongues we praise God with also curse our neighbor. The selflessness we display to others is corrupted by the selfish desires that emerge from the same heart.

Observe

Read Genesis 1:28; 2:15. What tasks did God provide for the humans?

Trustworthy and faithful

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 2 – The God who created

Trustworthy and faithful

[Bible references: Exodus 34:6; Deuteronomy 7:9; Psalm 100; Zechariah 8; Hebrews 10:23]

God has continued to offer us lives of goodness, generosity and shalom despite our continued waywardness. Our opportunity to experience the faithfulness of God comes as we hold to his promises – and even when we fail to hold to his promises. Scripture is full of passages of God’s commitment to faithfulness despite the lack of our own[1] and those examples are helpful for us to hold onto as we experience our own trials and difficulties in life.

The faithfulness of God is starkly evident in His relationship with the people of Israel. God made a land covenant with Abraham (patriarch of many nations) and has never withdrawn what He has promised. Though the Jewish people have been scattered around the world, God promised they would return to the land He promised Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all their descendants (Zechariah 8:7-8).

God’s faithful promise was fulfilled in the New Testament when He sent Jesus to atone for our sins. No matter what sins we have committed, no matter how “bad” we are, God is faithful to forgive us if we accept Jesus and repent of our sins. [2]

[1] Got Questions “How Can I Trust in the Faithfulness of God” Got Questions www.gotquestions.org/faithfulness-of-God.html; Christiansen, Connie Ruth. “The Story Behind The Hymn: Great Is They Faithfulness” Independent Baptist.com /www.independentbaptist.com/great-is-thy-faithfulness1/

[2] All About God “Faithfulness of God” All About God allaboutgod.com/faithfulness-of-god.htm

Observe

Read Zechariah 8. Zechariah’s prophecies were written it the nation of Israel many years after the nation had been taken in exile. What effect do you think these promises of God would have had on the exiles?

Playful and orderly

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 2 – The God who created

[Bible references: Genesis 1; 3:6; Job 26:7-14; Psalm 102:25-28; 104:26; Proverbs 8:30-31; Jeremiah 9:24; Zechariah 8:4; Romans 1:18-32; 5:12-20]

It would be more conventional to title this section, “Creative and Orderly,” but creativity is just a part of broader category of play. Although many experts disagree on how to define play[1], we may think of play as activity which is typically not productive and is done only because one wants to do it and is usually a fun activity involving other people and will typically help people bond together.

When it comes to the Creation, God did not have to create anything. God did not need the universe or anything in it – not the planets, nor the stars, nor the creatures. God created the heavens and the earth for the delight of it, and He did it because He wanted to share heaven and earth with his image-bearers. This spirit of playfulness is reflected in many of God’s creatures[2] including Leviathan and humans. God’s playfulness also shows up in other interesting places in the Bible.

When Job complains about the difficulties he is going through, God seems to admonish him by “putting Job in his place” and citing all the ways in which God’s ways are higher than Job’s ways. But God does not follow through with any discipline of Job but rather begins the process of restoring Job’s fortunes. In response, Job confesses, “I spoke of things I did not understand … I retract my words and I repent in dust and ashes.” … And yet, Job changes an interesting behavior – he no longer rose early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of his children, worrying that “perhaps they have sinned.” Job seems to have understood what Shams-ud-din Muhammed wrote later on:

the difference between our life and a saint’s is that the saint knows that the spiritual path is like a chess game with God and that God has made such a fantastic move that the saint trips over joy in surrender whereas we think we have a thousand serious moves.[3]

Another instance of playing occurs in Mark 6, when Jesus takes a late-night walk on a very windy lake, walking as if to go by his disciples. Of course, they were initially terrified, thinking they were seeing a ghost. But he got in the boat and the waters calmed down. He could have calmed the waters down before the disciples started to go on the lake. He could have chosen another way to make his point … but he decided to do it that way.

God’s creativity can be seen within the created world in the extremely diverse types of plants and animals: differences in colors and shapes; different ways of digesting food; different ways of moving and observing the environment to name a few. The creativity we see is awesome. From out of nothingness, from no previous model, God created a whole system of particles and energy fields that interact with each other to form the building blocks of subatomic particles which are used to form atoms, which are used to form molecules of all sorts of complexity, which are then used to form planets and stars (actually, the fusion reaction in stars is used to create larger molecules from smaller ones). And at least one planet was used to create living things like plants and animals in all their complexity and then those living things were used to create communities (ecosystems) that allowed living things to thrive and flourish.

Yet, within the overwhelming creativity displayed within all the diversity of living things there is an order that is imposed by natural processes, sometimes called scientific laws. Christians, like Francis Bacon, pursued these laws as an extension of God’s moral laws in the universe, which then led to the development of modern science.[4] It is within science that we examine orderly processes at work that we call the natural laws which describe how all physical things behave: like the forces of gravity, electrical forces, etc.

There is no disobeying these natural laws. If you think that you can try to violate them, you’d be wrong. For instance, if you are on earth and stand on the top of a table and then jump off with the assumption that you will not be subject to gravity but rather float around without falling to the floor, you’d be wrong. You can’t violate gravity. You can try to set up circumstances that will cause other forces to come into play – such as airplanes do when they use aerodynamic forces that counteract gravity – but you simply can’t violate gravity, and there will be consequences if you try.

By observing the laws of the created order, we can ascertain some aspects of the character of God. The natural laws that govern how things are supposed to behave reveals a God who expects things to behave, and that violations are not tolerated. But when image-bearers were brought into the world there was a new level of complexity added to this physical model constrained by natural, physical laws. Because image-bearers were created to reflect God’s transcendence, those image bearers were given moral freedom, the ability to accept or reject God’s rule, the ability to choose to be good or not good. And just like attempts to violate physical laws have consequences, so do attempts to violate moral laws. However, the framework that provides order is also the scaffolding for creativity and play. The order that allows us to study God’s ordered creation also allows us to observe the activity of the living God when He does the unexpected.

[1] Edgar, Brian. “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality” Chapter 5: Theology: Ludic(rous) Thinking, Theories of Play Cascade Books 2017 (e-book)

[2] Yu, Alan. “Which animals play, and why?” WHYY 15 Aug 2019 whyy.org/segments/which-animals-play-and-why/

[3] Hafiz (or Shams-ud-din Muhammad Tripping over Joy (translated by Daniel Ladinsky) (c. 1320-1389) wrote about God as his Friend, the Beloved, the Beautiful One. from reference by Edgar, Brian “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality” Chapter 4: Spirituality: Playing with friends, Competing with God

[4] Harrison, Peter, “Christianity and the rise of western science” ABC Religion and Ethics, 8 May 2012, www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/05/08/3498202.htm; Armstrong, David, “Christianity Crucial to the origin of science,” Patheos, 18 Oct 2015, www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/christianity-crucial-to-the-origin-of-science.html; Hannam, James. “How Christianity Led to the Rise of Modern Science” Christian Research Institute www.equip.org/articles/christianity-led-rise-modern-science/

Observe

Read Romans 1:18-32.  Reflect on how natural laws reflect the character of God. Based just on natural laws, what kind of character does that reveal about God?

Dynamic Tension

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 2 – The God who created

[Bible references: Luke 17:1-10; Ephesians 2;1-10]

Dynamic Tension

When we encounter Biblical statements that seem to conflict with each other, we need to hold to one of the principles of biblical interpretation, we need to examine any interpretation in the light of all other scripture – that is, let scripture interpret scripture. Even so, our best interpretations may still leave us with tensions between apparently conflicting statements. In those cases, we should acknowledge and accept those tensions rather than try to force those statements to a particular resolution.

The study of biology may provide good analogues in dealing with those tensions. For instance, in biological life, it seems that there are no simple formulas, no simple rules. While there are underlying precisely defined processes like the laws of chemistry and physics, there are also overlying complex and variable biological processes that are adaptable to circumstances around them.

Even more, living organisms by themselves are noted by intricately balanced but unstable processes that, if the balance between processes fails, there is a most certain death. One of the standard definitions of life is that living things must evade the decay to equilibrium while at the same time maintaining internal order and organization.[1]  One example that we live with all the time is with our skin – every day our skin is shedding cells and creating new cells such that, on average, every 27 days an entire layer of skin is being replaced. Our skin seems “stable” and seems to stay the same even though entire layers of skin are constantly being replaced.

That type of process holds true for all the processes happening in all the cells of living organisms; The internal structures seem to be stable, while matter and energy are constantly flowing through them and the materials within the internal structures are being constantly refreshed. More remarkably, if we examine all of this activity, we discover that this activity is sustained by an array of complex sets of interdependent processes where one set of processes feeds off the by-products of other processes and visa-versa. All this activity is delicate in one sense, if some processes fail at one point the result can be death. In another sense, the processes are flexible, allowing an organism to live in a wide variety of circumstances (environments). Thus, we have a paradox of systems that are simultaneously fragile and robust.

This dynamic tension can be seen on another level with the interactions of bone and muscle. In a given skeletal muscle, some fibers are attached to one bone in one direction and some fibers are attached to another bone in another direction. For instance, in your bicep muscles, some fibers attach to the shoulder and the other fibers attach to the elbow. As the fibers within a muscle pull against one another the bones they are attached to move. You can see this activity when you “make a muscle.” As you draw your forearm towards your shoulder, you see the biceps start to bulge in the middle as the opposing fibers pull into each other.

Exactly which way the bones move is determined by the creature that controls the muscles as the creature interacts with the environment, determining what direction to go or what task to do. While it seems at one level that in a given muscle the fibers are working against one another and seem to work opposite to one another, they are in fact on a larger scale working with each other to accomplish particular tasks.

All of this seems to reflect what we see in spiritual life. On one level, the attributes we see in the living God, His holiness, grace, etc. never change although they are constantly interacting with different circumstances. As circumstances change, although it may seem that God’s responses may change, it is not because God has changed, only that God’s dynamic response to different circumstances, whether globally or locally, has changed.

So, as we consider this, it may seem that some of God’s characteristics conflict with each other or seem to pull against one another. For instance, how is God’s perfect desire for justice able to be reconciled with God’s grace? Or how is it that He can be the Lord of all and able to also be the Servant of all? In fact, God is interacting with the world, determining what He wants to do and then coordinating His attributes to do what He desires. For example, although God’s authority and servanthood seem to be in tension with one another, He is coordinating them to deal with our individual circumstances. These apparent tensions are resolved, strengthened and harmonized in God himself.

I call this interaction, Dynamic Tension; a process controlled by a person or an organism in which the attributes seem to be pulling in different directions but are in fact working in concert with one another to accomplish particular goals. These tensions carry over into many areas of theology. We see that as different congregations wrestle with apparently conflicting issues, they make decisions based on their particular situations. Different congregations in different situations will come to different resolutions.

We are blessed to have both God’s creation itself and God’s revelation available to us as we try to try to learn about the living Creator. Fortunately, it is to our blessing that we don’t have to know everything about God for us to know or understand him, because we can at best only know Him in part. But meanwhile we have some paradoxes about God for us to examine and we will start exploring some of those paradoxes now.

“… many of the great theologians and leaders of the church—including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen of Alexandria, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley—in various ways believed that Creation bears witness to the glory and truth of its Creator and that this witness is fully compatible with the witness of Scripture.” [2]

[1] Weber, Bruce. “Life” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 7 Nov 2011, plato.stanford.edu/entries/life

[2] Mann, Mark H. “The Church Fathers and Two Books Theology” Biologos 4 Nov 2012 biologos.org/articles/the-church-fathers-and-two-books-theology

Observe

Read Luke 17:1-10; Ephesians 2:1-10. Verse 10 in both of these passages seems to say the opposite thing. How does the context of Luke 17:10 and Ephesians 2:10 help to resolve these two verses?

Interlude

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Interlude

[Bible references: Psalm 19]

As I was working one warm summer night at a convenience store with the door open, it was not unexpected to see a moth fly in through the door. Normally, moths are attracted to light sources, but this time the moth was attracted to the white top of a garbage container. The moth was distracted by the light reflected off the garbage container. That describes a lot of human behavior; we get distracted by the pretty garbage.

Since the time of Adam and Eve we’ve had the temptation to place ourselves at the center of the universe, dismissing the idea that we did not create the natural beauty of the world around us but that we can possess and control it ourselves, that we are the masters of all we see. We are tempted to dismiss the reality that we are part of a universe we did not create with the idea that we can define the universe which we think revolves around us.

In the meantime, there is a story that began long ago when God brought into being creatures made in his image, a story about his plans for those creatures, plans for them to fill the earth and making the whole earth a place of love and goodness, but a place where that love and goodness would be disrupted by our rebellion. Fortunately, that disruption did not deter God from continuing his plans for his image-bearing creatures and that story is still in the making. That story is now our story.

What can get confused is that this story is contained in the Bible which is often presented as a disconnected story. The Old and New Testaments of the Bible can seem disconnected because of the cultural barriers between us and the testaments. Some people even think the God described in the Old Testament is different from the God in the New Testament.

That disconnect is exasperated by the long and messy history of the church. The church seems very divided on how to interpret those writings and how to live into them, leaving us with a confusion of various interpretations and practices that seem to contradict one another. How is one supposed to make sense of it all?

However, it is possible to obtain a clearer understanding of how both Testaments make one cohesive story, a story into which we can fit. When we see how the unified story than runs from Creation to Revelation, we can then see how we, as part of God’s church, are intended to participate in that story. God did not need to create us or the universe, He did it out of a desire to share his love and delight. God’s creation was more an act of play than of work and He desires that we actively play with him, if you will, to dance with him in His Kingdom.

The Kingdom Dance is not meant to be a solo effort, we are to dance with God and with his people. To that end, while this book can simply be read as a solo exercise, there are additional ways to engage with the material.

  • Biblical references are provided extensively through the book. They are there to support the text. If you read them, particularly the shorter passages, take the time to slow down and let God the Spirit speak to you. The Bible has been described as ancient Jewish Meditation Literature.[1] It is best read when you give yourself time to absorb it.
  • There are extensive footnotes throughout the book. Whenever possible, I have provided hyperlinks to online materials to make the additional materials easily available to you. If you spend time investigating the footnotes, you will notice that I am not drawing from only one Christian tradition, but from a variety of them, allowing the richness of the different traditions to form a more complete story. To form a more complete story I also, particularly in the beginning, will use materials from the “Second Book of God” that is, book of Creation.[2]

“God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.”[3]

  • For those who are not practiced in studying the Bible, Appendix A gives a summary of techniques that could be used to help understand scripture. This may prove useful for understanding when you study the Biblical references given throughout this book.
  • Reading the material with a group can make the most impact. There are questions at the end of each chapter that ask you to reflect on the material and then read related biblical passages to think more deeply about various issues. These exercises and questions will help you engage with the material by first asking you to think about how each section applies to your life and secondly to share your thoughts with others in the group so that together you can more thoughtfully “Enter the Dance” with God, with all the others that have come before, with those that are coming now and with that will continue to come until Heaven and Earth are reunited.
  • Finally, the best participation will be not to just read and reflect, but to dance the Kingdom dance with God. Part 3 of this book will suggest ways to take part in his activity in bringing healing to the world he loves, broken now but to be finally and fully restored when He rejoins heaven and earth.

The Bible is a complex collection of literature, using many literary styles and techniques and it can be difficult to understand some parts, particularly when one part seems to contradict another. I have found a useful principal in studying the Bible which I call “Conflicts are Clues” which says that any apparent conflict or confusion in Scripture should be handled as clues to look further instead of thinking that the conflicts create contradictions which reduce the integrity of the Bible.

In our age, many regard science and theology to be in conflict. In years past, however, the issue was not about conflict but about which discipline rules over or undergirds all the other disciplines. These ideas were expressed in ways such as “theology is the queen of all sciences,” “math is the queen of all sciences,” “philosophy is the queen of all sciences,” “philosophy is the handmaid of all sciences.”

The biblical perspective is that God speaks to us both through two books, the book of Creation and the Bible. Theology’s main goal is to understand spiritual reality and science’s main goal is to understand physical reality, but both fields can inform the other about the nature of God.

This principle of “Conflicts are Clues” applies not just to the “First Book of God” (that is, Scripture) but also to the “Second Book of God” (that is, Creation) which is practiced by the testing and revisions of theories, but also between the Two Books. During the course of history, the study of the Two Books got separated and some of those in science rejected Scripture and some of those who were Christian rejected science, leaving conflicts unresolved as contradictions. But moving forward, this does not prevent us from considering apparent conflicts between the books as clues to be investigated further.

[1] Bible Project “Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature” Bible Project bibleproject.com/explore/video/bible-jewish-meditation-literature-h2r/

[2] Rusbult, Craig. “How should we interpret the Two Books of God, in Scripture & Nature” American Scientific Affiliation www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/two-books.htm

[3] Bacon, Francis. “The Two Books of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human.” The First Book. Section.VI.Paragraph.16 1605

Observe

Read Psalm 19. This Psalm captures a response to what Francis Bacon called the two books of God:  the Book of Creation and the Book of Scripture. How do you respond to the “two books”?

Exile and return

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Exile and return

[Bible references: Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah]                                     

When Assyria captured the Northern kingdom, they took most of the inhabitants and scattered them throughout the empire and replaced them with people from elsewhere in the empire. The result was that the 10 northern tribes were integrated into the Assyrian empire and were never heard from again as a people group.

Babylon overran the Assyrians and also captured the Southern kingdom. The practice of the Babylonians was to take the best and brightest, bring them to their capital and train them to work for the Babylonian empire. A couple of the prominent people taken were Daniel and Ezekiel. 

Since it was primarily the people of Judah that were captured and the other kingdoms had essentially disappeared, the people of Israel now became known as Jews. It was while in captivity, that the Jews got serious about preserving their culture. It was while in captivity that they worked on 1) identifying which writings they had would be considered as scripture and 2) developing cultural patterns that would allow them to preserve their identity. It was in captivity that synagogues developed as a way of continuing to worship without the availability of the temple. Interestingly, it also showed how they knew that they could function under the Law of Moses without a temple and therefore without the system of animal sacrifices.

The Babylonian kingdom was then overrun by the Persian empire. The policy of the Persian empire was to allow the captured peoples that were exiled to Babylonia, to return to their homeland. The first returnees rebuilt the temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians, although the new temple was not as grand as it had been before. Later, Ezra would return to re-establish the Law and then Nehemiah would return to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.

Observe

Read Jeremiah 18:1-10. How does God interact with our decisions?

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.

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.