Seminary PC6: A Theology of Calling

This post concludes the first "chapter" of this "Seminary in a Nutshell" series. This first section has been on the "Calling of a Minister." Today I wanted to feature Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim's recent book The Permanent Revolution. I do not agree with all of it, but it certainly stimulates some juices with regard to possible models for ministry in the church today, based in Ephesians 4:11.

Here are the posts in this chapter so far:

Preface

The Pastor and Context
1. The Domains of Ministry
2. The Calling of a Minister
3. Ministerial Calling in Scripture
4. Ministerial Calling in History
5. God can call anyone to ministry.

1. There is a sense in which every Christian is a minister. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul pictures a community where some share wisdom and knowledge (12:8). Some are known for their faith (12:9). Some work miracles, others bring prophetic revelation or speak in tongues (12:10). Paul was not giving an absolute list of gifts here, nor was he setting up a structure for how ministry should work in every local congregation for all time. Indeed, Paul would probably have been quite surprised to learn that two thousand years would pass before Christ returned.

This is perhaps the biggest mistake made in these sorts of discussions. There are the unexamined assumptions that 1) passages like these were setting down absolute, timeless structures and 2) that we are supposed to use the same structures today that they used then. We can build on these passages to be sure when thinking about the ideal shape of ministry. Why not? Surely the early church should be there with us in any discussion about why and how ministry should be shaped today.

But before we appropriate these sorts of passages, we should keep in mind that Paul's letters were primarily "occasional," written to address the concerns and needs of specific churches. And we should also keep in mind that the books of the Bible addressed "that time" in the first instance. The more concrete the biblical instruction was to them, the more likely it will be more indirect for us.

2. The interpretation of Ephesians 4:11-12 that has become common sees the function of apostles, prophets, and other forms of ministry as "equipping the saints for the work of the ministry." In this model, one of the main functions of ministry leaders is to train the rest of the church to do most of the ministry on the ground. [1] This interpretation builds on the 1 Corinthians 12 picture of everyone in the church using their gifts in worship, and in fact Ephesians 4:7 probably draws on this basic idea that God has given everyone in the church certain gifts.

In Romans 12:4-8, Paul presents the same model to the Romans, although the list is a little different. Everyone in the church plays his or her role. Some lead. Some serve. Some give. Some do acts of mercy. Some teach. Some prophesy. Some encourage.

3. It is essential to recognize that the forms of ministry change over time because of the contexts in which we minister. It is not wrong to have a paid position called a "youth pastor" or a "children's pastor" just because the Bible does not mention this sort of role. Nor do we need to have a hired prophet on staff. We do not have to call our church boards a "board of elders" and we don't have a position we call "deacons."

We are free to do so, but "description is not prescription." Just because the New Testament church had a certain form in an ancient Mediterranean context does not mean that form will work the best in our contexts any more than a North American form would be the best for a church in China, Africa, or Latin America today. It would be the height of foolishness to think so.

4. What then are the more timeless distinctions? First, there is a distinction between what we might call formal and informal ministry. Churches usually have "positions" that various people occupy and then there are volunteers and those who minister informally. These positions will vary from church to church, from denomination to denomination.

It seems very difficult to have a Christian assembly without any formal position, although there have certainly been such groups. For example, Quakers used to shy away from formal leadership. Church meetings often involved everyone sitting quietly until someone felt led to say something. Then when it seemed appropriate, everyone left. The house church movement also shies away from official leadership.

But these sorts of groups have always been in the minority. On the whole, a lack of clear leadership structure seems more a hindrance to the healthy functioning of a church rather than a help. Without clear leadership, dominant personalities assert themselves into the void. Chaos, rather than the Spirit, tends to rule the day. Even the apostle Paul introduced structure to the Corinthian church when its worship got out of hand because of the over-domination of charisma.

5. There are thus two-poles in play in a ministry environment. The one is official structure or institutional structure. The other is charisma. These are both important ingredients and poles of ministry, even though they can pull against each other.

Throughout history, God has steered his people between these two poles. When institution is stifling the church, he raises a Martin Luther. When the official prophets are just saying what the king wants to hear, he raises up an Elijah (1 Kings 18:17) or a Micaiah (1 Kings 22). Although preachers today often play a prophetic role, the prophetic role in general is one that usually comes outside the normal institutional structures.

For example, when Josiah wants to know what to do with the Book of the Law (probably some form of Deuteronomy), he goes to the high priest. The high priest holds the official position of power. But the high priest goes to a prophetess named Huldah. She stands on her own as someone to whom God had given "charismatic" authority outside the normal institutional structures (2 Kings 22).

There are dangers on both poles. Institution often stifles the Spirit. But charisma can burn down a house. A healthy organism needs both structure and innovation. God steers the church in either direction as needed.

6. So there should always be informal, Spirit-driven ministry in the church. There should always be "lay" ministry going on, where "lay" ministry refers to individuals who are not "ordained" by a church institution. When we get to congregational formation and congregational relationships, we will return to these informal or even formal ministries of believers in the church. Even non-ordained ministry can be either structured or charismatic.

However, at this point in the series we are concerned with formal ministry and especially with those who feel called to life-long ministry. For example, we are talking about a level of ministry where church leaders might feel led to lay hands on a person and "anoint" them for special service. The individual in question feels the call of God on his or her life, and the church recognizes and officially endorses that calling.

So Samuel was prompted to go to David and anoint him as king. The church at Antioch felt led to lay hands on Timothy for life-long service. There are many forms of ministry. One of them is formal, ordained ministry, where a group of believers official recognizes the gifts and graces of a person who senses a call to life-long ministry. [2] Sometimes it is full-time ministry. Sometimes it is not.

7. Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim have recently suggested that the five roles of Ephesians (apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher) might serve in some way as a model not only for ministry leadership but for Christians in general. [3] While they have probably seen these roles as more extensive and more absolute than they were originally, they give us a recent place to start in thinking of the different kinds of callings a person might have to formal ministry.

In a previous post, we talked at least about what apostles and prophets looked like in the early church. Today, the oldest model takes the apostles to represent official authority on the highest level. [4] They defend the beliefs and practices of the church as they have been passed down throughout the ages. Their "deposit" of faith is found in most concentrated form in Scripture. Some are called to high leadership of this sort.

It is almost an oxymoron to think of prophetic ministry as something that can be institutionalized. God raises up prophets wherever and whenever he wishes, often outside ordained ministry. But God also raises up prophets among those who are the preachers and teachers of a group. The role is not limited in any way to formal position.

Today, evangelists are those who take the good news to the world outside the church. They can be local or they can be global. They face outside. They focus on mission. It is a ministerial function that was often neglected until the rise of evangelicals like John Wesley and George Whitfield in the 1700s.

Certainly local groups of believers need shepherding and teaching. These roles have historically had a place of primacy in the church. The local pastor or priest visited the sick and discipled believers. Recent centuries have seen some balancing out of this inward focus.

It would probably wrong to pigeonhole ministers into exclusive functions. Surely all those ministers who are called to life-long ministry should be witnesses to the gospel, for example. But we do see individuals with natural gifts that lean in one or another direction. Some ministers are natural born teachers. Some even become teachers of ministers on the college or seminary level. [5]

Some ministers have a gift for shepherding and caring for a local congregation. Some have a gift for discipleship. Others have a gift for mission. Some feel called to go beyond their local community to other cultures or places in the world.

We will return in later parts of this series to possible ways to structure the ministries of the church and its leadership. For the moment, we should not stereotype callings to ministry, as if ministers fit neatly in certain boxes.

8. In the end, there is no one rubric for those God calls to minister for a lifetime. It would be unwise to pigeonhole them. There are those who are more naturally suited to face inward toward the church and there are those who are naturally suited to be more outwardly facing. There are those who are more gifted for leadership and those who are more gifted to minister in the trenches. The specific positions that correspond to these gifts may vary from time to time and place to place.

Then there are those who are not called for life-time ministry. There are those that God calls for a specific season or purpose and the church commissions them for that service. All Christians are called to play a role in the church and, in that sense, all Christians are ministers.

Next Saturday: The Person of the Pastor 1

[1] This interpretation is not nearly as obvious as most assume. The roles that Ephesians 4:11 mentions all sure sound like leading roles. It could just as easily, perhaps even more easily be argued that the sentence should be translated: God gave them these leadership roles "for the development of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building of the body of Christ."

[2] I would not want to say that God never calls someone for just a season of time. God can call people for specific tasks, just as he called Amos to be a prophet on one occasion. My own church used to speak of "commissioning" people for those sorts of more specialized or seasonal tasks.

[3] Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century (San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012).

[4] Hirsch and Catchim strongly disagree with this perspective on the apostles. To them, apostles reflect the most innovative and itinerant type of ministry of all. It's not necessarily wrong to apply the picture of the early apostles this way. They are simply focusing on a different aspect of the earliest apostles' ministry, while we are focusing more on the way in which the early church appropriated their ministries.

It is common, however, especially in charismatic and missional circles, to take the apostles as a model of high missional authority.

[5] I personally believe that most of those who train ordained ministers should be called to ministry as well.

A Call to Prayer and Listening

I woke up with a certain heaviness this morning. As I went through my day, I increasingly got the impression that I am not the only one. I think there is a heaviness in the spirits of many students on the IWU campus, for example.

I don't think it is just IWU. As I reflected even on the presidential debate last night, it felt to me like the anger was burning out. It seemed to me like the candidates felt like they really needed to be angry, but they just weren't feeling it.

So you have a lot of people with the emptiness that comes when you're exhausted from being angry. Then you have the silently despondent, who are shell shocked from everyone else yelling at each other.

It seems like this is a rare moment. It feels like there is an emptiness that is longing to be filled. There is a directionless wandering that is longing for direction.

I don't need another sermon telling me about sins I need to repent of. And it's not going to help me to preach another sermon telling everyone else where they're wrong. That's part of why we're all feeling empty in the first place.

Forget everyone else's sins and problems. I'm thinking this is a timely weekend to wait on God to say something to me. What does he want to tell me? Where does he want to direct me? How does he want to change me?

Anyone else up for a weekend of prayer, reflection, and listening? Fill my cup, Lord.

Episcopal Church put on probation

"Primates" from across the Anglican fellowship have been meeting in Canterbury, trying to avoid a fracture over the fact that the American Episcopal Church ordains openly practicing gay individuals as priests. The leader from Uganda actually walked out Wednesday night and the leaders from Africa apparently have been leading the charge to discipline or convince the Episcopal Church to withdraw from the Anglican communion.

The final outcome was to suspend the Episcopal Church for three years to give it time to repent. I suspect that fact means in three years it will be kicked out of the communion.

Very interesting. It perhaps marks a decisive moment in the shift of the center of Christianity to the two-thirds world. Here is the report in the Episcopal News Service.

Long Live Snape!

Sorry to see that Snape, my alter-ego, has died.

Sanders' overview of Paul 2

I think in part because I have no real reason to read it, I'm finding myself reading E. P. Sanders new summative book on Paul in the gaps in my time. Another reason is that it is so light on the eyes. Yes, it's over 800 pages, but it's such an easy read (not like that torturer, N. T. Wright).

So I read the overview of Paul's life during lunch. Here's some highlights:

• Paul's was not from a rich or poor family. He was not a common laborer but not super-schooled either. Maybe his dad owned a small leather-working business.
• Smiled at this: "The revelatory experience that changed his life seems not to have altered his character and personality" (5). :-)
• May have died about AD62 (that would mean at the end of Acts). Sanders says that "most scholars" think this. :-) He's open to the possibility of a release after he first saw Nero.
• He makes it clear that Paul may not have won his arguments with Jerusalem at the time. I agree.
• This sentence was interesting (reminded me of Paula Fredriksen's recent article): "Paul argued vociferously that his converts could remain gentiles, though they had to accept Jewish monotheism and most aspects of Jewish ethics" (9).
• He ends by justifying two conventions he uses in his book. First, he's going to call the followers of Jesus "Christians" even though they largely didn't call themselves by this name at first.
• Second, he dismisses the rumor that the word Palestine was invented by Hadrian as a term of derision. In his typical matter of fact way, he says, "These terms are historical and have no reference to the modern world" (11). "Palestine" is at least as old as Herodotus. Aristotle uses it. It has nothing to do with contemporary arguments over Palestinian legitimacy. 
• Again I say, it's good to be retired! :-)

The Bible within the Story 3

Introduction
The Story within the Bible

The Bible within the Story
It seems that we are naturally wired to see the story within the Bible. It is much harder for us to see the books of the Bible in the story "outside" the Bible, that is, the story of history in which the books of Bible themselves were written. For example, in the story within the Bible, Jesus comes before an early Christian named Paul. But in history, the writings of Paul were written before the writings about Jesus (the four Gospels).

This is hard for us to see. The books of the Bible were not written in the order in which they appear in our Bibles.

There is a tendency, it seems, to think that a book of the Bible was written during the time it pictures, even that it was written by its main character. Was Job the first book of the Old Testament written, because Job may have lived around the time of Abraham? Was Jonah written by Jonah at the time of Jonah?

But I could write a book about Job or Jonah. The time that a book talks about is not necessarily the time when it was written. And it seems very doubtful, at least at first glance, that the main characters of the books of the Bible wrote the books that tell their story. Jonah is about Jonah. Joshua is about Joshua. They are talked about in the third person--"Jonah did this, Jonah did that." It is not a natural conclusion at all to think that Jonah wrote this book about him. Indeed, the book of Jonah--even as it ends--seems quite critical of this prophet.

We simply do not have enough information to know the exact order or the exact circumstances in which all the books of the Bible were written. But it almost certainly would make a difference in the way we read them. The circumstances and context in which something is written makes a difference as to what its connotations were. If we do not know them, then their original meaning is less certain.

A close look at the books of the Bible shows that they can give slightly different perspectives on the same events and issues. A close look at Paul's letters, for example, shows that he modified his arguments and instructions to suit the needs of specific churches. From a Christian perspective, God worked through dozens of biblical authors to address the needs of his people at different times and places. He worked through the personalities and writing styles of each author. So the Greek of each Gospel writer is different from each other, and all of them are different in style than Paul.

These comments do not contradict the Christian idea that God inspired the books of the Bible. Indeed, it suggests that God was concerned about the needs of individual people and groups. God did not give us a vague Bible that is so general that it is of little specific good. He gave us books that spoke to people where they were at in their time of need.

This sense of the books of the Bible in history leads us to realize that the Bible gives us a smorgasbord of potential help. Some of the books may be more directly helpful at some times and places than at others. When our circumstances are like the circumstances of some cross-section of the biblical texts, God will leap across history from those texts to work in us in our time of need.

So while there is a tendency to flatten out the story within the Bible, there is a more advanced understanding of the Bible that begins to see each book as a moment of revelation in history. God did not inspire one person to write one book for all time on one occasion. God inspired dozens of authors over a thousand years to write dozens of books to address dozens of occasions. It makes a difference when it comes down to the nitty gritty of understanding the Bible. And how we understand what it meant then will often have an effect on what we believe God is saying to us now.

I also believe that God can speak directly to you through the words of the Bible in ways that the original authors and audiences of the Bible would not have understood. To be sure, there are dangers to opening the door to "words from the Lord." God will not tell you to murder someone or to have an affair on your spouse.

But the New Testament suggests that, since Jesus died and rose from the dead, God's "Holy Spirit" is more powerfully active in our lives than he ever was before Jesus. [1] One characteristic of this time in history, according to the New Testament, is that God's Spirit is working strongly in every person who believes the good news that Jesus is king. One characteristic of this time is that God sometimes speaks to us, even as individuals.

The Bible is perhaps the main way that God speaks to us today, from a Christian perspective!

The chapters that follow will continue to explore both the story within the Bible and the story of the Bible itself. I invite you not only to know the story, but to join the story. When you read the Bible as "Scripture," as your Bible, you do not just read it for knowledge. You read it to be changed by God. Christians read the Bible not only to know God, but more importantly, to be known by God.

[1] The Holy Spirit is God as he often speaks to us and works in us to change and guide us.

ET10: Force against an offender can sometimes be justified.

This is the tenth post on Christian ethics in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
_______________________________
Force against an offender can sometimes be justified.

1. The prohibition against murder did not likely include what we today would call "killing in self-defense." Exodus 22:2 is often mentioned, where there is no guilt for killing someone in the night who has broken into your house. Interestingly enough, however, there is guilt if you kill the thief when it is daylight (22:3).

There is something suspicious, of course, about digging into the obscure details of the Jewish civil law in order to approach a topic today. Just a few verses earlier, there is a law about whether it is murder to kill a slave (Exod. 21:20-21). The judgment depends on how quickly the slave dies. If the slave dies immediately, it is murder. If the slave dies after a day or two, it is not.

We have no evidence that the New Testament church practiced these civil laws. Paul himself walked a fine line with his Gentile churches between, "All things are lawful to me" and "not all things are beneficial" (1 Cor. 6:12). When Jesus taught about the fulfillment of the Law in Matthew 5, the principle he applied was that of love. He filtered the Old Testament Law through the lens of "you will love your neighbor as yourself.

Some individuals go to the Bible looking for "proof-texts" to justify what they already think or want to be true. They find obscure verses that they can interpret in such a way as to support their desires. But Jesus teaches that there are "weightier" parts to the Law (Matt. 23:23) and lesser parts (e.g., Matt. 5:19). It is the "Pharisaic" approach to Scripture that uses the letter of the Law to undo the spirit of the Law (2 Cor. 3:6)

2. The basic orientation of a Christian is not to take life or to participate in violence. Jesus' fundamental standard was to love your enemy (Matt. 5:43-48). Paul says, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil" (Rom. 12:17). So when someone does you a wrong, the bias is not to seek revenge. The impulse to make sure others get their just deserts is not the Christian impulse. The thirst for law is not the impulse of Christ but the thirst for redemption.

Similarly, unjust death is no stranger to Christendom. The basic theme of 1 Peter is to submit to unjust persecution and to give no one any legitimate reason for persecution. Slaves are told to submit to unjust masters (1 Pet. 2:18). Wives are told to submit to unbelieving husbands (3:1). 1 Peter was written for a particular kind of situation when believers are out of control in a culture and are the object of hostility.

1 Peter holds up Christ as the supreme example of submitting to suffering, even death in such situations. "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly" (1 Pet. 2:23). Similarly, Jesus told his followers, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles" (Matt. 5:38-41).

We are prone to ignore these verses. "But, but, but." Force against an offender can sometimes be justified, but we should sit with Jesus' words for a while and let them sink in before we contemplate exceptions. Jesus' words are the fundamental principle. The exception is secondary. Unless we have felt the force of the principle, we cannot experience the exception correctly.

3. In what circumstances can force be justified? Let us return to the three principles of justice we have now used repeatedly: 1) justice for redemption, 2) justice for protection, 3) justice by removal.

A violent person, a bully, deserves justice. He or she deserves to experience the same violence or bullying that he or she dishes out. But how we are to engage such a person is a different matter.

It is not good for a violent person to be violent. They are working toward their own destruction. It is in their own long term interest to force them to stop their violence. A self-defeating trajectory is often hard to change on our own. "Tough love" is sometimes necessary to redirect us. Force may be necessary.

4. Protection is surely the biggest reason to force an aggressor to stop their aggression. If someone is threatening to hurt another person or to harm the innocent, force is usually appropriate to stop them. This principle also applies to oneself. It is clearly not just for someone to harm you if you have done nothing to them. While a Christian does not have to have justice, it is not unjust to protect oneself.

Again, what should the attitude of a Christian be in such situations? It should be one of reluctance. I do not want to harm you. I would much rather you change your path. Perhaps in some circumstance God would call me to let you hurt me, even to kill me. Perhaps God will use that to bring about your redemption eventually.

But it is not unjust to protect myself. It is not unjust for me to kill you to protect my family from their own impending deaths. It is undesired. It is unwanted. It is not wrong.

5. Few of us as individuals will ever face a situation where we wrestle with the task of removing a hardened evil. In the prevailing account, Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced that question with regard to the assassination of Hitler. [1] It is best for us not even to ponder it. Almost anyone who would ponder "justice by removal" would be wrong to do so. It is God's task. Indeed, even in the case of Hitler, the plot to assassinate him was aimed at protection.

The bias of a Christian is to suffer rather than to effect judgment. Nevertheless, force against an offender can sometimes be justified. This is a weighty matter, one calling for great discernment. The person who thirsts for violence or force does not have the heart of Christ.

Next Sunday: ET11: There is a time to die, although we should not play God with human life.

[1] The prevailing position can be found in Eric Metaxas' biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010). A recent attempt to detach Bonhoeffer from the plot is Mark Nation, Anthony Siegrist, and Daniel Umble, Bonhoeffer the Assassin? Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013).

Seminary PC5: God can call anyone to ministry.

My series continues, "Seminary in a Nutshell." The featured book today is Kristina LaCelle Peterson's, Liberating Tradition: Women's Identity and Vocation in Christian Perspective. She discusses women in ministry from a historical perspective. Thus far in this series:

Preface

The Pastor and Context
1. The Domains of Ministry
2. The Calling of a Minister
3. Ministerial Calling in Scripture
4. Ministerial Calling in History

1. It is my conviction and the conviction of my tradition that God can and does call anybody to be a minister. That is to say, God does not just call Jews to ministry, but non-Jews as well. God does not just call people of light skin, but individuals of dark skin as well. God does not just call Europeans to ministry, but Asians and Africans and South Americans. God does not just call men to ministry but women as well.

In the age of the Holy Spirit, anyone can hear from God and anyone can speak for God. There is no genetic or biological reason why a Russian cannot minister to an American or a woman to a man. Certainly there is no gap in intelligence between women and men or someone from Papua New Guinea and someone from Germany. There is no basis in concrete reality that would keep a person of any race or gender from ministering to someone else from another.

There are only cultural barriers and barriers in prejudice. Nothing more. Unfortunately, cultural prejudices are real in themselves. At times the barriers have been so strong that it has seemed counterproductive to the larger goals of ministry for God to address them. The Bible tells us that God sometimes accommodates hard hearts, such as he did on the subject of divorce in the Old Testament (Matt. 19:7-8).

We have every reason to think that God still sometimes foregoes the ideal in some places and times to see his larger mission accomplished. It would have been ideal in the South of the United States for God to call African-Americans to minister to slave owners in the early 1800s or to whites in the early 1900s. The prejudices of culture at those times limited such ministry to indirect occasions. So for much of church history, women only informally have ministered to men.

2. One of the great privileges of Western Christianity is that the broader culture has made it easy for God to call anyone to minister to anyone. Ironically, the barriers to ministry of this sort do not come from the world, but from pockets of the "church."

God currently is calling an increasing number of non-Westerners to be ministers to Westerners. Some in the Western church might initially resist a person from Mexico being called as a missionary to the United States. [1] Someone might, hardly even realizing his or her prejudice, think it strange that God might call someone from the Philippines to be a missionary to Germany or England or Japan. "Is not missionary work for the enlightened West?" No, God can and does call anyone to minister to anyone.

An increasing number of missionaries come from the two-thirds world, the rest of the world outside the industrialized world of the West, mostly in the Global South. It may rub some American Christians wrong to think that God is currently calling believers from Latin America to be missionaries to the United States. Yet God can and does call anyone to minister to anyone. God does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34; Gal. 2:6; Jas. 2:1).

3. In the United States currently, the greatest cultural resistance is to women in ministry. The culture has come a long way to be sure. Those who resist God's calling on women at least have stopped arguing that women are not smart enough to lead or be ministers. Not too long ago, such arguments would have been made, just as it was argued a hundred years ago that former slaves were not smart enough to vote.

But women are as educated as men today, and a little cross-examining will show that men have no greater innate intelligence. There is no natural reason why a woman could not lead a man or minister to a man. So those who oppose women in ministry generally do not use this argument any more. They simply will argue that it is just not God's will for women to minister to men.

If there is no natural reason, there is also no spiritual reason. The Holy Spirit has come equally on all flesh since the Day of Pentecost. Indeed, one of the predictions of the Day of Pentecost is that "your sons and daughters will prophesy" (Acts 2:17). "In Christ Jesus... there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female" (Gal. 3:26, 28).

3. Indeed, there have always been female prophets. There are female prophets and leaders in the Old Testament. Deborah was the judge of Israel for a period of time. Nothing is said about her only being judge because there was not a man available. She is simply said to be the judge of Israel in those days (Judg. 4:4-5). She is the one who commands Barak to go into battle, and she ends up leading him into battle. She is so strong a leader--both naturally and spiritually--that he will not go into battle without her in the lead (4:8).

When the Book of the Law is discovered, the high priest does not trust himself to make a judgment on its authenticity, nor does the king. These two men instead go to a woman, a prophet, Huldah, to verify its validity (2 Kings 22:13-14).

Debates over one or two verses often obscure the fact that women were full participants in the mission and ministry of the early church. The four daughters of Philip were prophets, for example (Acts 21:9). A woman named Junia may very well have been an apostle (Rom. 16:7), someone to whom the risen Jesus appeared and whom Jesus charged to go and witness to his resurrection. Phoebe was a deacon (Rom. 16:1).

The apostle Paul regularly had co-workers who were women. Lydia played a major role in founding the church at Philippi (Acts 16:15). Euodia and Syntyche would later work with Paul there (Phil. 4:2-3). Most prominent of all was Priscilla, who seems to have been the dominant ministry force in a husband-wife ministry team. She is usually mentioned first when she and her husband are mentioned. God used her to found both the churches at Corinth (Acts 18:18) and Ephesus (18:19), not least to disciple Apollos (18:26).

The ministry of women to men is exactly what we would expect. The Spirit fills all people equally, and God can and does call anyone to ministry.

4. However, there are two passages that are sometimes used to feed the hearts of those who just do not want women to minister to men. And it is not just men who sometimes resist the Spirit on this score. Sometimes women resist other women in ministry more than men do.

The first is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, which instructs women to be silent in the assembly. [2] However, since wives are praying and prophesying in the assembly in 1 Corinthians 11, these verses cannot be referring to spiritual speech but to disruptive speech. Indeed, 14:35 instructs these disorderly women to ask their own husbands questions at home, which indicates the problem is one of disruption, not "a woman's place."

The other is 1 Timothy 2:12-15. This verse warns Timothy about wives teaching their husbands or behaving autocratically toward them. [3] There is much that is unique and strange about this passage, not least the statement that wives are "saved" through childbearing or the suggestion that they remain in transgression because of Eve's sin. The weighty theological truth is that Christ died for all sins, including the sins of Eve and that no sin can stand in force against the power of his atonement.

Many have thus sought something in the context of 1 Timothy to explain a verse that seems uncharacteristic of Paul. For example, some suggest that the role of women at the Temple of Artemis was having a negative impact on the church. Others suggest Ephesus had a problem with widows serving as catalysts of false teaching. Still others suggest that 1 Timothy reflects the late first century church and its increased institutionalization in the light of false teaching.

It is important that we need not explain every verse. This impulse is actually dangerous, for it opens the door to what we might call the Pharisaic principle or the fundamentalist principle. The Pharisaic principle is the impulse to try to undo the weightier principles of God and Scripture with individual verses. It is rather on the level of the individual verse and passage that we are most likely to find the contextual and the unclear.

Both in terms of the weightier principles of Scripture (that the Spirit fills everyone equally, that God does not show favoritism) and in terms of the actual practice of the early church (where God used women to minister to men), 1 Timothy 2:12 is the strange verse.

5. Kristina LaCelle Peterson and others have shown that women continued to minister and play leadership roles in the church for several centuries. The pseudonymous Acts and Paul and Thecla may arguably preserve authentic memory that women ministered alongside Paul. This particular book from the second century was predictably squelched.

Perpetua was a late second century martyr who apparently served in some role of leadership. The late second century also saw a number of female leaders in the Montanist movement, a charismatic movement with an end times flavor. Women may even have been bishops in the first few centuries of the church. Inscriptions have been found referring to women as "episcopa."

Charismatic movements, because they focus so much on the Holy Spirit, frequently open the door for women to speak for God, because the Spirit is the great equalizer. This was certainly true of the holiness movement of the 1800s and early 1900s, which focused on the Holy Spirit before the Pentecostal movement even began. The sermon of the first woman ordained in the United States was preached by one of the founders of my own church in 1853.

Women often were preachers in full standing for the holiness tradition, and the holiness movement strongly participated in the women's rights movement of the late 1800s. The rights that they were fighting for then are now accepted by all today, such as the right of women to vote, own property, and so forth. At the turn of the twentieth century, no one blinked an eye for a woman to be on the pulpit preaching a revival in a holiness church.

It was only after World War 2, when men in the broader culture began to feel threatened by the inroads women were making in the workplace and public sphere, that holiness churches pulled back from women in ministry alongside conservative forces in the rest of the country. The last decade has seen a significant return to first principles here in holiness traditions.

God can and does call people of all types to ministry. Woe to those who stand in the way of someone God has called.

Next week: PC6: A Theology of Calling

[1] Traditionally, we have called people "missionaries" who are called to leave their own culture and bring the good news of Christ to a different culture or from one people to another people.

[2] Along with other scholars like Gordon Fee and Richard Hays, I do not actually believe these verses were in the original version of 1 Corinthians, but that they were added to the text at a very early point in its transmission.

[3] While there is debate, "wife" is the most natural translation of gyne when it is used in conjunction with the word aner, and the immediate mention of Adam and Eve, as well as childbearing, suggests that the husband-wife relationship is what is primarily in view in 1 Timothy 2:12.

E. P. Sanders' Paul

Since Mike Bird ordered a copy of Sanders' new book on Paul, I decided I needed to. Read the Preface and Introduction over a jelly filled donut and a late afternoon waiting to pick up kids.

I like it. Not only is the print big enough to soothe my almost 50 year old eyes, but this is the stuff I miss in biblical scholarship. Someone trying to be a historian for a change.

I appreciated the Preface. Sanders basically got writer's block after 4 books in four years and a fifth in six. I've been wondering where he was for the last twenty years. :-) I feel that pain. I've been trying to finish my next scholarly book for three or four years (and with the same patient editor). Fingers crossed for the end of the month.

There is a gentleness to the introduction that Sanders probably didn't have in his earlier years. This is a kindler, gentler Sanders. There was a time when his words of Joachim Jeremias were so harsh that some German scholars refused to be in the same conference with him.

The Introduction was a breath of fresh air. No, I won't agree with him on everything, but this is the old school historical stuff that has a kind of "just the facts ma'am" quality to it I like. I have faith. The part I'm needing more help with is the history.

Here are some interesting features he announces:

• He's changed his mind on a development in Paul's thought. He now thinks that Paul's thought did develop and that it is helpful to treat the books in order. His order is interesting. I agree with some disagree with others. He's not going to engage the six books that are debated (Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus).
• He thinks Dunn made a mistake to focus so heavily on Romans in formulating Paul's theology. Forgive me Jimmy for agreeing.
• Here's an interesting quote: "One must distinguish Paul's arguments from his conclusions" (xvi). And another: "Paul's conclusions are generally perfectly clear, but the logic of his reasoning is often difficult to follow" (xxix). "We should assume that his conclusions were what mattered to him" (xxviii).
• "Often finding the best argument to support one of our conclusions requires some experimentation" (xxviii).

I wrote at the end of his introduction, "It's nice to be retired." :-)

The Story Within the Bible 2

Introduction

The Story within the Bible
There is a story "inside" the Bible, so to speak. Different people and groups put that story together in slightly different ways. But it is a story that starts in a way even before the first verse of Genesis (the first book) and one that continues a long time after the last verse of Revelation (the last book).

This story is the story of God, in the first place. Christians believe that God has always existed and will continue to exist forever. In fact, Christians believe that God is the only "necessary" being--he is the only thing that exists that must exist. Everything else could come and go. Everything else could in theory be destroyed. But God is existence. Nothing can destroy him.

The story "inside" the Bible is the story Christians hear when they read the Bible. It is a story not only about God but especially about God's relationship with humanity. The story of humanity started in the plans of God but hit the ground running with God's creation of humanity and the world in Genesis 1. Although the story continues forever, the Bible leaves off in Revelation 22 with a world restored to what God wanted it to be, a perfect world where God and humanity live in perfect fellowship forever.

You might think of the Old Testament and the New Testament as part one and part two of the story. The first part of the story focuses on God's relationship with one particular group within humanity, a people called Israelites. They are the ancestors of Jews today. Think of it as a test case. God reaches out to one of the peoples of the earth in order to "pilot" salvation.

Salvation is, well, saving something. In the Christian understanding of the Bible's story, humanity is not currently where it should be. God created humanity to have a strong connection and relationship with him. [1] But humanity as a whole currently does not have that strong connection. Christians read the story of Adam and Eve in the second and third chapters of the Bible (Genesis 2-3) to indicate that we currently find ourselves alienated from God in our default state. [2]

In the analysis of the story within the Bible, a thinker named N. T. Wright sees the first three of a five act drama. [3] The first is the creation of the world. The second is the "Fall," when Adam and Eve alienate us all from God. The third is then the story of God walking with Israel in the pages of the Old Testament. God gives them a law that showed us not only what right and wrong basically looks like (the Ten Commandments) but that also shows us how God meets specific people with their particular needs.

In Wright's analysis, the New Testament then clues us in on the rest of the story. "Act 4" is Jesus, where God actually becomes a human being and models the perfect human life for us. The "act" while he is on earth ends with his horrific death by being nailed to a cross, his "crucifixion" by the Romans, who were in control of all the land around the Mediterranean Sea at the time. With Jesus' death, God showed us that he loves us, that he identifies with our pain and suffering, and he satisfied the order of things (more on that to come).

But Jesus' death was not the end of him. God raises him from the dead and enthrones him as the king of the universe. He will come again, in the final act, and he will finalize salvation and the restoration of the world. In particular, those who die before he returns will rise from the dead just like he did. In fact, he has made it possible.

The final act is then the current age, the age in which God walks with humanity through what we call the "Church," the collection of all those who have confessed that Jesus is king. God has made his presence and power known to all those who trust in him, a down payment of the final and full restoration of humanity that is still to come.

That is the story within the Bible. It is the story of God's walk with humanity, starting with creation, persisting through our alienation from God, but that will end in the restoration and completion of everything. Christians believe that the world will once more enjoy a strong connection and relationship with God again. Right will prevail, and injustice will come to an end.

[1] Traditionally, we refer to God as a "he," although God doesn't literally have any sexual organs. In a world where most leaders and kings were men, it is understandable that God primarily revealed himself in male terms, although female images are used of God in the Bible as well (e.g., Hos. 11:3-4).

[2] Jews do not read the story in quite that way. It makes a difference whether you read the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament or whether you just read the "Jewish Scriptures" on their own.

[3] N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011).

The Story of the Christian Bible 1

Introduction
Most of us have seen a Bible. Some of us have several of them in our homes. You can find them in most book stores. You even find them sometimes in hotel rooms.

The Bible has been the most influential book in human history. By far more copies have been made and sold of it than any other book. There are over six billion copies currently in print and, in the electronic age, there are still millions of regular searches and downloads of it. For over 1500 years it has served as the most important book of Western culture in particular, the book that most shaped the minds of Europeans and Americans in this recent period of history when these nations were rising to power.

In the United States, people's understanding of the Bible can play a significant role in politics. Some of the strongest voices in American politics are individuals who associate their views with the Bible. This fact makes the content of the Bible of interest even to those who do not consider themselves Christians. What is this book that plays such a significant role in some people's view of the world?

For those who would identify themselves as Christians, there is also a moment of truth here. Do you really understand this book you claim is so important to you? What if some of us really like the idea of the Bible but really don't know much about what is actually in it? What if some are more ready to fight for the "Bible" than actually to read it? Could it be that some of what some people think is the Bible is really just their own subculture, views they grew up with.

By the same token, some people who think they do not like the Bible actually may not like the attitudes and views of some people who claim to be representing the Bible. Would it not be fascinating if some of those attitudes and views turned out to be misrepresentations? It is at least worth a look to see.

The Bible is actually not a single book but a collection of dozens of books that have been collected into a library of sorts. In fact, the Bible is actually two Bibles. The first part of the Christian Bible is called the "Old Testament," and it was the Bible of Jews before the second part was even written. Even today, Jews who are not Christians consider the first part of the Bible alone to be their Bible.

These books were written over as much as a thousand years. They were written in three different languages, before the English language even existed. They were written in some quite different circumstances. At some points, we get peeks into a world that was quite different from the world we know today.

Yet many people believe that God speaks to them regularly through these books, as if there is no distance between now and then at all. Every Sunday, millions of people come together and hear the words of this book read. Many would say that God uses this book to give them hope and purpose for their lives. Many would say that God uses this book to help them when they face grief or suffering.

* On the one hand, we want to catch a glimpse of what these books were really about to begin with. We owe them that respect. We also want to see how these books have formed two world religions--Judaism and Christianity. If you are a Christian, we hope you will find this journey through these books refreshing and inspiring. These are your books! If you are not a Christian, we hope you will find this book as fascinating and intriguing a book as we believe it is.

Psalm 16 and Proverbs 4:10-13

Psalm 16
1. The original sense of Psalm 16 presents some difficulties in Hebrew, and translators have always done their best to render good sense of it. It is possible that verse 4 holds the key. It might be translated, "As for the holy ones who are in the land, these even were the glorious ones. All my delight was in them."

The psalmist then speaks of his conversion to serve YHWH alone. "Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows." The psalmist will [no longer] speak their names or give them drink offerings of blood (16:4). "The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup."

2. The psalmist now looks to God for protection. "You are my lord, YHWH" (16:1-2).

What a great inheritance as an Israelite! We remember that not all of Israel worshiped YHWH exclusively, even though YHWH was distinctively the God of Israel. But what a great inheritance, to have YHWH as a heritage: "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage."

The LORD gives the psalmist counsel. YHWH gives counsel through the psalmist's "kidneys" (16:7), "heart" (16:9), and possibly "liver" (16:9). The LORD thus speaks to the psalmist through his inner being, his conscience, his intuitions and values.

God shows the psalmist "the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy" (16:11).

3. Of interest from a New Testament perspective is 16:10. The original meaning of this verse in context is straightforward. Sheol is the realm of the dead and a metonymy for death. The psalmist is saying that the LORD will protect him and keep him from dying.

The Holy Spirit led the author of Acts to hear in this verse a resonance with Jesus' resurrection. God did not "abandon" Jesus to the realm of the dead, nor let his body see corruption (Acts here is engaging the Greek translation of the psalm). The argument Peter makes in Acts 2:25-32 understands Psalm 16 in a "fuller sense," leading to the true theological point that God raised Jesus from the dead. The argument itself is based on the framework of understanding in that day.

Proverbs 4:10-13
These verses repeat what has been said more than once before. The son of the wise speaker needs to listen. Solomon will lead the son on the path of wisdom, a path that leads to long life and not stumbling.

Psalm 1 and Proverbs 1:1-7
Psalm 2 and Proverbs 1:8-14
Psalm 3 and Proverbs 1:15-19
Psalm 4 and Proverbs 1:20-27
Psalm 5 and Proverbs 1:28-33
Psalm 6 and Proverbs 2:1-5
Psalm 7 and Proverbs 2:6-15
Psalm 8 and Proverbs 2:16-22
Psalm 9 and Proverbs 3:1-4
Psalm 10 and Proverbs 3:5-12
Psalm 11 and Proverbs 3:13-18
Psalm 12 and Proverbs 3:19-26
Psalm 13 and Proverbs 3:27-31
Psalm 14 and Proverbs 3:34-35
Psalm 15 and Proverbs 4:1-9

ET9: Capital punishment should be reserved for extreme circumstances, if used at all.

This is the ninth post on Christian ethics in an ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
_______________________________
Capital punishment should be reserved for extreme circumstances, if used at all.

1. It is obvious that no Israelite understood the sixth commandment to address capital punishment, death as a penalty for wrongdoing. The Law repeatedly calls for death as a punishment. As a small sampling:

• Whoever strikes their parent is to be put to death (Exod. 21:15)
• A witch is to be put to death (Exod. 22:18).
• A man who has sex with his father's wife is to be put to death (Lev. 20:11).
• Two men who have homosexual sex are to be put to death (Lev. 20:13).
• A stubborn, disobedient son is to be put to death (Deut. 21:18-21).

There was even a law about how long the body of someone punished by hanging should remain on tree: "When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day" (Deut. 21:22-23).

So it is clear that no Israelite connected the command not to kill with capital punishment.

2. We do not apply these punishments today. For one thing, Christians are generally not in a position to decide the punishments for crimes. We belong to governments that are elected and run on principles that allow for a constituency much larger than those who might be Christians within them. The New Testament itself was written under similar conditions.

Indeed, it is significant that the New Testament largely ignores or even opposes these sorts of punishments, even in instances where the same ethic continues. The apostle Paul condemns homosexual sex (e.g., Rom. 1:27) and the sex of a man with his father's wife (1 Cor. 5:1). But he does not in any way suggest that the Corinthians find a way to put this man to death. And while he says that all of the sins of Romans 1 are worthy of death--from idolatry to gossiping (1:32)--Paul does not in any way suggest the implication of this principle.

After all, "all have sinned" (Rom. 3:23). We all stand worthy of death because "the wages of sin is death" (6:23).

Indeed, the only place in the New Testament where death is suggested as a punishment is in John 7:53-8:11, the story of the woman caught in adultery. We should be somewhat cautious of this story, because it does not appear in the earliest manuscripts and was not likely part of the original text of John. Nevertheless, the story strongly resonates with Christians and some have suggested it may contain authentic historical tradition.

In this story, men bring a woman to be stoned for adultery. Jesus suggests that the person who has never sinned among them should throw the first stone. One of the main take aways seems similar to Romans 3:23. Since everyone has sinned, everyone is worthy of death. But Jesus is more interested in redeeming people than punishing them.

3. Dare we say that there were contextual dimensions to the punishments of the Old Testament? Punishments that we would consider extreme or even inhumane today were business as usual in the Ancient Near East (ANE). In fact, the trajectory of the Old Testament in its context is toward limiting such punishment.

The command to take a hanged body down prevents the kind of long term shaming and gloating over the death of another person that takes place when a body or head is left on public display indefinitely. The "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" rule was originally meant in the ANE to limit revenge. In other words, you cannot take two eyes if the person who wronged you only took one of yours.

How does one quantify the dishonor of a spouse who has an affair? In the ANE, it was equated with death. An eye for an eye meant death for disgrace. That is not an equation in almost any context today.

4. Christians today are increasingly opposed to the death penalty, even for crimes like murder. Right or wrong, we must admire the spirit of such individuals. If we are to err on the side of justice or mercy, clearly the New Testament calls us to err on the side of the latter, for "mercy triumphs over judgment" (Jas. 2:13). The Spirit of Christ is a spirit of forgiveness, not a spirit of vengeance (e.g., Rom. 12:19-21).

Still, Paul seems to assume that one legitimate function of Roman government is capital punishment. He writes that "authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer" (Rom. 13:4). Presumably Paul has punishments for crimes like murder in view. At least Paul did not understand the law of love to contradict capital punishment in some circumstances.

We should also distinguish between the functions of government and the personal ethic that Jesus taught. Jesus taught that the default Christian attitude should be one of turning the other cheek, of submission to those who oppress us (e.g., Matt. 5:38-42). But governments are protective structures that function differently than individuals. If Christian individuals ask "What would Jesus do?" governments more ask, "What would God the judge do?"

5. So we find ourselves once again applying the three purposes of justice to the question of capital punishment: 1) justice for redemption, 2) justice for protection, and 3) justice by removal.

It is a hallmark of modern society, heavily influenced by Christian values, that penal systems have sometimes been viewed as places of rehabilitation as much as places of punishment. To be sure, the lower, less mature view of prisons as mere places of punishment does surface frequently. It may indeed be the unexamined assumption of most.

But a Christian view of "discipline" sees penalty strongly through the lens of redemption. Hebrews 12 strongly suggests that God's discipline primarily works to reform us, to steer us in the right direction. Even in the case of the man who was having sex with his father's wife--an act the Old Testament punishes with death--Paul indicates that the purpose of handing him over to Satan is so that he might be saved in spirit (1 Cor. 5:5). [1]

6. Of course one of the principal motivations for discipline is also protection. If someone is liable to murder, then he or she must be removed from society in some way to protect society. If someone is liable to steal, then that person needs to be removed from a context where he or she can steal.

Redemption and protection do not have to contradict. They can both work at the same time. Nevertheless, the protection of the many is a higher priority than the redemption of an individual who refuses to be reformed.

7. Penalty can also serve a higher function still. It can serve as a deterrent of further wrongdoing. If a person cannot be prevented from wrongdoing for higher reasons, many can be deterred because of fear of punishment. We must reckon seriously with the possibility that the lighter the penalty, the less motivation not to do wrong.

This dynamic gets at a systemic issue. Government should normally enact punishment without mercy. Individuals show mercy, and some mercy can be shown in the dispensation of punishment. But the existence of penalty for crime is essential to the order of society. A person's soul can be redeemed but it still be important for them to experience consequences for the good of the stability of society at large.

So a person convicted of a heinous crime may be forgiven by God and yet still need to live out his or her sentence for the good of society's stability.

8. Is there a place for capital punishment? On the one hand, someone might argue that a person should be given as long as possible a time to repent of his or her sin. A life sentence, one might argue, provides a greater likelihood that a person will be redeemed than a death sentence.

It is not clear that this idea is true. A death sentence provides a framework for repentance, whereas a life sentence may simply foster indifference. Similarly, those whose hearts are truly hardened are not likely to ever repent.

There are some crimes, it seems, that are so heinous, that the very existence of the person seems to be an affront to the love of God and neighbor. Those who planned and implemented the Holocaust, serial killers, leaders of genocide--the very existence of these sorts of individuals are the very stuff that hell is made of. If hell is a reality, then "justice by removal" does not contradict love of God and neighbor in such instances.

9. Yet we should have strong caution here. We are speaking of a relatively small number of situations. And we should remember that some of those who have been put on death row or even put to death have turned out to be innocent. We cannot say with confidence that our legal system is fully reliable. This doubt in itself suggests that the death penalty should be used very sparingly.

Further, it may be that the Church is increasingly moving away from the death penalty. If God does indeed allow the church to "bind and loose" certain teachings (cf. Matt. 16:19), this may be one teaching that the Church is increasingly "binding." Who is to say that this trajectory is not of the Holy Spirit. It may be that Christians in a generation will nearly unanimously consider it unchristian to favor the death penalty.

Next Sunday: ET10. Violence in self-defense can sometimes be justified.

[1] Some scholars would suggest that prescribed punishments and laws in the Ancient Near East often served more as statements of values and ideals rather than actual practices. If that is true, then the Old Testament laws were never actually a matter of regular practice.

Reinventing Wesleyan Publishing House

1. For a few years now, Wesleyan Publishing House (WPH) has been declining. I suppose that's no surprise given the general state of the publishing industry right now. In the absence of any real change, it's been dying a slow death. Fewer and fewer staff, no real vision (unless the plan is to let it fall under its own weight). Just the General Board checking the numbers each meeting and seeing a bad trajectory.

I think the situation has now reached a ripeness for reinvention. Any forces that might have fought against doing something innovative are pretty much gone. Now is an opportune moment to do something I think we can be quite good at--innovating.

2.  For example, I've heard it suggested that the main divisions of HQ should be the point people for initiating and then marketing WPH books. So a book would only get published if Spiritual Formation, Education/Clergy Care, etc. were willing to take it under their wings and do the initial underwriting of the project.

They do it already and have sometimes done it in tension with WPH. These leaders are the ones out there in the churches anyway. Their leaders and staff have often been great marketers. How better to insure that the books produced at HQ are useful to the church?

3. There needs to be a full shift to a print-on-demand model that does not require any in-house sales or shipping. As an extreme example, WPH could do all its sales and shipping through Amazon. It could have a website that is basically a glorified astore. I don't know if a publisher like Wipf & Stock would be be willing to be a publishing arm for a denominational imprint.

In the print-on-demand model, a book isn't printed until it is ordered. No book ever goes out of print, and every book can make a profit. With Wipf & Stock, there is an initial fee. But they even have editors on staff. Then the book is permanently available and printed on demand.

4. Bottom line. Let's not ever use the word "close." Let's use the word "re-structure." There's no reason for closure. (P.S. Why not let the colleges in on the game too? Then IWU could merge its Triangle Publishing into the enterprise).

Seminary PC4. Ministerial Calling in History

The series, "Seminary in a Nutshell," continues. My featured text today is the first volume of Justo González's The Story of Christianity. Thus far:

Preface

The Pastor and Context
1. The Domains of Ministry
2. The Calling of a Minister
3. Ministerial Calling in Scripture

1. The process of entering ministry became increasingly institutional and less charismatic as the first generation of Christian leaders began to die off. We find traces of conflict over who should lead already in 1 Clement, a letter from around the year AD96 from the "bishop" of Rome to the church at Corinth.

Some in the Corinthian church were apparently disgruntled with their leaders and so tried to remove them. In response, Clement presents an idea that has come to be known as apostolic succession. The first apostles, like Paul, appointed "overseers" and deacons in the churches they founded. These overseers may have originally have been lead elders, but by the end of the first century, their power had already increased enough for us to call them, "bishops."

Clement tells the Corinthians that they do not have the authority simply to remove such individuals from leadership (41-42). Rather, those leaders remain bishops for life, and when they are about to pass, they can appoint their own successors. Alternatively, other leaders of repute can appoint replacements "with the consent of the whole church" (42).

This "episcopal" structure would largely stay in place until modern times. Throughout the centuries, there was little thought about calling. Individuals emerged as potential leaders in various ways. They were recognized by existing leaders. Then they were appointed to ministry by ordination.

2. As a side note, apostolic succession would become an issue for some circles after the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s. Who is genuinely a minister? In America especially, with a resurgence of "charismatic" callings, you had now many "prophetic" ministers who stood outside the unbroken chain of "apostolic succession" from the earliest apostles to today.

For example, in Baptist churches, ministers are ordained by a local congregation. Even the first "Methodist" ministers were first ordained by John Wesley, who was not a bishop but only a priest in the Church of England. He thus did not have the authority to ordain. The events of the American Revolution led him to ordain Thomas Coke as a general superintendent in 1784, [1] who then returned to America and ordained Francis Asbury. The two became the first Methodist bishops in the United States. [2]

So the notion of apostolic succession, still in play in many circles, is that a person must be ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who is in an unbroken chain of ordination going back all the way to the first apostles. My own church, The Wesleyan Church, has no formal position on this issue but informally would generally reject it as an absolute. [3] Nevertheless, there is a process of ordination that requires the recognition of one's calling by the church. One does not become a minister out of the blue.

3. The institutionalization of Christian ministry did not of course eliminate charismatic and lay ministry. It squelched it to be sure. But there will always be "informal" leadership and influence no matter what official structure you put in place.

The Montanists were a charismatic group in the late 100s who believed in prophecy and stood somewhat outside the official structure of the church. They were condemned in large part for that reason. Like many peripheral groups today, some of their ideas were weird--such as the idea that some of the towns in their area of Turkey (then western Phrygia) were going to be the new Jerusalem.

In most respects, however, their beliefs were the same as mainstream Christianity. They were condemned more for their charismatic nature than their beliefs per se. Women played a prominent role, as they usually do in prophetic movements. Two women in particular, Priscilla and Maximilla were equal leaders in the movement with Montanus. They had ecstatic experiences and made prophecies.

Traces of the movement would continue for a couple centuries.

4. The rise of asceticism--individuals devoted to rigorous physical discipline--is another example of somewhat spontaneous ministry arising in the church apart from the official structure. However, the ascetics were often inwardly rather than outwardly focused.

Anthony the Great was the first great ascetic, who lived from about 250-350. He is often called the "father of all monks." [4] His life thus spanned the time from the great Christian persecutions to the first decades after Christianity became a legal religion (in 313). Born to wealthy parents, he gave all his wealth away and largely went to live a simple, disciplined life in the desert. He is thus the first of a group known as the "Desert Fathers."

Some of these "charismatic ascetics," if you would, were somewhat bizarre. Simeon Stylites (late 300s to early 400s), for example, spend some 37 years living on top of a pillar, trying to withdraw from the world vertically. Children would bring him bits of bread.

These ascetics were known for their wisdom and were sought out by those who reverenced them. Some of their sayings are collected in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. They were also thought to have healing power.

5. Monasteries were another way in which the Spirit arguably worked to supplement the normal ministries of the church. If Anthony the Great represents a real turning point in the rise of spiritual individuals who were not priests, Benedict in the early 500s represents a real turning point for official monasticism because of the Benedictine Rule that he developed.

His origins, however, were not priestly. Like Anthony, he started off as a hermit. His calling did not come through the ordinary channels. Nevertheless, his rule indicates that there were already monasteries at the beginning of his life, and he would found a dozen. He died at the most famous one he founded at Monte Cassino in Italy.

Throughout church history, there have been several monastic orders that have arisen. These orders, like the Benedictine order, include both priests and non-priests ("laypeople"). A person feels a "calling" to them and can join upon taking vows of "poverty, chastity, and obedience" to the rules of each particular order.

6. The Protestant Reformation of the 1500s opened up the door for a return to charismatic calling to ministry on a major scale. When Martin Luther stepped outside the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, there ceased to be any common institution that could police the ordination or calling of individuals to ministry. The Lutheran movement would develop its own institutions. Then John Calvin in Switzerland would develop his own standards and institutions.

But wherever there was a space in power, there was the possibility that some individual or group would claim to be called of God outside the usual channels.

The "Radical Reformation" is where we first see this dynamic clearly. When Luther left the Roman Catholic Church, he still retained most of its theology and a good deal of its sense of structure. He and John Calvin still practiced infant baptism, for example, They still had ordination. By contrast, Radical Reformation would reject much more.

Luther, Calvin, and others claimed to be returning to the Bible as the map for Christianity. The radical reformers took this return much further. One group, the Socinians, even rejected the Trinity. This movement naturally gave rise to the "Anabaptists," a group that did not believe in baptizing infants but that only those old enough to believe should be baptized. They became known as "re-baptizers" or "ana-baptists."

Many of the leaders of this more radical movement had not been ordained as priests before the "Reformation," the split with the Roman Catholic Church. Some of those who had been ordained insisted on being re-ordained, just as they had been re-baptized. The key point is that ordination was, at least for a time, no longer a matter of an institutional church. Their later heirs, the Baptists, would ordain on the level of the local church, as we mentioned above.

7. American Christianity has especially delighted in the story of the person who is spontaneously called by God completely outside of any institutional church. This delight is often accompanied by a disdain for formal education. Sometimes even idolized is the uneducated person whom God calls out of the blue and leads to a tremendous ministry.

Dwight L. Moody, with no more than a fifth grade education, was perhaps the most influential American preacher of the 1800s. He did not have any formal ministerial training but founded three schools. Billy Sunday was a baseball player turned preacher, whose demonstrative preaching drew massive crowds in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Both of these are models of the American preacher whom God "anoints" powerfully without any formal ministerial training.

8. The twentieth century saw the rise of the charismatic movement, which then spread powerfully into Latin America. With an emphasis on the Spirit, the possibility of any individual receiving a prophetic word from the Lord has returned. The house church movement especially rejects the idea of some individuals being set aside as ministers in distinction from others in the church.

The late twentieth century also saw the rise of the idea that all Christians are ministers and should participate in the ministries of the church. The change in interpretation of Ephesians 4:12 illustrates this shift well. Previously, Christians understood the role of ministers as "the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (KJV). Now the first comma is removed. The role of ministers is now "to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up" (NIV). [5]

Now all God's people are ministers, and the distinction between minister and layperson almost disappears. The role of ministers becomes the equipping of others to do ministry, more than the job of ministry itself. Again, we will strategize about appropriating these models of ordained ministry for the church today at the end of the chapter.

Next week: PC5. God can call anyone to ordained ministry.

[1] Coke was already an ordained priest of the Church of England.

[2] Asbury insisted on the title of bishop over Wesley's opposition. Wesley wanted them to be "general superintendents." Asbury also insisted that all ordinations be ratified democratically, following the spirit of the newly formed United States.

[3] The Wesleyan Church is generally descended from those first "Methodist Episcopals," Coke and Asbury. However, the descendancy is complicated. Half of its heritage comes through the "Wesleyan Methodist Church," which separated from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1841 over slavery. It's other main parent body, the "Pilgrim Holiness Church" was originally composed of a number of "comeouters" from assorted churches around the turn of the twentieth century.

[4] Although there were ascetics before him. He was mentored by one, for example.

[5] Despite how popular this interpretation, adopted by all modern translations, it seems anachronistic, an almost predictable shift given American democratic culture.

Jerking Indiana Students Around

This is from the Marion Community Schools website, published in the Marion Chronicle Tribune, signed by the county school superintendents. My freshman daughter Sophie still faces close to ten more standardized tests even though she's already passed all the tests my oldest step-daughters ever had to pass, caught in the cracks of this madness:

"Here is a look at events that have had a profound impact on our students in Marion, and students around the state:

• Summer 2010: Indiana approves the Common Core Standards, and schools across the state began to develop curriculum and identify supporting instructional resources. 
• 2013/early 2014: (after three years of planning by educators to transition to the new set of standards), Indiana pauses and then formally withdraws from Common Core Standards. 
• April 2014: Indiana State Board of Education formally approves Indiana College and Career Ready Standards (leaving school districts only a few weeks to develop new curriculum and identify supporting resources prior to the start of the 2014-15 academic year). 
• February 2015: Newly developed ISTEP+ test is approved. Educators soon learn it will take 20 hours for students to complete the test. After public outcry, state officials quickly move to cut test down to 12 hours. Different forms of the test are administered to different students, even within the same grade level in a single school district. 
• Spring 2015: New College and Career Readiness test is administered to sophomores. This is separate from and in addition to the End-of-Course Assessments that have been a main component of school accountability at the high school level. At Marion, only a small percentage of students take the additional CCR test in Spring 2015, because information on this test and its impact on school accountability is unclear going into the testing period. 
• Summer through October 2015: A committee works with Indiana of Department of Education to determine passing scores for the new test. During this process it is discovered that paper/pencil versions of the assessment were less difficult than the online versions. IDOE decides to award bonus points to all students who took online versions. Many questions arise as to the validity of this process. 
• Mid-December/January 2015: Finalized ISTEP+ scores are expected to be released and subsequently unembargoed for media/public discussion. This is just a few weeks before the next round of ISTEP+ testing is set to begin (leaving very little time to adjust curriculum and supporting resources based on what the 2014-15 scores reveal). 

"The Bottom Line: Schools had little time to prepare for the changes in standards and assessments that were swiftly enacted last year, and we are still striving to understand what is expected this spring, when we will take the new ISTEP+ again!"

Stephen L. Edwards, interim superintendent, Madison-Grant United School Corporation
Tab McKenzie, superintendent, Mississinewa Community School Corporation
Brad Lindsay, superintendent, Marion Community Schools
Joel Martin, superintendent, Oak Hill United School Corporation

New Year's Resolutions 2016

And now for the requite New Year's Day post.

Looking Back
1. A change in roles was already in play a year ago, although few people knew it at the time. I think I had a great first semester back in the School of Theology and Ministry. It's a superb team under a superb leader (I jotted down some reflections on my first semester).

Send us your kids and, if you're graduating this year and twiddling your thumbs trying to figure out what to do, come do our MA in Christian Ministry (and take me and Abson Joseph for graduate level Bible, John Drury for theology, and much more). The content is the equivalent of an MDIV degree in two years!

2. Here are last year's resolutions. How did I do?

• The rest of my New Testament series was finally published with WPH.
• I did a little reading this year. Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy, Reading Philo, Holy Jumpers, I (Still) Believe, A Tale of Three Kings. I dabbled in several more.
• As usual I ran okay in the summer, not so well in the winters and fall. 
• I almost reached my goal for the year inching through a physics textbook. I make videos to help myself solidify each section.
• I self-published the first part of my Sunday "theology in bullet points" series, the section on God. The material for the second section on Christ exists but not yet edited. The whole series is almost done.
• I read more Wright, a little Campbell and Gadamer. But they still sit on a depressing and growing pile of books.

Looking Forward
1. I'd like to finish writing two academic books this year. May the first one be done by the end of January, the second by mid-year.

2. I'd like to finish some more of my self-publishing ventures: the theology series and maybe one or two of my new "Seminary in a Nutshell" series. I'm also thinking of putting together my women in ministry thoughts in a slightly more extensive form, since the Wesleyan booklet isn't available on Amazon.

3. I have a stack of books... many books I hope to wander through this year. The first one I hope to start with is one recommended by Keith Drury: Revolution by Gene Edwards:


4. My step-daughter Stacy gave Angie and me fitbits for Christmas. So I hope to run again in the spring-summer, but I've already hit 10,000 steps a day for the past six days.

5. The usual physics and math resolution (note to self, 562, 376, 155). I'm also hoping finally to finish Peter Collier's A Most Incomprehensible Thing by the end of this year.


Happy New Year!