Faith, Good Works, and New Creation (part one)

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Faith has garnered much attention from me lately.  The concept plays an important role in Christian theology, perhaps more so in Protestant thinking, with Sola Fide (by faith alone) being one of the banners of the Reformation.  A question that’s followed me for some time concerns faith:  what is it?  In some Protestant circles it’s merely mental and intellectual assent to doctrine.  If you believe the right statements about Jesus, you’ll go to heaven:  no questions asked.  In some Charismatic circles (which I see and hear on a regular basis), faith is about some sort of emotional certainty.  Faith is about latching on to some putative promise of God and removing all doubt it will come to fulfillment (or come to pass!).  Here the task (or my caricature of it) seems to be convincing yourself of something so fully that God can’t help but answer your prayer.  In this sense, faith comes across as some mysterious, magical force and prayer is how we use our “faith.”  Then there’s the concepts of faithfulness and trust.  Our expression, “have faith” is often synonymous with “trust.”  The Greek verb used in the New Testament certainly has trust within its range of meanings.

Which of these are right?  In what degree?  When we set out to define a robust, biblical doctrine of faith, what aspects of it should we make sure to discuss?  I want to critique the ideas I set out previously, noting the high and low points of each understanding of faith.

First, let’s take a stab at doctrine.  What is faith’s relationship to doctrine?  The Pastoral Epistles offer some positive direction for us.  A common statement here is, “this saying is trustworthy.”  These statements are generally doctrinal in nature, like the magnificent exposé of justification by grace in Titus 3:3-7.  The Greek word here is pistis.  Pistis can have lots of shades of meaning, but translation into English requires us to pick the best option  The word can mean faith, the faith, faithfulness or trustworthiness, in addition to some I’m likely missing.  Trustworthy is a perfectly good translation right here, and most Bible translations use it.  The preceding statement of doctrine is worthy of our trust, but I would also suggest that the saying is trustworthy precisely because it is faithful.  It is a faithful depiction of God’s own actions in History.  That is what doctrine must be: faithful descriptions of reality.  They must be faithful to the character and nature of God, and of his creation.  We trust the doctrine of the church catholic (catholic with a little ‘c’)  because we trust that God has revealed himself adequately to his people.  Doctrine must not be separated from either relationship with God himself or from Christ’s church.  Mental assent to doctrine is important, but only in the context of the family of God as revealed in Ephesians 3.

Second, what is faith’s relationship with emotion?  Faith does have an emotional component, but the tendency is either to magnify it absurdly or ignore it completely.  I’ve seen plenty of both in my short time on this earth.  What helped me think about this was an analogy of a frightened child.  Perhaps the child is afraid of her room at night, imagining monsters or some other nasty creature coming to get her.  The child will then run to her parents for comfort.  The father or mother will undoubtedly soothe the distraught daughter and then explain that she is safe and nothing is coming to get her.  So it is with us and our Father.  The comfort of her parents enables the child to go back to bed.  While she may still have her doubts about the presence of monsters in her room, the emotional comfort is an important part of her going back upstairs.  Likewise, we need the soothing grace of the Father to comfort us through frightening times.  This is an important part of faith, but it is only a component, not the whole.

Finally, what is faith’s relationship with trust?  I think this may be the most important dimension of faith, as trust is inextricably tied to the character of the ‘trustee.’  But what exactly is trust?  How does it relate to belief?  In my mind, one believes a fact or statement, but one trusts a person.  Thus, I believe that earth travels around the sun, but I trust my wife/husband/father/mother, etc.  I would  argue that the latter is much more important than the former.  In the next post, I want to explore this aspect a more, particularly how love and relationship affect it.  Only after that can we move onto good works (the fruit of faith) and new creation (the fruit of good works) be examined.

~alex

Book Review: ZIBBCOT Volume 5

~ Alex Poulos ~ 1 Comment

ZIBBCOT

Special thanks to Jesse Hillman at Zondervan for a review copy of this fine volume!

Before I jump in, I should share a little of my own background (insert pun apology here).  I’m nowhere near an Old Testament expert.  I have some decent background knowledge for the New Testament, (at least for an interested layman) but the OT is a different story.  For this reason I jumped at the chance to review an OT commentary, hoping it would help me appreciate the OT more.  While the series’ focus is on historical background, it is a valuable resource that any interested layperson or pastor could put to good use.

Now for the review.  First of all, some specifics are in order.  I received volume 5 which covers the wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) and the minor prophets (Hosea – Malachi).  Each book has an introduction, each of which vary in length.  Most are rather extensive, though some books with scant information are shorter (Joel for example).  The introductions give information on dating, context, and the audience of the book.  The contents of the commentary are broken down by section and verse, following the normal format we see in other commentaries.  There is a plethora of end-notes and bibliographic information to further your research if you so desire.  Additionally, there is an introductory essay on comparative studies which was quite helpful to someone who was largely ignorant of the discipline.

There is a lot to like in this series.  What has impressed me most of all is the abundance of extant literature we have from the Ancient Near East.  We have Mesopotamian sources, Egyptian sources, Babylonian sources, Assyrian sources, Akkadian sources, and many others.  There’s a wide range of dates too, going as far back as the second millennium B.C.  All of these texts and records are brought to bear on the Biblical text in the relevant moments.  The volume also has brief articles interspersed throughout on a single topic of note.  Some examples include “Hymnic Doxologies” in Amos and “Divine Sonship” in the Psalms.  These typically go into more detail than the textual notes. 

As the name would indicate, there are tons of pictures in this series.  They are very well done.  I’m not a particularly visual person, but even for me they help connect the text in question to its historical context.  There are pictures to be found on nearly every page.  Often they take up half a page, and the quality is up-to-par.  They range from pieces carved in stone (murals?), to pottery and tablets.  Maps are also included at important points. 

Even with all the good things going for it, there are a few qualifiers to give the volume.  First, this isn’t a general purpose commentary, nor is it trying to be.  Detailed textual note are completely absent.  Instead, we’re treated to a rich assortment of historical background.  Second, it would be nice to have an article discussing in broad terms the various cultures which are cited in the text.  As an OT neophyte, I have very little basis to compare an Ugaritic citation with say, an Akkadian or Mesopotamian text.  Explaining these civilizations in the introduction would have helped me a great deal as I tried to make sense of the different sources.  At least a brief trace of the rise and fall of the culture in question.

All in all, the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary on the Old Testament is a great series.  This volume has proved very useful recently as I’ve been reading through the Old Testament.  If you’re wanting to gain a richer understanding for the Old Testament, I’d definitely recommend this series.  Comparative studies have too long been ignored by evangelicals (myself included!) but volumes like these stand ready to help us pick the rich fruit that the discipline has left us.

Election for the Sake of All

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I was listening to a podcast the other day (godpod from HTB in London), and came across a fascinating interpretation of election, or God’s choice of people to be saved.  It’s a tough doctrine to think about.  Some say that God chooses (elects) only particular persons to be saved.  The logical implication of this is that God chooses some to be damned, if only implicitly.  I’ve always found that hard to reconcile with the love of God, and it’s perhaps the biggest reason I’m not a Calvinist.  The proposal I came across concerning election turned the doctrine on its head.  Basically, instead of election being for the sake of the elect, it is for the sake of all.  Instead of God choosing the chosen people for the sake of the chosen people, it is for the sake of all.

The group discussing it traced lightly over Adam, Abraham, and Israel.  God’s choice runs through the whole Old Testament as a major theme.  God chooses Adam to exercise Godly dominion and care for his creation separate from all the other created beings.  God chooses Noah to preserve a remnant to repopulate the earth.  God chooses Abraham to bless the whole world.  He chooses Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and all the children of Israel to bear his message.  He chooses the kings and the prophets.  In no case was the election for the sake of the elect;  rather it was for the sake of those who the elect would serve.  Adam’s election was not for Adam; it was for the whole creation.  Abraham’s election was for the good of the whole earth.  “The scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham, ‘all nations will be blessed through you.’”  (Galatians 3:8)

Tracing the idea further, God’s choice of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph must be seen as actions to create and sustain the promise to Abraham.  God’s choice of Moses was not for Moses.  It was for Israel, and in turn all those whom Israel was called to bless.  The same with the judges, the kings, and the prophets.  Ultimately we arrive at Jesus, who is the ultimate Elect one.  He is God’s chosen vessel to redeem humanity.  All of God’s choices and actions prior to him come to climax in him.  All election after Jesus stands in the shadow (or light perhaps) of his life, death, and resurrection.  But even Jesus’ election was not for him, but because God loved the world, and longed to get the whole creation project back on track, to redeem and restore it.

This has huge implications for how we understand God’s choice of us.  We are not chosen to sit on a pew and “sit, soak and sour,” as my pastor used to say.  We are instead God’s chosen vessel to bring redemption and restoration to the whole world.  Our election is rooted not only in God’s love for us, but it must go forward into our vocation to “bless all nations.”  This idea is much more challenging.  It compels us to always look beyond ourselves, to look to a creation which is “groaning in the pains of childbirth,” eagerly yearning for the “revelation of the children of God.”  God chooses us that he may “choose” others.  Our faithfulness to this call matters.

Happy 2 years!

~ Alex Poulos ~ Leave a comment

This post is dedicated to my wonderful girlfriend of two years.  It’s been a wonderful two years Brianna, and Lord willing there will be many more.  I wouldn’t normally post about it here, except that she got me John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One, which I will enjoy immensely.  I also received a review copy recently from the fine folks at Zondervan Academic of another of Walton’s projects, namely Volume 5 of the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the Old Testament.  Reviews and reflections on both should be coming along shortly.

~alex

Reflections on exegesis

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I recently finished three books which are relevant to the task of exegesis (a close reading of the biblical text, with the purpose of discovering the intent of the biblical author).  The three authors are fairly well respected in evangelical circles (and often wider ones as well).  I read D.A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies, Gordon Fee’s New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors, and David Alan Black’s Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek.   All contributed added to my knowledge of the task, though some were more interesting than others.  Here I’ll collect some various thoughts that resulted from reading and reflecting on the books.

From Carson’s book, I was reminded of the absolute necessity of humility in scholarship.  Scholarship which isn’t humble (and in turn, self critical) usually ends up veering off into some fallacy or another.  Going hand in hand with humility is the need for intellectual honesty.  It’s very easy to get an idea and run with it, ignoring any evidence to the contrary.  Usually this results in ignoring important evidence.  When the scholarship in question surrounds scripture, it’s even more important to be honest and humble.  Reading about all the ways which people misuse and abuse the Greek text of the New Testament warned me as I study Greek:  tread softly and be hesitant about making broad statements.  Don’t try to bend the text to a preconceived notion.  You do yourself and the text a disservice in this case. 

Fee’s book was the most fascinating for me.  As a Pentecostal scholar and minister, Fee has a very strong appeal to me as someone raised in and involved with Pentecostalism, and as someone who loves intellectual pursuits.  The combination is still rare, though slowly changing I hope.  Fee impressed on me the wealth of all the resources that we’ve been given.  Between the lexicons, the commentaries, the synopses, and dictionaries, it’s astonishing.  Seeing a process laid out for doing detailed reading was also helpful, and I know it’s something I’ll return to in the future, Lord willing, when I preach or teach.  The final thing which struck me in Fee’s book was his deep appreciation for the Spirit’s activity in the text.  His appeal, in the middle of all of the scholarship, to encounter God in the text, and to let God examine you through the text, is something that I hopes stays with me. 

Finally, there was Black’s book on Linguistics.  In all frankness, this book was the most difficult.  Perhaps it’s because my lack of exposure to linguistics, but I found it rather boring.  Black did a good job of presenting the basics of linguistics and giving examples from New Testament Greek.  He claimed throughout that the linguistics discipline has much to contribute to New Testament studies.  While I believe him, he didn’t show this very much.  Perhaps that was beyond the scope of the book, but it would have kept me much more interested in the book.  That said, he did cause me to think more about how language works in general.  This definitely helps one not make bogus conclusions when studying Greek, especially when doing word studies. 

All three books were valuable for trying to growing in the art of Scripture reading.  I’d recommend any of them, with the caveat that the linguistics book may not be the most exciting, and also that all of them might be hard to follow without some exposure to Greek. 

Translation Question: Philemon 1:5

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This questions comes following a post I did here. My question comes from the second paragraph where I talk about verse 5. Basically, is the NIV justified in rendering the verse “because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints.”  The underlying Greek is this: ἀκούων σου τὴν ἀγάπην καὶ τὴν πίστιν ἣν ἔχεις πρὸς τὸν κύριονἸησοῦν καὶ εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους. A rather literal translation would be, “I hear about your love and faith(fulness) that you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints.” The basis for translating according to the (T)NIV, as I understand it, is something called chiastic structure. Basically, it’s a literary structure where the pairs go A B B A. If that’s the structure Paul has in mind, then the majority of modern translations are justified in going with pairing faith with Jesus and pairing love with saints. If πιστις is rendered as faith, then I understand how the chiastic structure is necessary. If we go with a broader meaning for πιστις, like faithfulness or loyalty, then it would be perfectly fine to have both πιστις and αγαπη applying to both Jesus and the saints. What is the full justification for rendering it like the NIV? I’ve only seen the chiastic structure assumed, not argued. Are we harmonizing with Colossians 1? Input from more knowledgeable in Greek would be wonderful. :-)

Thoughts on Chesterton

~ Alex Poulos ~ 1 Comment

After finishing a reading binge on exegesis and linguistics, I decided to change it up a bit.  In place of biblical studies, I decided to read G.K. Chesterton’s classic Orthodoxy, which my girlfriend gave me for Christmas last year. Orthodoxy  is a follow up to his book Heretics. It’s ironic how heavy and dogmatic the titles sound when compared to their contents.  Even 100 years later, Chesterton is still a blast to read.  Both titles are full of wit and humor, despite their dogmatic titles.

The sequence of events on the books goes something like this.  Chesterton wrote Heretics first.  In this book, he critiqued the prevailing philosophies of the day by attacking their chief expositors.  He did this in good humor with wit and style.  Even though the title is “Heretics,” the book has almost a whimsical tone at times as he plays with thoughts and ideas.  Still, the disagreements are sharp and he doesn’t beat around the bush.  He is blunt with what he likes and doesn’t like.

Following the publishing of Heretics, one of Chesterton’s opponents issued a challenge to the effect of, “you critiqued my philosophy, but didn’t give me your own.  I’ll consider mine more carefully when you give us yours.”  Chesterton replied to this challenge at the beginning of Orthodoxy with a characteristic line, “It was perhaps an incautious suggestion to make to a person only too ready to write books upon the feeblest provocation.”  Thus, his famous work Orthodoxy was birthed.  It is much more of an autobiography than a typical apology (or defense) of the Christian faith.  He writes in the preface, “It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it,”   noting that he will be “egotistical only in order to be sincere.”

Chesterton then guides us through his own thinking about Christianity.  He can jump around so much that sometimes it’s quite hard to follow him.  However, the prose is so much fun to read that I end up not minding too much.  Always the prince of paradox, in the portion I’m reading now he tells the story of how reading all of the chief opposition to Christianity very nearly persuaded him to become a Christian.  He recounts how Christianity was accused of being all sorts of opposite things.  It was both too peaceful, and the cause of wars.  It both destroyed the family, and thrust it upon us.  It imprisons women, yet the great cry from many men was that the church was too feminine!  He notes that if the critics are right, then Christianity is much more frightening than any of them had ever imagined.  He quips with the possibility that a man might be too fat in some places, and too skinny in others, but he would be a very strange man!

Instead, he envisages an average man.  Those who were “too tall” accuse the man of being “too short.”  Those who were “too skinny” accused the man of being “too fat,” and so on.  The man, however has the right proportions.  His detractors are wrong.  He then moves the analogy into his present day showing how the detractors of the Faith were really quite extreme in the opposite direction of however they were criticizing.  The writing is excellent, since all of this is revealed in narrative.  This means you get the sort of build up and climax you might expect in a novel.  Chesterton was a novelist and this talent carries over into his nonfiction.

This post has gone on long enough, and ironically praises Chesterton for good writing and fails to emulate his craft ;-)  If you’re looking for something fun to read, Chesterton should be considered.  He’s loaded with all sorts of  wit, but manages to explain truth through it all.  For a dry, analytical writer like myself, he’s a good example to learn from.

~alex

Thwarted!

~ Alex Poulos ~ 3 Comments

Today, I decided  to setup an Amazon Associate’s account.  For the uninitiated, it would mean that any books purchased at Amazon after clinking links on my blog would earn me small gift certificates.  The price doesn’t change at all, I’d just get a small kickback to help me buy more books.  Unfortunately I live in one of the two states (grr North Carolina!) which Amazon refuses to deal with because of our tax code.  Even more strangely, we have a reputation of prostituting ourselves jumping through hoops to get technology corporations to come here.  See this and this.

Oh well.  My paltry schemes to get cheap books have failed!

~alex

Liturgical Church Visit: Lutheran

~ Alex Poulos ~ Leave a comment

This past Sunday, a friend and I had the pleasure of visiting a local Lutheran church here in Raleigh.  We visited Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, and we really enjoyed it.  The people, mostly grandparent age but many not, were very warm and welcoming.  The gentleman we spoke with at the end of the services even managed to remain graceful when I told him I came from a Pentecostal background.  His eyes did get pretty big though.  ;-)

In some ways, it’s quite strange that we would visit a Lutheran church.  I come from a Pentecostal background, and regularly attend a Pentecostal church, and am involved in a Pentecostal campus ministry.  The same can be said of my friend, except that he comes from a mostly Baptist background.  Both traditions are about as “unliturgical” as they come.  For those unfamiliar with the term, liturgy refers to the structure and order of a church service.  Every church has some sort of liturgy, though certain traditions have a more developed liturgy than others (notably, the Catholics, Lutherans, some Methodists, Easter Orthodox, and Anglicans). 

Going to a liturgical service is much different than a typical Baptist or Pentecostal service.  Liturgical services tend to include the congregation more (meaning there is more interaction).  These services to tend to be more traditional, although many churches will mix in contemporary songs with traditional hymns.  Also, the flow of the service is much more fluid.  One moment your singing a hymn, the next your listening to a scripture reading, and the next you might be singing another hymn.   For whatever reason, even though I grew up in a very low church setting (meaning very little developed liturgy), I still love these expressions of worship.  I love the hymns, even though I can’t sing.  I love the creeds, even though I don’t know them well.  I even love the sense of community which comes from participation, even though I was with complete strangers.  Perhaps the most appealing thing for me is connecting with something much older than myself, much more ancient.  These forms of worship have been developed over hundreds of years by godly men and women, who sought the Holy Spirit’s direction.  Many of us “low-church” folk have shunned them to our detriment.  It may not be for everybody, but there is much beauty to be found.  I’m looking forward to visiting another liturgical church, hopefully  a Greek Orthodox church next.  I would love to hear some Greek in the service!  Whenever that happens, I’ll post here about my experience there. 

~alex