Category: Q&A

Answers to questions submitted through this blog.

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Anonymous asks:

We are challenged certainly in some Anglican communities to look after the poor. I suppose the biggest question is going to be who are the poor? May seem a daft question, but in financial terms we have very few poor. However, certainly some of the financially richest people I know are very, very poor; spiritually and otherwise? My personal thought is that we do have poor with us, right now. Our challenge is to reveal those clothes they are wearing are actually rags. Is that our first big challenge?

[This is a Q&A question that has been submitted through this blog. You can submit a question (anonymously if you like) here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/qanda/]

Thanks for the question. I have some general thoughts on this in a recent review:  A Church for the Poor?

My first thoughts on the poor usually arrive with the famous “sheep and goats” passage of Matthew 25. In this passage the returning King, acting as judge, declares (for the righteous):

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was ill and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

‘Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and go to visit you?”

‘The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

And of course, there’s an equivalent and negative judgement for those who did not feed, give drink, clothe, or visit etc.

This gets us into your question. Who are the poor? They are indeed those who are financially, physically impoverished: hungry, destitute, excluded by their circumstances.

We can’t overlook this. There is a clear gospel challenge to look after and to care for the physically poor. This is clear from the Scriptures: the laws on gleaning is about providing for those who are literally hungry, as are the many passages that talk about caring for widows and orphans, who lack the stability and security not only of societal standing, but also of the basics of life. James considers the care of these physically vulnerable people to be an aspect of “genuine religion”.

It also gives some exhortational force. Who are the poor? The ones who we can see. We are held to account for who is in front of us; e have personal responsiblity for those who God brings across our path. There is also communal responsiblity for those who are in front of us as a community.  This is just as serious and calls us to move our community towards caring for the poor through advocacy and social justice and personal example.

We cannot ignore the physically poor. As Keith Green would imply, we make too many excuses, individually and together, we ought to care for those who do not have as much we are do. It is good in its own right. It is a gospel imperative.  Or shall we insist that what we have is ours alone, and not God’s?

But you are right, there is also a spiritual poverty. But there are two ways in which we need to take this.

Firstly, there is spiritual poverty that speaks to a hardness of heart, a self-righteousness that, as you say, dresses itself in resplendent rags.  This is not just preening and pride, but facade, self-reliance, the idolisation of financial security, and other “decent” sins.

Such folk are the “goats” of Matthew 25. They are the rich man with Lazarus. They are the fat cows of Bashan. Such hardness of heart is rightly and justly judged harshly. And notice how the spiritual poverty is often marked by the hardened attitude towards those who are physically poor, or a general dismissiveness of those who are weak and dependent in some way.

Is it, then, as you say “our challenge to reveal those clothes… are actually rags”? That is, is it our task to reveal this hypocrisy, this hardness of heart? To some extent, yes. We are called to not only advocate for the poor, but also to exhort people to repentance, to soften their hearts, to take a posture of faith and humility, to enter into the insecurity of faith whereby their hearts might break with the massive longings of God’s own heart.  Biblical and Christian history is full of characters who have served us in this way, by provoking us towards righteousness.

We must feed them, as we must feed the physically poor.  These people need the Word of God (“All they need is Moses,” the rich man is told…), and they are in front of us. If church members and even clergy find themselves uncomprehending of how to apply the elementary teachings of the faith then it’s not somebody else’s job. We must dig into the Word, speak the truth, exhort repentance, paint a vision of hope, etc. etc. That is, we are called to “feed the sheep” that are in front of us, even if they think they are princes.

Secondly we might think of spiritual poverty in the sense of being poor in spirit. This is a more positive sense.

There is a recognition that those who are physically poor, by their circumstances, are dependent, vulnerable, reliant, weak.  The poor in spirit may have enough to eat, but they may be dependent, vulnerable, reliant and weak in other ways – even if they don’t know it.  In our middle class town I know those who are involved in picking up the pieces from addictive behaviours, neglected children. The book that I reviewed, A Church for the Poor?, understands this, for instance, and speaks of things such as aspirational poverty and relational poverty.

There is a similar imperative to care for these who are in front of us: If we encounter a depressed young man, we cannot turn aside. If there is a lonely widow in front of us, we should not simply “leave her to the professionals.”  And when society begins to produce a younger generation with increasing incidences of anxiety we should be amongst those standing up and saying “Come on, we can do better, let’s change how we do this!”

But here is the difference between hard-hearted “spiritual poverty” and being “poor in spirit.”  Itis this: the way of Christ moves away from one and toward the other.

You see, in this context, being “poor in spirit” is an indicator of faith, a positive thing – the opposite of being “poor in spirit” is being “rich in ourselves” that is, self-righteous.  The physically poor teach this lesson, they weather circumstances in which they are weak, vulnerable, and dependent, and God honours them by valuing the related things of faith, trust, and honesty and judges the rich-in-themselves for their lack of them. 

No wonder Jesus identifies with the physically poor!   They look more like Jesus than the self-secure rich!

Just as we are all relatively physically wealthy in the global scheme of things, we must realise that we are all relatively poverty stricken, hardened in the spiritual sense. I know for myself that while I might have “done good” from time to time, I am most likely to be moved by the financial and other physical insecurities that beset my own family. I find myself protecting myself emotionally as I encounter those who are wounded by life.  I cling to my wealth, my strength.

The Christian journey begins and continues with the basic understanding of “nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.” Any challenge to “reveal the rags” must begin in us.  When we realise that we are spiritually poor, we are also drawn to our weakness, vulnerability, and dependency, and, faith, trust, and honesty is the sweet fruit of it. We cannot turn to ourselves, so we turn to God, and inherit the kingdom of heaven.

The Christian journey is one of constant relinquishment and surrender in this regard, a long slow walk of obedience. We become poor in spirit, and find ourselves with riches that are not limited by our capacity, but strength in our weakness, life in our death. This is what Jesus looks like.

That is our first big challenge. To look to our own posture before God, a posture of faith that is soft towards God and others, and not self-reliance that just builds fine looking decent protective, hard, walls.

[Image Credit: Lithogr Wellcome V0021724 CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons]

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SA asks:

Hi Will,
Can we call the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ Spirit? What do you think?
Clearly he isn’t Jesus because he is the third person of the trinity, but I am a bit muddled as we sometimes say Jesus is with us by his spirit. What do we mean by that? Do we mean Jesus? Do we mean the Holy Spirit? Or are we meaning specifically the Holy Spirit but also Jesus and the Father as our God is one?
For example, when Jesus said he would be with us until the end of the age did he mean himself or the Holy Spirit? In John 14 Jesus promises “another Counsellor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth” but also that the Father and he (Jesus) will make their home in the believer.
And then I look at Romans 8:9 where Paul talks about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and calls him both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ in quick succession and then says that “if Christ is in you….”
And Galatians 2:20 “Christ who lives in me..”
I’m not sure if I’ve even articulated my question clearly!

[This is a Q&A question that has been submitted through this blog. You can submit a question (anonymously if you like) here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/qanda/]

Thanks for the question. It takes us into the area of trinitarian theology, which is notoriously brain-bending, but is also deep, profound, and joy-bringing.

The short answer to your question is yes, we can (and must) understand that the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ Spirit.

The longer answer means exploring the conundrum that you have described.  Your exploration is great.  You’ve quoted the verse that I would have gone to as a way into it: In Romans 8:9-11 the Holy Spirit is referred to in the following ways:

  1. “the Spirit”
  2. “the Spirit of God”
  3. “the Spirit of Christ”
  4. “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead”

This passage also has a close correlation between “the Spirit” and “Christ” with regards to the one who dwells “in you.”  You’ve also rightly picked up other places where this is implied – Galatians 2:20 – and also Matthew 28:20 where Jesus says “I am with you always”, just before he leaves! Of course, the Spirit is subsequently present.

It can be a bit of a brain twister, so what do we do with it?

We can get a little bit theological: What is being emphasised here is the unity of the Trinity. We cannot separate Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals the Son, and if we see the Son we have seen the Father (that’s John 14 again). This unity is at the heart of the gospel: Jesus is not one third of God of with us, he is truly God with us. As Paul assures us in Colossians 2:9, in Christ “all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”

We can even get a bit metaphysical about it. My tentative exploration begins with thinking of God as a relational dynamic, and I start by looking to God the Father [As an aside, the Orthodox emphasis on the Father as the “Fountain of Deity” got me thinking here]:  The Father perfectly and eternally pours himself out into the Son. We call this “begetting” and think of the way in which a parent desires to pour themselves – their character, wisdom, understanding, etc. – into their children and extrapolate from that. This is so eternal and perfect that the Son isn’t just a reflection of the Father, the Father is pouring out his very being, and so the Son is of the same dynamic essence. The Son therefore pours himself back towards the Father, in response, agreement, and self-giving.

The Son’s eternal and perfect “pouring back” is an eternal and perfect “Yes and Amen” to the self-giving of the Father.  This eternal and perfect outpouring perfectly and eternally manifests not just the power and character of the Father and the Son, but the very substance of who they are.  This mutual outpouring manifests perfectly and eternally in the person of the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father’s eternally begetting love and the Son’s eternal returning joy.

Take any aspect of this away and then the dynamic is not eternal or perfect, and therefore not God.  That is, if the Spirit is not totally the Father’s Spirit, or the Son’s Spirit, or the Spirit of God Almighty, then God is not God.

Phew. That’s a bit heady. But can you see the passion and joy of it all? At the beginning of creation, the Father pours out in creative fervour – “Let there be light!” – the Son receives and responds in a “Yes and Amen” and from the power and joy of their agreement, the Spirit proceeds to hover over the waters of creation. Their unified love creates. It’s not like there’s some committee discussion in the Godhead about weighing up the pros and cons of creating the universe, rather the creative love and joy of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit simply brings it about. After all:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)

And here is the joyous gospel part of it. We know that “God so loved the World”. At some point the heart of the Father pours out in grace and love – “Let us go to our broken children” – the Son responds with a “Yes and Amen” and the Spirit manifests that loving purpose, hovering over the womb of a young woman.  And now the eternally, perfectly begetting God and Father, pours himself out, eternally, and perfectly, into a human child. The eternal, perfect dynamic that is God, can incorporate, does incorporate, and still incorporates a human being, Jesus.

The Father pours himself out into Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Son’s response now has human voice: “Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise” (John 5:19), and the Spirit manifests that desire as healings and miracles happen.

And then at some point it looks like the Father’s heart to save – “Let us take responsibility for our children” – and the Son, knowing exactly what that means, says “let your will be done” and enters into cruelty and injustice and forsakenness, until the sky goes dark and we hear “It is finished” and “Into your hands I commit my Spirit.”  And then the self-giving, outpouring, justice-loving, fierce joy of God is truly made manifest, and we really see the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead!

All the time, at every moment, the purposes of God occur from and within this dynamic of creative thought, creative response, creative power. Every aspect of God is like this – saving thought, saving response, saving power; healing, restoring, convicting, providing etc. etc. Every time we see the heart of the Father, grounded in the Son, manifest in the Spirit.

And then, lastly, the profound realisation of it is this, if we return to Romans 8:9 –  embraced as we are by Jesus, we are “in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells within you.” This tells me that we are not meeting God from the outside, as if we might occasionally have an audience with the Holy Spirit, or with Jesus, or (if we’re really lucky) the Father. No! In Christ, we have been caught up into the dynamic of God himself. We don’t pray from the outside, we pray from the inside. We seek to discern the will of the Father, we seek to respond with “Your will be done” and we find, amazingly, that the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead, the Holy Spirit, manifests the will of God, in, with, and through us.

So yes, we can call the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus – we must! If we can’t, then Jesus is not really God incarnate, and we’re not really abiding in the Father. And there’s less gospel (if any) in that.

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Sistine FingersAnonymous asks: Does God need us?

The short answer is, “No.”

The long answer is, “It depends what you mean by ‘need.'”

God does not need us ontologically, that is in order to be himself.  This is actually a key component of how we conceived of God as Trinity.  God, by definition, is perfect.  But it is impossible for a unitarian God to have relationship until that God creates something – the creature can then be seen to add/complete/perfect that God in some way.  But if God is Father who eternally and perfectly pours himself out in perfect love into a perfect and complementary reflection of himself you have the basis of the “God in three persons” which in some sense is to understand “God as relationship.”  A Trinitarian God does not need his creatures in order to perfectly incorporate relationship.  His creation of us is therefore an act of grace, a gift, not an act of necessity or self-exploration on his part.

God does not need us practically, that is in order to do what he wants to do.  This is pretty clear.  God, being God, can do whatever he likes.  He can create the heavens and the earth and doesn’t need our help.  He can reveal himself to patriarchs and prophets, and doesn’t need our help.  He can move mountains and quicken and harden hearts, and doesn’t need our help.  All these actions speak of a God who graciously choose to create, sustain, and even intervene in his creation.  This is a grace, a gift to us, and not an act of obligation on his part.

There’s a pattern here – it’s not about “need”, it’s about grace.

And one of the aspects of that grace is that God chooses to no only relate to us, but to lead us, guide us, and, yes, to work through us.  So much so that he binds himself to us which not only affirms his humility, but also affirms that we are indeed made in the image of God, through whom divine works can occur.  And so God achieves his project through a human.  He even achieves salvation through a human.  That perfect and creative outpouring of God the Father – i.e. God the Son – became, is and will ever more be a human being.  He is a human being through whom God has worked his most magnificent work, and through whom we are called to also be, like Jesus, obedient to God, empowered by his Spirit, and achieving the works of his kingdom.

Are we needed for that task?  In some sense, yes, but not out of necessity, only because God is both gracious and sovereign.

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Star Wars NativityOff-Line asks:

I’ve been pondering… the extra-scriptural nature of our (i.e. Christian) nativity.

…I know that JC was in all likelihood not born in 1AD or Year 0. That for shepherds to be in the field at night it would have been Sept/Oct not mid-winter and snow on the ground. A little like “Queens birthday” it doesn’t fuss me that we don’t celebrate on the right date. However it nags at me that so much of what we have in our heads, and on shelves as Nativity scenes at this time of year is just nonsense.

  • Inn/Guestroom – Luke uses each (Samaritan, and Passover prep) so why do we translate it as Inn in the Christmas account. No “room” at the “inn” instead of no space in the guest room.
  • There is NO stable! There is a manager.
  • There are shepherds
  • There are no magi on the night – when they do arrive there are 3 gifts not 3 people – the seem to come some weeks/months perhaps year later.

Does it matter that we pollute/corrupt/tamper/supplement the account of God with us? What other piece of scripture would we be so careless with?

However, even having decided that you want a biblical nativity, how do you get from where we are to somewhere scriptural?

It’s an awesome question and a fraught topic.  It reminded me of an overheard conversation at this year’s Christmas pageant in Hobart – “What! The churches are even sticking their nose in for this!”  Groan.

In the popular mind the nativity story is becoming not only increasingly inaccurate but increasingly irrelevant.   I have made more than one conversation in which, having explained a theological point about God revealing himself to us, the light suddenly dawns as lines are drawn from this gospel reality to Mary and Joseph to Christmas etc.

Nevertheless the nativity story is there along with Princer and Bitzen and Rudolph and tinsellitis and the North Pole and the whole Claus family.  Although emphasising it runs the risk of being accused of being Grinch-like. Bah humbug.

While it’s easy to accuse the Santa cultus on Coca Cola, the point you make about diminishing meaningfulness of contemporary nativity I think derives more from Victorian & Georgian England, the conceptual inculcations of the KJV (yes, “inn”), and the tradition of holding a “nativity play” in which pleasing the children (and finding parts for them) pre-empts accuracy.

And yes, the whole traditional nativity is completely inaccurate.  Google is your friend in getting the details, but here area couple of semi-decent links:

But the substantive question is: should we resist this “tampering” with the story?

And my answer is “yes.”  In fact, it is “of course.”  Chief among the tasks of proclaiming God’s word is the so-called “joining of the two horizons” – the original word spoken to its original context is applied sensibly as a word within our context.  The only way to do this well is to get our head around the historical facts.

Indeed, the historical reality of the nativity is a much more powerful story: the witnessing shepherds are socio-economic rejects, the “no place in the inn” is not about a petulant innkeeper but about the limits of familial (covenant family!) hospitality.  I have a friend who does midwifery work in third world countries providing sanitary equipment for expecting mothers who would otherwise give birth within the mud and mildew of their tents.  Take away the Victorian romance you have a screaming teenager giving birth in full-to-the-brim home amidst the smell, noise, and refuse of animals and peasants.  God with us indeed, God with us at our most utterly utterly deprived.

So what to do?  Some random suggestions.

  1. Tell the real story, as best we can.  In conversation, in preaching, etc.
  2. Engage with, but don’t lambast, the Christian romantics.  This is a “just because I don’t have a Christmas tree doesn’t mean you shouldn’t” type consideration.
  3. Steer our nativity presentations away from the false and towards the correct.  Again, this can be done offensively, or subversively and gently.  I’ve seen nativity scenes constructed and beautifully carved that are abstract and symbolic and take you past the fluff to dwell on the reality.  I’ve seen traditional scenes rearranged – the wise men placed further away as if on a journey for instance, proclamations from the angels done in full “Peace on earth and good will to those upon whom his favour rests.”
  4. Emphasise the important stuff.  This isn’t about cute babies, it’s about God’s humbling of himself to lead an estranged people.  This doesn’t mean being theologically nerdy.  The Big Picture Bible is one that does a great job of telling a children’s story about the coming of God’s “Forever King”
  5. Encourage people to read Matthew and Luke.

So nothing particularly revolutionary.  Just steady as she goes solid homiletics for the whole of life really.

Blessings for the New Year.

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1005409_18237777Anonymous asks:

What do you think about this article on the age of the earth? http://creation.com/how-old-is-the-earth

The material is from a creationist book that has sold 350,000 copies. I believe he did a good job of arguing his case. The videos are good as well.

Hi Anonymous, Thanks for the question.  For my broader thoughts on evolution/creation I have an earlier post: here

You ask specifically about a particular article (linked above).  I don’t have time to do an in-depth consideration, or check out the videos, but an overview reading shows nothing surprising.

The age of the earth is a bone of contention in this debate.  Evolutionary theories require an old age for the earth (read millions of years), and some (not all) creationist theories require a young age for the earth (read 6,000 years).  The 6000 years figure derives from genealogies and other data from the biblical text and equates broadly (and understandably) to the broadest scope of recorded history.

The issues is therefore a question of “prehistory” – evolutionary theories posit an extensive prehistory.  Certain creationist theories posit that there is no prehistory, unless you count the five days that preceded the creation of Adam.  There’s a big difference.

The referenced article rehearses the typical attempt at rebutting evolutionary claims about the age of the earth.  These are:

  • Sedimentation and other geological metamorphoses do not require millions of years to occur.  In particular, they can occur very quickly if you allow for a global cataclysmic event such as a global flood.
  • Radiometric dating makes assumptions about the initial level of isotopic ratios and their nett rate of decay in the presence of environmental factors.  Anomalous results for known geological events are cited.

And there is a similar rehearsal of apparent evidence for a young earth, namely:

  • The seas are not salty enough.  (Ironically, this is a macro-level equivalent of the radiometric dating technique, and makes the same assumptions – initial state, environmental impact on a non-closed sytem.)
  • Similarly, the moon is too close, their isn’t enough helium in the atmosphere, and there aren’t enough supernovae.

To which my response is a deliberate “meh.”  I’m tired of these debates, not because I’m overwhelmed by totalising scientists and have decided to throw in the towel, but because the important stuff is not in this debate.

The bit of history that I’m most interested in is the last 6000 years, which everybody agrees has existed.  I’m interested in this bit of history because it’s the bit has people in it, and I’m interested in people.   As far as prehistorical facts go, the Bible tells me little if anything, apart from the fact that God did it, and it was good, and we made it bad.

The age question is not even relevant to some of the bastions of creation science.  You don’t need a young earth to have a biblical global flood.  You don’t need a young earth if you posit cosmological timeframes between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 and attribute the six (literal) days to God’s creative intervention, preparing a home for his people, on an all-ready created (as part of the “heavens and the earth”) that was as yet unshaped/unmade/unformed.

So, in my mind, the age of the earth is a non-essential point, in a non-essential debate, and has little bearing on the truthiness of Scripture.

Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1005409

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Q&AClara asks (on my facebook wall): I read an interesting article today titled, ‘Ministers take aim at religious extremists: we accept equality’. Wondered your thoughts on this issue.

The article that Clara refers to is this: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/federal-election/ministers-take-aim-at-religious-extremists-we-accept-equality/story-fnho52ip-1226676430143

The signatories to the letter referred to in the article can be found here: http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/wp/2012/04/04/42-multi-faith-clergy-call-for-marriage-equality/

The letter is actually quite old (April 2012).  The fact that it is being raised in July 2013 as a rhetorical riposte to ACL attacks on Kevin Rudd is symptomatic of how these things get used as political footballs:  “Christians talking against gay marriage? Well, here’s our Christians talking about gay marriage and they support us!”  There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, that’s one of the reasons the letter was written in the first place I’m sure.

So what are my thoughts? Nothing profound really.

This not a surprise.  The signatories to the letter are mostly your left-leaning Anglicans and Unitings with the odd Baptist and so forth.  Nothing unexpected.  We could talk about how representative these leaders are of the Christian populace and the fact that they generally belong to the parts of the church that are in decline, but whatever, that isn’t the point.

For me the two interesting things are this:

1) Firstly: Christians must demonstrate that their views are Christian.

I’m not saying that these leaders aren’t Christian.  What I am saying is that it is not enough to say “I’m a Christian and I support SSM.”  They need to articulate and demonstrate the connections between the Christian philosophy and the SSM agenda and why they are congruous and supportive of one another.  This is how you give your support substance and weight.

It is particularly so when you have signatories from a wide range of faith positions (including non-Christian) – what philosophical ground, that is common and not antagonistic to the positions held, is being used to espouse the opinion?  Without that it’s not much more than a rather small petition.

From what I can see of the text of the letter (not easily accessible as far as I can see, even through the AME website) this hasn’t been done.  The two texts I do have are this excerpt:

“As clergy from various different faiths and denominations in Australia, we believe marriage is a fundamental institution in our society. It fosters greater commitment between partners, provides children with a sense of security and stability, and strengthens ties with families and communities. Marriage is a blessing to be shared, so we encourage people of faith who support marriage equality to voice their support for the reform by responding to the  House of Representatives inquiry on same-sex marriage today.”

This isn’t much more than the “marriage is a blessing” and “blessing should be shared” argument.  Which says nothing at all really.  None of us will disagree on the blessing of marriage.  What we do disagree on is the characteristics of marriage which inform and construct and advance that blessing.

Rowland Croucher (say it ain’t so Rowland!) is the other text which does inform this a bit:

“How can I, a heterosexual who’s been very happily married for 50 years, tell anyone else they don’t have the right to form a loving, committed, lifelong union and enjoy the fruits of marriage as I have done?” wrote Reverend Dr Rowland Croucher, from John Mark Ministries, Victoria. “Marriage is not a club to be restricted to some. Like the Gospel, it is a blessing to be shared.”

And at least he gives some reasoning, albeit thin.  Here Dr. Croucher connects “marriage” to the inclusivity of the gospel.  Which has some merit, because the gospel is inclusive.

(The “how can I tell anyone else line” is rhetorical fluff because it doesn’t speak to the core issue of what marriage actually is, just to the fact that whatever it is it cannot be arbitrarily restricted – we all agree with that.)

Now this is all great, but as Christian leaders, these people need to present a clear and coherent connection between a Christian framework and their position.  I won’t reiterate all that here, but the sorts of questions that go unanswered by Croucher et al. include clear rebuttals “OK, Rowland, but the Gospel is also exclusive (Christ alone) and calls for a surrender of one’s whole life (including sexual activity, both hetereosexual and homosexual), how do you coincide these Christian truths with your statement about marriage?”  And also fundamental questions of epistemology, Scriptural affirmations of the connection of marriage with the created order and so on.

In other words (and this speaks to why marriage is so contentious), our understanding of marriage derives from the full sweep of Christian philosophy.  If you’re going to talk about this you need to demonstrate coherence across the whole. These signatories haven’t done this.

2) Secondly:  “Christian” is not a badge.  It’s used that way by revisionists all the time who think in terms of “attributes” and “minorities.

Religion has become an “attribute” of a person, not a voluntary and adopted wholistic framework for life.  Therefore if you can demonstrate that one “Christian” agrees with you, you can assert that there is no reason why someone else wearing that badge shouldn’t also.

This is an insipid and patronising understanding of how religion and worldviews work.  The badges don’t matter, it’s the substance that counts.  The people that don’t support SSM have good reasons for not doing so.  It’s not enough to throw their badge back at them, you actually have to deal with their reasonings and demonstrate their unreasonableness.

To conclude.  What are my thoughts? Nothing unexpected, just another demonstration of the insipidness that tends to dominate this debate.

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980736_91728200Anonymous asks: I have been struggling with how to believe and have faith in the God I know who is the God of the every day things and the God who is also supernatural. How do you approach it? Reconciling the belief that God moves supernaturally as well as through the ordinary?

Thank you for a very interesting question.  It has given me pause for thought.

My first pause has been to cogitate about the dichotomy in the premise of your question: On the one hand we have “supernatural” acts of God, and on the other hand we have “natural” acts of God.  I wonder if it is a false dichotomy?

Scripture affirms, and we can clearly see by rational observation, that natural processes are at work in this world.  The sun rises and sets, electricity flows predictably, biological occurrences are explainable etc. etc.  None of this is surprising.

How, then does God “move” in these “ordinary” things.  He certainly does this by creating the ordinariness to begin with.  The ordinary creation thus speaks of his design, goodness and purpose. It is not wrong to consider the fruit of the harvest as a providential gift from God – how wonderful that he has so moved in creation as to set up this system of providence!  And so we can look at the sunset, or the spider’s web, or the intricacy of a flower, or the magnificence of the rolling spheres, and grow in our awareness of the potentate of time.  This I think is what we are talking about, precisely, when we talk about God moving “in” the natural.

And Scripture also affirms “supernatural” moves of God – various miracles involving matters of physical health, the suspension or occurrence of phenomena where they would or wouldn’t otherwise occur, the receipt of information or understanding through some form of direct revelation rather than “natural” observation and conversation.  The Scriptural narrative reveals that God does directly intervene in the created order of things.

Clearly these are conceptually distinct, but they are not incompatible, and in fact I don’t think they can be separated.

After all, the “supernatural” acts of God, apart from creation itself, are not ex nihilo – they are acts within the created order.  Yes, it’s a miracle when God parts the waters of the red sea, but he is not doing something that is conceptually absurd, or impossible to understand: he is moving water out of the way, he is acting within the natural, it is understandable.  He does the impossible but graspable (the feasible impossible?).  When Jesus heals it is not some weird and wacky thing whereby the recipient is enveloped by a spiritual dimension outside of creation, it is simply that the broken thing is fixed, the disordered thing is reordered and so on.

And similarly, when God speaks “supernaturally” – be it in a dream, a vision, or the various other forms of communication that we see in Scripture – he does so using language (an aspect of creation) and ideas and concepts that are not incompatible with the created order, but are integral to it and connect to it.

So without God moving supernaturally in the first place there would be no natural, and without the natural the supernatural acts would have no context, no mechanism, and no application.  They cannot be separated.

So what’s to reconcile?

I think the difficulty comes when we consider our own personal journey through life.  That journey is a natural journey –  we were born, we grow, we experience the good and bad of every day as the rain falls on the righteous and the evil alike.  On that journey we face decisions and predicaments and problems.  We search out frameworks and information in order to make those decisions, we look for solutions to the predicaments and problems.

The “natural” aspect of that framework is to engage with those aspects that are universal or common to all (so-called common grace and common sense play their part).  And so when someone is sick we make the decision to go to the doctor – that is common sense, and the fact that there is a doctor to go to is a providential common grace.  But we might also ask God for the person to be healed “supernaturally” and that may or may not happen.  And I’m not even sure if we could tell most of the time.  Perhaps if the person is suddenly well without any “natural” intervention we would easily call that a miracle.  But what if the person simply recovered quicker-than-most after treatment, or avoided a worst case scenario, or was discovered to have some more minor problem than the major disease that was feared, or didn’t respond to treatment at all but suffered and died… at what point has the miracle stopped and the “natural” taken over?  I don’t think you can draw that line.  But it doesn’t stop me exercising common sense, and drawing on the common grace provided through the doctor, as well as praying for a specific extraordinary grace for the moment.

Similarly, if I need to make a decision I might ask God for guidance.  That may or may not (usually not!) involve a flash of lightning, a vision, a dream, or even an immediate sense of assurance.  It will involve the weighing of things both intellectually and emotionally, a cogitation, an investigation, a playing out of hypotheticals and a weighing of the possible results.  Where is the line which on one side I say “God told me” and on the other side I say “I decided”?  I don’t think it can be drawn.  “It seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit” is a perceptive remark methinks.

So what’s to reconcile? The natural and the supernatural work together.  I pray. I decide. I rejoice in God’s providential blessings, both the natural and supernatural and the usual conglomeration of the two that makes up our interaction with the divine.  My worship may involve being lifted up on angel’s wings, but just as readily be a simple “being,” thankfully responding to the basking sunlight and the turning of the seasons.  All of it is still worship.

Even the act of the cross is a mixture of both “natural” and “supernatural.”  Jesus dies as any human person who is crucified would die.  His resurrection is nothing short of a miracle.  But they are not at odds with one another.  The resurrection understood is not a rejection of reality it is the beginning of a new creation, a new “natural” – or perhaps the “natural” as it is intended to operate for eternity.  Jesus  is the firstfruits of this new creation.

Our calling as Christians is not a calling to the “supernatural” as such, but a calling to the new “natural” that is in Jesus.  We are to put off the old ways and clothe ourselves with the things that naturally pertain to eternal resurrected life.  These are not strange things, they are matters of faith and understanding and virtue that are understandable and graspable.  Whether or not that is played out in this life through miraculous interventions or ordinary obedience, I don’t particularly care and I can’t particularly distinguish.  All I know that however it looks, those who are living according to their new nature are doing so because the Holy Spirit is at work in them and I trust for the day when that is the most natural thing in the world.

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Reverend Mother asks: Tim 1,ch 4, v 10 says “….who is the Saviour of all men and especially of those who believe…” Is this the verse to quote to people who have lost a non-believer… or perhaps an escape clause for humanists?

Thanks for the question.  The text of 1 Tim 4:10 in its most immediate context is (ESV):

8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. 10 That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, and especially of those who believe.

But to begin with, some basic principles:  Your question is an exegetical one.  That is to say, it is asking for an interpretation, an “get-meaning-out” question.  Good exegesis attempts to disrobe the reader of current frameworks and asks the question “What did this mean for the person to whom it was originally communicated?”  Once that question has been considered the question of “so what does it mean for me (or for a humanist etc.)” can be asked, and hopefully answered, to some extent.

We must give attention to semantical range of words.  We know what we mean by, for instance, the word “Saviour”  but is that the meaning that is intended?  Paul, who wrote the original letter, knew nothing of modern day humanism.  And before we collide a passage with a specific question such as “Does this comfort those who have lost a person of no faith?” we have to consider whether or not the text is actually relevant to that question at all.

In my mind the sticking point is the phrase “Saviour of all people?”  What does this mean? Do the applications you suggest apply?

The word “Saviour” is in the original Greek σωτὴρ which certainly means “saviour” or “deliverer” but also “preserver.”  It is a word that applies to the general sense of divine preservation of human life and the providential giving of all that is required for sustenance.  It is telling that the word references the sense of God’s preservation in the OT, but it is not a word that applies to the messianic figures of David (and others) where the more specific sense of “salvation” in terms of rescue or vicarious victory is present.  Jesus is the first “Messiah” to also be “Saviour.”

The word “Saviour” implies an object – who or what is actually saved?  The natural object is “the world.”  When we talk about “the Saviour of the World” we do not intend some sort of exhaustive/universalist scope (in terms of individuals) the scope of the meaning is two-fold: this person has the capacity to save the world; this world has a Saviour, it is this person.

Therefore, based on this lexical analysis, my conclusion would be that the phrase “Saviour of all people” does not imply a universalism.  It implies that Jesus has the divine attributes of being “saviour/preserver/benefactor” of all people.

This conclusion is supported by looking at the immediate context.  What is the purpose of this passage? Well, in verse 8, the direct point is to encourage godliness.  This godliness is like “physical training” which has benefit both for the “present life” and the “life to come.”  In fact, through godliness, we could say we are saved/preserved for this life and the next.  The argument that is being made is that the godliness is worth pursuing (for salvation/preservation) because it is shaped around the character, nature and demonstration of the one who saves and preserves.  We strive for godliness because we hope/trust in this Saviour, even to the extent of recognise the preserving benefit of following Christ’s example in this life.

However, for those whose hope in Christ extends to the eschatological hope of belonging to the age to come (the more specific sense of “salvation”) there is even more reason to pursue the path of godliness because it is the path that pertains to the preservation of eternal life.  Thus, in my opinion, the original audience of 4:10 would have heard something like this: godliness is good for all people because it pertains to the preservation of all people in this world, and it is especially good for those who believe, because it especially pertains to the “life to come.”

How, then, does this apply to the applications you suggest?

a) Escape clause for humanists?  Well, yes and no.  It confirms the value of “godliness” for present-day preservation of human life.  I think the Pope said something similar recently about the value of “good works” even the “good works” of atheists.  Such good works are, well, good.  Does that give them an “escape” – well, perhaps.

b) Comfort those who have lost a person with no faith?  Perhaps, depending on the person.  I would think that passages that refer to the holiness and justice and compassion of God would be of more application.

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From DaveO:

The last two times I’ve had Communion… I’ve pondered a detail in the liturgy which to me looks like it is strongly based on the Luke account.

(Luke 22:19) And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 21 But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.

My Anglican heritage has me “hearing” the old (well old for me) liturgy as “for you, and for many”

(Matthew 26:26) Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

(Mark 14:22) And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

So a question of the Greek… rendered into English as “for you” in Luke. The other two gospels have “for many”. What does Luke actually say in the Greek? I like the community (across time and space) and the evangelistic impulse which “for you, and for many”’ has, and have been jarred by the intensely personal and private “for you”. And been adding an inside voice of “and for many”.

Thanks for the question DaveO,

As an aside, the other Last Supper account is, of course, in 1 Corinthians 11 where we read:

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Which also excludes the “for many” that Mark and Matthew apply as the indirect object of the pouring out of the blood of the new covenant. So it’s a 50% split between the “for many” usage and not!

Matthew and Mark both have the pouring out “τὸ περὶ πολλῶν” (Matthew, Mark has a different preposition) where “the many” is literally hoi polloi (which does not mean the upper crust classes) which has a sense of ‘the masses’, ‘the rest’, ‘the majority’.

Matthew has an additional phrase before the pouring out comment, in the imperative “Drink of it, all of you;” in which “all of you” is simply the word “all”, the “you” comes from the factor that the imperative “drink” (πίετε) is in the 2nd person.  In my mind this actually should lead us to de-emphasis the “you” pronoun and almost take the “all” as a vocative

Luke, however, simply has “τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν” where the indirect object is “you” (plural).

The distinction then, if there is any, is not between “private” (you singular) and “communal” (many) but between the specific participants in the last supper (you (plural) disciples) and the broader participants (the many who will come to faith) in the new covenant.

It seems there is a covenantal connotation of polloi with the word rendering the Hebrew rabbim which is associated with the non-Israelite peoples.  Therefore the distinction would be Luke’s emphasis of the application of the new covenant to the Jewish disciples, and Matthew and Mark’s would include application to the gentiles that would also enter that covenant.  Perhaps Jewish-focussed Matthew wishes to retain the emphasis on gentile inclusion, whereas for gentile-focussed Luke such a notion was less scandalous and needed less emphasis.  (Consider article in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology for ‘All, Many’)

In sum, both emphases are correct, and “for you, and for many” would seem to be a decent liturgical expression of it.

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