CENI: A Better Way — 1 Corinthians

Posted on May 25, 2009 by Jay F Guin

man-behind-the-curtain1 Corinthians is in many ways the opposite of Romans. Romans is high theology written to a church Paul had never visited, while 1 Corinthians deals with one practical, pastoral issue after another. Romans is neat and organized — and very abstract.

1 Corinthians reflects all the messiness of real life in a newly planted church filled with former pagans.

What does 1 Corinthians tell us?

* The overriding theme of the book — from chapter 1 through 14 — is unity. The church was dividing over all sorts of issues, and Paul struggles to help them hold it together.

* Chapters 1 – 4 are particularly pointed toward the sin of division, with Paul even pronouncing a curse on those who’d divide a church.

* In the next several chapters, Paul deals with disputes over temple prostitution, meats sacrificed to idols, marriage and divorce, and drunkeness at the Lord’s Supper. And each time he points his readers back to the gospel. The gospel teaches us to say no to fornication and idolatry. The gospel teaches us that it’s good to be single, to better serve the Lord. The gospel teaches us that communion is about the body, not selfishness. Continue reading →

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CENI: A Better Way — Romans

Posted on May 24, 2009 by Jay F Guin

man-behind-the-curtainRomans was written by Paul to a church he’d never visited, but Rome was, of course, the capitol and largest city in the Empire.

 Paul therefore wrote a lengthy, comprehensive epistle to that congregation, preserving for us a brilliant work of theology.

What does Romans say?

* All have sinned and need a Savior.

* God is faithful to his covenant to save his people

* God justifies his people by faith in his Son, the Messiah of prophecy

* God gives his Holy Spirit to lead us into righteous living

* God is sovereign

(I know this is woefully inadequate as a summary, but I’m not trying to write a commentary, just remind you generally of what the first several chapters deal with.) Continue reading →

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The Blue Parakeet: Fixing What’s Broken

Posted on May 23, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetWhat do we learn from this narrative approach to the scriptures? Well, I don’t think the Story answers all the questions, but it answers more questions than any other one principle of hermeneutics. We could go another quarter working through the implications in countless areas of Bible study.

But I want to make sure that we don’t miss some conclusions. This is from Michael F. Bird, “Re-Thinking a Sacramental View of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper for the Post-Christendom Baptist Church,” in Baptist Sacramentalism 2 [Paternoster Studies in Baptist History and Thought], which I reviewed earlier.

I suggest that we conceive of the church as a missional and displaced community that does not really fit into contemporary society rather than comprising the religious wing of modernity. … [W]e should see ourselves as heralding the good news that God was in Christ reconcliing the world to himself. The church must become a menace to our pluralistic society and threaten to undermine the philosophical premises that the pax postmoderna is built on. The scandalous message and perplexing praxis of Christians should invoke umbrage and curiousity. Why don’t you abort foetuses? Why don’t you approve of gay marriages? Why do you believe that only your religion is true? The answer is not a programme, not four spiritual laws, and not seeker sensitive services; rather, the answer is a story and community. … Let me show you what renewed and redeemed humanity really looks like: justified and Spirit-led new creations, abounding in love for one another, where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free, but all are one in Christ Jesus. And what tools do we have that tell the story and display the community: baptism and eucharist. That is where the postmodern pagans may come and hear, see, taste, and experience the good of God in word, symbol and presence among his people. Continue reading →

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The First Self-Righteous Church (revised)

Posted on May 22, 2009 by Jay F Guin

We all got rebaptized whether we needed it or not …

Thanks to Hal.

One reason I posted this is I figured it was good material for a small group study. I just didn’t have time to write up anything.

Question: What are Ray Stevens’ assumptions about the heart of the First Self-Righteous Church? Continue reading →

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The Blue Parakeet: Summary

Posted on May 22, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetWell, we’ve spent the last 12 weeks covering various aspects of this Blue Parakeet idea. Let me try to boil them down a bit.

When we run across a blue parakeet passage — a blue bird amidst the sparrows — we need to rethink that passage in light of the Story, the overarching, great themes of the Bible. Sometimes we’ll find that the passage immediately makes better sense when we think of it this way. Sometimes, bringing the Story into the analysis is just the beginning of some serious study and wrestling with the text.

We’re not done with our study until we’ve interpreted the passage in such a way that it fits the Story as well as the words of the passage. We just have to work and study and pray until we get there. But there’s plenty of help available from other Christians and from the scholars of today and the past — and the Spirit. Continue reading →

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The Blue Parakeet: Eden as Hermeneutic

Posted on May 21, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetGenesis 1 and 2 give the model for a Godly marriage and Godly sexual conduct. Hence, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and homosexuality are all wrong because they violate Genesis 1 and 2 — which define sinless sex — even if the heterosexual or homosexual sex is a very loving relationship.

Of course, Genesis 1 and 2 occurred in a sinless world and so set the pattern for husbands and wives. Hence, when the Scriptures discuss divorce, they refer to Genesis 1 and 2. And we’ve often missed the point because we’ve so often misread these important passages.

To have truly healthy marriages (and churches), we have to return to the sinless ideal of Genesis 1 and 2 and stop defending what we do and teach from Genesis 3. You see, our foolish assertion that Genesis 3:16 — giving husbands “rule” over their wives — has led to many dysfunctional marriages, to spousal abuse, and worse.

The ideal is found in Genesis 1 and 2 — both are in the image of God, both are to be united to each other, both are to be one flesh, the wife is the husband’s “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” Continue reading →

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Mac Deaver Joins GraceConversation

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Jay F Guin

grace7Greg has had to step aside from the conversation for awhile, and it’s taken some time to find a replacement. But I’m delighted that Mac Deaver has agreed to step in.

Mac is Todd Deaver’s father and likely the most effective oral debater among the Churches of Christ. Todd and I always said we wanted to have a dialogue with the very best — and Mac will certainly be a top notch advocate.

I can’t wait!

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The Blue Parakeet: Corollaries — The Gospel Hermeneutic (the Love part)

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetThe application should be obvious by now. Love and faith are the “interstitial doctrines,” that is, they fill in all the gaps. There are no gaps. No silences. No missing authority. It’s all there in two words.

Maybe a reminder of some fundamentals will help us hang some meat on the bones.

What is it that a congregation of the Lord Jesus is supposed to do? Believe and love. And so, how do they do this? Well, first they love each other (John 13:35), but they must also love those outside the congregation.

The gospel tells us that God loves us all and made us his adopted children, and so we must love one another as brothers and sisters in the same family. And just as is true in our earthly families, we may not much like each other, but we still love each other and we stand up for each other. Continue reading →

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The Blue Parakeet: Corollaries — The Gospel Hermeneutic (the Faith part)

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetIn Galatians 5, at the apex of his argument, after four chapters of elaborate explication, Paul declares a profound principle—one that the reader is to understand as being just as true as can be: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”(5:6).

This faith-love principle is stated this way to make clear that circumcision is nothing and hence cannot be a condition of salvation. Why is it nothing? Because it has nothing to do with faith or love. Plain and simple.

Now we have to study Paul (and the rest of Scripture) to put some meat on the bones of these few words, but we can’t explain them away or treat them as a mere rhetorical flourish. They are true—so true that those who ignored them were declared alienated from Christ! That’s quite enough to get my attention! They are so true that they overruled the covenant of circumcision that went all the way back to Abraham! You see, for saved people, nothing else counts.

Here we see God’s covenant with Abraham being fulfilled in Christ — in a way that ends positive commands, such as circumcision, leaving behind nothing but faith and love. Does it sound radical? It should. It is. But it’s how Paul reasons. It’s how he reaches his conclusions about how Christians and churches should behave.Therefore, we need to learn to think the same way. Continue reading →

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The Blue Parakeet: Corollaries — Positive Law

Posted on May 18, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetWe’ve worked through several examples about how this Story/narrative approach to Bible study pushes us to rethink some familiar passages. Now that the quarter is nearly over, I want to sort through some additional hermeneutical principles built on the narrative approach. We don’t have time to do a thorough set of classes on hermeneutics, but these will get us well on down the road.

Positive law

In an excellent post on “positive law” John Mark Hicks explains, Continue reading →

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