Monthly Archives: April 2008

Dragon slaying in Brentwood

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Peniel Church in Brentwood has some competition, albeit more light-hearted, for the title of wackiest church in Essex, from nearby St George’s Anglican church. On 23rd April they are holding a special service for St George’s Day, at which

the vicar will urge his flock to fight against dragons and rescue the helpless.

“… We are encouraging people to turn up wearing a red rose. …

“Everyone is welcome – dragons and chargers may be left in Larkins Field in Ongar Road (by kind permission of the council).”

Let’s hope there isn’t any trouble between these dragons and any related beasts which might be hanging around Peniel Church, which is just off the Ongar Road.

Thanks to the Church Times blog for this link.

A hopeful moment in the Church of England

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It took the Methodist Dave Warnock to bring to my attention Jonny Baker’s post a hopeful moment in the church of england. Despite its 1st April publication date and its complete lack of capital letters, this does seem to be a serious report of what is for once good news for the C of E.

It is good news because it shows that the church is beginning to realise part of what I wrote last December, that the parish system is a historical relic which is not helpful in the 21st century and needs to be abolished, or at least radically modified. Basically, as described here, what has happened is that a new “pastoral measure” has been brought into force introducing “Bishops’ Mission Orders”, which permit church planting initiatives which cross parish boundaries or involve collaboration between parishes.

It will be interesting to see how widespread such orders will be and how successful will be the resulting church planting. But the main implication of this “pastoral measure” seems to be that parish boundaries are no longer inviolable, and therefore that incumbent (senior pastors) cannot claim a monopoly for their own particular style of Christianity within particular geographical areas.

Napoleon on the power of Christian love

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I was astonished at what I just read at Singing in the Reign about Napoleon’s Proof for the Divinity of Jesus. I’m not too sure about the proof. But what astonished me was to find that this man who is regarded as the epitome of the proud and ungodly emperor, the man who crowned himself as emperor to avoid submitting to the pope, actually wrote, admittedly in his years in exile in St Helena, thoughts like this:

Christ … kindles the flame of love which causes one’s self-love to die, and triumphs over every other love. Why should we not recognize in this miracle of love the eternal Word which created the world? The other founders of religions had not the least conception of this mystic love which forms the essence of Christianity.

I have filled multitudes with such passionate devotion that they went to death for me. But God forbid that I should compare the enthusiasm of my soldiers with Christian love.

I give my body a black eye

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Several bloggers over the last few days have been looking at how to translate 1 Corinthians 9:27, especially the part for which I can offer the literal translation

I give my body a black eye and lead it in slavery.

The conversation seems to have started with TC, who prefers the TNIV rendering

I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave.

Nathan’s first offering

I black my eyes, bringing my body into subjection

was later revised to

I beat my body down, forcing it into submission.

Doug responded to Nathan’s first version by noting that

The passage is replete with metaphors drawn from the experience of (especially) the Isthmian games which Paul may have experienced first hand. … his emphasis is on training rather than competing … Paul shows no sign of discomfort with the imagery of the gym, but seems at ease in the culture. (The other part of what makes it interesting, of course, is the immediacy of this kind of imagery for today’s fitness-obsessed society of largely unfit people.)

It is the training metaphor, therefore, that renders translations of verse 27 like RSV “I pommel my body” or NIV “I beat my body” and Nathan’s own “I black my eyes” so dubious. It’s indisputable that ὑπωπιάζω [hupopiazo] does mean “give someone a black eye” but the phrase makes little sense if it is taken literally. No-one in training injures themselves on purpose. …

Doug then offers his own rendering:

I put my body through a punishing training schedule.

The trouble with this, as I noted in a comment, is that there is nothing here to indicate that this is not to be taken literally. Doug’s wording suggests simply that Paul is saying that he visits the gym regularly. But surely that is not his point, especially in the light of 1 Timothy 4:8. I noted that

If Paul is putting his body through anything, it is not a literal exercise programme but abstinence from sin and from pleasures which might distract from the Lord’s work.

In response Doug asked me

whether anyone is in more danger of taking my English metaphors literally than they were 2000 years ago of taking Paul’s Greek metaphors literally.

In reply I wrote:

Good question, Doug. I would suggest that a more literal translation of Paul’s words, something like “I give my body a black eye and lead it in slavery”, could never be understood literally, but your “I put my body through a punishing training schedule” could. Perhaps to the original readers also this passage was so clearly non-literal that it could not be misunderstood as literal. Anyway I would presume that these words are not what would normally be used by someone going into training for the Isthmian Games: a boxer would certainly not punch himself! So I don’t think “I put my body through a punishing training schedule”, words which an athlete in training might actually say, is a very accurate translation.

My main point here is that we need to preserve the signals in the original text that language is not literal. Among those signals are that, in Doug’s words, “the phrase makes little sense if it is taken literally”. By tidying up the text so that it makes literal sense, Doug loses the signals of the metaphor, probably leading to misinterpretation.

But I do like the last part of Doug’s rendering of the verse:

so that I don’t become one of those who tell others what to do, but themselves collapse before the finishing line.

This reminds me of this interesting story, and picture, from the 1908 Olympics in London: a marathon runner who collapsed just before the finishing line and was helped across it – but later disqualified for receiving assistance.

Prayer saves retired pastor but not Porsches

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An interesting story from the BBC: A 93-year-old retired Pentecostal pastor has just had his first accident in 76 years of driving. He ended up hanging upside down in his overturned car, and said

It was a miracle I got out alive and I put it down to the power of prayer and God looking after me.

But God was apparently not looking after the two Porsche cars, symbols of greed some might think, which he managed to badly damage in the process, causing £60,000 ($120,000) damage. So perhaps it is for the best that he says

that’s it – the end of my driving career, I’m never driving again.

Wright and right on shifting the balance of power in the Anglican Communion

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John Richardson quotes Bishop NT Wright criticising those who are calling for a boycott of the Lambeth Conference. Wright sympathises with the plight of orthodox Anglicans in North America who are

vilified, attacked and undermined by ecclesiastical authority figures who seem to have lost all grip on the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be eager only for lawsuits and property squabbles.

But he goes on to say that

these situations have been exploited by those who have long wanted to shift the balance of power in the Anglican Communion and who have used this awful situation as an opportunity to do so.

I have great respect for Wright as a theologian. But, as I pointed out in a previous post, he is a man of his time and background who seems to have a blind spot, along with many of his fellows in high positions in the Anglican Communion, about recognising that African and Asian bishops have an equal right with British and North American bishops to a share in authority within the Communion. Perhaps they have even more right, in fact, as on average they each represent a larger number of committed Anglicans. Yes, they want to shift the balance of power, but in a completely right way, away from those who are illegitimately hanging on to it as a relic of colonialism and racism towards being more representative of the Anglican churches as a whole.

I read on a blog somewhere recently (and not just at Doug’s April Fool – don’t take my comment there seriously) that Rowan Williams should be replaced as Archbishop of Canterbury by Wright, because he would be best placed to hold the Anglican Communion together. Sadly he would not be, because if he tries to lead it with this attitude he will never be able to reconcile the Africans and Asians with the North Americans.

Meanwhile, as John Richardson and Babyblue report, Bishop Wright in the same talk mentioned some letters which Archbishop Williams has sent to certain bishops. Apparently Williams is trying to persuade bishops who don’t support the Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant, that is, the least conservative bishops, not to attend the Lambeth Conference. Wright said about this

I am well aware that many will say this is far too little, far too late.

Well, on this point he is a prophet: I for one do indeed say that Williams’ letter is far too little, far too late. The only way of sorting out this mess now is for Williams to go, and to be replaced not by Wright but by someone like Archbishop Sentamu of York who has a chance of gaining the respect of the African and Asian majority in the Anglican Communion.

The fall of Bishop Michael Reid

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Peniel Pentecostal Church in Brentwood, about 15 miles from my home, has been controversial here in Essex for several years. I have never been there myself. But I did know people at a church here in Chelmsford which perhaps 20 years ago closed down and effectively merged with Peniel, including a family which left that group and joined my own church. Among the controversies is the allegedly overbearing leadership style of its leader, until last week, Bishop Michael Reid.

But the latest controversy tops the lot, and made it into the national newspapers, at least The Daily Mail, as quoted by John Richardson, and The Sun. The story is also in the Church Times blog, despite being completely non-Anglican. For it seems that Michael Reid has fallen into the oldest trap for church leaders, adultery. If the reports are to be believed, he has for eight years been having an affair with the music director (I nearly said “worship director”, but I know what Doug would say to that!) at his church. Indeed he has admitted adultery, without specifying more details, and resigned from pastoral duties in his church.

Simon Jones, who was apparently hurt by involvement in a similar church, has blogged about this matter in a somewhat intemperate way, accusing Reid of hypocrisy. He also writes, accurately:

A quick Google will reveal some truly awful stories about Michael Reid and the way he has dealt with people who have questioned his leadership over the years.

My aim here is not at all to defend Reid or his church, but to put some balance and truth into this story.

First, the current issue is nothing at all to do with his ministry style or church leadership. That is anyway an internal matter for him and his church, at least unless it is clearly unbiblical or abusive. Not surprisingly people who didn’t like his leadership are not sorry about his fall, but any link between the issues is only speculative.

Second, although Dave Walker and Simon Jones use “scare quotes” around the title “bishop”, and Dave even calls him “self-styled”, in fact Michael Reid is entitled to be called a bishop. Simon quotes a letter from the International Communion of Charismatic Churches confirming that Reid was properly consecrated as a bishop:

His consecration to the office of the Bishop was conducted in Benin City, Nigeria by the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa. He for several years after served as the national presbyter for the ICCC and a member of the College of Bishops. However, since his resignation several years ago he has held no position within the organization and the organization has had neither involvement nor oversight in his ministry.

According to the ICCC’s own website their episcopate was recognised by Pope Paul VI in 1978:

the pope saw it as a gesture of genuine desire to identify with the historical church and he defended the actions of the three Pentecostals and called for McAlister and DuPlessis to be brought before him for commissioning as bishops of special recognition and rights thereby establishing them both as direct descendants of apostolic succession.

Robert McAlister consecrated Benson Idahosa, and Idahosa consecrated Reid. So Reid became a genuine bishop in the apostolic succession. And, although he left the ICCC about ten years ago, on the understanding of those who believe in the apostolic succession he remains a bishop for life. So there is no call for “scare quotes” or words like “self-styled”.

As John Richardon writes, we should not be crowing over the fall of a church leader that we didn’t like, but

what all of us should be thinking is, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

And , I suggest, we should be praying for Bishop Reid and his wife, and for the woman involved and her family; also for the church under its new pastor, including that it will turn away from the abuses for which Reid was allegedly responsible and follow God’s leading for it as a church.

Freedom and uselessness

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A quote from Wally in this Dilbert cartoon:

Freedom is just another word for finding out you’re useless.

I have quite a lot of freedom and free time at the moment, as my Bible translation project winds down. But I’m glad to be finding out not that I am useless, but that God loves me and values me, not for being useful but for being his child. When he has something more for me to do, he will tell me. Until then I will simply wait in his loving arms. Well, things are sometimes easier said that done, but that is my intention.

Love takes a long thyme

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There has been discussion on several blogs in the last day or so, not all of it entirely serious, about how to translate the first clause in 1 Corinthians 13:4. Those involved include Lingalinga, Mike and Suzanne, first here and now here.

I think I was the first in this discussion, in a comment on the Lingamish post, to point out the link between this clause and the description of the Lord in Exodus 34:6 (there I wrote in error 34:7) and several other places in the Old Testament as “slow to anger”. As I pointed out in one of my first blog posts ever, the Hebrew phrase used for this in Exodus literally means “length of nose” or “length of nostrils”; but the word meaning “nose” or “nostrils” also has the metaphorical sense “anger”, and understanding “length” in a temporal sense leads to the understanding “slow to anger”.

The link between 1 Corinthians 13:4 and Exodus 34:6 is with the Septuagint Greek wording of the latter, makrothumos. This adjective is a compound word of makros “long” and thumos, which has a variety of meanings, including “anger”. So the Septuagint translator clearly chose it, or coined it, as a loan-translation of the Hebrew phrase understood as “length of anger”.

In 1 Corinthians 13:4 the Greek of the first clause is he agape makrothumei, the last word being the verb derived from makrothumos. This verb and a related noun and adverb (although oddly not the adjective itself) are used several times in the New Testament. In modern translations these are usually rendered with the “patient” word group. The KJV translation of them was “long-suffering”, which is a good reflection of the Greek compound word if the “suffer” part is correctly understood in its older sense of “allow” or perhaps “forbear”. But this rendering obscures the significant link with the Exodus passage.

So how should we render the clause? Some advocates of formal equivalence translation argue that words should be rendered according to their most concrete literal sense. The most concrete literal sense of thumos is “thyme”, the herb whose English name is derived from this Greek word. So makrothumos should be “long thyme”. Hence the tongue in cheek rendering in this post title:

Love takes a long thyme.

Suzanne took this same approach even further by reading the Hebrew idiom into the Greek word. I’m not sure this is a legitimate approach, but then she was not being as serious as I first thought she was. What she came up with was

The scripture truth that “love is long in both nostrils at once”.

But this sounds a bit like the Pinocchio approach to Scripture: the more you misrepresent it, the longer your nose and so the greater your love!

But in her later post Suzanne looked more seriously at this passage, and came up with the best rendering I have seen, which preserves the link with Exodus 34:6 and fits well into 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is slow to anger.

May we all remember to live in this kind of love, including Doug who this evening rants at me (with good cause), and above all myself.

According to Piper, does God love anyone at all?

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Yesterday I posted “God hates sinners”: John Piper does believe this. In a comment Jeff, “Scripture Zealot”, noted that I had taken this from a sermon 23 years old and wondered if Piper might have changed his mind. Well, that is possible, but I have been offered no evidence for it.

However, we do have up-to-date evidence for something almost as shocking which Piper explicitly states today, or at least he did yesterday. If we can trust Adrian Warnock’s report (which is not certain; thanks to Henry Neufeld for the tip), Piper, speaking yesterday at the New Word Alive conference in Wales, said:

Someone might argue, “Sin was condemned, but not Christ.” Piper then explained: Imagine I got you on stage and said, “I’m going to hit you in the face, but it’s not you I’m hitting, it’s just your attitude.” NO! It was the will of the Lord to bruise him. God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. He was wounded for us. His punishment set us free. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He struck him. It was God the Father who killed Jesus. It is considered today to be appalling to teach or sing this. Piper said it is not appalling to him, it is his very life!

To this, I will simply say that “bruise” (Adrian’s double emphasis) is not the same as “kill”, and where in this is the united will of the Trinity? But this quotation should really be checked from the audio and video expected soon.

To return to Piper’s 1985 sermon, on the same chapter, Romans 8, as last night’s, I noticed something strange here.

When I have objected in the past to statements like “God hates sinners” and its apparent contradiction with John 3:16, Calvinist commenters have claimed that in this verse “the world” in fact means “the elect”. There is in fact no exegetical justification for this at all, but it does make for a consistent, although unbiblical, system of doctrine, according to which God loves those whom he has elected to eternal life, and hates those whom he has not elected.

But the strange thing which Piper said in 1985 was with regard to himself before he was a Christian:

But it wasn’t always so for John Piper. … God hated me in my sin.

Now I am sure that Piper considers himself one of the elect. But here he seems to teach that God hated him before he repented and became a Christian. In fact, if we read on, it would appear that, according to Piper, God still hated him as he

contemplate[d] me in Jesus Christ—chosen, loved, and destined for glory … [and] fulfil[led] his predestined purpose for me by appeasing his own wrath and acquitting me of all my sin and conquering the depravity of my heart.

In other words, Piper’s view seems to be that God continues to hate humans, except for the only one he actually loves, Jesus Christ. And if he does love Jesus, he showed that in a very strange way, by killing him. Also, in this case, as Polycarp asked in a comment here,

If God hates sinners, then why Christ?

If God loved Jesus and hated Piper, why did he kill Jesus and save Piper? This just doesn’t make sense!

Now maybe Piper has some way of making this into a consistent system, but it is different from the Calvinist system I described before, and even more different from the truth revealed in the Bible:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 (TNIV)

Note the first “for us”: it is not just Jesus, but us sinners, whom God loves, and he loves us before we repent.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 (TNIV)

I shouldn’t really have to quote this, but it seems that at least in 1985 Piper was not aware of it. For these words make it clear that God did not love just the Son, nor even just the elect, but he loved the world, that is everyone.