Category Archives: New Testament
a magnificat christmas: mary & jesus’ birth
As Christmas approaches it would be odd if I did not have at least one post about it on this blog.
Since there are literally thousands of theological articles on the web about Christmas 2011, and since I have basically nothing original to say, I will keep mine short.
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What do we say about Christmas? What does it mean for us?
It seems common for Christians to chide society for the reduction of Christmas to a consumeristic holiday, though the irony of simultaneously engaging in said consumerism seems lost on them.
The problem is that merely insisting on the presence of Christ in Christmas is not an articulate expression of the meaning of Christmas.
Some go further, emphasising the birth of Jesus with a view to him eventually dying for our sins – Christmas is really about Easter. This might be caricaturing things a little, but for some the birth of Jesus, and indeed his subsequent life, holds little to no meaning apart from the atonement.
Are these adequate ways of articulating the importance and power of Christmas? Read the rest of this entry
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sodom and gomorrah: punished for homosexuality?
Saturday just gone was an important day in Australia for LGBTQI* people.
The Australian Labor Party (the current government) voted on its policy position regarding same-sex marriage at its National Conference; it voted to change its platform in support of changing the Marriage act to include same-sex couples.
In addition was a rally held in the Sydney CBD, with somewhere between five to ten thousand participants, calling for marriage equality in Australia.
In response to these events many Christians I know on Facebook posted comments critical of the push for the recognition of same-sex marriage.
Some, on both sides of the argument, were reasoned and thoughtful, recognising that there are in fact different viewpoints on the matter. They merely sought to offer an opinion in a respectful way.
Others were not so gracious.
But what struck me most was the amount of Christians posting quotations from the Bible, completely out of context and, by my judgement, absent of any form of exegetical investigation.
Something that I found fascinating was the repeated quotation of verses pertaining to Sodom and Gomorrah. Read the rest of this entry
sickness and healing (part 1): “sin causes sickness”?
Yesterday I went to the Sunday gathering of a church affiliated with my old church, of which I was a member up until a few months ago.
I had a great time. It’s a reasonably small group (40-50 adults), and with lots of old friends present good times were had all ’round.
The preaching topic for the day was healing. My friend Barry was sharing with us, and noted that in his experience this topic, more than any other, caused division in the church (even more than tongues). I’m not sure if it’s the most divisive issue, but I take Barry’s point about its divisive potential.
In the course of the morning Barry got us to break up into groups to discuss the issue of healing – What is it? Does it still happen today? What about when people don’t get healed, etc. etc.
I wasn’t planning on writing about healing on this blog, but following the group discussions and the subsequent public reflection a number of people asked me to write a post on it.
It turns out one post has become two. I could never hope to comprehensively outline healing in two posts of course, though I will speak into two concerns that were raised throughout the morning that people discussed with me; the first was a claim made that sickness and disease has to do with sin (this post), and secondly that if people are not healed and they die they are in fact healed because “they go to be with Jesus” (next post).
“Sickness and disease is related to sin”? Read the rest of this entry
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an interpretation of the shrewd manager in luke 16
The Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-13) is, in the words of Leon Morris, “… one of the most difficult of all the parables to interpret.”*
Most people with whom I have discussed this parable have little to no idea as to what it might mean. Indeed the idea that a dishonest person is commended is troubling at the very least.
The most common solution I have heard is that Jesus is saying we should be wise with our resources and opportunities just like the shrewd manager, to the point of using them dishonestly if necessary in order to get a good outcome.
Is this a fair interpretation?
I don’t think so.
what is eternal life?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 is possibly the most famous verse in the Bible. It is so often said that its promise is life everlasting for those who believe in Jesus.
Certainly in our modern vocabulary the word “eternal” means “forever” or “everlasting”. Eternal life is almost universally understood as everlasting existence, immortality or life “in heaven” (type “eternal life” into Wikipedia or Google and you’ll see what I mean. It does however also bring up the song “Eternal Life” by Jeff Buckley… sublime).
But is eternal life (zōē aiōnion) really the same thing as everlasting life? Is that what is meant by the phrase in the Gospel of John? Read the rest of this entry
jesus and hell (part 3): matthew 13:42 in context
Michelangelo's "Last Judgement," the Sistine Chapel. Influenced in part by Dante's "Inferno."
In the last two posts we have looked at the apparent teaching on Hell in a number of verses in Matthew, in particular 13:42:
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. (Matthew 13:40-43)
Part 1 looked at the language of weeping and gnashing of teeth. I concluded that weeping and gnashing of teeth were not related to afterlife, but rather represented mourning and anger/violence in a very “earthly” sense. Such actions were in fact responses by people to God’s judgement of them.
Part 2 looked at the language of the blazing furnace, and also of the outer darkness. My conclusion was that the burning furnace also has nothing to do with afterlife, but rather with God’s judgement of the rich and mighty on earth for their injustice, namely death. Concordantly darkness refers to the grave, also death.
(…The reasoning for these conclusions can be found in the relevant posts.)
I wanted to spend this final post of this series looking at the context of Matthew 13:42, and how it fits into a wider narrative. By this I hope to show that my conclusions so far are faithful to the text, and also why exactly God is judging these people. Read the rest of this entry
jesus and hell (part 2): fire, furnaces and darkness
(Note: This post looks awfully long, though much of the text is simply quoted references which are typed in full for the benefit of the reader. These can be mostly skipped if desired.)
In my last post I began to look at the issue of Hell as often seen within Matthew 13:
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. (Matthew 13:40-43)
Part 1 looked at the language of weeping and gnashing of teeth. My conclusion was that weeping and gnashing of teeth were not actions inherently related to afterlife in any way, but rather represented mourning and anger/violence in a very “earthly” sense. Such actions were in fact responses by people to God’s judgement of them.*
Why exactly is God judging these people? That will have to wait until the third and final instalment…
In the meantime I want to look at the place of this weeping and gnashing, namely the blazing furnace (13:42 etc.) and the outer darkness (8:12 etc.)
What does this language refer to? Are many conservative Christians correct in asserting that the blazing furnace and the outer darkness refer to Hell, a place of everlasting punishment? Read the rest of this entry
jesus and hell (part 1): weeping and gnashing of teeth
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. (Matthew 13:40-43)
Throughout much of my discipleship journey I assumed that when Matthew’s Gospel had Jesus talking about a “blazing furnace” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” he was talking about the unimaginably intense punishment of post-mortem Hell.
In these posts I want to explore these phrases and ask the question – what is Jesus (and Matthew) talking about? This post will deal with the phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” with the next being about the imagery of fire, furnaces and darkness. Read the rest of this entry
adventures in misquoting the bible: the widow’s offering
After two weeks off honeymooning (and then another week being sick) it’s nice to be back on life.remixed! Coming up over the next few weeks I have up my sleeve some interesting blog topics that I have been thinking about in my absence.
For today’s entry I thought I would get back into the swing of things with a fairly straightforward post. It concerns a small story in Mark 12 and Luke 21 (I will be using Mark’s version) which is often called “the Widow’s Mite”:
And he sat down facing (kateanti) the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them,”Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44) Read the rest of this entry
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for you will always have the poor with you…
Recently I was asked if I truly believed that global poverty could ever be “fixed”. The question was accompanied by a reference to Mark 14:7—“For you always have the poor with you…”
Have you ever wondered what Jesus might have meant in Mark 14:7? Was he saying that we should not bother helping the poor, since the problem of poverty will never end? Perhaps he was saying personal acts of devotion were superior to helping the poor?
Check out my latest article from TEAR’s Target Magazine, entitled “For you will always have the poor with you…“, for my perspective on this often misunderstood passage of Scripture.
MCA
