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Featured Writer: Dr Doug Jackson on Trinity Sunday

I wanted to feature this fine Sermoneutics article because I’ll be bringing the concept of Trinity to my class this Sunday.

Sermoneutics is a weekly column authored by Doug Jackson. Before coming to South Texas School of Christian Studies, Dr. Jackson pastored churches for nearly twenty-five years. For more from Doug Jackson, check out his blog at djackson.stscs.org.
Click here for the Sermoneutics archive.

by Doug Jackson
Trinity Sunday,
2 Corinthians 13.11-14

The good news is that the Western church has conspired to disobey the clear command of Scripture. The bad news is that our disobedience obscures our doctrine.

Augustine warned that anyone who disbelieves the Trinity is in danger of losing his salvation . . . and that anyone who attempts to understand it is in danger of losing his mind! Actually the Trinity is one of those things, like fried crawdad tails or dancing or being in love, that one understands not by pondering but by experiencing.

“We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.” Athanasius puts it rather neatly but perhaps leaves us wondering how to pull off the tricky business of inhabiting what we believe. The doctrine makes us psychological heretics whose nerves don’t connect with our confession.

Paul takes a more practical tack, perhaps because he writes as a pastor and not as a theologian. Just before rapping out one of the clearest Trinitarian statements in all of Scripture, he lays a command on us: Greet one another with a holy kiss. That’s the injunction I am so glad the Church exiles to the exegetical antipodes along with head coverings for women and not boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.

I don’t like it when people hug me; you can imagine how I feel about kissing. And I claim apostolic authority on this one: C. S. Lewis shared my aversion. “It is one of my lifelong weaknesses,” he writes in his autobiography Surprised By Joy, “that I never could endure the embrace or kiss of my own sex.” But there it is, right in the Bible and everything.

See, the problem is that the Trinity states, not an abstract mathematical puzzle but a common-sense relational truth: God is love, and either the Almighty is the ultimate cosmic narcissist eternally self-involved, or God has eternally had Someone to love. And since only God is eternal it must be that the Father has eternally loved the Son, the Son has eternally loved the Father and the Spirit has eternally been that love. And therefore Christians can only study the Trinity by risking the sloppy business of loving one another. And because God makes us bodies we can only love with our bodies. Every hug that breeches my barriers brings me closer to inhabiting the unity of Trinity. Amplexo ergo creedo: I hug, therefore I get it.

In this light, it is interesting to note that this year Trinity Sunday falls on the same day as Juneteenth, a nationwide observance for African-Americans commemorating the day the Emancipation Proclamation actually took effect. Perhaps instead of breaking our brains over the complexities of cosmic calculus, we could study the Trinity by repenting of past segregations and handing out a few hugs across the barriers we have built throughout Christ’s body.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

-Doug

Collect

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, You are love from all eternity. Make us one as You are one, that in us the world may see the grace, love and fellowship of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Benediction

May you be broken enough to help one another,
For wholeness comes from healing.
May you disagree enough to hear one another
For oneness comes from listening.
May you be lonely enough to hold one another
For touch defeats division and discord.
In the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
The love of God,
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
Amen.

What Laws did Christ Fulfill? (Or, should we follow ancient Hebrew laws?)

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.

Can’t be good? Then, fake it.

Have you noticed that Honesty is sometimes confused for speaking out in a tactless way? Being “true to our feelings” can reveal the worst parts of ourselves.

Circumstantial Goodness
My goodness (shown in how I think, speak, or act) is too often circumstance or feelings based. Is that true for you? We may treat someone well, if we feel well and good, or if we fear the consequences of skipping out on kindness. Those two things, however, are not goodness or good character sourced from a deeper, formative level. They don’t reveal goodness engrained in our true selves.

FAKING IT?
While, I will not advocate deception, phony pretense, or falsehood, there is something to be said for acting and speaking in a most virtuous way, until our thinking catches up with it. In other words, do the right thing so often that it becomes the new normal for you.

So, it’s actually the idea of acting (living/interacting) from our “best self”, not from a fabrication.

Example:
Say you struggle with keeping a positive attitude: Try putting on a positive attitude until your way of behaving is difficult to separate from who you are…until your thinking changes. “Wear” a sanguine attitude, until you forget that you’re wearing it, and it becomes an extension of you. Think of it like how you would put on and wear a coat over your regular clothes during cold weather until you feel warm. (For me this would involve a hooded coat.)

Do it until you feel it… or ” option 2 “
I’ve usually advocated the opposite of what I have just said. I’ve thought its best to, “Get your thinking right, and then enact it.” But, you know what? Sometimes we’re just not “there” yet. Sometimes too many circumstances, or unmanageable sentiments block this from happening easily. Now, it seems we can get there from either side, and this, my friends, is good news indeed!

In Christian spiritual formation, we implement practices, concepts, and awareness of that which stimulates Sanctification (a.k.a. the process in which we develop into God-like (Good, like God) people through-in-through. We also consider: “What are God’s qualities?” One that stands out is perfect goodness. This perfect goodness is never based on feelings or circumstances when it’s attributed to God. It simply IS.

Thanks for reading today. I can almost hear the gears moving in your mind, so remember, your comments are welcome.

What can you tell us about feeling/thinking good before doing, or the other way around…doing before we’re feeling it? How does it work for you?

Verse of meditation: Colossians 3:12-14
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

My Favorite Prayer about Spiritual Growth

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.

Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

(Eph. 3:14-21 NLT)

Thoughts? Comments?