By Farther Steps

Reformed and Reforming, semper reformanda to Christ's glory.

Archive for March, 2009

Genesis: How’d We Get Here?

We all know what’s in the book of Genesis. We’re familiar with the stories of creation and Noah and Joseph and his coat. But what is Genesis about? Another way to ask the question would be to ask why Moses wrote it. One way to try to determine what a story is about is to track narrative time. How much time passes across how many pages? When narrative time slows down, there is probably something important going on. So take a look at this:

Let me walk you through this. What I did was to pick out the major themes of the book and put them across the top with the chapter divisions. I was surprised to see it line up in pretty neat quarters.

  • Chapters 1-11 introduce God and how he created. They also explain why the world is a mess and show how bad and how far reaching that problem is but they also include the promise that someone will do something about it, the Seed of the Woman.
  • Chapters 12-24 tell us Abraham’s story. God carries his promise forward in one man. The promises to Abraham are a land, a people and a blessing to the nations.
  • Chapters 25-36 cover the lives of Abraham’s son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Isaac is covered very briefly and the majority of the section is spent on Jacob. We meet Jacob’s sons.
  • Chapters 37-50 focus on one of Jacob’s boys, Joseph. He goes in to Egypt as a slave and soon rises to the second in charge of the nation. At the end he’s reunited with his family and they are brought in to Egypt as celebrated guests.

That’s the story in a nutshell. The sections receive pretty much the same amount of paper but consider the bottom line of the chart. The first section takes thousands, maybe millions of years. The next two sections take about 100 years each. But the final one, though equal in length, covers only about 56 years. Moses really slows down and includes a lot of detail in Joseph’s story.

The reason, I suppose, Moses does this is because in Genesis he’s explaining to the Israelites where they came from. He covers how Yahweh created the world and worked to preserve it through Adam, Seth (not Cain), Noah, Shem (not Ham), Abraham, Isaac (not Ishmael), Jacob (not Esau) and Joseph. He spends the most time on Joseph so the Israelites will understand how they came to be in Egypt. Not as a captured people but as honored guests.

This is very interesting. Consider how much the New Testament talks about Joseph versus how much it talks about Abraham.  Joseph is seldom mentioned whereas Abraham is prevalent in the Gospels and in Paul. So what are we to take from this? We are Christians so we should follow the New Testament. Abraham has more to do with us than Joseph. But then again, Abraham has more to do with Joseph too. If it weren’t for Abraham, there would be no Joseph. I think all of this shows just how important Abraham is to biblical theology.  Joseph explains how Israel got to be where they were, Jacob explains how they came to be but Abraham offers an explanation of why they are who and where they are. And he offers the same explanation to us: And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. – Galatians 3:29.

Twitter Must Decrease and Blogging Must Increase

I just exhausted a Twitter phase. I was tossed for a while between quitting it all together or just mostly ignoring it. I’ve decided on the latter. Sean talked me into it with one simple Twit. That demonstrates the power of Twitter! So why am I quitting?

Because Twitter was making me stupid. You have to express yourself in 140 characters or less and so you can’t Twit complex thoughts. When you communicate too often in sound bytes, you begin to think in sound bytes. Which is probably what is wrong with 90% of our politicians, they can’t think in complex terms. At the same time, there is a benefit to a drill like Twitter. It forces you to get to the main point and express yourself in a fashion that eschews superfluous elocutionary flourish. Like what I just did there. Really, that’s not all that bad. It allows you to think like Jonathan Edwards but not write like him. However, as I got hooked on Twitter I started thinking in 140 character Twit-speak (pun intended if not delivered). It is like the difference between a Robert Frost poem and haiku. Almost all haiku is useless but it is easier to write because it is short. I’m not claiming to be Robert Frost but I am aiming at more than:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t make sense
Refrigerator

One of the things that triggered this desertion of Twitter was when I noticed that I hadn’t written anything on my blog in a while and then I saw some updates from a few Twitter friends mentioning that they’d neglected their blogs and RSS feeds and stuff. For Twitter? Really?

So if I were to write this post on Twitter, it might look like this:

Time for me to back off of Twitter & spend time with complete sentences. Better for my brain.

More Than a Song by Journey

Andrew has a couple of great comments on some posts and asked a good question. I figure his question deserves a post instead of another comment. He wanted to hear more about Michael Wittmer’s Don’t Stop Believing and made some points about Postmodernism vs. Modernism. So, Andrew, here ya go.

Wittmer identifies himself as a post-modern theologian and places himself between two “extremes.” On one side are those he calls “conservatives” and the other are “postmodern innovators”. Wittmer spends a fair amount of time in the introduction explaining these terms. I thought his discussion of postmodernism was excellent.  By “Conservatives” he means those who “demand locksetp allegiance to their narrow doctrinal statements.” (13) This is a common theme that I’ve heard amongst Emergent Christians. They often speak of the abuse (mental I’m guessing) they suffered at the churches they attended when they were children. There is this nebulous “them” that they seem to react against. Wittmer considers himself a conservative (16) but tells tales of his youth in these conservative churches. It helps to be aware of where these folks are coming from. D. A. Carson mentioned this same thing in his Becoming Conversant with The Emergent Church. 1I think Carson missed some pretty important concepts in this book though he did do an otherwise fair job of introducing the Emergent Church in it. I don’t think I’d recommend Carson’s book on its own.

Like I said, Wittmer does a fine job in the introduction defining modernity and postmodernity for us. Modernity 2This is actually a better term than “modernism” as modernism is an art movement. Modernity is more of the worldview. is the product of the Enlightenment, beginning in the seventeenth century. Wittmer says it “climaxed in the eighteenth century with Isaac Newton and John Locke” (15) but I don’t think I agree. I would say that it climaxed at the end of the eighteenth century with Charles Darwin. It then bore its bitter fruit at the beginning of the twentieth century. Either way, Wittmer rightly summarizes it this way:

Freed from centuries of religious superstition and certain that the scientific method would unlock the secrets of the universe, modern society promised unending progress on all fronts, especially in technology and ethics. Humanity would build its own utopia, creating a little heaven on earth. (15)

Postmodernity, on the other hand, arrive shortly after the climax of modernity. Two world wars and a beastly Holocaust dashed the optimism of modernity. A much humbler estimation of human progress was born that included an “epistemology of doubt.” 3Epistemology is a theory of knowledge. How do we come to know things.  Even the ability to communicate was questioned. If what I say is shaped by my experience, and how you interpret what I’ve said is shaped by your experience, can you really know what I’m saying? Doubt. Humility.

So what can you say here? There is indeed something refreshing about postmodernity! Shouldn’t we take care with what we think we know? The problem is that when taken not to an extreme but just a few steps in that direction, postmodernity leads us to doubt too much. Can we know truth? How would we know? If there are no knowable absolutes, then do whatever you think is right. Your truth is your truth if it works for you. It may not be my truth if I don’t think it works but I wouldn’t presume to tell you you’re wrong. That’d be arrogant! Tolerance takes on a new meaning. It turns from tolerance to acceptance of conflicting “truths”.

Enter the Emergent Church. Yes, I know I’m departing from a book review here but I’m just using Wittmer as a launching point. The Emergent Church tries to express a postmodern form of Christianity. But how does postmodernity fit with Christianity? Can you have a Christianity of doubt? Wittmer cites a few Emergent leaders who say that all Christian doctrine is up for grabs. If that’s true, then what’s left? Wittmer is helpful here because he goes through some of the hot button doctrines within the Emergent Church and shows us what we can learn from them and what we should avoid with them. Great stuff here.  Very helpful. If you’re trying to figure all this stuff out, I think Wittmer is a good guide. He treats the Emergent Church fairly and tries to learn from them while not selling the farm to buy the tractor. There is a core to Christianity that cannot be released. Wittmer longs to preserve that center tent pole of doctrine and does a pretty good job in my estimation.

So Andrew, as you sort through this stuff, I’d recommend Wittmer’s book as a guide.

↩1 I think Carson missed some pretty important concepts in this book though he did do an otherwise fair job of introducing the Emergent Church in it. I don’t think I’d recommend Carson’s book on its own.
↩2 This is actually a better term than “modernism” as modernism is an art movement. Modernity is more of the worldview.
↩3 Epistemology is a theory of knowledge. How do we come to know things.

Bible: Thoroughly Human, Thoroughly Divine

I’m going to use a comic book reference to make a point. If you’re not a comic book kind of person, just stick with me for a moment, I think it will be worth it.

Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly and most recently Dollhouse but my favorite is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog)  thinks he knows why DC Comics tank but Marvel’s do pretty well these days. Here’s how it is summarized:

“Because, with that one big exception (Batman), DC’s heroes are from a different era. They’re from the era when they were creating gods.” Whedon explains to Maxim that DC’s characters, like Wonder Woman, Superman and Green Lantern, were “all very much removed from humanity.”

From Whedon’s perspective, the stories that succeed these days are those that are more human than superhuman. We don’t want to hear about people who are not like us. People who don’t have problems. We don’t want Greek gods anymore, we’re more interested in special humans. Midas over Hercules.

When Mohammad received the Koran, an angel came and forced it upon him. Mohammad dictated the Koran from Allah. He would sit in a cave and the angel would come upon him and he’d start talking. His friends with him would write down what he said on whatever they had at hand. Skins, clothing, bone fragments, whatever. When Allah’s word came, it came.  Later these writings were gathered together and put on paper.

Wait, come back! I’ve actually got a point to make here! Honest and I’m about to make it now.

The Christian Bible is a thoroughly human document and a thoroughly divine document. Here’s how Peter put it:

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. – 2Pt 1:21

First, the context of 2Pt 1 is bigger than just oral prophecy, it includes the scriptures as well. Next, notice he says. “Men spoke.” Man. Humans. People spoke, people wrote. They didn’t repeat what they’d heard. They spoke. The Bible is a human document. It is written by people, in their time and culture, from the personal perspective, in the language they spoke.

At the same time, these men spoke “by the Holy Spirit.” The Bible is also a divine document. These folks didn’t write just any old thing, they were “carried along” in their speaking and writing by God. God had them speak what he wanted them to say because prophecy is never generated by human will.

We need to keep the two together, the human and the divine. Does that sound familiar? It should, we have that same struggle with the person of Jesus. His is 100% human (minus sin) and 100% divine and he is the Word (Jn 1). God’s word is like that too.

So what does this have to do with Joss Whedon and the Koran? To me the fact that the Bible is a human document as well as divine makes it much more appealing. More personal. God didn’t drop it from the sky or force the words out of a prophet’s mouth. As he was writing history, he was also writing his word in history. Men spoke as the Spirit carried them along.  In Jesus, God entered time and walked in our sandels, felt our pain and disappointment, he can “sympathize with our weaknesses” because he “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb 4:15). His word isn’t removed from our difficulty and disappointment and struggle either. Job speaks honestly from his pain and confusion. Jeremiah laments with real tears and is really heartbroken. Solomon is sincere when he looks back upon a life wasted in self-satisfaction in Eccelsiasties.  Solomon also experience real romantic love and desire for his wife in Song of Songs.

Were God to drop his word into our world, etched on a onyx stone in a language so unlike ours, we’d worship the stone rather than listen to the words. The medium would eclipse the message. Instead, God speaks in such common forms that we’re left with nothing but the message to heed. It is comforting to me that the Bible is a human as well as a divine document. It doesn’t lead me to doubt its trustworthiness because human’s wrote it. It shows how intimately God is involved in his creation, not distant from it.