Threads from Henry’s Web

Imagine being on a ministry committee with the responsibility for examining the plan for Jesus and his congregation (the disciples) going to Jerusalem that final week. What would you consider? What would you recommend?

From my observations of the various decision making bodies in churches, I suspect there would have been a few people who would bring up good, practical business and political plans. After all, many claimants to the title of “Messiah” or “King of Judea” had come to bad ends. One should surely learn from their mistakes.

The best management advice would have suggested not going to Jerusalem at all, or perhaps doing so incognito. Of course, without 20/20 hindsight, we know that the best possible business and political advice would have been completely wrong.

Yet the pattern of decision making, and of evaluating decisions that would have avoided holy week is precisely the way in which we make and evaluate decisions in most of our churches.

[Warning: I'm about to ramble!]

I’ve been thinking about this recently because of the discussion amongst some Methodist blogs about measuring ministry. I started following this a bit when John Meunier wrote a post titled Check Day Every Week. In it, he tells us of Bishop Willimon’s (North Alabama Conference) new dashboard on the conference web site which informs all concerned–or not–of how each church in the conference is doing based on various measures.

Now I have great respect for Bishop Willimon in many areas, but his dashboard profoundly troubles me. I wonder, for example, just what such a dashboard would have shown about the climax of Jesus’ ministry. That may be an unfair question, but it did occur to me.

But then I read this post, It’s All in the Numbers, following a link from John Meunier again, and again I was profoundly troubled.

Now again there is much to be admired here. There are many ways in which this church is truly living out the gospel in their community. Yet there are no professions of faith as of the time of the post, and just one baptism coming up.

Now as I discuss this, please don’t mistake me for some sort of expert on church growth or pastoral ministry. (Actually, on re-reading, I see no chance that you would!) I studied Biblical languages in school. No church administration, no pastoral counseling, no ecclesiology. There are those who think that if you read Greek you can pretty much handle anything, but that’s not the case. On the other hand, I’ve been watching churches work–or not–since I can remember.

What troubles me about Bishop Willimon’s dashboard is the question of just what “success” is in a Christian context and how it should be measured. I’ve been studying 2 Corinthians over the last couple of weeks and I’m profoundly impressed by Paul’s simple, yet incredibly challenging words: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” — 2 Cor. 11:30 (NRSV)

So if I were a pastor or a congregational leader, should I want to show a dashboard that displays how many people I have brought to Christ, or how many I have baptized? How would “boasting of the things that show my weakness” work on a dashboard?

Even further, looked at from a business standpoint I would have to ask just who takes responsibility for those stats. Do we account for the different locations and callings of all those churches?

At the same time, I have to ask whether a church that is not growing, producing new spiritual life, is really doing the work of ministry. It’s surely not an indefinitely sustainable pattern. And there is, after all, the gospel commission. Evangelism may not be popular today, but it is a command. If we aren’t making disciples, just what are we up to?

In a sense, we see an apparent conflict here between making disciples and being disciples. Of course, this conflict may be, and probably is, largely artificial. It’s likely that many of the churches who are bringing in new members, and thus making new disciples, are also being disciples. Those churches who are doing the work of ministry–being disciples–may be doing the work of witness, but are just plowing hard ground.

It seems to me that what we look at is a set of methods or programs that we expect to help pastors solve these sorts of problems. There must be some method that one can use that will bring in more souls, make more disciples, produce a better church congregation and thus improve our witness.

I know how desperate pastors are for these kinds of things, because sometimes they will even ask me. And you know, I really know nothing whatsoever about church growth programs. But right now, I’m thinking it’s worse when they ask the experts on church growth, because then they get a method or a program, and they try to apply it in their own church. Very often, it doesn’t work.

In my own area–Biblical studies–I see this with the desire to find a program that will get one’s congregation studying the Bible. Church libraries and storerooms are overflowing with discarded material that was supposed to make the congregation more Biblically literate and build their enthusiasm for Bible study.

I’m often asked what “program” I follow. Well, I have written some materials, but those materials will only work with one additional ingredient. For me, the only formula to generate more active and effective Bible study in your church is to be excited about study yourself, and let that infect others. (Hint: It’s part of discipling!)

Similarly, I recall talking to many people during the Brownsville Revival here in Pensacola. People would come and observe Brownsville in action. They thought they wanted something similar in their own churches, anything to bring life to seemingly dead congregations. They would go home and try to implement the things that Brownsville did, and in general, it didn’t work.

Why? I would suggest it’s because only discipleship begets discipleship, and I see this as a New Testament pattern. There is no program to produce true disciples. There is only the process of letting God take over. That is so hard. I like to hold onto my piece of the territory. Programs allow me to do that. They let me talk about my success, when I know very well that “God gives the increase.”

As I was thinking about this post, I received a link to a new review (from unlikely christians) of the forthcoming book by David Alan Black, The Jesus Paradigm. (Full discloser: My company is publishing this book.) Now Dr. Black is a professor at a Southern Baptist seminary, and I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation. Between those two points there is a great gulf fixed–or is there?

We have chosen to measure success in a manner that makes us feel comfortable: giving, attendance, etc. Nevermind that the “wildly successful” 500-member church is in a community where 1% of the population has really believed the gospel. This is success? Black offers another way:

It is necessary that we view what we do on Sunday as merely the beginning, not the climax, of our work. In other words, we need to change the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the ministry of our churches. The question is not ‘how many attended on Sunday?’ but ‘What did those who attended on Sunday do during the week to advance Christ’s kingdom?’ This is what it means to be the People of God. It is a people who understand that the mission of the church is to fulfill God’s redemptive mission. (75)

I’d like to comment here on the best way to disagree with a book, or even a person. A number of folks have pointed out to me how “Southern Baptist” Dr. Black is. But that can easily be an excuse to miss the point. The question is not what your structure is or which program you’re following, unless your structures or your programs are preventing you from truly following Jesus Christ. The challenge remains the same. It’s a good idea to talk about church polity and how it impacts our ministry, but first let’s get to the foundational principles.

What Dr. Black is saying here is something I know my own pastor would preach. He has even begun adding “and your witness” to the areas in which new members are asked to support their church. I like hearing that. It says that we have a church hear to be a witness and to make disciples. Disciples carry out the ministry of Jesus loving one another as Jesus has first loved them.

One of the questions I always ask someone when they ask me for suggestions about how to make their church grow spiritually and even in numbers, right after I tell them how deep my ignorance of the subject is, is this: What is the mission of your church?

I’m amazed at how few people in the various congregations I’ve visited can state a mission for their congregation or even quote the written mission statement. I recall once asking a member what the mission statement of their church was. I was, in fact, looking at it written on a sign on the wall, but the member didn’t know.

But let’s take a step behind that written mission statement. What is God’s mission for your church? We know it involves making disciples. And before we take the easy road, consider the answers that many of God’s servants through history have received. Their paths have been difficult and dry, often they have seen little measurable success in their own lifetimes, and frequently they wind up in fiery furnaces, facing lions, or hanging on crosses. There’s no program that’s going to handle all of those things!

There is no substitute for prayerfully seeking God’s will for your church, then following it even when some dashboard doesn’t portray you in the best light.

God is calling you to accomplish in your community what God can do, not what you can do. So break off all the tangled thread of solutions that were designed for someone else, get back to the basic gospel, and do what you need to do.

Now that sounded like a conclusion, but I’m going to add one thing. I’m not against all programs and solutions that are suggested by others. I’m not against good business practices in church, with one critical proviso: All programs must be subordinated to the mission to which God has called you. To be honest, until you have the answer to that question, I don’t think you can possibly choose a workable program. After all, I can’t choose between my hammer and my saw until I know whether I want to pound in a nail or saw a board.

Thanks for sharing in my ignorance and weakness here. Perhaps if we’ll all be weak, we’ll see an outbreak of strength in our churches–God’s strength.

On previous Father’s Days I have blogged about my own father or about the experience of becoming a stepfather after 40.

But yesterday and today as I received cards, phone calls, e-mails, and text messages I was thinking about what a privilege it is to be a father and to have some part of guiding and shaping young lives.

With the privilege, of course, comes an incredible responsibility. I’ve found that one of the great responsibilities is to filter all the ways in which I think I can help with children and grandchildren, and try to say and do only those things that are constructive.

It is so much easier to be destructive than it is to be constructive. You see, children–indeed families–can take quite a bit of time and effort. When trouble comes, the best course is often to listen and let people work things out. But when you just know the right thing for everyone to do, it’s so hard to keep quiet!

The fact is that we will all make many mistakes in the process, but I’ve made one observation when looking at my own parents and friends and relatives. It seems that those who simply care, and are willing to take the time, have a great deal of success in spite of mistakes. I know I have been mistaken time after time. I take great comfort from the number of truly wonderful parents I know who also admit to mistakes.

We’re not any of us perfect, but we can all try. We can all take some time. We can all care. That is both our greatest privilege and greatest responsibilty.

The Internet Monk has a list of his most bone-headed ministry mistakes. It’s worth a read. Some of them aren’t really mistakes, in my view. For example, #4:

4. Two of my deacons made a big deal about me taking the a.m. service ten minutes too long two weeks in a row, and they humiliated me in front of the rest of the deacons over it. No affirmation of my preaching at all. Just p.o.-ed that I had gotten them to the restaurants a bit late. I was angry; really angry. The next week I preached for 12 minutes total and dismissed the service at 15 minutes till noon. The reaction was predictable. I actually consider that one of my finer moments. If your view of preaching is “How soon do I get to dinner?” you deserve to be accommodated.

Enjoy!

… or any other human relationship, for that matter.

I got back yesterday from displaying books at Methodist annual conference for Alabama/Northwest Florida. We had the joy of having our daughter Janet join us there to help out, and we got to chat a bit. We were talking about raising children–she has two–and I mentioned how I used to regard myself as completely ignorant of child raising when I was a bachelor, unlike some singles I know, who are pretty certain their children wouldn’t behave “that way!” I noted that when I married Jody, and acquired a ready-made family, I discovered that “completely ignorant” was not an adequate description of the depth of my ignorance!

One observation survived the passage from bachelor to married with children–I had always observed that the particular child-raising theories expressed by the parents seemed not to be reflected in the children. There were disciplinarians with behavioral disasters and seemingly permissive parents with well-behaved, polite children. The one thing I always noticed was that the children of involved parents seemed to do well, while the children of distant or absent parents tended to do, well, not-so-well.

Today I found this wonderful article on Inside Higher Ed. Rosemarie Emanuele, Mama PhD, talks very personally about the mistakes one makes, and the love that is still there–and works.

I loved it! I hope you will too.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a few days, but it’s been busy, as you can tell from my low level of blogging. Geoffrey Lentz is the associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Pensacola, and a former student of mine. In fact, I met Geoffrey in the first class I taught for youth in a United Methodist church when he was just 14 and I had been a Methodist less than a year.

No, I’m not going to go into all the embarrassing youth stories. Suffice it to say that everyone realized then that Geoffrey was going to be a minister, and that never changed. I now attend his Wednesday Bible study on the Lectionary passages and really enjoy learning from him. He has become quite conversant with church history and especially early church fathers, and makes extensive use of that knowledge in teaching. Since my training and inclination starts from the opposite perspective, i.e. I tend to study the Bible as a piece of ancient near eastern literature, I find his study to be a nice complement to my own.

I have long tried to persuade Geoffrey to start blogging, and finally he has. His blog is at GeoffreyLentz.com, and I’d call attention to his thoughtful first post, What is a Preacher to Do?

He also just wrote a study guide for the Participatory Study Series published by my company, Energion Publications. You can find out more about this excellent new guide to the Gospel According to St. Luke on its catalog page.

I really like this:

Why do I like it? Because besides collecting some help for folks in need, this gives kids a taste of the experience of others. Hopefully it will stimulate their thinking and result in many new ideas as the years go by. We need to harness the imagination and energy of the young!

A few days ago I wrote on my business blog about embracing Web 2.0 as a publisher. Today I read this op-ed from the Washington Post, in which Bruce Sanford and Bruce Brown think there ought to be a law–or bunches of them, to protect print journalists from the pernicious arrival of the future.

His article includes such gems as:

But Google’s products (and profit) would look a lot different if, for example, the law said it had to obtain copyright permissions in order to copy and index Web sites.

Wow! Amazing.

Of course, his argument is that it is only through special laws that sites like Google have done so well. I would argue that those laws are absolutely necessary to meet the needs of the information technology involved.

What journalists and other writers and artists need to do is learn to work effectively with new technology. Information will flow more freely; that ship has sailed. Learn to live with it.

(HT: The Agitator.)

This is a continuation of my series on interpreting the Bible. The first post in the series is Interpreting the Bible I: Obvious Exegesis, while the most recent one was Interpreting the Bible VII: Christians Contribute to Confusion.

As a reminder, my starting point was a number of comments that suggested that those who take the Bible less literally are thereby less serious Christians. These suggestions were not coming from conservative Christians, but from non-Christians. In some cases, I question the motivation of such suggestions. I believe that Richard Dawkins, for example, prefers to debate hard-line fundamentalists, and so would like to dismiss the rest of us from the Christian faith.

What I believe I have done so far is to show that interpreting the Bible, broadly called hermeneutics, is a bit more complex than these folks would like, and that just taking the Bible literally, as best as I can understand what they mean by “literally,” is not the way Christians have read the Bible historically. I have further noted that even basic exegesis, which I define as looking for the text as it was intended to be understood by the original audience, is more complex than these folks let on.

Those who are eagerly waiting for me to solve issues such as the violent passages in the Bible or gay and lesbian marriage will still have to wait. While I will discuss those issues, my primary purpose here is to look at the method. I believe that our discussions of the Bible would be much more profitable if we would simply think and talk more about how we come to our understanding, rather than simply trying to defend that understanding. Two people may mean very different things by saying that a concept is “Biblical.”

Let me reiterate here, as I believe has been demonstrated previously with the help of commenters, that the issues I’m discussing do not hinge on belief in inerrancy. Belief that the Bible is inerrant does not limit one with reference to determining what type of literature a particular passage is.

I want to clarify this further by using a couple of examples. Two controversial books amongst conservatives are Jonah and Job. There are quite a number of people, even conservatives, who will claim that these books are fiction. To make that claim doesn’t mean that the books contain error. Rather, it means that they intentionally present whatever it is they present in fictional form. Now there are those who regard fiction itself as evil, but that is a different argument.

Let’s say you have a historical novel, written with the intent of accurately portraying a certain place and time in history, but doing so using fictional characters in a fictional narrative. What would constitute an error? Well, if one introduced an historical event connecting to the story, and placed this event at the wrong time, it might be an error. Suppose one had an historical building, and it didn’t exist at the time in question. That might be an error as well.

The key in all of these points would be the author’s intent. Such an author might well introduce a house or a small street that was not historical, but wouldn’t presumably introduce a new city hall. There are things that the historical novel wishes to convey that are facts, and there is a story to be enjoyed along the way. Similarly, C. S. Lewis is not in error in the Screwtape Letters if there is no demon named Screwtape, nor is he in error in the Chronicles of Narnia if there is no Narnia.

I find this comparison to be of interest in the books of Jonah and Job, because I think we often get to argument about little houses and back streets in the story, while missing the big things.

In Jonah, I frequently hear discussions of two major issues: First, was Jonah really swallowed by a “great fish” or a “whale”? Second, was Nineveh really so big it would take three days to walk across it. (Those who know some Hebrew may laugh a bit at the particular rendering there–I’m using the form in which I normally hear the question.) But are those really the questions?

I would suggest several themes in the book of Jonah:

1. God can call you to uncomfortable places and missions on which you would rather not go.
2. Even when you’re going the other direction, God is likely to take note.
3. Intervention may be uncomfortable–note how Jonah ends up on shore.
4. God offers repentance even to people I may hate.
5. God is gracious and merciful, even to the worst of sinners.

… and a few more, none of which are really impacted by whether the story is fictional. All of these points have annoyed someone at some time, and indeed according to the story, they annoyed Jonah, and presumably were controversial amongst the readers of the book. I am not here trying to argue these points. I’m simply saying that finding fiction in the Bible is not the same thing as finding error.

I consider Job even more interesting. If the book is historical, then we have an individual who suffered because God allowed him to be attacked and tormented. This may, of course, be extended by analogy or in principle to others. On the other hand, if the story is fictional, then one would have to assume that Job is presented as a type of sufferer, and that it is quite possible that God might call on me–or you–to suffer to make a demonstration for him. Are you concerned that bad things seem to happen to good and bad people alike? Here are some bad things that happen specifically to good people.

Now you can get that second idea while reading Job as historical, though I have heard some folks argue that this is something that happened only once (they forget about Jesus, apparently), but I think that if you read it as a fictional account, you are forced to the conclusion that it applies broadly in principle–God’s servants may be called to suffer in the fight against evil, and they may never know just why. Note that Job never receives an explanation of his suffering.

So you note here that the issue is not whether the text is in error or not, or whether one takes it literally or not, but rather just what are the literary characteristics, what is meant by them, and just how that might apply. If I could delete one statement from the vocabulary of Christian conservatives it would be: “I take the Bible literally.” If I could delete one statement from the vocabulary of liberal Christians: “I don’t take the Bible that literally.” Both are misleading. (As I note in my review of his book How to Study the Bible for Yourself, Tim LaHaye makes this his first rule of hermeneutics. Needless to say, I disagree; in fact, I regard it as one of the worst rules.)

If I might pound this point into the ground a bit, some interpreters, including LaHaye, have applied this to the book of Revelation. But just what should one take “literally” in the book of Revelation? Personally, I tend to take the introduction quite literally when it uses a variety of literary indicators to show that John saw a vision. Once we’re in a vision, I take things as a vision, which may have varying degrees of attachment to physical things, and I believe that is the correct way to take them. Even where there are likely literal connections, such as with the churches, or with a number of symbols, the vision context warns us to look for more than meets the eye. Revelation 12 & 13, for example, while containing symbols that may be attached to specifics, also provide a very good general appreciation of the battle between good and evil, and numerous principles for living in the midst of such a battle. The literal/non-literal dichotomy is terribly inadequate to the task of understanding such a passage.

Some may be wondering how one would take the vision framework non-literally. There are many commentators who would treat the “vision” as a literary device used to present a set of symbols. It is quite possible to understand it in that way, though I disagree. In fact, I think assuming an ecstatic state, in vision, for some of the writing of Revelation will explain some literary and linguistic peculiarities, but that is a completely different topic.

Now I would maintain that conservatives, liberals, and those between are all susceptible to coming up with ad hoc interpretations that allow one to avoid the impact of a text, or to make a text have an inappropriate impact. Let me start with a controversial one.

Leviticus 18:22 is commonly presented as a text demonstrating that homosexuality is sin and unacceptable. (Note that “I don’t take it that literally” doesn’t seem to work here. It’s pretty literal.) I like to present people with Leviticus 19:33-34, which says to treat an alien living among you as one of your own citizen. Now I’m not arguing what applies here and what doesn’t. Both are literal commands given in the same general body of law. A valid approach would be to ask just how commands given to Israel in Leviticus apply to others.

But avoiding all of those issues, it’s very interesting to watch people’s responses to this connection. First, it is almost universally assumed that simply because I present Leviticus 19:33-34 I believe that Leviticus 18:22 is not applicable. Liberal audiences often assume that because they want to; conservative audiences assume that because they can’t imagine why I would present them with such an alternative text if it isn’t to undermine the impact of the first text.

But the real question here is why and how either text should apply. I would suggest that there are similar tasks of interpretation and application that need to be used in both cases. In actuality, however, with most lay audiences I find that these two texts apply according to cultural inclinations. Those who favor gay and lesbian inclusion exclude 18:22 and very often the same people are delighted to include 19:33-34. Those who oppose homosexuality accept 18:22 as applicable, but will explain that 19:33-34 was for a different time and place.

I would suggest that the processes of interpretation and application for both are complex, and that in neither case is the best approach simply trying to interpret the individual text. If your question is how should our nation treat aliens residing in the country, I doubt you will find clear direction as to what the law should be. If the question is how you, as an individual Christian, should treat aliens, I think you will find many scriptures that you can group together in finding the proper principles to guide your behavior. Similarly with homosexuality, I think the approach that says, essentially, “How many texts are there that forbid homosexual acts, and how can I (or can I not) explain them,” is precisely the wrong approach. A better approach to any question is to try to discover God’s ideal, and then look at how we might approach that.

To continue with my examples, however, let me look at another passage:

³²Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ³³With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. ³⁴There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. ³⁵They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. — Acts 4:32-35

Here again you have a verse that can split interpreters right in the middle! Out of the characteristics of the early church just what are we supposed to apply today. Many of my more liberal brethren are pretty happy with the common ownership thing, and there being nobody in need in the church. They will take various attitudes toward the rest, such as whether this should be done entirely by the church, testimony to the resurrection, and so forth. There are many who would make Christianity a matter of the distribution of wealth, without any regard for the testimony to the resurrection.

On the other hand, I can cite my own uncle, Don F. Neufeld, an interpreter in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, associate editor of the SDA Bible Commentary and editor of the SDA Bible Dictionary. In a personal conversation he was quick to point out to me that this practice was quickly abandoned by the church and didn’t appear to be the norm in Paul’s congregations, for example. This strikes me as an example of finding trajectories in scripture, something I think is quite appropriate, yet is often criticized as too subjective.

I have heard many other explanations for common ownership, most aimed at keeping the early church from being too socialist. So here we have otherwise conservative interpreters finding the exit ramp in the middle of this verse. But liberals need not crow, because Christian unity, power, and mutual support is inextricably linked to the testimony of Jesus risen from the dead, and I think it would be difficult to build a case that the author of Luke-Acts would think it possible for it to be any other way.

(I am aware that liberals do not necessarily deny the resurrection, though many do deny a physical resurrection. I am called liberal, and I personally accept a physcial–or bodily–resurrection. Nonetheless I believe that it is a liberal weakness to attempt to separate good works from the incarnation, and that is a weakness I see as ultimately fatal to Christianity.)

The issue, I think, is our attitude in approaching scripture. There can be quite a variety of approaches to understanding scripture, and none of them are necessarily related to whether we take scripture seriously. What I would say characterizes a distinctly Christian approach to (Christian) scripture is the attitude of openness to correction. Each approach to interpretation can be used as a means of avoiding things I don’t like, i.e. of making scripture simply the excuse for what I wanted to do anyway.

Liberal and conservative Christians don’t differ so much on the basic desire to avoid certain passages as on which passages they avoid and how they go about avoiding them.

(I will continue next time by trying to look faithfully at some of the violent passages in the Old Testament. Don’t get impatient–this series will go on for a long time. Apologies to those who want a quick answer; I don’t believe in quick answers.)

I want to discuss inspiration just a bit, partly because it is relevant to my next post on Biblical interpretation (I hope to post it later today), and partly because there is someone on Twitter who is spouting a great deal of nonsense with regard to parallels and borrowing.

(For those interested, he is @BibleAlsoSays, he claims to be “Religion’s Nightmare,” and he has a rather routine web site by the same name. If you are a believer, don’t worry about going to the non-believers side. You’ve likely heard all these accusations before.)

But my purpose here is to take a quick look at the way in which we debate inspiration, particularly, but not exclusively, when we’re using the term “inerrancy.” I would note that the problem I’m discussing remains the same in any discussion in which some form of inspiration beyond an ordinary text is claimed of scripture.

I recall an e-mail discussion I had with a Muslim lady some years back. She seemed to believe I was a sincere Christian who might be willing to look at something better. We exchanged several e-mails, but her final attempt to persuade me can be summarized as: The Qur’an provides you with a clear and absolute answer for every question and aspect of life.

Now I don’t know enough about Islam or the Qur’an to say just how many Muslims would agree with that, though I have heard it from more than one Muslim, so I know it is not a unique argument. What ended our discussion was my response. I told her that I didn’t find that to be an attractive quality in a holy book. She was quite stunned.

You see, to her it was obvious that a book that answered all of her questions and gave her absolute ground on which to stand must be divine.

I hear the inverse of that argument quite frequently. There is some aspect or another of the Bible that someone thinks is inconsistent with divine revelation. They bring this to me, sometimes repeatedly, because it is so obvious to them that it is the nail in the coffin of my faith, and they are quite stunned when my faith doesn’t merely rise from the supposed coffin–it never got in it in the first place.

The problem, stated simply, is this: What are the proper characteristics of divine revelation, and how do you make that determination? In each of these cases, someone has determined what divine revelation must or must not be, and thus their argument is conclusive. Well, it’s conclusive if you accept their assumption.

Now some of you might be questioning me on another point, which is just how parallel the parallels are, and just how “copied” the copied scriptures are. This is a good question. While one may find strong parallels to the stories of creation and the flood, one also finds significant differences.

It is my contention, for example, that the Genesis account was not copied from the Babylonian or Sumerian accounts, but that the author was aware of other creation accounts and intentionally contradicted them. One need only compare the function of the wind in Enuma Elish to Genesis 1:2 to get my basic point.

But in addition, while one may demonstrate a parallel in certain places, it is much harder in others. Where in the ancient world do we find poetry comparable in style and theme to that of Isaiah 40-66? Where do we find struggles with God that are truly like those of Jeremiah?

But valid as those points are, I don’t think they get to the basic point, which is that we impose a set of assumptions of what a sacred text should be on various sacred texts, which would result in nothing more than selecting the sacred text that we find most helpful to the needs we feel. But is that a valid argument for truth?

I would suggest that a major part of the problem here is the attempt to select a religious text as standard prior to a “selection” of faith or a faith community. In my own experience, an acceptance of scripture was not logically prior to an acceptance of Christ, even though I knew scripture.

I might put it this way: The good news (gospel) is not that the Bible is true and you ought to obey it, but rather that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead. I become part of the body of Christ first, and then accept the scriptures because they testify of Jesus.

Now I don’t want to make this a purely fideistic approach. I do believe there is a place to discuss reliability, but that place is within the context of the body of Christ and not as a sterile issue that simply attempts to demonstrate a body of facts. But at the bottom of my belief system, unsurprisingly, is an act of faith. Without that act of faith, the rest does not seem nearly so logical.

Apart from the conviction in my heart–you ask me how I know He lives / He lives within my heart–I would not be able to get past the impossibility of the resurrection. Let me add here that those who try to make the resurrection more “possible” do nothing for me. If the resurrection is “possible” in a natural sense, then it is also meaningless.

Thus, for me, learning about inspiration has been much more of a journey in which I look at how God works. I learn more about how God speaks by looking at how scripture works–borrowing and all–than I do by reading specific texts that discuss inspiration. By looking at scripture I understand how God works.

There is one other point regarding borrowing. People who make an issue of borrowing in the ancient world seem to me to be generally unaware of literature. What we call mythological themes are repeated in literature all over the place.

To call this copying plagiarism, besides being anachronistic, is to ignore the passage of time and the contemporary standards of referencing. But saying that the Genesis story of the flood was copied from Gilgamesh, or that the first chapter of Genesis was copied from Enuma Elish ignores even modern standards. The standard movie disclaimer “inspired by a true story” might be closer to the truth.

To be effective, communication must communicate, and that involves using relevant themes. Mythological themes come from the problems of real life, and it should not be surprising at all that they are repeated multiple times.

I would add one final note, though this blog post is getting too long. In establishing parallels, one must look at both similarities and dissimilarities. One can make almost any two stories seem parallel if one is permitted to list only similarities. On the other hand, one can prove that two stories are not at all parallel if one is permitted to list only dissimilarities. You can only establish some form of true relationship when you consider both, and in addition account for universal themes.

For me, the study of parallels is a completely relaxed process of looking at how scripture communicates–a wonderful blend of human and divine. Without the human, it could not be said to communicate; without the divine it would have nothing to communicate.

Sometimes even when I’m way to busy to be blogging, at least on my personal blog, I just see so many things that point the same direction that I just have to write. This post didn’t start with this quote, but it says something I like to read:

If our denomination has lost the boldness to be fools, then we do not need new initiatives or new advertising campaigns. We need to recapture our lost zeal.

That’s from John Meunier, a United Methodist local church pastor and blogger.

This follows on some discussion of radical discipleship over on GenXRising, who says:

If we, as Christians, are really worried about declining numbers of the faithful in this land, we should practice a more robust form of discipleship.

Ouch! You mean we have to mean what we say? Say it ain’t so!

This all relates closely to a book I’m publishing, The Jesus Paradigm by Dr. David Alan Black, a professor of Greek and New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Indeed, it does appear that there are things on which Methodists and Baptists can agree. [Cue the shock and amazement.]

To go back to the question, however, here’s what I wrote on my company’s blog right after contracting to publish Dave Black’s book, my third of three points:

Finally, this book hit the spot because I’m frustrated with the professional church. Practically every pastor I know is frustrated as well. They are wondering why church members don’t get to work, why they don’t serve one another, why they don’t share their faith, and why they fill pews (occasionally, even!) rather than getting involved.

I like to call myself a passionate moderate–just look at the blog header. I’ve discussed before what I mean by combining those two terms. I never mean that we don’t need to really be who we are called to be. That’s going to take some willingness to get radical on at least one point–faithfulness to what we know is right.