Thinking about new church development at 4th United Presbyterian

One thing about doing something new is that you get to make it up as you go along. And, in a new church development, there is really some of that “making it up as you go along.” But, there is always something very “old” in every genuine “new” church development. What we hope to develop has a living tradition almost 2,000 years old. And, with our connection to the faith of Israel, an even longer living tradition. Those of us who seek to follow the way of Jesus of Nazareth do so as the “contemporaries” of the first disciples. That “old” tradition is experienced as “new” and relevant in our lives. So, this vital connection to the tradition of faith means there is something very old and deeply embedded in any true new church development. As we hear the Word of the Living God: “Behold, I make all things new,” we are humbled and hopeful, realizing that it is God who is creating and redeeming in our lives and through our lives and in this “development” of a new mission.

Paul speaks of “the faith of Jesus Christ,” which may also be translated as “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” This is that wonderful union of humanity with God as a human being shows complete faithfulness to God, the Creator, and as God reveals his faithfulness to that human, Jesus, by raising him from the dead to be the head of humanity, the Lord of the earth, and declared for all the world as “the Son of God,” one with the very being of God. But, the revelation of God’s faithfulness to humanity goes even deeper than that. Because in Jesus, God is made known in human flesh. Both God’s will for humanity and God’s character are made known in Jesus. And, what is revealed is that Jesus came from God as the love and redeeming will and power of God on earth. “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son . . . ."

The “faithfulness of Jesus Christ” opens a way, a way of human beings living in peace and joy with God and each other. That is the way of Jesus Christ on earth. It was a way revealed in his life, suffering and death. It was a way that was shown to be undefeatable in his resurrection. When humans are reconciled with God, they are given to share in God’s eternal love and life.

So, this way of Christ is not something we are ‘making up as we go along.’ Nor, are we proclaiming some “new” gospel of God. What we are doing is bearing witness to this way in our midst. What we are doing is bearing witness to the ways of God which are always new among us. This old and living tradition is not primarily a set of beliefs passed down from generation to generation, nor is it primarily a set of rituals or precepts for living. No, it is a living allegiance and love for our God who remains faithful to human beings and to all the creation. It is an old way, but in this way, we attend to the ONE who makes all things new. It is the character of God to create new amidst the old, to bring life out of death, hope out of hopelessness, light out of darkness. It is our “attendance” to this living, moving Spirit of God that causes us to declare this a “new church development.” It is the newness of God’s Spirit moving among us. It is the fact that we have awakened to God’s calling that makes this a “new thing.” And, as we continue to experience God as the “God who raises the dead” and “the One who makes all things new,” we respond and realize a certain newness in our own spirits.

But, in taking part in a “new thing,” we are joining with all who are “attending” to the movement of God’s creative Spirit in the world. If we do something truly new, then it will reverberate in the faith of those other church’s around us. We will be mutually strengthened by each others faith. For, the truly new will ground us in the truly old. For, in the end, what we want to be is not so much a “new” church development, but a “true” church development.

The “newness” in our situation is that we have been shaken, turned around, displaced, so that we are seeing those around us in a new way, seeing the church’s mission in a new way, seeing ourselves in a new way. This is a “new” church development because we have departed from the old ways of “doing church” and are willing to learn from God a new way of “being church.” We are coming to understand this divine disruption of our lives as the coming of God’s costly grace into our lives and through us into the lives of others. Aren’t so many of the most wonderful gifts initially experienced as “disruptions” in our lives?

Time to Move On

Romans 3:21-26, that I have worried over, because I didn't trust any of the translations I have read. Well, when I got to this point in Romans 1:16-17, I felt I could offer a reliable translation, but not only do I not find any of the translations convincing of Romans 3:25, I cannot offer one on my own. I simply do not have the level of knowledge of ancient Greek necessary for this problem. So, I leave it as a problem. I don't trust the renderings of Romans 3:25 by our translators - whether they be the King James group or those of the RSV group. But, I trust in my experience of God and my reading of the rest of scripture. And, I trust in my reading of the rest of Paul's letters and the rest of this letter to the Romans.

I am zealous to proclaim the wonderful goodness of God whose grace was poured out through Christ, who has always worked at saving humanity, and who was so intent on saving us and our whole world that God, our Creator, took on our flesh - which means, took on our vulnerabilty in this flesh and blood life - and, God be praised, somehow has gone to the depths of our pain and suffering and hopelessness and created a new way - a way of purpose and love and hope that cannot be defeated.

That's what Jesus Christ means. He means something unbelievable about the Creator of the world. He means that God is with us, God is for us, against all odds, against all expectations, God is our redeemer and for some reason will not give up on us.

And, I'll get back to Bible Study next time, with some real attention to detail in vv. 25-26.

Getting Back to this Study

It's been 13 days since my last post. I have had a lot of work lately. And, just not as much time to sit and read and write.

If you do read this blog, I would encourage you to go back to the start, and read through Romans passages by passage and read the blog to this point, and comment if you want to comment. After I get through 3:21-26, I will be summarizing the study to this point, and coming up with some issues that are unresolved at this point in Paul's letter.

More later today or tommorrow.

Romans 3:21-26 "The Greek is a Mess"

Paul's use of Greek is usually pretty clear, but here, it doesn't seem like him at all. I almost have trouble believing he wrote these words. Many scholars suspect that he has adopted some early creedal summary of the church that he didn't write and has included it perhaps because it was meaningful to the Romans. I don't know about this. But, a literal translation of the Greek at v. 25 ends with something that really doesn't make much sense at all. So, even scholars who are very proficient in Greek are making some big guesses when it comes to verses 25-26, but most especially verse 25!



I will start with a translation of 3:21-24 which can be done with some confidence, and then I want to move to a translation of v. 26 which can be done with a little less confidence, but still it can be done. And, I want to act as if v. 25 has been lost, but we know a v. 25 exists. From the context surrounding v. 25 (vv. 21-24 & v. 26), I want to guess what I would have expected to have been in verse 25.



But, I'll have to get back to this a little later.



I can get a start before leaving this behind for other work:



"Now, separate from the law, God's righteousness has been and is being revealed, the very righteousness to which the law and prophets could point but could not bring about, that righteousness of God that comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to all people who rejoice and participate in this faithful way of Jesus with God. In this revelation of God's righteousness through Jesus, it is shown that there is no distinction between people since all have sinned and lack the glory of God, being made righteous by the gift of God's grace through the freeing power that is in Christ Jesus,"



Note: "the Greek word apolutroseos can be translated as "release" or "redemption," having the sense of an exchange of some value given to procure physical freedom or freedom from financial debt (which in those days debt often meant loss of liberty). I wonder if the Greek will bear the translation "through the redemption of Christ Jesus" ????? The preposition "ev" makes this unlikely.

Now, I know that not everybody reads Greek, so bear with me until I get through this part. I am just not willing to accept English translations any more on sections of the Bible where the translation involves a huge interpretive decision because the Greek is difficult to render into English. When I hit these sections, I am digging in to give myself some peace of mind that I have actually heard what was originally written, instead of being cut off from it by a big "interpretive" decision of a translator. But, I will have worked through this in a day or two, and then we will be back to english as usual until I run into another passage like this, which won't happen very often in Romans.

I will move to v. 26 next, and then go back and make some guesses about what I would think v. 25 would be about in light of its context, and then the hard work of really translating with the help of others guesses as well.

Romans 3:21-26

In reading this passage, there are some very important interpretive issues which are also translation matters. Again, as in 1:16-17, the term for "faith/faithfulness" comes again. I will set the Greek out below: list three or four different translations, and then see what I can come up with. Read the New RSV, The King James, and two others (I will be reading J.B. Phillips translation also and the New English Bible as well).

I will list these translations of the passage next.

A Quote from "The Divine Conspiracy," by Dallas Willard

This quote relates to my second to last post (Sept. 9).

"The sensed irrelevance of what God is doing to what makes up our lives is the foundational flaw in the existence of multitudes of professing Christians today. They have been led to believe that God, for some unfathomable reason, just thinks it appropriate to transfer credit from Christ's account to ours, and to wipe out our sin debt, upon inspecting our mind and finding that we believe a particular theory of atonement to be true - even if we trust everything but God in all other matters that concern us."

p. 49

This quote is also in preparation for interpreting Romans 3:21-26, but interpretation of that passage will require a close look at the Greek too.

Romans 3:1-20

Paul has proclaimed that God will judge all human beings with impartiality. In Chapter 2 he had focused his attention on the Jews as the argument progressed pointing out very sharply that "knowing the law would not insulate the Jew who fails to do the law from judgment." For the whole point of circumcision and instruction in Torah was to produce a people who lived righteously in the sight of God and glorified God in the sight of the world.

The revelation that was given Paul through Jesus had first been a revelation of the great NO of God to humankind as Barth says. And, much of God's revelation of this great NO, a revelation of present judgment on humankind, was the rejection by God of "human religion." By human religion, I mean human efforts to access the divine, human efforts to make sense of the world through thought, practice and rituals of religion. The real shock of that revelation out on Damascus Road to Paul (Acts 9) was that his own brand of Jewish religion was also implicated in this great NO. The great distinguishing feature of Judaism was that it alone had been spoken to by the One Creator and Judge of the world. At the heart of the Jewish faith was a thorough-going criticism of false religion/idolatry: "you shall have no other gods before me; you shall not make any likeness of any part of the created order and you shall not bow down and worship it." But, on the way to Damascus to put down "false religion," Paul found out that he had sold out to false religion himself! Because the One who had made God's will known in human flesh, the One whose complete obedience had shown the truth of God on earth - Paul realized suddenly that he was fighting against this One. Jesus said to Paul that day: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" But, Paul had thought he was persecuting those who were leading others away from God. Paul had thought he was upholding the truth of the faith, not attacking the true way of faith.

So, as Paul has launched this sharp criticism of Jews in chapter 2 of Romans, know that it arises out of the dramatic turning of his own heart and mind inside out on Damascus Road before the living Word of God, the Risen Lord.

But, how could the Jewish faith have been twisted so badly? Was there some defect in the scriptures themselves? God had brought the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt; God had revealed his holy commandments on Mt. Sinai to Moses; God had raised up prophets to speak the Word of the Lord and to bring judgment and correction too for God's people. How could this tradition have gone so wrong? What was being asked basically was this: "Was the Holy Scripture and the tradition of Worship somehow "unholy?"

Paul faces these questions - actually raises them himself: "What advantage then has the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way: first of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God." Romans 3:1-2. The giving of the law and prophets, the revelation of the name of the Lord and God's character to Israel, the history of God with Israel - this history is holy, even if Israel failed to keep the covenant. This history, despite being shot through with sin, nonetheless is a holy history because it reveals God's character - God's faithfulness despite the unfaithfulness of Israel. Paul writes: "For what if some were without faith? Shall their lack of faith nullify the faithfulness of God? God forbid! Yes, let God be found true, but every human a liar; as it is written, 'that thou might be justified in thy words, and might prevail when thou comes to judgment." Romans 3:3-4.

This holy history of God with Israel is a history of revelation: revealing the presence of God with human beings and also revealing the rejection of God by human beings. Of course, this history also reveals that from time to time human beings like Abraham, Moses, Amos, Jeremiah, Shiprah and Puah received God and praised God and obeyed God. So, this history is a record of the holy path where God's truth meets with human sin and at moments, with human faithfulness to God.

And, I spend some time on this response of Paul's (which he will clarify in more detail later in chapter 7 of Romans when he deals specifically with the law of God) because how one views the history of God with Israel and our Old Testament that arises from and recollects this history - well, the way one views this period of the Old Covenant is critical to faith. An example from Church History might help clarify what I am getting at. So, I am going to take the next post to cover a couple of important figures in early Church History. One is named Marcion; the other Irenaeus. The reason that I take time to do this is that how we understand and experience the relationship of the New Covenant through Christ and the Spirit to the Old Covenant through the Law and Prophets - well, how we experience this in the depths of our souls is at the heart of faith. For Marcion, the covenant through Christ did not arise out of the covenant through the law and prophets but contradicted it and set the law and prophets aside. For Marcion, Christ did not reconcile us with the Creator of the Word, but showed that the God of Israel had been a God we couldn't trust, who was arbitrary. And, so the cross did not affect a reconcilation with the God and Father and Creator of all, but bound us to a new redeeming God and saved us from an old judging God. More on this in the next post.

Romans 2: Standing before it and questioning myself

I have been complaining some about a type of Protestant belief that has three basic assumptions:

1) that belief in Jesus is all that matters; and
2) that doesn't worry too much about conforming one's life to the way of Jesus, because what really matters is keeping Jesus way in mind and praising him even if we can't quite follow him.; but
3) that does worry about keeping our sin in mind and confessing it regularly.

A few weeks ago or maybe a month ago I preached a sermon about "Moving from Guilt and Forgiveness to Repentance and Obedience." I liked that sermon; problem was that I am as stuck in the guilt/forgiveness cycle as the biggest guilt trippin, grace grabbing Protestant around. And, I think I even said some right things in that sermon like: a religion focused on guilt/forgiveness is focused on ME; whereas a religion focused on repentance/obedience is focused on glorifying GOD - centered on GOD. But, just like the Jewish teachers Paul is addressing in Romans 2, I say a lot of the right things. But, when it comes down to it, what is the structure of my life of faith and my understanding of what devotion to God really means?

"Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are (pastor, doctor or Indian chief), when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things." Romans 2:1

In some ways I have a self-focused typical Protestant faith. Of course, I have these experiences at times that break through that into a God-focused moment, but then I let that slip away before I am taken up into my upward calling into a completely God-centered life. And, so I fall back down into the pit of having to revisit my tendency to criticize others, consider things with regard to how they affect me, and experience anxiety over many things instead of trusting peace. And, I bring this all out before God seeking his renewal, his peace, and the way of Christ in this world. And, God again is gracious and shows me something, and I take it to heart it seems for a while; then, I forget again and get stuck in the pattern of "believing in God's grace; keeping myself aware of my sins and distance from true obedience" and thinking that is the structure of true faith. But, it is not. Real faith is powerful. That is, real faith, as Paul knows breaks open the heart and our ways of living to God's redeeming, guiding, creative power. The path of Jesus in this world is a path of vital life, deep trust, and joyful praise. It loses respect for the power of sin, because it is so full of the power of God's holy grace and merciful love. Real faith gets on with obeying God's will. Too much time has been wasted on the b.s. of sin; let's get on with the real joy and business of living in God, abiding in God's love. That is the attitude and spirit of real faith. And, I have known it and been known by it. But, then when that fades away, I settle for the consolation prize of a sickly Protestant guilt-focused, me-focused religion, which I am not really sure is any religion at all. But, I deny all the time that I believe in this type of rweak religion, because I claim that my faith is in God and my praise is for God and that my allegiance is really for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But, where is my head and my heart day to day? Self-preservation and focused within, or self-giving and seeking God's work as the Spirit draws me into working for others, loving others, understanding others, enjoying others? I can say that when I really feel alive I am involved in the self-giving and seeking the way of Jesus in the world. I have to admit that when I feel pretty dead inside, I have usually gotten stuck in myself. I have gotten to where I can feel the difference in these ways: the way of life and the way of death. But, God is not a God who leaves us to be tossed to and fro between good and evil, between trust and anxiety. So, when I am tending towards deadness inside, it generally means I have walked away from the path of the Spirit of God, which means walked away from the real needs of others and the real needs of myself - the need to abide in God and praise and revere God from the depths of my soul.

As I think back to my anger this morning over a minor dispute with another attorney, I realize that my anger was not really arising from my heart, but from some role I was playing. And, when I get angry like that, I can't really "own it," and that makes me feel bad about being angry and makes me even harder to deal with! If my anger really arises in the course of trying to be just and decent, then it is something I can own; it is something that can be shaped by God's Spirit. But, this other anger, what I had going this morning - that feels like something from the past, something that is no longer real and needs throwing away for good. It felt like it came from a part of me that has already died.

I may have learned something today. When we come to realize the falsity and even dead parts of ourselves - those false constructions that have been crucified with Christ - we can quit digging up the graves of our pasts, maybe dance a little jig on these graves and get back to connecting with life: in God and in others.

These thoughts that I am having right now bring hope to me. I am starting to wonder if God's Spirit has lured me away from guilt into repentance; away from focusing on being forgiven to making God proud. I have to admit that my experience of God's overwhelming grace does seem to be an experience that I have despite myself. And, God seems to have surrounded me with so much help, so many good chances, so many good people, that maybe it is all starting to sink in.

That's all anybody needs to move the structure of their faith from guilt/forgiveness self-focused religion to repentance/obedience God-focused religion. Part of me is certainly the old self-focused religion, but it is getting harder and harder to take that part of my self seriously. God is like that with us. He lures us away from dead end paths, shows us examples of real life, until one day we will wake up and realize we are walking faithfully in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, maybe that old self-focused religion of guilt and forgiveness isn't so bad afterall as long as it remains open to the coming of God's grace and as long as it realizes that God has more in store for human beings than that. I am on the same continuum of faith as my fellow believers, and where I really am on it only God knows.

Maybe, I am on the same continuum of faith as my fellow humans, whether they know it or not? In Christ God has established a relationship with every human being that is full of hope and full of promise. A human being is placed on this gracious continuum of faith by the completely unexpected embrace of God in Jesus Christ. I would like to think some about this when we cover Romans 5. Paul seems to think the nature of all human life is changed by God's unilateral reaching out in love through Christ to all humanity. I would like to think on this. The assumption that Christ's death and resurrection had no effect on the creation and only has an effect on those who profess faith in Christ doesn't seem to be Paul's view. More on this, but it will have to wait until chapter 5 of Romans.