This week it’s at Mandi Kaye’s site with the theme, “The Wonderful Cross.”  Now, there’s a good theme!

Have a look at this video on Glenn’s blog.

Now up at Chasing the Wind.

Tim Keller, in a message All things are yours, shared his understanding of Mark Noll’s book America’s God:

The Evangelical Church was on the verge of really doing what it wanted to do in the 1830’s and 1840’s which was essentially convert America, essentially get to the place where America was an evangelical Christian country and society.  And then something happened.  And what happened was everybody waited for the Church…the Evangelical Church to turn to the big thing dividing the country which was slavery and to come up with what does the Bible say.  And guess what?  The Christian Church was too deeply emeshed in its own cultural differences, and read their cultural differences into the Scripture, and they couldn’t agree on what the Bible said about slavery and as a result, according to Mark Noll, we had to go to war…Because the Church couldn’t work out the[ir] differences and because the Church couldn’t come to the Bible and say, “Here’s the answer”.  And I think if the Church had spoken as a unified body, at that time with the power that it had, we wouldn’t have had to go to war.

Interesting theory, and it led me to wonder how Tim Keller or Mark Noll think the Church could have figured out that issue.  Received wisdom now days says that slavery is wrong, but biblically it is not that clear.  It is true that 1 Timothy 1:8-10 condemns “enslaving” (the NET Bible has “kidnapping” and the Mosaic Law also condemns this), but if slavery itself is sinful, Christians are hard pressed to explain its inclusion in the Law, an inclusion that goes so far as making provision for those who chose to remain slaves to their master for the rest of their lives.  Recognising this, is there a way Christians in the North and South could have come to a Biblical solution that addressed the terrible injustices occuring in their country?  I think perhaps so.

Now I’m not American and I don’t know a lot about the American Civil War so feel free to educate me if some fact of history mitigates against the solution below, but I do think the Evangelical Church in United States could have found agreement in what Scripture had to say about the issue of slavery at the time along the following lines.

The slavery legislated in the Mosaic Law was quite different from that in America.  The Law gave slaves rights and protections that were to be enforced and the New Testament’s instructions to Christian slaves and masters reflect the laws that applied to Hebrew slaves and masters (compare Leviticus 25:39-43 and Ephesians 6:5-9; Leviticus 25:42 and 1 Corinthians 7:21 for example). 

There is also the often unrecognised truth that slavery in the Bible is not restricted to one people group: Israelite and foreigner, Christian and non-Christian - all could be slave and master.

Imagine, then, if the American Evangelical Church could have come together and agreed that the Bible taught slavery is not the ideal state for Christians, but that it provides guidelines for the good and protection of those in slavery and, importantly, that anyone (white or black) could be bought and sold as slaves* and anyone (white or black) could own slaves.  By allowing white people to be included as slaves and black people included in the ownership of slaves, the real issue that plagued America would have been cracked open: Racism.

And then what would have happened?

* Interestingly, the prohibition of forced enslavement in the Bible would also have needed addressing in light of the way black slaves were introduced into America.

This week at Parableman.

I’ve been asked to compile a glossary of certain words that I’ve used in my posts that “someone” doesn’t understand.  So, in very basic fashion, here are my definitions of their first list.  If you want something more involved, visit Wikipedia.

Fundamentalism: originally meant someone who held to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.  Has come to mean an anti-intellectual conservative (usually in a religion) who is not open to reason.

Egalitarianism: A name for the belief that everyone is equal and should always be treated in the same way.  Usually adopted in a very broad sense.  In Christian conversation, it has come to refer specifically to the position that there are no specific roles reserved for or prohibited to men or women.

Post modern relativism: Very generally, post modernism does not think there is an overarching framework for the world.  Instead, the world consists of smaller frameworks that exist side by side, all equally valid.  Relativism teaches that truth or ethics or anything depends on the situation someone is in, i.e. there is no one truth.  Put the two together and you have an understanding that different people and groups of people see the world different but equally valid ways, and they should learn to live together, even if their views of the world contradict.

Montanist prophecy: Montanism was an early heretical movement in the 2nd and 3rd Century that taught an extreme view of the Spiritual Gifts.  Prophecy is…prophecy.

Arminian: It’s a theological understanding set up in opposition to Calvinism.  It’s best known belief is that God does not determine who becomes a Christian, people themselves determine if they become Christians.

Atemporal: Not temporal.

Oh, alright…

Atemporal: Describing a state or place where time does not exist.

Openness theology: I don’t actually know if that is the correct term.  Most often you see “Open Theism” which is what I intend.  It is the recent theological argument that God does not know the future, i.e. the future is open to being changed by our (and God’s) actions.

How cool.

An evil Christian Carnival this week using a character from the sinister Harry Potter books.  Can you call a hat a character?

Some time ago I wrote a little piece about the Father and the Son playing table tennis that I entitled Love leads to Glorification.  It reads, in part, like this:

Imagine, if you don’t see this as too disrespectful, the Father and the Son playing table tennis. At the Olympics. In the finals. Now, the Father and the Son are both equally powerful, equally skillful…equal in every way. Therefore, Neither would be able to win. Not only would Each be able to return whatever lobby the Other sent Their way, They would know what Each Other would do in every situation. A deadlock. Except…

The Father is the head of the Son (1 Cor 11) and the Son brings glory to the Father (John 14) so the Son would forfeit the game so that the Father would win.

When the Father was on the podium, He would invite the Son to stand next to Him to share His glory with Him because the Father loves the Son. (John 17:24)

I have been listening to a couple of messages from the 2005 Conference for Pastors listed at the Desiring God website.  According to what Bruce Ware teaches, I should have seen the match finish the other way around.

The Father is the head of the Son (1 Cor 11) and the Son submits to the Father.  In the Father’s plan the Son is the One who is glorified and so He will allow the Son to win.  Once on the podium, the Son would give everything He had achieved to the Father to glorify Him (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

This, of course, has ramifications for the applications I drew for marriage.  The husband is to glorify his wife, who in turn brings glory to her husband.  Anyone care to draw out the implications here?

And it’s not nice.

Up now at Crossroads.

Not necessarily. Read this.

Before going on, we must pause to ask what is distinctive about Christian love, and to recognize firmly that the meaning of love described in this chapter is not intrinsic to the noun agape or its cognate verb agapao.  Of course, this verdict is contrary to popular opinion, which often suggests that this word is chosen in Scriptures over other words for “love” because only this word group captures the determined love of God that seeks the other’s good…In the Septuagint [Greek translation of the Old Testament], if Amnon incestuously loves his half-sister Tamar, the verb can be agapao (2 Sam. 13:1).  In John’s Gospel, we are twice told that the Father loves the Son: one passage using agapao and the other phileo (John 3:35; 5:20 respectively).  When he details that Demas has forsaken him because he loved this world, Paul does not think it inappropriate to use the verb agapao (2 Tim. 4:10).  These examples could be multiplied.  My point is simply that there is nothing intrinsic to a particular word group that makes its version of love particularly divine.

Taken from D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit. A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14, p64. [Note, I have used only the English alphabet for the Greek words. Both Greek and English letters are used in the original.]

For no particular reason our baby started to cry.

We had put her to bed not too long ago, and usually she will sleep through without incident.  This time, however, she had begun crying - loudly.

I was at the computer right next to her room and Paula was in bed, so I went in and comforted Lylie and she settled. Thinking it might be a nightmare (do 6 month olds have nightmares?) I did what we usually do when there are nightmares in the house - I prayed a prayer of protection over her.

Now, God almost always answers prayers of this kind in our house, but for some reason this time he didn’t unless his answer was to prod Lylie so she would begin crying again, because that’s what she did.  And all her howling brought her mother to the room to see what was going on.

Well, I wasn’t going to let Paula get all the glory for settling her, so I did what needed to be done.  I picked her up, sat in a chair and rocked her.  This was no time for controlled crying.  And it worked! I got immediate results. Lylie’s eyes began to droop and after a little while we deposited her sleeping form back into her cot where she slept for the rest of the night.

It occurred to me that these little crises help me to bond with Lylie far more than if I just palm her off to her mother.  It’s almost as if Lylie learns who can be counted on to stick around until the crying, whatever its cause, comes to an end.

And then I looked at my relationship with God.

Often when I’m in crisis - disillusioned, hurt, angry or whatever - I don’t turn to God as much as I do to some distraction.  TV is a good one, as is food, reading, sleeping…  All these I know are there for me but what an insult to the God who is ultimate strength and comfort.  I need to learn to turn to God first instead of other things, knowing that unlike fickle me, he is not a Father that palms his children off onto others but can be counted on to stick around until the crisis, whatever it is, ends.