My first scripture to tackle was Hebrews 9:27-28, a wonderful passage drawing a comparison between (1) our death and judgment and (2) the Messiah’s sin-offering and his return. Here is my translation of the verse:

And just as it is appointed for humans to die once, and after that to face judgment, so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not as a sin offering, but to save those waiting on him for deliverance.

Some points of interest:

(1) I chose to translate the Greek word Christos (χριστός), usually translated “Christ”, as “the Messiah”. Christ is merely the Greek way of saying “the Messiah”. But many modern readers unfortunately do not understand this simple connection. Substituting “the Messiah” clarifies this issue.

(2) In the Greek the phrase “not as a sin offering” is simply rendered “apart from sin” (χωρίς αμαρτίας). The meaning is more difficult to get at if translated directly as some modern translations have done, but when examined within the context the meaning becomes clear: men only die once, the Messiah only dies for sin once (as in 1 Peter 3:18).

(3) The last phrase in greek is τοις<ho> αυτόν<ego> απεκδεχομένοις<apekdechomai> εις<eis> σωτηρίαν<soteria> which is literally “to the ones awaiting him for deliverance.” I changed the sentence structure to make it flow more easily by adding the word “save”. I think many of the modern translations, including the ESV, NIV, and NASB, get it ever so subtly wrong here. I thought it was important to communicate, as the Greek does, that the people were not merely waiting for him in a generic sense, rather they were waiting “for his deliverance”. I think it might be subtly different to say “he will appear to deliver those who are waiting for him” instead of “he will appear to those who are waiting on him for deliverance”. In this I am trying to default to the Greek sentence structure when a judgment could go either way.

(4) I chose to use the word deliverance rather than salvation which are interchangeable in this sense. But salvation has become an overused, misunderstood, and therefore problematic word in our culture. I favored the use of the less religious word for this reason.

I’d be interested in any comments.

So check back to see what’s going on here. In the mean time, check out my updated links at the right – all nice and neatly organized for you. There is a wide variety of helpful and stimulating material there. Let me know what you think.

It is the fast of the fourth month referred to in verse 19 below. In light of today, I’m just curious as to what you guys think about the prophecies in verses 13, 19, and especially 23. Are the prophecies for the Jews specifically? When do we expect them to be fulfilled?

I think you have to really stretch to make these verses about Christians. So what does this say about Jews in the end times and throughout history?

Some folks I’m connected with seem obsessed about the Jews in the last days. Others disregard it altogether. I’m trying to find what is right. Thoughts?

Zechariah 8

 1And the word of the LORD of hosts came, saying, 2“Thus says the LORD of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. 3Thus says the LORD: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts, the holy mountain. 4Thus says the LORD of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. 5And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. 6Thus says the LORD of hosts: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight, declares the LORD of hosts? 7Thus says the LORD of hosts: behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, 8and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”

 9Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. 10For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor. 11But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the LORD of hosts. 12 For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. 13And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.”

 14For thus says the LORD of hosts: “As I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the LORD of hosts, 15so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not. 16These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; 17 do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD.”

 18And the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, 19“Thus says the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.

 20“Thus says the LORD of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. 21The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the LORD and to seek the LORD of hosts; I myself am going.’ 22 Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD. 23Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6228

My original email comments to the person that sent me this article are the first comment.

For this reason many historians actually consider postmodernism as a part or extension of the Enlightenment as opposed to a brand new movement. After all, the original Enlightenment used reason to deconstruct the “superstitious” and traditional institutions and systems. But unlike the original Enlightenment, postmodernism does not have a constructive element to it. It is my view that in the absence of high ideals, philosophies based, more or less, on selfishness will become dominant. Nihilism (nothing is more important than me), Existentialism (I’m totally focused on my bubble), and Hedonism (my pleasure is most important) are clear examples.

I think that harnessing the combined power of both these ways of thinking is one of the keys to making real progress in society, especially for Christians. For this reason, it is of great importance for the Church to recognize and learn from the strengths and weaknesses of these two impulses. We cannot help but be influenced by them, but we can choose to embrace their strengths and repudiate their weaknesses.

The postmodern impulse should cause us to seek out and regain a sense of value for the foundational ideas of Christianity. It motivates us to differentiate between those foundational ideas and other personal, cultural, and traditional ideas that have become a part of our present expression of Christianity. Thus it helps us to cleanse and restore the pure and true roots of Christianity. It helps us to see through the blindness of our norms. It refuses to just participate in something simply because it has always been done that way. It makes sure that the church spends her time and money on things that are genuinely important. It causes us to be critical thinkers, to understand, to discern, and to pursue truth.

But the modern impulse helps us convert our knowledge of the truth into faith through action. It seeks to systematically apply this truth to every area of our lives and culture. It is not enough to simply acknowledge a truth; rather, the truth must personally transform our character, refusing to compromise even to the point of death. It must also affect our ethics, our economics, our science, and our politics. Instead of just being against institutions, it motivates us to build new institutions that conform to the truth.

I found that most people typically fall into one of the two categories. Just recognizing your own predisposition will help you tremendously. Often the frustration between different generations within a church is really a result of the modern/postmodern divide. But the fact that we need both perspectives to be really effective is just another reason why we need the whole body to grow to maturity.

In light Jeremy’s post today I would like to discuss this issue with some seriousness. I pose a simple question: What is the correlation between a person’s PERSONALITY and his or her SPIRITUAL GIFT?

(A) There is no real correlation.

(B) There appears to be some correlation. But there are too many counter-examples to create a rule of thumb.

(C) There is a correlation as a rule of thumb, with some notable exceptions.

(D) There is a clear and strong correlation. Most of the time you can determine a person’s spiritual gift, if you know their personality.

I have taken numerous “spiritual gifts tests” over the years. I feel that most of them consciously or unconsciously assume some correlation. This discussion is important because when someone is being discipled we inevitably want them to find and use their “gift.” But how you answer the above question greatly influences that discovery process. How does one discover their gifts? How are the gifts recognized within a local body? Why does Paul exhort us all to desire the greater gifts? I appreciate everyone’s comments on this subject.

As I was attempting to write the next Ad Fontes post on The Fall of Man, I realized that my readers would need a basic understanding of what I mean by POSTMODERNISM. Since I will use this term frequently in many of the upcoming posts, I felt the need to post a basic introduction explaining my understanding of postmodernism. What follows is greatly oversimplified, but will hopefully help to at least create some common language for discussion.

From roughly around 1650 to about 1850, the Western intellect was driven by the possibilities of reason. Reason was seen as the one tool that could solve any problem. With reason properly applied, progress seemed inevitable and potentially unending. Reason could be applied to every area of life. As reason began to be exalted over tradition, great progress was made in individual rights, law, economics, education, and fair government. The expansion of scientific, economic, and nationalistic optimism to all parts of the globe marked this era commonly known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was skeptical, and often rejected, the institutions that were more traditional, such as monarchy, or those seen as superstitious, such as many practices within Christianity, favoring instead the institutions based on purely rational ideas such as constitutional government, capitalism, secular education, and the sciences.

With the Industrial Revolution in full swing and Enlightenment thought fully engrained in society, a new movement in the arts was birthed around the 1850’s known as modernism. It influenced painting, music, architecture, furniture, etc. modernism emphasized progress as supreme, casting off all traditional ideas that might be a hindrance. The distinctive character of modern art reflects the values of casting off traditional norms and seeking progress through experimentation. One can speak of modernism to mean the movement within art or the whole cultural movement influenced by the Enlightenment (this is usually what I mean).

The United States experienced the Enlightenment in a culturally different way than most of Europe. This is mainly due to the revivalism in Early American history. Revivalism, as exhibited in the First and Second Great Awakenings (1740-50; 1800-1830) and the Civil War revivals in the South, brought large numbers of people back to a faith centered in the Bible and the Local Church. Thus the more extreme influences of the Enlightenment were tempered by the Christian faith. For those influenced by American Revivalism, the optimism about rationally based institutions which characterized the Enlightenment was extended to the institution of Church. Thus the “modern” Christian is characterized by a strong belief in and trust of the institutional Church, the rule of law, constitutional government, “just” war, and free market capitalism. However, due to the influences of higher criticism and Darwinism, “modern” Christians began to lose the Enlightenment optimism and trust regarding secular education and science, while retaining the optimism about the other pillars of institutional reason.

Although Enlightenment thought is still very influential in culture, it experienced some significant setbacks in the early 20th century culminating with World War II. Many people experienced disillusionment with the institutions that the modern era had championed. For example, science had produced the atomic bomb, and nationalism had killed tens of thousands of our boys at war. Thus in the years following World War II, many people began to rethink the many “modern” institutions. Both the cultural movement and the general tendency to “deconstruct” traditional institutions are referred to as postmodernism.

The effects of postmodern thinking are far reaching into our present day, as one-by-one, each great pillar of the Enlightenment was deconstructed and scrutinized. Effects often take the form of reaching back to pre-modern forms of culture as a more authentic lifestyle. Much of the “hippie” culture of the 1960’s was influenced by postmodern thought as protestors deconstructed the need for war, and folk artist and musicians deconstructed society as a whole; promoting peace, love, and rebellion against tradition. Various forms of communal living reacted to the “white picket fence” of the traditional American dream.

Beginning in the 1950’s, societal folkways, mores, and taboos, such as manners, dress, behavior towards authority, and gender roles began to be deconstructed across all of society. The Civil Rights movement saw deconstruction of traditional racial stereotypes within society. The Vietnam War protests deconstructed war as a necessary aspect of governance. The “back to the land” and alternative health movements that started during the 1970’s revealed a fundamental distrust in technology and medicine as well as a fear of economic instability. Government funded education began being scrutinized due to poor results from public schools. This sparked the “educational products” industry in the 80’s along with the more extreme reactions of the home schooling and even unschooling movements in the 90’s and 2000’s. Much of our Enlightenment inspired nationalism has been replaced with globalism since WWII. With the recent economic downturn, examples of corporate corruption, unethical lobbying, third world exploitation, and the negative environmental effects of manufacturing, few still believe in the promises of liaises faire capitalism. This too is a result of postmodernism. Even the rule of law and individual rights are not above being thoroughly scrutinized and may see some significant changes in the not too distant future before postmodernism runs its course.

Christianity, too, has felt the influence of postmodernism. The traditional values and practices of Church have gradually given way to less traditional and more informal methods. Worship bands, casual attire, informal preaching style, and culturally “relevant” ministries, women in ministry, and racially integrated congregations had become mainstream by the 1980’s. Today the house church and the emerging church movements could be considered extensions of post-modernism within Christianity.

Summary: Modern Enlightenment thought in our present day came from an optimism about the potential progress through institutions and is associated with defending standards, being conservative, combating alternative opinions, and being suspect of intuition and feelings. Postmodernism came from pessimism due to tragedy, and is associated with deconstructing standards, being liberal, understanding alternatives, and trusting intuition and feelings.

I know that this created more questions than it provided answers, and did not include many important aspects of this issue. Maybe I can clarify my understanding in the comments section. In my next post I will try to convey how we might reconcile modern Christianity with post-modern Christianity for overall growth and health of the Body of Christ.

Now, of course, none of us can rid ourselves completely of our presuppositions or the impulse to avoid paradoxes. For these reasons, I do not altogether reject the use of systematic theology a a tool. I simply believe that it must be a secondary consideration to the narrative. As a basic rule, it is crucial to approach the interpretation of scripture as simply and directly as possible. By simply and directly I do not necessarily mean “literally”. The narrative approach allows for symbolism, metaphor, and the variety of literary devices. By simply and directly I mean without the unnecessary restrictions imposed by theological presuppositions.

It is my belief that, with simple, but good, hermeneutics, the core lessons of each passage of scripture are basically strait forward. These core lessons should form the basis of Christian practice.

Want to start experimenting with a narrative theology? Here’s how? When looking at a passage of scripture…

1. Try to set aside any presuppositions you may have inherited from your particular denomination or cultural background.

2. Ask “what is the main point of this passage?”

3. Ask “what does this tell me about God?”

It’s that simple, although step one can be very difficult. You will then be able to see if your conclusions are consistent with what you already thought. There is no need to go off and try to find the flaws in any particular system. Just focus on the Bible and what is said. (And trust speakers who stick to this method in their sermons!) This is a simple and safe way to read and study the Bible. It keeps you open and teachable. And it keeps you entirely Scriptural. It lets you learn about God exactly as He has revealed Himself.

There are three primary sources: experience, tradition, and the Bible. Most of the truth we live by comes from the first two. However, individual experience is generally unreliable for establishing universal doctrines. And within protestant churches “tradition” is generally looked on skeptically, thus the insistence on Sola Scriptura as it relates to universal truth.

Now it’s pretty obvious that Scripture can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and theologians for the first several centuries typically focused on particular issues that were relevant to their day. But during the middle ages theologians began to express a desire to present all of the Christian teachings in a comprehensive, organized, coherent, and logical way. In order to accomplish such a task the theologians had to create a method or system that could consistently and universally be applied to all of scripture. This task and its finished product are called systematic theology.

It is my opinion that many of the denominational and other divisions with the Body of Christ are primarily due to the insistence on rigidly adhering to one particular theological system. I believe that this dangerous because, in addition to causing divisions, it greatly influences how individuals interpret the Bible, scholars and laymen alike. And to compound this problem the particular systems are promulgated in seminaries, thus solidifying the disunity.

Recognizing these problems with systematic theology, I began to search out another way to arrive at biblical truth. I got my first glimpse at the answer when a good friend asked me a simple, but profound question: “What do you think is the purpose of the stories in the Bible?” I’ve been thinking about that question now for a few years. Over time I have realized a few things.

1)      That the entire Bible IS contextualized within a story and should not be separated from it.

2)      The stories and contexts within the Bible are connected into ONE consistent narrative or meta-narrative.

3)      Knowing how a passage of scripture connects to the meta-narrative is essential for interpreting that passage.

4)      Personally identifying with the story, as opposed to just the religion or its teachings, is essential to the proper formation of Christian IDENTITY.

This method of getting at scriptural truth is known as narrative theology. It’s been around since the beginning, but is seeing a revival in academic circles due to the influence of postmodernism. Postmodernism is naturally skeptical of Tradition (Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal) and dogmatic systems (Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Baptist). Relying on logic and solid hermeneutics, it seeks to remain an academically viable approach (often taught as “biblical theology” in seminaries).

In the next post I’ll attempt to explain the chief advantage of this approach, and how it relates to the systematic approach. I’ll also give some practical examples of how the approached is used.