Category: Theology

The Martyrdom of Perpetua (d. 203)

Perpetua was a nursing mother who rejected her father’s pleadings to deny her Christian faith and make the requisite sacrifice to the Roman emperor. As the story goes, depicted above, she had to help guide the sword of her trembling executioner to her throat.

The book 131 Christians Everyone Should Know, by Mark Galli and Christian History magazine, recounts her story:

Her father immediately came to her in prison. He was a pagan, and he saw an easy way for Perpetua to save herself. He entreated her simply to deny she was a Christian.

“Father, do you see this vase here?” she replied. “Could it be called by any other name than what it is?”

“No,” he replied.

“Well, neither can I be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.”

In the next days, Perpetua was moved to a better part of the prison and allowed to breastfeed her child. With her hearing approaching, her father visited again, this time, pleading more passionately….

The day of the hearing arrived; Perpetua and her friends were marched before the governor, Hilarianus. Perpetua’s friends were questioned first, and each in turn admitted to being a Christian, and each in turn refused to make a sacrifice (an act of emperor worship). Then the governor turned to question Perpetua.

At that moment, her father, carrying Perpetua’s son in his arms, burst into the room. He grabbed Perpetua and pleaded, “Perform the sacrifice. Have pity on your baby!”

…When [Perpetua and her friends] entered the stadium, wild beasts and gladiators roamed the arena floor, and in the stands, crowds roared to see blood. They didn’t have to wait long.

Immediately a wild heifer charged the group. Perpetua was tossed into the air and onto her back. She sat up, adjusted her ripped tunic, and walked over to help Felicitas. Then a leopard was let loose, and it wasn’t long before the tunics of the Christians were stained with blood.

This was too deliberate for the impatient crowd, which began calling for death for the Christians. So Perpetua, Felicitas, and friends were lined up, and one by one, were slain by the sword.

The whole account can be found here.

It’s easy for me to “want to be in that number” when saints like Perpetua “go marching in,” but the courage and faithfulness she exhibited in the moments leading up to her martyrdom are qualities I can only pray to attain. The Wisdom of Solomon passage I quoted yesterday is apropos:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.

In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was considered to be suffering,

and their going from us to be destruction,
but they are at peace.

As All Saints Day approaches tomorrow, I find myself moved and inspired by this committed follower of Jesus. Perpetua, though she was mercilessly separated from her husband, family, and precious little baby, is at peace.

“As sparks through the stubble, they will run about” (All Saints Day)

The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs, by Fra Angelico (15th century)

November 1 is All Saints Day.  It’s a holiday in the church calendar of multiple Christian traditions: Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and others. Halloween gets its name from All Saints Day.  All Saints Day used to be known as All Hallows Day, and Halloween was a contraction of All-Hallows-Even, or All Hallows Eve.

All Saints Day is meant to remember the saints, or fellow believers, who have gone on before us, walking in the way of Jesus.  The author of Hebrews writes, “We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.” We have the example of men and women who have walked with God, who have struggled with God, and who have triumphed in life with God.  As we look ahead to All Saints Day we can pause today to remember their example, and ask God to strengthen our faith, too.  We are part of that number.

Psalm 85:8 in the NIV says, “I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints.”  Some 30 times Paul addresses congregations of believers as “saints.”  We who follow Jesus are rightfully called “saints.”  We are part of a narrative that is much bigger than ourselves, much bigger than any one community, and much bigger than this period in history.  We are a part of a timeless, worldwide communion of saints—the body of Christ.

Wisdom of Solomon (yes, it’s from the Septuagint!) puts it beautifully:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.

In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was considered to be suffering,

and their going from us to be destruction,
but they are at peace.

For even if in the sight of human beings they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality,

and having been disciplined a little, they will be greatly benefited,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;

as gold in the furnace, he tested them,
and as a sacrificial whole burnt offering, he accepted them.

And in the time of their visitation they will shine out,
and as sparks through the stubble, they will run about.

They will judge nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will be king over them for ever.

Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will remain with him in love,

because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his chosen ones.

–Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 (NETS)

In the coming days I’ll post about a series of lesser-known “saints” in the Church’s history, righteous ones whose “souls…are in the hand of God.”

Christian Apologetics winner

We have a winner in the giveaway contest at Words on the Word for Zondervan’s primary source compendium, Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, edited by Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister.

I have weathered the storm, several flickers of the power on and off, and have selected the winner at random. (Actually, a random number generator is to thank/blame.)

And the winner is… Matthew Hamrick! Congratulations, Matthew, and enjoy the book. Thank you to everyone who participated and spread the word.

I reviewed the book here if you’d like to learn more.

Almost every Monday at Words on the Word (and other days, too) I review new books in the field of biblical studies, original languages, and theology. I also review Bible software. Check or bookmark this link to see all my reviews.

Football and theology

Head over to Near Emmaus this week for some theological thinking about the National Football League. Day one’s reflections are here. Brian LePort writes:

Some people may brush off these questions. “It’s just a game.” “Enjoy it, don’t over-think it!” But games matter to people (we fill stadiums with thousands to watch these events) and if the unexamined life isn’t worth living that includes our pastimes!

I’ve submitted a contribution called “Of Linebackers and Liturgy” that will appear later this week. I’ll include a link to that later here at Words on the Word, and I’m sure that everything at Near Emmaus will be worth reading and engaging this week.

Christian Apologetics: free book giveaway

One good giveaway deserves another.

The other day I noted that Zondervan has just put out a primary source compendium called Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, edited by Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister.

I have an extra copy to give away (not my review copy). It’s a good resource to have on the shelf, and I know I’ll be turning to it in the future for the work and ministry I do in a college setting.

I reviewed the book here.

I will choose a winner at random. To enter the drawing, simply comment on this blog post with your greetings, thoughts about apologetics, favorite philosopher/theologian, etc. I will accept entries through Monday afternoon, with 3pm EST being the cutoff.

Then if you link to this post on your Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc., come back here to tell me in the comments section that you did, and you’ll receive a second entry. I will announce the winner just before 5pm EST Monday.

Prayer: How Prevenient!

The following post that I authored appeared on the site Life Changing Prayer some three and a half years ago.

Until recently, I would not have used the word in conjunction with prayer: prevenient. But something happened to me to change that.

When I say prevenient, I mean the idea of church reformer John Wesley, who spoke of prevenient grace. He used the word to say that God’s grace gets into us and starts working before we have a chance to do or act or will. We can only do anything, he argued, including turning to God, because of God’s grace that goes before us.

Like I said, I wouldn’t have thought of the word as relating to prayer. Prayer, after all, is something I do, with the action beginning with me and moving to God. For example, the well-known “ACTS” acronym for prayer (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication) has to do with types of prayers that I pray, that I initiate.

To be sure, I was familiar with Romans 8:26, which talks about the Holy Spirit interceding for us. But I had never connected that to my own prayer life. I had always thought of prayer as primarily my action, and then in tandem with that the Holy Spirit prayed on my behalf–two parallel and generally non-intersecting means of prayer.

That changed recently when I woke up in the middle of the night praying. And I don’t think it was just I who was praying.

While there may be some pious souls whose first thoughts upon waking up are prayerful ones or God-centered ones, I am not often in that number. My first waking thoughts seem to range from, “I can’t believe all I have to do today!” to, “Wha…? Where am I?”

So when I woke up in the middle of the night praying–and this happened several nights in one week–I knew that God was praying through me. In fact, God had been praying through me when I was sleeping, because when I woke up, the prayer I sensed being prayed through me had already begun and was clearly mid-prayer.

The first and most significant night, I woke up praying for the city of Boston, where I live. Yes, that’s a nebulous description, but the prayer was that nebulous–but no less powerful for its generality. The next night I woke up simply filled with the Holy Spirit. I don’t know what praying was happening that night, but it was that sense of being filled with the Spirit that actually woke me. This, too, was significant, because, as my wife will attest, I generally don’t wake up in the middle of the night unless she is waking me up to tell me to stop snoring.

So I’ve concluded: prayer actually doesn’t start with me. To be sure, there are things I can and should initiate in prayer, but prayer begins with God, not with me. As with Wesley’s take on grace and the human will, prayer, too, is prevenient. Not only does the Holy Spirit intercede for me, but sometimes–as I have just experienced–God intercedes through me, regardless of my awareness of it or decision to sit down and have a prayer time.

A wise author (my dad), in describing the inwardly dialogical yet outwardly inviting nature of the persons of the Trinity, once wrote, “God is used to conversation. Used to dialogue. …ready. This God invites me, in fact, to join in on a conversation already going on, one that has been going on for a very, very long time.”

In the middle of the night, even while I was sleeping, I found myself unwittingly accepting this invitation, joining a conversation without having to do much more than just lie there, and let prayer happen.

Christian Apologetics: a review

I still remember, as a 16-year-old, sitting down at my parents’ computer, hearing the dial tone, and logging on to AOL. I would do this often, not just to check the new technological miracle known as e-mail, but also to go into chat rooms (remember those?) and seek to share my faith with others online.

I made similar efforts at my high school, starting conversations when appropriate and generally just trying to be ready to speak intelligently and compellingly about my Christian faith.

This handbook by Peter Kreeft was a constant reference guide for me. I went on to major in philosophy at a Christian undergraduate school, where I took, among others, classes on the philosophy of religion, St. Augustine, and more. Readings in the Philosophy of Religion became a new resource to which I often turned. I had begun having philosophical and existential questions of my own by that point, ones that I experienced on a profound and at times troubling level.

I’ve always had an interest in the intellectual underpinnings of my Christian faith. And I’ve often been aware that what appear to be intellectual questions or questions of “the head,” are sometimes–when one digs deeper–questions of “the heart,” as well. Since college days, then, I’ve been a bit more cautious than I was as a 16-year-old in an AOL chat room about just how effective “apologetics” can be.

Zondervan has just put out a primary source compendium called Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, edited by Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister.

There are 54 selections divided into 11 parts, which you can see listed here (PDF) in the table of contents. Christian Apologetics begins with some methodological considerations in part 1, then moves right into various arguments for the existence of God–cosmological, teleological, ontological, moral, the argument from religious experience, and so on. From there the book narrows to more specific topics like the Trinity, the incarnation, miracles, the resurrection, the problem of evil, and more.

Christian Apologetics claims to be “a sampling of some of the best works written by Christian apologists throughout the centuries,” offering “a snapshot of Christian apologetics at its best across the spectrum of time and culture.”

The essays in this volume certainly are some of the best in apologetics. There is Paul at the Areopagus in Acts 17, Aquinas on the cosmological argument for God’s existence, Anselm and Plantinga with the ontological argument for God, Pascal’s wager, Teresa of Avila on experiencing God, Anselm on the incarnation, Swinburne on miracles, John Hick’s “Soul Making Theodicy,” Augustine on free will, and Marilyn McCord Adams on horrendous evil and the goodness of God. Each of these essays is a classic and makes a valuable contribution to the area of apologetics.

The book spans “the spectrum of time” fairly well, with a higher concentration of 20th century writers. Just a couple of the contributors are women, and the overwhelming majority hail from Western contexts–this latter an admission of the book, but a weakness all the same.

A particularly pleasant surprise to me was the inclusion of an an article by R.T. France, in which he makes the case for the historical reliability of the Gospels, which must, he argues, be understood in their proper literary context as “highly selective” records of Jesus’ life with “only a loose chronological framework.” This is not due to deficiency of the Gospels; rather, it is how the Gospel writers intended to write:

The four canonical gospels will not answer all the questions we would like to ask about the founder of Christianity; but, sensitively interpreted, they do give us a rounded portrait of a Jesus who is sufficiently integrated into what we know of first-century Jewish culture to carry historical conviction, but at the same time sufficiently remarkable and distinctive to account for the growth of a new and potentially world-wide religious movement out of his life and teaching.

As I read I appreciated a statement in the book’s general introduction:

But arguments and evidences do not of themselves bring someone into new life in Christ. Here the work of the Holy Spirit is central, and we must be willing to surrender to his leading and his truth and his goodness if we are to truly dwell with the Lord.

I hadn’t yet learned this in the AOL chat rooms, but I’ve long since been convinced of it. So I had hoped to hear more in this book about the role of the Holy Spirit in apologetics. There is a short (one paragraph) treatment by James K. Beilby in chapter 3 that asks, “What is the role of the Holy Spirit in apologetics?” He rightly (in my view) sees it as “not a zero-sum game.” The apologist should be “significantly involved” yet “still hold that the Holy Spirit will determine the effectiveness of our efforts.”

Though the Holy Spirit receives treatment in the section on the Trinity (by Origen, Aquinas, the Creeds, and Thomas V. Morris) and on the Bible (Calvin and canonization), there is never more than Beilby’s paragraph treatment about the role of the Holy Spirit in the project of apologetics. Cogent though Beilby is, I would think “a snapshot of Christian apologetics at its best” should make more mention of something like the Wesleyan view of prevenient grace or even the notion that the Holy Spirit witnesses to a person’s heart before an apologist does. Only the former can enable the latter. Christian Apologetics is not without the exploration of other methodological considerations; I just would have liked to have seen more of this one.

Several other possible areas for improvement in a future edition could be more on faith and reason and how the two interrelate, as well as arguments for the existence of God that take into account and respond to the varous assertions made by the “new atheism” (anemic though it is).

All in all, though, this is a strong work, and I’m happy for it to sit alongside my old college text, Readings in the Philosophy of Religion. Zondervan’s Christian Apologetics is a worthy, if basic, reference guide. I expect it will serve apologists well.

Thanks to Zondervan for the review copy, which I was given for the purposes of review, though without any expectations as to the nature of my review. Find the book at Amazon here (affiliate link) or at Zondervan’s product page for the book.

Praising God through Academic Biblical Studies: Less Hypermodernist Objectivism, More Affect!

Why such an emphasis on wanting to get as close to the “original text” of the Bible as possible? Or, as some scholars call it, the “earliest attainable text”?

Earlier this week I wrote a bit about scholarly editions of the Jewish Scriptures, both the Greek and the Hebrew.

But I began asking myself today, why am I so interested in a rigorous scholarly pursuit of the text of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek?

One reason is that I love to learn. On the Strengthsfinder assessment I came out with “Learner” as my top strength both times I took the test. “Achiever” was not far behind. (See here for the descriptions of the 34 strengths themes in that assessment.) Here’s an excerpt from the description of the “Learner” strength that applies to me:

You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence.

All true, except that when it comes especially to my pursuit of biblical studies, the process, the content, and the result are “especially exciting” for me.

Why?

The late Arthur Holmes articulates beautifully:

Christ the Truth becomes the dominant motivation in intellectual inquiry. No dichotomy of sacred and secular tasks can be allowed, and no subject is exempt.

The student will therefore welcome truth and submit to it wherever it is found, out of obedience to Christ. Academic work becomes an opportunity to extend the Lordship of Christ over the mind; thought merges into worship.

“Thought merges into worship.” I love this. And I think this is why–more than just being a “Learner”–I so love to delve into the depths of Scripture, in the most “original” form that I possibly can.

I’m not overly fastidious about Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic–as if God really spoke through those languages and then anything else is just mediated and somehow a dilution of God’s actual words. (Isn’t all language already mediation anyway?) If the word of God is “living and active,” it can be living and active in its faithful translations into other languages.

But one reason I geek out so much about the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible is that in my study I feel myself getting closer to that amazing time when God gave his word to humanity to be transmitted to future generations: first orally, then in written form. And I love seeing how the translators of the Hebrew Bible wrestled with putting the Hebrew into Greek. I love seeing how the New Testament writers grappled with, contextualized, and recontextualized the Old Testament.

I don’t even mind that at the moment I’m a bit perplexed by how Paul could both praise the law as being from God yet also refer to it as “the ministry that brought death.”

Why?

Because for me, as of late, my thoughts and my studies of Scripture–even at a scholarly level–have begun to “[merge] into worship.” How can I not praise the God behind these amazing words? Though we may never know what the autograph of any part of Scripture actually said, I believe we can get close.

And somehow the closer I get to the text of the Bible–in a scholarly setting–the closer I feel to God.

Not always, of course–sometimes I’m just confused. (Dash the heads of infants against rocks? And we pray these Psalms in liturgical settings???) But there’s been a real richness for me lately in delving into the Bible in its original languages, comparing variant readings across manuscripts and versions, trying to figure out why one Synoptic Gospel said it this way, why this one said it another way…. Even in seeking to answer those questions, I know that I am seeking more of God and God’s revelation.

This is not a taken-for-granted view of things in the field of biblical studies. Take this, for instance, from Michael V. Fox:

In my view, faith-based study has no place in academic scholarship, whether the object of study is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, or Homer. Faith-based study is a different realm of intellectual activity that can dip into Bible scholarship for its own purposes, but cannot contribute to it.

I haven’t contacted Michael V. Fox to confirm this, but I’d wager that what I’m describing above constitutes some sort of “faith-based study,” or at least, study that is informed by and that enriches faith.

But a bit more context from Fox:

The claim of faith-based Bible study to a place at the academic table takes a toll on the entire field of Bible scholarship. The reader or student of Bible scholarship is likely to suspect (or hope) that the author or teacher is moving toward a predetermined conclusion. Those who choose a faith-based approach should realize that they cannot expect the attention of those who don’t share their postulates. The reverse is not true. Scholars who are personally religious constantly draw on work by scholars who do not share their postulates. One of the great achievements of modern Bible scholarship is that it communicates across religious borders so easily that we usually do not know the beliefs of its practitioners.

I’m okay with trying to set aside a “predetermined conclusion,” though skeptical of that possibility. (Does Fox believe in the modernist project?)

Fox goes on, “The best thing for Bible appreciation is secular, academic, religiously-neutral hermeneutic.”

Sigh.

Taking the Psalms as an example, one cannot appreciate the Psalms who does not pray the Psalms. And wouldn’t good scholarship (religiously motivated or not) call for us to engage the text on the author’s terms? How can one do good scholarship on David, for example, if one is not willing to engage the text in the way that David intended for it to be engaged? If he wrote a Psalm for corporate singing or reciting, is the individual in her or his library carrel who seeks to bracket out faith commitments going to get anywhere near to uncovering the meaning and import of that Psalm until she or he sings it with others?

Fox’s whole article is here.

Parker Palmer has a good rejoinder:

Objectivism—which is a complete myth with respect to how real people have ever known anything real—has great political persuasiveness because it gives us the illusion that we are in charge.

But gospel truth, transformational truth, says that we are not masters but are subject to powers larger than ourselves—and that we are blessed with the chance to be co-creators of something good if we are willing to work in harmony with those larger powers.

If we embrace a gospel way of knowing, we can create a different kind of education and perhaps a different world: a world where all of us are called to embody whatever truth we know; where we gather together with others to check, correct, confirm, and deepen whatever insights we may have; where we understand that, even as we seek truth, truth is seeking us; and where there can be those vital transformations, personal and social, that might take us a step closer to the beloved community.

So when it comes to biblical studies, I say: less hypermodernist objectivism, more affect! Let’s allow our thoughts–as Dr. Holmes suggested–to merge into worship; our studies into praise; our reading into praying.

My quest for the earliest attainable text of the Bible, I am realizing, is driven by scholarly interest and a general drive to learn, yes. But more than that, I want to know God more fully through this academic pursuit. My insatiable desire to master Greek noun declensions, Hebrew verb parsings, and intertextual allusions is in the end a desire to be mastered by the God who stands behind the words of Scripture.

But that kind of a posture doesn’t compromise scholarship, in my view. It makes it richer, deeper, and directed toward its most proper end.

“Worship that Welcomes”

Furthermore, what are we teaching our congregations about worship music? If it is always the same thing over and over again; isn’t this unfair to them? We say things like, “we are multi-generational,” “we are racially diverse,” “we are multi-ethnic.” We say, “we are global Christians” (of course what we probably mean is that we sent a mission team to the Caribbean this summer) and the list goes on and on. Yet, our setlists never change.

David M. Edwards raises some interesting questions (and explores answers) in his post, “Worship that Welcomes.” I don’t agree with everything here, but the issues he brings up are good ones for worship leaders to consider. The full article is here.