So, I am knee deep into the academic grind (hence the lack of posts) and I am trying to sort through all sorts of questions (my classes have raised some good ones-maybe I will address some later) but something that I keep coming back to is, “Where my place is in the academic world?” and “What it does for my soul?” It is interesting being in the theology department at an academic school (not seminary) in general, as being a “Bible scholar” has the pretensions of spirituality without any of the substance. That is, we engage in discussion of the text (kind of, as often it is more of what I would call “behind the text”….but that’s not the point of what I am saying here right now) but we don’t really engage in discussion of the subject, which is the spiritual life. We don’t pray. We trust our own understandings and pride ourselves on our knowledge and credentials. We look at what texts say as opposed to what texts mean; we seek to deconstruct texts to get at the original form or meaning, discuss them, discuss how they might have been shifted, but then make no consideration on whether this is right or wrong for us today (history with no implications). And being in at a Catholic school, we can talk about our differences (I am the token Protestant) and laugh and talk about how it affects the questions that we ask and not whether the differences are ones of substance or style (I just coined that….I like it, I might keep it in my expression inventory). In many ways, we end up putting ourselves over the text (or at least our methodologies) without what I would really say is listening to the text (the message of it). And the question I continually ask (myself) is, “Can we even read the Bible this way? Can it be read in a context outside of the context of faith (not discounting “Bible as literature” classes but maybe nuancing them, as in you can only understand the Bible when you consider its place of faith)?” This divide didn’t really happen until the 20th century (and even then not complete) as pastors were the ones who were the scholars (isn’t it interesting that now pastors are more inclined to be “businessmen” when they used to be teachers and professors, including some of the best Greek scholars while now pastors almost pride themselves on not being Greek scholars and then trusting the authority of others on the subject…but now I once again move into a different issue, discussions of the church and the anti-intellectualism or divide that comes between church and the mind.)

Not sure if all that makes sense, but those are the sort of questions with which I struggle right now, as well as the constant wondering if I have to sell my soul to the liberals in order to succeed in scholarship (and what exactly constitutes selling my soul and leaving my convictions and ideas). I have been growing and considering new ideas, challenging old paradigms of thinking, considering new ways and methods on their own, and getting a better grasp on much of the Synoptic Gospel literature (particularly John the Baptist). So on many levels, it is worth it, but sometimes I wonder what has happened to me, to the study of the Bible, and to the church.

The past week and a half or so has been a struggle gaining focus in my life and academic work. In some ways, I am being sucked into academia, being more concerned at times about work as opposed to knowing God and making Him known to the world through my studies. However, I have a chance today to teach at City Seminary, this Sunday with the kiddos at church (3 years old-1st grade…..wish me good providence!), and in a few weeks to preach again in Watseka. I hope these will keep me grounded as I had been warned as suggested. It is refreshing to go to a Bible study or talk with a friend about the true meaning of Scripture, may I continue to do this as I engage in this academic journey, remembering who called me here.

I did a guest lecture at City Seminary (a non-traditional seminary in Chicago that our denomination sponsors, part of the LAMP training program) back in August on the “Pastor as Teacher.” In this lecture, through the discussion with the gentlemen, I uncovered 5 reasons why I think that church struggles in its educational ministries today. Since this is a passion of mine, I might begin to try to understand these things more and help the church to overcome these. Here they are:

 1. It takes hard work

Teaching is much more difficult than we think. It takes a lot of time to understand the material, to understand the students, and to understand how to bring the material to students. Most people don’t have the time or the training to do these effectively, so they resort to whatever works for them, what has worked in the past, or whatever is easiest (lecture, information dump, etc.).

 2. True gospel teaching confronts our own hearts and the world

We like to be liked. However, when I teach the grace of God that teaches us to say no to ungodliness, I begin to have to say things that I do not like to hear and things that the listener will not like to hear. Since teaching is life-change, by definition the teaching of the Bible is threatening to us. We need this…but we recoil when we have to do it.

 3. There is an anti-intellect attitude prevailing in the church—because of a misunderstandings of intellectualism and a past (false) emphasis on it

In the past, educational ministries just sought to communicate information and had this idea that the more you know, have memorized, big theological words you can use in an average conversation, the more spiritual you are. This simply is not true. Therefore, educational ministries have moved away from some of this focus. In doing so, though, the baby has been thrown out with the bath water, as it has led to biblical illiteracy. Knowing the order of the books of the Bible is not spiritual, but it is an important thing to do so that you can better understand the words of the Bible—the words of God. Therefore, the anti-intellectual climate has found a valid criticism but has not rectified it correctly.

 4. Lack of connection between life and knowledge

Building on the previous note, we often do not show that ideas matter. That is, what we think affects what we believe is important and what we do. Therefore, theology is practical by definition. Showing how the “rubber hits the road” can be difficult, but we need to do it!

 5. Misunderstanding about teaching

We think that teaching happens in Sunday School, or small group Bible studies, or formal curriculum. In truth, we always are teaching and education. Thus, we often do a bad job by communicating things without knowing it that are not helping the gospel. In addition, we assume that we have to have certain programs in place to be an “educating” church. A better thought out view of “informal curriculum” will strengthen the educational ministries of the church.

 Like I said, some initial thoughts—and things that I have seen in myself. May we overcome these lackings as we seek to be an entity that helps transform minds into conformity with God’s will.

I was reflecting a bit this summer on the different voices who have influenced how I preach (as well as teach at church), remembering that I “eat in everyone else’s pastures and then produce my own milk” as Dan the Man taught me years ago. I don’t try to imitate these people, but I do think through the text and communication of it through some lens that I have learned from others. So, here are about 10 people who I would say have influenced me (and I know others will as well):

 1. Chris Hodge

He is the preacher I have sat under week in and week out the longest (3 years). From our conversations and his sermons, I developed a firm conviction that I need to clearly present the gospel each week; I can’t assume that people know the gospel. This does not have to be an altar call or the exact same way each week, but as the gospel emerges from the text, take time to explain it. As well, I can be convinced of expository preaching while also being relevant.

 2. Dave Schutter

What I learned the most from Dave Schutter is the power of illustrations of moments where we get it and don’t get it; some of his illustrations still stick with me (Rock, Paper, Scissors, God!). Everyday life experiences (and the ability to laugh at ourselves) is when we are starting to get and communicate the gospels. In addition, he modeled and helped me think through what it means to be a pastor-teacher-preacher, to do all of them and have all of them go together.

 3. Crawford Lorrits

Of my seminary professors on preaching, he best helped me approach the preaching moment, the power of preaching, and the need to approach it for transformation, with “windows and mirrors” and helping people move towards responses. And above all, remember that there is a difference between a preacher and a communicator!

 4. Tim Keller

While I am very mindful not to try to hold him up as a model or the “ideal,” there are very specific philosophical elements of his style and approach that I have adopted. His thoughts on preaching to believers and non-believers, of preaching to irreligious, religious, and grace, and ideas on how to read outside and how to prepare have really helped me. And as Dr. Carson pointed out, he gets the text and also moves to application really well, something I am trying to learn and do myself.

 5. Bryan Chapell/Dennis Johnson

Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching and Johnson’s Him We Proclaim helped me to understand how to think through preaching Christ (which is what makes a Christian sermon) but to do so appropriately, i.e. how it emerges from the text. These are my two favorite books on preaching.

 6. Stuart Latimer

As I have listened via PodCast to Stuart over these past couple of years, I have recognized that I can learn and admire things in different styles. Stuart seems more “big-picture” minded in a way that analysis the gospel message in the text and how it comes and is different from our culture. The gospel is also clear and the struggle that we have to see the gospel in our lives because of its counter-cultural elements are something that I always hear in his messages. And a guy who likes Calvin and Hobbes and John Calvin can never go wrong!

 7. Steve Constable

Another guy I listen to via podcast who has a different style than mine. In bringing in culture from movies to books to plays, etc., he opens up new ways of looking at the text that I do not normally do. I know that I will not do this in the same way that he does, but it has fed my soul and also gives me of another “tool in the shed.” And his accent is cool.

 8. D.A. Carson

While the man has more brains in his pinkie than I have in my head and brings that knowledge to the text (which he has helped teach me to do), he is also, somehow, able to bring it to life and make it practical. I want to do so, to bring a high understanding and high view of the text to people.

 9. Kirk Heldreth

My pastor while I was in college introduced me to the writings of Philips Brooks and Charles Spurgeon on preaching. That always helps. But the passion that he always brought to the text, the tears that filled his eyes as he preached the wonderful grace of the gospel is something that I need to remember; I can’t forget the gospel while I preach it!

 10. Brian Regan

If Mark Driscoll can say that Chris Rock has influenced his preaching, I can say Brian Regan has. Not that I try to be funny or want to communicate as opposed to preach, but Regan’s ability to find the things in life that are weird and funny and GET THEM TO STICK IN OUR MINDS is something that I think I need to in preaching. It’s amazing how often we quote Regan, but how often do we quote a sermon because something in life reminded us of it. That is, because we see the truth of it later in the week or the months or the years. That is the way that comedians need to challenge the preacher.

One of the first things I noted when I started classes at Loyola was that we do not begin classes in prayer. That was not surprising in the sense that it is an “academic” as opposed to a “church” school; that is, it is training people to teach in higher ed, not move into pastoral ministry. However, as the semester has gone along, it has made me wonder if it is possible to study the Bible without prayer. Augustine’s Confessions was doing theology as a prayer. Anselm also did “faith seeking understanding.” But we don’t do so in our classes. Can the Bible be studied purely on its own merits, without an attempt to application? Can one engage in theology without being textually rooted and driven (as many of the theologians students have seemed to be)? The Bible wasn’t meant to just be comprehended, it has a worldview that was meant to invade the life of the reader; one cannot move into its unbiased or unattached. As I was listening to a Podcast today, a Christian scholar noted how those in the sciences are captured by the science (some might even say worshipping it), but there is a perception that a true Bible scholar cannot do this, as he is no longer objective. A Bible scholar is not supposed to say that he believes that the biblical perspective on life and faith is authoritative (unless he teaches at a “conservative” Christian school). 

I guess this confirms that I want my scholarship to be for the church. I want to talk about application. I want to stand under, not over, the texts that I study. I want to pray over the text and ask God to help me understand what He wrote and has given us. May I do so in my own heart as I study, even if the professors don’t. And may I do this no mateter what it means for my future as a “scholar” in the academic sense. This is being formative as I see my future as a Bible scholar and teacher.

I have been giving some thought lately to the idea of “making a good impression” on people. Being at a new school with new faculty (to me) and being a part of a new church (for us) and meeting people there has met I have been doing a lot of “impression forming” on people–and they on me. Which causes the question: “Is there a difference between seeking to make a good impression on people and on impressing people?” We think it is important to make a good impression on people, because we never get a second chance to make a first impression. However, we also seem to say that you should not try to impress people–that this is a bad thing to do–but should be yourself. Since the same word is at the root of both words, though, are they that different? Is my attempt to make a good impression actually an attempt to impress people, by fitting myself into their values and expectations? This might be on the scholarly level by talking about certain things and not talking about certain things, by doing extra work or having the right answers. Is my goal in making this impression so that they might help me in my work and get me through the program? Is that right? On the social level, is this in being funny and engaging as a person, not saying awkward things, talking about the things that they value or are interested in, and not doing anything rude? In seeking to make good impressions, do I cease to be me and become more in line with the desires of the other person? Am I a chameleon–both in the academic field and also in the social world? (I have often wondered this) Does this matter? Are people who “be themselves” the ones who make bad impressions because they are conforming to their own ideas about themselves and the world as opposed to yours? Do I evaluate others this same way or value their honesty, integrity, and self-awareness? Basically, do I form my impressions of someone on whether they impress me? Or am I making too much of this?

Oh the thoughts of a scholar!

As I have been refining and doing work for my class on John the Baptist and beginning to consider how he is portrayed in the Gospel of Matthew, knowing that my paper would land there, I inadvertantly came full circle in my major research work. You see, 2 of the mentions of John the Baptist feature a discussion of “righteousness” (3:15, 21:28-32),which are the only two occurences of the word outside of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. Knowing that “righteousness” is supposed to be an important theme in Matthew and seeing how Josephus also had righteousness in discussing John the Baptist, it seemed that my paper would deal with how John the Baptist affects this conception of righteousness. Which has led me to do research on righteousness, etc.–and my undergraduate senior project at Cedarville was on Paul’s concept of the righteousness of God! So, I am looking at many of the same sources and material with a different application–and a better knowledge of the primary sources (and German secondary sources!) and different understanding of the issues at work. So, I am back to where I started in theological research over 5 years ago, but with a much different perspective. In fact, I wonder at what I was doing back then.

My posting have slowed down (sorry), which means that school has started. Hopefully, I will start posting some of the things I am reading or considering for class (my outside reading has slowed down, though I am working through Josephus’ Jewish War for fun and then plan on moving on to the Twelve Caesars, might as well use my history interest for background for NT studies). I have enjoyed these two weeks at Loyola. Being in a different environment, particularly in which the theology department is smaller and not the biggest program at the school has been interesting. The faculty and fellow students have been very nice; in some ways, I feel like I am connecting with more people at LUC than I did at TEDS, even though everyone at TEDS was on the same page theologically and with the same purpose for studying. Which begs a question, why is it that a conglomerate of students are more friendly than a bunch of evangelical Christian students? Could there be something in the DNA of pastors/scholars in the evangelical realm that pushes more competition than cooperation, that leads to professors being “unreachable/unconnectable”? Is it that students at TEDS were more busy and therefore, cut out some of the interaction with each other. Questions to ponder.

It has also been interesting working with professors that have different methods or ways of approaching the text. I have really been enjoying Dr. Lupieri, as we are looking at the role of John the Baptist in each of the gospels and he noted that we should start in the gospels with the last appearance of him and then move forward, as there will be an unfolding of a certain purpose that climaxes at the end; you can then deduce the role of the preceding passages from this basis. Essentially, the old idea that the introduction is unclear and then clarity comes through the story. This has been helpful and I am sure I am going to begin to ground that into my methodology more. Plus, “story time with Dr. Lupieri,” which is what I am calling the class, has been fun!

Amy-Jill Levine (a Jewish NT scholar) wrote a book called The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. Focusing on Jesus and his place in Second Temple Judaism directly connects to many of my research interests so it made for an interesting read. Levine first seeks to groudn Jesus within the Judaism of his day; he was a Jew and this cannot be forgotten. One only can truly make sense of his teachings within his Jewish context. Since the New Testament traces the Jewish faith of Christianity turning into more of a Gentile majority, this Jewishness begins to get lost. Often scholars sterotype the Jewishness of the day as an empty, cold, and oppressive system that Jesus confronts and changes; Jesus is the opposite of this system; therefore, it is not just the “anti-Jewish” passages (which scholars can debate the exact meaning) that makes Christianity at times anti-Jewish as preachers focus on these elements and, furthermore, people understand Judaism today on this basis (Second Temple Judaism was not exactly the Judaism of the OT and today’s Judaism is not the same as those). This is not completely true because of the diversity of Judaism at the time of Christ; just as there are joyless Christians today, there were joyless Jews but just as there are Christians who really get the gospel, there were Jews who really understood who the God of Abraham was.  We should not sterotype in this regard. She then calls for interfaith sort of discussions recognition the different canons, practices, and interpretations of the groups; since they have different canons (though related) and different traditions, there should be less focus on who is right, as they interpret through different lens in general.

In many ways, this book seeks to unpack some of the “cash value” of what I have been learning about Second Temple Judaism and how it affects the NT and differs from OT and 21st century Judaism. I have seen how I have fallen into some of the traps of ”anti-Jewish” speaking even without knowing and want to better understand Jewish and represent his context better. There is a definite continuity between Jesus and his followers and the OT and the way that the OT was interpreted at the turn of the times (BC to AD/BCE to CE). What Levine does that I would never be able to do is speak about this through a Jewish lens and discuss ways that, unknowingly, we misrepresent Judaism; one must be in a group to truly understand all of its nuances. Which leads me to this question–while Dr. Levine is a fine NT scholar, does the fact that she is a Jew, not a Christian, cause her to misrepresent or mis-represent that church (not necessarily the NT) at times? Just something I pondered while I read this book.

Though I have referred to it before, I had never read C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters until recently. As I read through the letters of the demon Screwtape to his new-tempting nephew Wormwood, I was pleasantly surprised at the insight and focus of these letters, which show the ways that Christians are attacked and often stumble in their faith. Things like the hypocrisy and shallowness of the church, radicalness of different ideas that take one away from Jesus Christ, complacency or apathy when it comes to important issues, etc. were some of the things that are mentioned–and these things are definitely still true today. This leads me to believe that the experiences of early/mid 20th century England and early 21st century America are not that different; in some ways, it is the same issues in our world just recreated each day in new ways. And naming these sorts of dangers is important so that we can confront them. It is also interesting how well this teaches about spiritual warfare and the like through a narrative method; it is a fictional account that embodies and teaches much spiritual truth. May I be attuned to these truths.