Meditation on Christ's resurrection as history.

A post, from a long time ago, by Ben Meyer's wonders about whether or not the resurrection is provable or is even able to be categorized as history at all.

Here's what I think:

1. Rather than being the event that contradicts all possibilities and therefore a non-historical incident, the resurrection is "the event," kinda like the guy who crushes a beer can on his head is "the man." It contradicts all known possibilities, but not all possibilities. If any event is historical, it is the resurrection, because by it God speaks to his creation.
2. The resurrection, in the creation we know, the fallen one, is the only possible event. In other words, no other event could have happened, not because I believe in determinism, but because YHWH is God.
3. So the resurrection, as historical is provable in the probabilistic sense, but it also provable in the sense of a final telos or eschaton of the creation, one day it well be proved. Also, the resurrection is provable in some sense by the life of the church insofar as the church actually fulfills its vocation to make disciples.
   

Brueggemann on Evangelism

Old Testament scholars not only care about evangelism, but think about it and write books about it. Walter Brueggemann wrote this gem of a book entitled "Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism."

I read Chapter 1 today. His gives us this taxonomy of evangelism:

1. The Hidden Victory of God - In the case of life post resurrection, this is the victory of God over the powers (gods) of death in Christ's death and resurrection. He hearkens back to the Exodus story, wherein God had such a victory of Pharaoh that Israel was free to escape even when Pharaoh's armies pursued Israel to the Red Sea.
   
2. The Announcement of that Victory - This is the retelling of that story wherein the powers of death are related to the very things by which those powers enslave us and in which we participate. This is not only the call to repentance but the declaration of forgiveness. In the Exodus announcement is that "your God reigns."
   
3. The Lived Appropriation of the Message - For Christians this is freedom from the patterns of sin and death in the world to live empowered by the Spirit to an alternative life, entire life, of neighbor love. In the Exodus story this is the giving of the Torah, which touches all aspects of life.

From this he raises three practical implications:

1. That there is no biblical distinction between social action and evangelism. Indeed a gospel message that says, "come get forgiveness" but offers no new life is no gospel. And a gospel that says, "do social action," but never says from what foundation or to what end is also no gospel at all.
   
2. Secondly that Conservatives must learn to apply the gospel publicly, outside the realm of private devotion. Also, liberals must own up to the epistemological embarrassment of the gospel claim.
3. Evangelism has to do with church growth. Not for the sake of institutional aggrandizement, but for the sake of calling people into worship and obedience of the God revealed in Christ.

My own reflections: Two people I admire and make fun of a lot are John Piper and Mark Driscoll, but two of their thoughts come to mind. First, Piper's claim that the gospel is a call to "not waste your life," is very congenial to Brueggemann's understanding of evangelism as a call to appropriation of the announcement. Also, Mark Driscoll once said in a lecture that the mission of the church is not about numbers for the sake of numbers, but is about numbers because it matters that more people worship Jesus.

Also, I think that Bruggemann's is quite sensible, and indeed is paradigmatic of much of the biblical material. Think 1Cor 15, Paul preached this gospel about Christ's death for sin and subsequent resurrection from the dead, by which the hearers are being saved, provided they hold fast to it. So there is event, indeed "the event," announcement, and appropriation.

So I took a speed reading test.

On the computer screen I tested 804 words per minute. This means that on a printed page I can read 25% faster. My comprehension was 85%. This is all well and good, except that it apparently means that speed reading courses won't help me much. Which it totally lame because there is too much to read and I can't do it fast enough. I think I'm going to learn to listen to audio books while I read.

On Wisdom Literature and Living: A Pedagogy from Hebrews

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
(Heb 5:11-14)

Solid food, theological reasoning behind the gospel and the implications of the gospel, is for mature people. What makes them mature, the ability to distinguish good from evil. So then, I think that a heavy dose of the wisdom literature for new converts to Christ is a good idea. Learning common sense within the context of the Torah seems to be an extremely good way to practice distinguishing good from evil.

Then we can move on to theology, as we've been learning to live it all along.

There is a lot of wisdom to the ancient practices of having new converts memorize the 10 commandments, the rule of faith, and the Lord's prayer. Perhaps the most important things to read, if we have literary type converts, would be first to direct them to the gospels themselves, then the wisdom literature, then we could just let them have at it.

Interesting Aspects of Romans 9-11

1. Paul is not happy that Israel does not believe the gospel. (9:1)
2. This does not mean that God's promises are void, because the promises to Abraham, as per Rom 4, apply to those who have faith. (9:8)
3. God's salvation comes by God's showing mercy, not by striving which seems to mean performing works of the law. (9:16)
4. God can apparently harden whom he will harden. (9:18)
5. Esau's judgement is interpreted as concerning his works in other New Testament literature. (Heb 12:16)
6. Why does God harden actively/allow Israel not to believe the gospel? Paul's answer is so that all those who do believe will be saved, from Israel and outside. This means that hardening is not arbitary, but for the sake of salvation. (9:21-24)
7. But why did Israel not recieve righteousness, while the Gentiles did? Paul's answer is that Israel did not seek it by faith. (9:30-32)
8. How then does God save, both Jew and Gentile? They are saved by hearing with faith.(10:9-17)
9. Why did some not believe, though all heard (Israel)? God held his hand out to a disobedient people. (10:21)
10. Paul's answer to the question of rejection is that God has a remnant, chosen by grace, they recieved righteouness, but by grace, not works. (11:5-7)
11. The others were hardened, but this hardening is mean, mysteriously to lead to the repentance of those hardened. (11:25-32)
12. The Gentiles who are grafted in by faith have just as much possibility of being broken off as those of Israel, broken off as they are, of being grafted by in, by faith or unbelief. (11:19-24)


What does all of this mean? That most interpretations of this passage probably do not do justice either to Paul's understanding of God's purposes in election and sway over human will or they do not do justice to Paul's argument concerning God's purposes to bring faith to those who have been hardened, in other words, the temporal nature of this passage is often discarded to speak of a flatly eternal sort of supralapsarian Calvinism, we must remember that Paul is dealing with his country men that he is laboring to see repent, not just concepts of potential people or lage people groups, he is trying to discern God's purpose in these people currently not believing the gospel, and it is so that other's might believe it, leading then to the salvation of those who, hardened though they were, initially denied it.