Here is what I am reading at the moment if anybody wants to join:
1. Anything Emerson (Self-Reliance next...)
2. Edwards' Freedom of the Will
3. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter
4. Gilkey's Shantung Compound
5. Miller's Death of a Salesman
6. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Twelve
7. Barth's Dogmatics in Outline
8. A book on postmillenialism by Douglas Wilson called "Heaven Misplaced"
9. Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship
This might seem like quite a bit, but I am reading them slowly. And most of them are for classes.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
The Book of Kings
There is a contrast between David and Solomon in the Deuteronomistic history which is parallel to a contrast between Abraham and Moses in the Pentateuch. The relationship between God and David and God and Abraham is an unconditional relationship. In Genesis 15 Yahweh makes the covenant with himself and is thus dependent on his own faithfulness entirely (the oneness of God/Trinity), which contrasts the Sinai covenant which is between Yahweh and the people of Israel; the blessing of the Sinai covenant is dependent on the obedience of Israel (Deut 28).
Even though Abraham relates to God in an unconditional covenant, one of the last things Yahweh says about Abraham is that he "obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws" (Gen 26:5). Yet Moses, the one given the commandments, statutes, and laws of the Sinai covenant is not able to enter the promised land.
Likewise, David is said to have walked blamelessly before Yahweh in spite of his many failures recorded in Samuel:
"Yahweh dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of Yahweh and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and from his status I did not turn aside. I was blameless before him, and kept myself from guilt. And Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight" (2 Sam 22:21-25).
This is because Yahweh relates to David with an unconditional covenant, an unconditional promise not dependent on David. This covenant which is not dependent on David following the commandments and statutes of Yahweh - like the covenant with Abraham - is precisely the reason he is able to fulfill the statues and commandments of Yahweh.
In contrast, the covenant with Solomon is conditional:
"But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them..." (1 Kings 9:6-7)
Thus Solomon fails to please Yahweh (1 Kings 11:9-10).
Kings then tells the story of the subsequent kings of Israel and Judah, and when a king fails to fulfill the commandments of Yahweh one of two things may happen; either Yahweh will be gracious "for the sake of David" (e.g. 1 Kings 11:12) or else he will punish "because the people of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God..." (2 Kings 17:7-13).
The question arises: which covenant is Yahweh judging the kingdom according to?
It seems that ultimately Israel has been judged by a conditional covenant, since the story ends with their exile. Yet biblically, the exile is sanctification; it is bringing Israel into holiness, and the reader can understand that both covenants are simultaneously fulfilled; the wrath and punishment is the purification and salvation of Israel, as Jeremiah is quite clear in expressing:
“Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the Lord,
nor be dismayed, O Israel;
for behold, I will save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and none shall make him afraid.
11 For I am with you to save you,
declares the Lord;
I will make a full end of all the nations
among whom I scattered you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished." (Jer 30:10-11)
nor be dismayed, O Israel;
for behold, I will save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and none shall make him afraid.
11 For I am with you to save you,
declares the Lord;
I will make a full end of all the nations
among whom I scattered you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished." (Jer 30:10-11)
The Book of Samuel
The Book of Samuel is about Yahweh's "Anointed One," the Messiah, the Christ. The plot of the Hebrew Bible is propelled by the search for the coming seed, the one who will crush the head of the serpent, who will restore Eden (Gen 3:15). The story traces genealogies and comes to screeching halts at crucial characters such as Noah or Abraham who become a type of Christ and provide some sort of picture of salvation. In the time of Noah salvation was offered to those who would be blessed by his obedience, namely, his faithful construction of the ark in accordance to Yahweh's instructions (Gen 6:8,9, 22; 7:5,9). Likewise, God's promise to Abraham is that he will "bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 12:3). Characters such as Lot and Abimelech are thus blessed in their relationship and connection with Abraham (Gen 14:14; 19:29; 20:17).
Samuel picks up on this theme of the Anointed One. Hannah's song at the beginning of the book ends saying, "Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his anointed (Messiah/Christ)" (1 Sam 2:11b)
Likewise, Yahweh tells Eli through a man of God "I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. And I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever" (1 Sam 2:35).
And like Genesis, Samuel plays this theme out by showing the characters' blessing based on their nearness to Yahweh's Messiah.
David refuses to harm Saul because he is Yahweh's Anointed. His men urge him to "do to him as it shall seem good to you" (1 Sam 24). Killing Saul would be a pragmatic way to gain victory, and in a sense David would be justified; according to worldly wisdom this is the most wise thing to do; yet David refuses: "Yahweh forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, Yahweh's Messiah" (1 Sam 24:6). The Messiah is the man which God has elected to bring his salvation through. Man ought not to seek better, more practical ways for salvation:
"There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death." (Prov 14:16)
but its end is the way to death." (Prov 14:16)
David is anointed king in place of Saul. The book shows many characters (mostly gentiles) who are faithful to David:
"... everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became captain over them" (1 Sam 22:1-2).
2 Sam 15:32 (and chapter 16) shows the faithfulness of "Hushai the Archite" towards David.
In 2 Sam 17:27-29, "Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earth vessels, etc., for David and the people with him to eat..."
In contrast, the "worthless man" Sheba the Benjaminite blows the trumpet and says "We have no portion in David, and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse; every man to his tents, O Israel! So all the men of Israel withdrew from David and followed Sheba the son of Bichri. But the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan to Jerusalem" (2 Sam 20:1-2).
While many Gentiles are faithful to follow David, Yahweh's Messiah, "all the men of Israel withdrew from David." Nationality does not determine Yahweh's blessing; rather, Yahweh's blessing is through Yahweh's Messiah, being king David in the Book of Samuel, "the Messiah of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel" (2 Sam 23:1).
"You delivered me from strife with the people;
you kept me as the head of the nations;
people whom I had not known served me.
Foreigners came cringing to me;
as soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me.
Foreigners lost heart
and came trembling out of their fortresses" (2 Sam 22:44-46).
Samuel does not leave the reader to assume that Samuel is merely a story about David:
2 Sam 7:12-16
"12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”
Texts like these (similar to texts such as Deut 18:15 in the Pentateuch) are crucial for showing that these stories of David (or Abraham/Moses in the Pentateuch) point ahead to a coming character; Abraham, Moses, and David are important in the biblical text because they create meaningful pictures of the coming Messiah, the coming seed. These texts are crucial because they make the coming Messiah (Jesus) the subject matter of these OT characters and stories.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
The American Scholar (Emerson)
Emerson's address titled "An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Cambridge, August 31, 1837" was republished as "The American Scholar" in 1849, showing that Emerson was speaking to more than the group of scholars at Harvard.
This address is a good summary of Emerson's work, of his incessant attempt to convince Americans to think for themselves, to become self-reliant, to rid themselves of their insecurity with which they judge themselves in comparison with Europe.
"Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves" (Emerson 1138).
Emerson also emphasizes "creative reading."
"One must be an inventor to read well... when the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world" (Emerson 1142).
One of the reasons I love Emerson is that he longs for men to savor the small and profound things in life, to go against the mindless flow of the masses and enjoy beauty in simplicity. Thus "the sense of our author is as broad as the world." Instead of spreading ourselves thin over a massive amount of books in our desperate attempt to become scholarly, perhaps we ought to take Emerson's advice and just reread the Great Gatsby about five times: "The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time... I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low" (Emerson 1149).
This address is a good summary of Emerson's work, of his incessant attempt to convince Americans to think for themselves, to become self-reliant, to rid themselves of their insecurity with which they judge themselves in comparison with Europe.
"Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves" (Emerson 1138).
Emerson also emphasizes "creative reading."
"One must be an inventor to read well... when the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world" (Emerson 1142).
One of the reasons I love Emerson is that he longs for men to savor the small and profound things in life, to go against the mindless flow of the masses and enjoy beauty in simplicity. Thus "the sense of our author is as broad as the world." Instead of spreading ourselves thin over a massive amount of books in our desperate attempt to become scholarly, perhaps we ought to take Emerson's advice and just reread the Great Gatsby about five times: "The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time... I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low" (Emerson 1149).
"Man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean."
Read and enjoy Emerson.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Some Highlights From Emerson's "Nature"
Emerson's "Nature" is one of those works that I have a hard time not underlining the whole thing, so it's very hard to pick out "highlights." But since I have been thinking about the theology of everything via Jonathan Edwards lately, I decided to pick out some aspects of the essay that relate to that.
Emerson says, "the use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history."
He offers a very holistic approach to nature; nature is spiritual and symbolic. There are no detached caveats or exceptions to the rule. Everything in nature tells a story or speaks of something else, something spiritual.
Jonathan Edwards likewise had 220 notes ("Images of Divine Things") in which he explained explicitly how various things teach us spiritual lessons about Christ. Emerson does the same. Of course, he is not the same sort of Christ-centered theologian that Edwards is, but nevertheless he establishes precisely the same framework and presupposition for seeing and savoring the spirituality of nature.
"All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun, — it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each an experience precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion: because all organizations are radically alike."
Here, I think that Emerson is absolutely right. The reason farms, cars, tables, coffee, oranges, clouds, houses, bridges, and everything else in nature are in existence is to preach the Gospel to us.
Paul is clear on this too; God's invisible attributes are seen in the things that are created. Paul is so strong on this that he says that mankind is without excuse in their rejection of God because of "the things that have been made", namely, nature.
Read "Nature." It will bring joy to your soul.
"The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship."
Emerson says, "the use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history."
He offers a very holistic approach to nature; nature is spiritual and symbolic. There are no detached caveats or exceptions to the rule. Everything in nature tells a story or speaks of something else, something spiritual.
Jonathan Edwards likewise had 220 notes ("Images of Divine Things") in which he explained explicitly how various things teach us spiritual lessons about Christ. Emerson does the same. Of course, he is not the same sort of Christ-centered theologian that Edwards is, but nevertheless he establishes precisely the same framework and presupposition for seeing and savoring the spirituality of nature.
"All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun, — it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each an experience precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion: because all organizations are radically alike."
Here, I think that Emerson is absolutely right. The reason farms, cars, tables, coffee, oranges, clouds, houses, bridges, and everything else in nature are in existence is to preach the Gospel to us.
Paul is clear on this too; God's invisible attributes are seen in the things that are created. Paul is so strong on this that he says that mankind is without excuse in their rejection of God because of "the things that have been made", namely, nature.
Read "Nature." It will bring joy to your soul.
"The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship."
Sunday, April 1, 2012
A Divine and Supernatural Light
This morning I finished Edwards' sermon "A Divine and Supernatural Light."
The sermon is based on Jesus' statement in Matthew 16:17: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."
The full title of the sermon is "A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God."
Edwards argues from Scripture and reason (as he usually does) that saving faith - the faith in which Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ - is faith achieved by an act of God alone, in which he reveals the truth of who Jesus is by the Spirit.
By "immediately imparted" he means that the cause of the faith is ultimately the Spirit alone, not a preacher, teacher, book, or anything of that sort (though he may use these means). In fact, he argues that the kind of knowledge these things in themselves provide is "natural knowledge," which is quite distinct from real, spiritual knowledge.
And this distinction between natural and spiritual knowledge is perhaps one of the most helpful parts of the sermon. Regarding this distinction he says,
"Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance."
Edwards, like Luther, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Barth, etc., is clear that he does not negate the importance of reason, but he carefully defines it's limits:
"Reason may determine that a countenance is beautiful to others, it may determine that honey is sweet to others; but it will never give me a perception of its sweetness."
The sermon would take you less than an hour to read. It is very rich. Read it, and enjoy it.
Here is a link:
http://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/supernatural_light.html
The sermon is based on Jesus' statement in Matthew 16:17: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."
The full title of the sermon is "A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God."
Edwards argues from Scripture and reason (as he usually does) that saving faith - the faith in which Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ - is faith achieved by an act of God alone, in which he reveals the truth of who Jesus is by the Spirit.
By "immediately imparted" he means that the cause of the faith is ultimately the Spirit alone, not a preacher, teacher, book, or anything of that sort (though he may use these means). In fact, he argues that the kind of knowledge these things in themselves provide is "natural knowledge," which is quite distinct from real, spiritual knowledge.
And this distinction between natural and spiritual knowledge is perhaps one of the most helpful parts of the sermon. Regarding this distinction he says,
"Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance."
Edwards, like Luther, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Barth, etc., is clear that he does not negate the importance of reason, but he carefully defines it's limits:
"Reason may determine that a countenance is beautiful to others, it may determine that honey is sweet to others; but it will never give me a perception of its sweetness."
The sermon would take you less than an hour to read. It is very rich. Read it, and enjoy it.
Here is a link:
http://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/supernatural_light.html
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