Joe Rigney has a great piece on the Trinity House website. With apologies to Joe, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell, then make some brief observations. But make sure you read the entire article.
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
It’s been a while since I blogged due to some pesky Russian hackers.
Well, it looks possible at this point that Ephesians actually has eight cycles, just as many of its “sevenfold” stanzas have eight lines. This is because step three reflects the Altar and the Table, the Land and the fruits of Day 3 (the first half of the cycle has a preliminary “filling”).
This means that the previous cycle, which spoke of the gifts to the Church, concerned the initial outpouring of the Spirit by Christ at His ascension. If that was the “three-and-a-half,” this next cycle must then be the Day 4, the governing lights, which seems to be the case as it begins with a reference to enlightenment, and proceeds to comment on what this looks like in the saints. If this is indeed the structure here, what follows below is the “Ethics opened” section of the epistle. The new Israel will not be given to harlotry in the wilderness, as the old one was.
Were the Nephilim in Genesis 6 angels or aliens?
The Nephilim (“great” or “amazing”) were the first “mighty men” of the Bible. They were the result of the intermarriage between the priestly sons of Seth and the rebellious Cainite kings. The text gives us a split genealogy after the murder of Abel, priests serving God outside the garden, and Cain’s false kingdom (Cain went and built a “fortress” to protect himself). So, humanity was divided into two camps: those who served God as their king and those who rebelled against Him.
“Getting Genesis 1 wrong, capitulating to the worldview and resulting pseudo-science and pseudo-history of darkened minds, will eventually lead you to get Genesis 2 wrong as well.”
[Addendum added below for those who are not familiar with my biblical-theological framework. This post is not really about the complementarian debate. It is about our modern ignorance of biblical structure and process.]
Sydney Anglicans used to have an online forum for discussion of theology. It was a great way to spend a few hours I didn’t have. From those times, two things stick in my mind: the creation/evolution thread that would not die, and one commenter who denied that compromising on a particular controversial issue would lead the compromisers down the proverbial “slippery slope.”
Since I called people names this week, very ungraciously, perhaps it might help if I explained myself a little. I see the interpretation of early Genesis as crucial for our interpretation of the rest of the Bible, but also for our understanding of the world we live in. If a Christian gives in to whatever the prevailing culture demands, there will be ramifications for the rest of his theology. This is because the Bible is fractal in its nature. It is a closely knit network, a carefully constructed grid, just like the created world. To cave on one issue will have outcomes in other areas of theology, and the example I have in mind right now is John Dickson, a brave, educated and wise Christian apologist.
“With this theory of the joke in mind, the final chapter of Nehemiah is holy and hysterical.”
In his book, Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart speaks of the biblical text as many things, but none is more confronting than his viewing the text as a “joke.” His explanation, however, makes perfect sense. What makes a joke funny? It is either prior knowledge to which not everyone is privy, or a confounding of expectations (which are also based on prior knowledge to some degree). The Bible is full of such jokes, and realizing one is in on the joke is immensely satisfying.
From Douglas Wilson’s Why Ministers Must Be Men:
Any discussion of women’s ordination will obviously revolve around the direct Pauline statements on the subject, and we will certainly spend the lion’s share of our space there. However, the Pauline instructions were not delivered in a vacuum and when he makes his appeals outside his immediate situation, he makes those appeals to the Old Testament, ground his appeals in both the history recorded there and the law given there.
Strange Fire
We’ve reach the central “cycle” of the book of Numbers, the attempt by Balak to destroy Israel. To the unbeliever, it is a story about a talking donkey. For believers, it is a story about a wicked prophet and a carnal people. For those with a wide angle “Bible Matrix” lens, the entire landscape suddenly comes into focus as something familiar and terrifying.
“Roman” Catholic is a contradiction in terms. Much like “World Series” Baseball.
The “Too catholic to be Catholic” goodness continues, with Rich Bledsoe and James Jordan pitching in from different angles:
“1-2 Kings gives us no such comfort: Christ has been divided in our divisions.”
Peter Leithart’s blog is included on the blogroll here, and most readers here read PJL anyway, but his recent posts on Church unity are worthy of flags being flown everywhere possible.
Bible Matrix blog
