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• Now My Eyes Have Seen You: Images of Creation and Evil in the Book of Job © 2002
• From the series, New Studies in Biblical Theology, Vol. 17
• InterVarsity Press
  
• 208 pages

This book fascinated me. Fyall’s study uncovers references to Canaanite mythology that have long been hidden in favour of more naturalistic interpretations of the text. For example, the NIV footnotes suggest that Behemoth (40:15) is an elephant or hippopotamus, and Leviathan (3:8, 41:1) is a crocodile. Fyall digs deeply and comes up with interpretations of these creatures that satisfy the narrative, and hold the whole book together. (If you’re curious, Behemoth is the Canaanite god of death, and Leviathan is a guise of the Satan.)

In the end, Fyall’s technical study yields some important conclusions. I love how he sums it up on the last page:

The book is not so much about suffering per se as about creation, providence and knowing God, and how, in the crucible of suffering, these are to be understood.

The discussions are quite technical, but the subject matter is well worth the effort. I’ll never read the book of Job the same way again.

I was reading Berry’s A Timbered Choir, when I came across verse that juxtaposes apocalyptic imagery from scripture with our abuse of the environment. It gave me chills.

Nowhere is there an end except in smoke.
This is the world that we have set on fire.

This is the promised burning, darkening
our light of hope and putting out the sun,
Blighting the leaf, the stream—and blessed are
The dead who died before this time began.

image by sylvar

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, and ladies: all theology is but a matter of emphasis.”

These words were repeated often by John Stephenson, my Christology and Soteriology professor back in Bible College. The more I study, the more I find those words to be true. Take Jesus’ nature as an example. If you swing the pendulum of belief toward the (paradoxically stated) 100% human too much, you end up in Arianism. Conversely, if you emphasize the 100% divine too much, you stumble into Docetism.

Some wisdom from Ecclesiastes has often helped me in these situations:

Do not be too righteous, and do not act too wise; why should you destroy yourself? Do not be too wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other; for the one who fears God shall succeed with both. (7:16-18, NRSV).

Admittedly, I’ve indulged in a little sensus plenior in my application of that verse, but for some reason it always comes to mind when dealing with theological extremes: take hold of one without letting go of the other.

In 1 John 2:1-2, John gives the solution to the deception (if we say that we have not sinned) and the effect (we make him a liar, and his word is not in us) from 1:10. This solution reminds us how we need to keep the pendulum swinging between an emphasis on avoiding sin, and on confessing our sins.

. . .

Stott reminds us of the importance of keeping both of these poles in sight: It is possible to be either too lenient or too severe towards sin.

John may have felt some pressure to offer a disclaimer after such a generous statement of God’s willingness to forgive in 1:9. Here, John states both sides like a parent guiding his children. In fact, John actually calls his parishioners “my little children”. Not just “little children,” as elsewhere in this letter, but my little children. Instead of speaking to them in the first person plural as in chapter 1, he switched to the first person singular. He moved past formalities and got personal.

What is so important to John that he feels he needs to open the sentence with such emotionally charged words?

1. I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin
2. But if anyone does sin. . . (2:1, NRSV)

. . .

He doesn’t want his church community to sin, but he knows that they will and is quick to share with them a three-fold provision:

1. You have an advocate
2. You have Jesus Christ, the Righteous
3. You have an atoning sacrifice

Let’s look at the first two provisions.

The first provision for our sin is a paraklētos, commonly translated as advocate, although sometimes as comforter or counsellor. It’s important for us to understand what John meant by this word. In a legal sense, a paraklētos is a sort of solicitor, who speaks on behalf of someone else in a forensic setting. John’s use of the term, however, is more highly nuanced. If you dig a little with a Greek commentary, you’ll see that John used this word in his gospel (NRSV):

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. (14:16)

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. (14:26)

When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. (15:26)

If I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you (16:7)

Think about the beautiful symmetry here. In the Gospel of John, Jesus spoke of a paraklētos who would testify to the world on behalf of believers. In the Epistle of John, John called Jesus the paraklētos who testifies to God on behalf of believers. This is why Jesus spoke of another Advocate. He was the first; his Spirit was the second. What good news! We have two advocates speaking on our behalf—the Spirit to speak to the world, and the Son to speak to the Father when we sin.

The second provision for our sin is Jesus Christ the Righteous. It’s fitting that the one who will cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1:9, NRSV) must be righteous himself. “Righteous” is an important theological term that has a variety of nuances. When the term appears in 1 John, though (1:9; 2:1, 29; 3:7, 12), it implies moral behaviour every time. We fail morally, and it took a morally flawless Messiah (Hebrew for the Greek word, Christ) to speak on our behalf to the Father.

. . .

Next we’ll look at the third provision, how Jesus is our atoning sacrifice (2:2, NRSV). For now, let’s accept John’s fatherly advice and try not to sin—but be quick to confess when we do, knowing we have the flawless Son of God speaking on our behalf to our Father.

< 1 John 1:10 | The Third Lie

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• Greek Lyric Poetry: A New Translation © 2005
• New York: W. W. Norton & Company
• 201 pages

I stumbled across this gem in Petrolia’s own Family Discount Depot. True to the store’s name, the book was marked down to $3.00. After reading it, I believe it’s worth the full list price.

Inside is 1300 years worth of Greek poetry, ranging from 700 B.C. to A.D. 600. Although the chronological range is broad, the works are all tied together by Santos’ masterful translating. The annotations are also particularly useful for understanding the poems. After a few pages in, I started read the annotation first, to deepen the experience.

This collection was especially interesting to me because it provides background to the life of Jesus. A number of poems spoke of the afterlife and the bleak (non)existence that humans were offered. That helped me to realize the radical nature of the eternal life that Paul & co. offered the Romans as the early church spread out.

One particular verse ran through my mind continually as I read this anthology:

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring’. (Acts 17:18, NRSV)

It’s good to have read some of their own poets.

You’ve got to love it when a scholarly book makes you want to stand up and cheer.

I was reading Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God tonight and came across just that sort of passage at the end of a chapter entitled “Time to Wake Up”:

The biblical language of resurrection (’standing up’, ‘awakening’ etc.), . . . involves, not a reconstrual of life after death, but the reversal of death itself. It is not about discovering that Sheol is not such a bad place after all. It is not a way of saying that the dust will learn to be happy as dust. The language of awakening is not a new, exciting way of talking about sleep. It is a way of saying that a time will come when sleepers will sleep no more. Creation itself, celebrated throughout the Hebrew scriptures, will be reaffirmed, remade.

Yeah baby!

image by atencion

Lies have an awkward way of snowballing. Most begin simply.

Did you eat those chocolate chip cookies we were saving for dessert tonight?

No.

Then you need more lies to cover up the first one.

That’s funny—it looks like you’ve got chocolate smeared around your mouth.

It’s not chocolate, it’s . . . um . . . just dirt

Then the lie keeps getting bigger.

Why on earth would you be eating dirt?

I was playing out back, when Roger pushed me and I fell on my face in the garden.

And on it goes.

. . .

The Bible’s quite clear about our ability to disobey. Stott offers a quick list of passages that I’d like you to consider (all NRSV):

There is no one who does not sin. (1 Kings 8:46)

They [humankind] have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one.
(Psalm 14:3)

Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning. (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way.
(Isaiah 53:6)

We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
(Isaiah 64:6)

Any single one of these verses would sound like a simple proof-text ripped out of context. However, when you take the cumulative effect of all these verses, spread out over time, the full weight of their message seems unavoidable: we all sin.

. . .

The false-teachers that were speaking in John’s churches made a threefold claim:

1. They had fellowship with God while walking in darkness (v. 6).
2. They had no sin (v. 8).
3. They had never sinned to begin with (v. 10)!

These three claims are exposed by John as nothing but three lies. Here are the corresponding lies:

1. We lie to others.
2. We lie to ourselves.
3. We make god a liar!

You can see how the lie snowballed. It’s easy to lie to others. It’s more difficult (but quite possible) to lie to ourselves. Claiming to have never sinned at all is tantamount to denouncing God as a liar!

. . .

For the last two weeks, we’ve looked at the deception, the effect, and the solution to each of the if we say statements in 1 John 1.

This week, the deception is: If we say that we have not sinned.

The effect is twofold:

1. we make him a liar,
2. and his word is not in us.

The solution begins in chapter 2, which we’ll look at next week. For now, let’s focus on the second part of the effect: his word is not in us.

John identified Jesus in the first chapter of his Gospel as the Word incarnate. If we claim to love God (or even each other), then we are followers of that Word who has been placed into our lives by the Spirit. How, then, can we act in a way that contradicts both the Word incarnate and the word written?

The application here is quite simple, but takes discipline to implement. In order to love the Word incarnate, we must love the word written. If we want to be followers of Jesus, we need to spend time devouring Scripture—sinking it deep within our hearts until it overflows in our actions. An obvious scripture comes to mind:

I treasure your word in my heart,
so that I may not sin against you.
(Psalm 119:11, NRSV)

If you need some motivation, read more of Psalm 119. It’s a bit repetitive, but it demonstrates the Psalmist’s great love for God’s word—a love we need to engender.

Learning and loving the written word will keep us safe from the sort of false-teaching that was around in John’s day, and certainly has not abated since then.

< 1 John 1:8-9 | Self-Deception

1 John 2:1 | A Righteous Advocate >

Music made me read this play. Have you ever heard these songs?

• In the Hall of the Mountain King
• Morning Mood

They were written by Grieg, along with many other songs as the incidental music for Ibsen’s play. It’s a great experience to read the words that inspired those famous melodies.

Aside from the music, the play is brilliant on its own. It’s the story of a wholly self-centered anti-hero who is not good enough for heaven, nor bad enough for hell. (Ironically, Peer’s flaw—for all his selfishness—is not being himself!) Aside from the underlying Pelagianism, the scenes at the end with the Button-Molder are incredibly poignant. Listen to the Button-Molder:

But, my friend, that precisely is your offense.
You aren’t a sinner in the larger sense;
That’s why you’re let off the fiery griddle
And go, like the rest, in the casting ladle.

I scanned in my own copy of the book cover, the Signet Classic edition from 1964, because I love the painting. The Amazon link points to an in-stock version of the same translation.

I’m still working through Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf.  My reading slowed when I got to Marcus Aurelius. The translator called Aurelius “one of the loftiest, of the pagan moralists” (George Long). I find that since our worldviews are so fundamentally different, reading Stoic philosophy is aggravating.

That said, I came across a line by in Meditations VII.73 that’s quite wise and resonates strongly with Christian ethics:

When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?

image by miuenski

Ryan, my 15 month old son, was trying to eat his favourite addiction (Cheerios) on the front step the other day. His left hand held a spare set of keys that he’s decided to take everywhere. His right hand was clutching a bright blue ‘nail’ from his Little Tike’s Work Bench. He was squatting down in front of a Tupperware lid full of Cheerios, trying desperately to grab them with his already-full hands.

“Put the keys down so you can eat, bud,” I admonish him. No response.

“Here Ryan, let me hold your nail for you.” Still nothing.

I think he finally won by using a few spare fingers to shovel up the treats.

That little event perfectly illustrates the point John is trying to convey to his readers. The false-teachers were telling the church members that they were without sin. John brought the correction quickly: any claim to sinlessness is mere self-deception. But if we open up and let go of our sins . . .

. . .

The Deception: If we say that we have no sin (v. 8a, NRSV)

The Effect: we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (v. 8b, NRSV)

We humans are gullible. Given a strong enough motivation and a long enough time frame, we can justify almost any action or belief. Sure, it sounds cynical, but take a serious look at humanity—both externally and internally—and I’m pretty sure you’ll begin to see the same thing. If you don’t believe me, try asking a psychologist who is trained in personality disorders!

The prophet Jeremiah wrote about our inclination towards self-deception:

The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9, NRSV)

Devious. What an apt word.

The false-teachers convinced themselves and their audiences that they were without sin. We don’t know if they thought they surpassed it, overcame it, or plan old transcended the good-evil dialectic. We only know their claim. It was quite an attractive belief.

John reminded his followers of the words of the prophet: the heart is devious. Sinlessness is self-deception. More sinisterly, any claim of sinlessness prevents God from healing our broken human nature.

. . .

The Solution: If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (v. 9, NRSV)

This is the flip-side of the deception. If we would only learn to confess sin instead of hiding (like Adam and Eve in the trees), we would be forgiven.

The confession of sin is often emphasized today, but rarely written about in the New Testament. According to Kruse, there are only four other passage that deal with the personal confession of sin:

1. Matthew 3:6
2. Mark 1:15
3. James 5:16
4. Acts 19:18

From this comprehensive list, Kruse makes the observation that confession of personal sin is a public matter. The evangelical world has turned this verse into a bed-time liturgy, when it was intended to be a way to heal communities! Understanding the corporate nature of this confession makes the act far more difficult—but just look at the two results:

1. God will forgive us.
   God will remove the offense that blocked the divine-human relationship. Confession of our sin to each other allows us to be restored to God.
2. God will cleanse us.
   God will even remove the stain that resulted from the sin!

Think of it this way. An authority tells you not to eat ice-cream in the living room. However, the television’s in the living room and your favourite show is starting. The inevitable happens, and you spill a big glob of ice-cream on the shag rug. As it starts to melt into the 2 inch long fibers you’re caught. What happens?

1. You can claim that you didn’t do it and introduce a layer of deception into your relationship with the authority (who knows exactly what you did).
2. You confess what you did and the authority forgives you for your disobedience, and then steam-cleans the rug to remove all evidence of the offense.

I think the right course of action is clear.

. . .

Like a toddler clutching his precious items, we hold our shameful sins close to our heart. Maybe we even deceive ourselves into believing we are without sin. But when we hold on to our sins, we prevent God from healing us.

It’s time to confess quickly, and receive freely.

< 1 John 1:6-7 | Hypocrisy

• Grace And Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love © 2005
• Continuum Books
• 172 pages

I can’t remember who recommended this book to me, but I’m sure glad he or she did! It sat on my Amazon wish list for a while until I threw it into the cart on impulse.

There’s four chapters in this book, which are expanded versions of the Clark Lectures Williams gave in 2005. In the first three chapters, Williams covers Jacques Maritain, David Jones, and Flannery O’Connor respectively. He examines how the later two figures viewed their craft through the lens of Maritain. In the final chapter, Williams relates this philosophy of art more closely to theology and draws some conclusions.

This is the sort of book that I know I will read again. Whenever I paused to reconsider a sentence or paragraph, an new insight would jump out at me. In particular, I loved his insistence on the integrity of art. Art-as-propoganda or art-as-emotionalism or art-as-self-expression are compromises that undermine art’s true purpose.

Not only did this book make me want to read more from Williams, it made me want to pursue Maritain and O’Connor as well. This work demands your concentration, but rewards it richly.