Tag: traditions

Mystery of the traditions and the Bible

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Mystery of the Traditions and the Bible

[Bible reference: Matthew 15:1-14; Mark 7:1-23; 2 Timothy 3:10-17]

What is the relation between the Bible and church traditions?

Christ came to establish the church, not the Bible. The Bible is the product of the church recognizing which of its writings should be considered to be inspired by God. Within the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, there are unwritten as well as written traditions (including the Bible and other writings by the church Fathers) and both have equal weight. The Protestant denomination, reacting against the corrupted traditions of the Roman Catholic denomination, gave the Bible the authority over tradition.       

How were writings selected to get included in the Bible?

Throughout history, there were various “lists” denoting which books should be accepted as scripture.[1] Eventually, most congregations agreed on the New Testament writings, but there has been significant disagreement about which books to include in the Old Testament.

The Masoretic text is a set of writings that were preserved in oral form by the Jews until they were set in writing by Masoretes during the 6th through 10th centuries. This “Hebrew Bible” contains all the writings included in the current Protestant Bible and are arranged in three groups: the Torah, the Prophets and Writings.

The Roman Catholics and Orthodox use the Greek translations of the Hebrew scripture that were created around 200 BC.[2] The writings that are in the Septuagint that are not in the Masoretic canon but are accepted by the Orthodox as scripture are: I Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastical by Sirach, Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremy, the First, Second and Third Books of Maccabees, and parts of Esther and Daniel. The Roman Catholic canon includes all those books except 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh in Chronicles, 1 Esdras.

The Protestants use the Masoretic texts but put the texts in the same order as the Septuagint[3].

How do we interpret the Bible?

The Bible was not constructed as a book of doctrines, but rather a collection of different types of poetry and prose: songs, wisdom literature, letters, civil and religious law and narratives, stories of God interacting with people and people trying to respond to God. More than that, each of those genres use a variety of literary techniques: hyperbole, poetry, allegories, anthropomorphisms, metaphors, etc.

That complexity, combined with the complexity of the historical context and language barriers, means that it is not straightforward as we try to use the Bible to construct theologies, statements of faith, and rules for behavior. The result is that many disagreements have arisen in how to interpret the Bible.[4] One of the current controversies has to do with that when we say that the Bible is true, how literal do we need to be in Bible interpretation.[5] That discussion is very serious as various heretical teachings have arisen when some individuals or groups put the community to the side and developed their own interpretations. For example, an individual, Marcion, rejected the Old Testament entirely and most of the New Testament except for what Paul had written.

The main types of interpretative principles used by various church communities are:

  • Interpreting the Bible according to its historical, socio-political, geographical, cultural, and linguistic / grammatical context.[6]
  • Analyzing the Bible by applying various literary genres that it uses,[7] including the differing levels of symbology, allegory, figurative language, metaphors, similes, and literal language. Also, each verse should be analyzed in context of surrounding chapter and book.
  • Presuming that the original texts of the Bible are without error or contradiction.[8]
  • Presuming that the basic message of the Bible can be easily understood by the average person.[9]
  • While some basic content can be understood by the average person, those understandings need to subject the expert knowledge of those who are trained in Bible interpretation.
  • While there are many academic disciplines used in interpreting scripture, proper interpretation can only be done by those who are spiritually discerning. The main goal of Bible study is not to gain knowledge but to gain sanctification.

How do you apply Biblical views to todays’ issues when the Bible is silent on those issues?

Particularly in regards in how to do worship, there are two main schools of thought on how to apply scripture: that we are allowed to do whatever is not specifically restricted by Scripture, or we cannot do anything that is not specifically permitted by Scripture.[10]

[1] Canonical books are the writings that are accepted as scripture from God

[2] Septuagint, a translation form Hebrew into Greek which was created by seventy-two scholars in the 2nd and 3rd century BC.

[3] Oakes, John. “When was the Old Testament Canon Decided?” Evidence for Christianity 3 Dec 2013 evidenceforchristianity.org/when-was-the-old-testament-canon-decided-was-it-at-the-council-of-jamnia

[4] The technique of interpreting the Bible is called hermeneutics, with the first step of hermeneutics being exegesis which means to interpret a text by way of a thorough analysis of its content.

[5] Christian Bible Reference Site. “Should the Bible Be Interpreted Literally?” christianbiblereference.org www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_BibleTrue.htm#:~:text=Literal%20Bible%20Interpretation%20Many%20fundamentalists%20believed%20the%20Holy,true.%20Anything%20less%20would%20be%20unworthy%20of%20God Different Church communities have different ideas on how to use a high level of literal interpretation or whether to use allegorical interpretation in various sections of Scripture; Bible Project “How To Read the Bible” Podcast Series bibleproject.com/podcast/series/how-to-read-the-bible-series

[6] Historical-grammatical Interpretation considers the historical, socio-political, geographical, cultural, and linguistic / grammatical context.

[7] Literary analysis – Each genre of Scripture (narratives, histories, prophecies, apocalyptic writings, poetry, psalms, and letters) has a different set of rules that applies to it.

[8] The principle of Inerrancy – The original autographs were without error or self-contradiction or contrary to scientific or historical truth (when the original authors intended historical or scientific truth to be portrayed).

[9] Principle of perspicuity

[10] Jackson, Wayne. “The Silence of the Scriptures: Permissive or Prohibitive”; also known as permissive view of scripture vs the restrictive view Christian Courier christiancourier.com/articles/the-silence-of-the-scriptures-permissive-or-prohibitive

Proxy wars

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed– Chapter 10 – The Class of Apparitions

Proxy wars

[Bible references: 2 Kings 17:1-6; 25:1-21; Jeremiah 1:14-16; Daniel 1:1-6; Ezra 1:1-4; 6:12; Ephesians 6:10-20]

Since the time of Adam and Eve a war has been underway. God’s Kingdom has found itself in a war with Kingdom of darkness, battling over the souls of God’s image-bearers. We cannot directly see the clash of spiritual kingdoms, but we see it indirectly, sometimes in clashes between image-bearers and sometimes within ourselves. The apostle Paul reminds us, though, that our struggle is not against “flesh and blood” but rather the “spiritual forces of evil.”

Even so, the spiritual war is played out in the human realm where we brokenly pursue love apart from God, hoping to find love somewhere else, whether in power, traditions, possessions, other people, etc. We then find that when we look for love other places than God, we are then confronted by fears which inevitably result in clashes, especially in times of change.

A great time of change was about to occur as the time approached for Jesus’ incarnation. There were clashes between empires that overran the Promised Land, clashes between groups of people in that land, and clashes of values between and within those groups.

As the time of Jesus’ incarnation approached, the residents of the Promised Land, begin to speak Aramaic instead of the Bible’s language of Hebrew. When the Greek empire moved in it tried to supplant all the local languages and cultures, resulting in an effort to the translate all the Hebrew writings into Greek, producing among many things, the Greek version of the Hebrew scripture called the Septuagint. The Septuagint became a major reference not only for the non-Hebrew speaking Jews but also for the church, particularly as the church became more Gentile. This change accelerated the loss of the Hebrew understandings of Scripture.

When the Roman empire overtook the Greek Empire, it initially allowed the use of Greek as the international language but would set up a clash later when the empire would replace Greek with Latin as its preferred language. The changes in languages and cultures became part of the clash over which writings should be considered as part of what will be called the Old Testament scriptures.

The Greek Church maintained the use of the Septuagint as it’s Old Testament, while the Latin speaking Roman-Catholic Church used only parts of the Septuagint. Later on, the Protestants rejected the Septuagint and only used the Hebrew writings that were approved by Jews in the early centuries A.D.[1]

The books used by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches but not used by the Protestants are sometimes referred to as the Apocrypha (hidden) or the Deuterocanonical (second canon) books. Although the Protestants may disagree about whether those books are inspired, there is useful information in those books that help explain the culture of the world that Jesus was born into.

[1] Nelson, Ryan. “What is the Masoretic Text? The Beginner’s Guide” The Beginner’s Guide to the Bible overviewbible.com/Masoretic-text

Observe

Read Ephesians 6:10-20. What difference does it make if you are aware that the conflicts present in the world around us are manifestations of spiritual warfare?

Playful and orderly

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Playful and orderly

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 12; Exodus 35:30-38; 2 Kings 17:1-41; Nehemiah 8:1-9:38; Psalm 100; John 4:23-24; Acts 6:1-7; 15:1-35; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40]

There is much that is wrong in the world. People endure pain and suffering sometimes from natural happenings and sometimes from the actions of others. Evil seems persistent and never-ending. When we are called to serve God in this world, we can become overwhelmed by all the work that is to be done. Playfulness can seem out of place. Particularly, any playfulness that emerges from self-centeredness or obsessiveness.

Actually, that is the point we need to assert. Playfulness can be out of place in a world of sin and evil. But playfulness can also be a reminder that the reality in front of us is not the total reality. Our playfulness arises out of the relationship we have with God, the one who has overcome the evil in the world, who will end the suffering and who will restore us and world to be what he intended from the beginning. Playfulness arises out of the hope and joy we have in knowing that the reality in front of us is not the whole reality.

Our imagination can be helpful in this play. As children, we can pretend there is another world and do something like taking a cardboard box and imagining it to be a spaceship and accepting the rules of living in that spaceship. Family traditions (or even community or national traditions) are a form of play, they do not serve a utilitarian purpose, but stem from the creative ways we wish to remember our unique heritage.

This same imaginative playfulness can be useful in reminding us of the reality that lies behind our current reality. Our traditions of worship are a form of play, albeit a more serious play. Our worship traditions represent ways for us to remember our spiritual heritage or to provide imaginative ways to perform biblical sacraments about which we have sparse details on how to perform them. These traditions and liturgies help us point to that other reality, a new Kingdom that began breaking into this world with the incarnation of Jesus.

Christian worship was in fact and from the beginning a festival:  the festival of Christ’s resurrection from the dead … Easter begins with a feast, for Easter is a feast and makes the life of those who celebrate it a festal life … Jesus himself compared the presence of God, which he proclaimed and lived, with the rejoicing over a marriage. His earthly life was a festal life, even if it ended in suffering and death … the early Christians have understood his raising from the dead and the presence of the now-exalted Christ as the beginning of an unending joy and a happiness without end … the risen Christ as ‘the first among those who had fallen asleep’ and as the leader of life; as the leader in the mystic dance and himself as the bride who dances with the others, as the church father Hippolytus put it.  Long before the somber dances of death were painted in medieval times of plague, the figure of the resurrection dance can be seen in the old churches. The modern Shaker song ‘The Lord of the Dance’ brings out very well the dancing Christ:

I am the life that’ll never, never die;
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.[1]

We hope to participate in the inbreaking of the new Kingdom by living according to its rules. When we pray or worship, we are participating in the rules of that new Kingdom. When we come to others and share with them the hope that we have, we ask them to use their imagination to look beyond the current reality and envision the new Kingdom that is already here and is yet to come. When we accept contentment in all situations, when we trust in God, when we comfort others with the hope we have, we are living according to the rules of the new Kingdom.[2]

It is also true, that In this present life there are endless encounters with grief. Although we acknowledge the pain and suffering of that grief, whether that grief is ours or others, we can encompass that grief with hope. Even amid grief we can choose to cling to God and to the hope He brings us. If we can live under the rules of the new Kingdom, we can have assurance that the current grief will pass and will be replaced by future joy and laughter and that every tear that we have cried and will cry and even now cry will be wiped away.

Our hope of the new Kingdom allows us to endure the current pain and suffering knowing that the hard experiences can be redeemed and to be used for good. God can take the pain and suffering we endure to transform us to be more like Christ, who himself suffered for us, transforming the very evil intended for him into the final victory that shall ultimately also make us victorious. This hopeful living then is also a form of play, accepting the rules of a reality we cannot see and choosing to live according to the rules of a Kingdom that we can only realize in part.

That playfulness also emerges in our creativity, which erupts early on in our lives as our desire as children to play and also in the desire we have as parents to play with our children.[3] There is no doubt about how uniquely creative we are in the way we express ourselves, not only in all the various art forms we use but in the ways we can solve all sorts of problems[4] – even to the creative ways we try to cover up our sins.[5] No other creature can come close to expressing creativity the way we can.

Our ability to create and even detect order is also unmatched.[6] Our ability to detect order is evident in the way we can detect patterns in sight or sound. The sense of order is evident in our ability to recognize faces, our ability to recognize the voices of our mothers or fathers as infants and even before we are born.[7] Our sense of order is seen as we grow in our ability to recognize the patterns of letters and sounds and to recognize and respond to language – even languages.

Our sense of order becomes more evident in our ability to create order out of many abstract concepts such as math, science, philosophy, and many other areas.[8] It is our sense of order that allows us to create businesses, governments, and civic organizations to make society productive. When we bring order to farmland, we increase the productivity of the farm.

The visible order within Creation inspired Christians in the past to study Creation. Order within Scripture helps the Bible to be meaningfully used as meditative literature. In the same way, order during worship also helps us to avoid confusion and to focus on God.

[1] Moltmann, Jürgen. “The Living God and the Fullness of Life” trans. Margaret Kohl Westminster John Knox Press, 2015, p.192; Carter, Sydney. Lyrics “Lord of the Dance” (1963) Genius genius.com/Sydney-carter-lord-of-the-dance-lyrics; Tune “Simple Gifts” Brackett Jr., Joseph. (1848) Praise gathering www.praisegathering.com/media-files/pdf/a08380_lyrics.pdf

[2] Edgar, Brian. “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality” Cascade Books 2017 (e-book)

[3] Gowman, Vince. “Playful quotes for the child in your heart” Vince Gowman www.vincegowmon.com/playful-quotes-for-the-child-in-your-heart/

[4] Baumgartner, Jeffrey. “The Basics of Creative Problem Solving – CPS” Innovation Management, innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/the-basics-of-creative-problem-solving-cps/

[5] Brister, Tim. “6 Destructive Ways We Minimize Our Own Sin” Bible Study Tools www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/6-destructive-ways-we-minimize-our-own-sin.html

[6] Basulto, Dominic. “Humans Are the World’s Best Pattern-Recognition Machines, But for How Long?” Big Think 24 July 2013 bigthink.com/endless-innovation/humans-are-the-worlds-best-pattern-recognition-machines-but-for-how-long

[7] Pfaff, Leslie Garisto. “6 things you may not know your baby can do” Parents www.parents.com/baby/development/intellectual/6-things-you-may-not-know-your-baby-can-do/

[8] Armstrong, David. “Christianity Absolutely Critical to Origin of Science” Patheos, 18 Oct 2015, www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/christianity-crucial-to-the-origin-of-science.html

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 12; 1 Corinthians 14. These chapters contain explicit instructions about how and how not to worship.  Since we do not yet experience the fullness of the new Kingdom, how can our imagination help us more actively engage in worship?

Playful and Orderly

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 3 – The Image-bearers

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 12:1-33:18; Exodus 35:30-38; 2 Kings 17:1-41; Nehemiah 8:1-9:38; Psalm 100; John 4:23-24; Acts 6:1-7; 15:1-35; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40]

There is much that is wrong in the world. People endure pain and suffering sometimes from natural happenings and sometimes from the actions of others. Evil seems persistent and never-ending. When we are called to serve God in this world, we can become overwhelmed by all the work that is to be done. Playfulness can seem out of place. Particularly, any playfulness that emerges from self-centeredness or obsessiveness.

Actually, that is the point we need to assert. Playfulness can be out of place in a world of sin and evil. But playfulness can also be a reminder that the reality in front of us is not the total reality. Our playfulness arises out of the relationship we have with God, the one who has overcome the evil in the world, who will end the suffering and who will restore us and world to be what he intended from the beginning. Playfulness arises out of the hope and joy we have in knowing that reality in front of us is not the whole reality.

Our imagination can be helpful in this play. As children, we can pretend there is another world and do something like taking a cardboard box and imagining it to be a spaceship and accepting the rules of living in that spaceship. Family traditions (or even community or national traditions) are a form of play, they do not serve a utilitarian purpose, but stem from the creative ways we wish to remember our unique heritage.

This same imaginative playfulness can be useful reminding us of the reality that lies behind our current reality. Our traditions of worship are a form of play, albeit a more serious play. Our worship traditions represent ways for us to remember our spiritual heritage or to provide imaginative ways to perform biblical sacraments about which we have sparse details on how to perform them. These traditions and liturgies help us point to that other reality, a new Kingdom that began breaking into this world with the incarnation of Jesus.

Christian worship was in fact and from the beginning a festival:  the festival of Christ’s resurrection from the dead … Easter begins with a feast, for Easter is a feast and makes the life of those who celebrate it a festal life … Jesus himself compared the presence of God, which he proclaimed and lived, with the rejoicing over a marriage.  His earthly life was a festal life, even if it ended in suffering and death … the early Christians have understood his raising from the dead and the presence of the now-exalted Christ as the beginning of an unending joy and a happiness without end … the risen Christ as ‘the first among those who had fallen asleep’ and as the leader of life; as the leader in the mystic dance and himself as the bride who dances with the others, as the church father Hippolytus put it.  Long before the somber dances of death were painted in medieval times of plague, the figure of the resurrection dance can be seen in the old churches.  The modern Shaker song ‘The Lord of the Dance’ brings out very well the dancing Christ:

I am the life that’ll never, never die;

I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me,

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.[1]

We hope to participate in the inbreaking of the new Kingdom by living according to its rules. When we pray or worship, we are participating in the rules of that new Kingdom. When we come to others and share with them the hope that we have, we are asking them to use their imagination to look beyond the current reality and envision the new Kingdom that is already here and is yet to come. When we accept contentment in all situations, when we trust in God, when we comfort others with the hope we have, we are living according to the rules of the new Kingdom.[2]

It is also true, that In this present life there are endless encounters with grief. Although we acknowledge the pain and suffering of that grief, whether that grief is ours or others, we can encompass that grief with hope. Even amid grief we can choose to cling to God and to the hope He brings us. If we can live into the rules of the new Kingdom, we can have assurance that the current grief will pass and will be replaced by future joy and laughter and that every tear that we have cried and will cry and even now cry will be wiped away.

Our hope of the new Kingdom allows us to endure the current pain and suffering knowing that the hard experiences can be redeemed and to be used for good. God can take the pain and suffering we endure to transform us to be more like Christ, who himself suffered for us, transforming the very evil intended for him into the final victory that shall ultimately also make us victorious. This hopeful living then is also a form of play, accepting the rules of a reality we cannot see and choosing to live according to the rules of a Kingdom that we can only realize in part.

That playfulness also emerges in our creativity, which erupts early on in our lives as our desire as children to play and also in the desire we have as parents to play with our children.[3] There is no doubt about how uniquely creative we are in the way we express ourselves, not only in all the various art forms we use but in the ways we can solve all sorts of problems[4] – even to the creative ways we try to cover up our sins.[5] No other creature can come close to expressing creativity the way we can.

Our ability to create and even detect order is also unmatched.[6] Our ability to detect order is evident in the way we can detect patterns in sight or sound. The sense of order is evident in our ability to recognize faces, our ability to recognize the voices of our mothers or fathers as infants and even before we are born.[7] Our sense of order is seen as we grow in our ability to recognize the patterns of letters and sounds and to recognize and respond to language – even languages.

Our sense of order becomes more evident in our ability to create order out of many abstract concepts such as math, science, philosophy and many other areas.[8] It is our sense of order that allows us to create businesses, governments and civic organizations to make society productive. When we bring order to farmland, we increase the productivity of the farm.

The visible order within Creation inspired Christians in the past to study Creation. Order within Scripture helps the Bible to be meaningfully used as meditative literature. In the same way, order during worship also helps us to avoid confusion and to focus on God.

[1] Moltmann, Jürgen. “The Living God and the Fullness of Life” ,” trans. Margaret Kohl Westminster John Knox Press, 2015, p.192; Carter, Sydney. Lyrics “Lord of the Dance” (1963),

Tune “Simple Gifts” Brackett Jr., Joseph. (1848)

[2] Edgar, Brian. “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality” Cascade Books 2017 (e-book)

[3] Gowman, Vince. “Playful quotes for the child in your heart” Vince Gowman http://www.vincegowmon.com/playful-quotes-for-the-child-in-your-heart/

[4] Baumgartner, Jeffrey. “The Basics of Creative Problem Solving – CPS”  ” Innovation Management, innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/the-basics-of-creative-problem-solving-cps/

[5] Brister, Tim. “6 Destructive Ways We Minimize Our Own Sin” Bible Study Tools http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/6-destructive-ways-we-minimize-our-own-sin.html.

[6] Basulto, Dominic. “Humans Are the World’s Best Pattern-Recognition Machines, But for How Long?” Big Think 24 July 2013 bigthink.com/endless-innovation/humans-are-the-worlds-best-pattern-recognition-machines-but-for-how-long.

[7] Pfaff, Leslie Garisto. “6 things you may not know your baby can do” Parents http://www.parents.com/baby/development/intellectual/6-things-you-may-not-know-your-baby-can-do/

[8] Armstrong, David. “Christianity Absolutely Critical to Origin of Science” Patheos, 18 Oct 2015, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/christianity-crucial-to-the-origin-of-science.html

Reflect

Our ability to play arises out of how we bear the image of God. How does our playfulness persist even in the midst of all the problems in the world?

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 12; 1 Corinthians 14. These chapters contain explicit instructions about how and how not to worship.  Since we do not yet experience the fullness of the new Kingdom, how can our imagination help us more actively engage in worship?