Eternal Perspectives

Dr. Jackson at SmartChristian has suggested that I offer categories for papers on Neil Anderson to provide more focus for participants. Here are the topics I recommend:

1. Anderson’s Understanding of Sin

2. Anderson’s View of Sanctification

3. Anderson’s Approach to Spiritual Warfare

4. Anderson: Believers Can Be Possessed

5. Anderson’s Theological Methodology

6. A Review of Anderson’s Writings/Seminars/Teachings

7. A Review of Criticisms of Anderson

Participants can write on one or more of the above, but it would be more valuable to have in-depth evaluations of one topic instead of a quick treatment of several.

Depending upon the response, I am tenatively planning to stop accepting papers during the first week of March.

Adrian at UK EVANGELICAL BLOG has stuck his thumb in more than a few eyes with his posts about the simple gospel. It seems people have a lot of different opinions about what the gospel is. I’ve commented on this before, but let me add this quote from my current favorite author, BRAD YOUNG:

“True faith is committing all one knows about himself or herself to all he or she knows about God.”

(Technically, this is not “the gospel” in the sense of it being the good news about Jesus Christ. But, according to Acts, the apostles preached about the Kingdom of God. How is that a part of the gospel?)

What do I like about this definition? It fits both the Old Testament and New Testament; that is, the requirement for salvation is the same. Unless you believe that people were saved differently in the Old Testament, which would be problematic.

What say you?

My post below recounted the miraculous survival of 400 worshiping Christians during the Christmas Day tsunami that devastated their city. Urban Legends, in the quote that follows, says it is a myth, although they have not yet contacted Bill Hekman – who can certainly affirm or debunk the story. Hekman’s church, however, has put a disclaimer on its website (CALVARY LIFE FELLOWSHIP) stating that the story is fictional.

“It is a wonderful story, a parable for our times. Unfortunately, the facts do not support it.

“After the tsunamis, disaster teams moved into the city of Meulaboh as quickly as they could get there, both to bring relief to the surviving inhabitants and to establish one of the two major aid distribution points for Aceh province (Banda Aceh is the other). Even amid all the chaos, the return of 400 people would not have gone unnoticed, nor would their story of having been away worshipping on a mountaintop when the waves came in have gone unrepeated.

“Yet despite the immediate presence of aid workers from around the world who came to help distribute supplies, a great many of whom were Christian and who would have been happy to trumpet any good news from the site of the disaster, the story did not surface. The press failed to pick it up too — not so much as one of those 400 supposedly spared told his tale of salvation to any of the reporters there to cover the devastation. Some might be tempted to attribute this dearth of news coverage to a lack of interest on the part of a secular press far more fascinated by other aspects of the disaster. Yet that would not explain how the Catholic News Service could on 24 January 2005 manage to produce this article on conditions in Meulaboh yet fail to mention the miraculous survival of the city’s Christians.

“The account of the 400 Christians who left Meulaboh to celebrate Christmas on a nearby mountain often lists Pastor Willem (Bill) Hekman of the Calvary Life Fellowship in Indonesia as its author. While we can confirm that a person of such name is a pastor with that organization and that the e-mail address often provided with the chronicle is associated with him, we cannot as yet establish that he is indeed the author of the piece. Our e-mailed query to him about his possible involvement with the tale has so far gone unanswered. (Which, given the state of things in Indonesia at the moment, is hardly surprising.)”

UL says it is a myth, and so it would appear. But as I said in my earlier post, whether it is a true story or not, Christians do need to display far more humility and far less entitlement and demandingness in life. We are seeking another city, whose builder and architect is God (HEB 11.10), and are but ambassadors for our King in this present life. We have no genuine rights or responsibilities other than those that He has given to us; we have work to do, not rights to claim for ourselves (LK 17.7-10).

My wife forwarded me the following email, which is currently making the rounds. As to its veracity, I cannot attest; I do know, however, that Willem (”Bill”) Hekman is the pastor of the church.

We know that 80% of the town of Meulaboh in Aceh was destroyed by the Tsunami waves and 80% of the people also died. This is one of the towns that was hit the hardest.

But there is a fantastic testimony from Meulaboh.

In that town are about 400 Christians. They wanted to celebrate Christmas on December 25th but were not allowed to do so by the Muslims of Meulaboh. They were told if they wanted to celebrate Christmas they needed to go outside the city of Meulaboh on a high hill and there celebrate Christmas.

Because the Christians desired to celebrate Christmas, the 400 believers left the city on December 25th and after they celebrated Christmas they stayed overnight on the hill.

As we all know, the morning of December 26 there was the earthquake followed by the Tsunami waves destroying most of the city of Meulaboh and thousands were killed. The 400 believers were on the mountain and were all saved from destruction.

Now the Muslims of Meulaboh are saying that the God of the Christians punished us for forbidding the Christians from celebrating Christmas in the city. Others are questioning why so many Muslims died while not even one of the Christians died there.

Had the Christians insisted on their rights to celebrate Christmas in the city, they would have all died. But because they humbled themselves and followed the advice of the Muslims they all were spared destruction and can now testify of God’s marvelous protection.

This is a testimony of the grace of God and the fact that as believers we have no rights in the world. Our right is to come before God and commit our lives to Him. Our right is kneeling down before the Lord almighty and commiting our ways to Him. He is our Father and is very capable to care for His children. Praise the Name of the Lord.

Bill Hekman
Pastor, Calvary Life Fellowship in Indonesia

Again, whether the story is true or not I do not know with certainty. But true or not, the point is absolutely on target: if we truly believe that God is in control, then we will be humble and accept whatever life offers or gives to us.

At this rate, I’ll be typing all of Brad Young’s JESUS: THE JEWISH THEOLOGIAN on this blog. But as I continue to slowly read my way through it, savoring each chapter, I keep running into more and more valuable insights he offers into the teachings of Jesus. This time he’s opening my eyes to new aspects of what biblical faith and prayer are all about.

In a chaper entitled “Faith as Chutzpah,” Young explores two parables that Jesus used to get across His teachings about the relationship between faith and prayer: the “importunate friend at midnight” (Lk 11.5-8) and “the unjust judge” (Lk 18.1-8). He contends that Jesus used a word play involving two Hebrew words, one of which is chutzpah.

“The word chutzpah is difficult to define in a single word. It means headstrong persistence, brazen impudence, unyielding tenacity, bold determination, or what in current English terms might be referred to as raw nerve. Can faith be described by the Hebrew word chutzpah?

“But the real issue with prayer concerns God. These parables teach expectancy in prayer. The great Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel noted that the real issue of prayer is how one understands God . . . The difficulty of prayer is the way one views the divine nature.

“One prays with bold determination because God is good. He is not like the contemptible friend who would not help his neighbor. He is not like the corrupt judge who feared neither God nor man and refused to help a needy widow. True faith requires bold perseverance . . . True faith is committing all one knows about himself or herself to all he or she knows about God. Faith can be defined as chutzpah. Persevere with unyielding tenacity.”

Young then turns to the twin parables and, as usual, provides valuable information about the times and cultural, thus bringing the stories into a different light. In the case of the persistent neighbor and his unreliable friend, Young explains he importance of hospitality in Jewish culture in the first century.

“In the Middle East the obligation of hospitality was highly valued as an essential requirement. At midnight the contemptible friend hears his neighbor’s voice outside the house. The neighbor does not knock because this would cause unnecessary alarm . . . By all custom and etiquette the neighbor must offer his guest traditional hospitality. In many ways, according to the culture, the visitor is not only the neighbor’s guest but the guest of the entire village. A dinner, including bread, the essential part of every meal, must be prepared for the visitor . . .

“What do the listeners expect? When they hear the story, they expect the friend to open the door for his neighbor . . . Instead of providing the anticipated result, however, the contemptible friend answers with a feeble excuse . . .

“The outrage of the audience will be directed toward the unacceptable behavior of this friend . . . His excuse is totally unacceptable. Everyone hearing the parable will view him with extreme contempt. They will complete the story because they know what the neighbor standing outside the house will do. Shamelessly he will pound on the door with bold tenacity . . . The man outside the house demonstrates his brazen tenacity as he reacts to his friend’s contemptible behavior in refusing to answer a simple request in the time of an emergency.”

The Greek word translated as “shamelessness,” “impudence,” or “persistence” in this passage (describing the friend at the door) is used as a synonym for faith in the story of the unjust judge. This word, Young says, is comparable to chutzpah. In each of the parables faith is “being as defined in a mini-drama in which steadfast perseverance is depicted as the perfect example of true faith in the goodness of God.”

What makes the judge so bad in the second parable is the Jewish view that rulers and judges are stewards of God’s justice and authority on earth. It was required of judges to rule fairly and faithfully. God is concerned about the welfare of people and the judge, as His representative, should reflect God’s love for less-powerful members of society. “Saying that a judge does not fear God is a most serious charge,” Young says, adding later that “tenacity was the only weapon the widow possessed.”

Young provides numerous examples of rabbinical teaching on chutzpah, but the best illustration is the story of a famous rabbi named “Choni the Circle Drawer.”

“Because of a severe drought, the people approached Choni and asked him to pray for rain. When Choni prayed and no answer came, he took decisive action, which offended some of the religious leaders of his day. Choni had the audacity to draw a circle in the dirt and pray to the Almighty, ‘I will not move from this circle until You send rain.’ The miracle happened! The much-needed rain fell . . . Choni’s strong-willed perseverance is a true expression of his devout faith in the goodness of God.”

The message of the two parables is to be bold and confident when praying, knowing that God is good and will answer the prayers of His children. Young cites numerous examples from the ministry of Jesus that show His delight and approval of tenacious, brazen, and determined prayer and faith:

“In a number of the healing stories in the Gospels, Jesus responds to an individual who has demonstrated strong-willed determination by saying, ‘Your faith has saved you’ . . . the friends of a paralytic . . . the woman with a hemorrhage . . . the woman who burst into the house of Simeon with a bottle of ointment . . . the Canaanite woman who steadfastly begged Jesus to heal her child . . . the blind man in Jericho . . . The firm determination of these individuals who approached Jesus with their needs and Jesus’ affirmation of their faith demonstrates the qualities of the Hebrew term chutzpah.”

In these two parables, Young says, Jesus employs the Jewish concept of “kal vechomer.” Kal is the “light” side of an argument, while chomer is the weighty and significant side. The principle is characterized by the phrase, “How much more . . . !”

“If it is true that a contemptible friend who will not even assist his neighbor with three loaves of bread at midnight will be moved to action by the tenacity of the petitions of his neighbor, how much more, on the weighty side, will the merciful God be moved by the prayers of his people. If, on the light side, a corrupt judge will give an equitable decision in favor of a helpless widow because of her bold persistence, how much more, on the weighty side, will God grant the steadfast petitions of those who serve him.”

Young ends his discussion of faith where he began, focusing on the determining factor in prayer:

“The issue of prayer is God. People mistakenly pray as if God is a friend who does not care or a judge who does not deal justly . . . in many ways the theme of these colorful illustrations can be summarized by saying, ‘God is your good friend.’ Because God is good, perseverance in prayer will receive the answer.”

Let’s start with a quick quiz. One question, multiple choice:

Which of the following beliefs were closest to the teachings of Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan?

A. The theology of the priests and Levites
B. The theology of the Sadducees
C. The theology of the Pharisees
D. The theology of the Samaritans
E. A and B
F. None of the above

To find the answer, let’s look at the familiar story another time (Lk 10.25-37):

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

BRAD YOUNG will HELP US think our way through the parable, beginning by getting us to hear it with the ears of Jesus’ original audience: first-century Jews.

In the mind of the people, “Samaritan” was anything but good. The Samaritan was understood to be an enemy. Though Samaritans accepted the five books of Moses as authoritative for faith and practice, they rejcted the oral law and were not considered to be Jewish . . .

In contrast to the Samaritan, the Levite and the priest were true members of the Jewish communty and served in the temple. Alhough they were descended from the priestly families, they had one thing in common with the Samaritans. The priestly class from the time of Jesus was almost exclusively composed of Sadducees, and like the Samaritans, the Sadducess rejected the oral law.

Because we know the end of the story, we “know” that the Samaritan is the good guy. Not for the people then. To modernize it, substitute your favorite enemy for “Samaritan:” Democrat? Republican? Muslim? Abortionist? American? Mother-in-law? Whoever that person might be, that’s how the Samaritans were viewed by the Jews.

Young continues his emphasis on the oral law during the times of Jesus:

The oral law, which was accepted by the Pharisees and the majority of the people during the period, taught that preservation of of life supersedes all other laws. The Sadducees, having rejected the oral law, interpreted the Scriptures in a literal fashion. They emphasized religious and ceremonial purity. Unlike the Pharisees who interpreted the law in a way to give it practical application in daily living while preserving its validity, the priests and the Levites preferred to adhere to the letter of the law.

So the priests and Levites – who were likely Sadducees – rejected with oral tradtion and held to the letter of the law. The Pharisees, in contrast, promoted the spirit of the law and had a hierarchy of values.

There is another cultural issue to uncover. Jesus says that they left the man “half dead.” Young explains:

The term “half-dead” probably refers to the Hebrew word goses which had a technical meaning in the Jewish oral law. The goses is a dying man who is in agony. According to the Jewish oral law, most of these individuals will die . . . The rabbis were concerned that the goses would not receive adequate care. They ruled that the goses, i.e., dying person, must be treated as a living person in every respect . . . According to the oral tradition, every law in the Torah may be broken if it will extend and save life . . .

What if the Levite and the priest thought that he was dead? The written law teachs that a priest and a Levite cannot become ritually impure even for a member of their own family (Lev 21.11) . . . At least a literal interpretation of the written law would prohibit a priest or a Levite from burying an abandoned dead corpse. But this violated the oral law.

The Pharisees lived by a different code. In the oral law they have another tradition. The Oral Torah teaches that a person is required to bury an abandoned corpse . . . In fact, they taught that though the high priest himself may not become ritually impure to bury a member of his own family, he is required to become impure in order to bury an abandoned body . . .

In either case, whether the unclothed, beaten man in the middle of the road was dead or alive, the priest and the Levite were required to stop. According to the oral law, they either had to bury the dead or give life-sustaining assistance to someone in need. But they are Sadducees, and they reject the Oral Torah.

So the Pharisees have the same approach to helping people as Jesus. But what about the Samaritans’ theology? What was their position (and, thus, the position of the anonymous Samaritan in the parable)? Young explains:

One must not miss the connection between the Samaritan and the Sadducean priest and Levite. Not only do the priest and the Levite reject the oral law but also the Samaritans lived only by the written letter of the five books of Moses. From a religious perspective the Samaritan was endangering his ritual purity in the same way that the priest and the Levite may have become ceremonially unclean.

The theologian who had posed the question “Who is my neighbor?” understood Jesus parable. Although he could not bring himself to say the name, he knew that it was the Samaritan who was the true neighbor to the half-dead man in the road.

So, how did you do on the quiz? I had no idea prior to reading Young’s treatment of the parable, and the cultural information he provides puts the story in a different and clearer light. As Young says, “my enemy is my neighbor!”

The parable teaches that the neighbor is not the man in need of life-giving assistance but the enemy. The key for understanding the parable is Matthew 5.43, where Jesus teaches us to love our enemies . . .

The parable communicates its message to the uninitiated, but it also reaches the scholar and the theologian on a deeper level. Everyone should abandon prejudice ad love all people – even someone who may be considered to be an enemy. The message of Jesus in the parables seeks a response. Jesus said to the theologian, “Go and do likewise.”

Taken from Brad H. Young Jesus: The Jewish Theologian (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), pp. 165-169. Available through Christian Books Distributors (click link above).

There are a couple of new Top Ten Polls listed on my sidebar. The first is for “multi-purpose” blogs that cover a variety of topics, from politics to Christian living to theology. The second lists those blogs that primarily (although not exclusively) discuss theology. I hope to add more, such as issue-specific blogs (aplogetics, abortion/prolife, Christian psychology, and Christian living).

I’m sure there are a lot of other blogs out there of which I am unaware. Please let me know of any you think should be included.

Also, let me know if your blog is not listed. My template all-but disappeared last week and I had to rebuild it from an old copy I had saved.

Christianity Today’s WEBLOG from Friday has a number of links to excellent articles and essays online, such as Pastor James L. Evans’ balanced call to reconsider the value of a taboo subject (”CONSIDER TRACK RECORD OF SOCIAL GOSPEL“). Evans writes,

“Clearly there is a personal side to religious devotion. Spiritual truth and discipline begin as individual decisions, but they survive and thrive because of the support of a believing community. We may see ourselves as lonely pilgrims on a journey of faith, but if we look around, the traffic is pretty heavy on the road we travel.

“Frightening powers of hate and greed and prejudice thrive in our society and have an impact on us greater than our individual efforts to resist them. Only a force of equal or greater strength will be able to stare these demons down. I believe that force is found in a believing community committed to both personal piety and social justice.”

There’s also a link to an article from the Detroit Free Press that asks, “WHAT IS AN EVANGELICAL?” The author provides some good insight into the history and development of the term:

“The way ‘evangelical’ is used today was shaped in part by a coalition of Protestants — including the Rev. Billy Graham — who began calling themselves evangelicals to separate themselves from the Christian fundamentalist movement of the 1920s and ’30s. Christian fundamentalism began in the late 19th century among American Protestants reacting against all things modern. That movement was — and largely is — characterized by an anti-intellectual, separatist mentality that attempts to keep the church apart from culture. Graham and other post-World War II ‘evangelicals’ wanted to engage culture to spread the gospel.

“Today, ‘evangelical’ has as many intended meanings as there are evangelical congregations, which is why it’s so difficult to accurately count how many evangelicals there are. Different pollsters find different counts — between 7 percent and 47 percent — depending on how they define ‘evangelical.’ Most scholars say the evangelical population of the United States is about 25 percent.”

There’s a link to a quite interesting story about Rabbi Irving Greenberg (”YOUR MESSIAH OR MINE?).

“Noting the world’s 1.7 billion Christians and 14 million Jews, he said Jews must ask if ‘all of these people are stupid and so spiritually and intellectually unsophisticated that they can be sold a bill of goods.’

“In turn, Christians, he said, must inquire of Judaism, ‘If this religion was meant to be replaced, to go on and pass on, then how can one account for the fact that a religion that is 3,500 years old is not only alive but going through a great renaissance and rebirth with all its crises?’”

In a related but quite different vein, THE JERUSALEM POST calls attention to a soon-to-be-released by Knesset member and Rabbi MK Elon. The Post provides some insight into the rabbi’s view of evangelicals:

“‘The state hasn’t done enough to reach out to our strategic partners, the Christian lovers of Israel,’ Elon said. ‘Whoever knows the Bible is aware that our role is to be a light unto the nations, so it is our responsibility to reach out to the Christians as part of our redemption process.’

“Elon blamed the lack of outreach to Christians on a combination of the troubled history of Christian anti-Semitism, an exaggerated fear of missionaries and what he called ‘the cynical political reasons of people not on the Right.’ He said that as a rabbi, he had no problem talking to evangelicals, because ‘I am secure with my Judaism and I know who my messiah is.’”

One needs to be careful about confusing security and certainty with reality. (I have written HERE and HERE on the love affair of evangelicals with political Israel.)

Finally, THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER reports on a survey that studied the effect of religious beliefs on behavior.

“A new study of more than 3,000 teenagers and their parents, the most comprehensive research ever done on faith and adolescence, finds a teen nation where more than four in five youths say religion is important in their lives. But the survey also indicated that many teens know little about their religion and many activities compete for their time.

“Among religiously active teens like Mike Laheta — those who attend services weekly and belong to a youth group — their faith appears to be making a significant difference in their behavior.”

I have just added a couple of links to my sidebar: DISCLOSURE and TESTIMONY. The first tells you where I’m coming from; the second how I got there.