Teaching Adult Bible Classes: How to Survive 1 Corinthians

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Jay F Guin

TeacherI get emails —

Jay, this year I’m teaching 1 Corinthians in one of our adult classes. And so I’ll get to address the thorny issues of divorce and remarriage and womens’ public role in the church. I’ve read your books on these subjects and you did a good job of crystalizing where my thoughts were headed after having studied, restudied, and re-restudied these issues over the years.

I’m an elder at a “mainstream” church, with a relatively small – but highly vocal – traditionalist minority. I intend to teach what I believe the Bible teaches on these touchy subjects (which is almost exactly the positions you set forth in your books), and it’s likely to create a firestorm.

I am a lawyer, but generally do a better job communicating in writing than I do orally. So, I thought I’d write a “position paper” on divorce and womens’ role and give it to the class several weeks before we hit chapters 7 and 14 so as to give folks a clear (and hopefully concise) picture of where I stand.

I’d like your input on whether you think this is a good idea. If you do (and even if you don’t), do you think I should offer to study these issues with the rest of the elders first, since virtually all of them are likely to disagree with my conclusions? And, if I study these issues with the elders and they “forbid” me from teaching my conclusions (which is likely), what advice do you have?

Thanks so much for taking time to respond, and for the time you’ve spent posting the results of your study on your blog. I read it almost daily, and have learned a great deal.

Continue reading →

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On Going to Boston and Automatically Generated Links

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Jay F Guin

I’m leaving town to visit Boston, home of lobster, chowder, and beans. I’ll be gone until Monday night, and so I may not have much time for commenting. I have posts all set to go — so the pace of posting won’t slacken — but I might not be saying much otherwise for a while.

While I’m there, I’ll be attending an affordable housing seminar, which may be great or may be boring. If it’s boring, I may actually be commenting more than usual. Who knows?

Of course, this means I’ll be out of town when we finally get to the end of the “Available Light” series, which I’m sure will be highly controversial. But it’s pure coincidence. Really.

For once, my wife will be going with me — that being because my oldest son lives in Boston, where he is part of a church plant. I can’t wait to spend time with the team and see how things are going. Continue reading →

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Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: Learning to Walk Like Jesus, Part 2

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Jay F Guin

QUESTIONS:

1. What practices are like circumcision and Sabbath to Churches of Christ — as serving as markers of salvation (not looking for a discussion of baptism here but rather post-conversion markers)?

[weekly communion, a cappella music, plurality of elders, name of the church, etc.]

2. How does our desire to honor the sacrifices of our ancestor affect our insistence on these things?

[In the late 19th Century, many churches divided over instrumental music. Many had to leave churches they had helped build. Families were divided. Lawsuits were filed. There were many hurt feelings.

Much of the reason instrumental music became a “salvation issue” is the emotional pain attached to the issue — on both sides. Even today, over 100 years later, when a church adds an instrumental service, someone notes how we split over the issue and lost buildings and split churches over it. How can we dishonor the sacrifices of our ancestors?

When churches speak of uniting with the instrumental Christian Churches, many dredge up ancient memories of long-remembered sins committed by those pushing the instrument over 100 years ago, saying we can’t unite with such sinners, as though today’s Christian Churches are the same people, guilty of the same sins!

For many more of us, it’s just a matter of keeping peace in our earthly families. We can’t bear to upset our grandparents or parents by adopting instrumental music, even though we know it’s not sin. Some of us carry these attitudes even after our ancestors have long been with Jesus.] Continue reading →

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Available Light: Consideration of additional passages

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Jay F Guin

We are considering a post by Al Maxey and another post by Leroy Garrett arguing that, for those who’ve never heard the gospel, their salvation will be determined based on their response to what they know of God from other sources.

Leroy argues from —

(John 15:22)  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.

Jesus also said,

(John 15:24)  If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.

This brings us to a critical point in understanding God’s relationship with Israel, and is entirely consistent with the earlier series on Rom 9 – 11, “Election.” Continue reading →

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Available Light: A note on Rom 2:8-13

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Jay F Guin

As I mentioned earlier, among Protestants, it’s unnerving to be told we’ll be judged by our merits, as Paul plainly says in Rom 2:8-13, among many other passages. In his recent book Justification, N. T. Wright explains how this does not contradict God’s grace—

When Paul speaks of “doing the law” in Romans 2:13, he is thereby setting up a long train of thought which will run through several passages until, in Romans 8:5-8, he explains, and even then obliquely, that it is the mind of the flesh that does not and cannot submit to God’s law, so that by implication the mind of the Spirit can and does make the submission. This, in turn, points on to Romans 10:5-13, where the “doing the Torah” spoken of in Leviticus is explained in terms of Deuteronomy 30, and, further, in terms of Joel 2:32, the passage about the outpoured Spirit.

And, coming back once more to chapter 2, when we read Romans as a whole we can see quite clearly that those in Romans 2:26-29 who “keep the commandments of the law” even though they are uncircumcised (Romans 2:26), who actually “fulfill the law” (Romans 2:27), are Christian Gentiles, even though Paul has not yet developed that category. …

There are, of course, some good reasons for thinking that Paul might after all be referring to the “moral pagan.” He may indeed be quite deliberately teasing at this point, wooing a reader on from the challenge in 2:1 to the possibility of a different way of approaching the whole moral task. But the forward echoes to 2:26-29 and 2 Corinthians 2 must be regarded as decisive. These people are Christians, on whose hearts the Spirit has written the law, and whose secrets, when revealed (see Romans 2:29 again), will display the previously hidden work of God.

Pages 190-191 (emphasis in original).

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Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: Learning to Walk Like Jesus, Part 1

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Jay F Guin

Jesus said, “Come follow me,” and the disciples did. He told them to go make disciples, and they did. And no disciple was more like Jesus than Paul.

RVL teaches his group near the Damascus Road, where he reads the story of the conversion of Saul, later Paul. Saul had been a faithful Jew, persecuting Christians because this is what he thought God wanted.

Paul had just walked past a temple to Caesar, built to proclaim Caesar as lord. Saul learned who the true Lord is!

The lesson moves to Galatia, where Paul did some of his missionary work.  The capital of Galatia is Antioch. Paul had to walk 200 miles to Antioch, passing through small villages, only to see the astonishing grandeur of Antioch of Pisidia.

Augustus built 13 Roman colonies populated by veterans of his legions, planted to declare the glory of Rome in the midst of a Grecian territory.

Some of the original road has been preserved — the Romans built 57,000 miles of such roads! Continue reading →

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Election: “Those he called”

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Jay F Guin

Paul frequently refers to Christians as being “called.” What does it mean?

“Called” sounds so much like “invited.” Is that the meaning? Well, many have been invited and not responded! I mean, how many have heard the gospel message and refused to turn to Jesus as Lord?

The Calvinist response is that God only calls the elect–those chosen before the foundation of the world–and so all who are called are saved. Thus, only the elect are truly called by God. And verses such as Romans 8:30 certainly sound like that–

(Rom. 8:30) And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

On the other hand, there are verses where “called” refers to an invitation that many will reject —

(Mat 22:14)  “For many are invited [same Greek word as “called” in Rom 8:30], but few are chosen.”

Surely, Paul is using “called” in some special sense, as he can’t contradict Jesus. Just how do we explain Paul’s use of “called” while acknowledging that many who hear the gospel reject the gospel?

The prophetic use of “called”

I thought I’d poke around in the Old Testament prophets and see if they might shed some light, especially since so much of Paul’s thinking is built on the prophets, especially the latter portions of Isaiah. Continue reading →

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Reader looking for a congregation

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Jay F Guin

A reader has written me asking for the name of a progressive Church of Christ northeast of Birmingham, Alabama. Does anyone have a recommendation?

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Available Light: Consideration of Romans 1 – 2

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Jay F Guin

We are considering a post by Al Maxey and another post by Leroy Garrett arguing that, for those who’ve never heard the gospel, their salvation will be determined based on their response to what they know of God from other sources.

Both Al and Leroy Garrett rely heavily on Paul’s arguments in Rom 1 and 2. And so we begin there.

Paul states the theme of Romans —

(Rom 1:16-17)  I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

The gospel saves, but it only saves those who believe in Jesus. Continue reading →

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Ministry Ideas: Adoption

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Jay F Guin

(Now, this one chokes me up. I’m glad I’m typing and not speaking.) We have couples who’ve decided that they should adopt children from poor countries — as a ministry for Jesus.

Adoption is common enough, of course, but most who adopt do so because they want children and adoption is the only way they can have children. And so they adopt.

But these couples in our church are capable of producing more children the biological way. But they feel compeled by the love of God to rescue a child from poverty, not by sending a check each month (which is very noble and good itself), but by bringing in a child from Ethiopia or the like and raising him or her in a Christian family. Oh, wow!!

Tragically, many countries that have many orphans are unwilling to allow them to be adopted by Americans — or else they charge ridiculously high fees, making them effectively traffickers in orphans, but this is how it is. It’s astonishingly expensive to adopt across national lines even though many countries are unable to care for the orphans they have.

There really needs to be an effort to push Congress and the White House to negotiate a treaty allowing cross-border adoption at a reasonable cost. The present situation is inhuman.

We have a group of adults who take some teens with them each year to the Bahamas to volunteer at an orphans home there and do other good work. This effort began as a youth ministry thing, but the adults refused to stop going just because their kids graduated!

One regular volunteer grew attached to a young man in the orphanage and tried to adopt him, but the Bahamian government wouldn’t allow it, even though the children are kept in destitution. One summer, they allowed him to visit the family, and the child packed a can of beans, assuming this would be his only food for the week visit! He had no idea of the abundance that awaiting him that week with this family. In his world, if you leave the orphanage, you pack a can of beans. (He is finally of age, and they just received a visa to let him live here.)

Another couple that regularly makes the trip fell in love with a severely retarded child at the orphanage — and wanted to adopt him. Again, the government refused, and it will be years before he can be rescued.

And so, I feel entirely unworthy to be an elder for people like this. I feel like John the Baptist when approached by Jesus — unworthy to stoop down and untie the thongs of their sandals — because I see God in them.

This is what ministry does when it reaches outside the church to the hurting, the poor, and the oppressed. It lifts Jesus up — showing the world the very face of God. And, I’m convinced, it will change the world. There is no greater evangelism strategy than loving as Jesus loved.

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