CONCORDIA JOURNAL
Volume 31
April 2005
Number 2
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
Theological Observer .................................................................. 110
ARTICLES
The Twelve and the Seven in Acts 6 and the Needy
Norman Nagel ....................................................................... 113
The Apostolic Tradition in Colossae: Christology in Action
John Frederick Johnson............................................................ 127
What the Bird Said and why it was the Gospel
Justin Rossow........................................................................132
SHORT STUDY
Why One Thousand Years?
James A. Kellerman ............................................................. 140
REVIEW ESSAY
The Lord’s Supper
Jayson S. Galler.................................................................... 150
HOMILETICAL HELPS ...................................................................157
BOOK REVIEWS ............................................................................... 184
BOOKS RECEIVED ........................................................................... 211
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Theological Observer
How Many Lutherans?
How many Lutherans are there in the world? According to new statistics released by the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation (LWF), the
answer is 69, 527, 817. That grand total number includes the membership
of the 138 LWF member churches, as well as non-LWF churches such as
the LCMS. You can read the detailed report yourself at
www.lutheranworld.org.
The question of how many Lutherans there are is certainly interesting, even if any attempt to answer it embroils us in hazards, doubts, and
ambiguities. There are hazards because, in the minds of some, the very
idea of counting seems theologically objectionable. These enemies of numerical measurement have some Biblical support on their side, of course.
(The account of David’s military census in 2 Samuel 24 may be taken as a
cautionary tale about such numbering!) But even if we concede that counting the world’s Lutherans is not inherently improper, there remains a
doubt about whether it is possible. It will always be difficult to know how
accurate such statistics are, whether the count was conducted the same
way everywhere, and what sort of factors should be taken into account as
we use the numbers.
So, yes, the new LWF statistics about worldwide Lutheranism are
fraught with hazards and doubts, to which we must in this case also add a
special ambiguity. After all, how many Lutherans there are depends on
who gets counted as a Lutheran. This is not a simple matter, and it isn’t
getting any simpler. We may prefer, and even assert, a strictly confessional definition by which those who do not pledge themselves unconditionally to the whole Book of Concord ought not to be counted as Lutheran.
But such a definition is unlikely to be convincing to most of those who
want to identify themselves as Lutheran, and it is not clear that we exercise any sort of exclusive proprietary rights over the term. If we want to
use—and perhaps even learn from—the statistics published by the LWF,
we must bear in mind the definitions they use themselves. And that is
where the plot begins to thicken.
For many years, we have become accustomed to thinking of European
Lutheranism as diminishing in influence and numbers. The state churches
and Volkskirchen of the traditionally Lutheran lands of Germany and
The “Theological Observer” serves as a forum for comment on, assessment
of, and reactions to developments and events in the church at large, as well
as in the world of theology generally. Since areas of expertise, interest, and
perceptions often vary, the views presented in this section will not always
reflect the opinion of the editorial committee.
110
Scandinavia have lost members, church attendance is notoriously pathetic,
and the old systems of state taxation in support of those churches are
gradually being dismantled in many places. The pattern of decline in those
Lutheran churches makes it all the more surprising that Europe showed a
very significant increase in the number of Lutherans during 2004—more
Lutherans were added in Europe than in any other region of the world!
European Lutheranism increased from just under 36 million to about 38.6
million, an increase of about 7.3 percent. What is even more impressive is
that most of that increase occurred in the tiny country of the Netherlands!
In the Netherlands alone, the LWF counted twice as many new Lutherans
in 2004 as in the whole continent of Africa (more about Africa later).
Of course, there has not been an explosion of evangelistic zeal among
Dutch Lutherans. The statistical anomaly results from a merger of the
tiny Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands with
that country’s two largest Reformed bodies, each of which was vastly larger
than the Lutheran group. The merged church, known as the Protestant
Church in the Netherlands (PCN), is now a member of both the LWF and
the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Voila!—more than two million
new “Lutherans,” at least the way they are being counted these days in
Europe.
Elsewhere in the world, the statistics are perhaps less ambiguous.
The western hemisphere does not fare well. North American Lutheranism
declined by 2.2 percent, while Latin America registered “only” about a 1
percent loss in membership. Asia, on the other hand, increased the number of its Lutherans by almost 1 percent, and now includes 7.4 million
members of Lutheran churches.
The big story, however, is in Africa. The number of African Lutherans
rose from just under 13 million in 2003 to over 14 million today—an 8.4
percent increase in the year 2004—apparently without adopting the European method of redefining millions of Reformed Christians as “members of
LWF churches.” There are today almost three times as many Lutherans
in Africa as there are in North America. Please stop and read that sentence again, because it is important. There are today almost three times as
many Lutherans in Africa as there are in North America.
Africa is rapidly becoming the center of world Lutheranism. The sheer
numbers are part of the picture, of course. But the rate of growth is also
highly significant: European churches still have many more members than
do their African sisters, but the African churches know a good deal more
than the Europeans about the business of baptizing and catechizing new
converts to the faith. If Lutheran churches sold stock, would you invest in
European churches or African ones? Which sort of church do you suppose
has a future over the next century or so?
Six out of the seventeen countries with more than half a million
Lutherans are African countries (and three are in Asia). Of the twenty-two
Lutheran churches which report more than half a million members, six
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are African churches (and three are in Asia). Three African Lutheran
churches each have more members than the LCMS (in Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Tanzania).
Of course, Africa is not yet the financial center of global Lutheranism.
The churches of Europe and North America, although lacking much of the
vitality and dynamism of the African churches, still wield enormous economic power, and that power translates into influence in every aspect of
the life of the worldwide Lutheran community. There is a tension between
the size, growth, and vitality of non-western (and especially African)
churches on the one hand, and the disproportionate financial resources
and influence (both theological and political) concentrated in the churches
of Europe and North America on the other hand. That tension may become increasingly obvious and important for the relations among those in
the world who identify themselves as Lutherans.
What will it mean for us when the “center of gravity” of Lutheranism
has moved to Africa? Will that change the way we think about the world,
and about our place in it? Perhaps it will convince us that the future of this
precious way of confessing and proclaiming the Gospel (i.e., the way we
call Lutheranism) is very bright, indeed. It is growing and thriving under
the bright African sun.
William Schumacher
112
Articles
The Twelve and the Seven
in Acts 6 and the Needy
Norman Nagel
Luke 6 tells of our Lord’s praying and then of His calling His disciples
to Him. From among them He chose twelve. These He named apostles.
Their names are listed. There is no doubt who is an apostle, who is of the
Twelve.
As apostles they get sent. For their first mission Jesus “gave them
power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent
them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal” (9:1-6). There are
specifications unique to this mission.
Upon their return they reported to Jesus. The crowds came after Him.
“He welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured
those who had need of healing.” “The Twelve came and said to him, ‘Send
the crowd away.’” “But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’”
Something they are specifically told to do. They gave out what He gave
them to give. When they were at table with Him, He was the one who
served (o` diakonw/n, 22:27). He gives them to eat and to drink, and thereafter they would give out what He has them there for, for His giving out,
specifically His body and His blood. As at Passover and its meal, there was
thought and provision for the needy (John 13:29). But sadly, “a dispute
arose among them which of them was to be regarded as the greatest”
(22:24).
The mission of the Seventy has similarities with the first mission of
the Twelve (10:1-20). Their message is the same and they also are to heal
the sick. The Seventy are specified to “where he, himself, was about to
come.” That done their mission was done, as also the first mission of the
Twelve, and also the mission of John the Baptist. Our Lord has directions
which are unique and specific to each mission on which He sends whom
He sends. We are following Luke, most sensitive to the fringed people.
In Luke’s final chapter the message and its mission are based on the
Old Testament. On the way to Emmaus Jesus said to the two who report
to the Eleven (v. 33):
“O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets
have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer
these things and enter into glory?” And beginning with Moses and
all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the
Dr. Norman Nagel is Gradutate Professor of Systematic Theology at
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.
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things concerning himself (vv. 25-27).
Then in Jerusalem:
“These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with
you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the
prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their
minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is
written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise
from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should
be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (vv. 44-47).
The apostles whom Jesus had chosen through the Holy Spirit were given
the charge to remain in Jerusalem to await the promise of the Father
(Acts 1:4).
They were the Eleven (Luke 24:9, 33; Matt. 28:16; Mark 16:4). Their
names are listed (Acts 1:13f.). Judas’s share in this ministry (to.n klh/ron
th/j diakoni,aj tau,thj), his office (evpiskoph/n auvtou/, AV: bishoprick) his place
in this ministry and apostleship is filled by Matthias—done only here
by lot (klh/roj), by intervention of the Lord. “He was enrolled with the eleven
apostles.” Then there were Twelve. When James, the Son of Zebedee, one
of the Twelve was martyred, he was not thus replaced (12:2).
For the Pentecost of Israel there are Twelve. Wind, storm, and fire
signal the Lord is having an Israel, a Twelve, as at Sinai (Ex. 19:16; Heb.
12:18-24; Luke 22:30). Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice
and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem” (2:14).
“Those who received his word (lo,gon) were baptized,” three thousand in all.
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship
(koinwni,a), to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” The apostles appear
to be taking care of things. Only two of the Twelve are mentioned, and
then as apostles: Peter and John. The Twelve appear only once more in
connection with the Seven.
All who believed were together and had all things in common (koina,).
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need (crei,an). And day by
day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their
homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,
praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord
added to their number day by day those who were being saved
(2:44-47).
Quite a flock if they all went to the temple together, and how many houses
were needed for doing the other things? “With great power the apostles
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were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and
great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them”
(4:33f.; Deut. 15:4). The generous provision was laid at the apostles’ feet,
who then saw to the distribution. How much was done at the same time
and in the same place: the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking
of bread, and the prayers?
Caring for the needy was part and parcel of being an Israelite, one
who belongs to such a Lord who “executes justice for the fatherless and
the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” (Deut.
10:18; James 1:27). Among the prophets “doing justice for widows” was
shorthand for covenantal loyalty. In the Rabbinic tradition “doing justice” (sedeka) was spelled out in terms of organized community
almsgiving.”1 This was never just something secular. Un-Israelizing denial of this brought down a curse (Deut. 27:19; Mal. 3:5). It was rebellion
against the Lord who gives without reckoning of return, as is most
clearly the case with orphans, widows and strangers—not by some abstract principle of equality but “as any had need.” In the temple there
was provision for “the poor of good family.” The Mishna tells of “The
Seven of the City” who managed the distribution. Daube points out that
they were not ordained (not samakh, but šam, “more civil than religious”), as was Joshua, Moses’ substitute, and as were the Seven in Acts
6.2
A Damascus Fragment tells of a pre-Christian ordinance for the members of the congregation to put their offering every month for the needy
into the hand of the episcopus and the judges.3 Jeremias points to evidence
prior to A.D. 70 which tells of arrangements for the care of the poor. The
1
L. Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), 105f.; O.
Proksch, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Gütersloh: Bertelmann, 1950), 232; H. J.
Degenhardt. “Liebestätigkeit in den Gemeinden der apostolischen Zeit,” in Volk Gottes,
ed. R. Baumer and H. Dolch (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), 250.
2
D. Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (Peabody: Hendrickson,
1998), 239; “A reform in Acts and its models,” in Jews, Greeks and Christians. Festschrift
for W. D. Davies, ed. R. Hamerton-Kelly and R. Scroggs (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 162; H.
Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Munich: Beck, 1956), 2:641-647;
Megillah 3:2; IA, Three members of a synagogue act for the synague. B, Seven townspeople
act for the town. The Talmud of the Land of Israel, ed. J. Neusner (Chicago and London:
UCP, 1982), 19:123; Also Josephus’s Antiquities 4.14 (214) Jewish War 1.5 (569). “More
civil than religious.” Flavius Josephus 3, Judean Antiquities 1-4, ed. L. Feldman (Leiden:
Brill, 2000), 408, n. 648. Deuteronomy 16:18. A plethora of invaluable data is given by H.
LeCornu with J. Shulam in A Commentary on the Jewish Roots of Acts (Jerusalem:
Academon, 2003), especially 301-320. Still unsurpassed is E. Lohse’s Die Ordination im
Spätjudentum und im Neuen Testament (Göttingen: V & R, 1951).
3
CD XIV, 12f. Die Texte aus Qumran, ed. E. Lohse (Darmstadt: WBG, 1971), 97,
Mebaqqer, Aufseher, episcopus. In the LXX usually a Levite with varying allocations of
task. Eleazar was the priest with responsibility for the range of things needed for the
liturgy, among which was the cereal offering (Num. 4:16). 2 Kings 11:18 has watchmen
over the house of the Lord. In 2 Chronicles 34:12 we may find “ministers of music,” and
in Nehemiah 11:22 episcopal Levites for choir service. J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time
of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 260f.; In Qumran he (Jeremias) finds them “as a
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“poor basket” (quappāh) was a weekly distribution of food and clothing.
The “poor bowl” (tamhay) was a daily distribution of food also with provision for a cup of wine at Passover. To be included in the rejoicing before
the Lord were the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow (Deut. 16:11).
While the Jerusalem Christian Israelites would have some knowledge of
this, Jeremias concludes: “it is more likely that the fellowship meal that
was held daily by the Christian community, entailed of itself a daily distribution of aid for its poor members.”4 Reicke pushes this point further. He
does not see the Christian care for the needy in close continuity with what
went before. He sees it rather as an aspect of the liturgical life of the
Jerusalem congregation. The apostles themselves had the doing of it.5 In
Corinth Paul had to deal with the treatment of the have-nots in church
when they came together for the Lord’s Supper.
But we are still in Jerusalem in Acts 6. Here disciples appears for the
first time in Acts. It embraces all the Christian Israelites despite differences of language and culture. They are also held together as the baptized,
those who call upon the name of the Lord, those belonging to the Way, the
saints, the brethren, the believers “who received his (Peter’s, the Twelve’s)
words.” Together they are the Lord’s church assembled in specific places
(20:28). First in Antioch we hear of them as Christians (11:26). Same ones,
different designations, each with some specificity.
What the Lord sets going does not stop in Jerusalem, and so further
afield on to Judea and Samaria, and to the ultimate end of the earth. All
along the way there is continuity of message and ministry. In Jerusalem
the Twelve are first central. In the Pentecost of Israel the Twelve stand
before the people with Peter their spokesman.
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God
calls to him” (2:38-39).
Things went well, and they went badly. There is always the danger of
being brought to a stop.
Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and
shepherd with his sheep”; and “among the Jews the ruler his sheep”; and “among the
Jews the ruler of the synagogue.” See B. Reicke, Diakonie, Festfreude und Zelos (Uppsala:
Lundequist, 1957), 29. Also his The Jewish “Damascus Documents” and the New Testament (Uppsala: Wretman, 1946), 17, and 16 where he comments on xiii, 7: “striking
linguistic and sociological similarities with the Christian evpi,skopoj.”
4
Jeremias, 131, 133. Jeremias’s dating is discounted by Brian Copper, “The Palestinian Context of Community of Goods,” in The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting, ed. R.
Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 351.
5
Reicke, 29.
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soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed
was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great
power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a
needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands
or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold
and laid it at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made to each
as any had need (4:32-35).
Acts 5 tells of hypocrisy and cheating regarding what was laid at the apostles’
feet. The apostles were imprisoned. Forbidden to speak in the name of
Jesus “every day in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching
and preaching Jesus is the Christ” (5:42).
In chapter 6 things come to a stop. “Now in those days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the
Hebrews.” What language you spoke could be a problem. In Jerusalem
there were Aramaic speaking synagogues and Greek-speaking ones. Among
the disciples this was also the case. Christian Israelites whose first language was Greek are here called Hellenists. The Hebrews were Aramaic
speaking Christian Israelites.6 To speak of Israel is to speak of Twelve.
The Israel whose Twelve they are, are “the body of the disciples.” That
body incorporates both the Hebrews and the Hellenists, both Israelite disciples. Murmuring is an Israelite thing to do, for any number of reasons,
among them food complaints.7 Exodus 16 makes clear that the murmuring
against Moses and Aaron was in fact murmuring against the Lord. The
distribution of food is from His hands. He feeds the widow and orphan and
stranger by His arrangements. When this is not being adequately done,
others are appointed to help in the work. Thus the Seventy.8
Greek-speaking Jews, sensitive to presumptions of superiority on the
part of the Aramaic speaking Jews, might well suppose this to be a ground
for second-class treatment. Or that may have been the way they put their
6
C. F. D. Moule, “Once More, Who Were the Hellenists?” Expository Times 70 (19581959), 100-102; Hengel agrees. Between Jesus and Paul (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983), 811; “The ~Ellhnistai, in 6:1 and 9:29, are a phenomenon limited to Jerusalem.” Hengel
offers a way through the maze tendentiously projected by Baur, 1ff. For Chrysostom 137,
no. 37. J. Roloff, Die Apostelgeschichte NTD 5 (Göttingen: V & R, 1988), 108, agrees with
Chrysostom when he says on Acts 9:29, Luke “names those who speak Greek Hellenists.”
Homilies on Acts 21.1; Library of Fathers (Oxford: OUP, 1851), 33:299. NPNF 1 16:135.
J. Jervell would reawaken regard for Baur in his Die Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen: V &
R, 1998), 52. Jervell would show how separate the two groups were.
7
Daube, Reform, 152f.
8
Exodus 18 [tells of] judges as assistants of Moses, “They will bear the burden with
you.” Similarily Numbers 11, the Seventy, “They shall bear the burden of the people with
you,” and Deuteronomy 1, officers of the tribes, “How can I bear alone the weight and
burden of you and your strife?” Too many to deal with. Daube, Report, 155: “Linguistically, Acts is a blend of Exodus and Deuteronomy plus the appointment of Joshua.” And
in general, Jervell, 75.
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case, when they thought they were not getting as much as some others in
the distribution. Some given reasons may be chosen as more pious and
persuasive than more honest ones. Widows, for whom the Lord has a special care, were being slighted. Who then is pulling with the Lord, and who
is pulling against him? Murmuring, which is usually against the Lord, is
here directed against the Hebrews, when in fact responsibility for the distribution, we have been told, is at the feet and in the hands of the apostles,
of whom we know twelve, with Barnabas from Cyprus already mentioned.
The Twelve act. For more than anything else they are there for preaching the Word of God. Their continuing to take care of the distribution,
which surely took place with the “Word of God,” would now use up too
much of their time, burdened now with the task of sorting out all its problems. Who is right; who is wrong? Who is strong; who is weak? Overcoming such questions is the core question put by the Twelve: What of the
Word of God? What may hinder the onward movement of its message,
mission, and ministry? What carries everything forward in Acts is the
preaching of the Word of God. That happens as it has mouth and feet put to
its service. We have heard of the Twelve, and the apostles. Now we hear of
the Seven.
Acts 6 gives intimation from within Jerusalem of threats to be faced
again later. The language question was perhaps cover for who counts for
more, and who gets more in the distribution. Whose church is it (1:6; Luke
9:46)? Acts 11 tells of when “the apostles and brethren who were in Judea
heard that the Gentiles [the uncircumcised, not even Greek-speaking Israelites] also had received the Word of God.” Here we hear of “the apostles
and the brethren.” In Acts 6 the disciples and the Twelve.
In Jerusalem the Twelve are in authority. They will shortly disappear
as “sent ones” are apt to do. The movement does not end with the Twelve;
others are put to do what they have been doing. The distribution, as done
by the apostles (4:35), grew to be more than they could manage, particularly if there was now some friction to be dealt with. That would claim
more time. Some designation was called for regarding what in the diakoni,a
(service/ministry) was whose responsibility. The Twelve did not wish to
have less time for prayer and the ministry of the Word. If they gave up the
distribution, or at least some of it, others would need to be designated to
that part of the ministry which is designated by tables. This suggests meal,
food, eating, and drinking. These were never without the Word of God and
prayer, certainly not when the Twelve were responsible, and not when
those taking their place were responsible, particularly not in the context
of devotion to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and the prayers (1:42).
The Twelve ask to be relieved of some of their responsibilities so that
they may have more time for what really comes first. Having drawn the
attention of the disciples toward that, so away from their squabbles, the
Twelve put forth both problem and proposal. “Therefore, brethren, pick
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out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of the
wisdom, whom we may appoint (katasth,somen) to this duty” (6:3). Luke tells
of this in the way he tells of an ordination.9 There is an election (evxele,xanto)
of seven by the deliberative body of the disciples (plh/qoj). These the Twelve
will put to this task (i.e., duty, need, office, crei,a au;th, 6:1).10 The Seven
were elected. As specific to the task of fair distribution to the Hellenist
widows, they have Greek names. Would the care of the Hebrews then
need “no special attention and go on smoothly as before?”11 Greek names
were not unusual among Greek-speaking Israelites, especially those from
the Diaspora. One is a proselyte from Antioch, of which more anon. The
first named is Stephen, the second is Philip, of whom more anon. “These
(seven) they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands
upon them” (6:6).
They are ordained and allocated a verb to do. That is not called a
diakoni,a, nor are they dia,konoi.. What is primary of diakoni,a is the ministry
of the Word (6:4), that is the preaching of the Word of God (lo,gon, 6:2).
Luke’s emphasis on the Word of God as the primary doer in the Acts of the
Apostles may help to explain why the Seven are not outside the ministry
of the Word by their designation “to serve tables,” any more than the Twelve
had been, as is confirmed by what we are later told of Stephen and Philip.
Having a Twelve and a Seven is not the final solution. Polity may vary.
Constant are the words of the Lord and their delivery as He has mandated. In Acts 6 the number of ministers is augmented with specific allocations of tasks.12
There is no diakoni,a going on unless there is some one doing it. Into
some diakoni,a there are those who are specifically put. Those thus put are
spoken of by what in that ministry they are there allocated to do. They
might both be called deacons/ministers, with the Twelve having a prior
9
The usage is traced out by G. Schille, Die Apostelgeschichte des Lukas (Berlin:
Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1984), 169-171; Terminologisch ausgewogen. Here “set there”
(e; s thsan, put) toward technical term for ordination for which these things are done:
election and presentation by the congregation, prayer and the laying on of hands by the
apostles. Strack-Billerbeck 2:655f., observe that the laying on of hands probably fell out
of Jewish usage because it meant so much among the Christians. B. Domagalski, “Waren
die ‘Sieben’ (Apg 6, 1-7) Diakone?” Biblische Zeitschrift 26 (1982), 30; “Die Sieben im
Grunde die gleichen Handlungen ausüben wie die Zwölf.” A similar view is expressed by
J. Emminghaus, “Amtsverständnis und Amtsübertragung im Judentum und in der frühen
Kirche des I. Jahrhunderts,” Bibel und Liturgie 3 (1977): 183f. E. Lohse, TDNT 9:433, n.
55; A. Weiser, Die Apostelgeschichte (Güterloh: Mohn, 1985), 167. Contra Jervell, 219.
10
E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 263: 1f.
“In Hellenistic usage crei,a means ‘function’ and ‘office,’ not ‘requirement.’ ”
11
Moule, 101; The Hebrews were already receiving adequate care. Jervell, 218. The
aorist katalei,pantaj allows the Twelve to have felt the burden already. Daube, Reform 155.
12
Schille, 165: Die Vergröszerung der Mitarbeiterschaft. 166: Versus Strobel’s aitiology theory, “man müszte doch zunähst einmal nachweisen, dass es christliche
Armenpfleger als Institut (gar der Sieben) gegeben hat.” 169: Man wird mit Did. 11.9
(tra,peza=Abendmahlstisch) an die eucharistische, prinzipieller: die kultische Funktion
denken dürfen. Jervell, 218: “Verkündegung und Armendienst nicht zu trennen sind.”
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claim. That does not happen here, nor do we hear of this allocation again.
We attend upon what does happen.
The Jerusalem chapter is drawing on toward Judea and Samaria (8:2,
“except the apostles”). The “preaching the word of God” of which the Twelve
spoke is carried on further by Stephen and Philip of the Seven. Their
preaching, baptizing, and witnessing brings the account beginning from
Jerusalem, on through Judea and Samaria, on toward “the ultimate end of
the earth.” Saul, mentioned at Stephen’s stoning, enters the ongoing movement in chapter 9. It is the one movement as the Word of the Lord travels
and grows.13 One message proclaimed by those whom the Lord puts to
carrying it, one ministry. Those whom the Lord puts into this ministry
may be variously assigned to its tasks, as may vary in time, place, need,
and opportunity, and as may also be indicated by a variety of titles. Part of
what the Twelve had been doing was assigned to the Seven. Of two of the
Seven we are told they proclaimed the Word of the Lord. Of Philip, that he
baptized, and that he was an evangelist. Of Paul we are told that he baptized for only a little while in Corinth, and then as an apostle he traveled
on. The departing apostle left resident ministers in place, and saw to it
that the churches in every place had ministers (ceirotonh,santej, 14:23;
kaqi,sthmi, Titus 1:5).
Next we may enquire how the Seven lived on in the usage of the church.
Was their specified responsibility specific to that Jerusalem phase of which
Acts 6 tells us? In Philippians 1:1 and 1 Timothy there are men called
deacons dia,konoi (deacons, ministers). They serve with bishops. Their ministry is done in relation to senior clergy. They are all ordained by the Lord.
The furthest that we get in the New Testament are the words to bishops
and to deacons in 1 Timothy 3; both are in the “preaching the word of
God.”
Whatever the titles the constant and the continuity are in the message, and that the Lord has put them into its service. Specifications within
the service may be indicated by a particular title. The Twelve were doubtless apostles. As sent ones they traveled. The specific import of their being
Twelve dominates the Pentecost of Israel. They evidence the Lord’s one
Israel.14 That accomplished, they disappear. Jerusalem does not hold them
nor furnish them with a succession. If not Jerusalem, how then any other
place? In Jerusalem we hear of no successors of the Seven. Acts 6 is the
last time we hear of both the Twelve and the Seven.
There continue to be apostles. As apostles they tend to move on.
Churches came to have resident clergy. From synagogue background there
13
M. Franzmann, The Word of the Lord Grows (St. Louis: Concordia, 1961). J. Kodell,
“The Word of God Grew,” Biblica 55 (1974), 505ff.
14
K. Rengstorf, “The Election of Matthias,” in Current Issues in New Testament
Interpretation, Festschrift for O. Piper, ed. W. Klassen and G. Snyder (New York: Harper,
1962), 188. B. Rigaux, “‘Die Zwölf ’ in Geschichte und Kerygma” in Der historische Jesus
und der kerygmatische Christus, ed. H. Ristow and K. Matthiae (Berlin: Evangelische
Verlagsanstalt, 1962), 481.
120
were presbyters (elders). The Septuagint tells of bishops, priests who cared
for supervising and supporting the liturgy. There were other priests whom
they directed (Num. 4:16). E
v piskoph, and avpostolh, and diakoni,a are synonyms
by Acts 1:25. The office was there before Matthias was put into it. It was
there before all its nomenclature, before the allocations within it, as might
be indicated by various titles and roles in the liturgy. Each may have some
proprium.15 Ysebaert acknowledges this when he shows the way presbyter
and bishop are synonymous, and on the basis of more evidence than Acts
20:17, 28 and 1 Peter 5:1. Presbyter could include both bishop and deacon.16 Where presbyter, there is no deacon. Didache 15.1 has bishops and
deacons; no presbyter in sight. When presbyters were subordinated to bishops, deacons were subordinated to presbyters, one tier down, but still primarily responsible to a bishop. In the Apostolic Tradition (c. 215) no presbyter but only the bishop ordains a deacon “to do what is ordered by him.”
This cannot but include what needs to be done for the needy.17 We hear
nothing of the specification of the Seven.
The prophets and teachers in the Didache, who are in the same ministry with the bishops and deacons, disappear.18 What they were there to do
lapses, or is taken into some other office—usually, that of the bishop.19 The
work involved in caring for the poor was never left unallocated. As bishops
came to have more management of things they came to be more specifically designated to this part of the ministry, which had its place in the
15
G. Konidaris, “Warum die Urkirche von Antioch den proestw/ t a presbu, t eron der
Ortsgemeinde als o` evpi,skopoj bezeichnet.” Münchener theologische Zeitschrift 12 (1961), 276:
Denn zuerst war das Amt da und dann kam die richtige Amtsbezeichnung. Cf. the Seven of
the Roman priesthood. Henry Denzinger (Enchiridion symbolorum et declarationem de
rebus fidei et morum, ed. P Hünermann [Freiburg, Basel, Rome, Vienna: Herder, 1991]),
1765, non pari gradu in one priesthood.
16
J. Ysebaert, Die Amtsterminolgie im Neuen Testament und in der alten Kirche
(Breda: Eureia, 1994), 77. In 1 Clement (c. 96) between bishops and presbyters “kein
sachlicher Unterschied.” H. Lona, Der erste Clemensbrief (Göttingen: V and R, 1998),
446. Note 5 quotes Lemaire and Stadler as equating deacons and presbyters. Clement
refers to these evpi,skopoi and dia,konoi as presbu,teroi.” Kirsopp Lake, “The Apostles in Acts,”
in The Beginnings of Christianity 5, ed. Kirsopp Lake and H. Cadbury (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1966), 57, n. 2. 1 Clem. 42 and 44 (AF 74 and 76, LCC 1:62-64). M. Chemnitz,
Examination of the Council of Trent (St. Lous: Concordia, 1978), 2:684. “All these ranks
the apostles include under the terms ‘presbytery’ and ‘episcopy.’ Sometimes they also call
those to whom the ministry of Word and sacrament has been committed by the term
‘minister’ (‘servant’ [dia,konoj])” (Col. 1:7, 23; 1 Thess. 3:2; 2 Cor. 3:6; 11:23; Eph. 3:7). See
n. 26.
17
P. Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West (New
York: Pueblo, 1990), 108f. His “Ordination” in Essays on Hippolytus, ed. G. Cuming, 36:
some things “belong more to the fourth-century.” 38: “The model for the deacon is not St.
Stephen nor the Seven in Acts 6, as it is in many later rites, but the service of Christ
himself, as it is also in Ignatius of Antioch (Magnesians 6; Trallians 3).”
18
Didache 15.1-2, Early Christian Fathers, Library of Christian Classics, ed. C.
Richardson (New York: Macmillan, 1970) 1:178, (hereafter LCC). K. Niederwimmer, The
Didache (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 203-205.
19
Bradshaw points to the liturgical evidence: formularies that were once common to
all. Ordination Rites, 38.
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liturgy, in which all clergy, however titled, had their part. Here we may
come to spot those upon whom the title deacon settled, after having been
common to them all. In Sarapion the ordination prayer for a deacon prays,
“that he may serve in his leitourgia in the midst of the holy people.”20 In
Didache 15.4 we glimpse the prayers and almsgiving running together,
with all the clergy in the same service/ministry (diakoni,a). “The gifts given
by the rich to the poor are really God’s gifts.”21
There is nothing unusual in Ignatius admonishing Polycarp that his
care for the widows be such as is second only to the Lord’s care for them.22
Recall Deuteronomy as quoted above and also Psalm 68:5 and 146:9. For
the Smyrnians, Ignatius diagnoses the problem in a way that recalls Jerusalem in Acts. “Those who have wrong notions about the grace of Jesus
Christ...have no concern for widows and orphans.... They hold aloof from
the Eucharist.”23
Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians admonishes the presbyter to look
after the sick, widows, orphans, the poor. Two paragraphs earlier deacons
are admonished to godly living. There is no mention of their caring for the
poor. The title bishop does not appear.24
With Justin Martyr we could almost be back in Jerusalem. After the
Eucharist the collection comes to the celebrant (proestw/ti) who “takes care
of orphans and widows and those who are in want.” Deacons distribute the
consecrated elements, and also carry them to those who are absent,25 and
could that be without something more as needed?
Chrysostom speaks respectfully of the text; he hesitates to make it say
some things that were not yet there. “There was no bishop, but the apostles
only. Whence I think it clearly and manifestedly follows, that neither deacons nor presbyters is their designation: but it was for this specifically that
they were ordained.” The “this” is here the specific crei,a God ordained
them to. It is called a diakoni,a and not alms out of regard for those who give
and for those who receive. “How vital then are alms and getting things
allocated.” “Nothing is more characteristic of a Christian than mercy/charity/alms.”26
Bradshaw, 75. Paul as leitourgos in Romns 15:16.
Niederwimmer 82, on Didache 1.5. Here also advice regarding the exploitation of
almsgiving by the devious poor. Didache 11.1-6 warns of false teachers and freeloading
clergy. Didache 12:3-5 echoes 2 Thess. 3:10-12.
22
Polycarp, 4.1. The Apostolic Fathers, ed. M. Holmes (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992),
196, (hereafter AF. LCC 1:119).
23
Smyrnaeans 6.2. LCC 1:114. AF 188.
24
LCC l:133. AF 312.
25
Apology 1.67. LCC 1:287.
26
Homily 14. Patrologia Graeca 60:115f. Nicene and Post-Nicene Christian Fathers, 1
11:89f. Homily 30 on 1 Corinthians tells of the widows having seven deacons set over
them. PG 61:254. NPNF 1 12:179. Homily 32 on Hebrews: 7 begins with evlehmosu,nh and
goes on to “the widow and the fatherless” of Psalm 146:9. “Nothing is as characteristic of
a Christian as evlehmosu,nh.” Mercy, charity, alms. In verse 8 you can tell a fruitful olive tree
(Ps. 52:8) by the way it does or does not give alms in a whole year or each week. PG
63:223f. NPNF 1 14:513.
20
21
122
The Apostolic Canons (late fourth century), have it all in the hands of
the bishop with presbyters and deacons his instruments for carrying out
his care of the poor.27
When Jerome wrote to the presbyter Nepotianus he extolled a
bishop’s providing for the poor as his glory.28 When the hospitality was
more than he could manage, we hear of xenodochia, hostels and hospitals. Canon 8 of Chalcedon bids the clergy of the poor-houses, monasteries, and martyries, continue under the authority of the bishops in
each city.29 Later it was the glory of the monasteries.
Where the monasteries disappeared the poor could not be left uncared
for. Luther urged the Common Chest for their welfare. “No more begging
among Christians under the New Testament than among the Jews under
the Old Testament.”30 Gone the monkish idealization of poverty, and instead Christians together caring for the needy in the way and fruit of each
one’s calling. Chemnitz included being active in the care for the poor in
what the Office of the Ministry is there for.31 In France and England, with
secularization, almoners, who were traditionally clergy, saw their work
taken over by civil authorities.
What, however, of the deacons? Canon 15 of Nicaea forbids them, along
with bishops and presbyters, “to remove from one city to another.”32 Ignatius
included them in his fanciful trinitarianizion of the ordo triplex which was
first clearly stated by the Apostolic Constitutions 7.31.33 “Everyone must
27
Apostolic Canons 40, 41. F. X. Funk. Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum
(Paderborn: Schoenigh, 1895), 1:576.
28
Letter 52. Saint Jerome Lettres ed. J. Labourt (Paris: Bude, 1951), 2:180f. NPNF 2
6:92.
29
J. Stevenson, Creeds, Councils and Controversies (New York: Seabury, 1966), 327.
W. Caspari. “Die kirchliche Armenpflege,” in Die geschichtliche Grundlage des
gegenwärtigen Gemeindelebens (Leipzig: Deichert, 1908), 219-231. He gives a sparkling
array of data.
30
Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962), 45:281. Deut. 15:4. Here at Leisnig
we may observe the difficulties involved in the transition of responsibility from the abbot
and monastery to the local congregation’s clergy and laity with each their specific role in
the liturgy and the caring for the needy. 161-194. Both spiritual and temporal authorities
have each their responsibilities. And so into the ways of the two kingdoms. Primary
resources for the Lutheran tradition are Caspari and Elert’s Morphologie des Luthertums
2 (Munich: Beck, 1953), 396-452. Luther simply inherited the tradition of the Seven being
the first deacons. LW 44:159; 39:312. In the paragraph regarding the installation of a
parson (Pfarrer) Leisnig Ordinance for the Common Christ speaks of a caring for the
poor and needy as “a preeminently spiritual undertaking (ertzgeistlichen).” WA 12; 16,22;
LW 45:177.
31
Locus 13. De Sacramento Ordinis [as in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession
XIII, 2], Examen Councilii Tridentini (Berlin: Schlawitz, 1861), 474, 3: pauperum curam
agere. ET (Examination of the Council of Trent, trans. F. Kramer [St. Louis: Concordia,
1979]), 679: “be in charge of care for the poor.” 683 has Acts 6:1-4. “Thus in the beginning
the apostles took care of the ministry of the Word and the sacraments and at the same
time also of the distribution and dispensation of alms. Afterward, however, as the number of the disciples increased, they entrusted that part of the ministry to others, whom
they called deacons.”
32
J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius (London: SPCK, 1987), 342.
33
Funk 1:420.
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show the deacons respect. They represent Jesus Christ, just as the bishop
has the role of the Father, and the presbyters are like God’s council and an
apostolic band.”34
Irenaeus is the first to make the aetiological connection of deacons
as third level clergy with the Seven, or really much more with Stephen.35
In Sarapion “The ordination prayer sets the institution of the diaconate
within the context of God’s sending of Christ, and refers unequivocally
to “the seven deacons.” Specification is lacking except “that he may
serve in his leitourgia in the midst of the holy people.”36 Lay deacons
are not heard of until the sixteenth century among the Reformed, and
then of two kinds.37 Few now attempt to defend the view that the Seven
were the first deacons.38
When deacons lose their place in the liturgy and yet are to have a care
for the needy, the care for the needy may then also drift elsewhere away
from the liturgy and the Lord’s Table (1 Cor. 10:21; Mal. l:7; Did. 11.9).
There were tables in Acts 2:42; 6:2; and 20:7. 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 also
speaks of the first day of every week. What, we may ask, happened with
the care of the needy when the Lord’s Supper moved to Sunday morning,
and when the agape and its sharing no longer preceded the Lord’s Table,39
or when they spoke of altar rather than table and of priest than presby-
34
Trallians 3.1. LCC 1: 99. AF 160. No mention of caring for the needy here, nor Phil.
11.1, where the deacon Philo “assists me in the word of God.” AF 183. LCC 1:111. Trallians
2.3 they are deacons of the mysteries of Jesus Christ. “They are not merely deacons of food
and drink, but ministers (u`pere,tai) of God’s church.” AF 161. LCC 1:99.
35
Against Heresies 3.12.10; 4.15.1, ed. N. Brox (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 3, 146; 4, 112.
ANF 1:434, 480. Bradshaw 74. Ysebaert 124 synchonically. Zahn gives following citations.
Die Apostelgeschichte des Lucas (Leipzig and Erlangen: Deickert, 1922), 234, n. 17. For
Isidore’s diaconal arabesque see De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, ed. C. Lawson (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1989), CCSL 113, 66f.
36
Funk 2:188. Bradshaw 75.
37
Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.3.9. LCC 21:1061. From Rom. 12:8 “deacons
who distribute the alms,” and deacons who “devote themselves to the care of the poor and
sick” (an opening here for deaconesses). Compare two kinds of elders from 1 Tim. 5:17.
LCC 21:1211, McKee observes “the development of a clear theory of a plurality of ministries.” He writes in “Church Officers: Calvinist Offices,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of
the Reformation (New York Oxford: OUP, 1996), 1:337f. More fully in John Calvin on the
Diaconate and Liturgical Almsgiving (Geneva: Droz, 1984), 139-158 for Acts 6:1-6. “Prescriptive for church order for all time.” “Conceivable to ordain for a temporal office.”
“Discontinued the practice of laying on of hands.”
38
B. Kleinheyer, Die Priesterweihe im Römischen Ritus (Trier: Paulinus, 1962), 6:
“von der Forschung kaum mehr vertreten.” NB notes 8 and 10 for the discussion. Jewell, 221.
Roloff: kein neues Amt. Apostolat-Verkündigung-Kirche (Gütersloh: Bertelmann, 1965), 107,
109. Schille, 166.
39
A. Schlatter, Paulus der Bote Jesu (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1934), 330. He sees Paul
nudging toward this in 1 Corinthians 11:32: “den Tisch Jesu gegen alles schützt, was ihn
entweiht.” E.g., die Entehrung ihrer Armen.
124
ter?40 Polycarp and Tertullian spoke of the widows as God’s altar.41 Sacrifices offered there might prompt some thought of reward.42 How long did it
take for such thinking to claim a place in the liturgy, and how long for it to
be removed, or put elsewhere?
One way or another the needy could not, not be cared for. Clearly
the apostle would rather see Sunday’s collection meet the need, than
there have to be supplementary gathering of funds “when I come” (1
Cor. 16:2). There maybe a hint here of what we may observe nowaday
when supplementary funds are gathered at other times, and not always
in the unfractionable way of the Gospel. Would you rather they not go
to hell, or not starve to death? Appeals may alternate between support
for the means of grace or feeding the hungry.
Different churches have decided upon different definitions of deacons,
presbyters, bishops, pastors, ministers. Ordained, not ordained, fractionally, functionally ordained. Almost clergy, no longer quite lay. How to measure “which of them was to be regarded as the greatest?” Who then is the
dia,konoj? Jesus first and every disciple. From among the disciples Jesus
selected twelve and named them apostles. He sent them to their specified
tasks for the doing of which He gave them His words with His power and
authority. Jesus gave them a number of tasks with no doubt of the who
and what of their doing, and of whose instrument they were. The office the
Lord instituted (AC V)43 carries on into the Acts of the Apostles, which
might also and primarily be called the Acts of the Word of God.
Is there one ministry with allocation of its tasks as may be indicated
by differing titles and designations, or as many ministries as there are
tasks, or even members? Muddle here can lead to confusing the office the
40
Goppelt, TDNT 8:214f. A Weckwerth, “Tisch und Altar.” in Zeitschrift für Religion
und Geistesgeschichte 15 (1963), 241. He sees them as interchangeable by way of sacrifice. The seven altars in Constantine’s Basilica refer to the seven almoners of Acts 6. P.
Gy, “Notes on the Early Terminology of Christian Priesthood,” in The Sacrament of Holy
Orders, ed. B. Bote (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1957), 107. B. Poschmann, Die
Sichtbarkeit der Kirche nach der Lehre des hl. Cyprian (Paderborn: Bonifatius, 1908),
168: “Die Bezeichnung Sacerdos, ein Begriff, welcher mit der des Opfers in engster
Beziehung steht.”
41
Philippians 4, AF 210. LCC 1, Tertullian, Ad uxorem 1.7. Sources Chrétiennes
273:116. Apostolic Constitutions 2.26. SC 329, 124. ANF 7:410. 4, 3. SC 329, 126. ANF
7:433. Didascalia 15, early third century, already quite worn. The Didascalia Apostolorum
in Syriac, ed. A. Vööbus (Louvain: Waversbaan, 1979), 146.
42
2 Clement 16.4 (before the middle of the second century): “almsgiving lightens the
weight of sin.” LCC 1:200. “Similar sentiments are not infrequent in patristic literature.”
E. Hatch, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (London: Longman, 1895),
35, n. 23. Later on: “man könne sich durch die Vermittlung von Almosen in den Himmel
einkaufen.” T. Strohm, “Luthers Wirtschafts- und Sozialethik” in Leben und Werk Martin
Luthers von 1526 bis 1546, ed. H. Junghans (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1983),
219f. Compare Romans 12:1-13. T. M. Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry in the Early
Centuries (New York: Doran, n.d.), 115f.
43
Who, put into the office, does what, is iuxta vocationem. Apology of the Augsburg
Confession XXVIII, 8. That is the designating call, not the call as synecdoche.
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Lord instituted and all Christians’ vocations. The office the Lord instituted
is not there for its own sake, but for His use (Acts 21:19). Vocation is every
Christian’s specific life of service to the Lord and the neighbor, wherever
the Christian life is going on. The Small Catechism has the Table of Duties.
Da capo then Acts 6. In the apostolic church the traveling on of the
Word of God may not be hindered by murmurings of language or social
class, who gets more, who is designated to do what needs to be done.
Caring for the needy is part and parcel of being a Christian (Luke 12:31-33;
James 1:27; Gal. 2:10; 1 Cor. 16:1-4; Matt. 25:31-46). When there was hunger in Judea:
the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send
relief (diakoni,an) to the brethren who lived in Judea; and they did
so, sending it to the elders (presbute,rouj) by the hand of Barnabas
and Saul (Acts 11:29f.).
Delivery and distribution were done by apostles and presbyters, as once
was done by the Twelve and the Seven. There would have been nothing to
deliver without the disciples’ contribution. So who gets the credit and the
bigger score? That is a stopper. That is the worst possible question, unless
the Lord is the answer, and He is not that sort of Lord. “I am among you as
one who serves” (Luke 22:27).
Constant with diakoni,a is the serving of some need. Who are the needy,
what is their need and who is to serve it may vary. Clarity comes by designating context and not by equation or comparative size. These stiffen, and
give the Law control, and diakoni,a is a Gospelling word.
Paul tells the saints in Rome that he looks forward to seeing them on
his way to Spain after he has delivered the aid for the saints in Jerusalem.
“Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution
(koinwni,an, 15:26; 12:13) for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem” (15:26).
They belong together; they are in it together. It is altogether natural that
the Gentile Christians see themselves joined with their fellow Christians
in Jerusalem as aid flows thither, as before the Gospel had come from
Jerusalem to them (15:27). No question here of who is getting a bigger
share. There is no playing of Gentiles off against Jews, nor of spiritual
blessings over against material blessings. They all belong and go together—
neither muddled nor isolated. What carries it all? “And the word of God
grew” (6:7; 12:24; 19:20). “The word of the Lord was spreading” (diefere,to,
13:49, was carrying on, carrying through).
126
The Apostolic Tradition in Colossae:
Christology in Action
John Frederick Johnson
The apostolic letter to the church in Colossae is, inter alia, concerned
about a teaching characterized only as “empty deceit through philosophy.”
The aberration was of such serious nature that it was able to seduce the
Colossian believers from their rootage in Christ Jesus the Lord (2:6-8).
The philosophy alluded to is never systematically outlined. In Hellenistic
usage philosophy, the once noble term of ancient classical thought denoting love of wisdom, had, like Plato’s eivkw,n, been thoroughly domesticated.
It could identify a wide range of systems, sects, religions, and ideas. Some
conceptual systems were critical; some were thoroughly uncritical. Josephus
and Philo could even refer to the various sects within contemporary Judaism as philosophies.
Most philosophical systems in vogue at the time of the composition of
Colossians were highly syncretistic. They borrowed liberally from the ancient schools; but they adapted features as well from the various mysteries. With their esoteric and (ofttimes) magical initiatory rites, the mysteries had achieved great popularity. The author of Colossians simply states
that the false deceit over against which the Colossians must be on guard is
a human tradition. It is “according to the elements of the universe,” not
according to Christ (kata. cristo,nv ) in whom the fullness of deity bodily dwells
(2:8-9). Nevertheless it purported to provide its devotees with knowledge,
wisdom, and insight.
I.
The word tradition bore a rich background. For Plato, a tradition is
transmitted by teachers and received by willing pupils. According to the
Theaetetus, (198b), one who transmits knowledge teaches; one who receives, learns. Pharisaic-Rabbinic teaching of the law is labeled by the
New Testament as transmitting human traditions (Mark 7:8).1 Hellenistic
mysteries readily appropriated the concept of transmitting and receiving.
They expanded both to include ecstatic experiences and drug-induced hallucinations. Rites of initiation into the cult were zealously safeguarded.
1
It is instructive to note that paralamba,nw and paradi,dwmi correspond to the rabbinic
terms qibbil and ma2s3ar. They convey the idea of receiving, transmitting, and safeguarding the tradition.
Dr. John Frederick Johnson is a consultant of continuing education in
Gulfport, FL.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
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Gnosticism of the Pauline period laid great stress upon its claim to
revealed knowledge, guaranteed by its invocation of the tradition. Christian Gnostics arrogantly boasted that they possessed the apostolic tradition as well as the genuine teachings (tou.j lo,gouj) of the Savior-Redeemer.
They buttressed their claims by insisting they had knowledge of the sacred word (i`ero.j lo,goj) which opened the way to higher spiritual knowledge, wisdom, and insight.
The use of the correlative terms, transmit-receive, is prominent in
the Pauline corpus (1 Cor. 15:1-4). That is one reason why the apostle so
strenuously insists: that the tradition he imparts, and which his hearers
receive, is not of human origin. He was taught through the revelation of
Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:1, 11-12). For Paul the knowledge, wisdom, and insight which are kata. cristio,n are always the divine alternative to human
tradition. Indeed, the Colossians are reminded that as they had received
(parela,bete) Christ Jesus the Lord, so they were to be rooted, built up, and
established (in faith) in Him. It is not too much to assert that for the
Colossian believers Christ Jesus the Lord is Himself The tradition according to which they are to live (2:6-7). For through the cross, resurrection,
and exaltation of Christ God has reconciled also the Colossian believers in
order to present them holy, blameless, and without reproach before Him
(1:20-22).2
II.
The empty deceit found in Colossae apparently promised to provide
sacred words, through which divine revelation is conveyed to the initiate.
Christians of Colossae must heed the apostolic reminder that they had
received the genuine Word of truth when Epaphras proclaimed the Gospel
to them (1:5-7). Epaphras had preached the Word of truth.3 That Word
stands in stark contrast to empty deceit which purports to bring higher
knowledge, greater wisdom, and deeper insight.
The Word of truth proclaimed not only in Colossae, but in all places
(1:5-6) transmits the grace of God.4 The Christian community not only
received this Word of grace as divine truth; believers experienced the dynamic power of that Word as it grew among them. The Word of the Gospel
produced their faith in Christ Jesus, their love for the saints, and their
hope (spes quae speratur) which is directed to the exalted Lord who is
Himself the hope of glory (1:27; cf. 1:23).
2
The word, reproach (avne,gklhtoj: e;gklhma), has forensic overtones. It is a judicial term
indicating that no accusation can be brought against a person in court. In Romans 14:10,
parasth/sai is employed in a judicial sense. Cf. Rom. 8:33ff.
3
Cf. Eph. 1:13; 2 Cor. 6:7; 2 Tim. 2:15. The Word is also characterized as Word of God
(1 Cor. 14:36; Rom. 9:6), Word of the Lord (1 Thess. 1:8), Word of reconciliation (2 Cor.
5:19), Word of life (Phil. 2:16), and Word of Christ (Col. 3:16).
4
In Acts 20:24 the dual concepts of grace and Gospel are combined.
128
III.
Within this context Paul comments on his divine office as a servant of
the Gospel (1:23).5 He was commissioned by God to complete the Word of
God, described as the mystery now revealed to the saints (1:25-27). The
apostle completed the Word of God as he carried out the mission to preach
the Gospel wherever, whenever, and by whatever means he could employ.6 In Colossae, Archippus is to take care that he completes the ministry he has received in the Lord (4:17). His ministry, like that of the apostles,
is to proclaim the Word of the truth of the Gospel.
That Word is expressly designated as the mystery (1:26). In Old Testament usage mystery is often employed to denote eschatological secrets
which must be divulged by God alone (Dan. 2:28-29 LXX). The word easily
became a favorite among Hellenistic and pagan cults which promised to
reveal secret knowledge of the god(s) to their initiates. In the New Testament the mystery-formula quite clearly refers to the Gospel. It is that
wisdom (Gnostics loved the word) which neither angels nor men could
possibly perceive by means of human wisdom and ingenuity, but which
God revealed in Christ for faith (1 Cor. 2:7f.; Rom. 16:25f.). This mysteryword of truth God willed to make known to the saints among both Jews
and Gentiles. The indescribable riches of its glory is He who is the hope of
glory: Christ proclaimed among you (1:27). The apostolic claim is clear:
Christ is the center of the Gospel. Christ is the Word of truth. Christ is the
mystery and wisdom of God, proclaimed to announce God’s reconciliation
which is to be received by faith (in Christ).7
IV.
To put it in capsule perspective, the apostolic tradition in Colossae is
Christ Jesus the Lord (2:6). Members of the faith community must clearly
understand that in Him all the treasures, wisdom, and knowledge which
once were hidden have been fully revealed (2:1-4). There are no more
unrevealed secrets to be uncovered by hidden words, rites, or formulae.8
Believers in Colossae must not be deluded by beguiling speech or false
deceit which offers higher knowledge, more profound wisdom, and deeper
insights than those found in the Gospel. All such spurious claims (traditions of men, 2:8) are to be rejected precisely because they are not kata.
5
For Paul a minister (dia,konoj) of the Gospel is a minister of the church whose “office”
(oivkonomi,a tou/ qeou/: office of God, 1 Cor. 4:1; 9:17) is the proclamation of the Gospel (1 Cor.
3:5; 6:4; 2 Cor. 3:6; 11:25).
6
In Romans 15:19 the apostle reviews his kerygmatic mission.
7
With good cause the systematic tradition of Lutheranism equates Christ, Gospel,
and grace. More explicitly stated, the object of saving faith (fides justificans sive salvificans)
is Christ, the Gospel, the grace of God, the forgiveness of sins.
8
This is meant to refer, of course (to use Luther’s distinction), to Deus revelatus, not
Deus absconditus.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
129
cristo,n.
Colossians can teach us what Luther never tired of re-teaching us: the
Christocentricity of revelation and faith. This also furnishes the student of
this letter a strong hint as to why the so-called Christ-hymn (1:15-20) was
incorporated.9 Two strophes of the hymn are easily identified: 1:15-18a
and 1:18b-20.10 Each is a strong Christological assertion. The first, 1:1518a, exalts Christ as the image of God; in, through, and for Him all things
were created (by God). The second, 1:18b-20, exalts Christ as the bearer of
the divine fullness; through Him reconciliation and peace are established.
Thus Christ is supreme Lord over world and church. The body of believers
in Colossae, though once alienated from God, had received Him as Lord
and were raised with Him to new life (1:21-23; 3:1-4). They acknowledge
His unquestioned dominion over creation, the church, and their own lives.
V.
Theological instruction regarding the lordship of Christ contained in
the first section of Colossians provides valuable lessons for the church in
every age (1:6). First, it reminds us that any attempt to challenge or compromise the Christology of the apostolic tradition must be resolutely resisted. Any brand of human ingenuity such as the empty deceit promulgated in Colossae threatens to uproot those who are established in faith
(in Christ). In Colossae the absolute lordship of Christ was challenged by
those who failed to grasp the total victory of the risen and reconciling
Christ over the cosmic powers (stoicei,a) of the universe. They deluded
themselves into thinking that their worship of the elements, their ascetic
practices, and their voluntary submission to spiritual legalism (2:16-23)
were compatible with their confession of Christ Jesus the Lord.
Second, the means by which such deceit must be combatted is the
apostolic tradition itself, the Gospel-Word of truth fully revealed in the
cross, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ. The apostle did not confront
compromise with compromise or legalism with legalism. Neither did he
revise his Christology to be more attuned to the cultural conditions of
Colossae, where one could apparently seek initiation into a number of
cult-communities at the same time. He proclaimed the fullness of the triumph over the elements of the universe by and through Him in whom the
fullness of God bodily dwells. He witnessed a fullbodied Christology.
9
No attempt is made to examine the complex issues of authorship, style, and origin
of the Hymn since such is beyond the scope of this brief study. Interested readers are
referred to Ernst Käsemann’s Essays on New Testament Themes (Naperville, IL: Allenson,
1964), and Werner G. Kuemmel’s Introduction to the New Testament (Nashville, TN:
Abingdon, 1975).
10
Each strophe is introduced by o[j evstin followed by an o[ti clause (Cf. Phil. 2:6; 1 Pet.
2:22; Heb. 1:3).
130
Third, the theological instruction of Colossians is powerful testimony
to the truth that Christology is not simply a locus in the corpus doctrinae
or a fascinating phase of early conciliar controversy. For the Christian
community of Colossae the confession of Christ Jesus the Lord, anchored
and rooted in the cross, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ at the right
hand of God, was the compelling antithesis to every brand of empty deceit.
Each member of the Colossian community was confronted and challenged
by a clarion Christological call for decision. It is an either-or situation.
Tertium non datur!
Fourth, the theological instruction of Colossians assumes the form of
a continuing apostolic exhortation: Proclaim Christ! That clearly means:
preach the Gospel; broadcast the Word of truth! In a vibrantly healthy
Christian community Christology is always a word about Christ. But it is
foremost a Word to be witnessed, not a doctrine to be debated in ecclesiastical halls. A parallel is found in Luther’s provocative remark that one
does not become a theologian by thinking and speculating, but by living,
dying, being damned, and rising with Christ by faith. One understands the
richness of Christ only as one clings to Christ and proclaims Him as Lord
in absolute confidence.
Fifth, the Gospel of the cross and exaltation of Christ is not a religious
theory to be compared with competing systems of religious thought. The
Gospel is a divine dynamic to be shared. The Colossian community is to
recall the cosmic dimensions of the cross and resurrection announced in
the Gospel-Word of truth proclaimed by Epaphras (1:3-7). God had called
them to confess Christ Jesus the Lord in whom they (and we) have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (1:12-14). They are to continue in that
faith and hope. We are as well. After all, the hope proclaimed in Colossae
is to be broadcast to all humankind (1:23, 27-28)!
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131
What the Bird Said
and
Why It Was the Gospel
Justin Rossow
What the Bird Said Early in the Year
I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear
‘This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.
‘Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.
‘This year time’s nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.
‘This time they will not lead you round and back
To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.
‘This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.
‘Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,
Quick, quick, quick, quick!—the gates are drawn apart.’
C. S. Lewis
In a recent book on the poetry of C. S. Lewis, the chapter reserved for
“Religious Verse” fails even to mention “What the Bird Said Early in the
Year.”1 We might well wonder if there is anything religious about this poem
1
Don. W. King, C. S. Lewis, Poet: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse (Kent, OH: Kent
State University Press, 2001), 203-223.
The Reverend Justin Rossow is Assistant Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church
in Affton, MO and a doctoral student in the Theology and Culture program
at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.
“What the Bird Said Early in the Year” from Poems by C. S. Lewis, copyright © 1964 by the Executors of the Estate of C. S. Lewis and renewed 1992
by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd., repinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc.
Poem by C. S. Lewis is copyright © C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Reprinted by
permission.
132
at all—to find the Gospel itself may seem like wringing water from a stone.
Yet, stones have been known to gush forth in the wilderness. By a careful
examination of the subject, structure, and language of the poem, we will
be led to suspect that the Gospel is indeed present. Further insight into
the life and thought of Lewis will confirm our suspicions. Finally, we shall
see that part of what makes this poem artful also makes the Gospel in this
poem orthodox. With that prospect of a safe haven at the end of our journey, the first step in this wilderness wandering is to attend to the text of
the poem itself.
“What the Bird Said Early in the Year” takes as its subject a malady
common to all people and offers the promise of a solution. Part of the
artistic appeal of the poem is that the promise makes the plight more
acutely felt. Before reading the poem, we may not have been overly burdened with thoughts of the inevitability of time, aging, and by extension,
death, but the bird’s promise of an “escape” makes the “circle” come into
focus; the hope of undoing the “spell” makes the spell obvious. What is
true of Lewis’s writing in other places is also effective here:
His background of language, philosophy, and literature have [sic]
only increased his insight into the problems of people. As you read
you are constantly aware that he is speaking of some problem that
is bothering you.2
In this case, the problem of the poem bothers us more and more as we
read.
The poem offers an ultimate solution: it points to the breaking of an
unbreakable cycle—but all salvation promises are not the Gospel. In fact,
the poem could be read ironically, sarcastically, even sadistically—the promise of escape without prospect of fulfillment makes imprisonment all the
more unbearable. Lewis gives us the promise but does not explicitly show
the final outcome. Is he suggesting the hope of spring is tragically ironic
because the same annual promise is met with the same defeat every autumn? Or does he want us to look for something more than we have ever
experienced before? The poem’s structure points toward an answer.
The rhyme and meter of the poem seem to suggest heroic couplets,
that is, groupings of two rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter.3
Lines like “This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas” or “This time they
will not lead you round and back” could fit into such a tightly organized
pattern, but further examination reveals that not all lines are composed of
five iams. In fact, each rhyming couplet contains a line of hexameter next
to a line of the expected pentameter! Not only that, Lewis has mixed in
2
Paul W. F. Harms, “C. S. Lewis: His Method and Message” (B.Div. thesis, Concorida
Seminary, St. Louis, 1948), 150.
3
Jill Baumgaertner, Poetry (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1990), 86.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
133
liberal doses of non-iambic feet. “Well-worn track” and “Quick, quick, quick,
quick!” are examples of spondees. The trochee “This year” acts as an
anaphora, that is, “the repetition of an initial word or phrase,”4 which serves
to tie the stanzas together thematically and to disrupt the iambic flow. In
addition, both of the lines in the third stanza end with “extra, unaccented
syllables” called, “feminine endings.”5 All in all, the poem breaks with convention as often as not. Only the rhyme scheme is consistent, with profound effect.
The strict adherence to the end-rhyme pattern serves both to embody
the theme of a closed system and to suggest a well-known form, the heroic
couplet, from which the poem deliberately deviates. In this way, the anaphoric
trochees, the spondees, the feminine endings, and the hexameter mated
to lines of expected pentameter all point to a breaking out, an escape from
the expected norm. “I am enamoured with metrical subtleties,” Lewis once
wrote.6 The metrical subtleties of this poem support the message of the
bird: the circle will be broken.
The subject of the poem presents a salvation promise. The structure
of the poem suggests the promise will, indeed, be fulfilled. The language of
the poem at once enhances the sense experience of the reader and connects the promise of spring with the promise of the Gospel.
“Quick, quick, quick, quick!” “This year! This year!” The sounds of the
poem are the sounds of birdcalls in a park. The reader can easily imagine
the song of the killdeer or the thrush. What has been suggested of his
“Narnian Suite” is true here as well: “Lewis is doing more than playing
with rhyme patterns; he is, clearly, fascinated by the onomatopoetic possibilities of language.”7 Like the Owls in The Silver Chair (“Tu-whoo, tuwhoo. True for you. That’s the right thing to do.”)8 or the Dogs in The Last
Battle (“We’ll help, we’ll help, help, help. Show us how to help, show us
how, how. How-how-how?”),9 the talking creature in “What the Bird Said”
sounds like itself. Lewis masterfully uses language to paint a full-sensory
picture that draws on the real-world experience of the reader to facilitate
the willing suspension of disbelief. If a bird actually spoke such a promise
in English, it would certainly sound like this!
The language of the poem sounds like a bird song. It sounds like spring,
with its apple tree blossoms, peas and flowers—but it also sounds like
something more. Not only the fragile blossoms, but we ourselves are deIbid., 667.
Ibid., 72.
6
Letter to Ruth Pitter, 10 August 1946, quoted in Charles A. Huttar, “A Lifelong Love
Affair with Language: C. S. Lewis’s Poetry.” Word and Story in C. S. Lewis. Ed. Peter J.
Schakel and Charles A. Huttar (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), 87.
7
Ibid., 90.
8
C. S. Lewis. The Silver Chair (New York: Harper Trophy, 1994), 52.
9
C. S. Lewis. The Last Battle (New York: Harper Trophy, 1994), 146.
4
5
134
feated, cheated by each passing moment. The poem is not only about nature; it is about “time’s nature.” The “well-worn track” is our dreary fate
while the passing of seasons marks unstoppable decay. There is more at
stake here than autumn; behind the yearly cycle lies the specter of aging
and death.
If the language of the poem moves from the world of nature to the
nature of time and mortality, then the promise of the poem also speaks in
terms that touch not only on life but also on eternity. “This year the summer will come true.” What an amazing turn of a phrase! It suggests more
than a perfect or even eternal summer. It suggests that summer, every
summer up to this point, has been pointing to something more. Every
summer up to this point has contained a promise and a foretaste of something like and yet unlike itself. “This year the summer will come true.”
Summer will be consummated, fulfilled, realized. The beauty of summer
we thought was reality itself has been only shadow or myth. The true
summer, the real summer, the Summer to which all others point stands at
the door. The circle shall be escaped. The spell of which we were unawares
shall be undone. The summer will come true.
Such grand and all encompassing language suggests that the poem is
concerned with an ultimate salvation, with an ultimate promise, indeed,
with the Gospel itself. The poem, written and read by Christians, can be
seen as an embodiment of the Gospel precisely because it claims a fulfillment and rescue that is absolute and eternal. Time and death are defeated, nature finds its true expression and even “the gates”—perhaps the
gates of hell, to allow escape; perhaps the gates of heaven, to welcome
home—“are drawn apart.”
Moreover, these ultimate claims are presented in the form of promise;
promise that calls urgently for faith, “Quick, quick, quick, quick!” In this
sense, the poem not only contains the Gospel but is itself a Gospel invitation: the promise of ultimate liberation and restoration is made in a way
that elicits faith.
Still, the poem by itself, without consideration of the faith of the poet
or the reader, need not be read as explicitly Christian. The claim that this
poem is indeed an expression of the Christian Gospel requires support
from the historical life and thought of the poet. Did Lewis intend this
poem to sow the seeds of hope in the Gospel specifically or simply hope in
general? One event in the life of Lewis suggests an answer.
Lewis was not always a Christian. In fact, he “did not return to his own
childhood faith until he was in his thirties.”10 It was not until 1929 that
Lewis admitted the existence of God, converting to a kind of theism.11 The
breakthrough to Christianity did not happen for another two years. The
Most Reluctant Convert captures the event:
10
David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis’s Journey to Faith
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 12.
11
Ibid., 145.
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135
Jack had described his long night talk [September, 1931] with J. R.
R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson in a letter to Arthur the previous week,
saying that the three of them had begun talking about metaphor
and myth just after dinner, had continued the conversation as they
strolled along Addison’s Walk near Jack’s rooms at Magdalen College and that he had not gotten to bed until four in the morning.
This conversation might well be the defining moment in Jack’s
life, for it helped him resolve issues he had been grappling with
since boyhood. In particular, it gave him a way to understand the
incarnation as the historical fulfillment of Dying God myths found
in many cultures.12
Seven years later, Lewis would publish a poem that begins: “I heard in
Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear.” Both the outcome (conversion) and the
topic (myth) of that fateful conversation in Addison’s Walk are related to
the poem.
We have already seen that the ultimate quality of the promise of the
poem suggests the promise of the Gospel. With the faith of the author in
mind, the Christian Gospel seems a likely suspect. The explicit reference
to a place so central to the poet’s own conversion seems to finalize the
verdict: the bird in Addison’s walk sings the Gospel itself. The promise
contained in every spring finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Gospel. Every bird announcing the yearly rebirth of nature invites us to hear the
promise of the consummation of all creation. Summer takes on a mythic
quality and points beyond itself to something True.
This relationship between myth and Christianity was important to
Lewis. As the conversation in Addison’s Walk indicated, understanding
Christianity as the fulfillment of mythology helped Lewis accept Christianity as true. In this poem, as in other works, Lewis draws on this basic
relationship: “In Christianity, the true myth to which all the others were
pointing, Lewis found a worldview that he could defend as both good and
real.”13
Understanding myth as pointing to truth, or perhaps understanding
the Christian story as true mythology, Lewis was able to relate the one to
the other. In a letter to his brother, Lewis wrote of a book he read shortly
after his conversion: “[This is] one of those rare works which make you
say of Christianity, ‘Here is the very thing you like in poetry and the romances, but this time it’s true.’”14 The bird in Addison’s Walk seems to be
saying, “Here is the very thing you like about spring and summer, but this
time it’s true.”
Ibid., 146.
Ibid., 148.
14
Ibid.
12
13
136
For Lewis, there is a mythic quality to the change of seasons, what he
called “the general law…of autumn and spring, sleep and waking, death
and resurrection, and ‘Whosoever loseth his life, shall save it.’”15 If spring
contains some qualities of myth, then spring is also related to the true
story of life and time. In Lewis’s thought, myth contains and points to the
real.16
Lewis would have been very familiar with myths that related spring to
the promise of life. Not only the “myths of many cultures [which] tell of
‘corn-kings’ who die and rise again for the sake of their people,”17 but even
the Norse myths Lewis knew from childhood18 connect spring and the hope
of eternal life. Every spring thaw was an annual reminder to the Norse of
the way in which all things, including trees, rocks, and iron, wept over the
death of the shining god Balder, who is said to be awaiting his resurrection
after the great and last battle of the gods.19 Stories of gods like Balder who
died and will rise again had particular meaning for Lewis,20 so it is no
wonder that, after he came to see Christianity as the truth to which mythology was pointing, he should turn around and embed Christian promise
in mythic terms.
The mythic import of the change of seasons becomes a vehicle to express both the reign of evil and the liberating power of good in The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe. When the evil power of the White Witch’s
endless winter encounters the Christ figure of the Great Lion, the result
is inevitable. As the snow melts, the trees bud and the birds begin to sing,
even the evil queen’s most loyal henchman can’t escape the conclusion:
“This is Spring. What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell
you! This is Aslan’s doing.”21
Since Lewis published “What the Bird Said” in May of 193822 and began
work on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the end of 1939,23 it is
reasonable to see some thematic connection between the meaning of spring
The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, 8 November 1931, para. 5, p. 430,
quoted in Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root, ed. The Quotable Lewis: An Encyclopedic
Selection of Quotes from the Complete Published Works of C. S. Lewis (Wheaton, IL:
Tyndale, 1989),123.
16
Scott Oury, “ ‘The Thing Itself’: C. S. Lewis and the Value of Something Other.” The
Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis, ed. Peter J. Schakel (Kent, OH:
Kent State University Press, 1977), 11.
17
David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis’s Journey to Faith
(Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 149.
18
A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis: A Biography (New York: Norton and Co., 1990), 37.
19
Richard Cavendish, ed. Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia (New York: Rizzoli,
1980), 184.
20
Ibid., 126.
21
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (New York: Harper Trophy,
1994), 133.
22
Lewis, C. S. Lewis, Poems. Ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1977), 132.
23
Wilson, 220.
15
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
137
in both works. Spring is overtly the harbinger of salvation in the book; it
serves the same function in the poem. We see spring intertwining with a
Gospel experience not only in mythology, poetry, and fantasy books, but
even in the realm of the author’s own mind. In fact, Lewis “wonderfully
mythicized his memory of his life. In Surprised by Joy (about 1955) he
remembered the trip to Whipsnade Zoo—during which, nine days after his
conversation with Dyson and Tolkien [in Addison’s Walk, nonetheless], he
found that he believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God—as happening
in spring”24 even though the event had actually taken place in September.
Spring, in Lewis’s writing as well as in his memory, is connected with the
promise of the Gospel.
Why, then, is Lewis not more explicit with the poem? If the Christian
Gospel is indeed intended, why be so vague? He can hardly expect every
casual reader to make the connection between Addison’s Walk and conversion. How, then, are we supposed to know what he means?
The answer is a part of the genius, artistry, and appeal of this and
many of Lewis’s works: the author points us in a direction but doesn’t
show the absolute end of the road. He gives us something that is like the
Truth, that contains or points to the Truth, without using the Truth to
beat us into submission. Lewis is fond of ripples and suggestions, of couching something almost too great for words in images we greedily digest,
only later to feel their full impact. He does not argue the possibility of
escaping time’s grasp. He does not explain what it means for summer to
come true. He simply tells us it is so. He invites us to see the world his
way and before we know it we begin to wish it could be so—and then he
has us! The minute we wish the summer could actually come true, we
have begun to experience the Gospel, the Gospel that makes outrageous
claims about life and death and eternity and truth. The myth awakens a
longing that has a true object, a real object, the Truth Himself.
Part of what makes this method of disguising the Truth in order to
make it more visible so successful in this poem is the simple fact that the
bird’s message does not leave the reader with too many options. As a direct invitation, the bird’s message may be received or rejected, but it may
not be held at arm’s length. The reader is not asked to respond, “That’s
very interesting,” or, “Isn’t that nice?” The options the poem leaves us are
“Yes, I believe,” or “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The bird offers hope and
calls to faith; faith or unbelief are the two responses available to the reader.
The poem’s subject with its universal theme, the poem’s structure with its
continual break from the expected norm, and the poem’s language of promise and fulfillment all work together to present the reader with a crisis of
opportunity. The fact that the spring metaphor contains a Gospel invitation without being heavy-handed shows the finesse of the poet.
Stephen Medcalf, “Language and Self-Consciousness: The Making and Breaking of
C. S. Lewis’s Personae.” Word and Story in C. S. Lewis, ed. Peter J. Schakel and Charles
A. Huttar (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), 113.
24
138
Part of what makes this poem so artful also makes it orthodox; that is
to say, whenever the Gospel is presented in accordance with the Word of
God, it leaves the hearer with two options, faith or unbelief. Gerhard Forde
speaks of this kind of orthodox proclamation in these terms: “The only
appropriate response to such primary discourse is likewise primary: confession, praise, prayer, and worship. Proclamation as primary discourse
demands an answer in like discourse be it positive or negative: ‘I repent, I
believe’ or ‘I don’t, I won’t, I can’t.’ ”25
The bird’s song in Addison’s Walk is a similar kind of talk: it calls for
faith and awakens faith at the same time—which is exactly the task of the
preacher. As Forde notes: “Preaching, to Luther, is pouring Christ into our
ears…. Indeed, preaching is as much a physical activity as Baptism or the
Supper. The proclaimed Word not only explains or informs but it also gives—
it ends the old and begins the new, puts to death and brings to life.”26
So Christ says, “He who has ears, let him hear” (Matt. 11:15), and
Peter says, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of
Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38), and Paul, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household”
(Acts 16:31). The Gospel in its purest form is an open invitation; an invitation that seems foolish or absurd (1 Cor. 1:26), yet an invitation nonetheless.
“What the Bird Said” captures this tension. It offers us an outrageous
invitation in such a way that we actually want to believe it. Lewis has once
again found a way past our defenses and given us a glimpse of the Gospel—
admittedly, only a glimpse, but the reader whose heart is quickened by the
promise of the bird has already placed his foot on a path that leads “further
up and further in.”
25
26
Gerhard O. Forde, Theology Is for Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 2.
Ibid., 149.
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Short Study
Why One Thousand Years?
James A. Kellerman
Amillennialists agree that the one thousand years of Christ’s reign in
Revelation 20 are to be interpreted symbolically, not literally. But why was
the figure of a thousand years chosen? Nearly all amillennialists agree
that it has to do with the number ten, which is a number representing
perfection. One thousand is ten times ten times ten, indicating a heightened degree of perfection.
The question remains, however, why the number one thousand is used
rather than one hundred (ten times ten) or ten thousand (ten times ten
times ten times ten). If a reign of one thousand years is good, would not
one of ten thousand be better? Would not such a high number (ten thousand) or a lower number (one hundred) prevent exegetes from taking the
number of years of Christ’s reign in a literal sense? Put another way, if ten
to the third power is good, why would not ten to the fourth power be better
or ten to the second power be just as acceptable?
Of course, one can point to certain Old Testament and inter-testamental passages where one thousand is used to denote a large, complete number. For example, it is on a thousand hills that cattle graze according to
Psalm 50. One thousand years with the Lord is like a day—and a day like
a thousand years (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8). In inter-testamental apocalyptic
literature there are references to a thousand-year kingdom after six thousand years of earthly life, which correspond to the day of rest after the six
days of creation.1 That is easy enough to explain. Clearly, more than six
1
2 Enoch 32:2-33:2; 4 Ezra 7:28-33; Jubilees 23:24-31. It should be noted that all of
these apocalypses were written at roughly the same time as the Revelation to St. John.
If they had been written substantially earlier, one could argue that they influenced the
idea of the millennium in the Revelation to St. John. Thus, one should not automatically
assume that the Revelation adopted the millennial fervor of contemporary apocalyptic
authors.
For a discussion of millennial ideas in writings contemporary with the apostle John,
see Louis A. Brighton, Revelation in the Concordia Commentary series (St. Louis:
Concordia, 1999), 534-535.
Edward Lohse points out the scheme of the cosmic week, but notes that Jewish
millennialism did not always predicate a one-thousand-year period; 4 Esdras 7:28 sug-
Dr. James A. Kellerman is Pastor of First Lutheran Church in Chicago and
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theological Languages at Concordia University in River Forest, IL. An earlier version of this paper was presented as
a sectional paper at the 2000 Exegetical Symposium at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN.
140
hundred years had passed since the dawn of creation before the writers
began writing their apocalypses. Six thousand years, however, had not yet
passed, at least not if one adds all the genealogies of the Old Testament.
Hence, if one were predicting an era of peace in the future (but not too
distant future), the best idea would be to use a scheme predicated on thousands, not hundreds of years or tens of thousands of years.
The Apocalypse of St. John, however, never adopts the scheme of a
thousand-year reign or period of rest to balance out a six-thousand-year
period of activity. Hence, the “millennium” described in Revelation 20 ought
not to be identified with the millennia espoused by various apocalyptic
writers of John’s day. Moreover, even if we accept the phenomenon of one
thousand in the Old Testament as representative of a large, complete number, we have still not explained why one thousand should represent the
idea of absolute perfection. It is not the largest number in Greek with a
name underived from another number; ten thousand or mu,riaj is that number. To be sure, Hebrew’s largest number (apart from combinations) is one
thousand or ’aleph. But one thousand does not stand for absolute magnitude in Hebrew thought. Saul, after all, killed his thousands, but David his
ten thousands (1 Sam. 18:7; 22:11).
In the remainder of this article, I will examine first how ten is a number denoting completion or perfection in ancient mathematical thought.
Although I will draw on Greek mathematical works, it ought to be noted
that the Greeks drew their mathematical system from the Egyptians and
Babylonians; hence, when I speak of ancient Greek mathematics, I am
speaking of mathematics as practiced throughout the ancient Mediterranean world and Middle East.2 Then, I will demonstrate how arithmetic in
gests a period of four hundred years. Edward Lohse, “cilia,j, ci,lioi” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 9, ed. Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 470-471.
2
Although some nomenclature varies from country to country, knowledge of mathematics is not limited to any one country; modern mathematics transcends the various
cultures in which it is practiced. In the same way, the ancient Greeks did not practice a
wholly different form of mathematics from their Semitic and Egyptian contemporaries.
Their knowledge of geometry was largely shaped by the Egyptians and many famous
geometers were Greeks living in Egypt (e.g., Ptolemy). The Greeks also inherited much
of their nomenclature from the Babylonians and Phoenicians. For example, the Greeks
borrowed the Phoenician habit of using letters to stand for numbers. The first nine
letters of the Greek alphabet (a to q, including the digamma « that was originally part of
the Greek alphabet) stood for the numbers one to nine, much as the Hebrew letters
’aleph to teth represent the numbers one to nine. The next nine letters stood for the
multiples of tens from ten to ninety, and the next nine letters represented the hundreds
from one hundred to nine hundred. Since Greek had only twenty-four letters, the koppa
(ò) and the sampi (¬) were used to represent ninety and nine hundred, respectively. For
a full discussion, see Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1956), 103-104B. Although Smyth denotes numerals by having a stroke
above and to the right of the numerals (which is the custom of modern publishers),
ancient practice used that designation for fractions and denoted whole numerals by
placing a horizontal line above the letter.
The Greeks also borrowed the habit of expressing “ordinary proper fractions as the
sum of two or more submultiples,” e.g., 2/3 would be expressed as 1/2 and 1/6; see SelecCONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
141
ancient mathematics was closely connected with geometry. Finally, I will
apply this information to the question of why one thousand years are used
to describe the length of Christ’s complete reign through the church on
earth.
The number ten in Revelation does not derive its meaning from some
important event or phenomenon in the Scriptures. In this respect, it differs from twelve and seven, which recall, respectively, the twelve patriarchs, tribes, and apostles,3 and the seven days of creation (including the
day of rest).4 Rather, ten derives its significance from the general Mediterranean culture. In this respect, ten is more akin to four. Four is used
symbolically in the Revelation to refer to the whole earth, inasmuch as
much of the ancient world spoke of the four corners or four winds of the
world.5 Thus, the number four was significant to more than the Hebrew
tions Illustrating the History of Greek Mathematics (hereafter Selections), ed. and trans.
Ivor Thomas, vol. 1: From Thales to Euclid, in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 45. As Thomas also points out, the Greeks divided
numbers into sixty minutes, each of which had sixty seconds, as did the Babylonians
(Selections, 49).
3
The number twelve is often used in conjunction with the nation of Israel, especially
to denote the twelve patriarchs (sons of Israel) or the twelve tribes derived from them:
Gen. 35:22; 42:13; 42:32; 49:28; Ex. 24:4; 28:21; 39:14; Num. 1:44; 7:84, 86-87; 17:2, 6; 31:5;
Joshua 3:12; 4:2-4, 8-9; Judg. 19:29; 1 Kings 11:30; 18:31; Ezek. 47:13; Matt. 19:28; Luke
22:30; Acts 7:8; 26:7; James 1:1. The number twelve is often used to denote the disciples
who would become apostles; sometimes “the twelve” is used as a technical term without
further elaboration: Matt. 10:1-2, 5; 11:1; 20:17; 26:14, 20, 47; Mark 3:14, 16; 4:10; 6:7; 9:35;
10:32; 11:1; 14:10, 17, 20, 43; Luke 6:13; 8:1; 9:1, 12; 18:31; 22:3, 47; John 6:67, 70-71; 20:24;
Acts 6:2; 1 Cor. 15:5.
4
Genesis 1 describes creation as taking place within a seven-day period of time, with
the seventh day being a day of rest. This pattern became the basis for the Hebrew week
(see Ex. 20:8-11; 31:12-17). But the week already was a significant unit of time before the
days of Moses. Noah had sent out the raven and the dove at weekly intervals (Gen. 8:10,
12). Moreover, complete units of time are frequently marked by the number seven (Gen.
29:18, 20, 27; 41:2-7, 18-20, 29-30 et passim; Lev. 12:2; 13:4-5 et passim; Num. 12:14-15;
Judg. 14:17; 1 Sam. 11:3; 2 Kings 8:1ff.; 1 Chron. 9:25; Job 2:13; perhaps Gen. 33:3). This
is especially true of religious holidays and other ritual observances (Ex. 7:25; 12:15, 19;
13:6-7; 22:30; 23:15; 29:30, 35, 37; Lev. 8:33, 35; 15:13, 19, 24; 23:6, 8, 34, 36, 39-42; Num.
19:11, 14, 16; Deut. 16:3-4; 1 Sam. 10:8; 31:13; 2 Chron. 7:8-9; Neh. 8:18; Ezek. 3:15-16; cf.
Lev. 23:15 for Pentecost or weeks and 25:8 for sabbath years and years of jubilee). Thus,
seven often became a number associated with completeness, especially in ritual (Lev. 4:6,
17; 8:11; 14:7-8, 16, 27, 38, 51; 2 Kings 5:10, 14). Even outside a ritual or temporal context,
seven came to represent completeness (sometimes seven just meant completeness, even
outside of a ritual context: Deut. 28:7, 25; Joshua 6:4 et passim; Judg. 16:7-8, 13-14; 19;
Ruth 4:15; 1 Sam. 2:5; 2 Kings 4:35; Prov. 24:16; 26:16, 25; Is. 4:1; 30:26; Dan. 3:19; Matt.
18:21-22; 22:25ff.).
5
The four corners are suggested by the path of the sun, which appears to travel from
east to west. Since in the northern hemisphere the sun appears towards the south of an
east-west line, one is further led to distinguish between south and north. The Scriptures
speak of the four corners of the earth (Is. 11:12), the four quarters or directions (Jer.
49:36; Ezek. 1:17; 10:11); the four winds (Ezek. 37:9; Dan. 7:2-3; 8:8; 11:4; Zech. 2:6; 6:5;
Matt. 24:31; Mark 13:27) and even, by extension, the four corners of the land (Ezek. 7:2).
Although the Greeks and Romans did not use the expression “four corners” of the world,
they did tend to speak of four winds (Aquilo/Boreas, Eurus, Auster/Notus, Favonius/
142
culture. In a similar fashion, the number ten had the same meaning in the
pagan world as among the Hebrews.
Ten is naturally the number of completeness and even perfection, in
our culture as well as that of the ancient Greeks. The reason is best stated
by Aristotle, who notes that nearly all cultures use the decimal system in
counting because we have a built-in abacus in our hands.6 But there are
other reasons for calling ten a perfect number, as Speusippus, Plato’s heir
at the Academy, explained. Its two factors, five and two, are odd and even,
making it a balance of those two forces. The numbers one through ten
contain an equal number of prime (1, 2, 3, 5, 7) and composite (4, 6, 8, 9,
10) numbers; it is the first number of which this can be said.7 Moreover,
there are geometrical reasons. Ten is a triangular number (see fig. 1), as
every bowler knows.8
Here we are confronted with the geometric emphasis within ancient
Greek mathematics. Greek mathematicians were fascinated by the shapes
that could be created with different numbers. A standard feature of Greek
math textbooks was a table of gnomons. A gnomon originally was a stick
for drawing right angles, but came to mean the lines drawn around dots to
create a larger figure of the same shape. For example, if you draw a rightangled gnomon around one dot and then place three dots around it (see fig.
2a), you have created another square. If you draw a second right-angled
gnomon around it (see fig. 2b), you have created the next largest square.
Similar gnomons exist for triangles and every kind of polygon (see fig. 3).9
In addition, the Greeks realized that if you add two adjacent triangular
numbers, you end up with a square (see fig. 4, where the triangles composed of three and six have been put together); if you add a triangular
number to its complementary square, you end up with a pentagon, and so
forth.10
When the Greeks thought of numbers, then, they tended to think geometrically. This is most evident in Euclid’s definition of multiplication and
a rectangle. We would tend to view multiplication as figure 5 does; five
times three means that one advances on the number line in groups of
Zephyrus), representing north, east (or south-east), south, and west, respectively. Joachim
Jeremias notes the parallel usage of “four corners” with that of the Old Testament and
Levantine cosmology (Joachim Jeremias, gwni, a in Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament, vol. 1, ed. Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1964], 791). Brighton, 181, however, rightly warns us not to assume that “four
corners” implies a flat world. Instead, the term merely points to the directions of the
winds.
6
Aristotle, Problems, xv.3, 910b 23-911a1.
7
As quoted in Iamblichus, Theologumena Arithmetica, 82.10-85.23.
8
Half of Speusippus’ exposition is devoted to the geometry of the shapes that the
number ten can form. It forms an equilateral triangle. It is the sum of one, two, three, and
four, which are the minimal number of points needed to create, respectively, a point, line,
triangle, and pyramid. A pyramid has four faces and six sides, which equals ten.
9
The table of gnomons is based on the table in Selections, 98.
10
See, for example, Nicomachus, Introduction to Arithmetic, ii.,12.2-4.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
143
three, five times. But Euclid’s definition is radically different: “When two
numbers have multiplied each other so as to make some number, the
resulting number is called a plane figure, and its sides are the numbers
which have multiplied each other.”11 We are not surprised, then, to hear
him say next: “When three numbers have multiplied each other so as to
make some number, the resulting number is a solid, and its sides are the
numbers which have multiplied each other.”12 In other words, Euclid views
multiplication as figure 6 does; we, too, may view it in that manner, but
Euclid could see it only in the manner of figure 6.
In modern mathematics, we learn that a square number is the product
of two identical factors. But for the ancients, a square number was literally a square number (see fig. 7).13 Hence we approximate irrational square
roots in a different manner than did the ancient Greeks. We find the answer strictly arithmetically by asking which number, when multiplied by
itself, comes closest to the square number (fig. 8). But the Greeks would
try to find the answer by constructing a square and finding the answer, at
least in part, geometrically (fig. 9). Thus, to find the square root of twelve,
they would first remove the area formed by the square of the largest rational square root, in this case, the area of nine created by three times three.
Two identical rectangles and a square are left, which must total three in
area. A new square of three units would be drawn and the area converted
into minutes and the largest square found that would fit in the area. The
procedure would be repeated with seconds. See figure 9, for how the math
works.14
What does this have to do with the number one thousand in Revelation? Consider how we could represent one thousand in modern notation.
We could write it as an exponential number, a point on a traditional number line, or as a point on a logarithmic line, as you see in figure 10. But an
ancient Greek had no means to denote exponential numbers (fig. 10a). He
could imagine one thousand as a point along a line as in figure 10b, but not
on a logarithmic scale, as in figure 10c. An ancient, however, would be
quick to perceive one thousand as a cube. And if ten is the number of
perfection, then ten cubed is absolute perfection, for it is perfection extended in height, width, and length—all the dimensions that the Greeks
knew.
It might surprise most people who stand at the dawn of the twentyfirst century that it was less than ninety years ago, when Albert Einstein
proposed his theory of general relativity, that we began to view time as a
fourth dimension. We hear physicists tell us that if string theory is corEuclid, Elements, vii, definition 17, as translated in Selections, 71.
Euclid, Elements, vii, definition 18, as translated in Selections, 71.
13
Cf., Euclid, Elements, vii., definition 19, as translated in Selections, 71: “A square
number is equal multiplied by equal, or one that is contained by two equal numbers.”
14
For a good example of determining the square root of both a rational and irrational
root, see Selections, 53-60.
11
12
144
rect, then there must be at least ten dimensions and perhaps more.15 We
have grown accustomed to exponential notation and find it convenient.
But the ancient Greeks knew of only three dimensions; more importantly,
they never saw any point in developing a full scale exponential system
because they were limited by Euclidean geometry and saw no practical
value in it. Thus, any Greek who could count would know that ten times a
thousand was ten thousand, but that number was too lopsided to be the
number of perfection. Similarly, one hundred could not denote absolute
perfection, since it had length and width, but not height.
In conclusion, we have to understand that John and his audience were
more sensitive to geometry than we are. We tend to keep arithmetic separate from geometry until we study trigonometry or analytical geometry.
But the ancient world did not. Thus, it is not an accident that the New
Jerusalem, that place of perfection, is a cube. For that matter, it is not an
accident that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple was likewise a cube.16
Therefore, one should not be surprised that John used a cubed number to
describe the period of God’s rule over mankind in the New Testament era.
15
The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking claims that string theories “seem to be consistent only if space-time has ten or eleven dimensions” (see Stephen Hawking, The
Universe in a Nutshell [New York: Bantam, 2001], 54, 88, et passim). Over the years I
have heard other numbers of dimensions (e.g., 14, 17 and even 26) suggested. String
theory is completely outside of my area of expertise, but it is clear that many modern
physicists do not feel constrained to work in only three or four dimensions, as antiquity
did.
16
The New Jerusalem is twelve thousand stadia cubed (Rev. 21:16). The Holy of
Holies was twenty cubits cubed (1 Kings 6:17).
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
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Figures for “Why One Thousand Years?”
(figure 1)
(figure 2)
(a)
(b)
(figure 3)
1
1
1
1
1
3
4
5
6
7
6
9
12
15
18
10
16
22
28
34
15
25
35
45
55
(figure 4)
1
146
3
6
triangles
21
36
51
66
81
28
49
70
91
112
triangles
squares
pentagons
hexagons
heptagons
(figure 5)
1
2
3
4
5
(figure 6)
(figure 7)
(figure 8)
To find the square root of 12:
(A.)
3x3=9
4x4=16
(B.)
(3.4)(3.4)=11.56
(3.5)(3.5)=12.25
(C.)
(3.46)(3.46)=11.9716
(3.47)(3.47)=12.0409
etc.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
147
(figure 9)
A
E
B
H
D
Z
G
area of square AG = 12
area of square AZ = 9
hence line AE and line AH = 3 and the square root of 12 is a little larger
then 3
hence, the area of square ZG + rectangle BZ + rectangle ZD = 3, since 129=3
To approximate the square in minutes (sixtieths), we repeat the process
let the area of square AG = 3 (the remainder of the previous step)
convert to minutes (multiply by 60) = 180’ (180 minutes)
area of square AZ = 169’
hence line AE and line AH = 13’ and the square root of 12 is a little larger
then 3 13’
hence, the area of square ZG + rectangle BZ + rectangel ZD = 11’ since 180’169’ = 11
To approximate the square in seconds (thirty-six hundredths), we repeat
the process
let the area of square AG = 11’ (the remainder of the previous step)
convert to seconds (multiply by 60) = 660”
area of square AZ + 625”
hence line AE and line AH = 25” and the square root of 12 is a litte larger
then 3 13’ 25”
hence, the area of square ZG + rectangle BZ + rectangle ZD = 35” since
660”-625” = 35”
In reality, the square root of 12 is a little closer to 3 13’ 26” then 3 13’ 25”,
but that number cannot fit within the square AG.
148
(figure 10)
(a) 103
(b)
(c)
0
500
1000
1500
1
100
10
101
100
102
1000
103
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
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Review Essay
The Lord’s Supper
Jayson S. Galler
THE LORD’S SUPPER. Volume XII in the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series. By John R. Stephenson. St. Louis: The Luther Academy, 2003. 294 pages. Cloth. $19.95.
The Rev. Dr. John R. Stephenson continues to serve the church not
only as editor of the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series but also as
the author of its latest volume, The Lord’s Supper. Stephenson, assistant
professor of historical theology at Lutheran Church—Canada’s Concordia
Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario, does a commendable job in presenting confessional doctrine and assessing and analyzing theological trends not only in Canada, but in the United States and
around the world as well. Overall his treatment presents not only doctrine
well but also how it is lived out in practice.
Locus XII, de coena Domini is the fifth volume in the series and follows the volume on the “other” Sacrament, Baptism, locus XI by David P.
Scaer (1999). These latter two volumes, both published since Stephenson
moved to the main editor’s position, seem to have broadened their scope,
and they approach being a replacement for, instead of a supplement to,
Franz Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik. At a very minimum, the more recent two volumes are longer and more comprehensive than the earlier
Christology, locus VI, also by Scaer (1989); Church and Ministry, locus IX,
by Kurt Marquart (1990), and Eschatology, locus XIII, also by Stephenson
(1993).
The Lord’s Supper is structured in three parts of four chapters each
(two of the parts are also parts of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism treatment of the Lord’s Supper): “What is the Sacrament of the Altar?”; “This
Do”; and “The Benefits of This Eating and Drinking.” (The lack of parts
named after the other three catechism questions—Where is this written?
How can bodily eating and drinking do such great things? Who then receives such Sacrament worthily?—by no means suggests that the book
does not answer those questions, however.) There are also four appendices: the first on ways of referring to the Sacrament, the second on three
ways of speaking about the sacramental presence and their history, the
The Reverend Jayson S. Galler is Assistant Pastor at Grace Lutheran
Church in Elgin, TX, and a doctrinal candidate at the University of Texas
in Austin.
150
third on the mode of Jesus’ presence (a rich treasury of knowledge including the positive and negative uses of the word “substance” in reference to
the presence), and the fourth on the nature of the bread and contents of
the cup. The whole is solidly grounded in hermeneutically valid exegesis
of Holy Scripture (see Stephenson’s principles on 23-24). While the exegesis centers on the three synoptic institution narratives, Stephenson does
consider other texts, including John 6. In regards to John 6, Stephenson’s
opinion of its applicability to the Sacrament (39-40) is middle-of-the-road
(in the positive sense of the drunken peasant staying out of both ditches).
However, while acknowledging SD VIII, 59’s view of this matter (for example, 40), he does not consider SD VII, 61-65’s.
On the topic of exegesis, in recent years there has been some renewed
discussion in LCMS circles over the nature of sw/ma (body) in 1 Corinthians
11:29. Recent works include those by Jeffrey A. Gibbs (“An Exegetical Case
for Close[d] Communion: 1 Corinthians 10:14-22; 11:17-34,” Concordia Journal 21 [April 1995]: 148-163), A. Andrew Das (“1 Corinthians 11:17-34 Revisited,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 62 [July 1998]: 187-203), and Mark
P. Surburg (“Structural and Lexical Features in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32,”
Concordia Journal 26 [July 2000]: 200-217). A chief argument is that “body”
refers to both the eucharistic body and the ecclesiastical body. In my own
parish, circuit, and neighboring circuit experience, this insight advanced
discussion regarding a proper understanding of the Sacrament and its practice. Stephenson does not refer to the three works noted above, and simply writes: “violence is done to this verse when it is lamely interpreted in
terms of a failure to discern Christ’s mystical body in one’s fellow church
members” (135). Readers of The Lord’s Supper could have benefited from a
greater discussion of these author’s works, for an argument based on 1
Corinthians 11 that Stephenson himself uses for Closed Communion, that
of the unity in proclaiming the Lord’s death (163), is minimized by Gibbs
(157, n. 22) and amended by Das (206, n. 29).
Clearly Stephenson is thoroughly steeped in Luther’s writings.
(Stephenson’s 1982 Ph.D. thesis for the University of Durham was titled
Martin Luther’s Eucharistic Writings of 1523-1528: A Study of the Extent
to Which, in His Defence of the Doctrine of the Corporeal Presence of Christ
in the Elements, Luther Remained True to His Exegetical Principles, to His
Notion of the Modality of Divine Operation, and to His Conception of the
Work of the Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament.) Stephenson helpfully
points out problems with the American Edition of Luther’s Works (for example, 25, n. 33), but at times the extensive Luther quotes in the text and
footnotes are too much. (It would seem that especially those available and
correctly translated in the American Edition simply could be cited.) Moreover, while the confessions do give deutero-confessional status to some of
Luther’s writings, Stephenson emphasizes the Reformer’s non-confessional
writings to the apparent exclusion of the confessional ones. A case in point
is Luther’s view of transubstantiation after 1520. Stephenson follows Tom
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
151
G. A. Hardt in identifying three groups for modern scholars’ assessments:
that Luther regarded transubstantiation as an acceptable opinion, that
Luther distinctly but mildly denounced it as an error, and that Luther
made a total break from transubstantiation (95). Stephenson claims that
the first group rightly depicts Luther’s position, and he supports this with
Luther quotes from 1523 and 1528 (95-96). What Stephenson does not address, however, is Luther’s confessionally binding statement against transubstantiation in the 1537 Smalcald Articles (III, 6:5):
As for transubstantiation, we have no regard for the subtle sophistry (achten wir der spitzen Sophisterei garnichts; subtilitatem
sophisticam nihil curamus) of those who teach that bread and wine
surrender or lose their natural substance and retain only the appearance and shape of bread without any longer being real bread,
for that bread is and remains there agrees better with the Scriptures, as St. Paul himself states, “The bread which we break” (1
Cor. 10:16), and again, “Let a man so eat of the bread” (1 Cor.
11:28) (Tappert, 311; BKS, 452; confer Kolb-Wengert, 321 [where
the translation is “absolutely no regard.”]).
That statement hardly seems to tolerate transubstantiation. (In addition, Stephenson, again with Hardt, also says Luther would not attack
transubstantiation from the pulpit, and he further cites SD I, 54’s caution
against using the terms substantia and accidens; but that caution comes at
the locus of original sin, and the authors of the Formula themselves use
such terms with no such caution when it comes to the Supper [SD VII,
108].)
It is on this same topic of transubstantiation, however, that Stephenson
provided an insight most helpful and interesting to this reviewer: “the
doctrine of transubstantiation, as promulgated by the Roman magisterium
and interpreted by its theologians, tends in the direction of watering down
the real presence” (98). As Stephenson tells it, this is in part due to Thomas Aquinas’ understanding that the intellectual substance of the bread
and wine, not the empirical substance, changes into intellectual body and
blood, “and hence possibly other than actual body and blood of Christ”
(100). Stephenson favorably quotes Hardt, who, with Hermann Sasse’s
concurrence, was led to conclude: “For Thomas the reality of the Sacrament exists only in the ideal world of thought” (101, n. 85). These distinctions likely elude modern seminary graduates, who, Stephenson says, “cannot be expected to appropriate, as did medieval scholasticism, the philosophy of Aristotle in such a way as to refine its concepts into the customary
vocabulary of Christian theology” (99). Nevertheless, perhaps Luther was
too charitable in saying that the Pope has the real body and blood of Christ!
The book makes countless other worthwhile contributions. A point
worthy of greater reflection is the close connection between the Sacra152
ment and sexual sin (113, 134-136). Stephenson distinguishes well between
Rome’s sacrificial synergism and Lutherans’ divine monergism (see, for
examples, 124 and all of chapter 9). He details how the verba alone do not
guarantee the real, physical presence “without the acknowledged presence, distribution, and reception of His body and blood,” so that Evangelicals
and Protestants who deny the presence indeed do not have it (131-132) and
are thus heretical and outside the church of God (77). Especially in chapter
8, Stephenson presents a sound case for closed (not “close”) communion
and a stinging indictment of the ecumenical movement, and in chapter 7
he even anticipates chapter 8 by chastising much of modern practice:
The pastoral stewardship of the mystery of the Holy Supper envisaged in the Reformation era is not discharged, but rudely mocked,
when Christians of the Lutheran and even other confessions are
welcomed to the altar on the basis of their cursorily reading and
casually signing a registration card. This is not a suitable instrument of the catechesis mandated by our Lord Himself. In many
areas of our church bodies, practice has fallen so far behind doctrine as to contradict it (144).
Stephenson does well to quote both Luther and Sasse who suggest
that if open communion is the practice, the real body and blood may not be
present (158). Stephenson surely would concur with much of the content
of Pope John Paul II’s Maundy Thursday 2003 encyclical, Ecclesia de
Eucharistia (issued since the book was published), especially as it pertains
to priestly consecration, closed communion, and banning manifest sexual
sinners from the Sacrament. (And on the topic of closed communion, note
well the typographical error in The Lord’s Supper on page 149, n. 1, where
Pieper is said to have opted for the former, that is, “open” communion,
instead of the latter, that is, “closed.”)
Stephenson discusses well the synergy of preaching, Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper (but he wrongly perpetuates Tappert’s distinction
between “the power of keys” and “the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren” [173; SA III, IV; Tappert, 310; compare BKS, 449; and
Kolb-Wengert, 319]). This “synergy” of the forms of the Word comes to a
head as the Sacrament of the Altar exceeds the others in the intimacy of
the Lord with the believer:
Baptismal water is applied to the body and the Word and absolution are directed through the ear to the soul of their recipients,
but the consecrated elements which are Christ’s body and blood
are physically (albeit supernaturally) placed inside the bodies of
communicants. This simple gesture conveys certain overwhelming truths concerning the status of Christian people as children of
the Father, brothers and sisters of the Son, and temples of the
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Holy Spirit (204, emphasis Stephenson’s).
Stephenson is to be complimented for his recognition of the relationship between lex orandi and lex credendi when it comes to the Supper and
for his proscriptions for capitalizing on that relationship. He criticizes
Lutheran Worship and calls for “suitable new additions to the Lord’s Supper section of our hymnal” (14-17), and he seems to know of several. Paul
Gerhardt’s hymn Herr Jesu, meine Liebe, translated by Kurt Reinhardt as
O Lord, my Love, I have no rest, opens the volume (1-2) with Stephenson’s
hope that it “reenter the bloodstream of the worshipping church” (xi),
though no tune suggestion is made. Stephenson also presents Reinhardt’s
translation of a verse of Weit offen steht des Himmels Perlentor attributed
to Wilhelm Löhe (205); Reinhardt has translated this entire hymn as “The
Great Pearl Gate of Heaven’s Realm,” and it can be sung to “Deo Gracias”
(LW 275) or “Angelust” (TLH 557). (It is worth noting also that Reinhardt,
my former classmate at the St. Catharines seminary, has also translated
otherwise forgotten German stanzas of Beautiful Savior that also center
on the real, physical presence of Christ in the Sacrament.)
Stephenson usefully covers the practical “basics” such as frequency of
communion (127-128) and the need for ordained men to consecrate (83-86),
including the denial of such a thing as “emergency” communion (85, cf.
CLD IX:162-165). Stephenson details the consecration as that which effects the real, physical presence of Christ (86-94), including locating the
origin of receptionism with Melanchthon and his application of Aristotle’s
four causes (91). There is discussion of the types of bread (with Walther
saying leavened is okay!) and of the types of wine (red or white but no
grape juice) (259-261). There is treatment of the literal breaking of the
bread (261-262) and the making of the sign of the cross over the elements
during the consecration (94, 262), though Stephenson does not discuss
Luther’s reported objection to this practice (see Luther D. Reed, The
Lutheran Liturgy [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1947], 361). There is helpful treatment of how to receive the host (212), and Stephenson also surveys practice for the reliquae (93-94), with Luther advocating consumption at the
altar but Walther permitting later reuse of both bread and wine—though
only after re-consecration! Walther’s practice leaves something to be desired.
Despite these practical basics, there are only scattered references to
elevating the host—and all of them favorable, even though Luther later
discouraged the practice for the sake of unity in liturgical practice (see, for
example, De Elevatione, a Luther autograph in the collection at the University of Texas). There are only passing references to confirmation, and
there is no substantive discussion of the propriety of, in most cases, years
separating one’s passing through the baptismal waters from one’s admission to the Heavenly Board—two events which in the early church were
joined. Stephenson cites favorably Walther’s first answer to the question
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of who is to be admitted to the Sacrament: “those already baptized” (134, n.
25). (Stephenson does not address directly Walther’s other answers: those
“2. who are able to examine themselves; 3. about whom it cannot be proven
that they are non-Christians or erring believers and who would therefore
receive the Sacrament unworthily; and finally, 4. in whom no reason is
found that they first need to be reconciled or to make restitution” [Pastoral Theology, trans. John M. Drickamer (New Haven, MO: Lutheran News,
Inc., 1995), 146].) Stephenson does not address the point Scaer makes regarding infant communion: that the same arguments usually made against
infant communion could validly be made against infant baptism (CLD XI:48,
n. 20). Rudolph E. Kurz (“Infant Communion,” The Bride of Christ, Vol.
XXI, No. 1 [1997], 22-24) writes how the unborn infant communes in the
womb of its communing mother; he draws attention to Luther’s defense of
infant communion (AE 54:58 [Table Talk No. 365, recorded by Veit Dietrich
in the Fall of 1531] and LC V:87, translating Gemeinschaft and communionis
[BKS, 725] as “communion” [compare “fellowship” in Tappert (456) and KolbWengert (476)]); and Kurz argues against the self-examination of 1
Corinthians 11:28-29 as ruling out infant communion. This need for
self-examination also could have prompted discussion of communion practice regarding the mentally challenged and infirm (such as those with
Alzheimer’s disease). In this same vein, The Lord’s Supper has no substantive treatment of cutting one off from the Sacrament (“excommunication” from the Latin is equal to the “ban” from the German), though admittedly that topic merits its own section in the Smalcald Articles (III, IX) and
may well be planned to be treated in a forthcoming volume of the Dogmatics, perhaps one dealing with the Keys.
One is grateful for the indices in this volume: Sacred Scripture,
Lutheran Confessions, and Name and Subject. Not all of the earlier volumes had such indices, though some have been provided since (for example, those for Scaer’s Christology were included in his more recent
festschrift). Yet, the Name and Subject Index for The Lord’s Supper leaves
some things to be desired: not everything you might hope would be listed
is listed (for example, there is a treatment of the term “covenant” on pages
194-195, but it is not indexed, nor is the discussion of the reliquae on pages
93-94); there are what could be considered duplicate entries for other topics without cross-references (for example, “Divine Monergism” and
“Monergism of Grace”); some entries are not under what you might look
(for example, there is no “Communion of the Impious” or “Impious Communion,” but there is “Manducatio impiorum,” and there is also “Communicants, worthy and unworthy” and “Unworthy communion,” none of which
are cross-referenced); some entries are duplicated (for example, there are
oddly two listings of “Lutheran”: one not subdivided and the other subdivided); and some entries have more pages listed without subdivisions than
the style guides recommend (for example, “Lutheran, theology”).
In short, the book is highly readable and informative. It is sure to
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benefit the church at-large at a time when the crisis centering over
that-which-is-its-only-fellowship continues to grow. According to Luther
Academy Bulletin Issue 1 (Spring 2003), five more volumes of the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics are anticipated between 2004 and 2009. One
looks forward to the next volume in the series—whichever it may be and
whenever it may arrive.
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Homiletical Helps on LW Series A
—Gospels
Sixth Sunday of Easter
John 14:15-21
May 1, 2005
The Gospel for the Sixth Sunday of Easter continues our reading of John 14
from the previous Sunday; we could say it continues the Spirit’s work of bringing to
mind all that Jesus told us now that we stand in the light of His resurrection (cf.
John 14:26). This Gospel also points us forward, however, for in it we hear the first
overtures of Pentecost sounded in the promise of the Comforter. The passage, in
fact, overflows with comfort. As Luther notes in his own sermon on this passage,
“Here, therefore, there is no wrath, threat, or terror for Christians; there is only a
friendly smile and sweet comfort in heaven and on earth” (Luther’s Works 24:111).
Luther’s “sermonic exposition” of our Gospel fills more than fifty pages of
Volume 24 of Luther’s Works (101-153). Although Luther is somewhat repetitive in
places, and several pages are devoted to his own (historical, human) adversaries,
his exposition does raise many of the questions that today’s preacher will still find
challenging about this text. It is, therefore, not a bad place to start one’s preparation. I will follow a somewhat more economical procedure, letting the text serve as
our outline and referring to Luther only when he is especially helpful for our purposes. We won’t get far, however, before we find ourselves appealing to him for
assistance.
The initial verse seems to call into question everything I have said so far about
this passage, but especially the statement that this Gospel “overflows with comfort.” For what comfort is to be found in this conditional sentence, “If you love me,
you will keep my commandments,” that is to say, “Whenever it can truthfully be
said that you love me, it will always be true that you are keeping my commandments.” This statement of our Lord presents us immediately with a double-edged
challenge, for both the mention of His “commandments” and the conditional structure of the sentence relating love and obedience seem to place us under a law more
demanding than that of Moses.
Is it possible to understand His “commandments” in a way that does not turn
Christ into a new lawgiver? In verse 23, our Lord makes almost the same statement, this time substituting lo,gon for evntola.j—“word, teaching” for “commandments.” No summary is provided of the content of this word, only a description.
This is everything that the Lord has spoken to His disciples while He has been
with them, all the words that His Father has given to Him to give to them. Our
passage is, however, framed by definitions of the (new) commandment of Jesus, to
love one another, found both in 13:34 and again in 15:17. The giving of the new
commandment in 13:34 should still be fresh in the minds of your hearers from
their recent celebration of Maundy Thursday, and hearing these words from this
Sunday’s Gospel should remind them of that. John 13:34 serves, therefore, as both
a textual and a liturgical context for this Gospel.
The “new” aspect of the new command lies in the additional words “as I have
loved you.” The command of Christ is simply the love of Christ, which is simply
Christ Himself, who now shapes every aspect of the believer’s life. As John himCONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
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self wrote in his first epistle: “Whoever keeps his word, in this person the love of
God is truly brought to completion; by this we know that we are in Him. The
person who says that he remains in Him, he himself ought to walk just the same
way He walked” (1 John 2:5-6). John adds later that these commandments are not
burdensome, the doing of them is simply a matter of the love of God having its
way among His people (cf. 1 John 5:1-3).
Luther defines “His commandments” in this way:
“Therefore,” Christ says, “I do not impose anything else on you. I ask and
demand no more than this one thing, that you faithfully preach about Me,
watch over My Word and Sacrament, show affection and harmony among
one another for My sake, and patiently bear the adversities that this
entails for you” (LW 24:102).
It may seem, at first reading, that Christ is imposing quite a lot on us, but that is
only at first reading. For these things, too, could all be summarized simply by
“walking as He walked” or, to borrow Paul’s expression, “thinking as He thought”
(Phil. 2:5, which Paul also connects to a para,klhsij in Christ through His Spirit),
that is, letting the thoughts, attitudes, will, and purpose of Christ shape and
animate our entire being. This is not burdensome.
But it may not yet sound like much in the way of comfort. Once again, I appeal
to Luther:
[Christ says,] “I give you commands which you can and will surely observe
without coercion if you love Me at all. If love is wanting, it is useless for Me
to give you many commandments; for they would not be observed anyhow.
Therefore if you want to keep My commandments, see that you love Me,
and think of what I have done for you” (LW 24:102).
We are not given a new commandment that we have to love one another; rather,
Christ establishes here that everything will now flow from our love for Him. This
will be the basis for our actions; this will be the foundation for our new life. No
longer do we begin by asking “Have I done this or that?” We begin by thinking about
love. And we cannot think about our love for our Jesus without immediately thinking of His love for us: “for we love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). So then,
when the Christian thinks of the commandments of Christ, his/her thought
progresses directly from Christ’s commandment to her/his own love for Christ, and
then to Christ’s great love for him/her, thus, “smiles and sweet comfort!”
Much more could be said on the questions raised by verse 15, but this is
already more than I had originally planned for the discussion of the first verse of
our text. It is not hard to justify such careful thought on this verse, however, because, if it is misunderstood, that is, if verse 15 becomes a new law and taskmaster for us, the whole text is robbed of its ability to offer even the smallest bit of
comfort.
The next verse easily generates at least as many questions for theological
reflection as verse 15 does. Jesus’ promise to “ask the Father” leads us immediately into careful thought about what it means for Jesus, true God, the only-begotten of the Father, to pray. Luther responds with a lengthy discussion of the two
natures in Christ. Although this is very helpful, I think it is incomplete without at
least mentioning that when we hear the Son ask the Father, we are being given a
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glimpse of the “inner life” of the Holy Trinity. The Son’s request for the granting of
the Spirit is met by the Father’s gift of the Spirit. In Christ, we can already see how
we are being brought “into the Father” by virtue of our being in Him.
The very fact that it is the Son who makes this request on our behalf is another
dose of sweet comfort for us. There is no condition here. The Spirit is not given
because of the worthiness, real or potential, of the recipient. The Spirit is given
because of the Father’s great love for His own Son. And this Spirit will be for us
what the Son has been for us, for He is a;llon para,klhton, “another paraclete, comforter, counselor.” Though word study may be helpful here, I think it is the likening
by our Lord of the Spirit to Himself that proves most instructive. For in our Lord
Jesus, the eternal Word has come to be truly “alongside us” in a way beyond human
imagining, Immanuel, God with us, the Word with us, to speak efficacious encouragement and eternal comfort to the people of God, to make manifest the time of
God’s favor by making His dwelling among us. And, if it is possible for another
Comforter to be closer than that, this one will be. For He will not only be with us,
but in us.
Our Lord continues to pour out upon us this “sweet comfort from heaven” as He
tells us more about the character of this promised Comforter. He is to. pneu/ma th/j
avlhqei,aj in every possible way: the Spirit who is truth (steadfast, unchanging in His
love for us), the Spirit who brings truth (testifying to the word of Christ, bringing it
back to mind for us, bringing us to faith in this true and good news), and the Spirit
who makes true (filling us with God’s truth, bringing us to new birth as true sons
and daughters of our Heavenly Father).
It is common to speak of the movement of John’s Gospel as following the shape
of a cosmic “U.” The Son, who is with the Father in the beginning, comes down to
earth, lives, dies “gloriously,” rises victoriously, and makes His way back to the
Father. In light of verse 18, we might want to make that a cosmic “W.” As if the
promise of another Comforter were not enough, our Lord promises that He Himself
will return for us, not leaving us as orphans, having won for us the power to become
children of God. He will come to us. We will see Him. And from this point on, our life
is joined to His. As long as He lives, we know that we will live. And what can
possibly take His life from Him now? We are hearing these words during the great
fifty days of Easter. Have we not just celebrated the demonstration of the truth of
Jesus’ statement: “I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it
from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and
authority to take it up again” (John 10:17-18)? He lives, and our life is now in Him.
One final quote from Luther—a reminder to preachers and an exhortation to
hearers. One excerpt from his exposition of verse 21 (“and I will love him and show
myself to him”):
[God] thrusts us into death and permits the devil to pounce on us. But it is
not His purpose to devour us; He wants to test us, to purify us, and to
manifest Himself ever more to us, that we may recognize His love. Such
trials and strife are to let us experience something that preaching alone is
not able to do, namely, how powerful Christ is and how sincerely the Father loves us. So our trust in God and our knowledge of God will increase
more and more, together with our praise and thanks for His mercy and
blessing. Otherwise we would bumble along with our early, incipient faith.
We would become indolent, unfruitful, and inexperienced Christians, and
would soon grow rusty…. Thus this is a sermon not only of words but of
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experience as well…. Christ begins with the Word…. But the devil comes
on the heels of this…. At this point experience must enter in and enable a
Christian to say: “Hitherto I have heard that Christ is my Savior, who
conquered sin and death; and I believed this. Now my experience bears
this out…. Now I see and know that He loves me and that what I believe
is true” (LW 24:150-151).
Jeffrey A. Oschwald
Seventh Sunday of Easter
John 17:1-11
May 8, 2005
Preliminary considerations: It could be argued that this has the potential to be
a bit of an awkward Sunday. Ascension is past, the Paschal candle has returned to
its usual place by the font, and Easter morning’s alleluias died long ago. But, it’s
still Easter. It would make better sense and better drama to get on with it and
move right from the Ascension to Pentecost. But, alas, the Holy Spirit had other
plans, so on this day we join the disciples in waiting for the next big event, and do
our best to squeeze one more Sunday out of the Easter party. Not all is lost, however; indeed, the day is splendidly saved by a happy coincidence with the secular
calendar. It is also the second Sunday in May: it is Mother’s Day (which, of course,
has achieved status in many North American churches as not less than the third of
the church’s great annual feasts, coming in close behind Christmas and Easter)!
The temptation is therefore great simply to give up on the assigned readings, grab
a nice family-friendly free text and laud God’s good gift of mothers…not an entirely
bad idea, actually…. But, by reading this, you have at least considered the possibility of not altogether ignoring the church’s calendar; so on to the given text.
What a text it is! Like much of John, this is no simple word of the Lord.
Perhaps there is still hope that considerations of such Johannine texts will give
pause to those who continue eagerly to hand a Gospel of John to fresh converts. It
deserves to be remembered that the lucid and beloved John 3:16 is but one verse of
the Gospel. Nevertheless, the text is rich with significant insights for Christology,
as well as, ecclesiology. The Hour has come. Christ is now to be glorified…at Calvary. That is, of course, the way that John gives it to us. Jesus reigns as Lord from
the throne...of the cross (cf. Rev. 5:6, 12). It is on the cross that He is revealed as God
and Lord; He is one with the Father. But, before His coronation, He provides for His
church, interceding for her before the Father, praying for her vitality and unity. This
church is God’s from all eternity, its existence springing from His choice and fulfilling His plan. And, this church, named by the Father, is in the world, glorifying
Christ as she proclaims His Gospel. Admittedly, Christ crucified doesn’t look like
a king—much less God; and the church doesn’t look much like the holy unity intended by Jesus’ prayer. Appearances and reality do not always agree, however,
and the LORD and His church both exist as described. The text delivers extraordinary depths of theology. It teaches us who Jesus is, and who we are.
The sermon:
Central thought: The hour has come: Christ is glorified on the cross, and we are
united in Him to be His people in the world.
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Goal: Reminded of their Lord’s glory and of His plan for the church, the people
are moved to celebrate the present reality of Easter, and to live the reality of the
church.
Malady: Like the seventh Sunday of Easter, we feel a bit “out of it.” We wait
for some resolution because right now, we don’t feel much like God’s people and
we don’t live much like God’s people. It’s hard to believe it’s still Easter.
Means: It is still Easter, Jesus is still the crucified (glorified) Lord, and we are
still His handpicked people.
It’s H—Hour; It’s still Easter
Introduction: Start with Mother’s Day and the usual rhetoric about the significance and fitness of a day for moms. But, not so fast…yes, it is Mother’s Day, but
even if it may not feel like it, it’s still Easter. Like kids, (“mother memories,”
perhaps?) we get tired of the present and yearn for the next thing, but all that we
need is already here.
I. Waiting for H—Hour.
A. Jesus.
1. He spent thirty-some years waiting for the hour.
2. Everything in the Gospel is pointing to “the hour.”
B. We.
1. People spend their lives waiting for something to fulfill and explain
them.
a. They have a sense that there must be something more.
b. They fear feeling lost and meaningless (for proof—the local
nursing home).
2. Even Christians grow weary of the present living without direction or
meaning.
a. They end up living without hope and purpose, looking like the
world.
b. Factions and apathy mar the church and the local
congregation.
II. The Hour is now.
A. Jesus.
1. The cross and the coronation declare His identity.
2. The reality of Christ crucified continues—He is still the slain and
risen one.
B. We.
1. In Baptism the reality is done—you are God’s chosen one; it is your
identity.
2. The truth of your identity continues—eternal life is yours, now.
Conclusion: Regardless how it feels, it is still Easter. Jesus is still crucified
and risen. You are still His child for eternity. Yes, you are your mother’s child, but
more than that you are God’s child. That always makes all the difference.
Joel D. Biermann
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The Day of Pentecost
John 16:5-11
May 15, 2005
Context: The scene is a battlefield. From 15:18 Jesus has been talking about
the world’s hatred. The powers of this world desire to kill Jesus’ disciples in the
belief that this offers a service to God. American society is not killing Christians
but increasingly tries to banish faith in Christ and godly living to the margins of
public life. Jesus’ message of God’s unconditional mercy drives us to recognize that
also the religious pretensions and performances of the most moral of moral strivers
cannot restore the godly life. That provokes “good” people as well as bad to oppose
God’s flock. They are not acquainted with God, His Son, His ways and will (16:3).
This is part of the eschatological strife Satan has caused through his murderous
lies (John 8:44). The disciples’ commander and protector is about to leave them in
this text, creating an entirely new situation for them.
This sermon must avoid a “them vs. us” approach that makes hearers feel
good about being opposed by the world. They need help in recognizing that their
own imaginations and desires reconstruct reality according to the false myths
about reality propagated by American society. These desires are the fifth column
within us; the Holy Spirit convicts us, too, of sin, false righteousness, and false
judgment.
Textual notes: Verse 6: As often when the anticipation of evil looms large, the
disciples did not know what to say. A deep grief clutched, filled, took possession of
them. They were so at wit’s ends they had no words left: they could not imagine life
without Jesus or how they might survive in the midst of the world’s hatred.
Verse 7: Jesus’ part in God’s plan for our salvation was in the process of moving
through the central event of His own death and resurrection. The plan for salvation
was moving rapidly toward the Holy Spirit’s inauguration of the church on Pentecost and into the last stage of the eschatological battle. As the Father had sent the
Son to battle and defeat sin and evil (John 20:21), so Jesus was now sending the
Spirit.
He was coming as the Paraclete, the “comforter, counselor, helper, and advocate,” one who stands next to, or stands by, another person. In this context it seems
best to focus on its meaning as an attorney, a prosecutor, who lodges the accusations in the following verse.
Verses 8-11: The Holy Spirit intervenes now as the prosecutor who will get an
injunction against our enemy and condemn the world both outside and inside us.
These verses challenge the interpreter, often confusing readers, but they affirm a
special role of the Holy Spirit on behalf of believers in battling the world. The
Spirit “exposes” or “convicts” the world of (or on the basis of its) (1) sin because of
its rejecting Jesus as Lord and Savior, (2) false righteousness because the truly
Righteous One, Jesus, is about to be publicly acclaimed through His resurrection
as He goes to the Father, and (3) false judgment because Christ is placing judgment upon the Liar and Murderer through His death and resurrection (cf. D. A.
Carson, Gospel of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 534-539).
Suggested outline:
Introduction: Believers live in the midst of a battle. The fifth column of our own
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imaginations and desires conspire with the world that is opposing Christ’s liberating lordship in our lives. We sometimes feel the paralyzing grief that gripped the
apostles in the face of the world’s threats and terrors, also when they echo out of the
depths of our own souls.
The Holy Spirit comes to stand by us, to defend us, and to take the offensive
against the world:
I. By turning us away from sinful idolatries that American society propagates
and we integrate into our view of reality. The Spirit turns us to believing in
Jesus and entrusting our lives to Him.
II. By focusing our lives on Jesus, gone to the Father, whose rule comes into our
lives through our use of the Spirit’s Word of forgiveness and life.
III. By leading us into the battle to enforce the judgment against the prince of this
world by opposing his rule, as Luther said in his catechisms, through confessing the truth of God’s Word and through leading the holy lives that give the lie
to his false prescriptions for human living.
Robert Kolb
The Holy Trinity
First Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 28:16-20
May 22, 2005
Context: What a strange text for Trinity Sunday! No mention of the Father and
the Holy Spirit whatsoever apart from the baptismal formula. The Holy Spirit is
mentioned seldom in Matthew’s Gospel. This text reminds us that no person of the
Holy Trinity goes it alone. The Father’s bestowal of power on Jesus and the Holy
Spirit’s work are summarized in this passage, which directly follows Matthew’s
account of our Lord’s resurrection. The Holy Spirit carries on the re-creative action
that Jesus accomplished in His life, death, and resurrection. The Lord rose and
sends His disciples into the world to make disciples. That takes place under the
care of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 16:7-11).
Textual notes: Verse 17: Some worshipped, some doubted. Thomas was not the
only or the last. Within the children of God the Holy Spirit is always engaged in a
struggle against the distractions of false faiths. Aiding each other in the midst of
such doubts belongs to the commission we all have.
Verse 18: The author of life claims the authority He has simply because He is
God. This authority is the setting in which He commands us to make disciples and
also the setting for His promise of His presence. Since He created life, He has the
authority to set aside death, along with sin and every other evil. He exhibited that
authority by challenging death on its own turf and leaving the grave alive.
Verse 19: His people are in movement, on the go. There are always new fields,
new tasks being set before believers—new places to carry out this old assignment
of letting God’s Word grow and bringing disciples under His rule. The main verb of
this verse is an imperative: the commission is a command. The assignment is to
make disciples. Two participles describe how to do it. That baptizing comes first
does not mean that some other form of the Word, whether oral or written, may not
be the means for establishing the relationship between God and an individual. But
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disciples are made or born by will of God, not of man (John 1:12). The baptismal
form of the Word is involved even when the Holy Spirit uses preaching or mutual
conversation, Scripture pure or the literature of the church, to provide initial entrance into God’s kingdom. Just as in life, birth initiates a process of maturing, so
teaching is necessary for the Word of the Lord to grow in individual hearts and
minds.
Baptism takes place in the name of the persons of the Holy Trinity. We belong
very specifically to the God who created, redeemed, and sanctifies us. We bear His
name, belong to His family, and are on a personal basis with Him.
Teaching embraces all that God has given us in Scripture. Our response is
“hearkening unto.” In Hebrew [mX means both “hear” and “obey.” The Greek u`pakou,w
“obey,” intensifies avkou,w “hear.” To be listening to God means to obey Him. The logic
of faith permits no other conclusion. So our teaching cultivates a life of listening to
the Word of the Lord and following it with delight.
The Great Commission ends with a promise, the promise of His presence, a
presence delivered by the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-18, 25-26; 16:5-13), and, under
the Spirit’s direction, concretized in the witness and love we show for others. As the
Word made flesh, Jesus is present in order to chat with us in Scripture and in
fellow believers, who deliver that Word in a living and lively way.
Suggested outline:
Introduction: At the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus is coming (1:1ff.). At
the end of Matthew’s Gospel (our text), Jesus is going. Well, no, it is better to say,
“He is on the go.” For through the Holy Spirit He remains present with us to the end
of the age, moving into sinners’ lives to claim them for Himself.
I. Jesus has promised to be present with us as He executes the Father’s plan for
salvation.
A. He has the authority to protect and direct our lives.
B. His saving presence gives us the wisdom and power to bring His love to
others, also in the form of His Word, which reconstitutes their lives.
C. He is present through the person and activity of the Holy Spirit, as He
explains in John’s Gospel.
II. The Holy Spirit carries out this His re-creation of sinners in:
A. Baptism, which buries sinners and makes them new creatures through
Christ’s death and resurrection.
B. Teaching, which helps those who are born again mature as His disciples.
C. Our going, or being sent, into the lives of those who live without knowing
Christ, so they may experience His Word and love in our lives.
Robert Kolb
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 7:(15-20) 21-29
May 29, 2005
The context of the world: This being the Memorial Day weekend, many people
will be using part of the weekend to work on their homes, yards, and gardens,
fixing, cleaning, and building. These activities provide a natural bridge to the
Parable of the House Builders.
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The context of the liturgy: The Second Sunday after Pentecost is at the beginning of the Season of the Church with its focus on Discipleship. Martin Franzmann’s
Follow Me: Discipleship According to Saint Matthew (St. Louis: Concordia, 1961) is
an excellent resource. The Introit, selected verses from Psalm 31, describes God as
“my Rock of Refuge, a Strong Fortress to save me.” The appointed Psalm, Psalm 4,
is a call for help in distress, but ends with the confidence of faith in God, “I will lie
down and sleep in peace for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
The Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy gives Moses’ instructions to
the people to surround themselves with God’s Word, especially in their homes, to
teach God’s Word to their children, to talk about it, and to live it in their lives.
The Epistle reading from Romans reminds us of the connection of obedience
and good works to faith—these things do not save us. For we are saved by faith in
Jesus Christ alone, and we are declared righteous because of Jesus’ righteousness
that comes from God through faith in Jesus.
The Gospel reading has two parts. The first, a tree and its fruit, contrasts faith
and unbelief. Faith bears the fruit of obedience, and unbelief bears the fruit of
disobedience. The second part, the house builders, contrasts the wise person of
faith, the one who not only hears God’s Word but obeys it, with the foolish person
who hears but does not obey.
The context of Matthew’s Gospel: The text is found at the end of Jesus’ first
major teaching discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. The last two verses of the text
say that when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds marveled, for He
taught with authority.
The calling of the disciples takes place in chapter four. With a simple “Follow
me,” Jesus calls these fishermen to faith and to discipleship. This sovereign call is
a call of grace. “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). This call is a
call to repentance, to leaving behind everything, to an emptying of self and self
worth, to a recognition that we are beggars before God. In His calling, Jesus is “confiscating” people for the kingdom (Franzmann, 33). He says, “I will make you ….”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins to mold the will of His disciples,
those chosen by His grace, through His teaching. He is the giver. He is the one who
blesses and gives to the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, etc. The disciple
receives from God and is moved to action. “The beggar can only receive, but he does
receive; and the mercy which he receives makes him merciful. The peace which God
gives him makes him a peacemaker” (Franzmann, 41).
The parables or metaphors at the end of this first teaching discourse contrast
the difference between those who truly believe and those who do not, those who put
into practice the words of Jesus because of their faith, and those who do not.
The text: The major focus in the text is the Parable of the House Builders. The
prior section, a tree and its fruit, is optional but can also be included.
A tree can only bear the fruit of its kind. Therefore, a bad tree, a false prophet,
even though disguised in sheep’s clothing, cannot bear good fruit. Even the works
that might appear to be good are false and empty, because of unbelief, because the
tree is bad (see also Matt. 12:33-35).
A good tree, however, will produce good fruit (cf. Ps. 1). Called to faith and
discipleship, we are good trees, planted by God, rooted in His Word. The fruit we
bear, the good works we do, are a result of being connected to Jesus, rooted in Him.
As a fruit tree is pruned to improve the quality of the fruit, so God uses difficult
times in our lives to prune and strengthen us (Vine and branches, John 15).
A person of faith, a good tree, rooted in Jesus and His Word, takes hold of all
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that Jesus teaches and acts upon those teachings. It is not good enough, it is not a
matter of faith, to know about Jesus or even to go through the motions of calling
Him “Lord,” if our actions and lives do not express also a relationship of faith—
knowing Jesus and trusting His will and acting upon it by putting His word into
practice.
A good tree, that is, a person of faith, is also a wise house builder, knowing that
the most magnificent house is worthless if it does not have a good foundation. This
metaphor hit home for many of us this winter when we witnessed the news reports
of the floods in southern California. We watched the flood waters erode the soil and
sweep away entire houses.
Where do we place our trust? Upon what are we building our future, our lives,
our eternity? The wise man builds on the rock. Those who hear the words of Jesus
and put them into practice are like the wise man. This person builds upon the rock
of Jesus and His word. This person believes that Jesus died for his/her sin, that
Jesus is the only way to the Father and heaven, that forgiven and declared righteous in God’s eyes through faith in Jesus, he/she desires to live for Jesus and bring
the love of God in Christ to others—putting Jesus’ words into practice.
This person is a wise house builder. When the rains come, the streams rise, the
winds blow and beat against that house, the house will stand because it is built on
the rock. When we face the hardships of life and the judgment of God, we stand with
Jesus (on Jesus) who has taken the full judgment of God for us on the cross.
Suggested outline:
The Authority of Jesus’ Teachings
I. The need to know Jesus’ teachings.
A. The problem of Biblical illiteracy among God’s people.
B. The need to discern the deception of false prophets.
C. The need to identify what is good fruit and bad fruit.
D. The need to know the difference between the rock and sandy soil.
II. The need to practice Jesus’ teachings.
A. The result of faith—a good tree produces good fruit.
B. An expression of our faith—our relationship with Jesus.
C. The security of building our lives on the Rock of Jesus and His Word.
Wallace Becker
Third Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 9:9-13
June 5, 2005
The Church on the Other Side of the Tracks
Dear Christian Friends,
There are those people! In every city and town and village, there are those
people! They cluster on the boundaries between incorporated and unincorporated
areas. Little cities within cities, little towns within towns. Tent city, trailer town,
the strip, sin city are all labels for those people on the other side of the tracks.
What is important? Realtors say, location, location, location! And where is the
church? Jesus spent most of His time over there on the other side of the tracks.
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Where is our church? Can the church be found over there?
Think about it. If ever those tracks were removed, where would that put us?
Do you say to yourself, “No, no, let’s not take up the tracks. Leave them where
they are!”? Is that what you are saying? Are we, then, a church captive to the high
society we have created for ourselves? The Gospel lesson today presses the question: how may the church jump the tracks, take up the tracks, build bridges over
the tracks in order to be a positive and transforming influence in the city, the
town, the village?
I. High Society Church
The society church is everywhere, in the suburbs, in the cities, and in the small
towns. The society church is old as time itself. A church without soul, a church filled
with empty lives. The externals count. Kept immaculate, they are beautiful to the
eye. Just like white sepulchers, glossy on the outside, shallow and decadent on the
inside, are church people who do not want to be articulate about their faith convictions, a fellowship vague and indefinite as to aim and purpose. As to mission, quite
undefined and satisfied to remain nondescript.
True, the society church is not new. It is an old institution. The Pharisees were
the high society church. Their forefathers in Judaism were the exiles who returned
from humiliation and captivity in Babylon. In that new beginning, spirits ran high
for the Law of God, the Temple, the divine worship and ordinances. At the time of
Christ centuries later, the Pharisees had become a different breed of churchmen.
They modeled church pride, the worst kind, the disdain for other peoples. Their
lawyers and scholars fixed upon the letter of the Law, the fine points, the technicalities. Appearances were more important than heart and substance. Under the
influence of the Pharisees, Judaism became a very proper society church.
Not surprising, our Lord did not move comfortably in the church of that day.
Understand, it is not that our Lord ever placed Himself above the people. They
were comfortable with Him. He made it so. And they heard His preaching and
teaching gladly. It was the leaders who would not have Him. He was not welcome in
their church. They kept Him at a distance, for they suspected that He came for
sinners. They were right!
From those days when He walked the roads of Judea and Galilee, we learn
that there is no welcome for Jesus of the Gospels in the society church. Is our Lord
comfortable in our church? What kind of church are we? Do we welcome Jesus
Christ? And when sinners come tagging along, what then? Close the doors? What
are we doing? Every church must ask that question. Are we playing the games of
the society church?
II. Our Lord’s Society
And what is Jesus doing, over there on the other side of the tracks? The Gospel
lesson reads: “As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man called Matthew
sitting at the tax office; and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ ” (Matt. 9:9a). Matthew
occupied a tax collectors booth at a border collection point, exacting taxes for a
foreign power, Rome. He positioned himself at a junction where he gouged payment
from merchants and travelers, entering or leaving Galilee, the territory governed
by King Herod. Men like Matthew were regarded as publicans because they lacked
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ally with money gained unjustly. So unscrupulous were the publicans that they
were not permitted to serve as witnesses in court. “Publicans and sinners,” was the
phrase. Yet, Jesus stopped at the place of such an outcast. He was Levi the publican,
later to become Matthew (cf. Luke 5:27).
Why did Jesus bother with this man? Many persons at a distance were asking this question. The Pharisees, always looking on, became angry with our Lord.
He could not have been more socially incorrect. Never mind! Jesus stopped at
Matthew’s tax booth, and called, “Follow Me!” There was not a more unlikely candidate to become a disciple. But Matthew heard Jesus call to him. He looked up.
“And he arose and followed Him!” (v. 9b). That is all we hear about this man in all
twenty-eight chapters of this Gospel. Not one mention of him, not a single citation, except, he heard the call of Jesus and sprang to his feet at once. Dedicated to
Jesus, he went to his house immediately to prepare a feast in honor of the Master.
And he invited other publicans and sinners to meet with his Savior under his
roof. It is remarkable, Jesus went to Matthew’s house. And there, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and His disciples (v. 10).
Just maybe it is a day for us to jump those tracks, take up those tracks, or
build a bridge over the tracks to reach poor sinners and lead them to Jesus. Instead
of window dressing a society church that looks good to the eye, we shall be different.
We are the redeemed and forgiven church. Every man, woman, youth, and child
shall roll up their sleeves, so to speak, and determine to make room under this roof
for the “publicans” of our age whom the Lord calls, “Follow Me!”
There is a Chinese proverb: “Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it.” So, we join with one another to move forward and meet the
needs of our fellows on the other side of the tracks. Some good will happen. Souls
caught up in this sin-sick world may yet rejoice to know Him who is the great
Physician of this very world’s soul!
Richard H. Warneck
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 9:35-38
June 12, 2005
The Waiting Harvests
Dear Christian Friends,
Now, our Lord was wonderful with people. He loved them. In turn, they were
attracted to Him. Hundreds, yes, thousands of people came to Him. Eagerly and
gladly they heard His Word. Our Lord was popular with the people. Seldom was He
ever alone, except in rare moments to find much needed rest in a quiet place.
I. The Harvest
Jesus had an eye for the world’s people. He compared them to a great harvest.
We read, “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful’ ” (Matt. 9:37a).
So many people! Beginning with the first verse of Matthew, chapter nine, we note
that Jesus spent some hours teaching in a man’s house to an overflow crowd (v. 1f.),
healed the man sick of palsy (v. 6), recruited His disciple, Matthew (v. 9), debated
with the Pharisees (v. 10f.), raised the daughter of Jairus from death (v. 18f.),
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healed the woman with a blood disorder (v. 20f.), restored sight to two blind men
(v. 28), and cast out a demon from a man possessed (v. 32f.). Then, as if St. Matthew
cannot keep pace with Jesus and all His works among so many people, he summarizes, “and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and
every infirmity” (Matt. 9:35).
Our Lord’s ministry to people was entirely absorbing. His work was never
finished. And who was helping Him? Until now, His disciples were little more than
observers, men who watched and admired the Master and His ministry. Until now,
they did not get involved. Many of us never become more than observers, watching
and admiring the pastor or a spirited lay Christian or even a famous evangelist,
while we ourselves sit back in our comfortable pew year after year. We are content
to watch the action. But the early verses of Matthew, chapter ten, record how Jesus
thrust His disciples into the harvest of souls waiting for reapers. Jesus calls us
this day to be part of the action!
Every farmer knows that there is a thin line of separation between a harvest
gathered too early and a harvest taken too late. With God’s harvest, the time is
always just right. We cannot get into the world’s harvest of souls too soon! Now is
the time! Our redemption, their redemption draws near! When our Lord commissioned His disciples, He said, “You are witnesses!” (Luke 24:28). He did not ask,
“Are you in the mood?” “Do you feel up to missionary work?” “Would you like to be
My disciples?” He said, “You are witnesses!” Not tomorrow, but today! This is no
time to be sitting on the fence, sharpening our sickles and knives. This is a time to
be in the field, every man, woman, youth, and child. For, “The harvest [of souls] is
plentiful!” (v. 37a).
II. The Reaping
In most communities across America, fifty percent of the people are unchurched.
Why are we not more eager to get into this field and reap the harvest of souls? The
Gospel lesson reads, “When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them”
(Matt. 9:36). Our Lord had compassion on the multitudes. But first, He saw the
multitudes! He had an eye for the lost. We could be missionaries if we cultivated
essential awareness of the people around us. The crowds, the masses are a burden,
sometimes even a threat. In the cities, we drive around and over the population on
interstate highways. In the country, we take the road out of town just to get away
from people. They don’t suit us in one way or another.
Do you think that the multitudes of people in Jesus’ time were nice and welladjusted persons? Among them were the petty criminals, the slothful who were
poor by their own fault as well as by circumstances they could not help. There were
indiscreet women. There were braggarts, cutthroats, shylocks, cheats, misfits. “But
when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them!” (Matt.
9:36 KJV).
How do we react to the masses of people who have not yet heard the Gospel of
Christ, but need desperately that blessing of Christ in a particular way? How do
we react to the alcoholic, the addict, the unfaithful in marriage, the divorcee, the
sleuth in business, the mugger, the prisoner, the headstrong youth bent on rebelling against cherished values? How do we react against persons who reject God as
old hat, a phony figurehead of institutional religion? How many such persons have
we reached or helped? Do we react frequently like James and John who requested
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that the Lord command fire from heaven to fall and consume the Samaritans?
Jesus said, “The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them”
(Luke 9:56 KJV). Not rejection or judgment, but compassion was the spirit of the
Savior. “He was moved with compassion on them” (v. 36 KJV).
Yes, “He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless,
like sheep without a shepherd” (v. 36b). In our information age, knowledge on any
subject is at our fingertips on a computer keyboard. Yet, people are restless, searching
for meaning and not finding it. Like sheep without a shepherd, they turn to web
sites in order to link up with unknown partners in search for meaningful relationships. Cyberspace challenges the venturesome person who seeks psychic or spiritual experiences. Out there, self-appointed experts are eager to prey upon confused
and lonely souls and lead them, wherever, into bizarre indulgences, one kind or
another. Many of these forays are a dead end. Some may even be harmful.
Whatever these seekers are finding, short of the Good News of God and His
grace and goodness, they go wanting. They are sorely lacking. In the deep recesses
of the human heart, every person cries for God, for that peace and security with
God, which the world cannot give. The renown British thinker and philosopher,
Antony Flew, now in his eighties, reportedly questions his lifelong courtship with
atheism. The profound complexity of DNA, Flew indicates, cannot be explained
except by acknowledging a higher being, God. Prof. Flew is a serious thinker. We
wonder, in his private thoughts, does the professor himself desire peace with God?
All we like sheep, says Isaiah, are not only confused. We have gone astray. And
peace and reconciliation with God is only through Jesus Christ on whom the Lord
laid our iniquity. It was all carried away by Christ on the cross! And this peace with
God through Jesus Christ is the great answer to that quest of the restless heart.
III. Reapers
Persons in our circle of family and friends, add the larger circles of society and
world, all searching for peace with God, are a great harvest of souls. Where are the
reapers? We send missionaries. Also, we are missionaries. There are corners in
this great harvest of souls which only you may reach. During the harvest season,
have you noticed how the great combines move through a field of ripe grain? When
the combine has done its work and gathered most of the crop, there are yet stalks
of good grain standing in the corners of the field where the machine could not reach.
Yes, professional pastors and teachers and missionaries can reach many persons
with the Gospel. But there are people in corners of our society beyond their reach.
There are corners of the field where only you can go and reap this harvest for Christ.
Each of us has some talent for missions, some way to bring Christ to others. I
once knew a retired streetcar conductor in the city of St. Louis. At the end of each
run, he would walk the middle aisle of the streetcar. Here and there, on the seats or
in the window panels, the conductor would place a Christian tract. Amazing, at the
other end of the line, he had to replenish those tracts. Many passengers took the
pamphlets. No doubt, many read about Christ as Savior and Lord. The conductor
was a reaper in that waiting harvest of souls.
Are we prepared for the action:
1.
2.
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To see the world’s people as a great harvest of souls, to see people with the
eyes of Jesus?
To sense, to feel in our hearts the world’s need for His compassion?
3.
To do for the world what Jesus would have us do, bring to every soul His
deliverance from sin and His gift of peace with God?
Are we prepared to be God’s answer to our Lord’s petition, “Pray therefore the Lord
of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Matt. 9:38)?
Richard H. Warneck
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 10:24-33
June 19, 2005
The Gospel texts for this Sunday and the next are selected from the first
commissioning of Jesus’ disciples, which runs from 9:35-11:1. The section begins
with Jesus pointing to the need for workers in God’s harvest (9:35-38), gathering
and authorizing His disciples (10:1-4), and sending them to announce the presence
of the reign of God and to display it through great works (10:5-8a).
The bulk of Jesus’ orientation for His disciples, however, is devoted to those
features of the missionary enterprise which, from the perspective of human weakness, complicate it. Jesus’ answer for each complication is a prohibition, each
enunciated with a mē plus aorist subjunctive construction. For example, since the
disciples have received the Good News of the kingdom without charge, they are
likewise to give it away without charge (10:8b). As a result, Jesus directs them mē
ktēsēsthe chruson... (10:9)—they have not sought any kind of remuneration as they
have accompanied Jesus in ministry, and they certainly are not to begin doing so
now as they go out unaccompanied.
Jesus acknowledges that He is sending His disciples out “as sheep among
wolves” (10:16). They are certainly to beware (even “be aware,” 10:17) of the kinds
of hostility they will face on account of the kingdom, but they are not to dwell on
such confrontation so as to become anxious (mē merimnēsēte, 10:19).
This morning’s text begins with the familiar lines that characterize the relationship between teacher and disciple, between master and slave/servant: “A disciple is not above the teacher...; it is enough for the disciple that he be like his
teacher.... If they call the master of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more the
members of his [the master’s] household” (10:24-25). The appointed reading begins here, but some consideration needs to be given as to whether these verses
actually begin a new thought, continue the thought of verse 23, or conclude the
whole discussion that began as early as verse 11 about how the disciples’ ministry
will require them to be continually on the move. If, after all, “the Son of Man has
nowhere to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20), then neither will His disciples. Christians,
because they are Christians, will be uncomfortable in the places where they live
and move and have their being. It is (or should be) one of the concerns about
Christianity in America that American Christians are comfortable when there is
so much in our country to be uncomfortable about. We live at a time when, even in
our own congregations, there has arisen a generation which does not know the LORD
or the great things He has done for His people (Judg. 2:10).
In the printing arrangement of the New International Version (NIV), which
continues at present as the English version in use for the lectionary, verses 26-31
are the central paragraph of the reading. The paragraph begins with another mē
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plus aorist subjunctive construction: “Don’t ever be afraid of them” (26). The “them”
here and the “they” in verse 25 refer generally to those who will not receive the
disciples or their words (v. 14), or who will haul them before the courts or other
officials (v. 17). In short, those who in any context persecute those who follow Jesus.
But here we learn why there need be no “fear factor.”
Luther began each of his catechetical explanations of the Commandments
with the basic formula, “We should fear and love God....” The same two verbs
pertain here. Because the reign of God has come to those who are disciples of, who
believe in, Jesus, we should stop being afraid (mē plus present imperative) of those
who can kill the body but not the soul; we should fear (present imperative) God only,
who can destroy both soul and body in hell (v. 28). There are countries around the
world where Christians are likely to be killed precisely because they are Christians. This is not yet so in the United States. If there is a bodily killing that
threatens American Christians, it is probably more economic or social; consequently, we are tempted to think that fearing those who can do us economic or
social damage does not qualify as denying the Son of Man. We are wrong.
But even more, because the reign of God has come to those who are disciples of,
who believe in, Jesus, we should stop being afraid of those who can kill the body but
not the soul, because God has set His heart on us: the hairs on our head are
numbered, and we are more valuable even than sparrows whose falling to the
ground the Father knows (vv. 29-31). Our value, our valued-ness in the esteem of
God, is a product of His devotion—the Hebrew term is chesed. While human loyalty
and devotion are always subject to collapse, God’s chesed endures forever.
The final paragraph, verses 32-33, also raises a question of whether (and how)
it connects to today’s reading or to the next (vv. 34-42). The English Standard
Version (ESV), for example, connects it to the present material: “So everyone who
acknowledges me...” (v. 32), while the NIV places it in a new paragraph. Does Jesus’
summary about acknowledgement or denial serve as a conclusion to today’s reading or as an introduction to a new, but related, topic in verses 34 and following? As
a conclusion for today’s reading, verse 32, at least, offers a balance to the exhortation against fear in 26-31. If, on the other hand, one stops at verse 31, then the last
word of the text is the one that emphasizes the Father’s value of the disciples of
Jesus. On this lectionery occasion, at least, that’s what I am inclined to do.
The Only Thing We Have to Fear
I. Disciples of Jesus can expect to face situations in which fear would not be a
surprising response.
A. As disciples of Jesus, we cannot expect that the life of discipleship will be
easy.
B. Because we are disciples of Jesus, we will face the same kind of hostility
and enmity that Jesus endured, though probably not in the same manner.
C. Even in the direst circumstances, we should fear God and Him only. And
yet...
II. Disciples of Jesus can count on the Father’s love and devotion in facing fearful
situations, just as He did.
A. The revealing of the reign of God, though presently covered, is a certainty.
B. The Father knows those who belong to the Son as surely as He knows the
Son.
C. If we disciples endure abuse, even the loss of life, for our Master’s sake, we
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are confident that we will share in what He has received from the Father:
resurrection, everlasting life.
William W. Carr, Jr.
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 10:34-42
June 26, 2005
As noted in the previous entry, this text continues the reading of portions of the
first commissioning of the disciples for ministry. The discussion of the previous
reading mentioned briefly the question of whether verses 32-33 serve best as a
conclusion to that reading, or as an introduction to the issues in today’s reading.
Scholars are divided, and no one should go in statu confessionis over the matter.
In reading the two lectionary selections on this occasion, however, I have been
inclined to include verses 32-33 with the Pentecost VI reading. Although the differentiation between the confessor and the denier of Jesus cannot be completely
dissociated from the preceding material, it does not seem to me, particularly, to
build on or amplify either the exhortation not to be afraid of the Gospel’s opponents
or the encouragement that the disciple is worth more than many sparrows. Rather,
verses 32-33 declare what’s at stake in confessing or denying the Christ; and the
directive not to think (v. 34) that Jesus has come to bring peace but a sword, as well
as the cases that follow, explains why (or how) so much is at stake.
There is no doubt that this reading, whether one includes verses 32-33 or not,
is a “hard saying,” because it says things very much opposite what we want Jesus
to say: the user-friendly, (com)pliant Jesus. While the concern in most contemporary ecumenical circles is to avoid unnecessary division among confessing groups
and traditions, this text says that the real Jesus actually divides. On the basis of
the larger context from 9:35-11:1, while the purpose of the disciples’ ministry is to
bring the Good News of the kingdom to those who are “like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36), the fact is that the reign of God divides, the Gospel divides, Jesus
divides. Such division cuts deep: it affects even that most basic of human social
institutions, families—“a person’s enemies will be those of his own household” (v.
36).
There is a saying, almost a slogan, that I’ve heard some pastors speak that
“it’s [where it refers to the ministry of the Gospel] all about relationships.” In this
text Jesus says no, that’s not true. It’s not about “relationships.” It’s about one
relationship and one relationship alone: the right relationship between a person
and God—His reign, His Son. “Whoever loves father or mother...or son or daughter
more than [Jesus] is not worthy of [Him]” (v. 37).
Jesus eliminates one more relationship that interferes with the right relationship with Him and with His Father: “Whoever does not take up his cross and
follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it” (vv. 38-39a). One’s
relationship with oneself also must go—and it’s usually the last one to go—in favor
of the only relationship that leads to life, the relationship with God in Christ. One
of my brothers sent me an Internet link to an article in The Gainesville [Florida]
Sun, which describes a movement called “the emerging church.” The movement
claims to be “returning to the original traditions and practices of the first-century church. [It] seeks to eliminate religious bureaucracy, allowing individuals to
interpret Scripture for themselves and as a community.” There is no doubt that
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the church (and our own Lutheran congregations) must always be on guard against
the introduction of binding ideas and practices, which the Bible neither commands nor prohibits. But Luther did not reject all tradition out of hand, and even
his principle of “private interpretation” did not authorize individuals to interpret Scripture “for themselves” apart from the analogies of faith and a faithful
tradition.
The problem is as it always has been: People—in Jesus’ time, in Luther’s, and
even now—are not willing to admit that they (and we) are rebels against God’s
rule, that they (and we) are sinners in need of forgiveness and reconciliation, and so
they (and we) refuse to receive the Christ as He presents Himself to them and to
us.
“But the one who loses his life for my sake will find it” (v. 39b). This is what we
count on as Christians. Jesus calls disciples and authorizes them (10:1); He sends
apostles (10:5) with instructions to bear witness to the kingdom’s imminence (10:7).
He warns us about the hardships, but He assures us that if we are faithful witnesses we will never be off God’s radar: we are valuable to Him; our life is sure in
Him.
“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the One
who sent me” (v. 40ff.). The relationships we experience with others—the relationships we treasure—are derivative of the one relationship we experience and we
treasure with God in Christ. That relationship is all-important. It begins in the
declaration “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live” (Gal. 2:19,
20). It continues in the confidence that the One who is aware of the welfare of
sparrows values us. And it ends in the assurance that “If we have died with him, we
will also live with him” (2 Tim. 2:11).
Winning the Peace
Without pressing too far the comparison to the present situation in Iraq, the
aim of U. S. military personnel there is to win peace in the aftermath of the war.
There is a correspondence between that setting and our own as Christian witnesses (and ministers/pastors) in a hostile environment. In the season of Pentecost, Jesus has defeated the enemy, and yet there remain those who refuse to
accept His conquest.
I. Peace resisted means suffering and death for those who proclaim peace.
II. Confidence in the Peacemaker assures us that the final peace will be won.
William W. Carr, Jr.
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 11:25-30
July 3, 2005
Context: Jesus has sent John the Baptist the message that He is the one who
fulfills the promise of messianic deliverance. He has explained to His hearers
that John had prepared the way for the in-breaking of God’s rule (11:1-15). He
announced judgment on the people of God for ignoring that rule (11:16-24). That
has laid the basis for considering four points.
Textual notes: Verses 25-26 sketch one part of Luther’s theology of the cross:
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that God’s power seems like impotence to the wise of this world, and His wisdom is
foolishness to them (1 Cor. 1:18-2:16). Jesus claims that His people are completely
dependent on the revelation which comes through Him if they wish to know God
and how He is at work among them.
Verse 27 points to the mystery of the relationships within the Trinity and
emphasizes again our dependence upon Jesus to reveal God and His will and
disposition towards us. The Father’s Son is this Son of Man (v. 19), who has power,
dominion, etc. (Dan. 7:13-14) and to whom all things have been delivered (cf. Col.
1:15-20; Eph. 1:18-23). The deliverance and relief He offers is God’s reordering of
our world and the restoring of our life.
Verse 28 presents Jesus as the one who embraces the weary and those carrying crushing burdens of all kinds. He gives us rest by re-focusing our lives away
from idols that cannot give true peace and by restoring the shalom of Eden through
the sense of being at home, in the right place, when we stand at the foot of the cross
and experience the breath of life that comes from heaven through His empty tomb.
Verses 29-30 speak of the contrasting light yoke and burden. We tend to think
of burdens as bad, but some burdens, even when they make our muscles ache, bring
a good feeling. Weightlifters love burdens. Lifting countless spade’s full of dirt may
stretch unused muscles each spring, but the satisfaction that spading brings makes
these aches a pleasant situation. When we pervert the works God commands into
demands that challenge our identity at its core, or when we make those good deeds
the basis of the heart of our identity, also before God, the Law and the performance
it demands will crush us under its weight. When we bear the burdens of loving the
people around us, we can say with Johnny Cash, “he ain’t heavy; he’s my brother.”
Suggested outline:
Introduction: It is often said that Christianity is a religion for the weak (e.g.,
Friedrich Nietzsche). Jesus said that, too. What we do not always recognize is that
each of us has weariness and weakness; we all bear burdens laid on us by others
and blame we have acquired through our own sin. Christ lifts both burdens and
blame from us, and He does so in part by refocusing our view of reality, in part by
sending us one another to help with the load.
I. The preacher may review some concrete wearinesses and burdens of life in the
specific congregation he is addressing. Some come from our own sins that
afflict us, others from the sins of others against us.
II. The salvation of Christ’s rest and peace comes through His person. Only He
has the power to save us. Only He has the power to reveal God and His disposition of love and mercy to us.
A. He has won our peace by submitting to our burdens of blame.
B. He has reclaimed the peace and rest of Eden for us through His resurrection.
C. This rest or peace means living in confidence in the love of God given in
Christ and with the desire to carry out His will and demonstrate His love
in daily life.
III. Jesus has freed us from being crushed under our burdens so that we can rejoice
in the gift of bearing the burdens of others, and the preacher should develop
examples of this from the congregation members’ own experiences.
Robert Kolb
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Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 13:1-9 (18-23)
July 10, 2005
The challenge in offering you something that is truly homiletically helpful for
this Sunday lies not in the difficulty of the text itself, but in the difficulty of trying
to think of something that hasn’t already been said about the Parable of the Sower.
The first ever “homiletical helps” for this text are, in fact, the second half of the
reading itself, the optional part. Here, the author of the text expounds it Himself.
Though He inclines dangerously toward the allegorical approach here, I am certain
you will still find His remarks “helpful.” What I propose to do in the following is to
consider the text in its literary context, then in its lectionary context. Having done
that, we will look at the difficulties that details of the parable offer to the preacher
and then, finally, consider the question of application.
Literary context: (I offer these remarks in the hope and confidence that some
day very soon my good friend and colleague Dr. Jeffrey A. Gibbs will present you
with a more complete treatment in his forthcoming commentary on Matthew, in
which treatment any questions with regard to what follows will be cleared up to
everyone’s satisfaction.) Verse 1 begins with evn th|/ h`me,ra| evkei,nh|. Exactly when did
“that day” begin? Although Matthew does not provide enough information to decide with confidence, “that day” would seem to clearly include at least the material
from 14:38 to the end of the chapter, and quite possibly could stretch back to 14:15.
That would mean that the very day on which Jesus spoke the parables of chapter
13 had been a day in which opposition had been expressed by His opponents, and
even His closest family had expressed questions about His ministry. Little wonder
that the parables that follow should present the growth of the Word in hiddenness
and in spite of the world’s opposition.
I regard all of the parables of this chapter as related to each other, and would
see the relationships as follows: the Parable of the Sower tells the story of the
entry of the Word of the kingdom into our world. We will look at the details shortly,
but must say here that, in spite of all manner of threats and resistance, this Word
does take root, grow, and produce fruit. The kingdom grows in a way that parallels
the working of the parables themselves: it happens before people’s eyes, but they
don’t see it; it happens in their hearing, but they don’t perceive it. To the person who
has been given the ability to perceive, much more will be given. The Parable of the
Weeds shows how the growth of the Word does not happen in peace, but this growth
is vulnerable to the attempts of “the enemy” to sabotage it during every season of
its growth. The planting of the Sower remains vulnerable to the enemy’s attacks,
which though real enough cannot destroy it, until it is time for the final harvest.
Still, this growth of the Word, this invasion of the reign of God, too small to attract
the world’s notice, grows into something that touches every part of the world, and in
which every nation of the world (witness the ethnic diversity of us who are reading
this) will find shelter. How can this possibly come about, given that it all happens
in a world filled with pecking birds and strangling thorns and withering sun and
noxious weeds? One comes in search of it who will gather it to Himself no matter at
what cost to Himself. And He rejoices in this treasure as in no other. And when
His kingdom has been made His own in a way that even the world cannot deny,
His nets will gather in all for the final judgment.
Lectionary context: The appointed Epistle reading continues the reading of
Romans 8 and bears little direct relationship to either the Gospel or the Old
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Testament reading. Isaiah 55:10-11, on the other hand, could almost serve as a
text for our Lord’s parable. In fact, we almost need this reading to provide a proper
context for the parable. Without it, the parable can easily be misunderstood to
suggest that only a small portion of the “sown Word” accomplishes its purpose—
and that that is God’s plan. Consider expanding this reading to include verse 8
through verse 13 and notice how well the additional thoughts mesh with the
parable. The extravagance of the sower is the perfect picture of the high “otherness” of the thoughts and ways of the Lord. Not only that, but in the going out of
the Word, the ground itself seems to be made ready for fruitful growth, as pine
and myrtle replace thorn and brier.
Details: Perhaps the greatest challenge in working with this parable is to
consistently apply the key to its interpretation, which our Lord has supplied. I
regularly include this parable among possible texts to interpret in our Biblical
hermeneutics course. And I just as regularly see expressions like “strong faith”
and “weak faith” appear in student interpretations, but notice that faith is nowhere mentioned in the explanation to the parable. Jesus seems quite clear that
this story is talking about the way the Word grows under various conditions. The
hundred-, sixty-, and thirtyfold harvests are not presented as the result of a good or
strong faith, but as a demonstration of the power of the Word in the heart of man.
We will come back to this point when we discuss the application of the parable.
The picture of the work of the “evil one” needs little explanation. Who is not
acquainted with his unceasing attempts to steal away the sown Word through
temptation, doubt, misunderstanding, spiritual pride, and so on? For this reason,
the church prays, “Deliver us from the evil one.”
The second situation is a little more difficult, and I have problems with the
NIV translation of verse 21. I suggest a paraphrase like the following, in order to
preserve the parallelism between the different situations described: “Now, what
about the seed that was sown on the rocky ground? This is the case of the one who
hears the Word and immediately receives it with joy. But the Word does not take
root in him(self), but grows only for a season (an annual rather than a perennial?).
For, when tribulation and persecution arise on account of the Word (that is trying to
take root in him), he just as quickly falls away (or even takes offense at the Word).”
The third situation shows some of the reasons for seeing certain pronouns and
verbal subjects as the Word rather than the hearer, for it is the Word that is choked,
not the hearer or his/her faith. My suspicion is that it may very well be this threat
to the growth of the Word that is most underestimated today and, therefore, the
most dangerous. We are “busy people,” so busy that the weeds are taking over—
often literally by the middle of July, and figuratively, as well?
No comment needs to be made on the fourth situation except with regard to its
application. We turn to that now.
Application: If you want to make life hard for yourself, then construct your
sermon in such a way that you end up trying to tell your hearers how to be or become
good soil. I have witnessed many valiant efforts along these lines but never witnessed a successful one. This is the second place where my hermeneutics students
often run into trouble. When trying to apply the message of the parable to people
today, the application comes out sounding like agronomy in the etymological sense:
the Law of the field (my apologies to my father, the agronomist). “Don’t let the birds
steal the seed.” “Don’t be rocky soil” (my personal favorite). “Don’t let the cares of
the world grow up in your life like thorns that will choke you.” And, finally, and this
is often thought to be the good news, “Be good soil!”
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This may be the time to bring Isaiah back into the conversation. If this is a
parable about the effective invasion and resulting growth of the Word of the kingdom in the “soil” of our world, then the application cannot take the direction of
telling the soil to change its nature. The application will be to see how the work of
the Sower and His powerful Word have produced a rich harvest where before there
was nothing. This is one of the greenest Sundays in the whole season. It’s a celebration of the growth of the Word that is visible in the lives of God’s people.
Even in good soil, of course, the Word yields a variety of harvests, but notice that
our Lord does not interpret the different yields in terms of strong faith, vocation,
stewardship—in any terms at all. It is simply an acknowledgement that the Word
takes root and yields fruit to the fullest possible extent whenever and wherever
it falls on receptive soil.
“But what of that? And what of that?” we cry out, like the sowers in
Franzmann’s hymn. We may not be able to keep ourselves from crying out with
the question, but Franzmann’s hymn gives the only possible biblical answer: that
is not our concern (see Lutheran Worship, Hymn 259).
The other way in which this parable finds application in our lives is just that:
this parable is a word of encouragement to all those who pick up the bag of seeds
and join in the work of sowing the kingdom Word. It is a word of encouragement to
be just as reckless and extravagant in sowing the Word in places you don’t think
anything could grow. (Remember Isaiah again.) It is a word of encouragement to not
worry about that and that, but to trust in the vitality of the Word sown to take root
wherever it is able. (Remember the One who has conquered the evil one, the One
who can turn the heart of stone into a heart of flesh, the One who has overcome the
world and its cares. It is His Word you are sowing.) It is a word of encouragement to
read on and see what plans God has for this Word of His that you have the privilege
of scattering.
One final thought comes to mind. Years ago, I was struggling to come up with
an appropriate children’s message to accompany a sermon on this text. It was
already late Saturday evening, and I was coming up with nothing. Suddenly the
thought struck me, “Why not let the reading of the text be the children’s message?”
So, I called the children to the front that Sunday for the reading of the Gospel. I
asked them to listen carefully and to act out the story that Jesus was going to tell
us. The children took their responsibility very seriously. I have, to this day, never
again witnessed such a dramatic presentation of the Parable of the Sower.
Jeffrey A. Oschwald
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 13:24-30 (36-43)
July 17, 2005
The context of the world: In the middle of the summer, the avid gardener will be
enjoying the fruit of his labor. But every gardener knows the frustration of keeping
up with the weeds, and if some people have been on vacation, they have returned to
find that the weeds may have the advantage over the plants in the garden.
The context of the liturgy: The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost is well into the
Season of the Church, and the focus on Discipleship is still strong, especially as
our Gospel readings come from Matthew. Martin Franzmann’s Follow Me: Discipleship According to Saint Matthew (St. Louis: Concordia, 1961) is an excellent
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resource.
The Introit, from Psalm 119:105 and a few verses from Psalm 86, is the expression of the disciple. God’s Word is a lamp, a light for the disciple’s way. The
follower of Jesus desires an undivided heart, to know the truth of God’s Word and
to walk in it. The Psalm (119:57-64) is the prayer of the disciple desiring to know
and to follow the ways and teachings of the Lord.
The Old Testament reading from Isaiah declares that the Lord God is King
and Redeemer. There is no other God. He has established His people and He
knows what will come. Those who remain His faithful witnesses need not fear for
He is their solid Rock.
The Epistle reading from Romans eight assures us that the Spirit helps us in
our weakness by praying for us even when we do not know what to pray. The Spirit,
who knows the will of God, prays for God’s people in accordance with that will.
The Gospel reading is the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. The weeds are
planted by the enemy in the master’s wheat field. The explanation given by Jesus
to His disciples is an optional addition to the Gospel reading.
The context of Matthew’s Gospel: There are five major teaching discourses in
Matthew’s Gospel. This parable comes toward the end of Jesus’ third discourse.
Chapter 13 includes a number of parables. It also includes Jesus’ explanation as
to why He teaches using parables. The chapter begins with Jesus teaching the
crowds, telling them the Parable of the Sower. Later the disciples ask Jesus why
He uses parables. Jesus explains that “the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom
of heaven” is given to the disciples (those with faith to see), but is hidden from
those who have rejected Jesus and His claims to be the Messiah (those blinded by
unbelief). Check out the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees in the previous
chapter.
After explaining the Parable of the Sower to His disciples, Jesus tells them
the Parable of the Weeds (our text). This parable is exclusive to Matthew’s Gospel.
After another couple parables—the Mustard Seed, and Yeast—and a commentary
by Matthew explaining that this speaking in parables was the fulfillment of prophecy, Jesus explains the Parable of the Weeds when He and His disciples are alone
again (the rest of our text). The teaching discourse ends with two more parables:
the dual Parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl, and the Parable of the Net.
The text: This parable is a story to which most people of Jesus’ day could relate.
The setting is that of a farmer and his field. Anyone who has planted a garden can
relate to the problem of weeds among the good plants, especially as the plants are
young and just starting to grow. The young tares, or weeds, sown by the enemy,
resemble the young wheat plants as they grow together and are hard to distinguish. When the workers discover that an enemy has actually planted weeds in the
wheat field, they are ready to go out and pull up the weeds. We would probably do
the same in our garden or field, but the owner has a different plan. So as not to pull
up any wheat in the process, let them grow together until the harvest. At the
harvest the weeds will be gathered and burned, the wheat harvested into the barn.
We are fortunate to have Jesus’ own explanation of this parable as the disciples ask Him for its meaning. The owner, the one who sows the seed, is Jesus. The
field is the world (not the church; church discipline is addressed in Matthew 18),
and the good seed are the “sons of the kingdom,” those who believe in Jesus, called
to be His disciples. The weeds are unbelievers, “sons of the evil one,” planted by the
enemy, the devil himself. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are
the angels.
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Wheat and weeds, believers and unbelievers, live side by side in this world,
interact with each other, grow, work, and live in relation to each other. God does not
judge the unbelievers and remove them from this world immediately. Their judgment will come at the end of the age. Do you have unbelieving friends (weeds) who
would be taken if God’s judgment came on them now? Jesus gives time for sinners
to repent. That is why He delays His second coming (2 Pet. 3:9). Jesus is at work to
change weeds into wheat. The wheat should be involved, not in the judging, but in
the evangelizing.
The judgment will come at the end of the age. The weeds will be taken up first
and burned in the fire. What does that say to our “left behind” friends about who is
taken and who is left behind? See also Matthew 24:37-41, as in the days of Noah
when the floods came and took them all away (Noah is left behind). The wheat, the
righteous (by faith in Jesus), will be gathered into the barn and “will shine like the
sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
Suggested outline:
The World Is Our Father’s Field
I. The planting.
A. Jesus plants good seed—those who believe in Jesus.
B. The devil plants seeds of unbelief.
II. The growing.
A. The Christian is in the world but not of the world.
B. It is not the job of the wheat to pull weeds (judge).
C. This is a time for repentance.
D. This is a time for evangelism.
III. The harvest.
A. Evil will be judged—the reality of hell.
B. The righteous (by faith in Jesus) will shine.
Wallace Becker
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 13: 44-52
July 24, 2005
The Holy Gospel contains three of the seven parables brought together by
Matthew under the rubric, “He told many stories such as this one” (Matt. 13:3a
New Living Translation).
The interpretation of parables has a long and rich history in the church catholic. In this tradition, consider the dramatic interpretation of the man who discovered the treasure hidden in a field. One of the points of the parable is the immense
worth of the kingdom of heaven, which is the basic analog to the treasure.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was just looking around for a piece of land…a little
speculation in real estate. I do that from time to time in order to make ends meet.
As I was looking very closely at one possible parcel of land to buy for speculative
profit, I noticed an unusual curvature in the topography. Upon investigating, and
eventually digging a bit, I discovered a treasure buried likely years ago. I covered
it over so that it would appear undisturbed and made my way to the land agent to
inquire about the price of the land. The price was larger than I had easy cash, so I
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gathered all my earthly possessions and sold them in order to get enough cash to
purchase the land. This was not easy, and took all my available psychological
energy, as well as, obviously, all my financial resources. But, praise God, I got the
land and therefore secured the treasure. It took a lot of time and energy, a lot of
focused work and perseverance to close the deal, but close it I did. All in all, it was
an exhausting but profitable experience. But I have a piece of advice for all who
would wish to do such a thing. Be prepared to use your excitement constructively, be ready for the long haul, and keep your eyes focused on the main thing.
There were many distractions to getting the job done, and I needed to focus my
excitement to do what I needed to do. And look at me now. I am a rich man. What
would you do if you discovered a treasure hidden away? How excited would you
be? How focused would be your energy? Are you ready to commit all to get the
treasure? Think about it. My story is a good one, but could be romanticized. The
opportunity presented itself, but it took hard work that emerged out of my focused excitement to get the job done. Hard work will be necessary for you as well.
In fact, I leave you with this question: ‘If you found such a treasure, what would
you feel and what would you be willing to do to attain it?’ ”
In analogies there are many ways to proceed. This enactment is one way.
Here, the Holy Spirit opens the treasure of the Gospel to a person who then
understands its value and moves earth and heaven to possess it. In this scenario,
the Spirit works realization of the immense value of the Gospel, and the man who
discovers where the Spirit has led him reacts with both excitement and a total
dedication to making the treasure his.
Using this enactment, a sermon outline could proceed as follows:
I. Reflections of the man who discovered the treasure hidden in the field, including the following point II.
II. Pointed questions to the hearer for consideration, including, “If you found such
a treasure, what would you feel?” and “If you found such a treasure, what
would you be willing to do to attain it?”
III. Assessment of the Law for our lives, in that we may underappreciate the value
of the Gospel, take it for granted, be emotionally unresponsive, and be unwilling, unable, or unmoved to sacrifice to possess it.
IV. Proclamation of the great treasure of the Gospel which is that God values us so
much that He sent His son to redeem us, forgiving us for all that we have seen
in ourselves because of the Law brought to bear.
V. Assurance that God in Christ values us as fully and even more so as the man
who discovered the treasure in the field, and will forever forgive us and love us.
VI. Exhortation that the Spirit gives us power for excited dedication and focus
related to our commitment to the extension of Christ’s kingdom, always in the
context of God’s forgiveness and love in Jesus Christ.
Bruce M. Hartung
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 14: 13-21
July 31, 2005
The feeding of the more than five thousand people (there were five thousand
men and also women and children) is an important portion of Jesus’ ministry. It is
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the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. John, in his Gospel, suggests a distinct eucharistic tone to the event. This miraculous feeding is, indeed, a foretaste of
the feast to come. There are many ways to approach this wonderful and down-toearth manifestation of the miraculous power of Jesus as well as His compassion.
After all, the overall context was within His healing the sick. Here the people have
physical needs for both healing and feeding that are satisfied by the Savior of the
world, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Consider the use of the following dramatic interpretation by reflecting on
the possible experience of one of the disciples: “The news of the death of John the
Baptist stunned us all, including the Master who wanted some time by Himself.
But as you might expect, time alone was very hard to come by. He went off by boat
seeking that time alone, but crowds of people had a sense of where He was going
and went over land to meet Him. Even though He went to be alone, Jesus understood the needs of the people who met Him and healed many of their diseases.
Still, this was a logistical nightmare! There were many, many people and they were
all needing food. We implored the Master to send them away to get their own food.
He told us to feed them. Can you imagine? What were we to do? We had no way to
do this. Frankly, we grumbled. It shows you how unprepared we were, even then, to
understand the real truth of this Jesus of Nazareth. But what is one to do? I
thought it was kind of foolish. Then a most amazing thing happened. Jesus had the
people sit down and asked God’s blessing on the food. He then gave some of the food
(bread and fish) to us, and we gave it to the people. We gave it to the people! The
food was not used up. Everyone had enough to eat, and there was some left over. At
the end of the evening I thought about my grumbling, my lack of understanding,
and my sense that this was just foolishness. I wonder how much Jesus really has
to do to get through to us that He is the Son of God, the Messiah. The story continues, because after this we went out into the water and encountered a storm. But
that part of the story is for another time. For the moment, I just want to tell you
how amazing all this was—healing the sick and feeding so many people. Truly, this
is God’s own Son. If you were there, would you have grumbled? Would you have
thought it was foolish? How you would have been embarrassed at your lack of faith.
How wonderful for you to have seen it! … To see how Jesus provided for such human
need. I was an eyewitness. To God I give glory!”
Using this enactment, a sermon outline could proceed as follows:
I. Reflections of the eyewitness to the feeding of the more than five thousand,
including the following point II.
II. Pointed questions to the hearer for consideration, including, “If you had been
there, would you have wanted to send the crowds way?” “How would you have
responded when Jesus told you to “feed them?” “What would you have thought
and felt when you saw the miracle feeding unfolding before your very eyes?”
III. Assessment of the Law for our lives, that we may not be open or receptive to
the miracles Jesus does. At times we may get so caught up in the practical
concerns that we fail to look toward Him who is the Redeemer of all and the
Savior of humankind.
IV. Identification of contemporary examples of Christ’s feeding us, including: the
Bread and Wine, His Body and Blood of the Holy Eucharist; the granting of
daily bread as in the petition of the Lord’s Prayer; the provision of “everything
that belongs to the support and wants of the body” (Small Catechism).
V. Assurance that God in Christ continues to have compassion on us according to
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our needs, and in His compassion forgives us even when we are not open or
receptive to the miracles Jesus continues to do.
Bruce M. Hartung
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“On the reading of many books...”
GENESIS, THE MOVIE. By Robert Farrar Capon. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.
356 pages. Cloth. $28.00.
You have to read this book. It’ll make you chuckle and it’ll make you angry.
You’ll thrill at its many insights and you’ll gasp at its flirtations with blasphemy.
You’ll shake your head at some of the author’s childish errors, yet a moment later
you’ll admire his profound scholarship. Here is a book that could serve as a
publisher’s style manual—and probably not make it past any doctrinal review
committee worth its salt. It is vintage Capon: attractive orneriness penned by a
lovable rascal. Genesis, the Movie will elicit from you a succession of “Wows” (both
commendatory and derisive)—a series of “Wow-consecutives,” so to speak. (And
that’s a pun that even Capon might have avoided!)
A reviewer, I suppose, can go either direction with this book: emphasize its
positives or focus on its negatives. I’ll do some of both, but on balance I’ll probably
“accentuate the positive,” not merely because Capon’s writing is delightful reading
but, above all, because the book, despite its erroneous view of Scripture, comes out
with a Gospel centrality that should warm the cockles of any conservative’s heart.
The title of the novel tells the reader more about Capon’s approach than about
his thesis. He regards the Holy Scriptures as a movie to be watched rather than as
a book to be read. “Instead of urging you to read the Bible as a book of theology or
a manual of ethics, I’m going to suggest that you watch it as a film” (xi). “The best
way to understand the Bible has always been to approach it cinematically” (55).
The Bible is “a movie to be taken in rather than a book to be deciphered” (297).
Consistent with this approach, Capon even presents the Trinity in cinematic terms;
he calls the Father “the Producer,” the Son “the Star,” and the Holy Spirit “the
Director” of the movie (202).
This movie (otherwise called the Bible) is, according to Capon, like most movies, a blend of fact and fiction, event and myth. But not to worry: the only fact that
matters, the only reality that counts, is the movie itself. “History is not something
lying around out there waiting to be discovered. It’s not ‘the facts’—it’s what the
mind makes of the facts. And the Bible’s version of that history is what the Mind of
history’s God most wants you to see” (342-343). “Myth can be just as good a tool for
the job as ‘historically’ verifiable events. A moving picture like the Bible can propel
its story line by fictions as well as by facts” (228). Capon claims that this approach
can deliver us from the fundamentalism of the right and the eclecticism of the left,
what he calls “the Scylla of literalism and the Charybdis of criticism” (318). “We’ve
been told that we must either accept every word in the Bible as literally true or
cave in to the critics who want us to ignore passages of the Bible they can’t accept”
(318).
But I failed to see in Genesis, the Movie any evidence for this advantage Capon
claims for his cinematic approach to Scripture. And my own experience proves
otherwise. Even the average moviegoer (as public reaction to recent films on Presidents Kennedy and Reagan has demonstrated) remains considerably concerned
about the distinction between fact and fiction. And while most Christians know
that facts are not a sufficient cause for faith, they recognize that they are a necessary cause for faith. A cavalier, dismissive attitude toward facticity and history is
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the only thing remotely “faddish” about Capon; otherwise, he swims against the
stream of contemporary trends in feminism, inclusive language, informal worship
practices, diet mania, etc. as soon becomes evident to the reader of this book (see
for example, 96, 132, and 191.).
The author’s thesis is what he frequently calls “God’s ecology of opposites,”
more specifically, God’s ecology of good and evil. “The Word of God does not take
good and evil or life and death as problems to be solved; he takes them as Mysteries to be embraced” (222). “The knowledge the tree [in the Garden of Eden] represents is not meant to be a recognition that good is pleasing to God while evil is
not…. Rather, it’s a knowledge of how to manage both good and evil at the same time
as God manages them in his ecology of opposites—that is, by letting each of them be
itself (225). God’s relationship to the presence of evil in the world has always been
a challenge to Christian theology. Most theologians assert that God hates evil,
combats it, and overpowers it, and that when God allows evil to exist He uses that
evil for the furtherance of His good purposes. But most theologians do not portray
God as indifferent to evil and certainly not as responsible for evil. But Capon
rushes in where most theologians fear to tread. “The God who holds good and evil
as an ecology not only tolerates the evil—he takes full responsibility for it” (310).
“GOD IS NOT, NEVER WAS, AND NEVER WILL BE AT WAR WITH EVIL” (324,
Capon’s capitalization). Indeed, Capon’s false doctrine approximates blasphemous
proportions when he asserts, “I’m even tempted to say that, for all biblical and
practical purposes, Satan is the alter Ego of the great I AM” (310). To which he
adds, “No doubt that really bothers you”—and I must admit that it most certainly
does!
I call it “picaresque theology,” representing evil as a sort of hero in the “movie”
God authored, produced, and directed. In any event, Capon’s strange view of evil
may account for two other strains in his book: (1) his dismissal of sanctification as
one of God’s goals and (2) Capon’s antipathy toward the organized Christian church.
Since God is indifferent toward eliminating evil, why should His redeemed people
be concerned about evil? Capon doesn’t put it that baldly or logically. What he does
say is, “Theologians can talk all they like about…[God’s] unswerving antipathy to
sin. But the God who appears in the film of the Bible apparently never read the
etiquette manuals they wrote for him. It makes no difference to the God of Scripture when (or even whether) we change for the better” (62). “We’re not saved from
our sins, we’re saved in them” (179).
And it is the organized Christian church’s preoccupation with removing or
managing evil that accounts in part for Capon’s frequent criticism of it. He correctly faults the church for all too often fostering the notion “that there’s something
we must do in order to find favor with God” (226). But because good works contribute nothing to salvation, it doesn’t follow that God is uninterested in the triumph
of good over evil in our world and in our lives. Capon, however, doesn’t see it that
way. “We’ve turned the God of Scripture, who lets both good and evil be, into a
celestial cop on the beat, constantly on the lookout for evildoers to put in the
infernal slammer. In short, we’ve invented the God of religion in the worst sense of
the word” (247).
Gospel for sanctification is absent in Capon’s theology. But Gospel for justification is a different matter. It is abundantly present in this book, as well as in all
other works by Capon. How a writer so wrong about the formal principle of Scripture can be so right on its material principle is a glorious exception to the rule—but
I rejoice in the exception even though it defies my understanding. Capon’s emphaCONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
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sis on our redemption solely by God’s grace through Jesus is the redeeming feature
of his theology and the crowning triumph of Genesis, the Movie. In this area his
cinematic approach to the Bible pays off. “[My] image of the Bible as a
movie…makes it possible for us to meet the Star of the film in every sequence of
the picture, Old Testament or New, wherever and whenever we look for him” (48).
“Our reconciliation in him [Jesus] has always been the deepest truth about us. It
dawned for us on day one of the world, and it will dawn on us the minute we trust
it” (354). In his insightful explication of God’s barring our first parents access to
the tree of life, Capon says, “Isn’t it precisely so that Adam’s death can excuse him
from an unwinnable war—so that he won’t live forever as damned by God? Doesn’t
it have grace and mercy written all over it? … So he won’t risk it. He will bar the
way of the Tree of Life and send us forth to die in the shipwreck of our history. But
he will follow us through the rocks and billows, and he will never fail us or forsake us.
On the cross of his beloved Son, he will bring back the Tree of Life and plant it at
last in the midst of the world’s eternal Home” (352-353). And listen to this stirring
conclusion to Capon’s book. “The lance that made the wound is none other than the
Flaming Sword, now quenched and tempered by the blood and water of the Word.
And the Angels who rolled the rock from the mouth of Jesus’ tomb are the Cherubim, now relieved of guard duty at the gate of Eden. They proclaim that the way of
the Tree of Life has been reopened, because the Way, the Truth, and the Life himself has risen gloriously from the dead” (356). Although Capon’s delightful Gospel
emphasis may not cover the multitude of his exegetical and doctrinal “sins” in this
book, it does put them in a more favorable context—and takes the wind out of the
sails of any eagery-beavery critic determined to put him down.
The Gospel always seems to bring out the best in Capon’s writing. Most of the
numerous insights in Genesis, the Movie are related to the Gospel. If you buy the
book (and shame on you if you don’t!), be sure to consult his imaginative lists of
Christ-centered typologies on pages 202-203 and 351. Capon has a knack for giving Biblical detail a Gospel spin. He describes the abandonment of Christ on the
cross by God the Father as God’s going “out of the parenting business” (40). The
author draws a line between God’s “very good” on the first Friday of the world He
created and “another Friday that’s even better…the ultimate Good Friday” (157).
On the doctrine of hell, Capon quips, “And just in case you’re itching for me to say
there is a hell after all, there you have my vision of it: a perpetual, upstream
struggle against the Love that will not let us go” (240). Shades of C. S. Lewis?
As a theologian, Robert Farrar Capon is a bundle of contradictions. His mastery of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, so obvious in this book, coupled with a capacity
for clear and vivid English, qualifies him to be an outstanding exegete; yet there is
a glaring disconnect between that ability and his performance in Biblical interpretation. A brilliant admirer and student of Augustine (this book is really more
about him than it is about Genesis); yet a finished product that is poles apart from
Augustinian theology. For all his antipathy toward the organized Christian church,
Father Capon continues to serve it as an Episcopalian priest. Heresies to curl the
reader’s hair, yet solid on Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection and the author’s own
hope of a bodily resurrection (cf. 220). Given the Gospel emphasis and insightfulness
of his writings, I am eager—perhaps too eager—to find a justification to exercise
charity toward the author in this review. Might there be pretext for such charity in
the partial cliché that Capon’s heretical bark is worse than his heretical bite? He
himself seems to suggest this avenue of escape. At one point criticizing Augustine
for not being “immune to temptations of grandstanding, sarcasm, and mockery,”
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Capon continues, “I find him great fun to read, probably because I have the same
inclinations” (325, my emphasis).
Francis C. Rossow
PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR PASTORS: Words of Encouragement and Counsel for
a Lifetime Ministry. By Curtis C. Thomas. Wheaton: Crossway, 2001. 240 pages.
Paper. $12.99.
This very valuable book for pastors is written in a careful, practical, and downto-earth manner. The writer’s intimate acquaintance with the wide variety of experiences in ministry is very evident.
The book is divided into ten sections and includes two appendices. Appendix I:
Pastors Self-Evaluation Questionnaire is important for every pastor to work through
in evaluating his ministry. Appendix II analyzes what a sermon should do.
Section one is composed of nine chapters on the personal life of a pastor.
Section two takes up the crucial subject of family life. Section three analyzes
twelve aspects of a pastor’s study habits. Section four takes a careful look at the
crucial role of the pastor carefully preparing the message of his sermons: proper
preparation and purposes, as well as the use of translations and pulpit notes.
Included is a very helpful listing of sermons on the message of a number of Biblical
characters, such as, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and Philip. These are followed by a listing
of a wide variety of Jesus’ use of parables, stories, and illustrations.
Section five covers in a down-to-earth manner around thirty-two aspects of
church life, such as, meetings, house calls, hospital visits, avoiding cliques, listening to complaints, letting church problems fester, and the like. Section six takes up
the ongoing activity of counseling and making judgments. Section seven provides
helpful information on weddings, divorces, and funerals. Section eight presents a
variety of aspects of relationship with others, such as, mentoring, an independent
spirit, evangelism/outreach, our public involvement, jealousy and competition,
standing alone, and missions.
Section nine takes up dangers facing ministers, such as, taking a position, our
office doors, confusing the Gospel, Christian liberty for the pastor, shackles for the
pastor, when fear strikes, and dangers for additional study. Section ten takes up
miscellaneous studies, such as, why not female pastors, the senior pastor, the
pastor and the IRS, and one-issue churches. The book includes an extensive, helpful bibliography.
This book would be a valuable resource for any pastor.
Erich H. Kiehl
GOSPEL WOMEN: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels. By Richard
Bauckham. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. 343 pages. Paper. $22.00.
Richard Bauckham, professor of New Testament studies and Bishop Wardlaw
Professor at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, has produced an unusual
book in which his great learning is clearly on display. Not only is Bauckham very
well versed in the New Testament, but he demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge of both early Judaism and early Christianity. This becomes apparent simply
by surveying his exhaustive indices at the back of the book.
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The book contains eight essays on the fifteen named women in the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament. This includes three from Matthew’s genealogy
of Jesus (Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth), the Herodian princess Herodias, Elizabeth the
mother of John the Baptist, Anna the prophetess, and Mary the mother of Jesus.
The remaining eight women are disciples of Jesus: Joanna, Mary (the wife) of
Clopas, Salome, Susanna, the women who discovered Jesus’ empty tomb (Mary
Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, Salome, and Joanna), and the
sisters Mary and Martha of Bethany (whom Bauckham evidently counts as “one”).
The first essay covers Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, all of whom are mentioned at
some length in the Old Testament, and who are then included as “Gentile
Foremothers of the Messiah” in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1:1-17).
Bauckham carefully considers the vast array of secondary literature in attempting
to answer the question of why these women are included in the genealogy, inasmuch as they are women and also not Israelites (the same is apparently true of
“the wife of Uriah,” who is, however, not mentioned by name). Bauckham finally
concludes that these four are joined to the Israelites in the genealogy because they
are all foremothers of the Messiah, and thus became a fitting preparation for
Jesus’ Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20).
In his second essay, Bauckham uses what he calls “reading a gynocentric text
intertextually.” He is referring to Luke 1:5-80, which contains the story of how both
Elizabeth and Mary gave birth in unusual ways: Elizabeth gave birth in her old age
after a long time of barrenness, and Mary gave birth as a young virgin. Bauckham’s
comment is instructive: “Thus Mary’s pregnancy both belongs in the series from
Sarah to Elizabeth, in that it is enabled by a miraculous act of God, but also
transcends the series, in that it is virginal. In Elizabeth and her son the Hebrew
Bible/Old Testament culminates, while in Mary and her son the new creation begins” (58).
Each of the essays in the book represents a thorough study of all the relevant
references about the woman/women under consideration, not only from the standpoint of the New Testament Gospels, but also from a broad sampling of early
extra-Biblical Jewish and Christian material. A case in point is chapter 6, dealing
with “Mary of Clopas.” He seeks to show that she was “in fact Jesus’ mother’s
husband’s brother’s wife,” that is, the wife of Clopas, and also the mother of Simon
(or Symeon) who ultimately succeeded his cousin James as the leader of the Jerusalem church (209).
Bauckham’s final chapter deals with the credibility of the women in the resurrection narratives. Characteristically, under this theme he deals with almost all
the questions that scholars have raised concerning these stories, not just their
credibility. Bauckham counters the belief of many scholars that the women’s witness about the empty tomb would not have been credible in a male-dominated
world with examples from Pseudo-Philo in the Greco-Roman world. He concludes:
In this light we can see that, if there is a problem in their Jewish context
about the role of the women in the resurrection narratives, it may be not
so much their supposed unreliability as witnesses or their susceptibility
to delusion in religious matters.... In these stories women are given priority by God as recipients of revelation and thereby the role of mediators of
that revelation to man (58).
He deals valiantly with the problem posed by the short ending of Mark, espe188
cially the statement that the women “said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid”
(16:8). He suggests that “their fear can be interpreted as part of the expected
response to an epiphany” (289), and it may be that “awe in the face of the numinous
would more likely generate silence in women than in men because of women’s
cultural habit of reticence in male company” (292). Nevertheless, Bauckham believes that in view of the words of the angel in 16:7, the women ultimately did “tell
his disciples,” and that Jesus, as He had promised, did appear to His disciples in
Galilee, and that from there the Gospel went out to all the world (cf. 14:9).
Space does not permit a further detailing of the riches in this book. Suffice to
say, Bauckham has admirably carried out his goals for the book, and it is heartily
recommended to all serious students of the Gospels.
Merlin D. Rehm
Bronxville, NY
THEMATIC THREADS IN THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE. Edited by Paul L.
Redditt and Aaron Schart. BZAW 325; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,
2003. 376 pages. Paper. 98 euro.
The “Minor Prophets” are also called “The Book of the Twelve” and are reckoned as one book in the Hebrew Bible. This collection predates Sirach’s prayer
“May the bones of the Twelve Prophets send forth new life from where they lie”
(49:10) as both the Qumran Library and Josephus count the Twelve as one book. To
be sure, neither Jews nor Christians have typically interpreted the Twelve as one
book. Rather, until the beginning of the 1990s—apart from a few exceptions—the
individual books of the Twelve were treated like other individual prophetic writings of the Old Testament, without considering the possibility that each book
perhaps should be read and understood in the context of the other books of the
Dodekapropheton. However, at the end of the last century it became acceptable in
scholarly Biblical exegesis to view Twelve as a literary unit.
This volume combines papers presented over the years 1999-2002 in the “Formation of the Book of the Twelve Seminar” of the Society of Biblical Literature.
The eighteen articles are as follows: Aaron Schart and Paul L. Redditt, “Introduction” (ix-xv); Redditt, “The Formation of the Book of the Twelve: A Review of Research” (1-26); Richard L. Schultz, “The Ties That Bind: Intertextuality, the Identification of Verbal Parallels, and Reading Strategies in the Book of the Twelve”
(27-45); Schart, “The Fifth Vision of Amos in Context” (46-71); Erhard S.
Gerstenberger, “Psalms in the Book of the Twelve: How Misplaced Are They?” (7289); Edgar W. Conrad, “Forming the Twelve and Forming Canon” (90-103); Laurie
J. Braaten, “God Sows: Hosea’s Land Theme in the Book of the Twelve” (104-132);
Marvin A. Sweeney, “The Place and Function of Joel in the Book of the Twelve”
(133-154); Beate Ego, “The Repentance of Nineveh in the Story of Jonah and Nahum’s
Prophecy of the City’s Destruction—A Coherent Reading of the Book of the Twelve
as Reflected in the Aggada” (155-164); Joseph A. Everson, “The Canonical Location of Habakkuk” (65-174); James L. Crenshaw, “Theodicy in the Book of the
Twelve” (175-191); James D. Nogalski, “The Day(s) of YHWH in the Book of the
Twelve” (92-213); Gerlinde Baumann, “Die prophetische Ehemetaphorik und die
Bewertung der Prophetie im Zwölfprophetenbuch” (214-231); Rainer Albertz, “Exile as Purification: Reconstructing the ‘Book of the Four’ ” (232-251); Simon J. De
Vries, “Futurism in the Pre-exilic Minor Prophets Compared with That of the
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Postexilic Minor Prophets” (252-272); Stephen S. Tuell, “Haggai-Zechariah: Prophecy after the Manner of Ezekiel” (273-291); Burkhard M. Zapff, “The Perspective on
the Nations in the Book of Micah as a ‘Systematization’ of the Nations’ Role in
Joel, Jonah, and Nahum: Reflections on a Context-Oriented Exegesis” (292-312);
Paul R. House, “Endings as New Beginnings: Returning to the Lord, the Day of the
Lord, and Renewal in the Book of the Twelve” (313-338).
The foundational idea of this research is that each of the Twelve is construed
by the final redactors in such a way that the message of each builds on its predecessors, picking up concepts, words, and text types from them. The redactors who
combined the writings into one book wanted their readers to look for, discover, and
appreciate how the different thematic threads generate a colorful tapestry that
reflects Yahweh’s self-disclosure in this corpus.
In their respective articles, both Nogalski and Everson believe that the “Day
of Yahweh” is the fundamental unifying theme in the Twelve—after all, the construct chain hwhy ~w
~wy appears fifteen times in the Hebrew Bible, thirteen of which
are in the Twelve. In Noglaski’s article he notes that there is a broad scholarly
consensus that other Hebrew terms like awhh ~wyb (“on that day”) and ~hh ~ymyb (“in
those days”) refer to the day of Yahweh and its effects. But other terms can refer to
this day. Based upon this, he asks two questions. First, if other expressions potentially evoke the concept of hwhy ~wy
~wy, how does one recognize which terms do and
which do not? Second, how does one evaluate the possibility that this recurring
concept provides an avenue into the unifying elements of the Twelve?
That the Twelve exhibits an overall theme, plot, and/or direction greater than
that of the sum of its twelve parts has been challenged, especially by Ehud Ben Zvi
in “Twelve Prophetic Books of ‘The Twelve’: A Few Preliminary Considerations,” in
Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D. W.
Watts (ed. James W. Watts and Paul R. House: JSOTSup 235 [Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1996]), 125-156. Several authors in this volume acknowledge the
following concerns of Ben Zvi. First, the Book of the Twelve does not have a comprehensive heading. Second, the argument that redactors used catchwords to form
redactional links between different prophetic books seems to be doubtful, since the
mere fact that one more or less unspecific word occurs in two different literary
units can be accidental in many cases. Interpreting such cases as deliberate links
is arbitrary. Third, there is the danger that an interpretation on the wider redactional level can conceal the original meaning of a certain book and may lead to
misunderstanding.
For readers of this journal, the best way to appropriate current scholarship on
the Twelve is to utilize its synchronic approach in order to grasp certain elements
of literary unity that divulge theological themes—a methodology that is similar to,
though not identical with, Marvin Sweeney (The Twelve Prophets [Collegeville, MN:
The Liturgical Press, 2000]). However—and this would be my major problem with
this scholarship—one must insist on treating the separate books of the Twelve as
important in and of themselves before asking questions about how they fit into a
larger picture. It is one thing to operate on the assumption that the order of the
Twelve is strategic—it is quite something else to believe that a specific book (e.g.,
Nogalski’s argument for Joel’s role as the “literary anchor” for the Book of the
Twelve) was written to fit into the whole.
Reed Lessing
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WHO IS JESUS CHRIST?: Current Issues in Christology. By Wilbert R. Gawrisch.
Milwaukee: Northwestern, 2002. 107 pages. Paper. $11.99.
This book contains five lectures which were given at a pastoral ministry institute at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin, in 1993. Though this
book is intended for “many readers,” it is not “popular” in the sense that many lay
people will find it “heavy going.” However, the fact that the five chapters were
originally delivered orally makes for somewhat easier reading. Suffice to say that
this book will be read with most profit by professional theologians, like those who
heard the original lectures.
The author served the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod for forty-six
years as a pastor and a professor. The book is a product of his many years as a
teacher of systematic theology at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. In recent years,
Professor Gawrisch also served as president of the Confessional Evangelical
Lutheran Conference, a worldwide federation of conservative Lutheran churches.
In this book, the author repeatedly speaks about the centrality of Christology
for the Christian faith. He emphasizes the inclusive and exclusive nature of Christianity. On the one hand, Gawrisch spends considerable time speaking about what
he calls “object justification” (75), the concept that the world has been reconciled to
God through Christ (2 Cor. 5:18-19). Yet, he also is very firm in stating that “there
is only one road to heaven: faith in Jesus Christ” (93).
In the process of carrying out his understanding of Christology, Gawrisch refers again and again to passages from the Bible, the church fathers, the Lutheran
Confessions, and especially Luther. He quotes frequently from past theologians of
the Wisconsin Synod, such as Adolph Hoenecke, August Pieper, John Meyer and
Carl Lawrenz. He also points to the strong Christology of many hymns, including
Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
Along the way, Gawrisch consistently counters what he considers to be incorrect ways of expressing Christology, including “ancient and modern heresies.” He
especially opposes the contemporary call for a “Copernican revolution in theology”
(an expression used by John Hick), which is an attempt to regard the Scriptural
doctrines of Christ as no longer binding.
All in all, for anyone who is looking for a scholarly and forthright statement of
the orthodox Lutheran teaching on Christology, this book is strongly recommended.
Merlin D. Rehm
Bronxville, NY
THE MESSAGE OF JONAH: Presence in the Storm. By Rosemary A. Nixon. Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003. 220 pages. Paper. $19.95.
Augustine’s response to an inquiry made by a potential Christian convert
gives reason for anyone to hesitate when writing a commentary on Jonah. “What he
asks about the resurrection of the dead could be settled…. But if he thinks to solve
all such questions as…those about Jonah…he little knows the limitations of human life or of his own” (The Latin text is in M. Pellegrrino, T. Alimonti and L.
Carrozzi (eds.), Le Lettere di Saint Agostino [Opere di Saint Agostino, 21; Rome:
Citta Nuova, 1969], 992. The English Translation (quoted above), is in W. Parson
(ed.), St. Augustine: Letters [Fathers of the Church, vol. 18 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 1953)], 176). More recently, Father Maple in Herman
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Melville’s Moby Dick states: “Even though Jonah is one of the smallest strands in
the mighty cable of the Scriptures, the book is one of the most puzzling and intriguing of the entire Old Testament” (Reprinted; New York: Modern Library, 1926,
[1851]). Though there are only 689 words in the Hebrew text of Jonah, numerous
questions abound. Were the sailors and Ninevites actually “converted”? How does
the psalm in chapter two fit into the narrative? How could a man stay alive in a
large fish for three days and three nights? And why does the book end with a
question? Rosemary Nixon takes on these challenges in this commentary that is
part of IVP’s “The Bible Speaks Today” series which strives to unite both accurate
exegesis with an eye toward how the text relates to the life of today’s Christian.
Nixon admirably fulfills the goal of this IVP commentary series. For example,
in the discussion of Jonah’s anger over Yahweh’s lack of justice regarding the
Ninevites, Nixon connects this “Jonah syndrome” with several of Christ’s parables.
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the elder son, unable to celebrate his father’s
gracious welcome of the younger son is a Jonah figure (Luke 15:11-32). At the end
of this parable, Jesus leaves His hearers wondering how the elder son will respond
to his father’s compassionate generosity, thus echoing the inconclusive ending of
Jonah. In the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector at prayer the Pharisee is
acutely aware of his own spiritual stature but is dismissive of the tax collector’s
humble penitence (Luke 18:9-14). Similarly, in the story of the laborers in the
vineyard, those who bore the heat of the day and then complained bitterly when
they were rewarded at the same rate as those who had spent only a short time at
work are akin to Jonah (Matt. 20:1-16). In all of these parables there is a tension
between the “religious insiders” who believe they are worthy of God’s favor and
those “outsiders” who hardly dare imagine that God has anything for them. Hence,
Nixon understands the story of Jonah as the story of the religious “insider”—
whether in eighth-century Israel, at the time of Jesus, or in today’s church—who
can’t welcome and forgive “outsiders.”
Another example of Nixon’s exegesis is in her discussion on the Hebrew word
for “worm” (tolath)—that unfortunately shows up in Jonah’s life because apparently there were no early birds to catch him! The worm is an agent of Yahweh’s
judgment (Deut. 28:39) and is a vicious consumer of human remains (Is. 14:11;
66:24). It is a tiny, apparently insignificant creature which has been given power to
ensure change in every situation, representing death and decay. In some of Jesus’
most severe teaching He urges the disciples to rid themselves of those habits
which may separate them from the kingdom. “And if your eye causes you to sin,
pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with
two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not
quenched” (Mark 9:47-48). Such connections to both the Old and New Testament
permeate this commentary.
Unlike recent commentaries on Jonah (e.g., Jack Sasson in the Anchor Bible
Series; James Limburg in the Old Testament Library Series), Nixon attempts to
locate Jonah in eighth-century B.C. Israel. She describes how scholars now know
that there was a total solar eclipse on June 15, 763 B.C., during the reign of the
Assyrian king Assur-dan (793-753 B.C.), a contemporary of Israel’s king Jeroboam
II (781-746 B.C.). This and additional extra-Biblical evidence—that Assur-dan
was a weak ruler, that cosmic happenings would be understood by the Ninevites as
signs of divine wrath, that defeat in battle and loss of territory would create internal hardship and unrest—points to a low time in Nineveh’s life in the mid-eighth
century B.C. and therefore offers one reason why there was such a massive conver192
sion in the city.
Nixon also argues convincingly that the author of the book is addressing Israel
through his use of the “rhetoric of entrapment.” This genre is used by Nathan after
David’s sin with Bathsheba when he tells a parable to David about the rich man
with many flocks stealing the poor man’s pet lamb. The king immediately recognizes that injustice had been done by the rich man and pronounces judgment. At
this point Nathan says to David, “You are the man” (2 Sam. 12:7). Similarly Nixon
reads the book of Jonah as a real-life event, but the punch line comes in the last
verse of the book where the author ends with a question in such a way as the reader
now understands that “he is the man”—he or she is no one less than Jonah!
While noticing numerous intertextual links between Jonah and sections of the
Old Testament, Nixon misses the Noahic milieu of the book which permeates the
story and calls the reader back to Yahweh’s first covenant with Noah and his
offspring, along with every living creature (Gen. 9:8-17). She also fails to account
for the tremendously rich theological theme of Yahweh “repenting” in 3:10 and 4:2.
These concerns aside, this commentary provides a conservative, Christ-centered and thoroughly useable resource for all who dare to study this puzzling and
intriguing book with its huge storm on the Mediterranean Sea, hot east wind over
distant lands, tour of Sheol, the insides of a great fish, and its plant that comes
and goes in a day. Readers of this delightful book, with Nixon’s help, will meet a
God who has more love and grace and patience than they could ever imagine in His
pursuit of reluctant and stubborn people.
Reed Lessing
WATER FROM THE ROCK: Lutheran Voices from Palestine. By Ann E. Hafften,
Contributing Editor. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003. 94 pages. Paper.
$9.99.
In the introduction, Hafften states, “The Lutherans of Palestine are dedicated
to proclaiming God’s love in Jesus!” (9). The purpose of the book is “to make the
voices of Palestinian Lutherans heard in the United States” (10).
About eight percent of the population in the West Bank of Palestine are Christians, with numbers totaling around 50,000. Another 100,000 Christians in the
rest of Palestine are citizens of Israel. The Greek Orthodox Church makes up the
largest group of Christians. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem (ELCJ)
has 2000 members in six congregations in Bethlehem, Beit Jasla, Beit Shour,
Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Amman (Jordan).
The Rev. Munib A. Younan is the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Jerusalem. In his Christmas message 2002, he addressed the problems caused by
the division of Palestine into the land of the Arabs and of the Israeli. He said, “I
call on people of good conscience and good will from both nations, Palestine and
Israel, and the three religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—to intensify
their efforts to end the occupation, violence, destructions, bloodshed, and death. I
call on them to incarnate just peace and reconciliation in this land which so desperately needs and deserves it” (26).
At the end of this chapter, the author lists six crucial questions for careful
reflection and discussion on the ongoing problems in Palestine facing the people
there because of the sad events of occupation in the past years.
Chapter 2 records the message of a Palestinian educator and advocate for
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peace on “Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Renewal: Our Forgotten Sisters in Palestine.” This is followed by diary meditation on the unfortunate Israeli military
actions in Bethlehem’s largest refugee camp, stressing the need for “ears to hear.”
Chapter 3 on “Names and Connections” records many disruptions because of
the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the Israeli military occupation. We are told
how the village of Aboud northwest of Ramallah and other villages have been
isolated from the outside world in regard to travel into and out of town.
Chapter 4 records the background to the military closures or shutdowns of
cities in the West Bank and Gaza, and the implications of the violent occupation.
The writer, Dr. Nuha Khoury, is a native of Bethlehem and is the Deputy Director of
the Dar al-Kalima Model School and Academy project of the International Center
of Bethlehem.
Chapter 5 records the letter of The Rev. Mitri Raheb to President Clinton with
reference to the oppressive results of roadblocks and checkpoints which denied free
movements to the Palestinians. Raheb is the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Bethlehem and also the founder of the International Center of Bethlehem
and the Dar al-Kalima Model School and Academy.
The final chapter records the report of Pastor Michael and Susan Thomas on
the violence and its fatal effects of great suffering and many deaths almost entirely among the Palestinians. The Thomases served the English-language congregation at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. They stress that
this time of crisis calls out to God!
Another section describes the incursion of the Israeli army into the city of Beit
Jala and its effect of endangering the lives of the fifty children and youth who lived
in an orphanage on the premises of a Lutheran church building.
Also in the final chapter, “Of Caves and Graves and Job’s Cactus,” quotations
from Hebrews 11:32-12:2 and of Job 19:23-27a are used appropriately for the
hardships people in the Bethlehem area were going through in the closing months
of 2001.
The final page of the book has purposeful questions and discussions on violence in Palestine and its unfortunate effects.
This book provides important information on the ongoing challenges faced by
the Lutheran Church in Palestine as a result of the Israeli occupation. We need to
keep this church and its members very much in our prayers.
Erich H. Kiehl
THE PERSISTENCE OF PURGATORY. By Richard K. Fenn. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1995. 209 pages. Cloth/Paper. $65.00/$24.00.
Princeton seminary Professor Richard K. Fenn examines in The Persistence of
Purgatory “how the doctrine, myth, and popular belief in purgatory have informed
and shaped the Western consciousness of time” (1). Fenn’s interdisciplinary study
looks at the seriousness with which Western societies have treated time and seeks
to trace the reasons as to why this should be so. Rather than looking to the Enlightenment or to the Protestant Ethic, his study brings him to the doctrine of purgatory, viewing purgatory as a doctrine which melded Western society’s anxiety over
running out of time with the church’s attempts to exert control and constrain its
members through an inculcation of the fear of running out of time (14). The interplay between his sociological study of time and his study of the doctrine of purga194
tory is ultimately concerned with what has happened to the soul—both in the
church and in the western secular preoccupation with time.
In the first chapters of this work, Fenn pursues the ecclesiastical roots of
purgatory. He notes that the doctrine of purgatory itself cannot be traced much
further back than the thirteenth century. Perhaps most well known is Dante’s
(1265-1321) Divine Comedy, the second part of which is his depiction of purgatory.
It is a place where souls linger in time after death, awaiting their final departure.
It is a “ghostly interim [where] time is always running out” (54). The souls await
either their release, or Judgment Day, whichever comes first. In the thirteenth
century, then, the church succeeded in making time of the essence: every moment
used properly here on earth could save oneself time in the waiting room of purgatory—a time which might seem to drag on for eternity but would ultimately come
to an end. The point, however, is that purgatory was placed in time (54)—not in
Hell or Heaven, which are eternal states—but in time. Thus, Fenn argues, Dante
had created a religious culture that saw something “this-worldly” about purgatory
even as it pointed towards the next. In this way, “Dante places purgatory in secular
time” (54) since time is of the essence of purgatory. Sin, for Dante, was the “ ‘taint of
time’ on the soul, and it was the task of purgatory to expunge that taint” (55-56).
In later chapters, Fenn draws out the connection, then, between the purgatorial emphasis on the time allowed souls in the next life to purify and perfect
themselves, with the beginning of subsequent secular society’s emphasis on moral
responsibility to the state and society. He attempts to chronicle a gradual secularization of purgatory as the individual not only becomes concerned about the fitness
of one’s soul for heaven but also of making the most of one’s time in order to remake
the self and serve society (84). The emergence of bureaucracies in military, government, education and in the private sphere—and their regulation of the self—exact
a toll on the individual and his soul (93). The concepts of probation and improvement of the self in the limited amount of time one is given occasioned preaching in
English preachers like Richard Baxter that thought of life itself as purgatory filled
with spiritual testing.
While most would associate purgatory with Roman Catholicism, Fenn’s study
primarily focuses on various forms of Protestant rationalism with Baxter, John
Locke and William Ellery Channing. His later chapter on “Protestants and Catholics in the American Purgatory” does note, however, the equally strong Roman
Catholic influence which was introduced to America via the Irish immigration
after the famine and plague of 1846-1850. This immigration was accompanied by
the Irish clergy of the Catholic church who, as much as their Protestant counterparts, used the doctrine of purgatory in their campaign to save lost souls not only
for the next life but also for this one (144). The preaching of both Protestant and
Catholic clergy focused on the scarcity of time in this life and the compulsion
towards individual perfection in that limited time—what Fenn terms the “purgatorial complex” (3). This “purgatorial complex” ultimately led to a secular purgatory in American society where “[t]he intensification of the meaning and experience of time, a sense of being burdened, obsessed, defeated, or constrained by time,
is the outward and visible sign of a social character shaped and constrained by the
residues of purgatory’s effect on the religious imagination and on ecclesiastical
doctrine” (6-7). This is the thesis Fenn tries to develop throughout the rest of the
book.
In his final chapter on “Charles Dickens in the American purgatory” he
chronicles Dickens’s observations of salutary effect of the individuated soul in
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American life in places like Boston where a genuine care for other souls was in
evidence that was not as much the case in New York or the wilderness of the West.
Fenn notes in particular Dickens’s indictment concerning the “institutionalized
soul-murder” in the state penitentiary system that “crushed the soul before the
body expired” (161), hardly allowing for any purgatorial redemption at all. Dickens
did not have a much better view of the church’s influence on the soul either. “Both
church and state place an individual’s soul on trial for life, with little hope of
redemption” (165).
Fenn’s argument throughout is quite nuanced. The interplay between the various disciplines in this inter-disciplinary study makes for an intricate and evocative study. However, The Persistence of Purgatory is not, in the end, a history of the
doctrine or a theological treatise. It is a study of purgatory as a metaphor for time
in Western society, effective in evoking the almost tyrannical hold time, clocks, the
wristwatch, and schedules have exerted. Purgatory as a Christian doctrine that
contributed to the process of Western secularization, however, seems much more
tenuous and forced in his argumentation. His argument is suggestive, but in the
end proves too restrictive as an answer to a conundrum that must surely be more
multi-faceted. This, however, should in no way detract from the book’s value in
chronicling the intellectual history behind the changing concepts of time as well as
the many incisive cultural critiques it offers. It can prove a helpful resource for
those looking to discover some of the roots of modernity in a trans-disciplinary
environment, but is less helpful for those seeking a theological or doctrinal exposition of purgatory.
Joel Elowsky
Madison, NJ
COUNTED RIGHTEOUS IN CHRIST: Should We Abandon the Imputation of
Christ’s Righteousness? By John Piper. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2002. 132
pages. Paper. $12.99.
“The doctrine that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believing sinners needs
to be abandoned….That doctrine of imputation is not even biblical. Still less is it
‘essential’ to the Gospel” (44). “I join the growing number of biblical theologians,
evangelical and non-evangelical alike, who deny that Paul or any other New Testament author speaks of a righteousness of Christ (whatever it might include or
exclude) that is imputed to believing sinners…” (45). “…justification does not have
to do with an exchange of our sin for the righteousness of Christ; rather, it has to do
with liberation from sin’s mastery…” (47). “It is our faith, not Christ’s righteousness, that is credited to us as righteousness” (121). “The righteousness of faith is
a righteousness that by God’s reckoning consists of faith” (122).
Robert Gundry’s above words from Christianity Today’s publication, Books and
Culture, moved Piper to write this book. Piper begins by quoting Luther: “[Justification is] the chief article of Christian doctrine…. Therefore if you see this article
impugned or imperiled, do not hesitate to resist Peter or an angel from heaven, for
it cannot be sufficiently extolled” (13). Believing that Gundry’s writings cause
justification (Christ’s imputed righteousness) to be “impugned” and “imperiled,”
Piper wrote “to magnify the glory of Christ in the fullness of his redeeming work…”
(39; also 51 and 125). Piper defends Christ’s imputed righteousness because it is
the foundation for everything the church believes, says, and does—her mission
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work, defense of marriage, work with prodigal children, counsel to wounded Christians, comfort for penitent sinners, etc. Piper underscores the fact that sinners
have hope only if Christ’s righteousness is imputed to them by faith (22-39). Piper’s
concern is that when Christ’s righteousness and our sanctified acts of faith are
combined as the basis for salvation (49-50), this replaces “the perfect righteousness of Christ with the response (by grace) of our own faith as the ground of justification” (122). The bulk of Piper’s book is an exegetical defense of the imputed
righteousness of Christ as taught in Holy Scripture (53-119).
Gundry’s position is that our faith is our righteousness. Piper studies Romans
4:2-6; 3:28; 4:9-11; 10:10; and Philippians 3:8-9, which teach that God’s righteousness is external—outside of us. The righteousness that justifies and saves is not
our faith, for that is something inside us. Secondly, Piper studies Romans 3:20-4:6
and 2 Corinthians 5:21, which clearly teach that God’s alien righteousness is imputed to sinners and received in faith. Faith saves because of the righteousness of
the One in whom it believes, Jesus Christ (cf. AP IV, 227; AP XXIV, 12; FC Ep, III,
4-5; FC SD III, 12-16, 33-39, 54-58). Righteousness does not consist of our faith,
but is received by faith. Thirdly, Gundry believes that God’s righteousness is His
“salvific activity in a covenantal framework” as opposed to a “bookkeeping framework.” Thus justification becomes for Gundry “liberation from sin’s mastery” (70).
Gundry tries to use Romans 3:24-26 to prove his point.
Piper studies Romans 3:24-25; 6:3-7; Ephesians 1:7; and Colossians 1:14,
which show that though sanctification flows from justification (the imputation of
Christ’s righteousness), they need to be carefully distinguished so that Christ’s
saving work (justification) is not obscured by human works (sanctification). For
Piper, Gundry’s position is an “assault on the historic distinction between justification and sanctification” because a covenantal framework blends the two. For
Lutherans, theology is testamental—a free gift God imputes (gives) undeserving,
penitent sinners by faith. (LW 26:296-304, 359-360; 35:82-111; 37:254-265, 307342; 44:54-58.) This Biblical testamental theology brings a clear and proper distinction between justification and sanctification. Finally, to deal with Gundry’s
denial that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to sinners, Piper does careful exegesis of Romans 5:12-19 and a number of other passages. As Adam’s sin is imputed
to all human beings, even so Jesus Christ’s (the Second Adam’s) righteousness is
imputed to sinners as well. Christ takes away our sin and gives us His perfect
righteousness which we receive in faith. This is the doctrine of the substitutionary
atonement of Jesus Christ.
Piper sets forth Scripture’s clear teaching that salvation is centered in Christ’s
obedient keeping of the Law and not in the sanctified deeds of faith which exhibit
our “liberation from sin’s mastery.” Christ’s perfect obedience is imputed to sinners and is received in faith. Faith receives the righteousness and forgiveness
Christ earned for us by His perfect fulfilling of the Law. Thus sinners are justified
by faith and are moved to live sanctified (but imperfect) lives.
Throughout its history God’s church has struggled in its ability to clearly teach
and proclaim His gracious saving work. Luther’s reform arose because the church
had mixed sanctification with justification. In the past Lutherans have struggled
with justification and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness (FC SD, III — The
Osiandrian Controversy). The more recent struggles involved objective and subjective justification, the predestination controversy, the Helsinki Lutheran World
Federation statement on justification, the proper relationship of justification and
sanctification, the placement of eucharistic prayers in Lutheran liturgies, and the
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Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. In addition, surveys of Christians
(Lutherans included) reveal that a significant majority of them believe that the
Gospel is a set of rules for right living. Faith is thereby equated with their sanctified obedience. Their acts of worship and faith are seen as contributing to their
salvation, and doing good is seen as getting them into heaven. Some Bible translations like the NIV emphasize obedience where the Greek text of Scripture does not.
Piper’s book needs wide dissemination and careful study in all of Christendom
so that the blessed Gospel message continues to be proclaimed by Christ’s church—
that sinners are declared righteous in God’s sight not by their own obedient works
and sanctified deeds, not on the basis of the faith inside of them, but solely because
of Christ’s perfect righteous obedience which is imputed to sinners and received in
faith. Thus Christ is glorified as sinners are forgiven, justified, counted righteous
in Christ.
Armand J. Boehme
Almaty, Kazakhstan
THE HOLY BIBLE—ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION AND CD-ROM. J. I.
Packer, editor. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2002. 1,328 pages. Cloth. $24.99.
Missouri Synod has a new “unofficial” Bible translation according to a recent
announcement by the Commission on Worship. The Hymnal Project Committee
selected the ESV as its Biblical text [LCMS News, No. 127]. Two years ago the
ESV was unveiled after four years of work by over a hundred scholars, including
several from our LCMS (Drs. Daniel L. Gard; Arthur A. Just, Jr.; Walter A. Maier,
III; Paul R. Raabe; James W. Voelz; and Dean O. Wenthe). Yet, the decision is
somewhat surprising when one reviews the Comparative Study of Bible Translations done for the Commission on Worship. That document seemed to indicate that
the NIV and AAT (Beck) were at least as good as the ESV in translating select
texts, especially from the Old Testament.
The philosophy articulated in the preface describes the ESV as “an ‘essentially literal’ translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer” (vii). This
approach, or at least the resulting product, is in marked contrast with the philosophy articulated by Martin Luther (see LW 35:175-202 and 203-223). The preface’s
self-affirmation states that this translation “is ideally suited for in-depth study of
the Bible. Indeed, with its emphasis on literary excellence, the ESV is equally
suited for public reading and preaching, for private reading and reflection, for both
academic and devotional study, and for Scripture memorization” (viii). Theologically, the ESV eliminated some of the concerns held against the Revised Standard
Version (1952, 1971) and the New Revised Standard Version (1989).
The ESV Classic Reference Bible includes a number of beneficial features.
Each Biblical book has a brief introduction along with headings within each book,
as in most recent translations. A center-columned cross-reference system recalls
the format and page set-up of the KJV, although paragraphs serve as the major
divisions of the text. Footnotes have been added which provide alternate translations, explanations of translation choices and some technical or explanatory comments. Verses are indicated by superscripted bold numbers. A table of weights and
measures, seven maps, along with a concordance of over 2,700 words are provided
in appendixes.
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The CD-ROM format is a welcome addition, especially since it also contains
several other resources produced by iExalt Electronic Publishing for Windows users. For example, demonstrations of oral readings of selected passages are accessible on the CD-ROM. Strong’s Greek-Hebrew Dictionary and Nave’s topics are
also included as part of the program. Cross references are accessible, although not
as clearly indicated as the central margins of the hard copy. Unfortunately, when
printing from the CD-ROM, the verse numbers come as bracketed Arabic numerals in regular font size; something distracting, but that can be overlooked.
While the features included in and the philosophy behind the ESV are commendable, the final product—that is, the actual translation—is what needs to be
considered. The text “feels” antiquated, if that is the desired outcome. However,
the use of archaic English is not helpful when most Americans (other than lawyers
or chefs) no longer use such terms as “conjugal rights” (1 Cor. 7:3) or “leaven” as a
noun and verb (Gal. 5:9). The FAQ sheet for the ESV indicates that the academic
readability is at the eighth-grade level, compared to most modern translations
(and newspapers), which are at a fifth- or sixth-grade level. The advanced reading
level alone will make this translation difficult for many to read, particularly our
children and young adults who have been memorizing the NIV for over twenty
years.
If our LCMS seeks a return to the rhetorical rhythms and stately prose of the
KJV, the ESV is an obvious choice. For example, Isaiah 52:3-5 is almost identical
with the KJV, “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…and with his stripes we are healed.” Recalling the sophisticated style of the RSV or KJV, the ESV is a nostalgic return to bygone days for
those who still harbor fond recollections of memorizing those earlier translations—
although realistically their numbers are diminishing swiftly and significantly each
year. Had this translation been available prior to the NIV, it would have found
greater acceptance, due to its attempt to emulate the beautiful and stately English of the KJV. The echoes of the KJV’s “hallowed be your name” in the Lord’s
Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) and “I shall not want” of Psalm 23 will strike a
responsive chord among older members in our congregations. “Behold” (Luke 2:10;
John 1:29b) and “truly, truly” (John 5:24a) are used, although most modern translations either dropped these locutions, since they are foreign to modern American
speech, or found more common possibilities, such as “Look” (NIV and AAT) and “I
tell you the truth” (NIV and AAT). Similar archaic or at least cumbersome wording
is evident in Jesus’ encounter with Thomas the week after Easter in John 20:27,
“Put out your hand…. Do not disbelieve….” 1 Peter 2:6, “For it stands in Scripture,”
while literally true, is wooden and stilted in contrast to “the Bible says” (AAT) or
“in Scripture it says” (NIV).
Inclusive language is a contemporary concern and is addressed candidly. The
ESV’s preface (ix) states that the generic “ ‘he’…is consistent with similar usage in
the original languages and…an essentially literal translation would be impossible without it….” The use of the masculine for God is obviously and correctly
followed. However, as the preface (ix) also notes, “In each case the objective has
been transparency to the original text, allowing the reader to understand the original on its own terms rather than on the terms of our present-day culture.” Thus,
where the RSV used “man” or “men,” the ESV uses “anyone” and “people” where
the original languages lack a word with a male meaning (e.g., 1 Tim. 2:4; so also see
NIV and AAT).
Outside of an articulate minority, the AAT (Beck) translation has never “caught
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on” in the LCMS. Yet, the AAT provides a more readable and understandable
translation, in spite of occasional idiosyncratic word choices (e.g., “the festival of
bread without yeast”) and Beck’s individualistic approach. Similarly, the NIV has
proven its usefulness over the past two decades.
Whether the ESV will become the official text of the LCMS in the future is
unknown. Certainly, it has academic advantages over the NIV in its literal accuracy, providing an excellent tool for in-depth Bible studies with pastoral leadership. Regrettably, it also carries the difficulty of archaic renderings which make it
less accessible to most contemporary American readers who are younger than
those making the decisions about the future of a Biblical translation in the LCMS.
In spite of some reservations and questions, this present volume with its CD-ROM
should certainly be on every LCMS seminarian’s and pastor’s shelf and computer.
Timothy Maschke
Mequon, WI
PLOWSHARES AND PRUNING HOOKS: Rethinking the Language of Biblical
Prophecy and Apocalytpic. By D. Brent Sandy. Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 2002. 263 pages. Paper. $16.00.
In his book, Plowshares and Pruning Hooks, Sandy takes a careful look at how
the language of Biblical prophecy works. In each of his seven chapters, he deals
with various aspects of prophecy. For example, in his second chapter, “What Makes
Prophecy Problematic?” he discusses seven problems that confront the reader who
is trying to interpret Biblical prophecy. Most of these concern the “extreme” language one reads in the prophets, i.e., the figurative language, the metaphors, the
hyperbole, and the emotion conveyed by the prophetic word. He suggests that all of
these characteristics add up to make the task of interpretation a difficult one, and
as a consequence have led to many misinterpretations (57).
In his chapter “How Does the Language of Prophecy Work?” Sandy goes into
great detail discussing specifically the metaphorical language of prophecy. This
chapter contains a simplified overview of some of the work that has been done by
linguists and literary critics on how metaphors and other figures of speech communicate, and he applies this research to the language of Biblical prophecy citing
many examples to illustrate his points. This chapter seems to be written especially for those readers who approach the language of the Bible in an overly literalistic way (some fundamentalists?) and might prove helpful to a pastor who is
having discussions with this kind of reader.
Other chapters deal with the pragmatic aspects of Biblical prophecy. That is,
Sandy gives a helpful introduction to the function of prophecy and the intent of the
prophets in speaking as they do. Do they threaten? Do they warn? Do they comfort?
Sandy points out that the function of statements in the Bible can be as important
for understanding their meaning as the content of the statements (82). His final
two chapters (“How Have Prophecies Been Fulfilled?” and “How Will Prophecies
Be Fulfilled?”) deal with theological questions regarding the fulfillment of OT
prophecy.
Throughout, Sandy seems to “problematize” the interpretation of Biblical
prophecy. In other words, he maintains that prophecy and apocalyptic literature
are a much richer and more complex literature than many would like to believe. As
a result, they cannot be interpreted in a “transparent manner.” In fact, one of the
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major points that he wants to make is that prophecy “is more translucent than
transparent” (143).
In the final two chapters it becomes clear against whom Sandy is directing his
book; that is, he appears to write this book in order to combat the premillennial
dispensationalist perspective on Biblical prophecy (155). He notes that the twentieth century has seen a “conflagration of prophetic speculation” which rushes to
claim fulfillment of prophecy in current events. This has led to confusion in the
Christian community and what he calls a “crisis of interpretation” (156).
His solution to the dispensationalist perspective on prophecy is basically to
reiterate once again the nature of prophetic language. In answering the question,
“How will prophecies be fulfilled?” He concludes that because of the nature of
prophetic language, prophecy cannot bear the detailed theories of dispensationalism. He writes: “While many have assumed that prophecy reveals
specific scenarios of future events, we may need to rethink those approaches.
Futurespeak is rich in poetic imagery” (188). Here, in the last two chapters, is
where, for the Lutheran, Sandy’s book lacks a crucial perspective. In his treatment
of this important hermeneutical question dealing with the fulfillment of prophecy,
Sandy does not, in any detail at all, find the fulfillment of OT prophecy in Christ
and the church. He appears to read the OT somewhat autonomously (apart from
the NT), and his solution to the dispensationalist perspective reflects this approach. Discussion of important prophetic themes such as the kingdom of God, the
Day of the Lord, the historical/eschatological view of the prophets—all crucial to
the interpretation of prophecy—are almost completely lacking in Sandy’s book. He
does not deal with Biblical prophecy from a Christological or eschatological perspective but rather keeps his discussion at the level of a description of the type of
language found in the prophets.
Thus, ironically, he misses most of the (theological) richness and depth of the
Biblical prophets. While this may be a useful book for introducing someone to
basic language issues, for the more important theological questions it will prove
less than helpful.
Timothy E. Saleska
PREACHING WITHOUT NOTES. By Joseph M. Webb. Nashville: Abingdon Press,
2001. 134 pages. Paper. $11.00.
What preacher has not been in fear of exactly what this book promotes—
preaching (God forbid) without…notes?! Many preacher’s self-talk goes something
like this: “Why, without a manuscript I could very well make statements that are
irrelevant, ill-considered, improper or—alas—even untrue! So why bother preaching without notes? Besides, I have been subjected to the note-free preacher who
rambles, goes off on tangents, hems and haws, communicates little, if any real
substance, and has difficulty ending his sermon. Enough said; case closed!” Joseph
Webb, a professor of both speech communication and homiletics at Pepperdine
University and Claremont School of Theology, takes on these sentiments and winsomely persuades his readers to consider a new way of preaching. In advocating his
approach Webb does not discount those who preach with manuscripts and notes;
he simply challenges such preachers to rise up to a higher level of effectiveness. His
thesis is simply put: “Preaching is public address before it is anything else, and if
one expects one’s sermon to be interesting, even compelling or captivating, then
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one’s preaching must follow the basic rules of effective public speech” (11). And the
most fundamental rule of all effective public speaking is that one cannot read a
manuscript.
Each of the book’s four chapters discusses one of the four basic steps to preaching without notes. Chapter 1 examines what goes into the preparation of the sermon. Key here is that the decision to preach a sermon without notes needs to be
made before the sermon is prepared, not after. While any sermon requires clarity,
that requirement is amplified many times over when the sermon will be preached
without notes. To accomplish this clarity, Webb suggests that every sermon be
built upon one controlling metaphor. Chapter 2 discusses the important process of
outlining the sermon. Not surprisingly, the outline itself needs to be specifically
tailored for the task of preaching without notes. Webb suggests that the sermon be
broken up into no more than ten “sequences,” with each sequence titled in a precise
and clear manner. “Of all the things that recent research has taught us about the
enhancement of human memory, none is more important than the clear, concise
organization of the materials to be memorized” (83). Chapter 3 turns to the crucial
issue of memorization. Here the author presents what research has taught about
human memory, as well as specific directions on how to quickly, efficiently and
confidently memorize. Webb suggests the following strategy to memorizing—one
hour on Thursday afternoon, one hour on Friday morning, a refresher hour on Saturday morning and then a brief review Sunday morning before the sermon is preached.
He further suggests an intense focus on the precise location of the Scripture verses,
as “no small amount of credibility rests on that” (91). Chapter 4, then, takes up the
concepts the preacher needs to be aware of while preaching. Chief among these is
the awareness of one’s facial expressions: “…our sermons are in our faces, and we
would do well to know that our facial expressions and our words had best match”
(105). Such preaching is demanded in an age when mass communication has shaped
the perception of hearers.
Throughout these chapters Webb crafts a sermon on the life of John Mark as a
way to illustrate his points. At the heart of the discussion is the idea that preaching without notes is not only a method of delivery, but a method of preparation.
Webb neither advocates undisciplined talking nor strained reciting.
I wish every student studying for the ministry and every pastor would read
this challenging, encouraging and practical book—it could make the difference
between an ordinary ministry and a highly effective ministry. For in the end, preaching without notes gives the sermon life and energy, credibility and intimacy that it
does not otherwise have.
Augustine’s advice to all preachers is: Veritas pateat, veritas laceat, veritas
moveat (Make the truth plain, make it pleasing, make it moving). Through Webb’s
gift to the church, skeptical and/or intimidated preachers will discover how their
sermons can be transformed from reports about religion into Spirit-ed proclamation after the dictum of Augustine.
Reed Lessing
ALL THAT’S HOLY: A Young Guy, An Old Car, and the Search for God in America. By
Tom Levinson. San Francisco: Wiley, 2003. 320 pages. Cloth. $23.95.
In his forward to All That’s Holy, noted theologian Harvey Cox opines that this
“is the best introduction to what is really going on in the multicolored religious
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lives of our dappled population you can lay your hands on today” (vii). Perhaps, yet
it would be an unnecessary debate. This book is a very good read and is a very
useful volume for every church worker and lay leader in our parishes. Why?
Levinson, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Jewish by religion, spirituality, or culture (or perhaps by all three), embarks on a journey of story receiving
and investigation and, in so doing, gains a deeper understanding of his own story
as well as the religion he finds in America. In this volume there are encounters
with persons from the very diverse fabric that is the American religious quilt.
Beginning with his chance (?) encounter with Hayder Almosawi in his store in
Dayton, Ohio, we are introduced to a quite colorful and in many ways deeply moving set of real people.
We meet Maureen Scowby, a “Cafeteria Catholic”; Brother Gus Nave, a monk
for sixty-three years; Sokha Diep, a Cambodian Buddhist; Kisna Duaipayana Das,
a Hare Krishna; Imam Farooq, a Muslim mosque leader; Wallace Johnson, a ninetytwo-year-old retired Evangelical minister; Arnold Wolf, a Jewish rabbi; Jeff Paul,
an alumnus of Liberty University; Harvey Lee Green, a convicted murderer, later
executed, who was a convert to Christianity; Dolores Ledbetter, devotee of the I
Ching; Tim Turner, owner of the Coffee Messiah Coffee Bar; Johnny Lay, a Pentecostal preacher; Mother Booker, a 102-year-old founder of a Pentecostal church;
Usilinanda, a Buddhist monk; Dolores Huerta, a union organizer; Yvonne Mickelson,
a Mormon; Dorothy Wells, an Episcopalian and former college English professor;
Hollis Watkins, an activist political organizer; Jean Lyman, a longtime founder
and member of a church; Edna Doyle, a Branch Davidian; Mike Holton, a youth
minister at a Baptist church where seven people were killed by a man who “sprayed
the sanctuary with gunfire” (222); Maeven Eller, a Wiccan; Virkaur Khalsa, a Sikh;
Eddie Tso, a native American; Mary Gooding, a clergywoman and mother of Harvey
Lee Green; and Kenneth Leinwand, a Jewish Army Chaplain; among many others.
And, of course, we meet ever more deeply Levinson himself. In the deepening
view of Levinson we can even forgive him (and his publisher) from the “old car”
romance of his trip when he is flying around the country from time to time.
The strength of All That’s Holy is in the people the reader meets and the
stories that the reader engages through the Levinson lens. If anyone wishes to
understand and to engage the grass-roots phenomenon of spirituality in America—
not in the doctrines or discussions about a particular religious group but rather in
the appropriation of religious beliefs, cultures, and ideas in the lives of people—
this is a very good read.
If the reader is looking for a clear defense of a particular religious view or even
a feel-good ending to the book (outside of the marriage of Levinson to his long-time
girlfriend Liz) where Levinson “solves” his religious and spiritual pilgrimage—the
reader will be disappointed. In many ways Levinson leaves us where we begin with
him, on a spiritual journey of process. Since he sees this as “a life’s work,” the
process is ongoing (7). But the trip was well worth it for all who want to understand
more about the actual religious experience of people in America. Better to light a
candle of understanding than to curse the darkness in misunderstanding.
Any of us, though, who are called by the Gospel of Jesus Christ to an inclusive
and exclusive commitment to Him, will be unsettled at the end of the book. Such an
unsettling experience should not keep the reader from the book. Nor should it keep
any of us from continuing to listen to the stories of people well before we rush to
precipitous conclusions.
Bruce M. Hartung
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DICTIONARY OF CONTEMPORARY RELIGION IN THE WESTERN WORLD.
Edited by Christopher Partridge. Leister, England and Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2002. 390 pages. Cloth. $25.00.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHRISTIANITY: VOLUME 3 (J-O). Edited by Erwin
Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Lukas
Vischer. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. 884 pages. Cloth. $100.00.
Among things continuing to mark the transition into the third millennium is
the production of dictionaries and encyclopedias that highlight issues which dominate conversation as one millennium (and century) ends and another begins.
One striking, if hardly hidden reality of this transitional time is the growing
diversity of cultures and religions in society. To provide guidance and context for
understanding and for dealing positively with that diversity is the purpose of the
dictionary. Actually, “dictionary” may be somewhat of a misnomer, because the
entries are not brief, few-line entries for a subject, but substantive discussions,
averaging just short of four pages each. The structure of the dictionary is quite
helpful, in that it is divided into two parts. The first (some 155 pages) consists of
“necessary background information for a broad understanding of contemporary
religion and culture in the West,” ranging from mysticism to millennialism to
secularization to a wide range of “religion and…” articles (arts, education, environment, media, philosophy, sexuality, youth culture), as well as an article seeking to
define “religion.” By contrast, the second, slightly longer section, presents articles
on “specific religions and spiritualities from the major world faiths to small but
significant alterative forms of spirituality” (4). Those entries run from Aboriginal
to Zoroastrianism; examples of what lies between include Africa, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Japan, Judaism, New Religious Movement, as well as
Primal Societies. Interestingly, entries under “Christianity” are divided as Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic, Protestant, and Roman
Catholic, with additional entries on “alternative forms of Christianity” including
Christian Science, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, Scientology, Seventh-Day Adventism, and the Unification Church.
Strangely, the book’s table of contents lists only the introduction, the two
parts, and the indices. Though the final pages provide an index of articles which
arguably serves the purpose of a table of contents, first-time readers may not think
to look for the table in the back of the book. The book does provide other helps for
the reader, however, including a brief bibliography after each entry, as well as a
five-page index of names and a fifteen-page index of subjects.
Though the introduction places the book clearly within an Evangelical context,
even with an objective to help Christians “relate meaningfully to and engage with”
people of other faiths, the text itself seeks “to avoid value judgments,” resulting in
“a broadly phenomenological reference work” (4) rather than an apologetics or a
polemics. The authors are mostly from Great Britain, which gives the book a generally, but not exclusively British and European flavor. Among the several American authors is one familiar to readers of Concordia Journal, Gene Veith.
Overall, this is a helpful book for appreciating and putting into context the
various religions and spiritualities that we meet at every turn in today’s society,
and would be a fine addition to a church library. It is current, objective, and informed. Where more information is desired, bibliographical pointers are given. For
ways of presenting the Gospel meaningfully in those contexts, other resources may
need to be consulted. Even when those resources are used, this book retains its
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value by keeping the eventual engagement with people of other religions informed
and reliable.
By contrast, the Encyclopedia of Christianity (EC) has a much broader purview. Indeed, it terms itself a “scholarly cartography,” looking “to summarize the
present state of research and reflection and thereby to provide a starting point for
the next stage.” When completed, the EC will consist of five volumes, with a total
of some 1,700 articles (342 in this volume), and looks to be a standard encyclopedic
reference for decades to come.
The predecessor book of the EC is the third edition (1986-1997) of the
Evangelisches Kirchenlexicon: Internationale Theologische Enzyklopädie, and, indeed, the EC represents “its authorized English-language edition.” The translation and English editing come through the very capable and experienced hands of
Geoffrey Bromiley, translator of Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and numerous other works. In addition to translated materials, many new
articles were prepared to supplement and update the original German tome as
well as to adapt the work to an English-speaking readership. Wherever appropriate, the statistical expertise of David Barrett has been included as well, especially
in articles on nations and regions.
Topics in this volume range widely, including Biblical books and persons, historical events, persons (Jerome, Kierkegaard, Marx, Moody, Niemöller), theological
concepts, missiological themes, church bodies and orders, worship and liturgy, world
religions, social and ethical issues, regions and nations, and more. The length of
articles understandably varies considerably, from brief notes (lapsi, kulturkampf,
money, neurosis, Oberammergau) to significant entries (10+ pages each on justification, mysticism, ordination) to major groupings of topics (e.g., Latin American,
liturgy/liturgical, Luther/Lutheran, mission/missionary/missiology, orthodoxy).
Amidst the wide range of authors were names with ties to this institution (Jack
Kingsbury on Matthew, Robert Kolb on Law and Gospel, David Lotz on Martin
Luther, Carl Schalk on Motet).
No encyclopedia will have everything, of course, and certainly not everything to
everyone’s liking. The number of contributors and the variety of theological backgrounds and convictions make that inevitable. The EC, however, is a monumental
project, comprehensive, up-to-date, scholarly, globally aware, richly cross-referenced, user-friendly. It provides significant comment across the expanse of theology, and provides invaluable direction via bibliography to further study. Though the
price tag may intimidate, and may likely confine the EC to libraries (institutional
or professional), it is a worthy investment for the serious theologian or for the
church library, because it will be the kind of resource that one will reach for first
and often, both to explore new aspects of theology and to review old ones.
Henry Rowold
THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: An Interpretation. 2nd and revised
edition. By Luke Timothy Johnson. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1999.
656 pages. Paper with CD-Rom. $39.00.
The first edition of Professor’s Johnson’s monograph is well known and frequently used as evidenced by the thirteen printings. As Dr. Johnson, Professor of
New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology at Emory
University, Atlanta, states in his “Preface to the Revised Edition,” the new edition
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does “not change the basic philosophy or design of the book” [i.e., first edition] but
seeks “to update and improve it” (ix). The updating involves revising the bibliographies, which are extensive and useful, especially since Johnson’s text contains no
footnotes or reference to scholars by name. In addition, Johnson adds two appendices, “New Approaches to the New Testament” and “The Historical Jesus,” respectively, pages 621-625 and 627-632. The text of the second appendix covers only two
and a half pages while its bibliographical note takes slightly more than three
pages. The note, added because of criticism of the first edition, is as powerful as it
is brief. Johnson attacks both the old and new quests for the historical Jesus as
guided more by theology than sound historical methodology. Johnson’s willingness
to take a bold professional stand is clear with a sentence like, “When scholars, all
using the same methods and studying the same materials, derive such a variety of
‘historical’ Jesuses—a revolutionary zealot, a cynic radical, an agrarian reformer, a
gay magician, a charismatic cult reformer, a peasant, a guru of oceanic bliss—then
one may well wonder whether anything more than a sophisticated and elaborate
form of projection has taken place” (628-629). May all God’s people say, “Amen!”
Johnson writes without footnotes or scholarly references because he wants the
contemporary reader “to meet and understand them [NT documents] more than
the scholarly discussions of them” (xi). There is both bane and blessing in his
principle. The blessing is a text that concentrates on the NT material and flows
without the interruption of detailed scholarly debate. The bane is that precise
scholarly debate often can provide insights into NT interpretation. Johnson seeks
to complement his writing style with copious and well-balanced bibliographies
(although almost all are English-language publications) as well as four or more
good study questions at the end of each chapter. The monograph ends with indices
of Scripture passages, ancient authors, modern authors, and subjects. In a comment that may say more about me than the CD-Rom, it provides some fine additional resources but, even with the help of the Concordia’s technical staff, I found it
not to be “user friendly.”
To understand Johnson’s book requires reading his “Introduction” carefully.
With clear reference to the variety of opinions about the origins of Christianity and
the New Testament documents, the author stakes his own book guiding opinion,
i.e., “the writings of the NT emerged from powerful religious experiences that demanded the reinterpretation of a symbolic world” (4). Thus, Johnson argues, “modern readers of the texts must take seriously the documents’ self-presentation and
adjust questions to them, rather than force the writings to the reader’s preconceptions” (ibid.). Since methods often rest on presuppositions, “an interpretive model”
must be developed and used. A proper model asks why the writings exist and why
do they look the way they do. Such a model permits the anthropological, historical,
literary, and religious dimensions of the NT texts to be maintained with integrity
(5). Johnson’s insightful critique and rejection of the historical critical method or
model leads to his proposal and usage of an experience-interpretation model (16).
With this starting principle or model, the first part of the monograph describes
“The Symbolic World of the New Testament” and part two deals with “The Christian Experience.” The two sections describe how the early Christian “generative
experience…makes intelligible both the need to remember Jesus and the shape
those memories took” (149).
The bulk of the monograph [150-592] proceeds in rather traditional manner,
with parts three, four, five, and six analyzing the Synoptic tradition, the Pauline
tradition, other canonical witnesses and the Johannine tradition, respectively.
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This reviewer is pleased that Luke-Acts are considered together as part of the
Synoptic tradition. Johnson proposes that “in Acts, Luke provides the first, authoritative interpretation (emphasis Johnson’s) of his Gospel” (222ff.).
It stands impossible in limited space to provide an adequate review of such a
detailed monograph interpreting the entire NT. As my sainted professor, Dr. Martin Franzmann often suggested when engaged in Biblical studies, “Let us ‘drive
down a shaft’ to get a core sample.” I examine two cores. First, Johnson describes
Romans as both “ample and magisterial.” The purpose is practical: Paul wants
support for his mission work. Romans is “Paul’s letter of recommendation for
Paul” (author’s emphasis) (344). The letter shares Paul’s religious interpretation
of his evangelism work and makes the teaching of justification by faith “the principle for interpreting the relations between Jew and Gentile in history” (ibid.). The
theological argument focuses on the thesis that “the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith.” Examining three possible interpretations, Johnson
chooses as the most likely explanation, “God’s righteousness is revealed out of the
faith of Jesus and leads to the faith of Christians” (author’s emphasis) (347). This,
according to Johnson, is the theme Paul develops throughout Romans. Johnson
rightly rejects the thought that Roman 9-11 is an appendix and describes it rather
as the “climax of the opening argument.” Chapters 12-15 provide a paradigm of life
in the Christian community with chapter 16, an integral part of the original letter,
essentially a commendation of Phoebe.
As the second core sample, Johnson begins his interpretation of the Johannine
tradition by stating that “every symbol is reshaped by the experience of the crucified and raised Messiah and the conviction that he is the living Lord” (521). Rather
than begin by reconstructing the Johannine community or determining which Hellenistic symbols are relevant, Johnson’s thesis is that the Johannine corpus must
be “read as witnesses to the life of God in Jesus” (ibid.). With regard to the Gospel
of John, Johnson considers it “not unreasonable” to identify the Beloved Disciple
as John the son of Zebedee (525). In addition, he thinks that the Gospel “does not
have the look of a composition by committee…. Only to minds obsessively concerned with a certain level of consistency are the seams always indicators of
sources…they appear as literary signals…and the FG does not require reconstruction” (526). In the textual difficulty of John 20:31, Johnson prefers the present
tense because the “Gospel suggests less a document of proselytism than one of
pastoral concern for the converted” (528). Perhaps because of my preference of the
word “mission” rather than “proselytism,” I will continue to engage in and even
celebrate the textual debate. I find the Gospel of John concerned about both believers and unbelievers. Admittedly, I have used John 4:4-42 too often as a missionary’s
paradigm to step away lightly from the position that the aorist might be original.
Four distinctive characteristics of the Gospel make Johnson comfortable writing that in a “deeper” sense (than Augustine and other patristic writers thought),
the Fourth Gospel does perform a “supplementary function for the rest of the gospel tradition: it does this through explicit theological reflection in the form of a story”
(author’s emphasis) (530). The four characteristics are that John is an ecclesiastical Gospel, a sacramental Gospel, its eschatology is predominantly realized and
the presentation of Jesus is more symbolic than literal (ibid.). Johnson divides his
brief comments on the content of the Gospel in the now traditional “Book of Signs”
and “Book of Glory.” His comments on Jesus’ self-identifying terms, “Son of Man,”
“I Am,” and “Son of the Father” are succinct and helpful. Writing this review at the
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Jewish motif in the Passion of Jesus, I appreciated Johnson’s opinion that “the
Johannine treatment of the Jews is not really a form of anti-Jewish sentiment;
Pilate also represents the world that refuses the truth about God and itself ” (551).
I also liked his concluding thoughts. Like a pastor, he notes that the final words of
Jesus in the Gospel provide the transition from the Gospel narrative to the life of
the community. Jesus calls, “You follow me” (John 21:22).
In summary, Johnson’s revised edition offers an introductory interpretation of
the New Testament that shares not only his own opinions but also will stimulate
one’s own search for the meaning of the New Testament documents. His writing is
lucid, although only readers with up to date bibliographical knowledge will perceive the full meaning or even polemic of some comments. He meets his goal of
avoiding being “repellingly technical and appallingly trivial” (xi). For those who
own the first edition, I found the revised edition a significant advance in content,
clarity, format, and bibliography.
Robert Holst
St. Paul, MN
LUTHERANS TODAY: American Lutheran Identity in the 21st Century. By Richard
Cimino, editor. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. 248 pages. Paper. $20.00.
Lutherans Today is a valuable collection of essays divided roughly in half, with
the parts labeled “Changes and Movements” and “Trends and Issues.” The first
part attempts to “map the Lutheran landscape” in more or less historical fashion,
tracing how American Lutherans got where they are today. Here Mark Noll’s leadoff essay is both insightful and provocative. He suggests that the divergent directions of both the ELCA and the LCMS are in important ways more American than
Lutheran. In other words, while the ELCA has tended to look more and more like
other “mildly liberal” protestant denominations, the LCMS has tended to echo
trends in American fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Either way, Noll points
out, “Lutherans seem to fade…into the American background.” When the question
of 21st-century Lutheran identity is viewed in that light, it comes down to the
question of “how much genuine Lutheranism is left in American Lutheranism.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, that fundamental (and urgent) question is not definitively answered through the rest of the essays in the volume.
The rest of the chapters in the “Changes and Movements” section are of varying quality. Of special interest to Missouri Synod readers will be Mary Todd’s take
on “The Curious Case of the Missouri Synod.” To the surprise of no one familiar
with her Authority Vested (also from Eerdmans), Todd finds deep and abiding tensions in the LCMS, not between “conservatives” and “liberals,” but between the
very conservative and the not-quite-so conservative. Her sometimes polemical tone
and indulgence in rather flamboyant rhetoric make Todd’s essay an entertaining
(or vexing!) survey of intra-synodical tensions and controversies. Most of all she
decries what she calls “raw politics,” a thing at which she apparently means us to
be shocked. “The cynic would say, politics is politics, at whatever level and in
whatever context. The realities of raw politics tend to bring even the cynic up short,
however, when found in the church.” The trouble with labeling events and actions
as “politics”—whether the Preus administration’s “urge to purge” the Synod in the
1970s or the charges against David Benke and Gerald Kieschnick in more recent
memory—is that the label does not move us any closer to real understanding of the
208
issues and individuals involved. In fact, when Todd chalks up the recent “Yankee
Stadium” controversy to “raw politics,” she makes it harder rather than easier to
take seriously the theological arguments of either side (although we are not left in
any doubt about her own sympathies).
Several essays give thoughtful analyses of events and trends in the ELCA.
Maria Erling’s essay on “The Lutheran Left” may not be as entertaining as Mary
Todd’s essay, but it is nevertheless an informative look at how left-wing political
causes were championed by a loose network or movement over against church
structures, but have today become largely incorporated in the institutional life of
the ELCA. Mark Granquist traces the roots and influence of opposition within the
ELCA to that church’s ecumenical direction, and especially the Word Alone Network as it has developed in response to the “Called to a Common Mission” (CCM)
agreement with the Episcopal Church. Granquist’s essay is of special interest to
those who seek to understand better the meaning of denominational membership
for 21st century American Lutherans. Scott Thumma and Jim Petersen gather
data and ask questions about megachurches in the ELCA in a critical but noncombative way that should prompt similar serious studies of very large LCMS
churches.
Editor Richard Cimino examines the evangelical catholic movement within
Lutheranism. His piece is journalistic rather than scholarly in tone and style, but
offers a sympathetic overview of a movement that has influenced national church
bodies (e.g., in the shaping of Lutheran Worship and Lutheran Book of Worship)
while at the same time weakening denominational loyalty for some. The typically
American paradox of forced individuality is played out in the case of self-identified
evangelical catholics whose commitment to liturgical renewal, ecclesial community, and ecumenical unity have led them out of Lutheranism altogether, on individual trajectories toward Rome or Constantinople. The story of evangelical
catholics sometimes tends away from the topic “Lutherans today” to a theme of
“ex-Lutherans today (or tomorrow).”
The second part of the book is more topical, with each piece concentrating on a
particular issue at work among Lutherans today. Political scientists Jeff Walz,
Steve Montreal, and Dan Hofrenning explore the ministry of Lutheran clergy in
both its spiritual and social dimension against the Lutheran paradigm of the two
kingdoms. Robert Benne considers the challenge of reclaiming of theological identity at a Lutheran college that had become largely secularized. A second essay by
Mark Granquist should be read in tandem with the one by Alvin Schmidt to consider Lutheran identity in its ethnic and cultural dimensions. Anyone who wonders why Lutheran growth among non-white, non-Anglo Americans has been rather
slow (as documented carefully by Granquist) will find some explanation in the
cultural suspicion and defensiveness expressed in Schmidt’s article. Eugene
Roehlkepartain closes the volume with a judiciously hopeful look at Lutheran
youth.
As evidenced by the recently launched book series in partnership with Lutheran
Quarterly, Wm. B. Eerdmans is steadily establishing a profile as one of the most
important publishers of theology and history by and for Lutherans, filling a void
(perceived or real) left by the denominational publishing houses. Lutherans Today
is the latest contribution to this line, and must be welcomed as a timely contribution to the contemporary discussion of what it means to be Lutheran in America
today. It is worth noting that editor Richard Cimino has managed to assemble his
spectrum of voices without including a single faculty member from either of the two
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largest Lutheran seminaries in North America. Of course, it is hardly fair to criticize this book because it is not some other book. It is just that the selection of
contributors leaves one with the clear sense that there must be a good deal more to
be said about Lutherans today after Lutherans Today. But even so, what has been
said in this volume is a very good place to start.
William W. Schumacher
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ST LOUIS: R. Kolb “The Hammer of God & its Historical
Contexts”, Schulz “Romans, Nygren, and Missions”,
Henrickson “The Exegesis of Bo Giertz and Anton Fridrichsen”,
E. Andrae “The Hammer of God: Law and Gospel Enfleshed”;
FT WAYNE: Veith “Fiction as an Instrument for the Gospel:
Bo Giertz as Novelist”, H. Andrae “Giertz as Pastor, Bishop,
and Churchman”, Pless “The Hammer of God as a Book of
Catechesis and Prayer”, Masaki “The Swedish Communion
Liturgy”
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210
Books Received
Bavinck, Herman. REFORMED DOGMATICS: God and Creation, Vol. 2. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004. 697 pages. Cloth. $49.99.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Edited and translated by Ilse Tödt, et al. ETHICS: Dietrich
Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 6. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 593 pages. Cloth. $55.00.
Brown, Christopher Boyd. SINGING THE GOSPEL: Lutheran Hymns and the
Success of the Reformation. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press,
2005. 298 pages. Cloth. $39.95.
Callahan, Allen Dwight. A LOVE SUPREME: A History of the Johannine Tradition. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 128 pages. Paper. $20.00.
Carruthers, Iva E., Frederick D. Hayness III, and Jeremiah A Wright, Jr., eds.
BLOW THE TRUMPET IN ZION: Global Vision and Action for the 21st Century Black Church. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 180 pages. Paper. $15.00.
Carson, D. A., Peter T. O’Brien, Mark A. Seifrid, eds. JUSTIFICATION AND VARIEGATED NOMISM: A Fresh Appraisal of Paul and Second Temple Judaism.
Vol. 2, The Paradoxes of Paul. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004. 545
pages. Paper. $49.99.
Drane, John. INTRODUCING THE BIBLE with CD-ROM. Minneapolis: Fortress,
2005. 703 pages. Paper. $49.00.
England, John C. et al., eds. ASIAN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIES: A Research
Guide to Authors, Movements, Sources. 3-volume set. Maryknoll: Orbis Books,
2002-2004. 2121 pages. Cloth. $100.00.
Giertz, Bo THE HAMMER OF GOD. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973. 335 pages.
Paper. $17.99.
Gregersen, Niels Henrik, Bo Hom, Ted Peters, and Peter Widmann, eds. THE
GIFT OF GRACE: The Future of Lutheran Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress,
2005. 378 pages. Paper. $30.00.
Harris, Murray J. THE NEW INTERNATIONAL GREEK TESTAMENT COMMENTARY: The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005. 1072 pages. Cloth. $75.00.
Hartin, Patrick J. SACRA PAGINA JAMES. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2003.
319 pages. Cloth. $39.95.
Holt, Bradley P. THIRSTY FOR GOD: A Brief History of Christian Spirituality.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 226 pages. Paper. $18.00.
Jones, Serene and Paul Lakeland, eds. CONSTRUCTIVE THEOLOGY: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 309
pages. Paper and CD. $30.00.
Kavanagh, Preston. SECRETS OF THE JEWISH EXILE: The Bible’s Codes, Messiah, and Suffering Servant. Tarentum: Word Association Publisher, 2005.
454 pages. Paper. $24.95.
Kimball, Dan. EMERGING WORSHIP: Creating Worship Gatherings for New
Generations. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004. 238 pages. Paper. $14.99.
Kimball, Dan. THE EMERGING CHURCH: Vintage Christianity for New Generations. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003. 266 pages. Paper. $16.99.
Köstenberger, Andreas J. and David W. Jones. GOD, MARRIAGE, AND FAMILY:
Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004. 448
pages. Paper. $15.99.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2005
211
Loder, Ted. GUERRILLAS OF GRACE: Prayers for the Battle. Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 2005. 142 pages. Paper. $14.99.
Lull, Timothy F. MARTIN LUTHER’S BASIC THEOLOGICAL WRTINGS, Second Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 491 pages. Paper and CD-ROM.
$39.00.
MacQuarrie, John. TWO WORLDS ARE OURS: An Introduction to Christian Mysticism. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 287 pages. Paper. $20.00.
Mannermaa, Tuomo. CHRIST PRESENT IN FAITH: Luther’s View of Justification. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 136 pages. Paper. $18.00.
McGrath, Alister CREATION. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. 86 pages. Cloth. $15.00.
Menken, M. J. J. MATTHEW’S BIBLE: The Old Testament Text of the Evangelist.
Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2004. 336 pages. Paper. 60 euro.
Noel, James A. and Matthew V. Johnson, eds. THE PASSION OF THE LORD:
African American Reflections. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 190 pages. Paper.
$6.00.
Pless, John T. HANDLING THE WORD OF TRUTH: Law and Gospel in the Church
Today. St. Louis: Concordia, 2004. 128 pages. Paper. $12.99.
Richard, Ronald W. BECOMING A HEALTHIER PASTOR: Family Systems Theory
and the Pastor’s Own Family. Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 149 pages. Paper. $16.00.
Rossing, Barbara R., John J. Pilch, Dierdre J. Good, and Robert Kysar. NEW PROCLAMATION: The Essential Pastoral Companion for Preaching. Year A, 2005
Easter through Pentecost. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 295 pages. Paper.
$25.00.
Stiller, Brian C. PREACHING PARABLES TO POSTMODERNS. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2005. 200 pages. Paper. $17.00.
Tomson, Peter J. PRESUMED GUILTY: How the Jews Were Blamed for the Death
of Jesus. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 146 pages. Paper. $15.00.
Wallace, Mark I. FINDING GOD IN THE SINGING RIVER: Christianity, Spirit,
Nature. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 183 pages. Paper. $20.00.
Zimmermann, Jens. RECOVERING THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS: An
Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004. 345 pages. Cloth. $32.99.
212