Friday, 25 December 2009
Christmas
Merry Christmas to all my readers. It's been a lovely white Christmas in Glasgow this year. And I've had a great day celebrating with my family. Winding down now and relaxing before another day of family visits tomorrow.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Austerity Christmas
Christmas might still only come ‘but once a year’ but it seems to last longer and longer as shops and other businesses start putting up decorations and Christmas trees around October, some even as early as September! I hear some people put up their Christmas trees so early nowadays that they have to dust them a couple of times before Christmas actually arrives!
The mood seems to be – if my limited perception of the retail market is anything to go by – that people are spending less this year. In the middle of a recession, that’s not surprising. It’s also probably no bad thing. The last thing we need as a society is to plunge ourselves into more unmanageable debt.
I recently heard the phrase ‘austerity gospel’ as a kind of biblical counterpart to the false ‘prosperity gospel’ that goes around. (The prosperity gospel is ‘believe in Jesus and God will bless you with money, possessions, good fortune of every kind’). That got me thinking about the differences between the glitzy Christmas the world pushes more and more each year and the true Christmas – the austerity Christmas of Bethlehem 2000 years ago.
As Christians, we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas of course with joy and merriment. But that first Christmas was no fairy lights and roast turkey dinner affair. It was as austere as you can get. Strip away the images off the Christmas cards, the idyllic scene of a strangely sanitised warm and welcoming stable, and you are left with raw life.
An unmarried mother forced to make a hazardous journey because of an unpopular poll tax. The birth in a dirty room where animals were housed, with the smell of manure in the air. None of Mary’s female family and friends around to help her. The only people to come and celebrate the birth were shepherds – social outcasts in their society. The wise men (astrologers most likely) come from far distant lands much later to see the child and would have been viewed with deep suspicion by religious Jews. Then the family are forced to become asylum seekers in Egypt, fleeing from the ruthless troops of King Herod. As John wrote in his gospel, ‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.’ (John 1:10-11). Those verses are about as austere as anything in the Bible.
The true ‘magic’ of Christmas is that it’s precisely in that way, to that reception, with a mission to save the world that had no time for him, that God’s Son came to earth. And out of those events, Jesus Christ fulfilled his role as God's anointed King and Saviour, all the way to Calvary – to the final rejection and through the mysteries of God's will – to his destiny of victory and triumph, for our good and his Father's glory.
As Paul wrote: ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’ (2 Corinthians 8:9)
Such is the grace and love of God: he made his own Son nothing that we might have everything.
The mood seems to be – if my limited perception of the retail market is anything to go by – that people are spending less this year. In the middle of a recession, that’s not surprising. It’s also probably no bad thing. The last thing we need as a society is to plunge ourselves into more unmanageable debt.
I recently heard the phrase ‘austerity gospel’ as a kind of biblical counterpart to the false ‘prosperity gospel’ that goes around. (The prosperity gospel is ‘believe in Jesus and God will bless you with money, possessions, good fortune of every kind’). That got me thinking about the differences between the glitzy Christmas the world pushes more and more each year and the true Christmas – the austerity Christmas of Bethlehem 2000 years ago.
As Christians, we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas of course with joy and merriment. But that first Christmas was no fairy lights and roast turkey dinner affair. It was as austere as you can get. Strip away the images off the Christmas cards, the idyllic scene of a strangely sanitised warm and welcoming stable, and you are left with raw life.
An unmarried mother forced to make a hazardous journey because of an unpopular poll tax. The birth in a dirty room where animals were housed, with the smell of manure in the air. None of Mary’s female family and friends around to help her. The only people to come and celebrate the birth were shepherds – social outcasts in their society. The wise men (astrologers most likely) come from far distant lands much later to see the child and would have been viewed with deep suspicion by religious Jews. Then the family are forced to become asylum seekers in Egypt, fleeing from the ruthless troops of King Herod. As John wrote in his gospel, ‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.’ (John 1:10-11). Those verses are about as austere as anything in the Bible.
The true ‘magic’ of Christmas is that it’s precisely in that way, to that reception, with a mission to save the world that had no time for him, that God’s Son came to earth. And out of those events, Jesus Christ fulfilled his role as God's anointed King and Saviour, all the way to Calvary – to the final rejection and through the mysteries of God's will – to his destiny of victory and triumph, for our good and his Father's glory.
As Paul wrote: ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’ (2 Corinthians 8:9)
Such is the grace and love of God: he made his own Son nothing that we might have everything.
The King of God's Kingdom
The King of God's Kingdom
by David Seccombe
Paternoster Press
David Seccombe's The King of God's Kingdom is a massive tome of over 600 pages, but it was so easy and enjoyable to read that it seemed shorter.
The book's subtitle is "A Solution to the Puzzle of Jesus". Seccombe identifies the "puzzle" in a series of questions at the beginning of the book. Essentially it is what is the relationship between the Jesus of the gospels and his teaching and the Christianity of his followers, the Christ of the letters, and the apostles' teaching. Or to put it another way, how does Jesus' gospel of the Kingdom of God with its historical, social and political implications fit in (if it does) with the apostles' gospel of new birth, salvation by faith, justification and so forth.
Seccombe's solution is not a radical one, but an evangelical one. His conclusion is that Jesus established the Kingdom of God by defeating the powers of this world including sin, death and Satan, but left it to his followers to extend the Kingdom to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). He writes (pp. 601-02):
As surely as the backbone of Satan's power was destroyed, God's kingdom was established in the world and the way was clear for men and women of all nations to be drawn to the fellowship of the crucified but victorious King-Messiah. The task of gathering the new age community Jesus gave to his followers. Having defeated the central rebellious power, he sent them out into lands which were still very much in the power of evil - much as a victorious general might divide his forces, sending them into the far reaches of a newly conquered land to declare his victory, offer amnesty, and a place in the new order to all who would lay down their arms and surrender their allegiance to the king.
The book reads in part like a harmony of the gospels, but it is much more than this. It's main concern is to show how what Jesus did during his life is connected with his life's work (including his death and resurrection) of establishing God's Kingdom on earth.
My only real criticism is that because the author has one foot in the camp of the academy and one foot in the camp of the community of faith, he sometimes overstresses the fact that many scholars do not take the gospel accounts of miracles and even Jesus' teachings at face value. Time after time, he announces that many do not accept this or that before then giving for the most part fairly standard conservative reasons why we should, in the end, accept what the gospels say. This was a weakness. Perhaps he could have dealt with this issue in a preliminary chapter or an appendix.
Despite this, I really enjoyed reading this book and would warmly recommend it.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
God's Pattern for Creation
God's Pattern for Creation
by W Robert Godfrey
P & R Publishing
This is a short but interesting book on creation as taught in Genesis One written by the president of Westminster Seminary California. It is obvious in every line that Professor Godfrey has a deep love for God and for his Word.
The book is subtitled, "A Covenantal Reading of Genesis 1" and this is very apt. Godfrey does not interpret Genesis One in a literal, 24-hour day manner, and points out that Genesis was not written to answer questions of interest to modern science, but to teach God's covenant people that it was their God who made the universe. That's not to say Genesis has nothing to do with scientific truth, but it is certainly not the prime focus of the text. Genesis One teaches the truth, but its emphasis is on theological truth. Godfrey maintains that unless we see that Genesis One was written for God's covenant people, we will miss out on much of the impact and emphasis that is in the Genesis text.
The main points that Godfrey then focuses on - in the belief they are the main focuses of the text itself - are (1) that human beings are God's image bearers and have been given a unique role within God's creation, (2) Genesis 1 presents God's days of creation as a pattern for our week of work and rest and (3) the Sabbath day of rest is a creation ordinance instituted by God for all human beings.
Godfrey's view of the days of creation is similar to the framework hypothesis of Meredith Kline and others, but is not identical. Godfrey does not necessarily accept the two-triad view of the days of Genesis 1 - in fact he criticises it. He does, however, share the framework view's non-literal interpretation of the days. Godfrey puts forward an alternative "framework" view. He points out that in Genesis 1:2 there are three events or problems that God finds solutions for through his creation. These are: the darkness, the disorder and the emptiness. God's work on each of the following days sorts these "problems" out. He creates light, he orders things and he fills the universe with life. Each of these tasks takes longer to complete - one day for light, two days for order, three days for filling the emptiness of the universe, concluding with the creation of human beings.
I thought this was an interesting way of looking at the text and I will probably have to re-read this short book to consider this interpretation further.
In summary, this is a simple text designed, like Genesis itself, to be read by everyone in the Church. It gives a good overview of a non-24-hour day interpretation consistent with an old earth.
I thoroughly recommend it.
by W Robert Godfrey
P & R Publishing
This is a short but interesting book on creation as taught in Genesis One written by the president of Westminster Seminary California. It is obvious in every line that Professor Godfrey has a deep love for God and for his Word.
The book is subtitled, "A Covenantal Reading of Genesis 1" and this is very apt. Godfrey does not interpret Genesis One in a literal, 24-hour day manner, and points out that Genesis was not written to answer questions of interest to modern science, but to teach God's covenant people that it was their God who made the universe. That's not to say Genesis has nothing to do with scientific truth, but it is certainly not the prime focus of the text. Genesis One teaches the truth, but its emphasis is on theological truth. Godfrey maintains that unless we see that Genesis One was written for God's covenant people, we will miss out on much of the impact and emphasis that is in the Genesis text.
The main points that Godfrey then focuses on - in the belief they are the main focuses of the text itself - are (1) that human beings are God's image bearers and have been given a unique role within God's creation, (2) Genesis 1 presents God's days of creation as a pattern for our week of work and rest and (3) the Sabbath day of rest is a creation ordinance instituted by God for all human beings.
Godfrey's view of the days of creation is similar to the framework hypothesis of Meredith Kline and others, but is not identical. Godfrey does not necessarily accept the two-triad view of the days of Genesis 1 - in fact he criticises it. He does, however, share the framework view's non-literal interpretation of the days. Godfrey puts forward an alternative "framework" view. He points out that in Genesis 1:2 there are three events or problems that God finds solutions for through his creation. These are: the darkness, the disorder and the emptiness. God's work on each of the following days sorts these "problems" out. He creates light, he orders things and he fills the universe with life. Each of these tasks takes longer to complete - one day for light, two days for order, three days for filling the emptiness of the universe, concluding with the creation of human beings.
I thought this was an interesting way of looking at the text and I will probably have to re-read this short book to consider this interpretation further.
In summary, this is a simple text designed, like Genesis itself, to be read by everyone in the Church. It gives a good overview of a non-24-hour day interpretation consistent with an old earth.
I thoroughly recommend it.
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