What It Means to See Jesus in the Whole Bible

I have often heard people say, “We must see Jesus in every part of the Bible.” I used to see this as an overstatement used by preachers to gain capital with an audience. I mean, do we really have to find Jesus in the Old Covenant command not to boil a goat in its mother’s milk? But now I’m not so sure I was right. I am beginning to see more precisely what it means to find Jesus in the whole Bible.

Here is what I have come to understand: Most often, Jesus is seen, not in specifics, but in historical themes.

Neat one-to-one relations between someone or something in the Old Testament and Jesus sometimes do appear. Jesus is directly linked to the Passover lamb for instance. But so much emphasis is placed on these occurrences that we sometimes think that Jesus is not seen in the Old Testament other than in specific type/antitype relations. We think that finding Christ in the whole Bible means searching Leviticus trying to find them. I believe, however, that it was God’s intention to build a history of the world, with all of its grand occurrences and themes, that does nothing but point to Jesus.

The prophecy of Micah puts forward an excellent example. When reading Micah, two themes emerge. Number one, God hates the Jews. Number two, God loves the Jews. There is an obvious tension between judgment because of sin and blessing because of the Abrahamic covenant. Both are necessary to God’s righteousness. He is holy and just, so He must punish sin. He is also faithful and true, keeping his promises and upholding His covenant, which entails salvation and blessing for Israel. And so, in Micah, when He judges He ought to be redeeming, and when he redeems He ought to be judging. The two realities are indispensible and mutually exclusive.

There is a place in Micah which outlines this tension starkly.

“Therefore, on account of you Zion will be ploughed as a field. Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the temple will become high places of a forest. And it will come about in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains. It will be raised above the hills. And the people will stream to it.” –Micah 3:12-4:1

In one verse, God is unleashing his anger because of Jewish sin. In the next verse, God is redeeming them. One moment, mount Zion is desolate. The next, it is the chief of all the mountains of the world. The tension is unmistakable.

Here is the goal that these historical realities are pushing toward: Jesus is the resolver of the tension. On the cross, He takes the hatred of God for the Jews. In the resurrection, He is the first to receive the true love and blessing that they would all gain through Him. Thus God is righteous in judgment and in redemption. He is able to judge the Jews in Christ and He is able to redeem them in Christ. The conflict of God’s love and God’s judgment that existed throughout all Jewish history is brought to resolution in Jesus.

You may argue that there is no New Testament verse to support that Christ is the resolver of the tension found in Micah. You are right. And that is just my point. Finding Christ in the whole Bible is not about specifics, it is about themes. The thematic love/judgment tension is plain in the Old Testament, and the theme of Christ’s resolution of it is plain in the New Testament.

Sometimes God does reveal Himself through specifics, but more often He reveals Himself through progressive history. So here is my challenge to you: read the whole Bible as an account of history that is pushing toward one culminating end—Jesus the Christ.

Bryan Elliff © 2009

On The Evaluation of Ideas

The discipline of hearing and evaluating ideas is central to human existence. It means the difference between believing what is true or what is not. In consequence, conducting this discipline well should be a focus of those who follow Christ. It is the discipline of intellectual discernment.

There is a certain aspect of this discipline about which I have wanted to put down my thoughts for a while. I want to argue for the desirability of what I will call “open-mindedness.”

Open-mindedness is the willingness to consider ideas, especially those that do not conform to previously held ideas. It is the ability to say, “That idea might be true,” to examine it, and to accept or reject it based on certain grounds.

Open-mindedness is desirable for at least three reasons. The first reason will serve as a foundation for the second and third.

First and most importantly, open-mindedness is desirable because it is necessary for understanding. If you are not willing to temporarily concede a person’s presuppositions, to acknowledge the faults of your own ideas, and to honestly consider his propositions, you cannot truly understand his position. Even if you are able to repeat his arguments back to him satisfactorily, you may not really understand them. There must be a connection of intellects, what Mortimer Adler calls a “meeting of minds.” You must attempt climb inside his head and see everything from his perspective. This is the core of real understanding and it cannot be achieved without the willingness to say, “This proposition might be true.”

Second, open-mindedness is desirable because the proposition in question might indeed be true. It really might be! A person who never changes his mind is a person who will never get very close to the truth. I used to think that the “Old West” was a geographical location (but not a temporal one as well) to which I could simply “go” and see all the cowboys, Indians, saloons, etc. I am glad that I exercised enough open-mindedness to allow this idea to be reformed.

Third, open-mindedness is desirable because it is essential to responsible criticism. Ineffective criticism can almost always be traced to either incomplete research or a lack of open-mindedness. The person who approaches a proposition thinking, “This is incorrect and I am just trying to determine why” will always critique ineffectively because he will fail to truly understand the proposition. And the critique will also be ineffective because no one of another viewpoint will listen with an open mind to the criticism of a closed mind.

What I have said needs some tempering. Open-mindedness does not call for intellectual insecurity. It does not call for a life of doubt. It simply calls for responsibility and honesty. Some ideas can be rejected are accepted more quickly than others. We do not need to reinvent our philosophy every time a new idea is introduced. All I ask is that new ideas be heard fairly. Temporarily concede the presuppositions and responsibly examine the propositions. Carefully open your mind and say, “This idea might be true.” It will lead to genuine understanding, more truthful thinking, and more effective criticism.

My sister said I need to move on with life. Blog life, at least. One can only read my latest article so many times. “But I don’t have any time to write articles right now,” I said. So she told me to ramble about college life. She said that there are enough people who would like to know about the experiences I’m having.

Well first off, college is school. I like school so that’s okay, but most of the time I study. This semester I am taking Great Books II, Worldviews II, Introduction to Christian Education, Ancient Near Eastern History, Theology I, and Theological Latin.

Great Books II is probably my favourite class. It’s a seminar, which means that it is discussion oriented. Essentially, we read great books and then discuss them for three hours a week. So far we’ve read book 1 of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, John Buyan’s Grace Abounding and Pilgrim’s Progress, selected poems of George Herbert, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Latin is also good. The class itself does not require a lot of work (being an introduction for research purposes), so I do a lot on my own. I’m excited to see progress! Over the last two or three days, I have translated 1, 2, and 3 John. 1 and 2 John were not that hard for me. 3 John was a little more difficult, though. Next to one paragraph, I wrote, “Weird paragraph. Come back to it in a few months.” Too many participles. Benjamin says that participles are the genius of Latin and Greek. I agree. I’m just not genius enough to match them yet.

I love my church here. This semester has deepened relationships and I just feel more naturally a part of things. Thank God for instituting the local church. What a gift! For me, the Church is life. It is why I exist.

Benjamin and I have been trying to get exercise every morning this semester. For a long time we did this through a basketball game we call “Gruelling.” It would be too difficult and tedious to explain here but the name gives you the idea. Recently, however, we have been playing racquetball. Neither of us knew how to play before last week, so I’m sure we aren’t that good. It is a ton of fun, though. Good exercise as well. I am trying to cultivate a deep-seated feeling of respect and submission in my bro here and he is on the same mission reciprocally, so it makes for good games.

In that last paragraph, I used the word “neither.” Those of you who know me well will remember that I pronounce it “neether.” Well, I’ve decided to change. My friend Brian Moffatt pronounces it like “n-eye-ther,” which is more consistent in my opinion. So it’s n-eye-ther from here on out. Moffatt also has tried to convince me to pronounce aunt like “awnt” instead of “ant.” That is also more consistent in my opinion. But I can’t change. I told him, “If I went home saying “awnt” everyone would think I have become an intellectual snob.” He probably responded with “dude” or “bro” or “dog” or something like that. He’s great. If you don’t know him you’re missing out. He is one of many great friends.

I’m kind of tired. This semester has been very busy and the constant deadlines are wearing me out. Only slightly though! I’ve still got plenty of stamina to carry me through. I tip my proverbial hat to those who go to school full time and work full time. They are much more tired than me.

Life is good. It really is. God is pushing this whole entropic universe towards regeneration; a regeneration in which we will take part. I love that idea. More than other idea in the world, I love that.

God, bring it soon. Bring it now.

Ahistoric Hermeneutics

We have put the Bible in the Georgia Aquarium. I mean this: we interpret it ahistorically.

There is very little that has damaged us more in the past several hundred years than the isolation of the Bible from its historical surroundings. We understand, and understand rightly, that the Bible speaks to the modern man. But in consequence we sometimes think, and unfortunately think wrongly, that it is like a stain-remover that can be applied topically to any situation.

We read the prophets, but with no knowledge of contemporaneous events in the ancient Near East. We teach about Jesus feeding the five thousand, but with no conception of the starvation rates of his day. We speak of Pauline theology, but with no regard for the state of Semitism or paganism and the consequent state of Paul’s mind and the minds of his hearers in the mid First Century.

Consider this: maybe we have taken the Bible out of the sea and placed it in the Georgia Aquarium. And there is Paul, or John, or Peter, bloated and confined, staring at us with vacant eyes—no sign of the life and power with which they once communicated truth. Maybe we have taken the Bible out of its natural habitat, stripping it—its characters, events, and teachings—of real meaning.

Do not misunderstand me. The Bible does speak to the modern man. But it speaks, for lack of a more capable word, indirectly. We cannot simply take Scripture, derive a theology, and then apply that theology to modern life. That leads to incorrect and weak interpretations. We must understand and apply the Bible through the historical situations in which it is set. Or, putting it inadequately, we must understand and apply it indirectly.

Do not equate the word indirect with impotent. One reason for the modern unwillingness to deal with Scripture on its own terms is the supposed irrelevance it would have to today’s readers. What, after all, do we really care about living in harmony as Jews and Gentiles within the church? There seems to be so little cash value. But should we really form our method of interpretation on our perception of its cash value? In fact, my experience has been quite the opposite. When the Bible is taken on its own ground, within its own context and with its own ways of thinking, it speaks more powerfully than any isolated application of some systematized theology. We must cease trying to make the Bible address the issues we think need to be addressed in the ways we think they must be addressed. Let it address its own issues in its own ways.

There is nothing wrong with systematic theology. It is quite natural and necessary that we put our understanding of truth into categories and systems. We should be excited about theology and the orderly way in which true Christian doctrine explains the world around us. That is not the problem. The problem is that, too often, we view the Bible as if lays out truth in a systematic fashion. It simply does not.

The biblical authors were writing within history. They were dealing with specific situations in time and space. So, if we are to correctly grasp the meaning of their words, we must not force them into an artificial grid. Understand them first inside their history, and then take what they have said and apply it to the modern man.

For example, the Apostle Paul never thought or wrote “theologically.” Let me explain. I am not saying that Paul didn’t “study God,” which is what the word literally means. I am saying that Paul never set out to compartmentalize or systematize what he knew to be truth. Rather, he spoke truth into history-to real people and real situations in Corinth, Rome, Galatia, Philippi, and so on. And if we seek to understand what he said by isolating it from history and putting it into a system, we run the risk of misunderstanding him completely.

Do you see what I mean when I say that we have put the Bible in the Georgia Aquarium? Take it out. Let it speak indirectly within its history, and you will find that it speaks more potently than any isolated “theology” ever could.

Copyright © 2009 Bryan Elliff www.bryanelliff.wordpress.com

The Wrong Christianity

I want to express my frustration about something. I offer no way of fixing the problem. I only point the problem out.

I am forever obliged to tear down the pre-impressed pictures that people have of Christianity.

I was talking with my supervisor at work last night about how I want to do mission work, or pastoring, or some sort of Christian ministry. Somehow the conversation got around to a church of 4000 people in St. Joseph, MO. Many in his family go to this church. He told me that the pastor wears $1000 suits. I could tell. To him, this is Christianity. 

But it isn’t Christianity. That is what frustrates me. Because of the rampant counterfeiting of the church, the name “Christian” does not carry the correct definition in mind of the world. When looked up in the world’s mental dictionary, the authentic description is rarely found.

It isn’t just the pastors who wear $1000 suites. It could also be the country church that is full of elderly people who go to it because everyone else does. There is forever an incorrect picture.

The world doesn’t know what Christianity is. And that isn’t because the name of Christ has never been proclaimed to them. That would not be so frustrating. It is because a counterfeit Christ has been proclaimed to them. That is frustrating.

Dirk Philips and New Covenant Theology

I have finally finished my research paper on the Anabaptists and New Covenant Theology. The paper examines the beliefs of a particular Anabaptist figure named Dirk Philips and compares them with those of modern New Covenant theologians. My goal is to further a knowledge and appreciation of the Anabaptists and also to highlight their relationship with the Reformation. I found the study extremely interesting.

Because of formatting issues, I have not put the paper within the body of this post. Instead, I have created a link an MS Word document. The format is much more readable. To access the document, click below.

Dirk Philips and New Covenant Theology

The Chosen

I have had more time than normal the past two days. So I read a novel that a friend from my church recommended–The Chosen by Chaim Potok. It made me cry, and made me realize my need for a more compassionate and easily broken heart.

Simplistically, the story has to do with a Jewish boy. The boy is a genius, reading Freud at 15 and learning German to read him in the original. The boy’s father is a very influential man in his Jewish community. Throughout the boy’s life, His father never talks to him, except when they study the Talmud together. This causes the son terrible pain. He tells his friend (from whose perspective the story is told), “I can hear the silence.”

At the end of the book, when the boy has graduated from college, the father reveals his reason for remaining silent all of his life.

Speaking of when he first discovered the brilliance of his son’s mind he says, “I went away and cried to the Master of the Universe, ‘What have you done to me? A mind like this I need for a son? A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!’” (278).

“When I was very young, my father, may he rest in peace, began to wake me in the middle of the night, just so I would cry. . . . My father himself never talked to me, except when we studied together. He taught me with silence. . . . When his people would ask him why he was so silent with his son, he would say to them that he did not like to talk, words are cruel, words play tricks, they distort what is in the heart, they conceal what is in the heart. The heart speaks through silence. One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one’s own soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, our indifference toward others. . . . [One] must take [the pain of his people] and carry it on his shoulders. He must carry it always. He must grow old before his years. He must cry, in his heart he must always cry. Even when he dances and sings, he must cry for the sufferings of his people.”

The son learned from the silence. He says to his friend at another point in the book:

“You can listen to silence . . . I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it” (262).

“You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn’t always talk. Sometimes–sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to” (262).

I needed this lesson. I need to learn the pain of others through pain of my own. I need to grow old before my years. I need to cry. I need to hear the suffering of the world and feel its weight on my shoulders.

Below is a review of Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live? that I completed as an assignment for school. Obviously, the writing style is a bit more academic, but persevere. I have changed the formatting for easier reading. Keep in mind that my views on these sorts of issues are still in formative stages and that my evaluation of the book was necessarily constrained by space.

A Review of “How Should We Then Live?” by Francis A. Schaeffer

Francis A. Schaeffer died in 1984. He wrote over twenty books during his career, mainly concerning the Christian worldview and its relationship to society and its place in the philosophical sphere. These include The Christian Manifesto, The God Who is There, Escape from Reason, and He is There and He is Not Silent. Educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, he came to have a major influence on the religious community in the West through his writing, speaking, and ministry at L’Abri in Switzerland.

How Should We Then Live? is a history of Western thought and culture. It begins with ancient Rome and traces the flow of Western philosophy and society through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Modern Era, and into the twentieth century. The study is made for a specific purpose. It is not meant to be a “complete chronological history of Western culture” (Author’s Note). Rather, it is made “in hope that light may be shed upon the major characteristics of our age and that solutions may be found to the myriad of problems which face us as we look toward the end of the twentieth century” (Author’s Note). In other words, the object of the book is to draw upon the past in order to better understand the present and better face the future.

What can be learned from the past? Schaeffer loosely draws out three ideas through his exposition of Western history. First, the tendency of Western culture is to move toward humanism. Humanism is a way of looking at the world that begins from what Schaeffer calls “particulars”–the individual entities that make up the universe (the opposite of “universals” or “absolutes”). The most important particulars are individual human beings. Humanism posits that an autonomous human, with his senses and reason, can come to a true understanding of what surrounds him with no need for outside revelation. While there are notable exceptions (such as the Reformation), Schaeffer shows that the tendency of the West is always to move back to humanism in some form. He speaks of the religious humanism of the Middle Ages, the more unashamed secular humanism of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and the despairing humanism of the twentieth century.

Second, Schaeffer demonstrates from history that a culture cannot function well on a humanistic base. The problem is that man, starting completely from himself with no outside revelation, can never “arrive at universals or absolutes which give meaning to existence and morals” (55). Schaeffer maintains that, without absolutes, there is no foundation, no unity, and no significance for individual man and for society. Man becomes nothing more than a machine in a cause-and-effect universe and the form of society becomes arbitrary. Though a culture may start out well and optimistically on humanistic base, it will–as we have seen in the twentieth century–inevitably end up in despair, meaninglessness, and deterioration. Only when there is a Christian worldview in the cultural consensus, Schaeffer shows while pointing to the Reformation, does culture function well.

Third, Schaeffer argues that if humanism is allowed to take its course, the result in Western society will the manipulation of an elite, authoritarian government. “As the Christian consensus dies [leaving no absolutes and no base on which the society can function], there are not many sociological alternatives” (223). Schaeffer lists three: “hedonism” (223), “the absoluteness of the 51-percent vote” (223), and “an elite filling the vacuum left by the loss of the Christian consensus” (224). Hedonism only leads to chaos (what happens when two hedonists meet on a narrow bridge?) and the 51 percent vote is a completely arbitrary absolute which the society will eventually reject. The only option left is the control of a manipulative elite that hands down arbitrary absolutes to the society. “An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go on to chaos. And most people will accept it” (245). “Humanism has lead to its natural conclusion” (225).

Schaeffer ends his book with a call to Christians to stand up against the inevitable direction of the culture. “To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it” (257). The title of the book is taken from Ezekiel 33:1-11, in which God called Ezekiel to be a watchman for the house of Israel and speak out against the societal problems of his day. “Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?” (258).

It has been shown what the purpose of the author is in this book. Now the question is whether the author fulfills that purpose. Schaeffer does achieve his goal, but only partially. The main section of the book, concerned with the history of the West and with looking at the problems of the future, is convincing. He does a masterful job of taking the breadth of Western history, tracing its flow, and pointing out the path that it will take in years to come. Looking at Western society thirty years later, the solidity of his logic is clear because much of what he predicted is coming true. He is also to be commended for presenting his positions in memorable and fresh ways.

However, the last section of the book leaves something to be desired. Schaeffer fails to be entirely convincing when he calls the Christian minority to fight against cultural trends. His argument for this is based on an unsupported presupposition–that Christians are obligated to affect the functioning of culture and government. This concept does not seem to have much scriptural warrant, and Schaeffer certainly does not feel the need to give any. The New Testament writers taught that a believer’s relationship to government should be one of quiet submission and that his or her relationship with the culture should consist of preaching the gospel. While there are notable exceptions to this rule (Christians should be concerned about the relief of injustice and poverty, for instance, but this is not what Schaeffer is referring to), Christians are never exhorted to exert their energy in surface cultural reformation. Instead, they are exhorted to work for the salvation of souls. Ironically, Schaeffer seems to be setting up an arbitrary absolute.

How Should We Then Live? deserves thoughtful reading. It is masterful in its breadth and originality and helpful in its major purpose-expositing Western thought and viewing the future in its light. However, not everything Schaeffer says regarding the Christian’s role in society should be accepted without careful consideration.

Bryan Elliff Copyright 2008

Health Nut for Jesus

More and more I have come to believe that being godly includes, not just being health conscious, but being a health nut–in our culture, at least. I am officially a health nut. The staple of my diet at the moment is spinach. I eat mounds of it and love every forkful. For a more detailed explanation of my views on health and godliness, click here.