Lisa Colón DeLay

“If you truly love God and his will, then doing what you will, will, in fact, be doing what God wills.” – Peter Kreeft

Many of us strive to learn or discover God’s will. But, it can be confusing.

Dr Peter Kreeft offers 5 insights:

• Always begin with data

with what we know for sure. Judge the unknown by the known, the uncertain by the certain. Adam and Eve neglected that principle in Eden and ignored God’s clear command and warning for the devil’s promised pig in a poke.

• Let your heart educate your mind

Let your love of God educate your reason in discerning his will. Jesus teaches this principle in John 7:17 to the Pharisees. (Would that certain Scripture scholars today would heed it!) They were asking how they could interpret his words, and he gave them the first principle of hermeneutics (the science of interpretation): “If your will were to do the will of my Father, you would understand my teaching.” The saints understand the Bible better than the theologians, because they understand its primary author, God, by loving him with their whole heart and their whole mind.

• Have a soft heart but a hard head

  We should be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” sharp as a fox in thought but loyal as a dog in will and deed. Soft-heartedness does not excuse soft-headedness, and hard-headedness does not excuse hard-heartedness.

• All God’s signs should line up

  by a kind of trigonometry. There are at least seven such signs: (1) Scripture, (2) church teaching, (3) human reason (which God created), (4) the appropriate situation, or circumstances (which he controls by his providence), (5) conscience, our innate sense of right and wrong, (6) our individual personal bent or desire or instincts, and (7) prayer. Test your choice by holding it up before God’s face. If one of these seven voices says no, don’t do it. If none say no, do it.

• Look for the fruits of the spirit

  especially the first three: love, joy, and peace. If we are angry and anxious and worried, loveless and joyless and peaceless, we have no right to say we are sure of being securely in God’s will. Discernment itself should not be a stiff, brittle, anxious thing, but—since it too is part of God’s will for our lives—loving and joyful and peace-filled, more like a game than a war, more like writing love letters than taking final exams.

Do you agree… disagree… or have any thoughts on Dr Kreeft’s insights?

Click to read the rest of the (lengthy) article.

Installments in this Discernment Series have often been on Fridays, but this week, I have a special announcement Friday. Come back for that.

Or, never miss new content…click the update link in the right sidebar (top)

My conversation with the foremost Pentecostal Theologian, Amos Yong, has 2 parts. First, we talk about the themes in his new book “The Bible, Disability, and the Church”.

Click for Video (part I)

Below is part II of our talk. We cover some excellent topics like healing, God’s will, social oppression in the church, communal prayers of lament, his Disability Bible project (and more).

Click to view Part II

(This is being submitted to the Deeper Leader Synchro Blog sponsored by Evangelical Seminary. Find out more here.)

WARNING: This post may rock your world. (a.k.a. “BOOM post” )

How should we read and study the Bible?

Debates on this will rage, but one thing we often assume that we can simply read the Bible and understand it. Essentially, the Holy Spirit just pops the correct meanings into our brains. Right?

If that were the simple truth, we’d all be, at least mostly, on the same page in Christianity, and we ARE! Um. bzzzz. No…not. at. all.

The Holy Spirit will convict our conscience of sin, and the Holy Spirit help us understand certain things about God’s nature and his grace. Yet, some huge obstacles lie before us concerning the details of Scriptural text.

These details can, and do turn into doctrine or false teaching that fall outside the intent of the text. In clumsy hands, dogmatic presumptions of the Holy Spirit’s opinion have led to all manner of errors, deceptions, injustice. And this study method, if you will, has even started more than a few whacky cults. Yes, and some involve koolaid.

SO!
If you forget EVERYTHING about this post, please don’t forget this. When interpreting the meaning of the Bible (a.k.a. engaging in hermeneutics) remember: A scripture passage cannot mean something different than its original intent.

Huh? What?
Let that red text sink in. Please…Re-read it.

Seriously. It’s a huge deal once you truly comprehend it, and even bigger when you apply it.

A scripture passage cannot mean something different than its original intent. (That’s a needed re-refresher. Please bear with me.)

Understanding the Bible involves a continual tension between discerning…

Our understanding and the writer’s intent.*

Here are just 5 a mere few of the obstacles that can hinder a proper understanding of scripture:

– Language barriers (Ex. Jesus spoke Aramiac, The New Testament was written in Greek (a dead form of the Greek language now,) and English was taken from the Greek. This book collection HAS TO be divine and God-breathed to still transform individuals, whole communities, and cultures through its message of the Good News!)

– Historical distance barriers (Now is later. Stuff has changed. ‘nuf said.)

– Cultural barriers (We don’t wear the same stuff, and do the same things, at all. period.)

– Circumstantial differences (But one example: Every church has “its stuff” unique to it. Particular concerns and problems.)

– Our lens/perspective, education, and experiences (I hope this is self-explanitory. If not, maybe this blog is too much for you. No worries. Just search this blog for “humor” and forget about this post entirely.)

Quick & Hot Tips for the Good Book

When reading, and attempting to understand a Bible passage,

– include paragraphs and sections, rather than a sentence, a phrase, or a lone sentence. (Nothing can twist scripture more than attempting to find meaning in a small phrase of scripture, instead of taking the complete thought and verbiage into account. You wouldn’t want to be taken out of context, so you know, do the right thing.)

– Read a few translations (Don’t parse words. Just don’t. It’s major mistake! Chances are the translators had to give it their best guess. Plenty of words in ancient Hebrew, and Greek, won’t and can’t translate out of the original language. Translators disagree. A lot. So, don’t assume you have read the perfect word choice. The word may not have been used or known outside of that one, or just a few, times.)

– Consult commentaries (These folks have dedicated their whole life to studying the Bible, the ancient culture, the history, etc. They’ve studied deeper, longer, and harder than you, and probably have some great insights from their research.)

Yes. This post was a “BOOM post”. It may come off sort of… um… strong. I see people all over the place butchering what the Bible says simply because they are naive. They haven’t bothered or known how to read the bible in a way that will get things at least mostly right. They start to sound goofy pretty fast. Next time you hear someone spouting off about a Bible passage, inquire if they’ve done the passage good justice by learning it intelligently in these few ways; then (as nicely as possible) challenge their mode of learning and teaching.

Bible study is a vital spiritual discipline, and like prayer, fasting, giving, and all the rest should be done through being better informed. Learning is a continual process. Keep up with it!

*Some of my information is straight from Stuart and Free’s fantastic book: How to Read the Bible for All its Worth. Many agree that it’s the book par excellence, for understanding and studying the Bible. Give it a whirl.

Did this post help you think of the Bible in a new way?
What has helped you understand what the Bible says?

Thou Shalt Not (Moses Heston)

Have you ever heard someone say, “The Bible says you can’t get a tattoo.” or “God’s law says women shouldn’t dress like men,” or made some truth statement about Christian conduct based on The 10 Commandments, or one of the laws from Leviticus or Deuteronomy?

Can New Testament Christians (most of us reading this) spurn these laws, since they were written for West Semites of long ago? Or, on the other hand, which Biblical laws must apply to Christians today? I’ve noticed a bit of a pick and choose sort of thing, have you?

Paul says Christ fulfilled the law…but how does this play out practically in Christian living?

Opinions vary. Culture or our experiences can overshadow our decisions on this stuff. It doesn’t just break down into categories of legalist vs. lawless.

I’d like to address that today.

I won’t do it alone. Instead I’ll defer to a far smarter person than me. A helpful PDF document here, from my professor at ETS, Dr. David Dorsey, may inform your study of God, and improve your Christian living or outlook.

Try to muscle through the academic nature of this excerpt. Highlighted words are linked to definitions, if you need them.  And please comment or respond in some way.

David Dorsey– An excerpt from last page of article:
[JETS 34:3 (September 1991) p. 312-322]

I would suggest the following theocentric hermeneutical procedure for applying any of the OT laws, whether the law be deemed ceremonial, judicial, or moral:

1. Remind yourself that this law is not my law, that I am not legally bound by it, that it is one of the laws God issued to ancient Israel as part of his covenant with them. When I look at this law I am looking over the shoulder of the Israelite (just as I am, for example, when I consider one of God’s messages through Jeremiah to the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the final days before the city’s fall).

2. Determine the original meaning, significance and purpose of the law. What was its point? Why did God issue it? What apparently were his motives in giving it? (Allegorizing, spiritualizing and typologizing here are counterproductive, succeeding only in obscuring the original significance and purpose of the law.)

3. Determine the theological significance of the law. What does this law reveal about God and his ways? A law, as mentioned, reveals a great deal about the lawgiver. What does this law reflect about God’s mind, his personality, his qualities, attitudes, priorities, values, concerns, likes and dislikes, his teaching methodologies, the kinds of attitudes and moral and ethical standards he wants to see in those who love him? In spite of the fact that these 613 laws were issued to another people who lived at another time under very different circumstances than ours (again, like the prophetic oracles of Jeremiah), they come from the God whom we too serve, and they represent a vast reservoir of knowledge about him and his ways.

4. Determine the practical implications of the theological insights gained from this law for your own NT circumstances. To take an example from the civil laws, Exod 22:25 states: “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest.” First, this law is not my law. It was part of Israel’s covenant with God (Christian bankers can relax—for a moment). Second, as far as the point of the law is concerned, it forbids the charging of interest when lending to a poor person, presumably to assist the person who is in a financial crisis in such a way that his recovery will be possible and the repayment will not be overly burdensome. A second purpose is undoubtedly to encourage the individual Israelite to be openhanded and generous, to be sensitive to the needs of the poor, and to be ready and willing to help needy people in practical ways even when it will not result in one’s own financial gain.

What theological insights come from this law? The Person who issued this law is obviously concerned about the physical and emotional well-being of the poor. Moreover he apparently wants his people to have a similar sensitivity toward the poor, to be willing to help the needy sacrificially.

If you are interested, read the full document here. (10 pages)

Have you thought about the Bible this way? Share something.

I asked my friend, Ed Cyzewski, to guest post this week. I knew the topic on church and culture, in his  book Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life would make an excellent companion post for the class I’m currently teaching. I urge you to get a copy, by clicking the title above; or read a chapter here. This Sunday, we’ll cover how the influences of culture effect how we enact the Gospel message and walk with God. How do we best navigate this ground?

Let’s hear from Ed.

When We’re Blindsided by the Bible
-Ed Cyzewski

Saying that the church exists in a culture is the kind of obvious statement on par with saying we breath oxygen. But actually knowing what to do about the influence of culture on the Bible and how we interpret it isn’t always as obvious as taking a deep breath.

Growing up in a wonderful Baptist church in the Philly suburbs, one of the most important sermons I ever heard explained the importance of being poor in spirit based on the Gospel of Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. The Holy Spirit spoke to me about pride festering in my life. I often return to that sermon for guidance.

However, years later I read some books by theologians from South America who had experienced severe poverty and injustice. One particular theologian wrote about the Sermon on the Mount from Luke’s Gospel which says that the poor are blessed. In other words, the poor are blessed just because they are poor.

This was quite jarring for me to read. How had I missed something that jumped off the pages for Christians in Latin America?

I soon realized that I was encountering a cultural perspective on the Bible that was illuminating an angle that I’d neglected. In fact, I was poorly positioned to spot it.

While enjoying the affluence of America, pride can become a significant problem. It’s no mistake that a sermon on being poor in spirit connected. However, I was not prepared to read about God’s concern for the poor.

The more I interacted with theologians from South America, the more I noticed that one of God’s most important concerns throughout the Old Testament is justice and equity for the poor.

Here’s the thing: my reading of Matthew was not wrong. However, it was limited. By interacting from another perspective, I could see more in the Bible than I could have ever found on my own. This is because we read the Bible in a cultural context that can be both friend and foe.

We learn about God and follow Jesus in a cultural context. Certain ideas and metaphors will make more sense to us than others. We approach God from a particular perspective that is shaped by our time in history, our nation’s values, our experiences, our language, and the thousand other things that go into American culture in the 21^st century.

Some folks write about our cultural context as something that is dangerous. As if we need to fight it. If our society says that truth is hard to find, we need to fight that by saying that it’s easy to find. Why, it’s right in the Bible of course!

Others say that our culture is right. We should listen to it. Truth is hard to find, and we’d better not get too attached to anything we read, and nurture our doubts about God and the Bible.

Here’s the thing, a cultural setting shaped the writers of the Bible. They used the cultural tools of their times when they added clarity, such as calling Jesus “The Word” or “logos” in Greek. However, when it came time to confront the Greek pantheon, they declared that there is one God who made heaven and earth, and God proved it by raising Jesus from the dead—resurrection being culturally off the map for Greeks.

The tension of Christianity is one of being in a culture with values, conventions, and experiences that may either make us either more receptive, or combative to the ideas in the Bible. Saying that culture is all good or all bad overlooks important elements in both directions.

We need to remain culturally aware so that we know there is more to God than we could ever find on our own. Our perspective has its limits. We can learn a good deal more about God by interacting with Christians from other denominations, Christians in other nations, and within our traditions. By learning to interact with culture, we won’t be blind to its influence and submit to its every whim.

To read more from Ed, click here.

fires of hell?

Scot McKnight has an intriguing post regarding Sharon Baker’s book Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught About God’s Wrath and Judgment. His article here.

After you read these 7 considerations (from Scot’s post), will you please comment here?

1. Theodicy: how does God deal with evil if it, in effect, exists for ever in a hell-state? Does evil not continue to exist, even in spite of the statement in Revelation 21:1-4 that death and suffering will be no more? So, the issue here is squaring God’s goodness with eternal evil.

2. Eternal hopelessness: a traditional hell does not permit any hope after death for anyone, including those who have never heard. Is there a law that says God’s grace can only be active in the temporal sphere — that is, during our physical lifetime?

3. Eternal evil: does not the traditional view entail the view that God never really does purge his world of evil?

4. Justice vs. Love: the issue here is an old one. If God is love, how does justice fit in with that love. Is God ambivalent or split? An image of God that emerges for many is a cruel father who guides people to think of eternal punishment as an act of love.

5. Eternal divine violence: assumptions are that punishment is an act of violence and eternal punishment would mean God is eternally violent. She connects this view of God with acts of violence in history. She thinks God’s violence contradicts God’s love.

6. Retributive justice: again, a major issue is that God’s justice in the Bible — in Christ — is restorative but hell is a belief in a retributive justice that never becomes restorative.

7. Eternal punishment for temporal sin: how can it be just to punish a human being, who sinned temporally — that is over a life time (and no more), for an eternity for that temporal sin?

Yes!

Things look a bit different here.

Do. Not. Panic.

Sometimes I need to try something new. But, it’s not only for the sake of refreshment, but also for the sake of improvement. I’ve tried to streamline away some of the noise. Tell me what you think, okay? What would you change?

Handy Tip of the Day (for navigating the new styled site)

Scroll to the bottom for (some of) the old sidebar options. (search the blog, see other pages, sign up for updates, oh my,  I’m winded…)

ALSO!

I could really use your help for the BUZZ 25K.

The what, uh, what, Buzz? You say. Right. I’ll tell you:

With the new look/revamp, it’d be ridiculous, fun, and interesting to see the “reach” of readers and visitors like you. What kind of ripple effect do you have?  You are the one with the power. I’m just here for your amusement… but I digress.

What if we top out the hits (scroll to the bottom to see the  hits counter) to 25,000, this week? YOU and your peeps could make it happen.

If you want to help, let some people know about this blog. (Tweet on it, stat about it, facebook it, link to it, text…heck, you decide how, just use your creativity, and don’t break any laws. ~Little brother, I’m talking to you.) If you want you can leave a comment that you helped, or how you did it.

Thanks for reading.

There’s GREAT stuff coming in July!

I’m finishing a paper of the I Corinthians 8:9 verse about being a stumbling block. (It had to do with Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ problem of whether eating meat sacrificed in pagan temples was advisable/allowable.)

The nutshell:

Paul says, it’s not about the food. It’s actually about the care taking of other people who don’t share the same previous experiences, or who have different convictions. The “strong” (so-called by those who wish to be called that) say they have no problems with eating meat of that nature. The new converts, they term, “the weak” are conflicted about eating meat in their former places of worship, etc. Paul advises the “strong ones”.

He says, no one should be forced to accept or do something that goes against their conscience. Knowing God, for who God is, means many things stop being about simply matters of right or wrong. In the end, what matters is that we gracious provide for each other, and we do not burden other believers on amoral issues. He mentions he’ll never eat meat again, if eating will bring someone to ruin, yet he has no problem with eating it himself.

For my paper, I had to come up with a contemporary situation that manifests itself in a similar way. There are plenty of things to choose from. Can you think of any?

I came up with Christians and Tattoos:

So- What you think?

Are tattoos a witness, or a stumbling block?

Both? Neither?

What’s your opinion?

Here is a video of an interview of a Christian tattoo artist that shows the issue from his unique vantage point. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYzPQlWo61Q]

Here’s a bit of a excerpt from a paper I’m finishing right now. I would love your comments. 

-lisa

The Rich Language of “walk humbly”

In verse eight, it is fascinating how God uses the term (we read in English) “walk right” or “walk humbly.” In this apex verse, God asks his people to act as he does, and “live carefully” (Barker, 114). To walk with God implies constant prayer and watchfulness, and possession of a familiar yet “humble” communion with God. It includes both passive and active obedience towards God, their Sovereign (Fausset). While actions show the condition of the heart, worship is the outward expression of humility. One must love God and neighbor thoroughly in word and deed. For God, this renders sacrifices as secondary, or even unnecessary (Smith, 51). This Just God takes his people into kind consideration through protective laws, and in honoring them (among many other Just things). In that fashion, he expects that Israel’s “living carefully” includes Social Justice and true religion (113). Like the command of Deuteronomy 10:12-13, the people should act out of justice, not just talk about justice (115). Through the method of God’s prophetic message, God reveals the history of his Just and Merciful actions toward Israel. God asks of them that which stem from Justice–the attribute–that applies directly to God himself.

Bibliography:

Barker, Kenneth L. and Waylon Bailey. Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. The American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman, 1999.

Fausset, A.R. Robert Jamieson, and David Brown. The Book of Micah:
Commentary: Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871. Public domain. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/jamieson/jfb.i.html. Accessed 2/20/10.

Smith, Ralph L. Micah-Malachi. Word Biblical Commentary 32. Waco: Word, 1984.