Wednesday 22 November 2017

The Message of the Gospel

Kerygma

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kerygma (from the ancient Greek word κῆρυγμα kêrugma) is a Greek word used in the New Testament for "preaching" (see Luke 4:18-19, Romans 10:14, Matthew 3:1). It is related to the Greek verb κηρύσσω kērússō, literally meaning "to cry or proclaim as a herald" and being used in the sense of "to proclaim, announce, preach". Merriam-Webster defines it as "the apostolic proclamation of salvation through Jesus Christ".[1] Amongst biblical scholars, the term has come to mean the core of the early church's oral tradition about Jesus.

Oral tradition[edit]

"Kerygmatic" is sometimes used to express the message of Jesus' whole ministry, as[2] "a proclamation addressed not to the theoretical reason, but to the hearer as a self"; as opposed to the didactic use of Scripture that seeks understanding in the light of what is taught.[3] The meaning of the crucifixion is central to this concept.
During the mid-20th century, when the literary genre of the New Testament gospels was under debate, scholars like C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann suggested that the gospels were of a genre unique in the ancient world. They called the genre kerygma and described it as a later development of preaching that had taken a literary form. Scholarship since then has found problems with Bultmann's theory, but in Biblical and theological discussions, the term kerygma has come to denote the irreducible essence of Christian apostolic preaching.
The ancient Christian kerygma as summarized by Dodd from Peter's speeches in the New Testament Book of Acts was:
  1. The Age of Fulfillment has dawned, the "latter days" foretold by the prophets.
  2. This has taken place through the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
  3. By virtue of the resurrection, Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God as Messianic head of the new Israel.
  4. The Holy Spirit in the church is the sign of Christ's present power and glory.
  5. The Messianic Age will reach its consummation in the return of Christ.
  6. An appeal is made for repentance with the offer of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and salvation.

New Testament[edit]

The New Testament is a collection of early Christian writings taken to be holy scripture. It includes many of the same proclamations as the oral tradition that preceded it.
  1. The promises of God made in the Old Testament have now been fulfilled with the coming of Jesus, the Messiah (Book of Acts 2:30; 3:19, 24, 10:43; 26:6-7, 22; Epistle to the Romans 1:2-4; 1 Timothy 3:16; Epistle to the Hebrews 1:1-21 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:18-19).
  2. Jesus was anointed by God at his baptism as Messiah (Acts 10:38).
  3. Jesus began his ministry in Galilee after his baptism (Acts 10:37).
  4. He conducted a beneficent ministry, doing good and performing mighty works by the power of God (Mk 10:45; Acts 2:22; 10:38).
  5. The Messiah was crucified according to the purpose of God (Mk 10:45; Jn 3:16; Acts 2:23; 3:13-15, 18; 4:11; 10:39; 26:23; Ro 8:34; 1 Corinthians 1:17-18; 15:3; Galatians 1:4; Heb 1:3; 1Peter 1:2, 19; 3:18; 1 Jn 4:10).
  6. He was raised from the dead and appeared to his disciples (Acts 2:24, 31-32; 3:15, 26; 10:40-41; 17:31; 26:23; Ro 8:34; 10:9; 1Co 15:4-7, 12ff.; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1Tim 3:16; 1Peter 1:2, 21; 3:18, 21).
  7. Jesus was exalted by God and given the name "Lord" (Acts 2:25-29, 33-36; 3:13; 10:36; Rom 8:34; 10:9; 1Tim 3:16; Heb 1:3; 1Peter 3:22).
  8. He gave the Holy Spirit to form the new community of God (Ac 1:8; 2:14-18, 33, 38-39; 10:44-47; 1Peter 1:12).
  9. He will come again for judgment and the restoration of all things (Ac 3:20-21; 10:42; 17:31; 1Co 15:20-28; 1Th 1:10).
  10. All who hear the message should repent and be baptized (Ac 2:21, 38; 3:19; 10:43, 47-48; 17:30; 26:20; Ro 1:17; 10:9; 1Pe 3:21).

Our Present Kingship and Future Reign

REVELATION 5:10
10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

"And hast made us..." - past tense - it's a present reality - we are kings and priests - whether in life or in death.

"...and we shall reign on the earth"
- that's the future part.

Present/future.

Already/not yet.

Inauguration/Consummation

First coming/Second Coming

Monday 20 November 2017

The Lord's Leading

A couple of times when I've visited a local doctor's surgery, I picked up a Gideon's Bible which was in the waiting-room - it was an ESV, and I quite enjoyed browsing it. So I started to desire to have a copy of my own (even though if I look into it more closely, I might or might not be entirely happy with the translation, but I think it'll be okay for a more casual reading-style, at least), and I quite liked the feel of the Gideon's one.

Then one day I saw one for sale in a Lifeline store, marked $5.00. It had a blue cover, just like the one in the doctor's surgery waiting-room. I asked the store-keeper if I could have a discount, and she replied that there was a half-price sale on all books, so I got it for $2.50 (even though Gideons Bibles aren't really meant to be sold). Nevertheless I kind of knew in my spirit this one wasn't for me, to the point I could never bring myself to really use it. I felt like maybe I was meant to give it to someone.

Soon afterwards a good friend of mine was going to the Philippines for a holiday. His parents have pioneered a church in Manila (and also in other parts of the Philippines). So as much as I liked the Bible myself, I decided to show it to him, and offered to let him take it with him to give to anyone in the Philippines of his own choosing. I slipped a gospel-tract inside the cover, then gift-wrapped it ready to give away. My friend gave it to a young man in the church in Manila - and that person showed his appreciation by posting pictures of the Bible and the tract on Facebook.

The following Sunday when I was thinking of going to my church's evening service as usual, I felt the Lord tell me to linger at home and then He would tell me where to go instead. I ended-up going to Reachout for Christ, at Carrara. After the service I felt led to buy a snack in the church-cafeteria, and while doing so I noticed some lounge chairs arranged around a coffee table, and noticed two Gideons Bibles on the table. I decided to sit there, instead of going to the area where everyone usually hangs-out after the service. I picked up one of the Bibles off the coffee table in front of me to see if they were ESVs, and they were. Then I noticed two more copies beside me. They each had nice red covers, not blue. I felt that was kind of nice, thinking of the precious blood of Jesus. Two of them were shiny red, the other two were a matt red. I was beginning to feel like the Lord had led me to that church that night because He wanted me to have one (as well as because He desired to bless me through a gift of the Spirit which manifested that night, and through the laying on of hands in answer to a desire I'd expressed to the Lord). The lady who'd served me in the cafe came and sat with a friend near where I was sitting - so I asked her whether I could have one. She said yes, and seemed delighted for me to have one. I came home rejoicing, feeling like the Lord is really delighted for me to have this one! Which was free.

LUKE 6:38
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Sunday 19 November 2017

Vessels Fitted for Wrath

A vessel fitted for wrath, was a term Paul used when talking about the fact that unbelieving Israel was deservedly, but not irretrievably, in a state of missing-out on God's promised salvation, as a consequence of, not just the cause of, their stubbornness, as foreseen and predicted by prophecy. And God endured, and even used, those vessels, for His own time and purpose - to save the Gentiles, and even to save themselves, if they believe.

(Similarly to how God raised Pharaoh up, despite being worthy of judgment, in order to demonstrate His wrath on him and also His mercy on Israel.)  

Saturday 18 November 2017

On Literary Method

About Romans 9-11.
Those controversial 'predestination' type lines.
When a reader approaches any text, there's always some background story to the text - and it matters, towards making sense of the text.
Like, if you overhear someone talking on the phone, and you hear him answer a question, and you didn't hear what the question was - it matters what the question was: otherwise you could completely misconstrue what you hear. If a text is part of a wider conversation, then identifying that wider conversation matters.
One day some relatives were walking along the beach together, and one of them heard the others mention 'aliens'.
"They shouldn't be allowed to come here!" she butted in.
Everyone laughed. They'd really been talking about aliens from space. It was funny, because their relative had a bit of a reputation with them of being outspoken about immigration. She hadn't heard their complete conversation, so she read her own obsession into it - which gave it a completely different (and wrong) meaning.
A statement in any text needs to be considered in light of, not only grammar, and genre, and literary rules, but also in light of the statement's place in the wider passage in which it's found. And the passage in light of its place in the overall flow of the whole document.
And all of that must fit into a certain backstory. Every story has a backstory of sorts.
The author himself has a mindset, which fits into his personal worldview, which is made up of narratives, which include cultural symbols, practices, and questions. He has a basic set of beliefs, as well as consequent beliefs, which give him overall aims and intentions in all he does and says and writes.
Other documents besides the document may also shed relevant light on it. Even other authors may.
In hermeneutics, theology and history both interact inseparably with each other, and with each of the above considerations.
When all of the above actors are viewed as acting together on the same stage, we can grasp the story that's really being played-out in front of us.
Sometimes it therefore helps to read a whole book in a single sitting. When I approach Romans 9-11, doing all that like we should, the impression I get, even though some lines are a bit difficult, is that Paul's meaning has something to do with explaining:
That God's promises which Israel had been the custodians of, hadn't failed, they'd been fulfilled, in the experience of believing-Israelites;
That the rest of Israel were in a blinded-state, like Gentiles who don't know God, and that as a result of their blinded state they handed Messiah over to be crucified, which became the means of salvation for both the nations and Jews themselves;
That it wasn't unjust of God to have called the nation of Israel as custodians, despite their unworthiness, now to offer salvation to all, even though unbelievers were missing out; and
That God wasn't finished with saving any more Jews: He was still willing to save Jews, just as Gentiles are still getting saved.
Paul's aim, I think, was unity of the faith and fellowship, in the congregation in a city where Jews had previously been expelled and where discrimination against Jews was never too far beneath the surface.
Paul's wish, I think, was that the church in the capital city of Caesar's empire, embody for the first time in human history, true and lasting equality between Jew and Gentile - in Messiah Jesus. (The following chapters talk about how to practically express that unity.)
If I'm right, then Romans 9-11 wasn't exactly about the kinds of issues which Calvinists summoned Arminians to the Synod of Dort over. Paul's questions/issues were different.
Like the lady on the beach, or the person overhearing one side of a telephone conversation, we ought to want to make sure we understand what Paul's first-century aim was, rather than mistake it in terms of our own focus and questions.

The Jesus-life

Saul (Paul) had an expectation, based on the Scriptures, that the kingdom of God would appear, and he thought he could help bring that about through imprisoning people who he thought weren't going about it right.

Then he had a revelation of the crucified, risen, ascended, seated and gloriously reigning Jesus, and of His true people the Church. The experience saved his spirit, and gave him a sense of commission to the nations.

Had Paul now come to think of the gospel, and the Church and its new way of living as the very fulfilment of his kingdom-expectation? or did he see his new activity as just something else he was doing instead, while still waiting for the kingdom to come?

I think the answer is that Paul came to understand that Jesus is the Messiah and that He was truly reigning in His kingdom, and that the gospel of the Lord Jesus the Messiah is the announcement of that fact, and that the Church are the true people of God in Him. That new realisation gave Paul a new way of doing 'kingdom'.

Of course Paul also understood that even within that scheme of the kingdom, some things were still future - he understood that Messiah is still to come the second time, and that all Messiah's enemies shall be put down including death, and that Messiah will then subject all things to God and will Himself be subject to God.

But is that second-phase - the culmination - of the already-inaugurated kingdom-scheme, meant to involve reverting to a Jerusalem-based, temple-based Levitical-like system, even if only for a thousand years?

If the Apostles thought that must be a crucial outcome of Bible-prophecy, you would think they would have attempted to bring it about - through teaching Gentile believers in Jesus to make annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, for example. But they insisted on no such thing. Quite the opposite: they instead taught the churches that they were in fact already a royal priesthood, an holy nation, in the Messiah, and that they had come to the true mount Zion.

The Apostles knew God wasn't finished with Israelis, for as long as He isn't finished with the nations. But it seems to me that they saw any spiritual distinction between Israel and the nations as having been absorbed up together into Messiah and eliminated in His heavenly kingdom-reign. Not that that absconds from Israel's promised-position - it fulfilled it!

A problem with saying Israel's prophesied-kingdom is pretty-much all still in the future, is that the Bible-passages which are purported by some to be about that, are some of the very same passages which the Apostles asserted had seen their inauguration already through Jesus. The gospel - salvation - was to the Jews first, and also to the Greek, Paul said - not the other way around. The order was, first that which was natural, afterward that which is spiritual.

So, the ancient promises really were all about Jesus, about His gospel, and about all nations! It really was about the cross; Messiah's two comings. The Jesus-life. This is it.

It is given to us, not only to believe on His Name, but also to suffer for Him, for the Church which is Messiah's body. But our present sufferings work for us a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

This was Paul-s newfound passion. And it's yours!

"As the Father hath sent me, so send I you".

"You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bear much fruit, and that your fruit should remain".

"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature".

"He that shall come will come, and shall not tarry".

Thursday 16 November 2017

Review of Krister Stendahl's Essay “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West”, by Bill DeJong

Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress), 1976, pp. 78-96. First published in English in Harvard Theological Review, 56 (1963), pp. 199-215.
Reviewed by Bill DeJong
Legend has it that the apostle Paul was “a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked.” This physical profile of Paul, found in the apocryphal Acts of Paul and composed by a second century presbyter fromAsia on the basis of circulating traditions, was seriously doubted by Tertullian, but ardently believed by his contemporary, Hippolytus of Rome.
This early lack of consensus regarding Paul’s physical profile also characterizes current depictions of his psychological profile. Whereas since Augustine Christians have generally regarded Paul’s conversion as the transformation of a troubled conscience, convicted of sin by the law, to a comfortable conscience, soothed by Christ and His remedy of forgiveness, Krister Stendahl proposes that Paul’s conscience, according to the biblical presentation at least, was remarkably robust and rarely if ever plagued.
The former professor at the Divinity School of Harvard University first presented this critique of the traditional analysis of Paul’s conscience, not insignificantly, at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association on September 3, 1961. Stendahl’s thesis, which was first published in Swedish (1960), then revised and published in English (1963), has taken its place in Pauline scholarship as one of the pivotal essays in the formation of what James D.G. Dunn has dubbed “the new perspective on Paul.”
According to Stendahl, the quest of the plagued conscience began with Augustine whoseConfessions are “the first great document in the history of introspective conscience” and climaxed with Luther (p. 85). Prior to Augustine, the church had read Paul accurately in terms of the question, what does the Messiah’s arrival mean for (a) the law (not legalism) and (b) the relationship between Jews and Gentiles? Since Augustine, the church has misread Paul in terms of the question, how can I find a gracious God?
Luther and the subsequent reformers read Paul’s statements about faith and works, law and gospel, Jews and Gentiles “in the framework of late medieval piety” (pp. 85-86) such that the law quickly became associated with legalism. “Where Paul was concerned about the possibility for Gentiles to be included in the messianic community, his statements are now read as answers to the quest for assurance about man’s salvation out of a common human predicament” (p. 86).
To illustrate what he means, Stendahl appeals to Luther’s understanding of Galatians 3:24Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png to illustrate the second use of the law. Whereas Paul clearly envisioned the law as the custodian for the Jews until the arrival of the Messiah, Luther reversed the argument to assert that the law is the schoolmaster for everyone to crush self-righteousness and lead to Christ (pp. 86,87). Furthermore, the law is no longer the law of Moses which has become obsolete, but God’s moral imperative as such.
Stendahl concludes, “Paul’s argument that the Gentiles must not and should not come to Christ via the Law, i.e., via circumcision, etc. has turned into a statement according to which all men must come to Christ with consciences properly convicted by the Law and its insatiable requirements for righteousness. So drastic is the reinterpretation once the original framework of ‘Jews and Gentiles’ is lost, and the Western problems of conscience become its unchallenged and self-evident substitute” (p. 87).
Stendahl derives central support for this thesis from Phillippians 3:6, where Paul alleges that prior to his conversion he kept the law blamelessly. What he regards and discards as refuse in his prior life are not his shortcomings in law-keeping, but his achievements and distinctions as a Jew, from circumcision to persecuting the Christian church. This interpretation, alleges Stendahl, finds support in the narrative of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 which is not portrayed in terms of the restoration of a plagued conscience (p. 80), but in terms of his calling to apostleship (p. 85).
Paul’s chief sin, according to Stendahl, was his persecution of the church, the climax of his dedication to the Jewish faith (Gal.1.13Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.pngPhil.3.6Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png). When Paul says that Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom he was chief, he is not expressing contrition in the present tense, but referring back to his career of blaspheming and persecuting. God, however, had revealed to him his true Messiah and made him an apostle and a prototype of sinner’s salvation (cf. Rom.5:6-11Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png).
But what about Romans 2 and 3 which deal with the impossibility of law-keeping? Stendahl rightly indicates that the law never expected perfection of the Jew but made provisions for repentance and forgiveness. Paul’s objective in these chapters is simply to show his readers that the law was helpless to Israel because ultimately it pronounced upon her the same guilty sentence under which the Gentiles already lived.
Paul makes these remarks, Stendahl observes, to introduce the new avenue of salvation for Jews and Gentiles which has opened up in Christ, a salvation not based upon law, which formerly distinguished the two. The old covenant, with its provisions of forgiveness and grace, is no longer valid; salvation must be found in Christ. Christ, therefore, is not the answer to a plagued conscience, but the new avenue of salvation for both Jews and Gentiles (p. 81).
That a plagued conscience was a problem for Paul is true neither prior to, nor after, his conversion. It is difficult to find “any evidence that Paul the Christian had suffered under the burden of conscience regarding personal shortcomings which he would label ‘sins'” (Italics original, p. 82). Forgiveness is the term for salvation used least of all in Pauline writings and not at all in the “undisputed” Pauline epistles (footnote 4, p. 82).
Paul knew that the baptized were not free from sin, but such sin apparently did not trouble his conscience. In fact, in Acts 23:1Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png, he says, “Brethren, I have lived before God in all good conscience up to this day” (cf. 24:16). He did struggle with his body (1 Cor. 9:27Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png), but the tone is one of confidence. Romans 9:1Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png and 2 Cor.1:12Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.pngboth witness to his good conscience, the confidence of which reaches its highest pitch in 2 Cor.5:10ffDescription: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png., where Paul expresses certainty that the Lord will approve of him. His “robust conscience is not shaken, but strengthened by his awareness of a final judgment which has not yet come” (cf. 1 Cor.4:4Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png; p. 90).
To search for a statement in which Paul would speak about himself as a sinner is futile, argues Stendahl. He does often speak of ‘weakness’ (2 Cor.11.21ffDescription: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png2 Cor. 12.9-10Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png), but weakness is unrelated to sin or conscience (v. 7), with the exception of Romans 5, where ‘weak’ is synonymous with sinner (p. 91).
The last section of the essay is devoted to Romans 7 about which Stendahl asserts that Paul is involved in an argument about the law, not man’s ego or predicament. In fact, the ego is acquitted in the words: “Now if I do what I do not want, then it is not I who do it, but the sin which dwells in me” (Stendahl’s italics). If Paul were describing man’s predicament, this line of thought would be impossible. The human impasse has been argued in Romans 1-3 and every possible excuse has been carefully ruled out.
Paul is using the familiar anthropological distinction between what one ought to do and what one does to distinguish good Law from bad Sin, thereby enabling Paul to blame Sin and Flesh and to rescue Law as a good gift of God. Subsequent interpreters did not struggle with law in the sense that Paul did and thus reduced this passage to anthropology and the nature of man and sin. “This is what happens when one approaches Paul with the Western question of an introspective conscience” (p. 93). “The West for centuries has wrongly surmised that the biblical writers were grappling with problems which no doubt are ours, but which never entered their consciousness” (p. 95).
Stendahl’s essay, which weaves together biblical exegesis, historical interpretation and sociological analysis, is delightfully provocative and demonstrative of a brilliant mind. He is entirely correct in his assertion that Western interpreters of Paul have all too often reduced the real dynamic in his polemic, i.e., the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, to one of morbid introspection and individual psychology and thereby all too eagerly exchanged historia salutis for ordo salutis. His remarks about Galatians 3:24Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png are entirely to the point.
Nevertheless, Stendahl’s contention that consciences troubled by sin have their origin in Augustine and the subsequent Western mind is untenable. King David, hardly a Westerner, enjoyed a robust conscience for the most part (cf. 2 Sam.22:22Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.pngPss. 7Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png17Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png18Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png26Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png), but also repeatedly sought forgiveness to ease his plagued conscience. In Psalm 32, he laments, “When I kept silent, my bones grew old, through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me … I acknowledged my sin to you” and in Psalm 51 he cries out, “Have mercy upon me, O God.”
Jesus presents this latter petition as the sine qua non of the believer in his parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18. It was the tax collector who went home justified because he humbled himself, beating his breast and crying out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!”
Luther and traditional Western interpreters, therefore, are correct to depict the forgiveness of sins as the remedy for consciences troubled by sin (the apostle John certainly does in 1 John 1:5-2:2Description: http://www.logos.com/images/Corporate/LibronixLink_dark.png); they are not always correct in locating the biblical basis for this depiction. Stendhal is largely on track when he accuses Western interpreters of losing sight of Paul’s chief polemic regarding the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in their quest to find timeless truths about the law, sin, repentance and forgiveness.