In Genesis, God created Adam and Eve and spent time dwelling with them in the garden.  After their sin, they hid from God’s presence and God banished them from the special location of his dwelling with them (Gen. 3.23-24).  The patriarchs occasionally experienced God’s visitation in physical manifestation.  Particularly instructive is the account of Jacob’s experiencing God’s presence through a dream and naming the location “House-of-God” (Gen. 28.10-22).  A house is a place where one dwells.  In the wilderness, God instructed Moses to construct the tabernacle for this reason: “that I may dwell in their midst” Ex. 25.8).  After the conquest, God gave instructions for the construction of a temple in which he would “dwell among the children of Israel” (I Ki. 6.13).  The tabernacle/temple actually played the sanctifying role for Israel that indwelling plays for New Testament believers (I Ki. 8.57-58).

In the New Testament, John takes the baton for this dwelling theme and extends it through Jesus’ earthly ministry.  He opens his Gospel by introducing the Word who became flesh and dwelt (literally, “tabernacled” – ἐσκήνωσεν) among us (Jn. 1.14).  Jesus referred to his own body as the “temple” (Jn. 2.20-21).  This idea that Jesus was the tabernacle/temple in which God’s presence dwelled is explicit in Jn. 14.10: “the Father … dwells in me.”  John returns to this theme again in his Revelation.  Christ “will spread his tabernacle over” his saints (Rev. 7.15, NASB).  At the apex of the book, John writes that “the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them” (Rev. 21.3, NASB).  This is not the construction of a new temple, however (Rev. 21.22); John applies temple imagery to New Jerusalem because the city will be a place of God’s unmediated presence with his people.

Paul fills in the gap between Jesus’ earthly ministry and his eventual triumph.  God dwells with his people currently by treating them as the temple and dwelling in them directly.  God dwells in his church corporately (I Cor. 3.16) and in each Christian individually (I Cor. 6.19).

“As one listens to [Christianity's opponents], one wonders why, if they really wish to know what religion is, they do not go to its noblest exhibitions.  Would they judge music by jazz when there is Beethoven or architecture by automobile filling stations when there is Chartres?”

Harry Emerson Fosdick, As I See Religion (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932), 123.

“Up to this very day the Spirit calls into being the existence of every single Christian as a believing, loving, hoping witness to the Word of God.  The Spirit does this certainly and irresistibly (for to wish to withstand him, when he steps in and acts, would be the one unforgivable sin), for he alone does this.”

Thus Barth considers resistance to the Spirit’s work, particularly in making believers witnesses to the Word, to be the unpardonable sin.  Since he apparently rejects the possibility of a true believer committing blasphemy against the Spirit, he concludes that the Spirit’s work in a believer’s live is ultimately irresistible.

Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston), 55.

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In Numbers 32, a bit of a controversy arises between the tribes of Reuben & Gad and Moses.  Reuben and Gad present a reasonable request: since Gilead is good for our flocks, please let us settle here.

Moses, however, doesn’t care much for that idea.  His problem?  Gilead is on the “wrong side” of the Jordan River.  Remember, Moses was at Kadesh-Barnea when the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land almost forty years earlier.  Moses had decades of experience with the rather grumbly and unfaithful nation of Israel.  Also, keep in mind that Moses is one of a tiny handful of people who actually experienced the Exodus and saw God’s power displayed then.  Moses hears the request of Reuben and Gad – and a mental trigger goes off.  I can almost see him shake his head and say, “Oh no! Not more unwillingness to enter the Promised Land!”  I can hear him begin to berate the leaders of Reuben and Gad, reminding them of Kadesh-Barnea and threatening God’s wrath.  In fact, he pretty much does just that: Num. 32.6-15.

This passage reminds me of one of those times when two parties are both right, but because they’re talking past each other, they feel like they’re arguing.  The Reubenites & Gadites were right – they had a reasonable request and they had no intention of disobeying God or forsaking Israel.  Moses was right – if the people of Israel shied away from the land of promise again, God would deal with them severely.  Perhaps those two tribes could have made their request clearer the first time, but (as the story is recorded in the chapter) it looks like Moses is the one who jumps past the actual and gives warning based on the possible.

Pause the Biblical story for a moment.  Think about the last time you saw this happen.  Perhaps you’ve seen it happen in a church or a movement of Christianity.  Older leaders are firm on the lines they’ve drawn because of the battles they’ve fought; younger members are reasoning through the whys and wherefores with good intention.  But there are times when the youngsters ask questions or probe philosophies or practices – and then the older generation responds with warnings and scolding (but no answer to the question!).  What happens next?  I’d submit to you that what happened in Numbers 32 is rather different from what often happens today.

The Reubenites and Gadites didn’t run off to their forums, blogs, Facebook pages or Twitter feeds.*  Ok, they didn’t have those.  They didn’t run back to their families in the camps and spread the news about how unfair and grouchy and anti-intellectual and wrong Moses was.  They responded humbly.  First, they moved closer to Moses and spoke to him directly (Num. 32.16) to reword their request (speculation: without a big brouhaha!).  Second, they allayed Moses’ fears.  They didn’t take affront at his “accusation.”  They (in the text) calmly explained their willingness to follow God’s plan and promised to give up their Gilead possession if they shrank back from the conquest..  Third, they put action behind their words of clarification.  They took up their swords and went to battle, keeping their end of the bargain.

Moses didn’t get up on a soapbox and denounce these two tribes to the rest of the nation.  He didn’t call them out publicly for cowardice, unbelief or any other sin.  Moses responded humbly.  When they demonstrated sincerity and obedience to God’s command, he agreed to their request and treated them kindly.

Why do things seem to fall out differently today than in Moses’ day?  Sadly, humility is often lacking.  Young Christians take offense at well-intentioned warning; older Christians assume the worst of well-intentioned questions.  What all of us need is Christ – we need his humility in us as we minister together (Phil. 2.5-8; I Pet. 5.1-6).

* I’m not condemning these technologies; all they do is facilitate good or evil.  We are accountable for how we use them.

From the “correcting common misconceptions” files…

Michael Bird:

Jesus did not cruise around Palestine saying, “Hi, I’m God, the second person of the Trinity, soon I’m going to die on the cross for your sins so you can go to heaven, but until then I’m gonna teach you all how to be good Christians”. That is wildly ahistorical, and yet it might be how many pious Christians read their Gospels.

The rest of Trevin Wax’s interview has some thought-provoking material and is worth reading.

I’m taking a Greek class next semester that includes memorizing nearly all the vocab in the New Testament.  My goal is to use my iPod Touch for my vocab flash cards.  I’ve looked at a few apps that do vocab cards, but none specially set for all NT Greek vocab (yep, it’s not the most common college course).

What I’d like to know is…

1. have you found a good app that already has most of the NT Greek vocab (sorted alphabetically) available for it,
2. have you used any iPod Touch flash card apps (which, and what do you think) or
3. do you have or know where I could find an electronic list of all NT Greek vocab (spreadsheet, csv, Access DB, etc.)?

If you’ve got helpful info, drop a comment below.  If you’ve got access to a file, I’ll reply to your comment via email.

Thanks much!

UPDATE: Thanks to some comments, tweets and research, I’ve got the list of all vocab words & glosses in a CSV file.  When I get access to a macro-capable copy of MS Office (i.e., not ’08 for Mac!), I’ll run the BibleWorks Greek to Unicode font, then start experimenting with an iPod Touch app to see what works best.  I’ll report what happens as I go…

Advice for actors on how not to appeal to crowds:

And let those that play your
clowns speak no more than is set down for them. For there
be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity
of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime
some necessary question of the play be then to be
considered. That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it.

Hamlet’s advice to the acting troupe may have some application to preaching, music and other aspects of life.  What say you?

When George Sodini walked into his Pittsburgh gym and opened fire on August 4, killing three women and wounding several others, that was a tragedy.  An edited version of his diary over the last year has been released and it is heart-breaking.  His bitterness and loneliness escalated through the posts; he never turned to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness and fulfillment he desperately wanted.

He did, however, include a bit of theology near the very end of the diary:

Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus.  At least that is what I was told.  Eternal life does NOT depend on works.  If it did, we will all be in hell.  Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid.

To read his attempt to bring the grace of God (albeit a flawed view of that grace) into his rationalization and self-pity – that floored me.  How I wish he had known the truth about what God and Jesus!

All of us need to realize that eternal life absolutely does depend on works!  Now, our works can’t earn eternal life, but the righteous works that Jesus Christ did during his life on earth – those works are the ones that eternal life depends on.  Call it the active obedience of Christ: he never sinned and always did right.  He was the only man to walk this earth and actually earn eternal life.  For us to have eternal life, we must be in Christ.

That statement that “Christ paid for EVERY sin” is misleading in this context.  It ignores the fact that there really is a limit on Christ’s atonement.  Here’s the false dichotomy: either we all go to hell for our sins OR we all see God because Jesus paid for them.  In other words, either (A) no hope of salvation or (B) universalism.  You can say what you like about the potential limits of the forgiveness that Jesus secured with his death, but when you look at what actually happens between men and God, there is a limit.  God does not extend the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice to people who don’t want it.  He does not give those blessings to people who think they want it but won’t humble themselves to ask for it God’s way either.  God gives forgiveness (based on Christ’s death) and righteousness (based on Christ’s life) freely and unreservedly to those who repent from their sin and exclusively trust Jesus for the salvation he has provided.

Unfortunately, when people choose to stew in their own self-pity, loneliness and bitterness, they close their eyes to the joy and liberty of forgiven life in Jesus Christ.  How sad it is when they almost come close to Christ, but their mistaken theology leaves them to wallow in despair.

One thing I love about music discussions is that they’re never controversial.  Especially when the discussion focuses on associations for particular songs or artists – then the conversation becomes exceptionally balanced!

Anyway, all joking aside, here are two well-balanced articles on music and association.  Scott Aniol does an accurate job breaking “association” up into carefully nuanced categories in the first post; he explains why “association” arguments often miss the real issue in the second post.

On Associations
Punting to “Association Problems” may be a cop out.