Scattered Ramblings on Following Jesus

At church this morning, the pastor’s Scriptural text was Mark 1:14-20, in which Peter, Andrew, James, and John left the fishing business to follow Jesus and fish for people.  The pastor was saying that we all have to make this decision each day: Will we follow Jesus?  Will we, for example, love our neighbor and even our enemy?  The pastor said that we need God’s help for this each and every day, which could be one reason that the Lord’s Prayer says “Give us this day our daily bread.”

I do like that “one day at a time” approach.  In terms of “following Jesus,” I’m not entirely sure what that means.  Do I follow Jesus each day?  I do not entertain the choice of leaving everything behind and becoming an itinerant missionary, I can tell you that.  Do I love my neighbor?  Well, I do talk with my Mom and ask how she’s doing.  Maybe my blog is a form of love for neighbor, since I am sharing with others.  I read books, and maybe reviewing them does a service for the authors and readers.  Still, there is a lot of ego and desire for attention in all that.  Do I love my enemy?  I often struggle with seething in anger against my enemies, and, when it gets too bad, I take a prayer break.  How about giving to the poor, which is emphasized in the Bible?  Well, I am not going out and doing community service.  Would God be happy if I regularly donated to the Food Bank?  Would that satisfy him?  My life is pretty solitary.  Can one follow Jesus in solitude?  One can interact with God and learn about him.  I do admit that all of those activities that I mentioned, and more, are things that one can do to follow Jesus.  But does one have to do them?

I hope to start a job in a little over a week.  Will I be following Jesus there?  Well, I will be a dedicated employee.  I will help people there as part of the job, and helping people can be part of following Jesus, even though it is not specifically Christian but part of the job.  Will I be a “light for Jesus” at work?  I most likely won’t evangelize to people (and, by the way, a customer way trying to evangelize to me when I was checking out the job site after church this morning).  I do think that trying to be a “light for Jesus” can give me a sense of purpose each day and make me a better person.  But there have been times in my life when trying to be a “light for Jesus” has been a burden that I have not been able to carry: it has amounted to me feeling bad because I am not perfect in others’ eyes, or in fact.

I have been reading a Lutheran book, which I will be reviewing tomorrow.  The author says that he is frustrated when people ask him if they need to do good works, since they are saved by grace.  The author is tempted to ask them, “Why do you ask?  Don’t you want to do good works?”  To be honest, I often don’t.  I feel safe in my room and would like to stay there.  I appreciate that good works need to be done, but I have to push myself to do them.  They do not come automatically to me, as the Lutheran author seems to think should be the case for Christians who have received God’s free gift of grace.

I hope that I can say that I follow Jesus in my own way, as I honor God in my thoughts, and as I, with God’s help, become compassionate to others in my thoughts.  Many Christians may say that’s not good enough.  Oh well.

There was something in the pastor’s sermon this morning that I particularly liked.  The pastor was asking us if we truly believe that we are in control of our lives, the way that the disciples were when they left everything to follow Jesus (or so they thought).  To be honest, I would say “no.”  So many things are beyond my control.  Adding Asperger’s to the mix makes it worse.  In any case, what I like about the pastor’s sermons is that I sometimes wonder where he is going with his points, and they get into my head that way.  I find them intriguing.

Hell in Testament of Isaac 5 (and the Testaments of Abraham and Jacob)

For my daily quiet time, I recently read the Testament of Abraham, the Testament of Isaac, and the Testament of Jacob in my Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha.

According to the Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha, the Testament of Abraham dates to the first-second centuries C.E., the Testament of Isaac to the second century C.E., and the Testament of Jacob to the second-third centuries C.E. The books could be from the same milieu. The scholars who introduced the works maintain that the Testament of Abraham and the Testament of Isaac were from an Egyptian Jewish context. But the Testament of Isaac has Christian redactions, probably Coptic Christian redactions (according to W.F. Stinespring). In the scholarly introduction to the Testament of Jacob, there is not much information about the Testament of Jacob’s milieu, but it does say that the main manuscripts for the Testament of Jacob are the same as those for the Testament of Isaac (with Arabic, Coptic, and Ethiopic texts); in addition, the person who put in the side notes of parallel passages mentions the Testament of Isaac a lot, so perhaps the Testament of Jacob drew from it.

In this post, I will talk about the topic of hell in these three Testaments, but I will use as my starting-point Testament of Isaac 5. The translation I will use will be that of Stinespring, for both the Testament of Isaac and the Testament of Jacob.

In Testament of Isaac 5, Isaac sees a man who is torn apart and eaten by lions, only to be ejected out of the lions’ mouths and eaten again, over and over. Isaac inquires of his angelic tour-guide what this person did to deserve this. The angel responds that the man “was in enmity with his neighbor for five hours, and he died without having been reconciled to him.” According to the angel, a man in the afterlife is tormented for each hour that he has been hostile to his neighbor, if he has not repented and reconciled with his neighbor prior to his death. This occurs until the completion of a full year.

Isaac then sees a river of fire, and wisdom is in that fire. The fire was not harming the righteous, but it was tormenting the sinners. At the bottom of the river, suffering a “drastic punishment,” are those who “have committed the sin of Sodom.” An overseer of punishment would tell his helpers to kill the sinners that it might “be known that God exists forever.” Isaac asks the angel how long these people will be tortured, and the angel responds, “Until the God of mercy becomes merciful and has mercy on them.”

Here are some thoughts:

1. Hell here is temporary, or at least it is possibly temporary: there is the possibility that God will have mercy on the tormented sinners and end their torment. Is that consistent with what is in the Testament of Abraham and the Testament of Jacob? In Testament of Abraham (Recension A), there is a reference to the everlasting punishment and destruction of sinners, those who not go through the narrow gate. In Testament of Jacob 5, adulterers, male homosexuals, masturbators, astrologers, sorcerers, evildoers, idol worshipers, and slanders are tormented in a place of outer darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and “fire which will not be extinguished.” In Testament of Jacob 7, we read: “O my dear son, avoid the evil ways of the world, which are anger and depravity and all vicious deeds. And beware of injustice and blasphemy and abduction. For the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor will the adulterers, nor the accursed, nor those who commit outrages and have sexual intercourse with males, nor the gluttons, nor the worshipers of idols, nor those who utter imprecations, nor those who pollute themselves outside of pure marriage; and others whom we have not presented or even mentioned shall not come near the kingdom of God.”

2. Are these texts inconsistent with each other, or possibly consistent? I can understand one answering “inconsistent.” In Testament of Isaac 5, hell is possibly temporary. In Testament of Abraham (Recension A) 11, it is everlasting punishment. In those Testament of Jacob passages, there is the statement that certain sinners will not come near the Kingdom of God, which would arguably be a meaningless statement if hell is temporary, if the sinners spend some time in hell then go to the Kingdom of God. Could the passages be consistent, though? Maybe “everlasting” does not always mean eternal but can mean a very long time that eventually comes to an end. Maybe the sinners do not come near the Kingdom of God while they are still sinners, but their torments in hell cleanse them of being sinners, of being the types of people who would commit those sins (yet I should note that there is nothing in the Testaments about hell being a place of purification for sinners). Do these Testaments contain different concepts or views on hell, or can the temporariness of hell that we find in Testament of Isaac 5 qualify, in some sense, the pictures that are in Testament of Abraham and Testament of Jacob?

3. Are the passages Jewish or part of the Christian redaction? On the one hand, there are parts of the Testament of Abraham (Recension A) that are probably Jewish and that pertain to hell: Testament of Abraham (Recension A) 12 has a concept of God weighing people’s good and bad deeds, and that is similar to what was in rabbinic literature. On the other hand, Testament of Abraham (Recension A) 11 has the concepts of the narrow gate and everlasting punishment, and E.P. Sanders states that v 11 is “[a]pparently conflating Mt 7:13 (‘that leads to perdition’) and Mt 25:46 (‘eternal punishment’).” Sanders also seems to see v 11 as quoting Matthew 7:13. There is a note in the Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha citing I Corinthians 6:9 beside Testament of Jacob 7, which may indicate that a belief that I Corinthians 6:9 influenced the person who wrote Testament of Jacob 7, or may simply be highlighting similarity, without saying that one source influenced the other. The story of the tormented man in Testament of Isaac 5 reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving man in Matthew 18. In both stories, a man is punished because he did not forgive somebody else. Matthew 18:34 states that this man was punished until he would pay what he owes, and that could imply a temporary hell (though believers in conscious eternal torment would say that the man could never pay what he owed, since it is an incredibly large amount). But there is a difference between the stories. The man in Testament of Isaac 5 is punished specifically for the sin of not making peace with his neighbor, whereas the man in Matthew 18, because he did not forgive his neighbor, is punished for his sins against the king that the king had previously forgiven. The reason this issue could be important is that it could help establish which voice said what in these Testaments. That is relevant to the question of whether the temporary hell in Testament of Isaac 5 should be understood as qualifying the pictures of hell in the other Testaments, or is simply another viewpoint inserted into the text. And that is relevant to the question of whether ancient Jews and Christians, and even the New Testament, could simultaneously call hell everlasting or eternal, while still regarding it as temporary, in some sense.

4. I should also note that Testament of Isaac does have a concept of forgiveness for those who do not know God, those who have never heard. Testament of Isaac 4 reads: “And pardon all your creatures whom you have fashioned, but who have not heard and learned of you.”

Book Write-Up: The Story of Monasticism, by Greg Peters

Greg Peters. The Story of Monasticism: Retrieving an Ancient Tradition for Contemporary Spirituality. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015. See here to purchase the book.

Greg Peters is a Benedictine oblate, an Anglican pastor, and an academic who teaches medieval and spiritual theology. His book, The Story of Monasticism, is about the history of Christian monasticism, and reactions to it, from the first century C.E. to the present time. Peters also explores possible implications of monasticism for today’s Christianity, including evangelicalism.

Peters seems to argue against Protestant misconceptions of monasticism, particularly the misconception that monastics were cloistered spiritual elitists who did little to help the outside world. Not only did many monastics set up institutions that helped the vulnerable, Peters contends, but they also aimed to instruct laypeople on how to live a spiritual life, through words, publications, and example. Although Peters is arguing against misconceptions that can probably be identified as Protestant, Peters also holds that historic Protestantism was not thoroughly opposed to monasticism. Prominent Protestant founders maintained that monasticism was acceptable, as long as it expressed gratitude to God for salvation as opposed to trying to attain salvation, and expressed repentance.

I was particularly interested in reading this book to learn more about the origins of Christian monasticism. Peters’ discussion on this topic did not disappoint, although there were occasions when his arguments were a bit of a stretch. Peters was arguing that certain ideas of monasticism are present in the Bible: the Nazirite vow and other vows in the Torah, contemplation of God in the Hebrew Bible, leaving one place to go to another (i.e., the desert) for a religious purpose, and Paul’s reference to people who abstained from sex for spiritual purposes in I Corinthians 7.

Peters is probably correct that some of these concepts set the stage for monasticism, but I would not consider Moses talking with God on the mountain to be an example of contemplation, or Abraham leaving Ur or Haran to go to the Promised Land to be like monastics leaving society to set up religious communities. Maybe there is somewhat of a similarity between monasticism and these biblical ideas, but there are also differences (i.e., Moses was not engaging in a discipline of contemplation, and Abraham was not setting up a monastic community). Peters also speculates that a belief in the imminent end of the world may have encouraged Christians to seek salvation and purity through monasticism, and that is plausible. Moreover, Peters mentions possible predecessors to Christian monasticism (i.e., the Essenes), and he notes in a footnote the existence of monasticism outside of Judaism and Christianity (in Buddhism, for example).

Although Peters’ focus in the book was on Christian monasticism, he would have done well, in my opinion, to have offered brief rationales for Jewish and non-Jewish or non-Christian forms of monasticism, in order to explain the rise of Christian monasticism within the context of monasticism in general. Peters did refer to the scholarly view that Christian monasticism was different from Hellenistic ascetic associations, and that “there is no evidence of cenobitic monasticism until the rise of Christian cenobitism in the fourth century” (page 24), but I was unclear about what the difference was (though Peters does cite an article, which I can read).

There were questions that I had in reading the book: What was the significance of publishing spiritual books for laypeople, when many people in medieval times could not read? Was there an expectation that the social elites would teach others? If people went to monasteries to be saved, what does that say about people outside of the monasteries? According to Peters, monastics went to monasteries to escape temptation and to focus on discipleship, but they still believed that people outside monasteries could be saved. I wondered how they envisioned that taking place.

The book is still an informative resource in detailing the history of Christian monasticism and Christian monastic movements (i.e., the Benedictines, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Jesuits, etc.). Moreover, Peters did well to offer a taste of monastic spirituality, particularly the obedience, the discipline, the humility, the fellowship, and the solitary contemplation of God that monastics sought to achieve.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Baker Academic in exchange for an honest review.

Triablogue: Steve Hays on Answered and Unanswered Prayer, and the Question of Whether Jesus Could Sin

Answered and Unanswered Prayer:  http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/09/when-cats-away-mice-will-play.html

“Could Jesus Sin?”: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/09/could-jesus-sin.html

Book Write-Up: Messy Grace, by Caleb Kaltenbach

Caleb Kaltenbach. Messy Grace: How a Pastor with Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction. Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 2015. See here to buy the book.

Caleb Kaltenbach’s mother and father were gay, academic, and skeptical of Christianity. The two of them divorced, and Caleb’s mother then lived with her partner, Vera. What happened to Caleb’s relationship with his parents when he became an evangelical Christian? What is more, what happened when Caleb was preaching a sermon about homosexuality, with his parents in the audience? And what can evangelical Christians learn from Caleb’s experience?

There are things that rubbed me the wrong way about this book, and I will get into that momentarily. But let me first say that the book’s greatest asset is Caleb’s story. His story moved me to tears at some points. Caleb talks about the hurt and rejection that homosexuals have felt from Christians. “Why do you hate us?”, a homosexual asked a belligerent Christian at a rally that Caleb attended with his mother. Caleb also tells about the friendships that he had with homosexuals. I think of Louis, who played video games with Caleb because Louis was bored at a party; Caleb saw Louis die of AIDS. Vera was another person in the book whom I liked. Caleb never felt that Vera accepted him, and Vera was afraid that Caleb would become a homophobe after converting to evangelical Christianity. But, when Caleb’s mother was complaining to Vera about Caleb’s religion, Vera reassured her that Caleb still loved her, for Caleb was continuing to be in their lives. That’s what I liked about Vera: she was a tough, pragmatic woman, able to look at a situation fairly and honestly.

What didn’t I like about the book? Well, let me tell you something else that I liked, and that will set the stage for me to explain what rubbed me the wrong way. Caleb had a section about how NOT to react when a friend or relative comes out to you. He said that a person should not respond by quoting Bible verses or by saying that we’re all sinners in need of grace; the latter approach, Caleb noted, lumps homosexuality together with sins like murder, and that may offend the person coming out of the closet. Moreover, Caleb notes that many homosexuals are aware that there are Christians who interpret the Bible to be critical of homosexuality, so why quote Bible verses at them, as if they hadn’t heard that before?

Caleb in this section manifests wisdom and sensitivity towards the concerns of many homosexuals. The difference I have from Caleb is that, while he would probably say that his advice applies when a person initially comes out of the closet to a Christian, I would say that his advice should apply throughout the relationship. Caleb seems to believe that, somewhere in the course of a Christian’s friendship with a homosexual, the Christian should tell the homosexual that homosexual activity is a sin. The purpose of the book is to encourage Christians to reach out to homosexuals in the hope that homosexuals will become Christians. Caleb denies that he is for treating homosexuals as projects, saying that he is for telling them that God loves them. But one cannot deny in reading this book that he believes that the friendship he proposes does contain a missionary element.

The book did get me thinking. I struggle with what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. I do believe that the Bible opposes homosexual sex, but I do not think that is fair. Why would God, who instituted marriage because he did not think it was good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18), consign homosexuals to lives of loneliness and celibacy? Caleb says that a homosexual can marry a person of the opposite sex, and (contrary to what one might think) he does not suggest that lightly, nor does he maintain that this will usually work out. But that would be like telling me, a heterosexual male, to marry a guy. Some homosexuals have said that the “ick” feeling that heterosexuals have at the scenario of having sex with someone from the same gender is similar to what homosexuals feel about having sex with someone of the opposite gender.

But should not a person be willing to sacrifice anything for Jesus? Well, that depends on where a person is. Does the person believe in Christianity, is the person convinced that homosexuality is a sin, and does the person believe that Jesus is worth sacrificing anything for? Caleb acknowledges that conservative Christians are suggesting that homosexuals sacrifice a lot when they say that homosexuals should remain celibate. I think that a lot of conservative Christians give that piece of advice (or “Thus saith the Lord”) lightly and glibly, without really appreciating what they are asking homosexuals to do.

I tend to have doubts and to vacillate when it comes to my belief in Christianity, but, putting my Christian hat on, what do I think my approach as a Christian should be? I believe that my faith should shape my interactions with all people, wherever they may be. My faith teaches me to love and to respect others, to treat others as I would like to be treated, and doing so is part of my walk with God, and my worship of God. I honor the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the values of love, self-sacrifice, and redemption that it teaches (and, as a side-note, let me say that I did not care for Caleb using that story to guilt Christians into witnessing or reaching out to people, as well-intentioned as he was). I am open to wanting others to become attracted to Jesus, and, if a homosexual becomes convinced that Christianity is true, that homosexuality is a sin, and that Jesus is worth giving up a homosexual relationship for, then I respect that decision. It is a heavy decision, however. It is not one that I can force someone else to make. It is not one that I even want to pressure someone to make. For peace to exist, respecting where people are is often a good policy. I identify, somewhat, with the Christian slogan about just loving others, and letting the Holy Spirit do his work in his own time. Some of my approach may overlap with that of Caleb, and some of it may differ.

I have just interacted with the main substance of Kaltenbach’s book. Let me now note something in the book that I found particularly interesting. Have you ever wondered why Jesus wrote on the ground when people were bringing the adulteress to him (John 8:3-6)? Caleb interprets this in light of Jeremiah 17:13: “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters” (KJV). Jesus’ point in writing on the ground, according to Caleb, was that the people who brought the adulteress to Jesus to test him were alienated from God. They were valuing power and one-upsmanship over what God valued. That sounds like a reasonable interpretation to me.

I received a complimentary advance reading copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Bernie Sanders at Liberty University, and Its Response Was Not Entirely Negative!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-most-liberal-presidential-candidate-153100112.html

Book Write-Up: Understanding Prophecy

Alan S. Bandy and Benjamin L. Merkle.  Understanding Prophecy: A Biblical-Theological Approach.  Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2015.  See here to buy the book.  

Understanding Prophecy is about prophecy in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.  It looks at prophecies that were fulfilled historically, as well as Messianic prophecies: prophecies in the Hebrew Bible that Alan Bandy and Benjamin Merkle believe predicted or foreshadowed Jesus Christ, and prophecies in the New Testament about Jesus Christ’s return.  Bandy and Merkle also present their contrasting perspectives on the millennium (i.e., whether it will be a literal future reign of Christ on earth or is a present spiritual reality) and the salvation of the Jews in Romans 11 (whether a large number of ethnic Jews will convert to Christ, or only a remnant).

Overall, Bandy and Merkle were judicious in their discussions, as they discussed the positives and negatives of a variety of views and interpretations.  The topics in which they explored and critiqued different views included whether Jesus was predicting that his second coming would occur within the generation of his contemporaries (Mark 13, Matthew 24), and whether Jesus in Matthew 24:40 was suggesting a pretribulational rapture (Bandy and Merkle somewhat beat a dead horse in arguing “no,” but they are convincing).

I have some critiques, though.  

First of all, Bandy and Merkle contend that many prophecies in the Hebrew Bible predict or foreshadow Christ, and they note examples in which the New Testament interprets those prophecies in a non-literal fashion.  They contend that the focus of prophecies in the Hebrew Bible on Israel’s restoration from exile and revival as a nation are not always literal but are often about Christ’s work or heaven.  As an assessment of how New Testament authors interpreted prophecies in the Hebrew Bible, that is probably accurate, though I would note possible exceptions that Bandy and Merkle should have addressed.  I think of Jesus’ statement in Matthew 19:28 that the disciples would judge the twelve tribes of Israel, which seems (to me) to be faithful to a literal interpretation of the Hebrew Bible’s prophecies that focus on ethnic Israel.  In terms of what the prophecies in the Hebrew Bible were originally intended to communicate, I doubt that their authors meant them to be symbolic of Christian themes.  If they were, then that raises some questions.  Was God being misleading by making predictions that seemed to be about ethnic Israel’s restoration, when actually they were not about that?  And why would God in the Hebrew Bible start talking about Christ or Christian themes when addressing ethnic Israel’s trials and dilemmas?  What was the relevance of that to Israel’s historical situation, in short?  Bandy and Merkle should have tackled these issues more than they did.

Second, in discussing Isaiah 7:14, Bandy and Merkle in one place maintain that it is a type of Jesus Christ’s virgin birth, rather than a direct prediction of it.  Bandy and Merkle realize that Isaiah 7:14, in its original context, appears to relate to the time of Isaiah rather than the distant future, the time of the historical Jesus.  What they should have done, however, was discuss how Isaiah 7:14 in its original context could have foreshadowed Jesus Christ.  How did the story in Isaiah 7 foreshadow the story of Jesus’ birth?  Are there similar themes in the two stories?  Bandy and Merkle maintain that a typological interpretation does not do violence to a literal interpretation of a text but is consistent with it, on some level.  They should have shown how that was the case in terms of the Gospel of Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah 7:14.  Their discussion of Isaiah 7:14, as it stands, makes it look like they were superficially trying to take the easy way out, appealing to typology to solve a challenge to a Christian claim rather than fleshing that alleged typology out.

Third, Bandy and Merkle say that the New Testament maintains that Jesus inaugurated the end times, and they point to examples of New Testament authors presuming that they themselves were living in the end times.  For Bandy and Merkle, the end times have been with us since the time of Christ’s first advent, meaning that we have been in the end times for about two thousand years.  In some places, however, Bandy and Merkle seem to use “end times” to refer to the time that is right before the end of the world.  Bandy and Merkle may want to save Jesus and early Christians from the possibility that they envisioned an imminent eschatology, which did not historically materialize, at least not literally.  My question would be whether Bandy and Merkle, in effect, make the term “end times” a meaningless term, if it can encompass two thousand years.

Fourth, Bandy and Merkle did not really interact with prophecies in the Hebrew Bible that many scholars would claim went unfulfilled (as in the prophets predicting one thing, and something different happened).  I think of Ezekiel’s prophecies about Tyre and Egypt.  Bandy and Merkle should have wrestled with that in their discussion of the historical fulfillment of prophecies.   

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Kregel Academic, in exchange for an honest review.