What Does the Word "Christian" Mean?

Nowhere in the four canonical gospels are the disciples of Jesus called “Christians.” As “disciples” they were learning the Jesus-way of life and thought. As “apostles” they were sent out to practice the Jesus-way of life and thought in relation to others. But they were not called “Christians” by Jesus, or by anyone else, and certainly not by themselves.

Acts 11:26 - By that time the groups of believers in Jesus, scattered throughout the Mediterranean world, were talking about him as “the Anointed” (Gk. Christos), the one ordained of God to save the world. Outsiders coined the adjective, christianoi, probably with derogatory undertones, to match the outspoken confession of the followers of Jesus. The writer of Acts affirms (1) that the term was used first at Antioch, and implies (2) that the term was applied to the disciples by persons other than themselves. 

Acts 26:28 - “Christian” clearly comes from the mouth of an outsider, an accuser with political power in Judea. His question is more a sarcastic taunt than a sincere inquiry. Notice that Paul’s reply does not repeat the name “Christian” from Agrippa’s mouth. Paul, the ridiculed and accused believer in Jesus, is in chains. At the time of writing Acts, “Christian” was not a title attached to people in polite society, people like Agrippa. It was more a term of shame than honor. In Paul’s case in the narrative of Acts, the shame of chains.

1 Pet 4:16 - when people were labeled “Christian” for believing in Jesus as the Anointed of God in the socio-political context of First Peter, the label was not a badge of honor, but of disgrace. There was no conventional Christos to save believers from their suffering. Yet they continued to confess Jesus as the Messiah. Their accusers thus employed the derisive “Christian” label to degrade and persecute them. But the suffering believers in the context of First Peter are encouraged to bear the name, ironically, to glorify God.

            - excerpt from V. George Shillington, Jesus and Paul Before Christianity: Their World and Work in Retrospect, 2011

When God Was Obvious

Why doesn’t God intervene more? Why doesn’t he directly feed the hungry, heal all the sick and stop all wars? If God really exists, at the very least why doesn’t he make himself more obvious? People who ask such questions often assume that if God ever did spectacularly reveal himself, all doubts would vanish. Everyone would line up to believe in him.
 
Astonishing Reactions
 
Exodus tells of a time when God made himself perfectly obvious. The plagues on Egypt revealed his mighty power. An enormous miracle at the Red Sea provided sensational deliverance. A recurring miracle supplied food for the Israelites every morning. And, if questions about God’s existence arose, doubters needed only to look to the ever-present glory cloud or pillar of fire. It must have been hard to be an atheist in those days.
Yet every instance of God’s faithfulness seemed to summon up astonishing human unfaithfulness. The same Israelites who had watched God crush a pharaoh quaked at the first sign of Egyptian chariots. Three days after a miraculous escape across the Red Sea they were grumbling to Moses and God about water supplies.
 
A month or so later, when hunger pangs began to gnaw at them, they bitterly complained, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” (Exodus 16:3). God responded with a provision of manna (that would continue for 40 years) and quail, but the Israelites were soon grousing about the water supplies again.
 
The Great Rebellion
 
Exodus 32 shows the Israelites at their worst. People who had eaten manna for breakfast, who had just solemnly agreed to keep every word of the covenant, who were at that moment standing beside a mountain stormy with the Lord’s presence—those very people proceeded to melt down their gold jewelry and flagrantly flout the first commandment. “Stiff-necked,” God called the Israelites as he burned in anger against them. Only Moses’ eloquent appeal saved their lives.
 
The history of the Israelites should nail a coffin lid on the notion that impressive displays of God’s power will guarantee faith (Jesus would later say, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead,” [Luke 16:31].) People who had everyday proof of God demonstrated only one thing: the monotonous consistency of human nature.
 
The offenders would pay for their acts by wandering 40 years in a desolate wilderness while a new, untainted generation grew up to replace them. But a pattern was beginning to emerge: If the Israelites failed God in the shadow of Mount Sinai, how would they possibly withstand the seduction of new cultures in the promised land? The next generation, too, would fail God, as would all their descendants. The old covenant, as Paul would so convincingly argue in the book of Galatians, succeeded mainly by proving undeniably the need for a new one.
Life Questions
 

- from NIV Student Bible

《诗篇》

《诗篇》流露的情感是这么的多姿多彩，它的格式自然也变化多端，各有其心境与风味。

其中有宣召诗，呼召听众同来赞美上帝，邀请我们“向耶和华歌唱”。这种诗歌常用于敬拜前的宣召。诗的内容告诉我们为何要赞美上帝：赞美上帝的创造，上帝在历史上大能的作为，上帝赐给敬拜者的好处。这种诗歌通常以欢呼结束，在上帝面前有着不可言喻的喜乐。

第二种是感恩诗。开始也是赞美，然后回顾过去一段悲痛之情(受伤的情感或已痊愈，或正在医治中)。这些诗有属个人的，也有整体的。结语通常是“耶和华垂听了我”、“将我从祸坑中救出来”，或其他类似的话。诗末所表达的是一种胜过痛苦忧伤的喜乐。

第三种是向上帝求救的哀歌，为数不少。诗人一开始就呼求上帝，将惶恐不安的问题一股脑儿地向上帝倾诉。然后他向上帝恳求具体的帮助，甚至还列出为何上帝应介入的原因。在确信上帝会垂听并应允后，诗人以许愿结束祷告；这许愿大部分是保证要更加感谢赞美上帝，更加热切地为他活。这类诗歌有些是私人性的(呼求疾病得治、沉冤得雪)，有些是整体性的(求上帝保守国家免受敌人侵害或战败)。后者结束时，通常会再次申明上帝必如往常一样会保护他的百姓。总的来说，哀歌或乞求的诗歌约占《诗篇》三分之一以上。

第四种是信心的凯歌，虽然强敌当前，困难重重，似乎上帝不再眷顾，但敬拜者仍然信心坚固，他安息于上帝里面，全然信靠。这些诗歌虽有哀叹，但诗人内心的平安却使他胜过眼前的困境。

第五种是记念诗，缅怀上帝在过去(特别是出埃及时)所施行的大能。回顾建国之时所蒙的恩，诗人很自然地涌出赞美。这些诗歌记满了上帝大能的作为，并邀听者：要向他唱诗歌颂，谈论他一切奇妙的作为。(诗105:2) 叙述上帝的作为就是赞美他，因为这些诗具体说明上帝是怎样恩待他的百姓。《诗篇》136篇，每一节后面都有句赞美的话：“他的慈爱永远长存。”

第六种是朝圣诗，是以色列人庆祝特定宗教节日时所咏唱的诗歌。上帝吩咐摩西，以色列男人每年必须上圣殿三次：逾越节、五旬节、住棚节，这三次都是为欢庆上帝以往的美善和赐福。朝圣旅程的高潮之一就是惊见圣城的那一刻：“万军之耶和华啊，你的居所何等可爱！”(诗84:1)不论在旅途上或在圣城内，朝圣者都在唱赞美感恩的歌。

第七种是智慧诗，指点听者分辨愚昧邪恶与智慧敬虔之路。《诗篇》第1篇就开宗明义教导我们，要明智地活在上帝面前的重要功课：不从恶人的计谋，不站罪人的道路，不坐亵慢人的座位这人便为有福。

- 侯士庭，《转化生命的友谊》, 遨游旧约（下）

Praying Hands

阿尔布雷特·丢勒的名画《祷告的手》，其背后蕴含着两个好朋友的故事。

据说1490年有两位新进的艺术家，他们是好朋友，其中一位是丢勒，另一位是耐斯坦。当时两人的生活相当穷困，为了成为艺术家，必须充分利用时间干活维生。然而工作的辛苦和忙碌，影响了他们的艺术训练。

面对困境的无奈，他俩抽签决定一人去谋生赚钱，支持另一人到艺术学校进修。丢勒中签，得以随名师习艺，耐斯坦只好更加辛苦地挑起养活两人的担子。

日后丢勒达成梦想，成为相当有名气的艺术家，这时他已有能力支持耐斯坦去进修学画。然而，令丢勒大为震惊的是，他发现耐斯坦在吃重的工作下已使双手扭曲变形。耐斯坦不可能成为艺术家了，他为了信守和朋友之间的约定，牺牲了自己的艺术前途。

有一天，丢勒看见耐斯坦合起双手，屈膝跪下祷告，扭曲的双手象征着爱的祭献给上帝，丢勒将眼前所看到那象征祷告意义的一幕，立刻画成素描。自此以后，那幅象征代祷意义的杰作，不断提醒我们：祷告与友谊彼此相属。然而，更美的是，听我们祷告的那位，他的双手也曾为我们被刺穿。

——侯士庭，《转化生命的友谊》，18-19。

To believe in Jesus

 Note on “believing” in the Fourth Gospel The noun “belief” (πίστις) and the verb “believe” (πιστεύω) are each used (by a strange coincidence) 243 times in the NT. Neither word occurs in 2 John or 3 John, while Col, Phlm, 2 Pet and Rev use only the noun. These two terms represent the appropriate human relationship to God and Christ, and they point to the essence of Christianity and its most distinctive feature in comparison with Greek and Jewish thought.
 
John never uses πίστις in the Four Gospel, although it is found once in 1 John (5: 4) and four times in Revelation (2: 13, 19; 13: 10; 14: 12). His preference for πιστεύω over πίστις illustrates his preference for verbs over nouns. The verb “believe” (πιστεύω) is very common in the Four Gospel (98 uses), so it is not surprising this Gospel has been called “the Gospel of Belief.” Sometimes the verb refers to facts (“ believe that,” “be convinced that/ of,” 9: 18; 11: 26b; 16: 27; 20: 31a) and sometimes things (4: 50), but often it is a person who is believed (πιστεύω with dative) where “believe” means “give intellectual credence to (the testimony of)” (4: 21; 6: 30) or “entrust oneself to” (5: 24, 38; 8: 31).
 
But John has a characteristic idiom, “believe in” (πιστεύω with the prep. εἰς; only 9 of the 45 NT uses are outside the Four Gospel and 1 John), used only of a divine object of faith (surprisingly, of God only in 12: 44c; 14: 1a, but usually of Christ), never of a human object of faith. It is in Christ that God meets the individual in salvation so there are not two competing objects of human faith. 
 
This distinctive prepositional phrase “believe in” depicts the total committal of one’s total self to the person of Christ as Messiah and Lord, something more than an intellectual acceptance of the message of the gospel and a recognition of the truth about Christ, although these aspects are involved. For John, belief involves not only recognition and acceptance of the truth but also adherence and allegiance to Jesus as the Truth (14: 6).

 To believe in Jesus is
to come to him (5: 40; 6: 35, 37, 44– 45, 65; 7: 37),
to receive him (1: 12),
to drink the water he offers (4: 13– 14),
to follow him (8: 12), 
to love him (14: 5, 21, 23; 16: 27).
 

---  Murray J. Harris, John, B&H Publishing.

What is the Gospel?

We need a more biblical understanding of the gospel. I suspect if I were to ask you what the gospel is, a number of you would say it's forgiveness of sins. Or, if you're in the divinity school, you'd say justification by faith alone. Thank God, forgiveness of sins is one very important part of the gospel. I never want to stand before our holy God on any basis other than the fact that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. But if the gospel is no more than forgiveness of sins, then you and I can accept Jesus Christ, get our one-way ticket to heaven, and go on being exactly the same racist, environmentally unconcerned, unjust people we've always been.
 
Jesus tells us that the gospel is more than that. Have you ever gone through the Gospels and noticed how Jesus defines the gospel, the good news? Mark 1:14-15 says, and it's a summary of Jesus' whole preaching:
 
After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying [in other words, here's the definition of the gospel], "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."
 
Virtually every time Jesus defines the gospel, he defines it as the good news of the kingdom. What on earth does he mean?
 
Remember what the prophets had said? They looked ahead to a time in the future, beyond the injustice and disobedience of the people of Israel, and they said, "Some time in the future, the Messiah will come. The messianic order will break in, and God will bring a new right relationship with himself. Our sins will be forgiven and the law will be written on our hearts, and there will be a new right relationship with neighbors. There will be transformation vertically and horizontally, and there will be shalom, justice, and wholeness in society."
 
Then, Jesus comes along and claims to be the Messiah, and says that the messianic kingdom the prophets had predicted was breaking into the present, in his own person and word. He meant the two things the prophets had talked about. He meant a vertical thing. He meant that we get into his kingdom not by good works, not by any kind of works righteousness. We get into his kingdom by sheer grace, because God loves even sinners, and eagerly wants them to change.
 
But there's more to this good news of the kingdom than that, because Jesus goes on to call a circle of disciples, a new community. He wasn't an isolated, individualistic prophet. He formed a new society, and this new society began to live differently, to live his kingdom ways. They began to challenge society at all the points that society was wrong, and they cared about the whole person, not just the soul.
 
So what is the gospel then? It's not just forgiveness of sins, although thank God, it includes that. I am still a sinner, and I want to trust in the cross, but it's more than that. It's the fantastic news that the messianic kingdom has broken into history. Now, in the power of the Holy Spirit, you and I can begin to live differently. And in that new community, all of the brokenness, the social, the economic, the ethnic and the emotional brokenness of this old world is being overcome in Jesus' new community. Matthew 9:35 summarizes this: "Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness."
 
Teaching, preaching, and healing. That's what Jesus was about. That's what I'm pleading for. He cared about the whole person. Jesus never thought that all you needed was a good life here on earth, and then everything would be fine. In fact, he said that it's better to lose the whole world than lose your relationship with God and Christ. But he never drew the conclusion that we Christians sometimes do. Sometimes Christians today say, "Well, that means that we should spend most of our time on evangelism, and if we've got a little bit of time left over we can care about the poor, and so on." Jesus never drew that conclusion.
 

--- Ronald J. Sider, “The Whole Gospel for The Whole Person” 

in A Place for Truth: Leading Thinkers Explore Life's Hardest Questions, 2010.

 

Have You No Shame (2)

The vocabulary for honor and shame is difficult for Westerners to keep straight, not least because though we still use the terms honor and shame, we use them differently.
 
First, shame is not negative in honor/shame cultures; shaming is. Technically, in these cultures, shame is a good thing: it indicates that you and your community know the proper way to behave. You have a sense of shame; if you didn’t, you would have no shame. You would be shameless. This is different from being shamed. When an older American asks, “Have you no shame?” they mean, “Don’t you know the proper thing to do?” When one is censured for not having a sense of shame, for being shameless, then one is shamed.
 
We know that all this can be confusing. But remember that languages tend not to have words for ideas that are not considered important. Since honor/shame isn’t important in English, we are lacking in the words we need. Make no mistake, though: shame is important. It was why the Jewish officials killed Jesus. They didn’t kill him for going around preaching “love one another” or for healing the sick or for performing miracles. They killed him because he had taken their honor—a limited resource.
 
Actually, the Spirit uses both inner conviction (a sense of guilt) and external conviction (a sense of shame). While the ancient world and most of the non-Western world contain honor/shame cultures and the West is made up of innocence/guilt cultures, God can work effectively in both.

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

Have You No Shame (1)

In an innocence/guilt culture (which includes most Western societies), the laws of society, the rules of the church, local mores and the code of the home are all internalized in the person. The goal is that when a person breaks one of these, her or his conscience will be pricked. In fact, it is hoped that the conscience will discourage the person from breaking the rule in the first place. The battle is fought on the inside.
 
In an honor/shame society, such as that of the Bible and much of the non-Western world today, the driving force is to not bring shame upon yourself, your family, your church, your village, your tribe or even your faith. The determining force is the expectations of your significant others (primarily your family). Their expectations don’t override morals or right/wrong; they actually are the ethical standards. In these cultures, you are shamed when you disappoint those whose expectations matter. “You did wrong”—not by breaking a law and having inner guilt but by failing to meet the expectations of your community. For our discussion here, the point to notice is that the verdict comes not from the inner conscience of the perpetrator but from the external response of his or her group. One’s actions are good or bad depending upon how the community interprets them.
 
As is clear from all this, non-Western and Western cultures have a difficult time understanding each other. Western readers of this book likely think the non-Western view of honor is strange and convoluted. Our non-Western friends find us equally confusing. Westerners like to think of ourselves as holding to the moral high ground that is found within ourselves; non-Westerners often view us as insensitive.

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

  

The Corresponding Word for Makarios (2)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (niv). The niv represents the traditional translation of this beatitude. “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs” (nlt). The goal of the New Living Translation is to render the original languages in good, contemporary English. The translators appear to recognize that English readers want a clear subject and a verb in the active voice, so they supply a subject (God) and make the passive Greek verb active.
 
“The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (Holman Christian Standard Bible). In contrast to the nlt, this translation preserves the passive voice of the original Greek. This is a less satisfying English sentence but more faithful to the original Greek.
 
“Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous—with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the poor in spirit (the humble, who rate themselves insignificant), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!” (Amplified Bible). It would probably be difficult to read long passages from the Amplified Bible. But the value of this translation is that it demonstrates how it sometimes takes many words in one language to approximate or capture the essence of a single word in another language.
“Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (ceb). The Common English Bible abandons the traditional verb blessed altogether. This gives the verse a different feel.
 
When you read a passage in different translations, take a few moments to consider the implications of the different renderings. Does the meaning or application of the verse change depending on the translation? Sometimes. This exercise can help you become sensitive to what goes without being said behind the words we use.
 

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

 

The Corresponding Word for Makarios (1)

Sociologists suggest that people have a difficult time describing or even identifying something that they don’t have the vocabulary for. Some even suggest that one can have a hard time experiencing something for which one has no corresponding word.
 
The Greeks had a word for the feeling one has when one is happy: makarios. It is a feeling of contentment, when one knows one’s place in the world and is satisfied with that place. If your life has been fortunate, you should feel makarios. We use idioms in English to try to approximate this experience. We’ll say, “My life has really come together,” or “I’m in a happy place,” or “Life has been good to me.” We are not really discussing the details of our life; we are trying to describe a feeling we have. Happy sounds trite, so we avoid it. Actually, we are makarios.
 
In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you are a peacemaker, then you are makarios. Since English doesn’t have a word for this feeling, translators have struggled to find one. What do you call it when you feel happy, content, balanced, harmonious and fortunate? Well, translators have concluded, you are blessed. Thus our English translations say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). Unfortunately, this introduces another problem. The English language prefers clear subjects for its verbs. So the missing puzzle piece in the Beatitudes is, How is one blessed? What goes without saying in our culture is that God blesses people. Consequently, we often interpret this verse to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “If you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English. Alas, here is the bigger problem: maybe the reason we North Americans struggle to find makarios in our personal lives is because we don’t have a word in our native language to denote it.
 
But English cries out for a subject. Because English “needs” a subject, we tend to provide one. This is why, as we pointed out above, “Blessed are the peacemakers” turns in our minds to “God blesses the peacemakers.” We don’t make this adjustment on purpose. But it goes to show how thoroughly our English language (even grammar, which we might not be able to explain) affects the way we think.
 

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

 
 

Flower

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it 
droop and drop into the dust. 

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of 
pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am 
aware, and the time of offering go by. 

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower 
in thy service and pluck it while there is time. 

- by Rabindranath Tagore

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. 
There is none to count thy minutes. 

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. 
Thou knowest how to wait. 

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. 

We have no time to lose, 
and having no time we must scramble for a chance. 
We are too poor to be late. 

And thus it is that time goes by 
while I give it to every querulous man who claims it, 
and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last. 

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut; 
but I find that yet there is time. 

- by Rabindranath Tagore

Money Madness is About Emotion

After all, money is nothing more nor less than a medium of exchange—without any intrinsic value itself. Or so the economists tell us. We carry money in our pockets and transact with it passively, automatically: Buy the muffin, pay the toll, slide the debit or credit card across the counter.

Money is neutral—a facilitator. So why is there an epidemic of money madness—and how does the contagion work?

The simple answer is that money madness isn't really about money at all. It's about emotion. It's about intensely subjective feelings that come out of a place very deep within us and go right past the conscious mind as they drive us to act in certain ways. As I learned through years of analyzing and working through my own and my clients’ money madness, it starts in childhood, yet it has the power to affect us all our adult lives.

- Spencer Sherman, The Cure for Money Madness

Darkness v.s. Glory

Psalm 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!

Exodus 15:11“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

Your Word says that before the Lord Jesus comes, the world will become darker and darker—as it is now. Father, help me to be perfect before You. Keep me away from the entanglements of sins and ignite Your light within me. Remove the darkness inside me as I open my heart to You.   Shine Your truth upon me so I can confess my sins and repent wholeheartedly. Lord, cleanse me of all unrighteousness so that my prayers are counted before You.

Lord, thank You for paying the price for my Sin on the cross. Thank You that I could approach Your throne full of confidence, to receive mercy and grace. I praise You, lifting up Your Holy Name full of joy!  All glory be unto You!  In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

Trials, Tests, Temptations

In order to obtain the fruit of patience we must go through periods of testing and trials. They are what make us strong and help us to learn patience. The trials are like a training ground. You don’t just get patience. You must earn it through experience and endurance. Not only do we have to go through the trials, but we must be calm and have a cheerful enduring attitude--as if the trial itself wasn’t enough. I

In this world we will have trials. There is no way out of it. It is part of life. However, even though we must go through these trials, our Wonderful and Mighty God threw in a benefit. The benefit is that when we go through these trials calmly, with a good attitude, and stand strong in our faith, we will become fully developed and lack nothing.

The only way to really overcome temptation is to renew your mind. The only way you can renew your mind is to study the Word. Every sin that we commit started in our mind. When we allow our minds to go astray we are opening the door to sin and death. This does not have to happen. God has given us power over sin. God has shown us through His Word how to overcome sin and death. 

However, it is our choice. We can choose to be overcome by temptations or we can choose to overcome temptation. Remember, we must submit our thought life to Him and stop the thought before it ever becomes a manifestation. 

- Lara Velez. Proverbs of the New Testament.

The Victim Becomes the Victor

    The cross is the seal on a particular kind of life: a life which has turned away from violence, manipulation, domination; a life in which the Son of Man is there not to be served but to serve; a life in which the very act of God is made flesh and blood in a vulnerable human being. Already in the life of Jesus we see that the quality and character of this life and this love are such that death is too small for it. 

    That is why, when we turn to the last book of the Bible, to the Revelation of John, we find there many songs of victory, which are addressed to or which name God and ‘the Lamb’ together. God and the sacrificial victim, they are the ones to whom praise and worship is due because they, together, have won the victory. The Lamb who was slaughtered is worthy to receive praise. The Lamb has conquered. 

    And in a set of very paradoxical and challenging images, the writer of Revelation underlines the oddity of what he’s talking about. The Lamb, the helpless, woolly creature trussed and slaughtered on the butcher’s slab, the Lamb becomes the triumphant conqueror. It is the Lamb who releases the enemy’s prisoners, the Lamb who has led the ultimate successful raid into enemy territory and brought back the prisoners of death and evil. 

    In Revelation 5:9, for example, the Lamb has won, has earned a cosmic triumph. Again in 5:13, the Lamb has conquered and has set us free. The victim has become the victor.

- Rowan Williams, God with Us.

Lukewarm Water

Paul’s colleague Epaphras worked in Colossae, as well as in Laodicea and Hierapolis (Col 4:13). It was a less notable city than Laodicea, but it had one thing Laodicea didn’t: a cold, freshwater spring. In fact, it was water—or the lack thereof—that set Laodicea apart. Unlike its neighbors, Laodicea had no springs at all. It had to import its water via aqueduct from elsewhere: hot mineral water from Hierapolis or fresh cold water from Colossae. The trouble was, by the time the water from either city made it to Laodicea, it had lost the qualities that made it remarkable. The hot water was no longer hot; the cold water was no longer cold. The Laodiceans were left with all the lukewarm water they could drink. Surely they wished their water was one or the other—either hot or cold. There isn’t much use for lukewarm water. I suspect that the meaning of the Lord’s warning was clear to the Laodiceans. He wished his people were hot (like the salubrious waters of Hierapolis) or cold (like the refreshing waters of Colossae). Instead, their discipleship was unremarkable.
 
    The point of this story is that where we stand influences how we read—and ultimately apply—the Bible. In the revivalist traditions of North American Christianity, the text reads as a warning against nominal Christian commitment. Eugene Peterson explains what this interpretation demanded of the religious leaders of his youth (and mine): “High on every pastor’s agenda was keeping people ‘on fire’ for Jesus. Worship in general and the sermon in particular were bellows for blowing the smoldering embers into a blaze.” “Hot” (committed) was best, but “cold” (lost) was preferable to “lukewarm” (nominal), because it was honest!
 
    From the marble streets of Laodicea, hot and cold are equally acceptable. In both places and times, the meaning may seem plain, even though the interpretations are plainly different. In whatever place and whatever age people read the Bible, we instinctively draw from our own cultural context to make sense of what we’re reading.

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

Ethnic Division in the Bible

Paul begins his first letter to the Corinthians with a plea for unity. “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, …” he writes, “that all of you agree with one another … and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought” (1 Cor 1:10). We might ask ourselves what caused the divisions in Corinth. All we know is what Paul tells us: “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ’ ” (1 Cor 1:12). What likely goes without being said for us is that the church was divided either theologically or over devotion to different personalities. These are two common causes of church divisions in the West. We tend to fall out along doctrinal lines or because we are drawn to one charismatic pastor over another.
 
    It is possible, though, that the divisions among the churches in Corinth were not theological. We may be failing to note ethnic markers that Paul sprinkled all over the text. Apollos was noted as an Alexandrian (Egyptian) Jew (Acts 18:24). They had their own reputation. Paul notes that Peter is called by his Aramaic name, Cephas, suggesting the group that followed him spoke Aramaic and were thus Palestinian Jews. Paul’s church had Diaspora Jews but also many ethnic Corinthians, who were quite proud of their status as residents of a Roman colony and who enjoyed using Latin. This may explain why Paul doesn’t address any theological differences. There weren’t any. The problem was ethnic division: Aramaic-speaking Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, Romans and Alexandrians.
 

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

Prioritizes Healthy Relationships

We sometimes exchange our relationship with the living God for adherence to static rules. This tendency shows up in our theological language. Many evangelicals describe our standing before God in terms of forensic justification. While there is nothing wrong with the doctrine, it casts our connection to God in terms of rules, not relationship. But as Preben Vang argues, grace and faith are relationship markers and not forensic decrees. Paul used these terms to define a relationship, not to explain a contract or a court ruling. Likewise, holiness is a relational and not a forensic term.
 
Our tendency to emphasize rules over relationship and correctness over community means that we are often willing to sacrifice relationships on the altar of rules. Exegetes may discuss which party in Corinth was “right.” Paul doesn’t seem to address their theology. He is more concerned with the status of their relationship. This raises an important question: does relationship ever trump theology? Such a question could convene a heresy trial in many denominations. But Jesus prayed that his followers would “be one” (Jn 17:11). Does this mean that we must somehow “correct” the theology of all other believers so that, as a result, we can “be one”? Paul in Acts 21 does not take the opportunity to correct James’s theology. Most of us awould not have been able to let it slide. This may be an indication that Paul prioritizes healthy relationship over doctrinal precision (Rom 12:18).
 
We are called to “live by the Spirit” (Gal 5:25). Even after two thousand years, we are still uncomfortable with Paul’s law-free gospel. It still seems to us that the best way to avoid sin is by knowing and keeping the rules, even though Paul asserts, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal 5:16). It is an uncertain path, but it leads to abundant life. To do this, we have to learn to identify when the Bible is prioritizing relationship instead of rules or laws.
 
One way to do this is to pay attention to the motivation or rationale a biblical writer offers for a commandment. For example, the Ten Commandments, as they are recorded in Exodus 20, begin with this claim: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt” (Ex 20:2). This reminder, which precedes the first command, puts the rules (commandments) that follow in relationship terms. There is an implied “therefore” between “I am the God who brought you out of Egypt” and “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3).
 

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

  

 

Relationships as Rules

In the West, rules must apply to everyone, and they must apply all the time. In the ancient world, rules did not seem to require such universal compliance. God announces about Ephraim: “Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them” (Hos 9:15). Later he says, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” (Hos 11:8). God’s judgment was influenced by his relationship with sinners (Hos 11:9–10). Exodus 12:40–49 explains that all males must be circumcised to eat Passover. Yet in Joshua 5:5–7, it is obvious the sons born during the wanderings had not been. If rules apply except when they don’t, then as Westerners perhaps we need more wisdom in discerning when they don’t. (We need help seeing the kairos for applying the rules; perhaps there really is a season for everything under the sun.)
 
Likewise, in the ancient world of the Bible (and in many non-Western cultures), rules did not necessarily apply to 100 percent of the people. The Israelites were clearly instructed that upon entering the Promised Land, every Israelite was to get an inheritance (land) and no Canaanites were (Josh 1). Yet the very next story is about a Canaanite who was given an inheritance, Rahab (Josh 2; 6). The story after that tells of the Israelite Achan, who was cut from his inheritance (Josh 7). The stories are woven together around the theme of sacrifices to the Lord. Everything captured was to be devoted (sacrificed) to the Lord. In Jericho, Rahab and her family were exceptions to the sacrifice. Because Achan kept some of the sacrificed things (gold) from Ai, he and his family were exceptions and were added to the sacrifice. By the way, did you notice the collectivist viewpoint? The deeds of Rahab were credited to her entire family. Likewise, the deeds of Achan were applied to his entire family. Before you begin to rail against the injustice of such group judgments, consider that we “have been crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20): that is, the righteous work of Jesus is credited to his followers.
 

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

Dealing with Hidden Sin

Sin is a reality with which we all must live. No one can escape the struggles we have with rebelling against God’s call on our lives (cf. Romans 3:10, 23). However, it is possible to choose whether one will vigorously fight the battle that wages against the flesh or not. The battle can be overwhelming, but it does not have to result in demoralizing defeat.
 
One, among many, devastating strategies of Satan, which is fed by our own shame, is to fight, or rather retreat, in silence. From the very beginning, sin resulted in hiding and shame as Adam and Eve hid from one another by covering themselves (cf. Genesis 3:7) and from the presence of the Lord in the garden by crouching among the trees (cf. Genesis 3:8). A similar type of “hiding” is also evidenced in the refusal to own the sin when confronted. What do Adam and Eve do when confronted? They blame-shift in order to direct the attention of the Lord away from self. They do not want to be “seen” in their sin so they justify it. The belief seems to be that, if the eyes of the Lord shift to the other and away from themselves, they can remain hidden. In either case the sin is avoided, hidden away, and not dealt with in an honest manner. Our natural tendency is to not deal with sin. Out of sight... out of mind... or is it?
 
The beauty of the cross is that we are clearly judged to be “sinners” but given a new identity as “redeemed,” “children of God,” and “joint heirs with Jesus Christ.” We do not have to hide our sin or justify it because Jesus has paid the penalty for us, bringing us undeserved forgiveness. He “hides our sin” as far as the east is from the west, and he justifies us by his shed blood. However, until we reach heaven, we, the “redeemed,” wrestle with the realities of that old flesh (cf. Romans 7). It does no good to be pretentious about our sin. It is useless to pretend that we are better than we are. I would rarely advocate “wearing” our sin “on our sleeve,” but it is futile to deny it or pretend it does not exist.
 
A good example of the futility of denying the reality of sin in our lives is King David in 2 Samuel 11-12, Psalm 32, and Psalm 51. In these passages, we find:

2 Samuel 11-12: King David lusts, sins, seeks to hide the sin by committing more sins, and then, after confrontation, repents. Psalms 32 and 51 are probably found within the “hiding” context of this story.
Psalm 32: King David reveals the struggle that results from hiding his sin and the subsequent peace that results from repentance.
Psalm 51: King David shows us that repentance is seeing our actions in the way the Lord sees them and coming to him honestly, without hiding.
 
Let's look at each of these passages more closely to see if there is any help found in King David’s experience.
 
2 Samuel 11-12

In 2 Samuel 11-12, King David hides his sin so that it is not exposed. It is clear that a major point of this story is that hiding sins leads simply to more sin. He executes two plans, which involve even more sin, to keep his sin hidden:
 
Plan #1: King David brings Uriah home to give him a report on the war. He throws him a party, gets him drunk, and hopes that he will have intercourse with Bathsheba, offering a cover-up for her pregnancy. The lies, manipulation, and impact on the armed forces who remain in battle without one of their leaders is obvious. Plan fails.
 
Plan #2: King David puts Uriah on the front line so that he will be killed in the intensity of battle. The disregard for human life in order to keep his sin hidden is again obvious. Plan succeeds.
 
It is important to note the plans King David is willing to pursue in order to keep his sin from being exposed. It takes all of his energies, and the one sin multiplies itself into more sin. If it were not exposed by Nathan, the multiplying of sin might continue on for years.
 
Psalm 32

Psalm 32 is probably scribed in the context of David’s manipulative plans to cover-up his sin. Verses 3 and 4 teach us that to hide sin leads to this experience:
 
“When I kept silent (about my sin), my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah (i.e., let this sink in).”
 
What kind of life is this? We all know the experience to varying degrees. Hiding sin can drain us of our resources. It can “eat” at us. In a sense, we have no energies to invest in the lives of others for fear of being exposed or found out. Our energy is invested in covering up our sin, not in ministering to others. A good example of this is found when one chooses to speed while driving. It is difficult to sit back, put on an easy-listening CD, and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. One’s energies are spent being on the lookout for the next police officer, who might ruin his day with a ticket at a high price. He is seeking to hide his sin, to not be found out. However, if he drives the speed limit, then he can sit back and relax. Peace is not available in deception. In fact, unfortunately, we can find ourselves frantically falling deeper and deeper into sin.
 
Being in this state of deception should be contrasted with the freedom that comes with openness. When King David comes to a place where he is willing to be honest about his sin, note the result in verses 5 through 7:
 
“I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord;’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah (i.e., let this sink in). Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found; surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with songs of deliverance.”
 
This is obviously a good place to be in life. Previously in verses 1 and 2 it shows that a man is “blessed” who comes to the Lord and openly acknowledges his sin. Hiding does not bring this blessing. In fact, later in verse 10 it states, “Many are the sorrows of the wicked.” Sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow. There is an appearance of being intact, but inwardly the sin eats away at the sinner. But, here in verse 5-7, when David acknowledges his sin, the Lord becomes his “hiding place,” “preserv(ing him) from trouble,” and “surrounding (him) with songs of deliverance” (verse 7).
 
Psalm 51

Psalm 51 explains the process of repentance that King David likely undertook when/after he was confronted. In 2 Samuel 11:25 King David states literally, “Do not let this thing (i.e., the thing that he did) be evil in your eyes.” Later, in verse 27, it states, “But the thing that David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” No questions asked. King David had done evil in the eyes of the Lord. Of course, he had not seen it this way. He saw it as an obstacle that needed to be overcome or an inconvenience that needed to be fixed. So he devised his two plans to “fix” the situation. He was hiding and running from honestly dealing with his life.However, in verses 3-4, he pleads for forgiveness because he has come to realize:
 
“For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, I have sinned and done what is evil in your eyes, so that you are justified when you speak, and blameless when you judge.”
 
Note the process:
 King David’s assessment:“do not let this thing be evil in your sight” 11:25
The Lord’s assessment: “the thing that David had done was evil” 11:27
King David’s repentance: “I have sinned and done what is evil in your eyes” 51:3-4

The primary turning point for sinful humanity is to see with our eyes what the Lord sees with his eyes. We need to see our lives as he sees them. Hiding is simply an attempt to divert one’s and other’s attention away from what is true about self with the hopes that everything will be okay. King David’s life reminds us that it is not that simple. After seeing our sin as God sees it, we need to acknowledge it before him and ask for his forgiveness. King David’s prayer in verses 1-2 was “be gracious to me,” wash me thoroughly,” and “cleanse me” (see also verses 7-17).
 

- by David L. Talley.

Definition of "Sins"

The Hebrew word for "sin" is חטאה (hhatah, Strong's #2403) and literally means "miss the mark." From my understanding of the Bible, there are two types of sin, accidental and deliberate. I explain it this way. The Hebrew people were a nomadic people and their language and lifestyle is wrapped around this culture. One of the aspects of a nomad is his constant journey from one watering hole to another and one pasture to another. If you are walking on a journey (literal or figurative) and find yourself "lost from the path," which is the Hebrew word רשע (rasha, Strong's #7563), you correct yourself and get back on the path. This was a "mistake" (accidentally missing the mark), but not deliberate. Once you are back on the right path, all is good. However, if you decide to leave the path and make your own, you are again "lost from the path", but this time, being a deliberate act, it is a purposeful mistake (missing the mark on purpose). In the Bible God gives his "directions" (usually translated as "commands") for the journey that his people are to be on. As long as they remain on that journey, they are tsadiq (Strong's #6662, usually translated as "righteous," but literally means "on the correct path"), even if they accidentally leave the path, but return (this is the Hebrew verb shuv, Strong's #7725, usually translated as "repentance," but literally means "to return") back to the correct path.

from: https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/definition/sin.htm

The wrath of God

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Generally speaking, there are two types of sin — discord with God and discord with one’s neighbor. Paul mentions them both, putting discord with God first because it is the greater sin, and calling it “ungodliness.” Then he mentions the second kind of discord, the one with one’s neighbor, calling it “wickedness. 

    ----Gennadius of Constantinople, in Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche, 15.356.

《论做十架神学家》书摘

 唯独十架是我们的神学

十架首先是上帝对人所犯之罪发起的攻击。其次，也是最终，十架是使人脱离罪的救恩。但是，如果我们没有看到十架首先是在攻击罪，那么我们就没有真正认清十架。真是奇怪的攻击——上帝把自己交在我们手中受苦和受死！路德将其称为上帝的“与本性相异的工作”（alien work）。作为攻击手段，十架显明罪的真正巢穴不是在肉体中，而是在我们属灵的渴望中，在我们的“荣耀神学”中。要点在于：在十架上发生的事情，与我们通常的敬虔思维截然相反。保罗知道这一点。他在《哥林多前书》1：18—25说：

因为十字架的道理，在那灭亡的人为愚拙，在我们得救的人却为上帝的大能。就如经上所记： “我要灭绝智慧人的智慧，废弃聪明人的聪明。”智慧人在哪里？文士在哪里？这世上的辩士在哪里？上帝岂不是叫这世上的智慧变成愚拙吗？世人凭自己的智慧，既不认识上帝，上帝就乐意用人所当作愚拙的道理拯救那些信的人，这就是上帝的智慧了。犹太人是要神迹，希腊人是求智慧；我们却是传钉十字架的基督。在犹太人为绊脚石，在外邦人为愚拙，但在那蒙召的，无论是犹太人、希腊人，基督总为上帝的能力，上帝的智慧。因上帝的愚拙总比人智慧，上帝的软弱总比人强壮。

因此，十架神学是一种得罪人的神学。它得罪人的地方在于：与其他神学不同，它攻击的对象是我们通常认为的基督教精粹。我们将看到，十架神学家并不特别担心我们信仰里面那些明显的糟粕，即我们的恶行；他们担心的是由善行而来的自命不凡。因此必须要说的是，十架神学与其他所有神学都非常不同。为了表明这一点，路德对十架神学和荣耀神学做了根本上的区分。因此，十架神学并不把自己当作许多神学类别中的一个选项。实际上，尽管宗教和神学似乎层出不穷，然而从这个视角我们可以很安全地说：归根结底只有两种神学类型，即荣耀神学和十架神学。荣耀神学实际上是所有神学和宗教的总括，而十架神学则把自己分别出来，与其他所有神学相对立。本书的目的之一就是尽量清晰地说明这两种神学之间的不同，从而更加准确地阐明十架神学，并借此使十架的宣讲保持它的愚拙，那种通过摧毁聪明人的智慧来拯救他们的愚拙。

那么如何着手呢？我已经声明，针对十架神学进行写作是极难的。实际上，就十架神学甚至某种十架神学进行写作都是极难的。毫无疑问，这不过是再一次试图对耶稣在十架上的呼喊——“我的上帝，我的上帝！为什么离弃我？”——给出最终的回答。我们无法回答耶稣的问题。我们只能与他同死，并等待上帝在他里面做出回答。如果我们给出某种回答，那么这仅仅是为了书本上的神学，而丢弃真正的十架。我们给出的神学，不过是关于十架的又一种神学，而不是属于十架的神学。基本上，所有关于十架的神学最终都成为荣耀神学。

这里的困难在于：十架是关于上帝的知识，上帝的逻各斯；十架的道是攻击手段。它不是用那些我们可以盗用而仍然基本走在原来道路上的现成神学命题来铸成的。它将人治死，又使人复活。它把旧造钉在十架上，同时期盼新造的复活。“唯独十架是我们的神学”，路德可能这样说过。这句被多次引用的话要在字面上理解。但是我们一定会注意到，这是一个何等奇怪的宣告。十架如何能够是一种神学？十架是一个事件。神学是对事件的反思和解释。神学是关于事件的，难道不是吗？然而，正是这个原因，使得著述某种确定的十架神学成为不可能。所有这种神学，最多只能是为十架的宣扬开辟道路，推动我们真实地宣讲十架的道，保持它那种灭绝智慧人的智慧的愚拙形态。    

这即是说，十架不是静默的或者已死的。十架自身首先是上帝对旧有的罪人以及罪人的神学发动的攻击。十架是上帝在我们身上的作为。但是，这个十架，唯独十架，同时还为对付罪人的老我及其神学开启了一个全新的、闻所未闻的可能性。这意味着十架神学不可避免地非常好辩。它一刻不停地想要发现并暴露罪人将其背信隐藏在敬虔面具之下的种种方法。它的精髓是攻击我们所以为的最好，而非最糟的东西。这是十架神学通常作为荣耀神学的对立面被人谈论的原因。两种神学始终胶着在一场你死我活的争战之中。如果提到十架神学而不指出此争战，那么这种十架神学必定不是这里正在表述的十架神学。牧师—神学家必须知道这一点，并学会如何在这场争战中运用十架的道。

十架神学总是与荣耀神学战火不断，并且牧师—神学家必须知道如何在争战中运用十架的道，此事实表明我们可以勇敢地尝试在本书导言中做好两件事情，然后再进到具体的海德堡辩论。首先，我们要尽力通过讨论两个塑造人的存在和自我理解的“故事”——这两个“故事”在根本上是不同的，或者如当今神学家所青睐的表达方式：不同的“叙事”——来布设这场争战的背景。其次，我们要尽力说明做这些叙事所倡议的神学家的两条道路。我们盼望通过专心讨论这两条做神学家的道路，在一定程度上克服尝试“针对”十架神学进行著述所固有的困难。十架神学无意构造另外一套完善的教义，而是倾力培养不同的运作方式，我们将要看到这一点。这种十架神学的目标是使人成为十架神学家，而不仅仅是针对十架神学进行谈论或写作。

from: https://www.baojiayin.com/product-7513.html