Saint Quadratus

While working through the historical fiction novel Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, I noted with interest that Hadrian says a Christian bishop named Quadratus presented him a defense of the Christian faith, prompting him to learn about the founder of this “sect.” I wasn’t sure if that was fiction or fact, so I searched that most reliable of sources, Wikipedia, and found an entry for Saint Quadratus of Athens. The earlier Christian historian Eusebius wrote that he was a disciple of the original twelve apostles, and the Eastern Orthodox Church counts him among the original seventy apostles of Luke 10, which can’t be true since he gave his defence in 124 or 125. This defense is not extant, except for the following small passage:

1 After Trajan had reigned for nineteen and a half years Aelius Adrian became his successor in the empire. To him Quadratus addressed a discourse containing an apology for our religion, because certain wicked men had attempted to trouble the Christians. The work is still in the hands of a great many of the brethren, as also in our own, and furnishes clear proofs of the man’s understanding and of his apostolic orthodox. 2 He himself reveals the early date at which he lived in the following words: “But the works of our Saviour were always present, for they were genuine:-those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Saviour was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to our day.” Such then was Quadratus.

Fascinating. I love church history, especially that period right after the apostles. Imagine knowing someone whom Jesus raised from the dead!

The Sinner’s Prayer In Four Words Or Less

I suddenly became aware of the condition of my soul at twelve years old. I vividly recall lying on my back during many long nights, working my way through the sinner’s prayer that I had learned from my dad, and trying to understand its various elements. What does faith mean? What does it mean for Jesus to be a savior and lord? Thankfully, God guided me through my inner turmoils to an understanding of what salvation means.

However, there were a few unhelpful folks along the way. All you preachers who compared faith to sitting on a chair and trusting that it would hold you up–you should know that you didn’t really help me at all. I was only confused about how to put that same sort of trust in Jesus. How do I get from trusting a chair to trusting Jesus? Maybe if I concentrated really hard and somehow exercised faith in Jesus.

Oh, and all you guys who describe the sinner’s prayer in terms of accepting Jesus into your heart, please stop. Stop it right now. What the heck does that even mean? How does inviting Jesus to come live in your heart equal looking to Jesus for your forgiveness? Where in the Bible do any of the apostles invite their hearers to just ask Jesus into their hearts? You are only confusing little boys and girls by using such meaningless imagery.

I shake my head now as I remember how confused I was over something so simple. Thankfully, the Bible (of all things) cleared it up. What did the tax collector say when he was weighed down by all his sin? “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Seven little words, all of them easy to understand. What does Paul say? “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).  Gone are the mysteries of just how we exercise this vague thing called “sitting-on-a-chair faith” when one understands that all that it means is that you are asking for mercy.

I love the movie Luther. There is a scene at the beginning where Martin Luther is struggling with his sin before the unrelenting wrath of God. His priest and mentor hands him a cross and commands him to pray, “I’m yours. Save me.” I like that. I’m yours; save me.

19 Things I’m Thankful For

…in no particular order.

1. My wife, who is my best friend, helper, confidante, and adviser

2. Coffee

3. Imported Beer

4. Inexpensive (though not cheap) wine

5. Hot showers

6. Good stories

7. My baby boy, who smiles everyday when I come home

8. Winter clothes

9. C. S. Lewis

10. The blogosphere

11. Regina Spector

12. My job as a teacher, that allows me to keep on learning

13. Netflix

14. The library

15. The power of myth

16. All the holidays that I have off as a teacher.

17. The church calendar

18. Chick-fil-a chocolate milkshakes

19. Celtic music

James 1:17:  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Does Evolution Lead To Racism?

YE creationist blogger Sirius Knotts has posted about a recent case of racism in my home state of Louisiana. I completely agree with him on the ugliness of this sin, but I find his concluding paragraph a bit confusing.

I think we need to toss the word “race” into the garbage can.  The idea of human races is an evolutionary by-product. The Bible teaches that there is only one human race, born of Adam and Eve.

In another post on interracial marriage, Sirius does an excellent job showing that there is no scriptural basis for racism, despite the many attempts by others to misuse various passages to justify this sin. However, he makes a similar comment about evolution in one of the comments, when he writes:

I’m not sure what we expect here. We teach evolution in our schools exclusively which teaches that there are human races and that we’re in competition with one another. All of the tolerance teaching on the planet cannot overcome what we teach them about people groups in the name of science. We lay the foundation for racism in our science classrooms.

Is this a fair criticism of evolution? Is there a necessary connection between evolution and racism? Absolutely not.

In the first place, evolution is an explanation of how the variety of life came to exist. It is not a code of morality. We do not determine what is right or wrong based on what we see in the natural world. For example, some animals kill their own young; others assert their dominance over other males by sexually forcing themselves upon them. This obviously does not have anything to say about how we ought to treat other people. To assert that these phenomena occur is to merely describe what happens in nature, not to condone the behavior. We should not treat evolution any differently.

Second, both evolutionists and young earth creationists alike believe that all human beings have a common ancestor. YECs believe in two original human beings, and evolutionists believe in an original group from which we all come. Therefore, both groups can argue against racism by asserting that all of humanity is of the same blood. It can even be asserted that there is hardly any difference in our DNA.

Though the differences among red, yellow, black and white are small, there are still differences. I would venture to say that both YECs and evolutionists explain these differences through the separation of various groups and the subsequent changes that took place over time. To say that we should throw the term “race” in the garbage can is, I think, too sweeping a statement to make. Racial distinctions are both apparent and, in the field of medicine, are helpful in understanding diseases that affect certain races but not others. If by “race,” we mean separate species, then yes, throw that understanding in the trash. But I don’t think anyone believes that.

Let’s remember that YECs (at least those who adhere to AIG) do in fact believe in survival of the fittest and in change over time, which they term microevolution. It puzzles me therefore to read Sirius’ comment faulting evolution for leading to racism because it teaches that we are ”in competition with one another.”

Finally, before anyone starts giving me examples of people who used evolution to justify this monstrocity or another, let me remind him or her that just because someone uses a belief to justify his own racism does not mean that racism logically follows from that belief per se. We have had racism long before Darwin, and just as many people have used Christianity to justify this and a host of other sins.

Happy All Saints Day!

Before this year, I have never really celebrated Halloween. In fact, I was brought up with ideas of it originating from pagan, even Satanic practices. The church I am currently a member of wastes no energy making a righteous fuss over the holiday, but they do put on a Fall  (not a Halloween) Festival for the neighborhood that includes costumes, games, and candy. A lot of churches in my denomination host Reformation Day Parties, complete with pinning the 99 Thesis on the doors of the church of Wittenburg.

After reading a few posts from the Internet Monk, however, I realized that Halloween, or more specifically, All Saints Day, is a Christian holiday that celebrates the victory of the saints through Jesus Christ. It is a day to remember the souls of believers and of those whom God used in a mighty way to further his kingdom. Why would we not want to celebrate this?

Today, the baby was a little under the weather, and my wife graciously sent me off to church while she stayed with him alone. I decided to go to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church instead of my home church because I knew that they observed the church calendar. How encouraging it was to remember the destiny of all saints! I’ll leave you with this passage from Revelation 7, part of which we read during the service.

⁹After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice:
   ”Salvation belongs to our God,
   who sits on the throne,
   and to the Lamb.” ¹¹All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹²saying:
   ”Amen!
   Praise and glory
   and wisdom and thanks and honor
   and power and strength
   be to our God for ever and ever.
   Amen!”

 ¹³Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

 ¹⁴I answered, “Sir, you know.”

   And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵Therefore,
   ”they are before the throne of God
      and serve him day and night in his temple;
   and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
 ¹⁶Never again will they hunger;
      never again will they thirst.
   The sun will not beat upon them,
      nor any scorching heat.
 ¹⁷For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
      he will lead them to springs of living water.
   And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Regina Spektor: “No one’s laughing at God in a hospital…”

I’m a fan of Regina Spektor, ever since discovering one of her songs on the Prince Caspian movie. What do you think about this one?

Mark Driscoll’s Song of Solomon Series: A Review

[Warning:  The content of this post is sexually and verbally explicit in places. Please proceed with caution.]

For the past several weeks, my wife and I have been spending Sunday nights watching Seatle pastor Mark Driscoll’s sermon series on the Song of Solomon. My interest was piqued by all the controversy over Driscoll’s supposedly graphic commentary on this book, and I wanted to see for myself whether the hubbub was a big deal.

It wasn’t. Driscoll’s preaching seemed pretty uncontroversial, in fact. He did talk a lot about sex, but that was because the Song of Solomon talks a lot about sex. He did mention details about different sexual activities, but not in a grossly graphic way. He mentioned oral sex, a wife dancing for her husband’s enjoyment, and even referred to the vagina (gasp!) with some sort of phrase like “a woman’s most intimate part.” Here’s the thing, though:  Song of Solomon talks about all these things, and last I checked, the preacher’s job is to preach the Bible. Some have objected that Driscoll should not have explained the euphemisms that are sprinkled throughout the book, but to do so would be to leave everyone in the dark as to what the two lovers of Solomon’s Song are saying to each other. Three thousand years or so separate our culture from the Hebrews’, and unless someone explains what is meant, we probably won’t understand it. Again, this is what the preacher is supposed to do.

Perhaps the umbrage that many people have taken in response to Mark Driscoll’s sermon series has helped expose some of our own sins. We have taken our own morality and made it God’s. We have elevated our own cultural etiquette to the status of the Ten Commandments–Thou shalt not talk about sex openly with other Christians, thou shalt not ask questions about oral sex in marriage, and whatsoever thou doeth, thou shalt not utter the accursed four-letter words that start with d, h, s, and f.

Driscoll also exposes a common sin of the pulpit–the failure to preach the whole word of God. If the Bible talks about sex, then preachers should preach about it. Good grief, this country, with its non-Christians and its Christians, is saturated with a twisted view of sex. Preach the truth about sex. Set people free to have pure fun in their bedrooms with their spouses.

Last, I think Driscoll helps expose a sin among translators. If the Bible is the word of God, then should we censor it so that it won’t offend our sensibilities? If the Bible is explicit or offensive, what gives anyone the right to soften it. If a verse is meant to shock, why would we take away its shock value? Take a look at Philippians 3:8:

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. (KJV)

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ. (NIV)

At least twice, I have heard a pastor (R. C. Sproul was one) explain that this word is actually an obscenity. In other words the verse should read:

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them shit, that I may gain Christ. (NIV)

If these preachers are right, then that’s what Paul said, and that’s how it should be translated. Consider the shock value that has for us. The best that we have to offer isn’t just rubbish, it’s utter shit. Wow. Pretty shocking.

I do not think that Driscoll’s series of the Song was perfect by any means. I think he was way off on a comment he (reluctantly) made, in response to a question he kept getting, about how often a married couple should have sex. He said that the average couple does it twice a week, and the average married man masturbates five times a week on the sly. Therefore, the couple should probably have sex every day so that the man can have his sexual needs met. The reason why I strongly disagree with him is that I know that masturbation is not meeting a sexual need most of the time. When guys get lonely, feel sad, are bored, or feel a lot of different things, they often meet those emotional needs by masturbating. As far as actual sexual needs go, twice or three times a week is plenty for me, but that’s just speaking for myself.

Last, I was not convinced that the things Driscoll said about relationships (which were in and of themselves, right on) were in fact a good exposition of the actual text. I am not saying that he wasn’t right in how he interpreted this or that euphemism. I am just not sure that his interpretation of the flow of events or historocity of the Song’s relationship were correct. That’s just a suspicion, though. I have yet to do an actual study of the book.

In summary, Driscoll’s sermon on SoS was a helpful series and one that the church needs to hear. Driscoll is a gifted pastor who loves his wife, family, and church very much, but like the rest of us, he has his problems.

Feel free to leave your take on this series, but please, be civil.

Committment to tradition

I love my denomination, but I am beginning to suspect that this quote from Tim Stafford may apply to it:

The neo-Reformed are committed to a tradition of scriptural interpretation. They’re sure it’s right and they read the Bible by looking through those lenses.

A Protestant Makes the Sign of the Cross

I have a confession to make to all my fellow Protestants:  sometimes I make the sign of the cross at the end of my private prayers. No, I am not converting to Catholicism, but I am appreciating a Catholic tradition. In fact, I am appreciating an ancient Christian tradition.

Five or six years ago, a group of friends and I attended a Lutheran church so tiny that the eight of us made up half the congregation. Consequently, the pastor took a lot of time from the service to explain to us non-Lutherans some of the things he was doing, and one of these things was the practice of crossing oneself. He pointed out that though it is often used superstitiously (like at baseball games), the sign of the cross is an ancient practice in the church that serves to remind us of who we are. I liked the idea and began practicing it, trying consciously not to use it mindlessly. It is a reminder that the cross is for me, that its benefits mark me like a seal.

Apparently, the sign of the cross goes way back in church history. In the fourth century A.D., St. Cyril of Jerusalem made the following statement:

Let us not then be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Be the Cross our seal made with boldness by our fingers on our brow and in everything; over the bread we eat, and the cups we drink; in our comings in, and goings out; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we awake; when we are in the way and when we are still. Great is that preservative; it is without price, for the poor’s sake; without toil, for the sick, since also its grace is from God. It is the Sign of the faithful, and the dread of evils; for He has triumphed over them in it, having made a shew of them openly; for when they see the Cross, they are reminded of the Crucified; they are afraid of Him, Who hath bruised the heads of the dragon. Despise not the Seal, because of the freeness of the Gift; but for this rather honor thy Benefactor.”

St. Ephrem of Syria, also from the fourth century said:

Mark all your actions with the sign of the lifegiving Cross. Do not go out from the door of your house till you have signed yourself with the Cross. Do not neglect that sign whether in eating or drinking or going to sleep, or in the home or going on a journey. There is no habit to be compared with it. Let it be a protecting wall round all your conduct, and teach it to your children that they may earnestly learn the custom.

Even earlier, in the second century, Tertullian wrote:

 ”In all undertakings — when we enter a place or leave it; before we dress; before we bathe; when we take our meals; when we light the lamps in the evening; before we retire at night; when we sit down to read; before each task — we trace the sign of the cross on our foreheads.”

It might surprise my fellow Protestants to know that Martin Luther supported using the sign, too. Here’s a page of his writings concerning it, and here is one quote:

In the morning, when you rise, you shall make the sign of the holy cross, and you shall say: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Can the sign of the cross be used superstitiously. Yes. The sign itself cannot ward off the devil, nor can it bring anyone good. But the physical sign can serve as a reminder of what our Lord has done for us and what he will do. It can be a real encouragement.

This site offers a lot of helpful information, some of which I have already used. It tells several ways in which the sign of the cross is done, which I have copied and pasted below.

The Sign of the Cross is made thus: First choose your style:

• Option A. With your right hand, touch the thumb and ring finger together, and hold your index finger and middle finger together to signify the two natures of Christ. This is the most typical Western Catholic practice.
   
• Option B. Hold your thumb and index finger of your right hand together to signify the two natures of Christ
   
• Option C. Hold your thumb, index finger, middle finger of your right hand together (signifying the Trinity) while tucking the ring finger and pinky finger (signifying the two natures of Christ) toward your palm. This is the typically Eastern Catholic practice.
   
• Option D: Hold your right hand open with all 5 fingers — representing the 5 Wounds of Christ — together and very slightly curved, and thumb slightly tucked into palm

Then:

• touch the forehead as you say (or pray mentally) “In nomine Patris” (“In the name of the Father”)
   
• touch the breastbone or top of the belly as you say “et Filii” (“and of the Son”)
   

• touch the left shoulder, then right shoulder, as you say “et Spiritus Sancti” (“and of the Holy Ghost”). Note that some people end the Sign by crossing the thumb over the index finger to make a cross, and then kissing the thumb as a way of “kissing the Cross.”

Any thoughts? Is this an idolatrous practice? Or a comforting reminder?

What, no sea?–Reading Revelation Less Literally

Walking on the beach one beautiful summer night years ago, I breathed in the scene of the crashing waves and circling stars and, with some disappointment, thought about the passage from Revelation 21:1, “And there was no more sea. ” Similarly, verse 25 reads, “there will be no night there.” Really, God? But I love the ocean, and the night sky is beautiful. If heaven doesn’t have these, then I can’t help but feel a little bit  of disappointment. And while we’re on the subject, what about the new Jerusalem? Living in a huge city always seemed a lot less attractive than relaxing in a garden. I don’t really care that much about streets made of gold either.

A lot of you will be smiling at how naively literal my reading of Revelation was, but I don’t think I was alone. In college, I was crazy enough to agree to teach Revelation to a group of teenagers, and whether they got anything out of it or not, I was exposed to a very valuable resource in Paul Spilsbury’s book, The Throne, the Lamb and the Dragon:  A Reader’s Guide To the Book of Revelation. Spilsbury thankfully draws his readers away from the contemporary obsession with just how the end times will unfold, pointing out that Revelation is apocalyptic literature, almost similar to a fantasy. The strange images of the book come from a long tradition of similar figures, symbols, and numbers running through the Old Testament.

The sea, for instance, is consistently a place of fear for the Israelites, who were not much of a seafaring people. It is constantly pictured as chaotic, and out of it come all sorts of evil creatures (often sybolizing various kingdoms) who are a threat to God’s people. When John describes heaven as being without the sea, he isn’t giving his readers a physical description of its geography, but is making a statement about the existence of evil there. There will be no more evil monsters from the sea; all of Israel’s/the church’s enemies will be gone. In fact, the place where they originated will be gone.

The same principle applies to the banishment of night, the creation of a city, and the composition of the streets. These are not intended to be literal details about heaven. Instead, the Lord is telling us that the dangers of night will be gone;  that God’s people will be together in perfect community; and that the perfection of heaven will so outshine this world that the most valuable material we have here, gold, will be used for the basest of functions there.

Reading Revelation in this way truly unlocks its secrets. It is not a clue book to the future. Instead, it is a fantastic story to encourage us in our present state of troubles. Happy reading to you all as you jump back in the book.