The Emerging Scholars Blog

As I mentioned in Week in Review: Behold the Man Edition, I have been unable to put down Brian Godawa’s Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story & Imagination (InterVarsity Press, 2009).*  Below is a quote relevant to Holy Week.**

Word Pictures book cover

One of the reasons why the Jews of the first century did not recognize the visitation of the Messiah was because even they took the Bible too literally.  Indeed, they were expecting a military or political king who would crush Rome (Dan 2:44-45), restore the nation of Israel back from exile into their land (Zeph 3:14-20), build a new kingdom on earth (Dan 7:14) from Mount Zion in Jerusalem (Is 52), rebuild the Temple (Ezek 40-48), reinstate the Davidic monarchy (Ps 89:38-51) in a new “age to come” (Is 61) — all based on Old Testament prophecy.  Even Jesus’ own disciples misunderstood the literary nature of these promises as literal earthly political power (Mt 20:20-28; Acts 1:6).  Jesus’ kingdom did crush Rome, though not through military revolution, Jesus did restore Israel, did rebuild the Temple (Acts 15:14-17), did reinstate the Davidic monarchy (Lk 1:32), and he is the King of kings who came to Mount Zion (Mt 21:5) and rules over all things at the right hand of his father (I Pet. 3:22).  He just didn’t do these things in the literal way that they had envisioned, but in a literary way.  We see how the literary meaning of Israel and the Temple was first fulfilled in Christ and is now fulfilled in the church as his “body” (Rom 2:28-29; Eph 2:19-22).  Christ’s rule in his kingdom may be current and real, but certainly not an earthly reign of outward political power (Lk 17:20-21).

As you might guess, this is part of a chapter which explores the Literal versus Literary reading of Scripture and Godawa has come to read the Bible literarily.  How do you read the Bible this Easter? Read the rest of this entry »

For your reflection in the midst of Holy Week and in the days which follow:

Life in the Trinity cover

God created us to share in this relationship (between the Father and the Son) and gave us a share in the communion of the Trinity at creation. This is the primary thing that we lost through the Fall. God’s promise after the Fall, around which one may organize the entire history and teaching of the Old Testament, was ultimately a promise that the Son of God would come to bring human beings back into a share in the communion of the Trinity. In fulfillment of this promise, God the Son personally entered human life by becoming man while remaining God, and in his human life he showed us both God’s love and perfect human love. At his crucifixion, God the Son bore in his own person our estrangement from God; as man he was crushed by our sin, and as man he was forsaken in our place by his own Father. Through his resurrection and ascension, he was restored as man to the fellowship of the Trinity which he had always shared as God, and in the process he opened the way for people who are united to him by faith to be restored to fellowship with the Trinity as well.  The Holy Spirit, whom the Father and the Son sent to earth, dwells in believers, uniting us to the Son and thus granting us the participation in the Father-Son relationship that became possible through Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Through the Spirit, Christian are called to live — both individually and as the church — so as to anticipate the time when God will transform the entire created world and bring his dwelling here to be with his people for eternity.

All of this implies that fundamentally, our task as Christians is not to aspire to some higher or better world, either though our own efforts or with God’s help. The effort we put into Christian life is not our attempt to achieve something we do not already have, because God has already given us a share in the Son’s relationship to the Father. We are already daughters and sons of God, and we are called to live like sons and daughters by reflecting the relationship of the true Son to his Father. Furthermore, the better world is not some other world than this, but it will be this world itself once God transforms it by removing the effects of sin, restoring it to its pristine glory and even bringing his own dwelling place down into it. As a result, this is where human life ultimately finds its significance. The way life is meant to be is tied to four great realities: who God is as Trinity of loving persons, how God created the world and humanity within it, how God has redeemed fallen humanity, and how God will transform the world and the lives of his adopted children in eternity. Christian life looks up to the Father-Son relationship, back to both creation and redemption, and ahead to the culmination of history, and this web of participation, reflection and anticipation provides the context in which we understand the details of Christian life and recognize their significance. Life as God has always had it, and life as it was meant to be for people, will one day become life as it is for believers. We are called to participate in, reflect and anticipate that life.” — Donald Fairburn, Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 232-233.

PS. The quote concludes Life in the Trinity, for material earlier in the book visit Google Preview.  Hope you’ll join me in reading the whole book!  HT: Dan and Miller.

Last night our family discussed the shared practice of Lent.

By the grace of God the Father, our family will pick up the Spirit’s patience, keeping before us Galatians 5:22-26 as we grow in Christ-likeness in word and deed:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

We resolved by the power of the Spirit to give up human impatience, which became all too noticeable while being cooped up during the recent Northeast blizzard.  At the end of our discussion, one of my daughters suggested we really give up something earthly such as the internet.  My response was that we could consider the possibility, but first we’ll see how well we do with growing in and confessing when we fall short of incarnating God’s patience (and other fruits of the Spirit) in our life together over the course of the next week.

What are you picking up during Lent to fill the vacuum of what you’re giving up?  Is there a fruit of the Spirit which you yearn for and find difficult to nurture in the context of the academy? How can we pray for you and for the people of God in higher education as we journey toward becoming new creations through the resurrection power of Christ Jesus?

PS.  Looking for some prayers to guide your conversation with God today and through Lent?  Join me at Godspace.  Have some Lenten resources to share with ESN?  Please let us know by email or comment.

In The Other Education (NY Times Opinion, November 26, 2009), David Brooks comments:

For reasons having to do with the peculiarities of our civilization, we pay a great deal of attention to our scholastic educations, which are formal and supervised, and we devote much less public thought to our emotional educations, which are unsupervised and haphazard. This is odd, since our emotional educations are much more important to our long-term happiness and the quality of our lives.

Bruce Springsteen serves as one of Brooks’ professors of second education and he enjoyed passing along this mentor to his 15 year old daughter via a Baltimore, MD, concert experience with 10,000 other disciples. He reflects on the process:

In fact, we all gather our own emotional faculty — artists, friends, family and teams. Each refines and develops the inner instrument with a million strings.

Who are your emotional faculty? How do they intersect with your educational faculty?  Do they inhabit two different spheres and/or stories?  Would you equate emotional faculty with spiritual faculty?

As we’re a few days into Advent, let us remember that the Father sent His Son, the very Word of God, to be one of us, among us in birth, life, and death.  He alone brings true Life, Meaning, and Truth through example, Word, new Life, Spirit, and union with His Body the Church. Now matter how great our heroes on the artistic, athletic, familial, lecture, or research platform, let us first turn to Christ Jesus for our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual education.

Note 1:  Additional Springsteen-U2 performances can be found on-line, including I still haven’t found what I’m looking for (Live at Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame) and Stand By Me [Bono seems to have broken his arm and needs a good friend to play his guitar (Live In Philadelphia 9.25.1987)].

Note 2:  Scot McKnight has come conversation regarding this article at Did you get educated by Bruce Springsteen?

A Faith and Culture Devotional

If you don’t already have a copy of A Faith & Culture Devotional, click here to learn how to enter a drawing for a free copy.  The first drawing is on August 31st and the second on September 7th. Whether or not you win a copy, consider starting off the new term with a copy in hand.

Thank-you to Kelly Monroe Kullberg for her work on this project and the gift of this week’s devo from John Stott, see excerpt below.  Note:  You may remember our June study Stott’s classic Your Mind Matters.

I believe that anti‐intellectualism and fullness of the Holy Spirit are mutually incompatible. And I dare to say it because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. Jesus our Lord himself referred to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, and therefore, it is only logical to say that wherever the Holy Spirit has given his freedom, truth is bound to matter. So I have argued, and argue still, that a proper, conscientious use of our minds is an inevitable part and parcel of our Christian life. …

How have you come to know, understand, feel, and define hospitality?  Do you consider hospitality a necessary part of the fabric of Higher Education (e.g., community, discussion of ideas, relationships with the other) or not?  How have you experienced and/or extended hospitality on campus as individual or as part of a community of believers?  Looking forward to reading your thoughts/experiences.  Please share them with grace, truth, and charity.

What brings this topic to my mind at this time?  On Monday and Tuesday, I attended Hospitality, Critical Thinking and Truth: Living the Tensions, hosted by Messiah College, Grantham, PA.  At the conference, faculty, staff, and administrators from Christian colleges and universities wrestled with their shared goal of nurturing students into practices of gracious faith and intelligent reflection that fit[s] the needs of the 21st century.  The conversations reminded me not only of my education at Christian colleges, but also long conversations with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship staff regarding how to create/nurture hospitable places for followers of Christ and ‘the other’ on campus. Read the rest of this entry »

Would you agree or disagree with me that Christianity* is unfashionable on campus?  If so, would you go further with me to argue that Christianity is even more unfashionable on campus than in our larger culture?  Whether you agree or disagree with me that Christianity is unfashionable on campus, does Christianity need to be unfashionable on campus?  And if so, why and how? Read the rest of this entry »

Response:  Truly, He is Risen!

First, as we read the Easter stories, we note the strange absence of Scripture in them. When you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ last days — of his arrest, his trial, and his crucifixion — you find Old Testament echoes, quotations, and allusions all over the place. The Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and other books have provided material that has then been woven into the structure of the narrative. … Read the rest of this entry »

Take a moment sometime today to consider The Real St. Patrick and invite others to do likewise.  Looking for some resources?  I’d encourage you to start with The Real St. Patrick and St. Patrick’s Day.  If you have additional suggestions, including books to recommend, please share below.

St. Patrick

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

– A Poem by St. Patrick, ca 377 AD

Read the rest of this entry »

Since the beginning of Lent, our family’s reflected upon the tension between sin and a pure heart as found in Psalm 51.  One morning, we walked through the Gospel message and explored the question of whether sin makes sense to our friends at school.  In Lancaster County, PA, there remains a significant cultural memory of sin.  But most campuses lack the memory/framework to discuss sin.

On Wednesday, I heard concerns regarding spiritual dullness shared by representatives from three campuses in the Mid-Atlantic. Part of this dullness comes from the lack of acknowledgment of sin, even among followers of Christ.  Rod Dreher shares in a USA Today Opinion piece:

It is what the late Philip Rieff, a non-believer, called “the triumph of the therapeutic” in his famous 1966 book of the same name. Rieff said our civilization has done away with its “thou shalt nots,” which were intended to tell us how to be good, and instead substituted a psychological pseudo-religion meant to help us feel better about the way we live. Read the rest of this entry »