Some Older Comments on the Trinity & Femininity

Here are some comments from a lesson I taught way back 1994.  I think I still agree with myself.

In Gen 1:27, "So God created man in His [own] image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

Both men and women image God.  Just as a man as Husband in some special sense images the Second Person of the Trinity and a man as Father in some special sense images God the Father, so also the woman as mother, finds a model within the Trinitarian life of God also.  But where?  God has not revealed himself as “Mother.”   That is not his Name.

Nevertheless, the source of motherhood is to be found in the attributes and behavior of God.  And of the three members of the Godhead, the one that most presents himself as the model of motherhood is the Holy Spirit.  The woman as mother models in so many ways the work of the Holy Spirit.  You should be studing him, because I believe he was the model in which the woman as image of God was largely (but not exclusively) sculpted.

In Genesis 1:2 the Spirit hovers over the unformed, dark, and unfilled earth like a mother bird. The Spirit is "the Lord and giver of live."   Remember that God as the source of all created reality includes the paradigms of created gender within Himself.  Within the Godhead there resides the original mixture of attributes that will become the source of created masculinity and feminity.  The created qualities of masculinity and femininity reflect uncreated qualities within the Godhead.   So the qualities of the feminine in the image of God, the woman, arise out something that corresponds to femininity in the Godhead.

Holiday Feasting!

Everyone knows, of course, that the pilgrims established a feast, invited the Indians and the whole community, and all for the purpose of giving thanks to God for his gracious provisions.  But did you know that in decreeing a feast, they were acting according to a long tradition among the people of God?A tradition that gives priority to feasts—joyous communal eating and drinking—over against fasting and penitential self-affliction?

When the church is healthy she multiplies feasts, when she is sick and wayward she increases fasting and turns the feasting Table of the Lord’s Supper into a somber Tomb.   This is what happened in the late Middle Ages, before Calvin and Luther restored weekly communion, feasting, singing, and gave Christian people a reason for giving thanks.  Knowing that Jesus died to set us from from sin, death, and the devil leads to thankful feasting.

This tradition of giving precedence to feasting is not merely a tradition, it’s mandated by God in the Bible—Old and New Testaments.  God multiplied feasts and commanded his people to eat and drink and rejoice regularly, repeatedly.  Here is just one example:

And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the LORD your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the LORD your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household (Deut. 14:23-26).

So why does God command us to feast?

On Interviews & Testimonies, Part II

Continued from Part I.

Another problem I've observed in interviews conducted with the intention of discovering the authenticity of someone's faith has to do with a popular set of "diagnostic" questions.  Of course, we have to ask diagnostic questions of the one being interviewed.  It's not so much the questions that are the problem; rather, the answers that are given need to be wisely analyzed.  Whatever answers our questions provoke must be carefully evaluated.  Too often we react to the sound of certain words and phrases and are too eager to jump to cookie-cutter conclusions about the person's spiritual status.  So what am I talking about?

Probably the most popular set of diagnostic questions for evangelically oriented elders and boards are the two Evangelism Explosion (EE) questions:  

1.  Have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you can say you know for certain that if you were to die today you would go to heaven?

2.  Suppose that you were to die today and stand before God and he were to say to you, "Why should I let you into my heaven?" what would you say?

I've used these questions many times in my conversations with people and on evangelistic forays into the neighborhood around the churches I've served.  They are not bad questions.  They can be productive conversation starters.  But evaluating the answers given to these questions is a lot harder than is commonly thought.  For one thing, we need to be very careful about jumping to quick conclusions about somebody's spiritual life and relationship to God based on their short, off-the-cuff answers to these two questions.  I've seen young Christians and wiser elders draw unwarranted conclusions about a person's "unsaved" status simply because the person being interviewed didn't answer these questions with familiar terminology or used words and phrases that evoked "works righteousness" fears.  And conversely, just because a person knows all the right lingo in response to questions like this doesn't mean they are genuine believers. Are these issues for which school and elder boards are thoughtfully prepared?   I want to unpack this a little bit more.

Usus Politicus

The "political" or "civil use" of the Decalogue often gets little or no attention these days.  But every polis needs a legal code that will shape the way people live in relation to one another; and the ten commandments have an inexorably social dimension.  Yahweh gave the Ten Words to an amorphous Israel gathered at the foot of Mt. Sinai.  It was to be the charter for their new culture, foundational words that would mold and shape them into a peaceful, productive society.  The Decalogue is not given simply to guide individuals in their religious, private piety.  They are about how the community is called to live together in marriages, families, cities, and larger communities.  Here are two ways of summarizing the Ten Words that bring out the cultural focus.

The first way highlights what God seeks to promote in human civilization. The Ten Words are intended to form a particular type of society. A community of people . . .

1.  that put their trust in the true God (“In God we trust”), 

2.  that worship God in a fitting way, 

3.  that bear the name of God in a glorious way in their daily lives, 

4.  A civilization that safeguards people from the slavery of never-ending work and frees them to gather for worship on the day of the Lord, 

5.  A culture that honors and obeys parents and others in authority, 

6.  one that protects the life of the innocent, 

7.  that remains true to their marriage covenants.  

8.  that respects the right of private property against theft,

9.  where the courts are respected and justice is the norm because people testify honestly,

10. that are content with what gifts and goods with which God has blessed them.

The second way of summarizing the Ten Words calls attention to what is prohibited and the consequences of violating God's law.  

On Interviews & Testimonies, Part I

I've often been uncomfortable with the way we interview people to discover if they are believers.  My concern goes back many years.  It probably began decades ago as I was sitting with my young children as they were being interviewed by elders for the Lord's Table.  But it includes my participation in countless membership interviews conducted by church sessions and school boards.  So the problems I see are not endemic to interviewing children, but include the process of ascertaining the status of adults as well.

Part of the problem is that we easily settle for questions and answers that use simplistic slogans.  If we hear the interviewed adults or children say the right words, we accept their "testimony" without much more inquiry.  There are any number of evangelical code words and phrases that we learn so that we can communicate to one another that we are part of the same tribe.  Which phrases and terms we use depends on the branch of the church with which we are associated.  Some of the more common ones are:

Asking Jesus into my heart
Praying to receive Jesus
Personal relationship with God and/or Jesus
I was saved when. . .
I got saved. . .
My personal Lord and Savior

There are more, of course.  But you get the idea.  It's not so much that these phrases are wrong or dangerous in themselves. They can indeed helpfully summarize a Christian's experience and present commitment.  My problem is not that people use these catch words to give testimony to their faith.  My problem is that when these words are phrases are absent many interviewers are very likely to question the authenticity of that person's faith.  What often happens in interviews is that we fish for these terms and phrases, asking question after question hoping to hear something familiar.  Once we hear our favorite expression we breath a sigh of relieve and move on.  Here is a real life example.

Not All Killing is Killing

Thou shalt not kill - Deut. 5:17

To even understand what this law forbids you have to know something of the context of the Bible as a whole. This is simply a summary command.  Everyone who knows the Bible as a whole knows that this imperative is not meant to be taken absolutely.   It has to be understood in context.

About a decade ago, after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, this appeared in Christianity Today: “If we kill as a response to this great tragedy, we are no better than the terrorists who launched this awful offensive. Killing is killing, and killing is always wrong.”

No, that's not the case at all.  Suppose someone says, "I take the 6th commandment seriously. I believe all killing is wrong.  That's why I'm a vegetarian."  Has he really understood the meaning of this commandment.  Is he taking the commandment seriously? You want to ask him: So do you also not kill mosquitoes, roaches, and mice?

Thou Shalt Not Play God

When I was a teenager, a few buddies and I would periodically break into a local business.  We used credit cards to jimmy the locks on the back door.  There was no alarm.  We would never steal anything of real value, but we always left with something little—maybe some food (ice cream or candy) or a pen—just enough to top off the experience.  What experience?  The exhilaration that attends such audacious mischief.  For us to roam through the facility and not get caught was an adrenaline rush.  We could do it.  We did it. We were young, but we had the power.  And we didn’t get caught.  We were untouchable.  We were like gods.

Download and listen to the entire sermon on the 8th commandment.

The Triune God & Creation

Unexplored Dimensions of Our Christian Worldview

Of him, through him, and to him are all things — Romans 11:36

I.  What was God doing before he created the world?

    A.  WCF 2.2  God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things.

    B.   God’s ontological/relational independence

        1.  God neither depends upon, nor needs any other (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 5:9; Acts 17:24, 25; Col. 1:16; Rev. 4:11). God has/d no need for creation.  God desired to created, he didn't need to.

        2.  As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 1 John 4:8, 16) God experiences the fulness of personal relationship apart from creation.  Out of that fulness of relational happiness the Father, Son, ad Holy Spirit created the world and humanity.

Job's Lament - Part II

Continued from Part I

Let the day perish on which I was born,

and the night that said,

"A man is conceived."

Let that day be darkness!

May God above not seek it,

nor light shine upon it.

This is the beginning of Job's lament in which he curses the day of his birth (Job 3:1-26).  What are we to make of this?  Does Job's poem reveal sinful thoughts?  Is Job's faith wavering?  Has he gone too far?  There are many commentators who believe that this poem uncovers a sinful attitude of ingratitude and anxiety on Job's part.  Matthew Henry says,

"The extremity of his trouble and discomposure of his spirit may excuse it in part, but he can by no means be justified in it. . . . to curse the day of our birth because then we entered upon the calamitous scene of life is to quarrel with the God of nature, to despise the dignity of our being, and to indulge a passion which our own calm and sober thoughts will make us ashamed of.  Certainly there is no condition of life a man can be in this world but he may in it (if it be not his own fault) so honour God, and work out his own salvation, and make sure a happiness for himself in a better world, that he will have no reason at all to wish he had never been born, but a great deal of reason to say that he had his being to good purpose. . . There can be no reason for so vain and ungrateful a wish.  It was Job’s folly and weakness to curse his [birth] day”

The Widow's Mite

I see that the Gospel reading in the lectionary this week is Mark 12: 38-44.  I'm preaching through the 10 commandments, so I won't be commenting on this passage on Sunday.  But I would like to give a different perspective on this passage than what is normally heard.

It should be carefully noted that the 2 synoptic Gospels that include the account of the destitute widow dropping her little gift into the offering box at the temple have it sandwiched between 1) Jesus' warning about the scribes "who devour widows' houses," and 2) his indignant prophesy that Israel's temple/house will be destroyed (Mark 12:38–13:2; Luke 20:45–21:9).  These three blocks of texts are inexorably connected.

      - A warning against the scribes devouring widows' houses
      - A poor widow giving all she has at the temple/house offering box
      - Jesus condemning the temple/house of Israel to destruction

The widow is often used by preachers as an illustration of exemplary giving. She gives all that she has. Isn't that wonderful?  Really?  Would I as a pastor accept everything a poor widow had if I knew she was putting that much into the offering plate?  No way.  Think about it.  Apparently this widow's poverty was known.  And Jesus is not happy that the leaders of Israel are permitting this—more than that—encouraging it.  He's pretty angry.

This story of the widow's offering is not intended to be read as a object lesson about sacrificial giving.  It's not really about the exemplary piety of this widow.  She is so faithful that she gives sacrificially and generously.  There's some truth to this, of course. She is only following the advice of her pastors.  The problem is that the advice of her pastors is monstrously wicked and she apparently doesn't know any better.

This story is an indictment of the leadership of Israel—this is how they “devour widows' houses.”  They have created a system that preys on the weak and helpless.  That makes them believe they are being faithful and godly when they give much more than they need to or can afford to give. They have taught the poor to give everything they have to the temple building fund, which is contrary to the intention of the temple and the treasury system in Israel.  And all to line their own pockets.  Jesus is not first of all praising the widow’s action.  We are being told this story so that we can know why the temple treasury system is going to be demolished and destroyed – because instead of providing for widows and the poor, it sucks up their wealth and leaves them utterly destitute.  This is why the temple must be torn down, not one stone left upon another.