Faithful women,
Frightened.

Seeking dead,
Suprised by life.

Walking home,
Wonder and hope.

Racing Peter,
Racing mind.

Doubt lingers,
Denials fresh.

Empty tomb.

Breaking bread,
Burning hearts.

Touch and see,
Take and eat.

Ascended King,
Announcing kingdom.

Fulfillment already,
Fulfilled not yet.

Day one,
Dawn approaching.

It is finished,
It is not complete.

What is still to be decided is where the emphasis for the presentation will be made. The paper will seek to address these three areas broadly, while focusing in on one in particular. Currently I see three options:

1. Canonical development of Pauline pneumatological eschatology (seeing Galatians as an early starting point)
2. Paul’s framing of the Spirit as the new Law (parallels with the Exodus)
3. The case for the Spirit crying out (κρᾶζον) on our behalf.

The paper is still in progress, and I plan to share updates here from time to time. If you are interested in Galatians or Pauline theology I would love to hear from you over the course of the next few months.

Comfort and Longing:
The Spirit as New and Better but not Final and Best in Galatians 4

Paul’s reshaped view of Torah suggests that the post-Exodus Law was given to convict of sin and point to a future hope. Inherent in this view is the fact that the Law was never meant to be enough for Israel, but instead pointed to a greater future reality. Similarly, Paul argues that the post-Cross and post-Resurrection giving of the Spirit, while superior to the Law, also points beyond itself to a future hope and final redemption. In other words: Paul presents the Spirit’s work in a believer as a comfort (Spirit is greater than Law), but also as a longing (there is a greater reality coming). This is perhaps seen most clearly in Paul’s portrayal of the Spirit crying out “Abba! Father!” (4:6) Is Paul here presenting the Spirit as doing something on our behalf? If we are “adopted as sons” (4:5) why are we not able to cry out on our own? It will be argued that the Spirit, though living within us, is the one crying “Abba! Father!” on our behalf. An evaluation of πνεῦμα τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ … κρᾶζον will be coupled with a review of similar Pauline passages, specifically Romans 8:15-17, where the Spirit is presented as working on our behalf. A greater reality, namely full sonship, is presented by Paul as at least partially future. A final evaluation of how Paul’s early linking of the Spirit to our eschatological hope is fleshed out his later epistles will lead to a series of possible implications in the life of the church.

I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what they looked like.

Travel ought to combine amusement with instruction; but most travellers are so much amused that they refuse to be instructed.

[the traveler] comes to scoff and does not remain to pray, but rather to excommunicate. Hence in international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too much sneering. But I believe that there is a better way which largely consists of laughter; a form of friendship between nations which is actually founded on differences.

Only the traveller who stops at that point is totally wrong; and the traveller only too often does stop at that point. He has found something to make him laugh, and he will not suffer it to make him think. And the remedy is not to unsay what he has said, not even, so to speak, to unlaugh what he has laughed, not to deny that there is something unique and curious about this American inquisition into our abstract opinions, but rather to continue the train of thought, and follow the admirable advice of Mr. H. G. Wells, who said, ‘It is not much good thinking of a thing unless you think it out.’

Galatians 1:10-24

Do you think I am trying to seek the approval of God or people? Do you think this is all about trying to please pleople? If I were still pleasing people, then I would not belong to the Messiah.

I want to let all of you know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached was not invented by humans. I was not taught it by humans, nor did I receive it from humans; I received it directly from an appearance of Jesus, the Messiah.

You have all heard of my former life within Judaism: I greatly persecuted the church of God (even trying to destroy it), I was advancing in Judaism far beyond many my age within Israel, and I was a zealot for the traditions of my fathers. But when he (who was pleased to set me apart before I was born and called me by his grace) revealed his son to me so that I could proclaim him to the Gentiles, I did not immediately seek advice from a single person or go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I became one. Instead I went to Arabia, then again I returned to Damascus.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to meet and speak with Cephas, and I stayed with him for fifteen days. Other than James, the brother of the Messiah, I didn’t see any other apostle. (In the presence of God: I am not lying about what I write to you all.) Then I went to the region of Syria and Cilicia. I was not even recognized by the churches of the Messiah in Judea. They were only hearing “The one who formerly persecuted us is now proclaiming the good news of the faith he tried to destroy!” and this caused them to glorify God.

Innovation

I am a huge fan of innovation. It is no secret that I regularly read rumor sites and try to keep in the know about upcoming products from a certain technology company. But innovation can come at a cost. As the Chipotle (who should be applauded for their commitment to natural and responsible ingredients) ad highlights, there is a growing appeal for returning to a simpler way of doing things. From everything I have seen and read, this is a positive move for the food industry. But how should theological studies view innovation and the ever-present appeal for returning to the “way things were?”

Two Options?

The two opposing sides of this conversation appear to be:

• Let’s return to some form of past Christianity (Early centuries, Reformation, etc)
• Let’s form a new Christianity, rid of all the oppression and mistakes of past Christianity

I don’t see a need for either/or, and it doesn’t appear that middle ground is possible. (Unless we agree to “meet in the middle” at AD 1006) So what can we do? In the introduction to 20th Century Theology, Grenz and Olson provide some possible insight:

Theology describes faith within a specific historical and cultural context, and therefore is unashamedly a contextual discipline. Because of its contextual nature, theology poses an ongoing task. The fundamental Christian faith-commitment to Jesus as Lord and to the Triune God revealed in Christ is unchanging, of course. Yet, the world into which this confession is to be brought is in transition. Theology serves the church in each generation and in each cultural setting by assisting the people of God in reflecting on and applying the one faith of the church to the world in which  contemporary disciples live and engage in ministry in Christ’s name.

This offers a third way: the unchanging faith (emphasis on the past) is actively being brought into a changing world (emphasis on the present and future). We cannot abandon the past; Christianity is a historically-driven faith that depends on certain historical events having actually happened. But we cannot stay in the past; Christianity must be expressed in a way that the ever-changing world (and church) understands.

So let’s go back to the start, but let’s do so in order to articulate the full significance of that start to the present. Or as Grenz and Olson would say:

Consequently, theology must move among three poles-the biblical gospel, the heritage of the church and the thought forms of the contemporary world. It employs these three in seeking to articulate the unchanging confession of Jesus in a changing context the thereby to speak to the issues of succeeding generations.

Galatians 1:1-9

From: Paul, an apostle*, along with all the brothers and sisters that are with me.

To: The churches of Galatia.

Grace to you all, and peace from God the Father and our Lord, Jesus the Messiah, who gave himself for our sins so that he could deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of God our Father, to whom be the glory to the age of the age, amen.

I am shocked that you have so quickly turned away from the one who called you by the grace of Christ, and towards a different gospel. There really is no other gospel, but there are some who are troubling you all and who wish to distort the gospel of Christ. But if we (or even an angel from heaven!) preach a gospel to you that is contrary to the gospel I already preached to you, that person is accursed! As we have said before, I now say again: if anyone among you all proclaims a gospel contrary to the one you already received, that person is accursed!

* this title ‘apostle’ is not derived from any human and is also not given by any human, but by Jesus the Messiah and God the Father who raised him from the dead

When we apply this principle to all three stages of the reading process—the relation of readers to texts, of texts to their authors, and beyond that to the realities they purport to describe—it will be possible to make a number of simultaneous affirmations. First, we can affirm both that the text does have a particular viewpoint from which everything is seen, and at the same time that the reader’s reading is not mere ‘neutral observation’. Second, we can affirm both that the text has a certain life of its own, and that the author had intentions of which we can in principle gain at least some knowledge. Third, we can affirm both that the actions or objects described may well be, in principle, actions and objects in the public world, and that the author was looking at them from a particular, and perhaps distorting, point of view. At each level we need to say both-and, not just either-or.

From Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God, pg. 64

The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won…If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense—[then] it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world—news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn’t just about warming hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things—and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all. Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish-fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps.

Keller, Timothy (2008-02-14). The Reason for God (p. 210). Riverhead. Kindle Edition.

N. T. Wright, For All God’s Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church (Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 65–66.

Ehrman and Bell are leading the way on making scholarship accessible. Write reviews of their books and you reach those that already agree with you. Write and teach based on sound scholarship but in an accessible and entertaining way and you will reach their intended audience.

“Some Christian beliefs are nonnegotiable for any believer—such as the dogmas of the Trinity and Nicene Christology. Other beliefs are those to which groups of Christians adhere with firm conviction but also disagree over with other kinds of Christians—such as Calvinist or Wesleyan systems of theology. Still others are beliefs that some Christians hold, sometimes with strong feelings, but that are far from being central, sure, and most important in the larger scheme of Christian belief and life. Examples of the latter include a preference for baptism by immersion rather than sprinkling, the commitment to homeschooling children versus sending them to Christian or public school, and so on. The most central, sure, and important of these beliefs we may call “dogmas.” Those occupying the middle range of centrality, sureness, and importance are in this scheme called “doctrines.” Those which are the least of these let us call ‘opinions.’”

Read more in his book The Bible Made Impossible.