Biblical Interpretation

Thanks to Chris for posting the link to the Bibilical Interpretation powerpoint. I have put it below again for reference to my comments.

This presentation is based on a two-part talk I heard back in 2002 as part of a spring break retreat to the Rockies. After sitting pretty much dormant in the back of my brain for several years, I remembered it and wanted to put it in a more concise format for sharing.

The main points of the teaching can be summed up as follows:

We need to give careful consideration to how we approach God's Word. As part of this approach, we need to commit to utilizing a sound interpretive process for our reading.

A very basic interpretive process includes first finding out what the text meant to the original readers, then recognizing the truth principles which underpin the text and hold true even still, and lastly making contemporary and personal applications.

Doing this will help us to walk wisely in between two poor alternatives. The first mistake is to do what I often do: to read a portion of scripture but not put any critical thought into it and stop thinking about it once I close my Bible. James 1:22 speaks to us about the folly of doing this. The other mistake is to do what I also sometimes do: to read a portion of scripture and make an application with only a partial or incomplete understanding of the context in which the passage lies.

Biblical Interpretation

-Kelly Blackwell

Blog Attack p2...and 3 now

The way we all operate these days makes it seems as though there's nothing left for Christ to do except make our existence more comfortable.

Several weeks ago I mentioned the book Unchristian. Several of those who have been in Epic and at Hillcrest for a few years said that Pastor Mark did a sermon series on the book. So, some are familiar with the book and some are not. For those not I will briefly summarize the book by saying that it deals with the very negative perceptions that people outside the church (and even many who are within the church) have of Christianity because of the drastic and damnable gaps that has grown first between what we as disciples of Christ are called to be and what we as American Christians claim to be, and secondly between what we claim to be and what we do. Christ calls us to humble ourselves, ask forgiveness, and love. Christianity has, in many ways, become little more than a moral code (and, for those our age, a philosophical mindset). Very few self-identified Christians adhere to that moral code.

We are seen as posers of extreme proportion.

That being said, the part part of the book that has stuck with me the most was a brief section that discussed Matthew 5: 13-16, the verses that call us as disciples to be

• the salt of the earth
• the light of the world
• a city on a hill

Here is a passage from the book.

Being salt and light demands two things: we practice purity in the midst of a fallen world and yet we live in proximity to this fallen world. If you don't hold up both truths in tension, you invariably become useless and separated from the world God loves. For example, if you only practice purity apart from proximity to the culture, you inevitably become pietistic, separatist, and conceited. If you live in close proximity to the culture without also living in a holy manner, you become indistinguishable from the fallen culture and useless in God's kingdom.

And I think that it's very easy to practice neither one. It's very easy to separate ourselves from the world and still not practice the purity. I actually think that it's more likely that if we section ourselves off and just hone in on Epic and Epic time and that it can become a simple social group where we are not out among the world nor calling ourselves to purity and Christ-like-ness. I feel like spreading God's love isn't a responsibility, a requirement for salvation, but a necessity for growing into a Christlike person. It's a pressure we put upon ourselves so that the pressure might shape and harden us. Most of us would never study if we didn't have a test coming up. If I hadn't volunteered to lead a week on Christ I never would have done the reading I did. I would guess that the same is true for Louis, Kelly, and Paul to extents.

The group has spoken of it several times, but in '10 I'll be pushing for it: that Epic gets involved in the community. Probably gonna be Harvesters or something. It's been mentioned that a great way to tie it in would be to do some volunteering right before a retreat, which will hopefully get lined up for early '10. I'll be pushing for that too. But involvement doesn't have to be as a group. It's might be more fun, but much harder to organize. Get out there if you can.

Blog Attack p1

Here is a link to the powerpoint for the Biblical Interpretation talk that Kelly lead a few weeks ago.

>> THE LINK <<

I wasn't there, but share thoughts or highlights if you recall them.

The Soul of Man is Naturally Christian

I came across this while listing to a sermon last week. The pastor was speaking on Matthew 8:14-17, the part where Jesus goes to Peter's home and his mother in law was ill with a fever. I'm not going to go through the entire sermon here, but the thing that I took away from the message was this: Our purpose is to know God and love others. We see in verse 14 that Jesus came into Peter's home and saw Peter's mother-in-law laying sick in bed. Then Jesus touches her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him. The pastor then interprets the text for the present day Christian: 1) we are meant to bring Christ to others. 2) We are meant to serve others at His touch. 3) However because of illness, Peter's mother-in-law is not able to serve until Christ touches her. What this means is that we can not carry out what God creates us to be until Christ touches us.

The pastor then goes on to say this: "Mankind is not wired for life without God. The soul of man is Christian. Man is meant to recognize the sovereignty of God and God's presence around him. Man is meant to recognize the fact that he has not been faithful to love others as he himself wants to be loved. He does not do unto others as he would like to do unto him. He is meant to come to the only true God for repentance and forgiveness. He is meant to know who God is solely by His Word that He has made known. He is meant to know that forgiveness and now reborn, began to do what God created him to do, and that is to know God and love others. That is what a human is meant to do." Man can not be what he was meant to be until Christ touches him.

The Predestination of Monkeys

This blog is predestined for an "Oh yeah, that blog we tried" comment five months from now. But I'm not going to give up on it yet. Oh-ho no I'm not. If you think I proffer China Star a lot, you have no idea what Chris-Cook-A-Lot is . . . hmm. That reads differently than I intended . . .

I really think there's some merit to attempting to insert some of the main discussion points from each Sunday into the online forum. For example, I'm going to be gone this Sunday when Kelly is going to be talking about Biblical interpretation. I would love to be able to be there for this topic in particular, but I'll be out of town so that's that, and that happens. If a short blog post were made and a few comments posted then there would be a decent chance of catching up people who might miss a week here and there.

TONY DANZA cuts in line.

But catching people up is only half of it in my mind. If we're able to actually make this blog into an ongoing discussion then it becomes one more tool to help us keep our faith on our minds throughout the week. One of the things that I personally struggle with is turning spiritual conversations into nothing more than academic discussions. If all we do is talk for an hour and then don't think about it again until the next Sunday when Louis asks, "So who can sum up what we talked about last week?" then we might as well just start going to lunch right at 11.


That being said, I think there were some good discussion points this last Sunday (Nov. 8th) when Louis led us in a discussion about Predestination. I don't remember them. Here are my thoughts.

THE QUESTION: PREDESTINATION?

I don't believe in predestination as it's commonly defined. I do not believe that there are souls brought into existence - to experience the slim shadow of God's love and presence which we call life - simply so that those souls can be subjected to eternal separation from God. I DO believe that there are souls brought into existence, to experience the shadow of God, specifically so that those souls can go on to experience the fullness of God in eternity; I believe all souls are intended to share eternity with God. But I also believe that all souls are required to make that decision themselves, and that many of them choose to focus in on themselves rather than God. I believe that God knows the outcome of each of those decisions because He doesn't progress in Time but exists throughout and at the end and beginning of Time simultaneously. And it's that knowing-aspect that is the basis for the idea behind the common definition of predestination.

Except monkeys. Monkeys go to hell. Unless less you comment differently it means you agree.

Jesus Links

Was Jesus Divine?

Did Jesus Have to Die?

John Calvin's Heresy: Jesus Suffered in Hell

C.S. Lewis on God Begetting (Yea! Google book preview...it's in the first part of the hopefully-directly-linked-to "Good Infection")

I would also recommend C.S. Lewis's book The Great Divorce to anyone who hasn't read it. The reason being that portrays a very different-and to me, agreeable-portrait of Hell; the Valley of Death, and the ways in which we separate ourselves from God/God's Love.

Questions Stemming from Romans Ch. 7

I feel like we had some really good discussion last week and I'm going to try to reiterate those that I can remember here in the blog so that it will be available to us later on in times of distress, confusion, or curiosity. I'm pretty late in the week, though, please hop in with some comments to fill in the inevitable gaps I will create.

Romans Ch. 7 - Reflection & Intentions

A great breakdown and explanation of the chapter is found >> HERE <<. They do a great job of going over everything so I won't bother with what would be a poor job. PLEASE READ IT if you're still going in circles in your head. Instead I'll move on to one of the questions that is hinted at.

Why did God send the law if He would ultimately have to come down and die for us? That seems to be one of the big questions that hangs over this discussion. The most apparent theme throughout the chapter seems to be this constant dismissal of the Law of the Old Testament as junk.

• v.4 "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another-"
• v.10 "And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death."
• v.14 "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."

Isn't God supposed to be omnipotent? Isn't He supposed to be outside of time, or beside time, or some confusing thing where there is no past and present and the realm of Time is completely laid out before him? Why, then, would he send the Law if He knows that it wasn't going to work? Why not come down straight away and become flesh and die for the sins of humanity instead of waiting thousands of years and letting thousands of souls perish, many at the direct hand of the OT-styled God of Wrath?

Of course you could go back all the way and get back to the question of "Why create humanity if He saw it was destined to separate itself from Him?" but I won't because that's a fairly basic, albeit fundamental question, the short-answer to which I understand as being that God created us that we might grow into being with whom He can share eternity.

Now--minus the paragraph above--while I seem to have digressed I don't really think I have. They are connected questions that all lead in to or out of one another and there isn't really a way to properly answer one and still have confusion on another. Some of it I'm going to try to touch on tomorrow (Oct. 25th) since it's my day to lead and I'm talking about Jesus, and since I still have some preparing to do I'm not going to be nearly as in-depth as I would like to be or as insightful as I need to be (though I doubt all the time in the world would change my level of insightfulness).

So, why did God bother with the Law first? The main imagery, and the actual theme behind Romans Ch. 7 is that the Law is the mirror that shows us how unclean we are; how dirty, retched, and filthy we are in the eyes of God. We have removed ourselves and our race from God's presence and as much as we might try we can't clean ourselves of the sin that resides in us. So God came down and became flesh and blood so that he might conquer sin within Time and therefore affect (effect?) sin's hold on humanity thoughout Time. Not just from 33 B.C. forward. And the Law came first so that we might know how unsightly we are before God's eyes because until we realize how truely hopelessly apart from God we are won't fully realize the grace and beauty of the salvation that is offered through Jesus Christ. And until we fully realize the grace offered we won't fully comprehend the need to go through the "over-demanding ordeal" of painfully putting our human nature to death and coming into true-life through Christ. And until we comprehend the actual need there's no chance of us actually doing it. We will, instead, simply "keep the faith" in a moralist way with academic discussions interspersed on Sundays.

Please comment, specifically if you disagree. This is me saying what I think, albeit strongly. But certainly not what I know for certain. I haven't done nearly enough reading and my conclusions are laid on unknown foundations.

A Holy Discontent

Several weeks ago Epic made an epic decision - we want to do more and better things. We are a group of energetic, active and upbeat young adults that are passionate about God and his people. Now comes the big question - what do we do with all this energy and passion?

Mark and I recently travelled home for a quick weekend visit to Wichita and attended my parents' church on Sunday morning. My dad has been the minister at Central Church of Christ (now RiverWalk Church of Christ) for 30 years. I have heard thousands of his sermons and the message he spoke that morning is still with me today. RiverWalk is undergoing a revival. This year, the church changed its name, started a capital campaign and is beginning to redefine what it means to be a body of Christ. RiverWalk is committing to weekly and monthly all-church service projects, adopting local schools, giving up Saturday mornings to help serve breakfast to the homeless and is praying for God's guidance and intercession in their lives and in the life of the church. RiverWalk is finding out what it really means to be God's hands and feet - treating people the way Jesus did and serving without hesitation.

Dad's sermon that morning was about having a Holy Discontent - a state of being that occurs when frustration over what is happening in the world connects to the promise of what God wants to do through us. God wants to use his children (that's us!) to restore what is broken in this world. What are you discontent about? What issues or injustices make you frustrated and angry? How can God use you (and us) to restore that brokenness?

For me, I am angry about how many people in our world go to bed hungry every night. In the land of fast food restaurants and skyrocketing obesity rates why are people in the US and other countries literally starving to death? Obviously I personally don't have the resources or ability to feed every hungry person on earth. But, I can do something here in KC to help change one person or one family's situation whether that be donating food, helping raise money or working alongside an organization dedicated to that cause. If Jesus can turn five loaves of bread and two fish into a feast for thousands then surely he can use my time and resources to take care of people's needs in KC.

2 Cor 5:14-15 says "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."

Do you have a Holy Discontent? Is there a brokenness that you see in this world that makes you angry and frustrated? I would love to hear your thoughts - feel free to leave comments!

Boom Goes the Dynamite

I was asked to start this blog and so I guess I'll finally start it. The three troubles are that A) I haven't really anything to say and when I haven't anything to say and yet feel I need to say something I tend to ramble and digress and wander off on many different tangents, only rarely finding my way back to the original center. B) When I do have something to say I often hold back for varying reasons. C) Not having anything to say about the tribulations and exaltations of living for Christ-about the daily attempts to simply come to terms with what the relationship demands and about the weeks-long stretches were we get so busy that we simply and slowly shut ourselves off and shut ourselves in and twist down bitterly and angerly upon ourselves without lifting our head up to try to figure out why things suddenly suck so much until we are inevitably, unfailingly broken out of it by some incredibly small and otherwise trivial moment or memory or thought and reminded that there's a reason the Lord demands that we offer ourselves in whole to Him - not having anything to say about it seems like death.

The fourth trouble is that's fairly late.

Whether it's Thursdays, Sundays, or on a blog EPIC still seems to constantly teeter on the dangerous ridge that connects being a Christian fellowship and being a social group. I feel that we aren't firmly standing on either side. I took the position of "Secretary" and have done a rather poor job of it these past two months. I will bump it up a notch. If you shouldered any responsibilities please try to move forward with them as well.

The fifth trouble is that this is the end, and at the end of this I still haven't said anything worthwhile; no personal trials, no theological thoughts, no honest attempts at growth. Those things seem to be the idea behind this blog and this group. But I am spent and will wait to post again...hopefully after someone else hops on.

'Til Sunday.