Christianity/Theology

The Bad News Really is Bad News

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

I made a kid cry at work the other day.

Currently, I work as a tutor in an after school program. It’s sort of like a program I did in Richmond, except this one isn’t a Christian organization. It’s government funded so the thrust of the program is not personal growth or real learning, but rather results results results. I hate it. Nevertheless, anyone that knows me knows I would find some way to actually try and mentor these kids and not just tutor them.

Well this past week, these two fourth graders were teasing eachother. She kept calling him gay and he kept calling her a lesbian. Yeah, fourth grade. I immediately stood behind the boy (who was seated in the corner) and placed my hands on either side of him on the table he was seated at and leaned in to talk directly in his ear from behind him (did I explain that posture well enough? It is relevant to the rest of the story.) Anyway, I spoke very firmly and directly to the boy. Here was the exchange:

P: “You do not call a girl that!”

M: “Why? She called me a name first!”

P: “That doesn’t matter!”

M: “Why not? I get it at home, and then I come here and get it here too!”

P: “That’s not the point, Mike. Mike, what she says does not change who you are or effect you in any way. Mike, I’m telling you, if you don’t get over this whole hypersensitivity to other people, it will affect the rest of your life.”

M: “No it won’t . . .”

P: “Mike, you can’t do this. This shows that you’re putting all of your security and identity in what other people say. You have to rest your security and who you are in something other than the approval of others. If you don’t, it will kill you later on in life. You will face more heartache, failed relationships, and insecurity than you can possibly fathom now. You can’t just react to what others say. You’re putting too much stock in the words of others and it will ended up hurting both you and other people in ways you can’t see right now. So please, just stop talking and get your work done.”

Yes, I talk to the kids like that.  They get a whole lot more than you think.  He pulled his folder of work to himself and at least looked like he started to work. Finally, I had some peace to work with my other students. He looked self-sufficient, so I went on doing my job. About 20 minutes later, I look over to his table and ask, “Mike, how are you doing?” He doesn’t answer. He’s just sitting there leaning forward over his work, staring it at. I get up, only slightly frustrated and angry. I assume my previous position, staring at the back of his head as I stood over him. I said slowly and sternly: “Mike, you need to do your work! You haven’t even done anything! Mike, I-“

I was cut short as I saw over his shoulder tears falling on his folder. I asked if he was okay. He said no and I asked why. He told me it was because of what I said. Ouch. I apologized to him for having not been sensitive to the way he was or what he was going through and just blindly going the stern, rough, “bad cop” routine. I thanked him for once more reminding me that there wasn’t just one singular formula to dealing with kids, but we have to wisely play off of who they are. I told him that he had helped teach me a lesson that would make me a better father someday. Later I found out that he actually is gay. God only knows the ridicule and frustration he goes through that I had just added to. We got him some tissues, I asked for his forgiveness, he gave it, and that was it.

But it wasn’t. Thinking about it later, I realized something: I had been giving him the bad news of the Gospel. On account of being sinful humans, we all so crave relief from the abiding sense of guilt and shame inherent to us. We do this by finding our approval and security in things and people we can see and measure. This is just psychological language for idol worship. We worship and make idols out of things less than God because we think those things can give us what we feel God cannot. Mike had placed his security and identity in what others said about him. So whenever that is challenged by a passing word or name, he feels like this is a challenge to the very system he has placed his faith in. He cannot let that “sin against him” pass without responding in “just” and “righteous” wrath against the transgressor. We can’t judge Mike too harshly. I hope we see the more “mature” ways we do this as adults.

But there is truth in what Mike was doing. Transgressions are first relational. We feel personally hurt and impacted when people act in a negative way towards whatever it is we have put our faith in. Secondly, transgression always demands a response. Sin does not just exist in a vacuum. It exists in a system – a relational system – that doesn’t “feel right” when there is no just response for evil. That’s why Mike couldn’t just let those words of ridicule go. So here’s the essence of the bad news I was giving Mike: you have placed your security, identity, and – ultimately – your trust and faith in something so far lesser than what they were intended to be placed in. Your every thought, motive, desire, and act is geared towards everything else but God, namely your own security and affirmation. At some level, I think Mike’s soul heard this, and it broke and felt the pain and hurt of true accusations at his wicked heart. The bad news really is bad news.

But it’s not the only news. If this same thing had happened at the tutoring program in Richmond, I would have been able to tell Mike the flip-side: Yes, you are that bad. Yes, you should cry – you should hurt. And what’s even worse, you can’t change yourself from doing this. But, God has found it to be his pleasure – His delight – to do for you what you could not do for yourself: to live that life that places it’s whole trust, security, and identity in Who God is. That life that could let anyone say or do anything to him because he knew that those transgressions spoken and done against him would in fact receive a just retribution. The life that was free to obey, free to worship, free to love God in joy and peace. The life of Jesus Christ. And what’s more, he died the death that you deserve to die for your improper worship of things and people rather than God. And when you believe that yes, you really are that evil; and trust that yes, He really is that good; then both that life and death are credited to you, so you can experience and taste a growing degree of that life of Christ lived out in your own while heading towards a climax only to be known and fully enjoyed in ages to come.  A consummation he has promised to get you to.

But, unfortunately, Mike doesn’t live in Richmond, and he isn’t a part of the Youth Life Foundation, so I couldn’t tell him this, no matter how much I wanted to. If you’re inspired to, pray for Mike. Ultimately his salvation doesn’t rest in my words of rebuke or encouragement, but in the Sovereign God I love and serve, who reveals Himself even in the most mundane of interactions.

Help Jesusbranded.com

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

I just ran across this site.  These are some great designs, and apparently they are in a really bad financial situation.  They’re trying to sell a huge load of shirts in the next two weeks to stay alive.  They have a great blog, support an orphanage ministry, and they seem to treat their business as a ministry.  So if you have some extra cash and can support a great ministry while looking good doing please do.

JesusBranded.com

I can’t let this not be shared

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

On my new favorite website, Patrol Magazine, I stumbled upon this amazing interview with poet and professor of Creative Writing at State University of New York, Joe Weil.  He talk to Patrol magazine about poetry, his relationship with God, art, and his other variosu thoughts on life.  As I’ve read the article, I keep finding more and mroe quotes that I am throwing all over my facebook profile, blogs, and such.  Well, it got to be so many, I’m just going to put them all here.  This man is amazing, and I intend to buy as many of his books of poetry as I can.  I resonate so much with all that he says.  Please read the entire interview if you can.  Finally, also bookmark Patrol Magazine.  It really is incredible.  Here are my favorite highlights:

Art is self-indulgence that, if done well, with a good grasp of the craft, and with a sense of constructive dread, ends up serving others. Of course, you can’t predict how it will serve them. . . A poet must be faithful to his or her obsessions. . . The wrong kind of self indulgence is that which puts the artist or his cause ahead of the work. Poets must be both supremely arrogant and humble. Arrogant enough to commit an act of creation. Humble enough to get out of the way of their own work, and let it be whatever it really is.

I once described faith as something I got on my shoe and can’t kick or wash off. I’m stuck with it. My poems are the trespasses and blasphemies of a malpracticing Christian, one who can’t stop ogling an attractive leg, or wanting to be first, who is venial, foolish, seldom at peace, horny and lonely, and so far from the kingdom of God that his whole life becomes the theme of that distance, someone knowing he is in deep shit. It’s the perfect place to be, where you can’t fool yourself into thinking you’re on the right track

I love God, not the idea of God. I hate the idea of God. Ideas are pretty, and neat, and well-formed, and my poems insist that I love God only by my pratfalls and mistakes. The only thing I have to offer God is my sins. I am interested in mercy when it appears in places where you would never expect it. I am interested in love that shovels shit against the tide. I am interested in grace.

I am wrestling with God because I consider God a worthy opponent. . . We have to remember God has the gravitas. God is the dignity. We’re the comic relief. Piety must be challenged. Purity must be tested, or it becomes smugness, and we start to think we have it all figured out. It’s like a marriage where you know exactly how the weekly sex is going to start. It both comforts and kills love in the worst way. My faith informs my confusions. My confusions lead to discoveries in poems my certainties could never find. Faith is not certainty. Certainty is the death of thought.

It is better to be annihilated and crushed by God, if you are in love with God, then it is to have no relationship at all. Better God smite you then merely be absent. God does not “tolerate” me. God loves me. . . A man may call God out and test all purity because it is better than the ultimate hell of complete disengagement.

God allows us to kick and scream in our tantrums and pains until we fall exhausted at the foot of our cross. And then God picks us up and we realize this was all we wanted to begin with, to be held by, and bound fast to him: “Bind me Lord, lest I resist. We resist because we are bound. Our resistance becomes the first sign of our birth pain. . . The peace of a Christian must be a sort of ongoing ferocity—a refusal to let go until the birthright has been truly won, until the blessing has been given. Brokeness is the first condition for receiving grace. Light can’t penetrate an unbroken surface. God enters through the broken heart, not the smug one.

A poem that can be reduced to its ideas is probably not a very good poem. It must be uttered fully. It must be lived on its own terms, the language must be forgiven for being language, then it must be language with all its might. Meaning, content are not the aim but the reward, the grace of a poem being faithful to its own organic process.

Thank you for reading all this (if you have) and I hope it has benefited you.

Sacrificing Worship on the Altar of Relationship?

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

I was grabbing an amazing beer at the amazing Lancaster Brewing Company in beautiful Amish-country Lancaster, Pennsylvania with one of my best friends, David Schrott this past was weekend. Randomly, he turns to me and says something along the lines of “do you think we’ve sacrificed worship for the sake of relationship?” Brilliant. This got my wheels turning . . .

Surely we’ve all heard that wonderful phrase “Christianity’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.” A brief survey of various facebook “Religious Views” statements can find many rearticulations of this principle. But, I think we’re just now starting to see where this principle has perhaps been misleading the church a bit. Now, I have to fight two well-known urges in addressing this. First, an urge in church history to ride a giant philosophical pendulum from one extreme to another. I don’t just want to criticize this because the cycle has run its course and now its time to move back to the other extreme. The other urge is in myself. It is the tendency I have always had to rebel against the current cultural trends of the day just to be novel. Ten years ago, we really needed to hear that phrase, and it would be too typical of an up-and-coming twenty-something theologian as myself to try and cast the whole thing off. All that being said, let’s get going.

I’m in the process of writing this up as a sermon so some feedback would be wonderfully helpful. Here’s my current thought process. Posed David’s question, I think most of us would say something that involved the phrase “both/and”; attempting to merge these two principles (worship and relationship) into the same idea. May I suggest that one of the damning effects of post-modernity has been this love affair in the past ten to fifteen years with the “both/and” in all things. The first person to throw that out in conversation feels both wise and perceptive, and is generally treated as such. Thinking about this, I was reminded that God works and reveals not so much through philosophical exposé but through narrative. This means that things work progressively. Elements used or expressed earlier in the narrative don’t exist later in the story in the same way they existed before. Let me use the current conversation as an example.

I’m wondering if preaching relationship, relationship, relationship has been putting the cart before the horse and has contributed to the shallow and impotent culture we see far too often in the American church. We seem to preach relationship first, expecting (or hoping) worship to flow from it. I don’t see the beauty or the truth in this. It looks like relationship should flow from worship. Is this not the Gospel? The message that there is a huge God through whom and from whom all things receive life, and that this God not merely desires or demands worship, but deserves it. We have not given it, and so the full wrath if this huge God is prepared to be poured out upon us. In view of this, we then feel the weight of our inadequacy to change our estate before this God that deserves our honor and worship. We look up to to feel the indiscriminate fog of anger hanging so perilously above our heads . . .

but . . .

from this fog extends a hand. The hand of that King we have offended, offering clemency and pardon in the name of His Son for the treason we have so callously pursued. It is against the backdrop of all that makes Him worthy of that worship we don’t/can’t give him that this offer for relationship becomes real, beautiful, and romantic.

“Religion” comes from the Latin words “re” meaning “again” and “ligo” meaning “to unite” (as in “ligament”). Religion, then simply means something that unites once more that which was connected, but now is broken. (I know, I know, we’ve turned “religion” into something more than this, but I’m just trying to say that the word itself is not bad, so let’s not stop using it. Just try to use it rightly.)  Jesus really did die to establish religion.  The Gospel is religion. It is a means outside of ourselves by which God reunites us to Himself. But it starts with who He is which then overflows into what He’s done to join us to Him once more. We need to see and preach a God worth worshiping before our relationship with Him can mean anything of any sort of significance.

As I write all this, I’m starting to wonder if our stress of relationship over reverence has actually caused the problem to worsen.  We started doing it because of how people were abusing the beauty of the religion Christ died for, but I wonder if we remove all the weight of this religion under the banner of relationship does it really change anything? Or will people just have new reasons to take this Christianity thing lightly now that they “have the relationship” that apparently this whole thing centers around?  Will this not continue to create people that do not understand the standard of holiness, reverence, and awe we really are called and commanded to strive for? Will this not then force us to create more clever cliches to explain why those people don’t act like the Christians they claim to be?

Maybe. I don’t know. But ultimately, I hope we can see the Gospel for what it is: a God-centered means by which God can proclaim His worthiness and still redeem us for Himself. It begins with His worship, then our inability, then His redemption, then our salvation, and it culminates finally in our worship of Him for now and eternity, proclaiming the Glorious perfections and beauties of God, His Son, His Spirit, and His Gospel.

Happy worshipping.

psalm33|18-22 {a prayer}

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

“Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.  Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.  For our heart is glad in him, because we trust his holy name.  Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”
— Psalm 33:18-22

Our hope is only in your steadfast love O Lord.  I can be in nothing else, O God.  This is about you and me – you and me.  I need your Gospel  I need your Gospel.  In this Psalm, famine comes after deliverance.  Help me through the famine, through the weakness.  So I may further trust and hope only in You, Your love, Your faithfulness, and not my own!  My spirit is so willing, but my flesh is so weak!! So weak.  Strengthen my spirit Lord.  Take all of me.  It’s yours already, I know.  Exert Your rightful reign and authority in me to Your Glory.  Oh, Your Glory.  It is so sweet to my lips to say.  Glory.  Glory.  Glory. I need You.  Help me survive in the famine.  You will.  You’ve promised it, so it must be so.  My faith must be in that which is the only guarantee of it’s occurrence in Your Word.  My salvation, redemption, regeneration, and glorification – ALL things I do not wrought upon myself.  That’s how my faith must be in You.  Help me wait for You, because I am glad in You, because I trust You, because Your love is upon me.  David’s last plea is that Your effectual love would make this be.  It is mine as well.  Come.

An Atheist, Africa, and Missions vs. NGOs

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

In the TimesOnline, a European Online Magazine, prominent Atheist Matthew Parris wrote the following thought provoking article a few days ago. Please read the article and leave your thoughts. Hopefully this will spurn some meaningful conversation. Below are my favorite excerpts.  Here’s the article.

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As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset

. . . [T]ravelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa . . . But this doesn’t fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing. . . .

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I’m afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

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Enjoy, and let the debates begin!

[By the way, for all those on facebook that are friends with Tim Hoiland, I had a draft of this post done a few days before he posted his, so don’t think I just copy other people’s posts!  But still, read his blog]

Meditations on the Village Church, Matt Chandler, & my Heart

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

I knew I’d be proven wrong. I ended up meeting and seeing perhaps my biggest living hero this past weekend. Matt Chandler, of the Village Church in Dallas, TX was the means by which God stirred it in me to go to seminary; he was the means by which God started forming my preaching style; he was the means by which a bulk of my ministry philosophy was formed. In short, much of my life as it is now is because of this man’s faithfulness and how God has formed me to resonate with it. I’m in Dallas for a week to see family, so I went to a service at the Village Church this morning.

Being one of the fastest growing churches in America, I thought it wise to get there as early as possible. The service was at 9am, and I ended up getting there at about 8:15. My brother and I were the first ones there to the church, save for a few people setting up Communion. We actually got to the building the same time Chandler did. We walked up to the doors from the parking lot with Chandler, coffee in hand, and made some small talk. I told him I was from Westminster, had met their Counseling pastor at the CCEF Conference last month, and that I went to Eric Mason’s church. He apparently has a great relationship with my Philadelphia pastor, so he continued some of our brief conversation – now having made our way into the sanctuary – about Philly and Pastor Mason (or E-Mase, as Chandler called him). I thanked him for how the Church has ministered to me (trying not to seem like “that guy” though I’m sure I sort of did). He appreciated it, but then a congregant intercepted him for sound check business. Our “meeting” was over.

One of the overarching refrains of his sermon was: “you are not as smart as you think you are.” This was evident this morning as I realized that the sanctification I observed in my previous post is still in progress. For those that missed it (or just don’t feel like reading it), I talked about how I have historically idealized my heroes so much that it influences way more about me than it should. I wrote how in recent weeks, God has been disillusioning me about these men, so that I am “becoming my own man” as it seems.

Well, it wasn’t until halfway through the second song of the worship service I realized just how frustrated I was that I wasn’t able to get a good picture of both the worship set and Chandler praying! I wasn’t able to pay attention in any sort of capacity, much less actually meditate and see God’s beauty and sufficiency. I was restless at heart determined to find the images that would build myself up in others’ eyes and so put my security once more in people. As the blinders were rudely pulled off my eyes to my own immaturity and wrong worship, I was brought to one of those moments of self reflection where you’re almost ashamed to be in our Father’s presence. Where the sin in the deepest recesses of your heart is exposed to the light and it hurts. At the same time, though, Michael Bleeker started an original song about how our joy and security is in the wrath of God being poured out on Christ. I was then free. At least for the moment, my sin was plunged into the glorious wrath-consuming righteousness-imputing grace of God. Oh, the worship that comes from the heart that sees its own weakness and sin held as the backdrop against the display of the cross!

The rest of the service was amazing. No more pictures, no more video, no more angst about being able to “prove” that I have more “connections” than others. For those few moments at least, the grace of God so allowed me to be divorced from my lust for human esteem, my addiction to have others see me as someone worth being around. And I was able to worship God with all of myself in singing, prayer, and meditation on the clear communication and faithful preaching of His Word. In short, this morning was amazing. I’m really starting to wonder if God’s ultimately calling me to Dallas.

I love this church, I love its ministry, and I love my God.

So, please, I beg of all of you. Everyone that knows me. Everyone that reads this disjointed post. As often as the grace of God inspires you to remember. Always remind me: I am definitely not as smart as I think I am, but the cross of Christ is wholly gracious and sufficient in spite of that. It is in that gospel statement my greatest sin and greatest hope are held before my gaze both for His Glory and my joy.

Ah, what a good day . . .

All My Heroes are Dead (not quite)

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

[Here in the next couple of days I will hopefully write a summary of my first semester in seminary, but first I wanted to drop this note.]

I’ve been experiencing something strange in the past month. Historically I’ve fallen into that temptation to try and mimic my heroes. Anyone that knows me well knows this. I always have some new author, preacher, teacher, or friend that I very much enjoy sitting under the influence of. This has in turn influenced so much about me. Too much. I have often daydreamed about speaking like this guy or writing like that guy, comparing my every thought and action to the way they would do things. This happens more than I let on, and it’s something I deal with a lot. The Chandlers, Driscolls, Pipers, Mahaneys, Edwards’, Kellers, Owens’, Calvins, Greenes, Goodletts, DeRocos, Masons, Carlins, Powlisons, and Sinclairs (haha) of the world have had such an impact on me. They have affected the phrases I use (I say “unpack” way too much now because of Chandler), the material I write (Owens/Powlison in the heart, Edwards in the head), the thoughts I muse (Greene and Goodlett get this award), and sometimes even my motions (I caught myself doing a Josh Soto hand move the other day. I call it the “discus throw”).  At times I have to be careful because many people in the circles I run in know of some if not all these people and can (and do) call me out on it when I’m just being a clone. It almost happens unconsciously at this point.

The problem with this is obvious. I’m forced to wonder where my voice is; where my thoughts are; where my style is.  I fear so much that I would just copy someone else.  But something strange (yet wonderful – in a strange way) has been happening. In the past month, it seems like so many of those people (especially those that hold the highest pedestals in my mind) have been slowly but surely, one by one, unidealized for me. Through different books, interviews, messages, and exposures I have found myself thinking Oh, I don’t want his marriage; I don’t want his ministry; I don’t want to have to say all that; I don’t want that burden, so and so forth. Now, when I say “I don’t want” it’s not that what they have is bad or wrong per se; it’s just not my style. I have begun to see that I can’t just place myself into someone else’s narrative. God has a particular calling for me that will look very different from those guys and I should both rest and rejoice in that.

As I’ve become disillusioned to these men to a certain extent, I have found their walls of distinction dissolving in my mind as a synthesis begins to take place. I feel a voice of my own emerging from this. I have more ideas for writing and more motivation to do so. I’m finding my own articulations and approaches to things. I feel like I’m coming into my own and it’s exciting. Exciting enough to post this wholly inconsequential post on the blog just to get it out there. These are wondrous times indeed and I look forward to enjoying them to the full.

Onward, life!

N.T. Wright on Faith & Politics

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

This is the last video I’ll post for a while.  I’ve written an actual post I’ll put up tonight or tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist putting this up.  This is the Bishop of Durham of the Church of England speaking on the relationship of faith and politics in an ever increasing secular global community.  I really like what he says.  One of the more cogent, balanced, and nuanced articulations of this issue that has way too many Americans baffled.  Keep watching towards the end where he talks about America as an empire like Britain was.  This is so good!

By the way, for all you Christians up on the whole N.T. Wright theological controversies, I do hope this helps reiterate that which we keep forgetting: he is defintiely still on our team.  We need to stop attacking him wholesale and pushing him to the fringes as some “liberal” theologian.  I do think he is wrong on some things, but he’s so solid on most everything else.  He is perhaps one of our most respected scholars and theologians and one of our few spokesmen that carries any sort of respect and credibility on the world stage.  As Paul says: “Let love be genuine.  Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.”  Enjoy.

Textual Criticism & the Glory of God

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

Here is the summary of my final paper for the Textual Criticism portion of my New Testament Intro class.  Enjoy:

My ultimate goal in all these classes is doxological.  That’s how I’m judging my success; not by grades, but whether not I have a greater affection for Christ at the end of each course.  I can say I have that at the end of this course, but it’s not without a price, I feel.

What do I do with, say, the ending of Mark?  How do I preach that text?  Though I absolutely disagree with the Textus Receptus-only arguments, I must say there’s something romantic and (dare I say) “Reformed-sounding” in their arguments.  The idea that God is Sovereign and Providential enough to bring about a final text, even with all its textual errors is enticing (probably because it removes all further critical thought from the process).

It’s ultimately more difficult to reject these notions, though, because you’re forced to face a few realities.

Mainly, what do we do with these texts, then?  If we keep them, then we’re Catholic because we’re placing tradition over the Word as it originally was.  If we get rid of them we seem liberal because we’re subjecting and changing the Bible based on an authority outside of itself.

What about the hypothetical stay-at-home mom that comes to me with the ending of Mark, wanting to know what it means?  Do I unpack textual criticism on her and tell her it wasn’t original so don’t worry about it?

In that case, what if Jesus’ words in John 8:1-11 have been such a comfort to her through the darkest of times?  Is that the Word of God, while the ending of Mark (snakes and all) is not?  How much doubt will it give her to know that there are words in her Bible that John Mark didn’t actually write?  In short, what are the pastoral implications of textual criticism? I don’t know.

Personally, I’m fine with things as they are—keeping very unlikely readings out of the text and just footnoting much.  I’m facing no faith-crises because of this.  I see how far God would go to condescend Himself and thereby draw me to Him, even amidst the messiness of scribal error and change.

I’m just in that very good spot of wrestling through things to see how they fit in a context of proclamation and ministry.  I’m sure they do—they must.

I’m finding that seminary accomplishes its very interesting call of answering many of your questions all while giving you many more, bigger, and deeper questions to grapple with along the way.  This is good.  This will certainly give me more nuance in my ministry of God’s word and His people—a greater understanding of the depth and complexity of God’s Word.

I see now things aren’t so black and white, and that’s by design.  If it weren’t, then we would trust God and His Word on a basis other than Himself.  He will force us to live this life by faith and by no other thing will we be able to fully rest upon—not even the individual black and white text on the page of the Bible, but rather on the Sovereign, Supreme, all-Beautiful, all-Righteous, all-Knowing, all-Just, and all-Gracious God of the Bible.

Severe Mercy

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

This song has been my obsession this past couple of weeks as I round out my first semester in seminary.  I hope it stirs you as well.

The Cut by Jason Gray

My heart is laid
Under Your blade
As you carve out Your image in me
You cut to the core
But still you want more
As you carefully, tenderly ravage me

And You peel back the bark
And tear me apart
To get to the heart
Of what matters most
I’m cold and I’m scared
As your love lays me bare
But in the shaping of my soul
They say the cut makes me whole

Mingling here
Your blood and my tears
As You whittle my kingdom away
But I see that you suffer, too
In making me new
For the blade of Love, it cuts both ways

And You peel back the bark
And tear me apart
To get to the heart
Of what matters most
I’m cold and I’m scared
As your love lays me bare
But in the shaping of my soul
They say the cut makes me whole

Hidden inside the grain
Beneath the pride and pain
Is the shape of the man
You meant me to be
Who with every cut now you try to set free

CHORUS…
…With everyday
You strip more away
And You peel back the bark
And tear me apart
To get to the heart
Of what matters most
I’m cold and I’m scared
As your love lays me bare
But in the shaping of my soul
The blade must take it’s toll
So God give me strength to know
That the cut makes me whole

Get yourself some Ancient Scribery

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

As ancient scribes copied manuscripts of Scripture, they sometimes wrote little notes to the reader in the margins or at the end of the document. Just read some of these “colophons” as they’re called. Some point out the difficulties of being a scribe:

“As travellers rejoice to see their home country, so also is the end of a book to those who toil [in writing].”

“The end of the book; thanks be to God!”‘

There wasn’t any talking allowed in the “Scriptorium” where the Scribes sat in groups to copy Scripture, so at times they would jot some notes to their neighbor in their own native tongue.  At Princeton Theological Seminary there is a 9th century manuscript of a commentary on Psalms (from a Latin Scriptorium which apparently hired people from many regions) where we see written in the margins, in Irish, the following:

“It is cold today.”

“That is natural, it is winter”

“The lamp gives bad light”

“I feel quite dull today; I don’t know what’s wrong with me”

“It is time for us to begin to do some work”

Some things don’t change, I guess.  But nevertheless, many scribes saw themselves doing God’s work and making it possible to have the Bible we have today.  Thus, their work became worship.

“What happy application, what praiseworthy industry, to preach unto people by means of the hand, to untie the tongue by means of the fingers, to bring quiet salvation to mortals, and to fight the Devil’s insidious wiles with pen and ink! For every word of the Lord written by the Scribe is a wound inflicted on Satan. . . . Man multiplies the heavenly words, and in a certain metaphorical sense, if I may dare so to speak, three fingers are made to express the utterances of the Holy Trinity. O sight glorious to those who contemplate it carefully! The fast-travelling reed-pen writes down the holy words and thus avenges the malice of the Wicked One, who caused a reed to be used to smite the head of the Lord during his Passion.”
— Cassiodorus, 6th century

“O reader, in spiritual love forgive me, and pardon the daring of him who wrote, and turn his errors into some mystic good. . . . There is no scribe who will not pass away, but what his hands have written will remain for ever. Write nothing with your hand but that which you will be pleased to see at the resurrection. . . . May the Lord God Jesus Christ cause this holy copy to avail for the saving of the soul of the wretched man who wrote it.”
— anonymous, possible 2nd century

I hope you enjoyed this little lesson in textual criticism of the New Testament.

–p

curse you μαθητευσατε!

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

I hate Christian cliches. With a passion. I really do. Few people have seen me more frustrated than when I talk about “pop Christianity”. I mean, potpourri at a Christian book store? “Testa-mints?” Really? Ugh.

Anyway, one of my big soapboxes is the misappropriation of the language Evangelicals use in relation to how the Bible describes things. The Bible never says “accept Jesus into your heart”, Jesus never gives an altar call, and Jesus never “knocks on the door of your heart” (that passage in Revelation is referring to Jesus knocking on the door of a church, not a heart).

One of my biggest frustrations was pounded into me by a good friend and minster. It was the use of “disciple” as a verb. As in “I am discipling him” or “I am being discipled by her”. I and my friends have often responded in an outcry of the Bible never uses disciple as a verb! You don’t ‘disciple’ anyone, you make disciples of Jesus!

Enter, Greek. In Greek class a couple of days ago we were studying the imperative mood of verbs. Well, sure enough, as is often the case, God took this moment to show me my pride and assumptions. In the famous Matthew 28:19 phrase “make disciples of all nations” that verb for “make disciples” is the 2 plural aorist imperative verb μαθητευσατε (matheteusate). This is the verb form of the noun μαθητης (mathetes) meaning “disciple”. The “make” is added by translators to stress the imperative/command sense. It literally means “to disciple”. It’s not two separate words for “make” and “disciple”.

So, I need to repent to all those I’ve been frustrated with for using the phrase. I also need to repent for talking bad about Jesus’ Bride and not trusting the Spirit of God to sanctify God’s Church, even in their pop culture and language.

until God’s next Sovereign moment of humbling,