Titus 3: While we were hateful

ἦμεν γάρ ποτε καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀνόητοι, ἀπειθεῖς, πλανώμενοι, δουλεύοντες ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ ἡδοναῖς ποικίλαις, ἐν κακίᾳ καὶ φθόνῳ διάγοντες, στυγητοί, μισοῦντες ἀλλήλους. ὅτε δὲ ἡ χρηστότης καὶ ἡ φιλανθρωπία ἐπεφάνη τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ

Geoff Translation: For we ourselves also were, at one time, unthinking, untrustworthy, liars, slaves to passions and various desires, living in malice, even envy. We were hateful, hating one another. But while this was the case the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared...

Notes: This passage struck me like a tortoise between the eyes. How does the church deal with people who do not follow Jesus mandate to love others and love God, people who live in sin? Well, Paul shows us here what God did for us. While we were yet hateful, destructive people, God's kindness appeared and made us into new people. This kindness is three fold, through the advent of Jesus Christ, through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and through the personal experience of Jesus Christ in the lives of the Christians in Crete. While we were hateful, God loved us. Love people who make themselves difficult to love.

Encouragement to love others, while we were destructive idiots, God loved us in a constructive way.

I translated "ὅτε δὲ ἡ χρηστότης" in a strange way, "But while this was the case, the kindness" because many Greek words do not have single word English equivalents. This one seems to imply a concurrent temporal relation with the previous clause. The grammar structure almost points to the meaning, "after that." If one looks back to see the previous adverb, "ποτε," one might expect that the sequence is "we once were...after that," but the flow of the thought says otherwise. Paul argues "we once were , but the kindness of God appeared...not because of works of righteousness we performed." One would not imply with adverbs that after we were bad (when it stopped) that God's grace appeared, when that same author immediately argues that it was grace that stopped us.

I also supplied, "We were" a second time to avoid the list of traits being longer than the force of the verb.

Why will we not get what we deserve?

Not because God is mocked, not because God does not care about justice, but because of this:

οὐ μὴ ποιήσω κατὰ τὴν ὀργὴν τοῦ θυμοῦ μου οὐ μὴ ἐγκαταλίπω τοῦ ἐξαλειφθῆναι τὸν εφραιμ διότι θεὸς ἐγώ εἰμι καὶ οὐκ ἄνθρωπος ἐν σοὶ ἅγιος καὶ οὐκ εἰσελεύσομαι εἰς πόλιν (Hosea 11:9)

Or perhaps this, a parallel text in the New Testament:

ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν θεόν, ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν. ἐν τούτῳ ἐφανερώθη ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν, ὅτι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ8 ἀπέσταλκεν ὁ θεὸς εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἵνα ζήσωμεν δι’ αὐτοῦ. ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη, οὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήσαμεν τὸν θεόν, ἀλλ’ ὅτι αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς καὶ ἀπέστειλεν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἱλασμὸν9 περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν. (1John 4:8)

Both of these scriptures appear in the context of people not having knowledge of God, people living in ways that will result in God's wrath. And yet, this same God declares that he is to be trusted for amnesty, because he is God and it is his nature to love, not destroy.

Colossians 1:18, This needs to be on my mind.

ὅς ἐστιν ἀρχή, πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων,

This one [Christ] is the beginning, first born from the dead, so that he might be most honored in all things.

I gave this a very colloquial translation, but only to demonstrate the meaning of the passage as clearly as possible. Jesus Christ is the beginning, or even the ruler, so that he might be most honored, or more literally, that he might be first in all things. So, since God raised him from the dead for this very reason, we might as well endeavor to be up to this in the church anyhow. If God raised Jesus from the dead to make him most honored, then the question of "what is God's will for our church" is in a way easily answered. If we want to do what God is doing, try to make Jesus most honored. Above church government, above nationality, above individual fears and self-obsessions, above our denominations, above our local churches, above our jobs, our traditions, even our families and personal success. This is all easy to say, but if God's already up to it, then we really just need to ride his coat tails, because we'll just be doing what the creator of all things is already doing.

Thoughts on Romans 9-11

The more I think about these passages the more I realize that they are Paul's anguished thoughts given external theological expression.  And they are inspired to be normative for the church.  Frequently these passages seem to lead people into a very deterministic theology that seems self defeating psychologically.  One need not cite sources, but merely have conversations with people who immediately think, "what's the point of evangelism? how do I know I'm chosen?  what if God is hardening my heart? etc."

But I want to note certain things about this chunk of Romans.  Paul has already taught that the normative way God exercises his sovereignty is through the preaching of the gospel about Jesus Christ, and through the obedience those people to Jesus Christ as Lord.  As he gets to this portion of the text, Paul is essentially giving us a paradigm for thinking about why, after every effort to use the proper means has failed, some people do not believe the gospel. 

For instance, Paul evidently spent days on end reasoning in the synagogues with his country men concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  He became all things to all people, he gave up his rights, he loved, he prayed, he wished even his own accursedness for their sake.  And yet, after all the proper channels through which God promised to act were taken, he got nothing. 

And yet, Paul's response, and our normative example, is that Paul worships and calls for continued faithfulness in chapter 11, he tells of the need to preach in chapter 10, and in 9 he anguishes, but in all three chapters he hopes.  There is never a time when Paul simply says, "but these people were hardened to perish."  Paul instead says that the inclusion of those who have believed speaks to God's good intentions for those yet to believe.  I'm not citing a lot of verses, because most people are very familiar with these chapters.  But regardless of one's theory of election/providence/favorite part of reformation heritage to identify with, one has to say that as an apostle who frequently commends his own example, this inspired text is a tall order for the church.

1. Anguish over unbelief. (9:1-5)
2. Incredible effort to share the gospel. (Paul's normal way of life)
3. Resignation to God's involvement, but only after all possible work is done, but trust in his promises.(9:6-33)
4. Prayer (10:1-4)
5. Preaching (10:5-21)
6. Hope that all is not lost. (11:1-16)
7. Call to faithfulness to believers. (11:17-24)
8. Worship because of God's willingness to save, though circumstances indicate his disinterest. (11:24-36)
9. Faith in God's promise to save his people by means of Jesus Christ. (9:1-11:36)

I wonder

Is the obsession over formal equivalence translation of the Bible in western evangelicalism really just the product of people not knowing more than one language, and thereby having the inability to see that word-for word equivalency is very nearly impossible, but can even distort the meaning of things from one language to the next? 

Wie geht es Ihnen?

is the same as

How are you doing? 

But word for word is, "How goes it to you?" 

And a literal translation of "How are you doing?" into German would be the equally silly, "Wie machen Sie?"

Stuff for Greek Students

Παῦλος δοῦλος θεοῦ, ἀπόστολος δὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ κατὰ πίστιν ἐκλεκτῶν θεοῦ καὶ ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας τῆς κατ’ εὐσέβειαν ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι ζωῆς αἰωνίου, ἣν ἐπηγγείλατο ὁ ἀψευδὴς θεὸς πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων

1. κατὰ πίστιν ἐκλεκτῶν θεοῦ - according here means something like, "for the sake of."
2. the second time you see κατ is means "accords."  In modern english usage, "Your answer accords with most thinking on the issue."
3. εὐσέβειαν - this means piety, or religious practice and attitude.
4. ἐπηγγείλατο - this verb is deponent (takes passive endings, but has active meaning), use your personal ending chart to find out the person and number.  Note the past tense morpheme and how it effects the third letter.  The verb meaning is promise.

Fitness Info

300 Olympic Barbell weight set - 250 Dollars
Small Bench rated 400 pounds - 50 Dollars
Two sets of Dumbells and weight  - 50 dollars
Chin up and Dipping Station - 100 dollars

With these materials one could build considerable strength doing dead lift, one armed rows, chinups, dips, flies, lateral raises, standing shoulder press, pull overs, dumbbell presses, and hanging leg raises.  Not to mention calf raises with dumbbells in hand. 

For 450 dollars, a few hours of reading, and a little training each week one could become injury proof. 

What has been most influential in my preaching?

Reading Spurgeon's Lectures to Students
Learning Greek
Doing Exegesis, especially in Mark's gospel and 1&2 Corinthians, seeing the message of the cross of Christ in bold relief, as well as reading the importance of the resurrection and the present kingdom to gospel proclamation to believers.
Reading Barth and learning that the bible is the only inspired witness to revelation.
Reading Moltmann and learning that the cross is the criterion for calling anything Christian, because it reveals Jesus.
Reading Imonk's Jesus Shaped Blog for solidifying my suspicions about the fact that the New Testament teaches a gospel that is determined by Jesus.
Reading Dallas Willard's books wherein he writes of the absolute trustworthiness of Jesus Christ and the availability of God's kingdom to those who trust him.
Reading about the Spiritual Disciplines and learning to commend them as means for absorbing the Scripture into one's life.
Reading Francis Wayland's emphasis on the early Baptist practice of preaching without a manuscript to avoid rhetorical flourish and academic language.
My experience of preaching two sermons a week at a dying church for two years on the north side of Corpus Christi, Texas.  All of the reading I had done that transformed my preaching was essentially for them.