"Who is a Jew?" Revisited

My home group has been studying the Book of Galatians for over a year and a half now. Its a book that can be easily misunderstood. Most misunderstand the question that Paul is trying to answer. He isn't trying to answer a dilemma between Law and Grace. Paul is trying to answer the question: Who is a Jew?

I've finally found a succinct summary of the position I have been developing on Christian Identity. It turns out that Spurlock from Bereans Online has already beaten me to it and saved me a lot of time:

• Eph 2:1-10 Gentiles become a part of Israel by grace and faith.
• Eph 2:11-12 Are no longer Gentiles. Not "commonwealth" but citizenship enjoying the full rights and benefits of any other member of Israel.
• Eph 2:13 Ex-Gentiles have been brought near
• Eph 2:14-16 The dividing well having been removed by Christ. Spurlock refers to the "18 measures." What are they?
• Eph 2:17-21 Peace not just between God and Mankind but also peace within the house of God.
• Eph 3:1-6 Thus the ex-Gentiles are part of the same body, fellow heirs with the incumbent members and partakers of the same promises.

One king, One people, One Torah: Echad. The fulfilment of John 17:16-22.

If this is true, then even more questions arise, here's one or two:

1. If all believers are to obey the Torah, then what are we to do with 1 Corinthians 7:17-24?
2. Should all Christians be making Aliyah?
3. Where should Christians then stand on the Middle Eastern peace process?

For further reading:  who_is_a_jew.pdf (bethimmanuel.org)

Stephen Sizer in Christchurch

Stephen Sizer

I attended a "dialogue" between Richard Neville and Stephen Sizer at Laidlaw College in Christchurch New Zealand last night.

They were brought together to debate what the future of Israel might be in the "Last Days" from a biblical perspective.

Stephen Sizer is the Vicar of Christ Church Anglican Church in England.  He is well-known as a proponent of peace in the Middle East and his stiff criticism of Israeli treatment of Arabs has positioned him in many eyes as an enemy of the Israeli people.

Richard Neville is a linguist and an expert on biblical Hebrew and Greek.  He is a senior lecturer at Laidlaw.  Although not an expert in Biblical Eschatology, he was asked to bring an opposing view in this dialog.  The dialog had been held a few days before in Auckland.

Sizer alleged that Christian Zionists such as John Hagee and Tim La Haye were expecting an Armageddon and their warmongering was likely to bring it about. He argued that Christian Zionism treated the Jews as God's special, chosen people.  Financial and miltary support for Israel was fueled by this misguided idea.  This support allowed Israel to build an apartheid state, maintain its Wall which was "officially" built for security reasons and to continue its occupation of Palestine.  In Sizer's view, God intended only to build one People of God and that entry into this People was by faith and not by physical birth.  The Church is Israel.  Consequently the Jews were no longer relevant as a special people and should be treated the same as any other (heathen) nation or people group.  Although the land had been given to Abraham, possession of it was dependent on their faithfulness to God.  Their lack of faithfulness meant that they had forfeited their right to it.  The geo-political land of Israel on this earth had served its purpose and was no longer relevant.  For Christians, their home was heaven above, not an earthly one.  Since the Jews are just another heathen people group then Christians should treat the Jews and the Palestinians even-handedly, expecting them to adhere to standards of justice and respect human rights just as much as any other race or nation.

Neville reviewed Ezekiel's oracles relating to a glorious and triumphant restoration of Israel.  This had fuelled Israel's expectation of a Messiah who would restore Israel to autonomy as a Nation belonging to God.  It was difficult to maintain from the passage that this restoration was merely allegorical or spiritual in nature.  A physical restoration was what was in Ezekiel's view.  These prophecies have not been physically fulfilled.  What Ezekiel had in mind has yet to come into being.  Some authors have claimed that such a view was held by only a small extremist minority of scholars and theologians.  Neville produced a lengthy list of respected evangelical and Catholic scholars who endorsed the idea that a physical restoration of Israel had been prophecied.  He quoted N T Wright who admitted that his opinion that only a spiritual restoration of Israel was described, is a minority one. 

Sizer felt that Ezekiel's prophecy had already been fulfilled in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah but Neville pointed out that this restoration was hardly the glorious and triumphant restoration described by Ezekiel.  In fact, those who were old enough to recall the original Temple wept when they saw the comparatively humble second temple.  Sizer admitted that as far as whether or not the modern state of Israel was a fulfilment of biblical prophecy, he was "agnostic", which I guess is a high-brow way of saying "I don't know."  In his view, a genuine fulfilment would result in an Israel with a much higher set of ethics and more compassionate behaviour in respect of its neighbours.  Sizer then pointed out that Ezekiel also foretold that sacrifices would be carried out at the restored temple. Do we really want to restore temple sacrifices? Hebrews clearly says that they had ended with Jesus' sacrifice.

Neville thought that if Sizer's issue was his objection to Israel's alleged unjust behaviour toward Palestinians, then he should focus on the question of how one people should treat another rather than debating Christian identity.  I agree.

I also agree with Sizer's view that Christians are citizens of Israel.  However, Sizer then concludes that the Jews are irrelevant.  Yet in the book of Romans, Paul clearly says that this is not so (Romans 11:1).  Paul says though their part of the branch has been broken from the Olive Tree, their calling and gifting is irrevocable (Romans 11:29).  The branch can be grafted back in (Romans 11:23-24). 

Sizer's claim that Israel has built an apartheid state undermines his credibility.  Arabs willingly serve in the Israeli armed forces, Arabs take part in all strata of Israeli society, even serving in parliament and the judiciary.  When an Arab family was evicted from their home in East Jerusalem because a returning Jewish refugee could show bona fide ownership papers for the house, she made a commitment on camera that she would attend an Israeli university, train as a lawyer to seek redress.  She could never hope to do this in a real apartheid state. 

He doubts that the Security Wall was indeed built to maintain security.  Again he need merely look at the numbers of people dying because of suicide bombings before and after the wall had been completed to see how effective the Wall was in preserving life.  Yes, the Wall creates hardship.  But better to be alive and facing difficulty than mourning another death.

He concedes that there is a small minority comprised of extremists that wish to end the occupation by terrorism.  Unfortunately that position doesn't stand scrutiny with the majority of Arabs living on the West Bank and Gaza approving the use of deadly force to destroy Israel.  In 2010, a terrorist machine-gunned 19 teenagers in a Jewish school, 8 were killed.  The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 84% of Gaza and West Bank inhabitants approved of the attack.  In the same poll 64% approved of Hamas' random rocket attacks and 75% agreed that their leaders should cease negotiating with the Israelis. 

Although billed as a biblical and theology dialogue I was disappointed that Sizer was able to use it as an opportunity to make his political allegations against Israel without anyone having the opportunity to rebut them.  To his credit, Neville restricted his material to the biblical and theological issue.  I suppose the Q&A session was an opportunity for someone in the audience to rebut Sizer's political points but the process chosen by Stephen Graham prevented this from occurring.  The audience were invited to submit questions during an intermission and then they were to be summarised and representative questions were going to be addressed by Sizer and Neville.  No questions relating to Sizer's allegations against Israel were addressed.

Sizer has in some way become embittered by what he has observed of Israeli conduct.  It has jaundiced his view of Israel and he seems no longer able to objectively evaluate Middle Eastern events.

Laidlaw should be applauded for bringing Sizer to New Zealand but they could do better by allowing a more open Q&A discussion period that allowed questions to be taken directly from the floor.  If they had, justice would have been a bit more apparent.

Logos won't be coming to Windows Phone 7 any time soon

I've recently heard that Logos won't be making a mobile app for the Windows Phone 7 platform any time soon because they don't have the resources to port their code.  Unfortunately most of their code is in C++ but Windows Phone 7 requires C#.  Ughh, the disappointment.

The Trinity: A historical perspective

While reading Shelley's  Church History in plain language and came across this piece on the Trinity.

But if God is eternally one; and God is eternally three persons, how are we to understand this? Since God is personal, any example we use to think or speak of God ought to be personal.

When we search for personal analogies, we find that there are only two options. We may think of God as three persons or we may think of God as one person.

If we think of God as three persons, then God’s threeness is clear, and we have to account for God’s unity. Theologians usually point out that three persons can become so close they may be said to share a common life. They may be bound together so closely that it is actually a distortion to speak of them separately.

Because this analogy rests on a society of three persons, theologians call it the social analogy. Its strength lies in its clarity regarding the threeness of God. Its problem is to account clearly for God’s unity.

If we think of God as one person, we have to try to account for his threeness. One way of doing this is to say that a person may have several distinct functions such as mind, emotions, and will.

Because this analogy draws on psychological functions, theologians call it the psychological analogy. Its strength is its clarity about God’s unity: He is one person. Its problem is its vagueness about God’s threeness.

Both of these analogies were used in the early church, just as modern theologians like Leonard Hodgson and Karl Barth use them.

As the decades passed between 325 and 381, when the second general council of the church met, leaders in the Arian debate slowly clarified their use of “person.” Three so-called Cappadocian Fathers—Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil the Great—led in this achievement. The Cappadocians used the social analogy, but they saw that the distinctions between the three divine “persons” were solely in their inner divine relations. There are not three gods. God is one divine Being with three carriers: one Godhead in three “persons.”

The word “person,” however, did not mean to the early Christians what it means today. To us, a person means someone like Tom, Dick, or Harry. But the Latin word persona originally meant a mask worn by an actor on the stage. In Trinitarian thought the “mask” is not worn by God to hide but to reveal his true character. It is clear that when we think of the Trinity, we should not try to think of three persons in our sense of the term, but three personal disclosures of God that correspond to what he is really like.

Source: Shelley, BL. (1995). Church history in plain language. (Updated 2nd ed.)) lo5-106).Dallas, Texas: Word Pub.

 Now doesn't that throw some insight on what the Nicene Creed means?  It's also a way better analogy than any we used in Sunday School. It's also a possible defence against Jewish and Muslim accusations of Polytheism..

Charity and giving extends the Kingdom of God

Julian the Apostate, the Emperor of Rome

Free markets, individual enterprise, personal responsibility are all good things. Capitalism is a great system that has served mankind well. We owe a considerable amount of our progress to its ability to allocate resources efficiently. In God's economy, there is a fail-safe against Capitalism's principal systemic weakness: wealth tends to concentrate amongst an elite minority. That failsafe is giving. When we give and lend to others in need, with no judgement  attached (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:35) then we bless our neighbours and its power reveals an aspect of the kingdom of God and indeed an aspect of his heart that Capitalism cannot. Mercy has a magnetic quality that draws people to God.

Psalm 116:5–7 (NKJV)
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me.
Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

When it applied to those yet to profess their allegiance to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,  it was a major influence on Roman society as it encountered the Early church at a time when it was indistinguishable from Judaism:

The impact of this ministry of mercy upon pagans is revealed in the observation of one of Christianity’s worst enemies, the apostate Emperor Julian (332–63). In his day Julian was finding it more difficult than he had expected to put new life into the traditional Roman religion. He wanted to set aside Christianity and bring back the ancient faith, but he saw clearly the drawing power of Christian love in practice: “Atheism (i.e. Christian faith) has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”

Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church history in plain language (Updated 2nd ed.) (35–36). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub.

Logos 4 on a XP Tablet PC

I've started using Logos 4  Bible Study software on a Tablet PC. Its an impressive way to interact with the program. The stylus works essentially in two modes.

Outside of the Tablet Input Panel, the stylus works as a mouse. Tapping on something is the same as a left mouse click. Dragging the stylus across text highlight it. Holding the stylus down for a moment  until a graphic is activated is the equivalent of a night mouse click. , lifting the mouse.

The Tablet Input Panel

Inside the Tablet Input Panel, the stylus becomes a writing instrument. Somehow the Tablet is able to sense that the stylus is near the surface of the screen. The nib retracts a little when pressed. When the two events coincide the Tablet registers a contact.The nib effect together with just the right amount of friction between the stylus and the screen gives a feeling of writing on high quality paper resting on a leather top desk. Nice.

The HWR accuracy is impressively good. I was able to achieve around 99.5% accuracy and around 20 words per minute with no pauses to make corrections.

If you have a touch tablet Logos 4 allows all the screen elements to be expanded. Just tap Tools ->Program Settings-> Accessibility -> Program Scaling. I've got it set to 140%. If the fonts are too large then you can adjust that separately without changing anything else.

This afternoon I did our home bible study on Galatians 4.3-4. I found using the Command input line easier to open specific resources."Open Dunn" and Dunn's commentary on Galatians started right up. OK, so what does Stern have to say? "Open NTJC" Hmmm.... His thinking heavily depends on his interpretation of "upo nomou".  Lets start doing a word study on this... How have others looked at this phrase? Hmmm....

The whole experience seems so much more natural.

Baptism and the Priesthood

Last week I had coffee with an Egyptian Copt and the conversation turned toward the differences between Coptic Christianity and Protestant Christianity.  One of the differences he pointed out was that Protestants had lost the concept of the Priesthood.

This week whilst studying Galatians we got to talking about Baptism and how various kinds of baptism could be found in the bible, that various historical cultures prior to the First Century had also practiced ceremonial washings.

The conversation eventually turned to the meaning behind Jesus' baptism at the hands of John (Matt 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11); Luke 3:21-23).  At first John objected to carrying it out but Jesus convinced him, arguing that it would "fulfill all righteousness." (NKJV). What did he mean?

One school of thought is that Jesus was fulfilling Isaiah's Servant prophecies by identifying himself with the plight of Israel and its sin through the ritual.

Hebraically, righteousness conveyed the idea of someone who was in good standing with God.  This meant that they must have been compliant with God's teachings or Torah.

My conversation with the Copt made me think of another reason why Jesus needed to be baptised.  Perhaps baptism was a requisite part of the process for entering the office of a Priest.  In the book of Hebrews, the concept of Jesus as a High Priest according to the Order of Melchizedek is set out (Hebrews 4:14-5:11).  I also note that the Levitical and Aaronic priests were required to be baptised as part of their ordination process (Exodus 40:12).  What if it was customary for all priests to be ritually washed as part of their ordination?  Could this be the "righteousness" that Jesus was referring?

If this was true, then one would expect Jesus' baptism would occurred very early in his ministry, before he had carried out anything publicly significant.  A review of Matthew, Mark and John confirm this to be true.

For Christians, most consider baptism to be a symbolic identification with Jesus' death and resurrection.  Christians therefore die to the old self and its sinful past to arise in newness of life, free to walk in the ways of God, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

What if there was a deeper meaning to baptism.  Peter says that the People of God are "a Royal Priesthood." (1 Peter 2:9)  What if baptism was a necessary part of the ordination of Christians as Royal Priests in the order of Melchizedek?  If so, then perhaps Christians do not enter into the fullness of their spiritual authority and responsibility until they are baptised.

The idea that all the people of God were meant to be Priests was not conceived by Peter.  According to Moses, this was intended by God as far back as Sinai (Exodus 19:6).  Prior to ascending Sinai to meet God, they were required to undergo a baptism.  Unfortunately overcome by their fear of God, Israel declined the role (Exodus 20:18-21) and asked Moses to be their intermediary instead.  An opportunity lost.

In many ways, the concept of congregational members as Priests and Priestesses in Protestant Christianity has largely been forgotten.  Today, there is a clear distinction between Clergy and Laity.  In many senses we have regressed back to the Mosaic Priesthood in our practice of Church life.

Unfortunately it also means that we, the Laity, have abrogated our duties and responsibilities as Priests,  as Priests to our families, our friends, our communities, to our societies and to our nations.  In fact, there is a case for all to be trained and qualified to carry out services, act as marriage celebrants and hold funerals.

Based on the bible, Priests had several roles to fulfill:

1. Administer the sacrifices and other ceremonies required by God.
2. Administer justice in civil and criminal cases base on the Biblical Code.
3. Administer quarantine laws in relation to infectious diseases.
4. Teach the scriptures and train people on how to carry out their duties and responsibilities under the Torah.
5. Intercede for sinners in prayer.

Evidently, the Priestly role was an integral part of how God's community was intended to function.  If the Priestly role were to regain its former meaning and prominence then Christian life might be quite different.

Since all have a Priestly role then all have the responsibility to intercede for their families, their church communities, their societies, their nations and the world.  You don't have to have a "gift of intercession" before you may intercede in prayer for others.  As Priests all are responsible for teaching others the scriptures and showing them how to walk in God's way.  You don't have to have a gift of teaching to be able to teach from the scriptures.  Each should teach to their level of competency.  As Priests we should be observing and teaching others to observe God's commandments with respect to what is spiritually clean and unclean.  As priests we should be pressing for and advocating for justice.  None of these duties and responsibilities are meant to be carried out to the exclusion of the others.  Collectively they define the role of the Priesthood.