How could world-wide preaching of gospel happened in 33-70AD?

This is from Sam Storms... who is looking at a parallel passage to Mark 13... Matthew 24

Preaching of gospel to whole world
8. Worldwide preaching of the gospel (v. 14)
How could this possibly have occurred in the period 33-70 a.d.' It may at first seem strange, but “fundamental principles of interpretation lead us to bear in mind contextual clues: the time indicator (‘this generation’), the audience (the disciples who ask about the temple), the specific concern (the destruction of the temple), and the harmony of the preceding signs with the first-century experience. All of these should dispose us to seek a first-century fulfillment of this verse” (Gentry, The Great Tribulation, 44). Note two important facts:
a. The words "whole world" (NASB) are a translation of the term oikoumene, which literally means an inhabited area, a standard term at that time for the Greek world, then for the Roman empire, and subsequently for the then known world. The same Greek word is used in Luke 2:1 – “Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth” (oikoumene). In Acts 11:28 we read that “one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.” Again, in Acts 24:5, “For we have found this man (Paul) a plague, a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” As Gentry notes, “a surface reading of these texts suggests global events. Yet we know these ‘world’ events happen within the Roman empire of the first century” (44). The reference to the "nations" also indicates that the point is not that every geographical area on the globe must be covered but that all the nations, i.e., Gentiles, must be reached. Did this occur? This leads to the second point.
b. Writing before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 a.d., Paul says to the Colossians:
" . . . the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth" (1:5b-6).
Again, Paul refers to the gospel
" . . . that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister" (1:23).
"First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world" (Romans 1:8; cf. 10:18).
Thus, prior to 70 a.d. the inhabited earth had indeed heard the gospel, precisely in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24.

See the discussion in Lane to the effect that this period of time may indeed be more than a
single week, perhaps a period as long as six months. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, 390-391.
Cranfield argues that the messianic significance of this would not have been noticed by the crowds,
despite Jesus’ deliberate actions in fulfilling prophecy. I’m not convinced. (Cf. Cranfield, The Gospel
According to Mark, 352-354).

Christ's Impact on Widows

Multi-culti widowhood

American feminists should take their complaints overseas | Andrée Seu

I would be marginalized at best, inhabiting the netherworld between normal existence and the grave. I would be shorn of my hair and denied permission to partake in family meals, would sleep on the ground, and be generally fenced from polite society by pollution taboos—if I were a widow in parts of India today.

Since widowhood is now my beat, I cock an ear to reports of how my counterparts are faring throughout the world: Like in Zambia, where, according to the locally based organization Women and Law in Southern Africa, the relatives of the deceased may help themselves to the property of the marriage, and the widow must be "purged" of her husband's spirit by having sex with a member of his family (this on a continent rife with AIDS!). Or in Zimbabwe, where law does not allow a widow to inherit from her dead husband, and where the custody of her children may be transferred to her husband's relatives. Or in Swaziland where widows are the poorest of the poor. Or Nigeria, where a widow may not work for a year after her husband's death, to prove that she has not killed him. Or in Tanzania, where widows, suspected as witches, have been stoned to death.

The Sanskrit sati literally means "a good woman" or "a true wife." The Rite of Sati, that is, the burning of a widow along with the dead husband (lest she reap the bad Karma to be born a woman again in her next reincarnation!) has been practiced since before Christ, and indeed had its practitioners in other ancient cultures as well. In the 17th century, the custom prevailed mostly in Bengal where, combined with polygamy, it now and then produced the spectacle of 40 or 50 women immolated with a single man.

Theoretically a voluntary act, Sati was in practice reduced to murder, as the widow was drugged, tied to her husband's lifeless body, and forced with bamboo sticks onto the burning pyre. Undergirding, always, has been the cultural mindset of the woman's single-minded desire to please her husband—and the husband's single-minded desire to lord over his wife!

"Desire for the husband." "Rule over the wife." Is this not an echo of Genesis 3, a demonic twist on the divinely ordained order, cosmic abnormality now become a grim normality, at least in the parts of this groaning creation where they did not say, "Blessed on the mountains are the feet of those that bring good news"? While the ship of civilization in Europe took a different, more salubrious, turn on the rudder of James 1:27 and Psalm 68:5, beginning the slow and steady reversal of the Edenic curse, elsewhere the nations languished for centuries in darkness, and called it light. (Syria's President Bashar al-Assad belongs to the Alawite branch of Muslims which, contrary to mainstream Islam, believes that women do not have souls.)

William Carey brought the true light to India (along with the printing press and medicine). But it was hijacked by Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) who, admitting that biblical truth was "more conducive to moral principles ... than any other," was nevertheless loath to see Hinduism outflanked by Christianity, and started his own anti-sati reform movement. The Sati Abolition Act was implemented in British India in 1829. For all that, the practice has its spotty practitioners to this day, and a whole cottage industry of Sati has developed, complete with Sati temples that peddle picture prints of Ram Sati, as a woman on a burning pyre.

All this the modern feminists forget, as they decry Christianity while standing on its shoulders, impugning its record on the status of women while reaping its benefits. They would borrow its capital to discredit it; they would slay it with the very sword that it has tendered them. And such were many of us, who in our '60s journeys looked for light and liberation in all the wrong places. (My own brother, now a missionary himself, found Christ on the River Ganges where he sat reading the Baghavad-Gita, when an Indian man sidled up and handed him the Gospel of John. Ah! The depths of the riches of the mercy and humor of God!)

As long as our colleges today are crowding out the traditional humanities curriculum with such offerings as "Fetishim," "Queer Theory," and "Third Wave Feminism and Girl Culture" (actual titles), maybe we could sneak in one of our own and call it "Widowhood Through Two Millennia: The Difference Christ Has Made." We might even learn that wisdom did not spring fully formed in this generation, and we might see how much better off we are to be married, or single, or even widowed, in a culture sweetened by the gospel.

Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
September 08, 2001, Vol. 16, No. 34

Lig Duncan pray for Pres. Obama

Praying for our President, Barack Obama

As Americans, I suspect that none of us can fully appreciate the far-reaching significance of this event, though our nation and much of the rest of the world are electric with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States of America. To say that this is historic, is a gross understatement.

Many are rejoicing at this very visible public realization of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence at the very pinnacle of our civic life. In the ascendancy of an African-American from less-than-privileged circumstances to the leadership of the free world, we see the fruit of aspirations of the Founders: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” You don’t have to read far in the newspapers of the world to see them marveling at yet another astounding accomplishment in the great experiment that is America.

Do you realize that our republic has now enjoyed 44 peaceful transitions of power in our two-plus centuries of existence. There is no parallel for this in human history. And we need to thank God for his singular blessing in bestowing it upon us, undeserving as we are.


But I said I wanted us to think about all this Christianly (and not just as grateful or concerned Americans, much less as giddy Democrats or grumpy Republicans!). And this presents us with some challenges, doesn't it?

As much as we may feel "this is my President and I want him to succeed," as much as we may feel sympathetic joy with millions who watched President Obama's inauguration with tear-filled eyes and hope-filled hearts, feeling themselves a part of the American story in a way they've never felt before, there lingers a question as to how to think about our leader in areas where his views and policies conflict with biblical conviction.


Many Christians find themselves profoundly conflicted because of some of the moral positions and social policies that Mr. Obama espouses. So how do you pray for your President when you disagree with him?

Thankfully, the Bible is not silent about such a question. After all it commands us to pray for all in authority (1 Timothy 2:2), no matter their party, policies or religion (or lack thereof). It is vital that we think Christianly, which is to say, biblically, about this issue (and not just as Democrats or Republicans who happen to be Christian). So, back to the question. How do we pray for Mr. Obama? Here are some ideas (and I want to thank Al Mohler and Justin Taylor for many of these thoughts and words) for praying for our new President, Barack Obama.

First, it needs to be said, that we ought to commit ourselves to pray for our new President, for his wife and family, for his administration, and for the nation. We will do this, not only because of the biblical command to pray for our rulers, but because of the second greatest commandment "Love your neighbor" and what better way to love your neighbor, than to pray for his well-being. Those with the greatest moral and political differences with the President ought to ask God to engender in them, by His Spirit, genuine neighbor-love for Mr. Obama.

We will also pray for our new President because he (and we) face challenges that are not only daunting but potentially disastrous. We will pray that God will grant him wisdom. He and his family will face new challenges and the pressures of this office. May God protect them, give them joy in their family life, and hold them close together.

We will pray that God will protect this nation even as our new President settles into his role as Commander in Chief, and that God will grant peace as he leads the nation through times of trial and international conflict and tension.

We will pray that God would change President Obama's mind and heart on issues of crucial moral concern. May God change his heart and open his eyes to see abortion as the murder of the innocent unborn, to see marriage as an institution to be defended, and to see a host of issues in a new light. We must pray this from this day until the day he leaves office. God is sovereign, after all.

For those Christians who are more concerned than overjoyed about the prospects of an Obama presidency, there should be a remembrance that as our President, Barack Obama will have God-given authority to govern us, and that we should view him as a servant of God (Rom. 13:1, 4) to whom we should be subject (Rom. 13:1, 5; 1 Pet. 2:13-14). Thus, again, we are to pray for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2). We are to thank God for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2). We are to respect Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7). We are to honor Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7; 1 Pet. 2:17).

For those Christians who are more overjoyed than concerned about the prospects of an Obama presidency, there should be a remembrance of our ultimate allegiance: Jesus is Lord (and thus, He, not we, decides what is right and wrong), we serve God not man, and the Lord himself has promised to establish "the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him" (Malachi 3:18). Thus, where our new president opposes or undermines biblical moral standards in our society, fails to uphold justice for the unborn, undermines religious liberties or condones an ethos that is hostile to the Gospel, we will pray for God's purposes to triumph over our President's plans and policies.

Without doubt and whatever our particular views may be, we face hard days ahead. Realistically, we must all expect to be frustrated and disappointed. Some now may feel defeated and discouraged. While others may all-too-soon find their audacious hopes unfounded and unrealized. We must all keep ever in mind that it is God who raises up leaders and nations, and it is God who pulls them down, and who judges both nations and rulers. We must not act or think like unbelievers, or as those who do not trust God.

So, now, Christian. Let’s get to work. And pray.

Lilian Calles Barger
SHELTERING THE BODY

Lilian Calles Barger

A couple of years ago I was invited to participate as a speaker at a Christian college’s body-awareness week. The weeklong program had been designed to address the rampant eating disorders and entrenched negative views of the body found particularly among the female students. The counseling office was overwhelmed by the need for a healthy and redeeming view of the body it saw desperately lacking among its students. Women, in unprecedented numbers, were starving themselves, engaging in bulimia, and confessing deep shame about their bodies. Some of the male students responded with the attitude that these women needed to get over their “personal sin” by repenting and straightening up. Other young men claimed that they also suffered from the “lookism” in our culture, which measures people’s worth by their appearance. How does this happen at a Christian college and among young people who have attended church all their lives? How does this happen at places that promote themselves as nurturing a Christian worldview and a certain degree of protection from the culture?

It doesn’t take much for us to see the distorted view of the body that our contemporary culture promotes. Christians are not immune. Daily we are surrounded by the message that to be a worthy human being (and an acceptable woman) we must be young, thin, flawless, and project White affluence: a message that is now globalized by mass media. Advertising is rampant with the message that to be a woman is to be a consumable object: always available “eye candy.” A look at a Victoria’s Secret window display or a Calvin Klein ad quickly proves this point.

The current obsession with the body can lead us to believe that American culture values the body above all else when, in actuality, it’s the historically low view of the body that is still prevalent today. As I explored in my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003), today the body is seen as a pliable carrying case for the true self—the inner self. This inner self is frustrated by the limitations of the body, and these limitations quickly become impediments to self-actualization. Only by molding the body through a variety of means including extreme dieting, exercise, and surgical intervention can we be free to become who we wish to be. For women, this includes striving for an unattainable and narrow definition of beauty—a beauty standard that can only be reached by fashion models through vigilant control and computer enhancement. With the popularity of shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover, we are led to believe that with enough money and determination we too can join the ranks of the young and beautiful. Young people grow up surrounded by these messages.

Within the Church and throughout much of its history, the body, particularly a woman’s body and its spiritual meaning, has been a source of tension. Are women’s bodies “the devil’s gateway,” as early Church father Tertullian claimed, or does the incarnation through Mary’s womb affirm woman’s participation in the redemptive plan? As God-bearer, Mary refutes the assumed “curse” on women and instead takes on a prophetic role (Luke 1:47-49).

Historically, the body, beauty, and virtue were tied up in a gnarly knot, which is still evident today. Even as we insist that inner beauty is what matters, a woman’s virtue is often judged by her physical beauty. It’s an idea immortalized in cultural stories; the fairy tale of the beautiful Cinderella and her wicked and ugly stepsisters, as an example, is still a powerful cultural image. Like Cinderella, women who are thin, pretty, and pulled together are judged to display more virtue. Faith-based diet books such as Help Lord, The Devil Wants Me Fat and the popular Weigh Down diet connect “overweight” too closely with “ugly sloth.” In these programs, dieting is no longer merely a health endeavor but a display of spiritual discipline and a way to control unruly flesh.

In the Christian marriage market, culturally-defined beauty can quickly come to equal purity of character and a submissive disposition. As a young teen I heard the book of Esther interpreted this way. Esther, who is biblically described as beautiful and yielded to God, replaces the insubordinate Queen Vashti. In the instruction I received, Esther’s beauty and obedience overshadowed her courage and prophetic work. More recently, in the best-selling book Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge provide a standard for Christian womanhood. Wrapped in superficial beauty, women are encouraged to meet the essential desire of a man to rescue a beautiful woman. For many women, being loved and a narrow definition of beauty become too closely linked.

At the same time, however, young Christian women are taught that too much physical charm makes a woman dangerous and a prey for male lust. The instruction to be pretty but not too sexy can be difficult for young women, whose bodies are blooming, to navigate. When does pretty become sexy? They find it difficult to fit the mold of the “perfect Christian woman” who is both beautiful and virtuous. They may be further perplexed by sexual harassment and abuse from men in positions of authority. Growing up in the Church and in culture, it’s easy for young women to see their bodies as shameful and in need of being brought under control.

Several years ago I attended a large cosmopolitan church, which had a program for its eighth grade boys and girls designed to help them deal with their emerging sexuality. Before I was going to allow my children to participate in this program I wanted to know what would be taught, so I attended the girls’ session. I was appalled to hear the pastor’s wife tell the girls that it was their responsibility to avert male lust by instituting a narrow dress code, which included no sleeveless tops. The general tone of the instruction on sexuality was that the young women had the responsibility to set the sexual tone of romantic relationships. Young men were viewed as unable to control themselves sexually. In noting this, I am not suggesting that modesty is not valuable as a Christian discipline. When modesty is presented with the view that the female body is inherently seductive, however, it can only cause harm. Is it any wonder that young women show up on Christian college campuses with an ambivalent attitude towards their bodies?

Eating disorders, a negative body image, and a general disdain for the body are complex issues resulting from social, psychological, and spiritual factors that are too great to explore here. They touch on issues of power, the meaning of food, beauty, and one’s relationship to the community. Above all, I believe that for those who struggle with these issues it’s never purely a “personal” problem. Rather the culture’s and the Christian community’s dysfunctional attitudes regarding embodiment readily show up on the bodies of those with the least power. The college campus which I visited didn’t merely have a problem of a few women with poor body image. There was a deep-seated community-wide theological problem that caused people who have been called to freedom in Christ to succumb to the body-hating attitude of the culture at large. Because women have less social power and their bodies are viewed with suspicion, they become the ones who more often live out the lie—a lie that renders their bodies unsuitable vessels for God to use.

If we are to stand as a distinctive community, Christians must regain a full-orbed biblical understanding of embodiment and vehemently reject the objectification of the body and the devaluing of its meaning. The biblical worldview challenges the utilitarian view in which the body is at our disposal to do what we will. Our biblical basis is rooted in creation, the incarnation of God in Jesus, and the promise of the resurrection. Creation teaches that we are an intimate unity of body and soul and that our bodies are good (Genesis 2:7). Created by God, we use our bodies to work the earth, build relationships, and multiply (Genesis 1:28). In this task, the man’s and woman’s bodies are seen as “one flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Therefore, what is done to women’s bodies, and how they are viewed, affects the whole community. The incarnation further affirms the goodness of the body, and that woman is also a means by which God brings redemption into the world. The resurrection teaches us that God’s plan includes the redemption of our bodies from decay and death (Romans 8:23). These spiritual and historic truths provide a paradigm by which we can build body-affirming churches that serve as a refuge from cultural assault.

In The Rise of Christianity, religion scholar Rodney Stark notes the key body-affirming teachings that made the early Church a shelter for women who were escaping the pagan practices of female infanticide, coerced abortions, and obligatory marriages. The Christian faith freed their bodies from the enslavement of pagan culture and religion. The early Church was known for its care of the sick, rescue of babies left to die of exposure, and the burial of the dead. These practices made the Christian faith distinctive and powerful in a pagan culture. Once again, as today’s Church, we have the opportunity to reclaim our distinctiveness and challenge the body-hating practices of our day.

What’s important is not only what we claim to believe, but also the body-affirming practices that are inherent to Christianity. In Scripture we have been given baptism, the laying on of hands, and the holy meal as a way to bring our bodies into God’s redemptive plan. We can build on these foundational practices by seeking ways to share meals, tend to the physical needs of our community, and embrace people who are desperate for community. As noted by a therapist that I interviewed, people who habitually eat alone in front of the television or out of a box are more likely to have disordered eating, whether it’s eating too much or too little. People who are seldom touched have greater difficulty believing that their bodies matter. Christian practices that affirm the body serve as antidotes for a body-assaulting culture.

It is through the faith community’s transformation that our individual dysfunctional relationship to our bodies will be healed. This is a communal work of rediscovering a fresh understanding of the body’s meaning in the Christian faith and the practices that secure that meaning. This cannot be done if women’s bodies are still seen as a source of sin. It cannot be done until men and women work together as true partners in displaying God’s salvation to the world. We bear witness to God’s salvation by providing shelter from the assault on the body, and by living as those who wait eagerly, not reluctantly, for the redemption of the whole person.

Notes:
For further reading, please see my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body.

Lilian Calles Barger is a writer, speaker, and founder of the The Damaris Project, a program to assist women in starting spiritual conversations within their circle of friends. She is the author of Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003) and the forthcoming Chasing Sophia: Reclaiming the Lost Wisdom of Jesus (Jossey-Bass, 2007). She lives in Dallas with her husband David and two teenage sons.

SHELTERING THE BODY Lilian Calles Barger A couple of years ago I was invited to participate as a speaker at a Christian college’s body-awareness week. The weeklong program had been designed to address the rampant eating disorders and entrenched negative views of the body found particularly among the female students. The counseling office was overwhelmed by the need for a healthy and redeeming view of the body it saw desperately lacking among its students. Women, in unprecedented numbers, were starving themselves, engaging in bulimia, and confessing deep shame about their bodies. Some of the male students responded with the attitude that these women needed to get over their “personal sin” by repenting and straightening up. Other young men claimed that they also suffered from the “lookism” in our culture, which measures people’s worth by their appearance. How does this happen at a Christian college and among young people who have attended church all their lives? How does this happen at places that promote themselves as nurturing a Christian worldview and a certain degree of protection from the culture? It doesn’t take much for us to see the distorted view of the body that our contemporary culture promotes. Christians are not immune. Daily we are surrounded by the message that to be a worthy human being (and an acceptable woman) we must be young, thin, flawless, and project White affluence: a message that is now globalized by mass media. Advertising is rampant with the message that to be a woman is to be a consumable object: always available “eye candy.” A look at a Victoria’s Secret window display or a Calvin Klein ad quickly proves this point. The current obsession with the body can lead us to believe that American culture values the body above all else when, in actuality, it’s the historically low view of the body that is still prevalent today. As I explored in my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003), today the body is seen as a pliable carrying case for the true self—the inner self. This inner self is frustrated by the limitations of the body, and these limitations quickly become impediments to self-actualization. Only by molding the body through a variety of means including extreme dieting, exercise, and surgical intervention can we be free to become who we wish to be. For women, this includes striving for an unattainable and narrow definition of beauty—a beauty standard that can only be reached by fashion models through vigilant control and computer enhancement. With the popularity of shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover, we are led to believe that with enough money and determination we too can join the ranks of the young and beautiful. Young people grow up surrounded by these messages. Within the Church and throughout much of its history, the body, particularly a woman’s body and its spiritual meaning, has been a source of tension. Are women’s bodies “the devil’s gateway,” as early Church father Tertullian claimed, or does the incarnation through Mary’s womb affirm woman’s participation in the redemptive plan? As God-bearer, Mary refutes the assumed “curse” on women and instead takes on a prophetic role (Luke 1:47-49). Historically, the body, beauty, and virtue were tied up in a gnarly knot, which is still evident today. Even as we insist that inner beauty is what matters, a woman’s virtue is often judged by her physical beauty. It’s an idea immortalized in cultural stories; the fairy tale of the beautiful Cinderella and her wicked and ugly stepsisters, as an example, is still a powerful cultural image. Like Cinderella, women who are thin, pretty, and pulled together are judged to display more virtue. Faith-based diet books such as Help Lord, The Devil Wants Me Fat and the popular Weigh Down diet connect “overweight” too closely with “ugly sloth.” In these programs, dieting is no longer merely a health endeavor but a display of spiritual discipline and a way to control unruly flesh. In the Christian marriage market, culturally-defined beauty can quickly come to equal purity of character and a submissive disposition. As a young teen I heard the book of Esther interpreted this way. Esther, who is biblically described as beautiful and yielded to God, replaces the insubordinate Queen Vashti. In the instruction I received, Esther’s beauty and obedience overshadowed her courage and prophetic work. More recently, in the best-selling book Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge provide a standard for Christian womanhood. Wrapped in superficial beauty, women are encouraged to meet the essential desire of a man to rescue a beautiful woman. For many women, being loved and a narrow definition of beauty become too closely linked. At the same time, however, young Christian women are taught that too much physical charm makes a woman dangerous and a prey for male lust. The instruction to be pretty but not too sexy can be difficult for young women, whose bodies are blooming, to navigate. When does pretty become sexy? They find it difficult to fit the mold of the “perfect Christian woman” who is both beautiful and virtuous. They may be further perplexed by sexual harassment and abuse from men in positions of authority. Growing up in the Church and in culture, it’s easy for young women to see their bodies as shameful and in need of being brought under control. Several years ago I attended a large cosmopolitan church, which had a program for its eighth grade boys and girls designed to help them deal with their emerging sexuality. Before I was going to allow my children to participate in this program I wanted to know what would be taught, so I attended the girls’ session. I was appalled to hear the pastor’s wife tell the girls that it was their responsibility to avert male lust by instituting a narrow dress code, which included no sleeveless tops. The general tone of the instruction on sexuality was that the young women had the responsibility to set the sexual tone of romantic relationships. Young men were viewed as unable to control themselves sexually. In noting this, I am not suggesting that modesty is not valuable as a Christian discipline. When modesty is presented with the view that the female body is inherently seductive, however, it can only cause harm. Is it any wonder that young women show up on Christian college campuses with an ambivalent attitude towards their bodies? Eating disorders, a negative body image, and a general disdain for the body are complex issues resulting from social, psychological, and spiritual factors that are too great to explore here. They touch on issues of power, the meaning of food, beauty, and one’s relationship to the community. Above all, I believe that for those who struggle with these issues it’s never purely a “personal” problem. Rather the culture’s and the Christian community’s dysfunctional attitudes regarding embodiment readily show up on the bodies of those with the least power. The college campus which I visited didn’t merely have a problem of a few women with poor body image. There was a deep-seated community-wide theological problem that caused people who have been called to freedom in Christ to succumb to the body-hating attitude of the culture at large. Because women have less social power and their bodies are viewed with suspicion, they become the ones who more often live out the lie—a lie that renders their bodies unsuitable vessels for God to use. If we are to stand as a distinctive community, Christians must regain a full-orbed biblical understanding of embodiment and vehemently reject the objectification of the body and the devaluing of its meaning. The biblical worldview challenges the utilitarian view in which the body is at our disposal to do what we will. Our biblical basis is rooted in creation, the incarnation of God in Jesus, and the promise of the resurrection. Creation teaches that we are an intimate unity of body and soul and that our bodies are good (Genesis 2:7). Created by God, we use our bodies to work the earth, build relationships, and multiply (Genesis 1:28). In this task, the man’s and woman’s bodies are seen as “one flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Therefore, what is done to women’s bodies, and how they are viewed, affects the whole community. The incarnation further affirms the goodness of the body, and that woman is also a means by which God brings redemption into the world. The resurrection teaches us that God’s plan includes the redemption of our bodies from decay and death (Romans 8:23). These spiritual and historic truths provide a paradigm by which we can build body-affirming churches that serve as a refuge from cultural assault. In The Rise of Christianity, religion scholar Rodney Stark notes the key body-affirming teachings that made the early Church a shelter for women who were escaping the pagan practices of female infanticide, coerced abortions, and obligatory marriages. The Christian faith freed their bodies from the enslavement of pagan culture and religion. The early Church was known for its care of the sick, rescue of babies left to die of exposure, and the burial of the dead. These practices made the Christian faith distinctive and powerful in a pagan culture. Once again, as today’s Church, we have the opportunity to reclaim our distinctiveness and challenge the body-hating practices of our day. What’s important is not only what we claim to believe, but also the body-affirming practices that are inherent to Christianity. In Scripture we have been given baptism, the laying on of hands, and the holy meal as a way to bring our bodies into God’s redemptive plan. We can build on these foundational practices by seeking ways to share meals, tend to the physical needs of our community, and embrace people who are desperate for community. As noted by a therapist that I interviewed, people who habitually eat alone in front of the television or out of a box are more likely to have disordered eating, whether it’s eating too much or too little. People who are seldom touched have greater difficulty believing that their bodies matter. Christian practices that affirm the body serve as antidotes for a body-assaulting culture. It is through the faith community’s transformation that our individual dysfunctional relationship to our bodies will be healed. This is a communal work of rediscovering a fresh understanding of the body’s meaning in the Christian faith and the practices that secure that meaning. This cannot be done if women’s bodies are still seen as a source of sin. It cannot be done until men and women work together as true partners in displaying God’s salvation to the world. We bear witness to God’s salvation by providing shelter from the assault on the body, and by living as those who wait eagerly, not reluctantly, for the redemption of the whole person. Notes: For further reading, please see my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body.

Lilian Calles Barger is a writer, speaker, and founder of the The Damaris Project, a program to assist women in starting spiritual conversations within their circle of friends. She is the author of Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003) and the forthcoming Chasing Sophia: Reclaiming the Lost Wisdom of Jesus (Jossey-Bass, 2007). She lives in Dallas with her husband David and two teenage sons.

Henri Nouwen "Holy Inefficiency" article by Yancey

A better symbol of the Incarnation, I can hardly imagine.

-by PHILIP YANCEY

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Once when I was dining with a group of writers, the conversation turned to letters we get from readers. Richard Foster and Eugene Peterson mentioned an intense young man who had been seeking spiritual direction from both of them. They responded as best they could, answering questions by mail and recommending books on spirituality. Foster had just learned that the same inquirer had also contacted Henri Nouwen. "You won't believe what Nouwen did," he said. "He invited this stranger to live with him for a month so he could mentor him in person."

Most writers jealously protect their schedules and privacy. Nouwen, who died of a heart attack this past September, broke down such barriers of professionalism. His entire life, in fact, displayed a "holy inefficiency."

Trained in Holland as a psychologist and a theologian, Nouwen spent his early years achieving. He taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, averaged more than a book a year, and traveled widely as a conference speaker. He had a résumé to die for-which was the problem, exactly. The pressing schedule and relentless competition were suffocating his own spiritual life.

Nouwen went to South America for six months, scouting a new role for himself as a missionary in the Third World. A hectic speaking schedule on his return to the United States only made things worse. Finally, Nouwen fell into the arms of the L'Arche community in France, a home for the seriously disabled. He felt so nourished by them that he agreed to become priest in residence at a similar home in Toronto called Daybreak. There, Nouwen spent his last ten years, still writing and traveling to speak here and there, but always returning to the haven of Daybreak.

I once visited Nouwen, sharing lunch with him in his small room. It had a single bed, one bookshelf, and a few pieces of Shaker-style furniture. The walls were unadorned except for a print of a Van Gogh painting and a few religious symbols. A Daybreak staff person served us a bowl of Caesar salad and a loaf of bread. No fax machine, no computer, no Daytimer calendar posted on the wall-in this room, at least, Nouwen had found serenity. The church "industry" seemed very far away.

After lunch we celebrated a special Eucharist for Adam, the young man Nouwen looked after. With solemnity, but also a twinkle in his eye, Nouwen led the liturgy in honor of Adam's twenty-sixth birthday. Unable to talk, walk, or dress himself, profoundly retarded, Adam gave no sign of comprehension. He seemed to recognize, at least, that his family had come. He drooled throughout the ceremony and grunted loudly a few times.

Later Nouwen told me it took him nearly two hours to prepare Adam each day. Bathing and shaving him, brushing his teeth, combing his hair, guiding his hand as he tried to eat breakfast-these simple, repetitive acts had become for him almost like an hour of meditation.

I must admit I had a fleeting doubt as to whether this was the best use of the busy priest's time. Could not someone else take over the manual chores? When I cautiously broached the subject with Nouwen himself, he informed me that I had completely misinterpreted him. "I am not giving up anything," he insisted. "It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship."

All day Nouwen kept circling back to my question, bringing up various ways he had benefitted from his relationship with Adam. It had been difficult for him at first, he said. Physical touch, affection, and the messiness of caring for an uncoordinated person did not come easily. But he had learned to love Adam, truly to love him. In the process he had learned what it must be like for God to love us--spiritually uncoordinated, retarded, able to respond with what must seem to God like inarticulate grunts and groans. Indeed, working with Adam had taught him the humility and "emptiness" achieved by desert monks only after much discipline.

Nouwen has said that all his life two voices competed inside him. One encouraged him to succeed and achieve, while the other called him simply to rest in the comfort that he was "the beloved" of God. Only in the last decade of his life did he truly listen to that second voice.

Ultimately Nouwen concluded that "the goal of education and formation for the ministry is continually to recognize the Lord's voice, his face, and his touch in every person we meet." Reading that description in his book ¡Gracias!, I understand why he did not think it a waste of time to invite a seeking stranger to live with him for a month, or to devote two hours a day to the menial care of Adam.

I will miss Henri Nouwen. For some, his legacy consists of his many books, for others his role as a bridge between Catholics and Protestants, for others his distinguished career at Ivy League universities. For me, though, a single image captures him best: the energetic priest, hair in disarray, using his restless hands as if to fashion a homily out of thin air, celebrating an eloquent birthday Eucharist for an unresponsive child-man so damaged that many parents would have had him aborted. A better symbol of the Incarnation, I can hardly imagine.

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Copyright © 1996 by Christianity Today International/Christianity Today Magazine. December 9, 1996 Vol. 40, No. 14, Page 80

Messiah Handel Yancey article

Hallelujah!

On a memorable London night, the bright and glistening theology of Messiah broke through my jet-lagged consciousness.

By Philip Yancey

Just before Christmas of 1988 my wife, and I visited London. As the plane banked sharply over the city's center, we saw rowing crews on the Thames, and also Parliament, Whitehall Palace, and other landmark buildings lit in sepia by the slanting rays of morning sun. A fingernail moon hung low in the sky, and the morning star still shone. This was one of London's rare, perfect winter days.

Later that day, half-drunk on coffee, we were dragging along city streets, trying to wrench our biological clocks forward seven time zones by staying awake until dusk. Just before turning in, we lined up in a queue to order some theater tickets. That's when I saw the poster: "One Night Only. Handel's Messiah performed by the National Westminster Choir and National Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican Centre." The ticket seller assured me that of all Messiah performances in London, this was clearly the best. There were only two problems: the concert would begin in one hour, and it was sold out.

Twenty minutes later, following some spirited intramarital negotiations, we were in our hotel room squeezing out yet another round of Visine and dressing for a sold-out concert. This moment of serendipity we could not let pass. "Our presence is divinely ordained," I assured my wife. "We are in Handel's home town, where he wrote the piece." Surely a trifling matter like a sellout would not deter us from finding a way inside where we would enjoy an unsurpassed musical experience. Janet's arched eyebrow conveyed unmistakably what she thought of my circumstantial theology, but she indulged me.

After a pell-mell taxi ride to the concert hall, we stumbled across a civic-minded English chap who offered us his extra tickets at half price. My theology was looking better all the time. I started to relax, anticipating a soothing evening of baroque music. Seated on the back row of the main floor, we were ideally positioned for a catnap should the need arise.

I hardly anticipated what I got that evening. I had, of course, heard Handel's Messiah often. But something about this time—my sleep-starved, caffeine-buzzed state, the London setting, the performance itself—transported me back closer, much closer, to Handel's day. The event became not just a performance but a kind of epiphany, a striking revelation of Christian theology. I felt able to see beyond the music to the soul of the piece.

London, 1741
When George Frideric Handel composed Messiah, he was already the most famous musician of his time, enjoying an international reputation. In Italy he wowed audiences by dueling Domenico Scarlatti on the organ and harpsichord; while there, he also absorbed the romantic spirit and mastered the techniques of Italian composition. A subsequent trip to England earned this German-born composer such acclaim that, two years later, he returned to stay, becoming a naturalized citizen.

In the early eighteenth century, London was arguably the most vibrant city in the world. Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift led a band of iconoclastic wits and essayists. Sir Isaac Newton was spearheading what was to become a scientific revolution. In such a setting Handel had to run a gauntlet of sophisticated and snobbish music critics.

Yet composers also had to please live audiences. Spectators would play cards, wander around, crack nuts, spit freely, and loudly hiss or boo a singer they disliked. Handel thrived in this hurly-burly environment. A huge man, with an explosive temperament and expansive ego, he met the challenge by churning out a series of lively Italian operas—over 40 in all—that kept audiences enthralled for 25 years.

Eventually London's appetite for Italian opera was satiated. Soon after, Handel's company went bankrupt and he had to seek a new genre of composition. Around the same time (1737), Handel suffered a stroke, an affliction that, some biographers suggest, helped nudge him toward religious themes. He made the acquaintance of Charles Jennens, a wealthy eccentric who wrote librettos based on passages from Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer. The two began collaborating on a new art form, the biblical oratorio, an English-language religious opera.

The bishop of London scowled at the notion of presenting sacred Scripture theatrically and withheld his sanction. But Londoners flocked to Handel's presentations of Saul, Belshazzar, Esther, Deborah, Solomon, Israel in Egypt, Jephtha, and Samson—nearly 20 oratorios in all. Ever the showman, Handel scheduled himself as organ soloist at every premiere.

In the midst of this fertile period, Jennens brought Handel a script based on the life of Jesus. It was far more "conceptual" than Handel's other oratorios, and featured little stage action. Unlike the great German choral works, this one told Jesus' story indirectly, relying mostly on quotations from the Prophets and Psalms with only a sprinkling of Gospel passages. The libretto moved Handel deeply, and he set to work right away. His working speed was legendary, but this time he surpassed himself: in just 24 days, drawing on inspiration and some old material, he put together his great Messiah. The original manuscript still survives, its smudges, ink spots, and hasty corrections betraying the headlong pace of composition.

Alone of Handel's oratorios, Messiah did not debut in London. Twenty-six vocalists and a few instrumentalists, conducted by the composer himself, gave the first performance as a charity benefit in Dublin, Ireland, in April of 1742. The Passion season fit Messiah's themes perfectly (although it has since become almost exclusively a Christmas piece), and the charitable cause helped lessen the shock for an audience still nervous about hearing sacred text sung by worldly stage personalities.

In contrast to the stunning success in Dublin, London gave Messiah a cool reception the following year. Handel presented a slightly altered version in 1745, but that too met with little enthusiasm. Four years later another performance in Covent Garden went over well enough to encourage annual revivals. In Handel's last public appearance, he, then 74 and totally blind, took the baton to lead one more performance of Messiah as a benefit for his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital.

In the last two-and-a-half centuries, not a single year has passed without a performance of Handel's Messiah.

Part 1: Bethlehem
As I leaned back in the Barbican Centre's padded seat and listened to the familiar beginning of Messiah, it was easy to understand how the oratorio came to be associated with the Advent season. Handel begins with a collection of lilting prophecies from Isaiah about a coming king who will bring peace and comfort to a disturbed and violent world. The music builds, swelling from a solo tenor ("Comfort ye my people ... ") to a full chorus joyously celebrating the day when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed."

I had spent the morning viewing England's remnants of glory, and it occurred to me that just such images of wealth and power must have filled the minds of Isaiah's contemporaries who first heard that promise. I had seen the crown jewels, a solid-gold ruler's mace, and the gilded carriage of the Lord Mayor of London. When the Hebrews heard Isaiah's words, undoubtedly those dispossessed and landless refugees thought back with sharp nostalgia to the glory days of Solomon, when the palace and temple gleamed bright.

Yet rulers who bring a nation glory and prestige often do so by oppressing their subjects and leaching away their wealth. How many poor laborers paid taxes to gild the Lord Mayor's carriage, or King Solomon's residence? Because strong rulers thrive in a climate of fear, even the long-awaited Messiah inspired fear in the prophets. After its boisterous opening, I was surprised to hear Handel's Messiah shift so quickly to a somber, even foreboding tone, as if in recognition of this darker side of rulership. The bass warns of a Lord of Hosts who will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

Israelites were raised with a fear of God so profound that they would not speak or write his name, and from the Messiah they feared not the tyranny of injustice, but rather the prospect of holy justice. "But who may abide the day of his coming?" the contralto cries out in alarm, "For he is like a refiner's fire." If the Lord of Hosts paid a personal visit to corrupted Earth, would any of its inhabitants survive? Would Earth itself survive? The good news of hope hangs in limbo for a moment.

Then out of the tension in Handel's music there soon emerge gentle, familiar words that strikingly resolve the contradiction of a powerful, but comforting ruler: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, 'God with us.'" The God who comes to Earth comes not in a raging whirlwind, nor in a devouring fire. He comes instead in the tiniest form imaginable: as an ovum, and then fetus, growing cell by cell inside a humble teenage virgin. In Jesus, God found at last a mode of approach that human beings need not fear: a helpless baby suckling at his mother's breast.

"Behold your God!" the chorus joins in, as if astonished. I wondered how many of the Londoners celebrating Christmas caught the sense of scandal. Stores outside displayed Dickensian scenes of Christmas mirth, and mangers dotted the town squares. But how many grasped the awesome implications of "Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb"? As G. K. Chesterton once marveled, "The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle."

Messiah lapses into an orchestral interlude, as if to let listeners ponder the two-pronged mission of a Messiah sent from Almighty God. And then it leaps ahead in time, from the prophets' promises to the stirring birth announcement in a pasture bordering Bethlehem. There, angels proclaimed to quaking shepherds that the reign of fear had ended. Fear not! That very night, God was doing an entirely new thing on Earth: he was becoming one of us. "Glory to God in the highest!" Handel's chorus sings.

Thus Part I of Messiah circles back to an old word, glory, but in the process bestows on it a new meaning. The Messiah is a king, but not one who relishes gold chariots and crown jewels. Soloists describe instead a king who opens the eyes of the blind and loosens the tongues of the mute, of a king who "shall feed his flock like a shepherd" and "shall gather the lambs with his arm."

For this reason Part 1 can end with a tender, almost paradoxical invitation: "Come unto him, all ye ... that are heavy laden, and he will give you rest. ... His yoke is easy, and his burden is light." The Messiah rules, surely, but he rules with a rod of love. Who may abide the day of his coming? Anyone may abide it; all who come unto him will be welcomed.

Part 2: Calvary
During intermission we mingled with other concert goers, and downed yet another cup of coffee. The drama of Part 1 was working its effect on me, however, even as I traded pleasantries in the lobby. Suddenly it seemed very odd to be sitting so politely as we listened to this earth-shattering story. We should be jumping or clapping hands, like charismatics.

Everyone else seemed quite calm and unperturbed, though, and we found our seats again and prepared for Messiah, Part 2. Any listener, no matter how musically naive, can sense an ominous change in the opening sounds. Handel telegraphs the darkening mood with dense orchestral chords in a minor key, then has the chorus announce it with his ever-significant introductory word, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Part 2 describes the world's response to that Messiah born of a virgin, and the story is tragic beyond all telling.

Handel relies mostly on the words of Isaiah 52-53, that remarkably vivid account written centuries before Jesus' birth. All sound ceases for a moment, and after this dramatic pause the contralto, with no accompaniment, gives the disturbing news: "He was de-spis-ed ... re-ject-ed." She pronounces each syllable with great effort, as if the facts of history are too painful to recite. Violins hauntingly reiterate each phrase.

At Calvary, history hung suspended. The bright hopes that had swirled around the long-awaited deliverer of Israel collapsed in darkness that fateful night. Dangling like a scarecrow between two thieves, the Messiah provoked at worst derision, at best pity. "All they that see him laugh him to scorn," says the tenor, who then adds, in the most poignant moment of Handel's oratorio, "Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow."

Yet all is not lost! A few measures later the same tenor introduces the first glimmer of hope: "But thou didst not leave his soul in hell." Almost immediately the whole chorus takes up the shout of joy: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates." For the defeat at Calvary was only an apparent defeat. The scarecrow corpse did not remain a corpse. He was the King of Glory after all!

Handel uses the rest of Part 2 to celebrate the triumph wrested from seeming defeat. Nations may rage together, conspiring against peace and justice, but "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn." The word-play is intentional: he that was laughed to scorn will have the last laugh.

"Hallelujah!" the chorus cries out at last, and from there the music soars into what is unarguably the most famous portion of Handel's Messiah, and one of the most jubilant passages of music ever composed. Handel himself said that when he wrote the "Hallelujah!" chorus, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the Great God himself."

Part 1 ends with a scriptural invitation ("Come unto him") based on a paradox; Part 2 explains the paradox of how his yoke can indeed be easy, and his burden light. It is because of a transfer of suffering. At the cross, the pain and sorrow of humanity became the pain and sorrow of God. The chorus early on states it well: "Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ... and with his stripes we are healed."

Furthermore, in that act death itself died. What happened next, on the day of resurrection, was a miracle deserving of all praise, deserving of the "Hallelujah!" chorus.

Part 3: Eternity
At the London premiere of Messiah, King George I stood for the singing of the "Hallelujah!" chorus. Some skeptics suggest that the king stood to his feet less out of respect for "Hallelujah!" than out of the mistaken assumption that Messiah had reached its conclusion. Even today novices in the audience make the same mistake. Who can blame them? After two hours of performance, the music seems to culminate in the rousing chorus. What more is needed?

I had never really considered the question until that night at the Barbican Centre. But as I glanced at the few paragraphs of libretto remaining, I realized what was missing from Parts 1 and 2. They supply the narrative of Jesus' life, but not the underlying meaning. Part 3 steps out from the story and, gathering quotations from Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation, provides that essential layer of interpretation.

When we flew to England earlier that day, the route took us over the polar ice cap. I knew that beneath the ice cap, nuclear attack submarines prowled, each one capable of killing a hundred million human beings. We landed in London to the news that a train had crashed, killing 51 commuters. Within the week, a terrorist bombed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270. Is this the world God had in mind at Creation? The world Jesus had in mind at Incarnation?

For reasons such as these, Handel's Messiah could not rightly end with the "Hallelujah!" chorus. The Messiah has come in "glory" (Part 1); the Messiah has died and been resurrected (Part 2). Why, then, does the world remain in such a sorry state? Part 3 attempts an answer. Beyond the images from Bethlehem and Calvary, one more messianic image is needed: the Messiah as Sovereign Lord. The Incarnation did not usher in the end of history—only the beginning of the end. Much work remains before creation is restored to God's original intent.

In a brilliant stroke, Part 3 of Messiah opens with a quotation from Job, that tragic figure who clung stubbornly to faith amid circumstances that called for bleak despair. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," the soprano sings out. Overwhelmed by tragedy, with scant evidence of a sovereign God, Job still managed to believe; and, Handel implies, so should we.

From that defiant opening, Part 3 shifts to the apostle Paul's theological explanation of Christ's death ("Since by man came death ... ") and then moves quickly to his lofty words about a final resurrection ("The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised").

Just as the tragedy of Good Friday was transformed into the triumph of Easter Sunday, one day all war, all violence, all injustice, all sadness will likewise be transformed. Then and only then we will be able to say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The soprano carries that thought forward to its logical conclusion, quoting from Romans 8: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" If we believe, truly believe, that the last enemy has been destroyed, then we indeed have nothing to fear. At long last, death is swallowed up in victory.

Handel's masterwork ends with a single scene frozen in time. To make his point about the Christ of eternity, librettist Jennens could have settled on the scene from Revelation 2, where Jesus appears with a face like the shining sun and eyes like blazing fire. Instead, his text concludes with the scene from Revelation 4-5, perhaps the most vivid image in a book of vivid imagery.

Twenty-four impressive rulers are gathered together, along with four living creatures who represent strength and wisdom and majesty—the best in all creation. These creatures and rulers kneel respectfully before a throne luminous with lightning and encircled by a rainbow. An angel asks who is worthy to break a seal that will open up the scroll of history. Neither the creatures nor the 24 rulers are worthy. The author realizes well the significance of that moment, "I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside."

Besides these creatures, impotent for the grand task, one more creature stands before the throne. Though appearance offers little to recommend him, he is nevertheless history's sole remaining hope. "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain." A lamb! A helpless, baa-baa lamb, and a slaughtered one at that! Yet John in Revelation, and Handel in Messiah, sum up all history in this one mysterious image. The great God who became a baby, who became a lamb, who became a sacrifice—this God, who bore our stripes and died our death, this one alone is worthy. That is where Handel leaves us, with the chorus "Worthy Is the Lamb," followed by exultant amens.

We were sitting in a modern brick-and-oak auditorium in the late twentieth century in a materialistic culture light years removed from the imagery of slaughtered lambs. But Handel understood that history and civilization are not what they appear. Auditoriums, dynasties, civilizations-all rise and fall. History has proven beyond doubt that nothing fashioned by the hand of humanity will last. We need something greater than history, something outside history. We need a Lamb slain before the foundations of the world.

I confess that belief in an invisible world, a world beyond this one, does not come easily for me. Like many moderns, I sometimes wonder if reality ends with the material world around us, if life ends at death, if history ends with annihilation or solar exhaustion. But that evening I had no such doubts. Jet lag and fatigue had produced in me something akin to an out-of-body state, and for that moment the grand tapestry woven by Handel's music seemed more real by far than my everyday world. I felt I had a glimpse of the grand sweep of history. And all of it centered in the Messiah who came on a rescue mission, who died on that mission, and who wrought from that death the salvation of the world. I went away with renewed belief that he (and we) shall indeed reign forever and ever.

It was a good decision after all, attending this serendipitous concert.

Philip Yancey is a columnist and editor at large for Christianity Today. This article originally appeared on December 15, 1989.

THE SPIRIT’S WORK

O God the Holy Spirit,
Thou who dost proceed from the Father and the Son,
Have mercy on me.
When thou didst first hover over chaos,
order came to birth,
beauty robed the world, fruitfulness sprang forth.
Move, I pray thee, upon my disordered heart;
Take away the infirmities of unruly desires and hateful lusts;
Lift the mists and darkness of unbelief;
Brighten my soul with the pure light of truth;
Make it fragrant as the garden of paradise,
rich with every goodly fruit
beautiful with heavenly grace,
radiant with rays of divine light.
Fulful in me the glory of thy divine offices;
Be my comforter, light, guide, sanctifier;
Take of the things of Christ and show them to my soul;
Through thee may I daily learn more of his love, grace, compassion, faithfulness, beauty;
Lead me to the cross and show me his wounds, the hateful nature of evil, the power of Satan;
May I there see my sins as
the nails that transfixed him,
the cords that bound him,
the thorns that tore him
the sword that pierced him.
Help me to find in his death the reality and immensity of his love.
Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in his, ‘It is finished’.
Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of
atonement achieved, expiation completed,
satisfaction made, guilt done away,
my debt paid, my sins forgiven,
my person redeemed, my soul saved,
hell vanquished, heaven opened,
eternity made mine.
O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons.
Write them upon my heart, that my walk be
sin-loathing, sin-fleeing, Christ loving;
And suffer no devil’s device to beguile or deceive me.

Christianity Explored
January 2009 @ Christ Community
This could be what you’ve been praying for. An opportunity for you to bring along your friend(s) to a place where they are NOT required to pray, sing, or give. A place where they ARE allowed to ask honest questions. We are running a course that has been used effectively in London for 10 years and is beginning to help churches in the United States. Here are some FAQ’s about Christianity Explored.

Questions from potential participants
Q. Who is Christianity Explored for?
A. Christianity Explored is for anyone who wants to investigate Christianity informally with a group of other people. Whether you have previous experience of Church, Christians and the Bible, or none at all, this course is for you. Everyone is welcome - from the most sympathetic Sunday schooler to the convinced atheist. We will respect your background, culture and beliefs. Tell us as little or as much about yourself as you feel comfortable.
Q. What goes on?
A. A meal is usually provided at the start of the evening (typically 7pm), so don't worry if you have to come straight from work. The course is normally run in several groups of six to nine people, and after briefly discussing the course material from the week before, there is a talk or DVD on the theme for that week. Then the groups discuss any questions that have arisen, and the evening ends at about 9pm. Of course, if you'd like, you're welcome to stick around a bit longer for a coffee to discuss any further issues you might have. And you can ask any question you want, at any time during the course.
Q. How long does the course last?
A. The course runs for 10 weeks, including a weekend (or day) away, when you can explore other areas such as the Bible, the Holy Spirit, prayer and the church.
Q. Can I pull out if I want to?
A. Of course you can.

Q. How much does the course cost?
A. Nothing - but some courses might ask for a small contribution towards any food provided.
Q. Do I have to bring anything?
A. No, all course materials are provided.
Q. Is it 'churchy'?
A. We hope not. It's not a church service. There's no praying, singing, or clapping, and you won't be asked to read aloud.
Q. Am I going to get preached at?
A. Each evening includes a talk (or DVD) designed to explain an aspect of Christian belief and to stimulate discussion. Hopefully you'll find it challenging and amusing. The group leaders will facilitate discussion and try to answer questions.
Q. Do I have to speak in the group?
A. Not if you don't want to. You are welcome to come and just sit and listen.
Q. How is Christianity Explored different from other courses?
A. The focus on Mark's Gospel, with its emphasis on who Jesus was, what his aims were, and what it means to follow him, makes Christianity Explored quite different.
Q. Why is the course run?
A. Christians count it a real privilege to explain the truth and relevance of the Christian message. We don't have all the answers but believe that we have exciting news to share about Jesus Christ.

Key Dates:
Sunday December 7 Leaders’ Lunch Meeting (all interested welcome!)
January 2009 kickoff

To learn more:
www.christianityexplored.com

Yet I Sin

Eternal Father,
Thou are good beyond all thought,
But I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind;
My lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel, and my ways reluctant to amend.
I bring my soul to thee; break it, wound it, bend it, mould it.
Unmask to me sin's deformity, that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.
My faculties have been a weapon of revolt against thee; as a rebel I have misused my strength, and served the foul adversary of they kingdom.
Give me grace to bewail my insensate folly,
Grant me to know that the way of transgressors is hard, that evil paths are wretched paths, that to depart from thee is to lose all good.
I have seen the purity and beauty of they perfect law, the happiness of those in whose heart it reigns, the calm dignity of the walk to which it calls, yet I daily violate and contemn its precepts.
Thy loving Spirit strives within me, brings me Scripture warnings, speaks in startling providences, allures by secret whispers, yet I choose devices and desires to my own hurt, impiously resent, grieve, and provoke him to abandon me.
All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon.
Work in me more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears, yet ever trusts and loves, which is ever powerful, and ever confident;
Grant that through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross.

The Valley of Vision

from Packer:
How are we to hear sermons as the Word of God land benefit from them in our ongoing relationship with God? In his Christian Directory (1673) Richard Baxter addresses this question in a way that is worth quoting at some length.

Directions for . . . Understanding the Word which you Hear.

I. Read and meditate on the holy Scriptures much in private, and then you will be the better able to understand what is preached on it in public, and to try that doctrine, whether it be of God . . .

II. Live under the clearest, [most]distinct, convincing teaching that you possibly can procure . . . . Ignorant teachers . . . are unlike[ly] to make you men of understanding; as erroneous teachers are unlike[ly] to make you orthodox and sound.

III. Come not to hear with a careless heart, . . . but come with a sense of the unspeakable weight, necessity, and consequence of the holy word which you are to hear: and when you understand how much you are concerned in it, and truly love it, as the word of life, it will greatly help your understanding of every particular truth . . . .

IV. Suffer not vain thoughts or drowsy negligence to hinder your attention . . . be as earnest and diligent in attending and learning, as you would have the preacher be in teaching . . .

VIII. Meditate on what you hear when you come home . . .

VI. Inquire, where you doubt, of those that can resolve and teach you. It showeth a careless mind, and a contempt of the word of God, in most people . . . that never come to ask the resolution of one doubt . . . though they have pastors . . . that have ability, and leisure, and willingness to help them.

Directions for Remembering what you Hear.

I. It greatly helpeth memory to have a full understanding of the matter spoken which you would remember . . . . Therefore labour most for a clear understanding according to the last directions . . . .

III. Method is a very great help to memory . . . . Ministers must not only be methodical . . . but . . . choose that method which is most easy to the hearers to understand and remember . . .

IV. Numbers are a great help to memory . . .

V. Names also and signal words are a great help to memory . . . Therefore preachers should contrive the force of every reason, use, direction, [etc.] as much as may be, into some one emphatical word. (And some do very profitably contrive each of these words to begin with the same letter, which is good for memory . . .) As if I were to direct you to the chiefest helps to your salvation, and should name, 1. Powerful preaching. 2. Prayer. 3. Prudence. 4. Piety. 5. Painfulness. 6. Patience. 7. Perseverance . . . the very names would help the hearers' memory . . .

VII. Grasp not at more than you are able to hold, lest thereby you lose all. If there be more particulars than you can possibly remember, lay hold on some which most concern you, and let go the rest . . . .

VIII. Writing is an easy help for memory . . . .

IX. Peruse what you remember, or write it down, when you come home; and fix it speedily before it is lost . . . Pray over it, and confer on it with others.

X. If you forget the very words, yet remember the main drift . . . And then you have not lost the sermon, though you have lost the words; as he hath not lost his food, that hath digested it, and turned it into flesh and blood.

Directions for Holy Resolutions and Affections in Hearing . . .

II. Remember that ministers are the messengers of Christ, and come to you on his business and in his name . . .

III. Remember that God is instructing you, and warning you, and treating

with you, about no less than the saving of your souls . . . .

VI. Make it your work with diligence to apply the word as you are hearing it . . . You have work to do as well as the preacher, and should all the while be as busy as he: as helpless as the infant is, he must suck when the mother offereth him the breast; if you must be fed, yet you must open your mouths, and digest it, for another cannot digest it for you . . . . Therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle minister.

VII. Chew the cud, and call up all when you come home in secret, and by meditation preach it over to yourselves . . .

IX. Go to Christ by faith, for the quickening of his Spirit . . . Entreat him to . . . open your hearts, and speak to you by his Spirit, that you may be taught of God, and your hearts may be his epistles, and the tables where the everlasting law is written . . .

Directions to bring what we Hear into Practice.

I. Be acquainted with the failings of your hearts and lives, and come on purpose to get directions and helps against those particular failings . . . say when you go out of doors, I go to Christ for physic for my own disease . . .

IV. When you come home, let conscience in secret . . . repeat the sermon to you. Between God and yourselves, consider what there was delivered to you in the Lord's message, that your souls were most concerned in.

V. Hear the most practical preachers you can well get . . . that are still [constantly] urging you to holiness of heart and life, and driving home every truth to practice . . .

VII. Associate yourselves with the most holy, serious, practical Christians.

VIII. Keep a just account of your practice; examine yourselves in the end of every day and week . . . Call yourselves to account every hour, what you are doing and how you do it . . . and your hearts must be watched and followed like unfaithful servants, and like loitering scholars [schoolchildren], and driven on to every duty, like a dull or tired horse.

IX. Above all set your hearts to the deepest contemplations of the wonderful

love of God in Christ, and the sweetness and excellency of a holy life, and the . . . glory which it tendeth to, that your souls may be in love with your dear Redeemer, and all that is holy, and love and obedience may be as natural to you. And then the practice of holy doctrine will be easy to you, when it is your delight.⁷

It seems to me that Baxter covers the entire waterfront here, and I do not see how a single sentence that I have quoted from him can be challenged by anyone who knows that the Bible is the Word of God.

But the contrast between the hard-working, hard-thinking, purposeful way in which Baxter tells us to listen to the Word preached and the aimless, detached, passive frame of mind in which most of us today do listen to sermons could hardly be greater. Baxter's discipline of expecting, focusing, memorizing (writing notes if need be), discussing, praying and applying is at the opposite extreme from our modern habit of relaxing at sermon time, settling back in our seats to see if the preacher's performance will interest and entertain us, and if anything he says will particularly strike us — and if not, then to forget the sermon and to say if asked that we got nothing out of it. But even if the preacher is not operating in full accord with the principles that the present chapter lays down, this casual, unexpectant, prayerless, half-bored way of listening to his messages cannot be right. I remember one or two very elderly Christians in my youth who listened to sermons essentially in Baxter's way, expecting them to yield fodder for a week's meditation and soul nourishment, including applicatory reflections going beyond what the preacher actually said. But this devotional style seems nowadays to have completely died out, so that it needs to be learned all over again, starting very much from scratch. The combined efforts of homiletics professors in seminaries training tomorrow's clergy, senior ministers guiding junior members of their team and preaching pastors leveling with their congregations about what it means for them to preach and for people to hear the Word of God would seem to be needed to get the church back on track at this point. A great deal of work will have to be done if sermons are to be restored to their proper place as a means of grace in our Christian lives.

from chapter 5 of Packer's TRUTH AND POWER book

Romans 14 and the Weak and Strong and Stumbling Block

this is an excerpt from a pdf online entitled Wine in the Bible and in the Church, by G.I. Williamson

Chapter Four - The Weaker Brother
"It is good" says the Apostle Paul "not to eat meat or to drink wine, or do anything
by which your brother stumbles" (Rom. 14:21). This statement is often quoted
by those who would make total abstinence a requirement for the Christian. They
argue that it is the duty of the strong to abstain out of deference to the weak. They
say, in other words, that even a careful and temperate use of wine contradicts this
apostolic principle. It is to this argument that we now direct our attention. We do so
by asking two important questions.

What does Paul mean by the weaker brother in this passage?

And what does he mean when he talks about causing this brother to stumble?

The fact is that Paul means something very different in this phrase "weaker
brother" from what the proponents of total abstinence mean. When they speak of a
weaker brother they mean someone who has a tendency to drink too much. A man
who has been an alcoholic, for example, and is now seeking to remain sober, by
practicing complete abstinence, would be a weaker brother as they use this phrase.
But the weaker brother in Paul's terminology is not a man who tends to drink too
much. To the contrary, he is a man who feels that it would be wrong to drink any
wine at all. He is a man who has a certain scruple of conscience. If certain kinds of
meat and wine were really evil per se, then it would not be necessary to speak of
such people as weaker brothers. But the fact is that there is no meat or wine that is
evil in itself. So the stronger brother is the one who recognizes that this is true. The
weaker brother is weaker because he is mistaken in his conviction. If he eats, or
drinks, he sins. The sin does not lie in the mere physical act of eating or drinking as
such. It lies in the fact that the weaker brother in eating or drinking has violated his
own conscience. For, as Paul says, "whatever is not from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23).
Paul's definition of the weaker brother is therefore the exact opposite of that which
is propounded by the advocates of the total abstinence position. To put it precisely:
the weaker brother, in Paul's terminology, is someone who holds the total abstinence
position. His weakness is that he erroneously believes that drinking wine is a sin.
From this it can readily be seen that when Paul speaks of causing a brother to
stumble, he doesn't mean anything like the proponents of total abstinence. When
they say that we must not cause our brother to stumble, they simply mean that we
must not do anything that they do not like. We must not engage in any behavior
that is offensive to other believers. Or in other words we must never do anything
that other believers consider to be sin. Now this is not at all what Paul meant.
When he spoke of causing a brother to stumble, he meant an act on our part which
induces our brother to sin—encourages him to act against this scruple that he has
in his conscience. It may well be, of course, that what Paul is saying may—in certain
circumstances— dictate that we must not do something that is intrinsically
lawful. If a certain Christian has been an alcoholic, and now believes that any use
of wine for him would be the path of ruin, then other Christians must certainly
make this their concern. They must be careful that they do not act in such a way as
to encourage him to go against conscience. This does not mean that they must adopt
the rule of his conscience as law.
We can easily see this if we simply notice that Paul also speaks of the religious
observance of days (Rom. 14:6). It is a well-known fact that no day was observed in
the Apostolic Church, by divine commandment, except the Lord's Day (I Cor. 16:1,2;
Gal. 4:9-11). When the Judaizers attempted to impose the observance of other (additional)
days the Apostle strenuously objected (Gal. 4:9-11). Yet in this matter too
Paul had compassion for those who were weaker brothers. The weaker brother in
this instance was someone who felt obligated to observe these other days. (Think
of the Jew who still felt bound by conscience to observe the traditional Jewish feast
days!) The problem, again, was a misinformed conscience that went beyond the
law of the Lord. Does anyone think that Paul demanded that the strong conform to
the weak? No, the plain fact is that when the attempt was made to force such conformity
the Apostle severely denounced them. For it is one thing to receive the
weaker brother (Rom 14:1) and quite another to allow his weakness to be imposed
upon others as law (v. 4).
It was exactly the same with food. In Paul's day—as in ours - some people had
scruples of conscience against eating certain kinds of meat (pork, for example).
Wrong as they were in having this scruple, they were still to be received as brothers
(v. 3). The strong were not to try to induce them to eat against conviction of conscience.
Who would argue that it was the duty of the strong to conform to the
weak? Do the proponents of total abstinence themselves submit to such scruples?
No, the fact is that the very people who attempt to use this argument to force other
people to practice total abstinence, when it comes to wine, do not themselves practice
it when it comes to pork. It is small wonder! If Christians were obliged to abstain—
completely —from any food or drink that weaker brothers have, at one time
or another, and at one place or another, considered to be sinful, they would have
little to eat and drink. Why then should this passage be taken in this way with
respect to wine? The passage, after all, does not say that it is evil to eat meat or to
drink wine. It is only said that it is good not to eat meat or drink wine if it causes a
brother to stumble. The one concern of the entire passage is to teach us to avoid
anything that would induce a weaker brother to act against his own conscience.
When Paul says "it is good for a man not to touch a woman" (I Cor. 7:1) he
does not mean that sexual intercourse is inherently wrong. To the contrary, in
order to avoid sexual immorality he recommends it—by telling us that each
man is to have his own wife and each woman her own husband, if they do not
have the gift of continency. The opposite of sexual immorality is not necessarily
celibacy. To say that total (sexual) abstinence is good, is not at all the same as to
say that lawful indulgence is evil. Quite the contrary: while complete abstinence
may be best for some, a proper indulgence is better for others. Indeed, for
most people the expedient thing is not abstinence but lawful use. Yet this is the
distinction that the proponents of prohibition ignore. They condemn the use of
wine, even in moderation, on the grounds that it could cause another person to
stumble. It is interesting to observe that some people in the ancient Church did
exactly the same thing with respect to marriage. Because the Scripture says "it is
good for a man not to touch a woman" they began to require people to practice
celibacy (I Tim. 4:3). Like present-day advocates of total abstinence, they sought
to make a scruple of their own conscience binding on everyone else. But Paul,
speaking prophetically, brands their teaching as coming from deceitful spirits,
and as the devil's doctrine, not Christ's (v. 1). He does not praise their conviction
of conscience, but rather describes their consciences as having been seared
with a branding iron (v. 2). In forbidding marriage, and commanding abstinence
from certain foods, they really impugned the handiwork of God (v. 3,4).
For God has created all these things to be received with thanksgiving, by those
who believe and know the truth.
It is the same with wine. Those who seek to impose their scruple of conscience
on others usurp the authority of Christ. Paul teaches us to resist them.
"The faith which you have" he says "have as your own conviction before God"
(Rom. 14:22).

Romans 8:23-27. b). The sufferings and glory of God’s children.

Verses 22-23 draw an important parallel between God’s creation and God’s children. Verse 22 speaks of the whole creation groaning. Verse 23 begins: *Not only so, but we ourselves...groan inwardly...* Even we, who are no longer in Adam but in Christ, we who no longer live according to the flesh but *have the firstfruits of the Spirit*, we in who God’s new creation has already begun (cf. 2 Cor.5:17), even we continue to groan inside ourselves *as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies* (23). This is our Christian dilemma. Caught in the tension between what God has inaugurated (by giving us his Spirit) and what he will consummate (in our final adoption and redemption), we groan with discomfort and longing. The indwelling Spirit gives us joy (E.g. Gal. 5:22; 1 Thess.1:6) and the coming glory gives us hope (e.g. 5:2), but the interim suspense gives us pain.
Paul now highlights different aspects of our half-saved condition by five affirmations.
First, *we...have the firstfruits of the Spirit* (23a). *Aparche*, the firstfruits, was both the beginning of the harvest and the pledge that the full harvest would follow in due time. Perhaps Paul had in mind that the Feast of Weeks, which celebrated the reaping of the firstfruits, was the very festival (called in Greek ‘Pentecost’) on which the Spirit had been given. Replacing this agricultural metaphor with a commercial one, Paul also described the gift of the Spirit as God’s *arrabon*, the ‘first instalment, deposit, down payment, pledge’ (BAGD), which guaranteed the future completion of the purchase (see 2 Cor.1:22; 5:5; Eph.1:4) Although we have not yet received our final adoption or redemption, we have already received the Spirit as both foretaste and promise of these blessings.
Secondly, *we ...groan inwardly* (23b). The juxtaposition of the Spirit’s indwelling and our groaning should not surprise us. For the very presence of the Spirit (being only the firstfruits) is a constant reminder of the incompleteness of our salvation, as we share with the creation in the frustration, the bondage to decay and the pain. So one reason for our groaning is our physical frailty and mortality. Paul expresses this elsewhere: ‘Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling [meaning probably our resurrection body].... For while we are in this tent [our temporary, flimsy, material body], we groan and are burdened....’ (2 Cor.5:2, 4). But it is not only our frail body (*soma*) which makes us groan; it is also our fallen nature (*sarx*), which hinders us from behaving as we should, and would altogether prevent us from it, were it not for the indwelling Spirit (7:17, 20). We long, therefore, for our *sarx* to be destroyed and for our *soma* to be transformed. Our groans express both present pain and future longing. Some Christians, however, grin too much (they seem to have no place in their theology for pain) and groan too little.
Thirdly, *we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies* (23c). Just as the groaning creation waits eagerly for God’s sons to be revealed (19), so we groaning Christians wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, even our bodily redemption. We have, of course, already been adopted by God (15), and the Spirit assures us that we are his children (16). Yet there is an even deeper and richer child-Father relationship to come when we are fully ‘revealed’ as his children (19) and ‘conformed to the likeness of his Son’ (29). Again, we have already been redeemed (cf. Eph.1:7; Col.1:14; cf. Rom.3:24; 1 Cor.1:30), but not yet our bodies. Already our spirits are alive (10), but one day the Spirit will also give life to our bodies (11). More than that, our bodies will be changed by Christ to be ‘like his glorious body’ (Phil.3:21; cf. 1 Cor.15:35ff.). ‘Bondage to decay’ will be replaced by the ‘freedom of glory’ (21).
Fourthly, *in this hope we were saved* (24a). *We were saved (esothemen*) is an aorist tense. It bears witness to our decisive past liberation from the guilt and bondage of our sins, and from the just judgment of God upon them (cf. Eph.2:8). Yet we remain only half-saved. For we have not yet been saved from the outpouring of God’s wrath in the day of judgment (5:9), nor have the final vestiges of sin in our human personality been eradicated. Not yet has our *sarx* been obliterated; not yet has our *soma* been redeemed. So we are saved *in hope* of our total liberation (24a), as the creation was subjected to frustration *in...hope* of being set free from it (20). This double hope looks to the future and to things which, being future, are so far unseen. For *hope that is seen*, having been realized in our experience, *is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?* (24b). Instead, *we hope for what we do not yet have* (25a; cf. Heb.11:1).
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