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  • February 19, 2012 by Jason Hood

    Our Bicentennial

    It’s a fantastic anniversary: 200 years ago today, on Feb 19, 2012, the first overseas American missionaries set sail for Asia. Today’s indirect fruit from the Spirit-fuelled labor of Adoniram and Anne Judson and their American, European, and Asian coworkers is remarkable. Asia teems with hundreds of millions of believers–an unimaginable reward for great but temporary suffering.

    Korea provides more missionaries per capita, and our leading theological export over the past decades is the prosperity gospel. But there is so much for which we should be grateful. God has done and will do great things through his people as he continues to put all things under the feet of Jesus.

    Parenthetically, although they are famous as Baptist missionaries, the paedobaptist in me has to note that when they heard and obeyed the call of mission they were in fact paedobaptists, and were sent out as such. They were dunked by William Carey’s people in India, after changing their minds about baptism along the way.

    Categories: Church History | General | Jason Hood | mission

    4 Comments

  • February 16, 2012 by Gerald Hiestand

    T-Shirt Fundraiser

    Hey everyone, beginning tomorrow our family is participating in a fundraising contest through a great organization called “Ordinary Hero.” They have a great selection of T-Shirts for men, women, and children, all of which promote adoption. The idea behind the name “Ordinary Hero” is that everyone who supports, or is involved in, international adoption is an ordinary hero. So by buying a T-Shirt you support international adoption and become an Ordinary Hero. And who doesn’t want to be a hero?

    Here’s how the contest works: we get money every time someone (you) buys a T-Shirt through our account. But wait — there’s more! The three families who sell the most T-Shirts win an additional $500 grant.

    The contest runs for one week, starting Friday morning (Feb 17). We hope you’ll head on over to the Ordinary Hero store and pick up a T-Shirt or two or seven!

    Please Note: When purchasing a T-Shirt on the Ordinary Hero site, you must click on our name in a drop down menu during check out to ensure the we receives credit for your purchase.

    Categories: General | Gerald Hiestand

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  • February 15, 2012 by Matthew Mason

    As Comprehensive as the Scriptures

    Jaroslav Pelikan’s comments on Augustine’s method in dealing with law and grace highlights the problem with some contemporary accounts: they emphasise one aspect of Scripture’s teaching while ignoring or downplaying other aspects. I believe in systematicity in theology, but I’m increasingly suspicious of a rush to system; and I think that, for commendable pastoral and homiletical reasons, that can be a besetting problem for pastors and preachers.

    Augustine managed to hold together what Augustinians have often tended to separate. In his piety and preaching, if not always in his theology, the paradox of grace as sovereign, as necessary, and as mediated transcended the alternatives inherent in it. And so he could write: “By the law is the knowledge of sin, by faith the acquisition of grace against sin, by grace the healing of the soul from the fault of sin, by the health of the soul the freedom of the will, by free will the love of righteousness, by love of righteousness the accomplishment of the law. Thus as the law is not made void but established through faith, since faith obtains the grace by which the law is fulfilled; so free will is not made void but established through grace, since grace cures the will, by which righteousness is loved freely.”

    These disparate elements could be held together because “all the stages which I have here connected together in their successive links have severally their proper voices in the sacred Scriptures,” and Augustine sought to be as comprehensive as the Scriptures themselves. He acknowledged the limitations of theology as an expression of this comprehensiveness.

    (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 306-307, quoting Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, 30.52. Paragraph break and emphasis mine.)

    Categories: General | Matthew Mason | Theological Method | grace

    2 Comments

  • February 14, 2012 by Jason Hood

    The Smell of a Theologian

    A friend posted this on FB; it juxtaposes Matthew’s previous post rather nicely and reminds me of more serious points for self-reflection.

    Just yesterday, trying to understand the rising fascination with Barth, I wondered whether we have a need to believe that a theologian really could be a rock star rather than an awkward servant. It’s not just Barth, of course; some have a “rock star” perception of Calvin, even though his life reveals him to be anything but.

    Perhaps we want to believe that it’s possible to be celebrated on the cover of Time or appear on The Daily Show. Or that we’ll be the next great, young, well-known British preacher. (Let the reader understand.)

    The reality of course is very different. We bear the scent not of celebrity, but of “the refuse of the world” (1 Cor 4:13). But if our work has any value, we also become the fragrance of life and death and the knowledge of God himself (2 Cor 2:14-17).

    Categories: Ecclesial Theologian | Ecclesial Theology | General | Jason Hood | off-topic

    2 Comments

  • February 14, 2012 by Matthew Mason

    I want him as my patron saint

    Sometimes one can’t help warming to someone.

    He was a small shrunken vivid man, bald-headed, with a long red beard and red eyebrows like Athanasius, wrinkled, nearly always in pain, haggard with vigils and fastings….He feared no one. He had an uruly humor. He is the only man who is known to have dared to laugh at Basil. He was quick-tempered, sullen, unhappy in the company of most people, strangely remote from the world. Appointed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople against his will, he found it Arian and in a few swift months converted it to the orthodox faith. He was the first Christian poet, and wrote prose so angelically, and throughout his life gloried in the Greek poet Pindar, who celebrated athletes and spoke only of human glory. He loved God, and then the art of letters, and then men – in that order.
    (Robert Payne on of Gregory Nazianzus, quoted in Christopher A. Hall, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, IVP, 1998, p. 65.)

    Categories: General | Matthew Mason | patristics

    1 Comment

  • February 6, 2012 by Jason Hood

    The Resurrection is the Crux

    Pun intended, I suppose. I just finished a conversation with a distraught co-worker about a local “Christian” school, whose approach to the faith is revisionist in every respect. What galls her, as it galls me, is the insistence on keeping the label “Christian” when virtually everything that is distinctly Christian has been jettisoned: the ethics, tenets, Scriptures, and historical events are surrendered wholesale.

    Also today: a former student sent this highly relevant snippet, found in a letter dated 29 January 1886, from Theodosius Harnack to his son Adolf Harnack, the famous critical biblical scholar:

    Our difference is not merely theological but a profound and directly Christian difference, so that if I overlooked it I should be betraying Christ; and no one, not even someone who stands so near to me as you, my son, could demand that of me or expect it.

    To name only the all-decisive main issue: whoever regards the fact of the resurrection as you do is in my eyes no longer a Christian theologian. I totally fail to understand how anyone can still appeal to history after that sort of historical construction; or I understand it only if the appeal to history is meant to denigrate Christianity. So, either–or…

    For me Christianity stands or falls with the fact of the resurrection; with the fact of the resurrection the Trinity, too, stands for me rock firm.

    – J.C. O’neill. The Bible’s Authority: A Portrait Gallery of Thinkers from Lessing to Bultmann. The letter is in Agnes von Zahn-Harnack, Adolf Harnack, 1st ed. page 143, 2nd ed. page 105.

    Categories: General | Historical Method | Jason Hood | biblical studies

    1 Comment

  • February 2, 2012 by Gerald Hiestand

    Sex, Dating, and Relationships: Wrap-Up

    Ambrose once said, “The condition of the mind is often seen in the attitude of the body….Thus the movement of the body is a sort of voice of the soul” (On the Duties of Clergy, I.18). Indeed it is. And nowhere does the voice of the soul speak louder than in our sexuality. Sex carries such significance in our lives because it was ordained by God to point toward that which is most significant—Christ’s relationship with the church. Thus the misuse of sex damages us in ways that other bodily sins do not. As the Apostle Paul states, “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body (1 Corinthians 6:18).

    For too long pastors and Christian leaders have neglected to provide definitive instruction about the appropriate boundaries of premarital relationships. Telling singles that the Bible has nothing explicit to say about premarital sexual activity beyond its prohibition against intercourse is an unacceptable fulfillment of our pastoral responsibility. Sexual ethics are simply too important. We must say something. And as I have labored to show in these posts, the Scriptures have more to say about premarital ethics than many of us have been led to believe.

    While “thou shall not make out” is not as explicit as “thou shall not commit adultery,” the Bible does indeed offer us a clear sexual ethic: sexual activity is to be reserved for the marriage relationship. When we combine this sexual ethic with an intuitive understanding that sexual activity includes more than sexual intercourse, we can confidently conclude that all forms of sexual activity—even sexual forms of kissing—must be reserved for the marriage relationship.

    The reigning premarital sexual ethic of evangelicalism is muddled and unclear. The pressing need of the moment is for evangelical pastors and leaders to articulate a clearer, more pastorally responsible premarital ethic—one that is biblically authoritative, theologically robust, and sufficiently objective. And that is the very thing we’ve tried hard to do in our book.

    For all the posts in this series, see below:

    Categories: General | Gerald Hiestand | SAET Fellow Publications | sexuality

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  • February 2, 2012 by Gerald Hiestand

    Sex, Dating, and Relationships, Part 3: Thou Shall Not Make Out?

    Given the cultural dynamics of the ancient world, New Testament proof texts on premarital sexual ethics are in short supply. In a culture that prized female virginity, utilized arranged marriages, and often practiced cloistering, the authors of the New Testament had no need to be overly specific regarding chastity rules for premarital relationships. Simply put, the reigning ethic—even in the pagan culture—was, “keep your hands off my daughter.” Thus we cannot expect the Bible to offer us a detailed list about which activities (e.g., fondling, kissing, oral sex, etc.) are permissible in premarital relationships.

    Yet despite the lack of an explicit statement about “how far is too far” in premarital relationships, the New Testament does offer us a clear sexual ethic: sexual relations are to be reserved for the marriage relationship. Adultery (Romans 2:22), homosexuality (1 Corinthians 6:9), prostitution (1 Corinthians 6:12-20), fornication (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8), and polygamy (1 Timothy 3:2) are all explicitly condemned in the New Testament. Additionally, the New Testament uses the term πορνεία (sexual immorality) as a “catch all” term to forbid all extra-marital sexual activity. As has been shown by New Testament scholars, πορνεία is properly understood against the backdrop of the Torah, and thus adultery, fornication, bestiality, incest, homosexuality, and prostitution—all condemned by the Torah—fall within its semantic range.[1] We find a working example of this basic ethical framework, specifically as it relates to premarital sexual activity, in 1 Corinthians 7:1-9. Discussing celibacy and marriage, Paul writes,

    I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.  To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion (ESV).

    Here Paul is responding to a series of questions posed to him by the Corinthians. Many at Corinth viewed celibacy as the ideal Christian state. Even married individuals, it seems, were attempting to live a celibate life.[2] Paul notes his own commitment to celibacy and agrees that celibacy is indeed ideal for increasing one’s capacity to serve in Christ’s kingdom. Yet Paul rec­ognizes that the ability to live a chaste and celibate life is a unique gift from God—one that God has not given to everyone. Given the ever-present temptation toward sexual immorality, Paul instructs those who have a strong desire for sexual intimacy (i.e., “burn with pas­sion”) to fulfill that desire within the context of a marriage relationship. The implications here are clear: the marriage relationship is the only legitimate context for sexual activity. Given the clear teaching of the New Testament, the church—broadly construed—has historically viewed sexual relations as appropriate only within the context of a monogamous, permanent, heterosexual marriage.[3]

    Thus far we have broken no new ground. Nearly all evangelical pastors and ministry leaders agree that sexual activity should be reserved for the marriage relationship. [4] But it is here that evangelical sexual ethics begin to flounder. Our problem is not that we have failed to recognize the New Testament’s prohibition against premarital sexual activity; rather we have failed to fully reckon with the reality that there is more to sexual activity than intercourse. Oral sex, fondling, and mutual masturbation, for example, are all sexual activities. It is inconceivable that the New Testament’s ethic—in as much as it is an extension of the Torah—intends to leave room for such activities outside of marriage. Once we embrace the biblical ideal that sexual activity must be reserved for the marriage relationship, the question, “How far is too far?”—a perennially vexing question for singles—is easily answered. If an activity is sexual, it is to be reserved for the marriage relationship.

    Yet for the sake of clarity we must press this farther. Beyond the seemingly obvious activities above, there is real confusion among evangelicals about what constitutes sexual activity. There are a wide array of physical activities that are inherently non-sexual; holding hands, a kiss on the cheek, a peck on the lips, hugging, walking arm in arm, etc., are all non-sexual activities. While sexual arousal may indeed accompany such activities, the activities themselves are not inherently sexual. But there are other physical activities that are exclusively sexual. It is these activities (at least) that must be reserved for the marriage relationship. But how are we to tell which is which?

    Perhaps the most objective way to determine the sexual nature of an activity is to consider it against the backdrop of the family relationship. Within the context of family relations, there are certain physical forms of affection that are inappropriate (fondling, oral sex, etc.). And the reason they are inappropriate is precisely because such activities are sexual. Thus we can quickly intuit which activities are sexual by considering an activity within the context of the family relationship. If an activity would be sexually inappropriate to do with a biological relative, then that action is clearly of a sexual nature. Or again, the activities that we intuitively exclude from family relationships because those activities are sexual, are, in fact, sexual activities. To clarify, note here that this way of identifying sexual activity is not primarily concerned about what I would (or would not) do with my mother, but rather about what is deemed to be generally appropriate between biological relatives. While a particular man might never hold hands with his mother (given the interpersonal dynamics of their relationship), that same man would not view it as sexually inappropriate for a mother and son to hold hands. If Genesis 26:28 is any indication, even ancient pagan cultures have distinguished between sexual and non-sexual activity via the context of the family relationship.

    This criterion becomes enormously helpful when considering appropriate premarital boundaries, particularly as it relates to one of the most common activities in contemporary dating relationships: passionate kissing. Many (perhaps most) Christian dating couples regularly engage in passionate kissing. And for the most part, evangelical pastors and leaders have not provided definitive, biblical counsel here. Clearly some forms of kissing are non-sexual. Fathers kiss their children, and sons their mothers. But there are other forms of kissing that men reserve exclusively for their lovers. And the reason they do so is because such forms of kissing are sexual. When we consider passionate kissing against the backdrop of the family relationship it quickly becomes clear that passionate kissing is not merely affectionate, but sexual. Under no circumstances would it ever be appropriate for a brother and sister to engage in passionate kissing. Thus we may properly conclude the following:

    1) All sexual activity must be reserved for the marriage relationship.

    2) Some forms of kissing are sexual. Therefore,

    3) Sexual forms of kissing must be reserved for the marriage relationship.

    The logic of the above is, I believe, inescapable. In order to legitimize sexual forms of kissing in a premarital relationship, one would need to, 1) provide a cogent rationale for why passionate kissing is not sexual; or alternately, 2) legitimize at least some sexual activity outside of the marriage relationship. The first is counter-intuitive to the way human sexuality actually functions. The second runs counter to the ethic of the New Testament.

    The objective definition provided by the family test is not the last word on sexual purity. There is, of course, more to purity than how one behaves with the body (Matthew 5:27). And every “objective” boundary can be worked around by sin-inspired creativity. But in spite of its limitations, it does provide a solid framework for clearly identifying which bodily activities are inherently sexual. Humans are embodied beings; as such, we need an embodied ethic. While it may be a sexual act for a particular man to look at (talk to, etc.) a particular woman, it is always a sexual act when he does something with her that would be sexually inappropriate between blood relatives. To be sure, there may be good reasons to refrain also from non-sexual acts of intimacy outside of the marriage relationship.[5] If Jesus condemns even the look that leads to inappropriate sexual desire, how much more the touch (sexual or not) that leads to inappropriate sexual desire. But while wisdom may often call for a more restrictive posture than what is required by the family ethic, it never calls for less.

    Pastors and ministry leaders have been sending a mixed message about premarital sexual activity. On the one hand, in keeping with the sexual ethic of the New Testament, we’ve clearly articulated that sexual activity should be reserved for the marriage relationship. But on the other hand we’ve largely ignored—or actually legitimatized—sexual forms of kissing. We are in effect saying that while sexual activity is not permissible in premarital relationships, sexual activity is permissible in premarital relationships. If the preceding sentence doesn’t make sense to the readers of this post, it’s not making sense to singles either.

    At its heart, the New Testament ethic calls for premarital relationships to be completely non-sexual. Sexual forms of kissing fall afoul of this ethic, likewise any activity that is sexually inappropriate between blood relatives. Simply put, if an activity is inherently sexual, it is to be reserved for the marriage relationship.

    [1] Etymologically, πορνεία referred to prostitution or fornication, but was frequently used more broadly to denote any and all forms of sexual misconduct. For an analysis of the use of πορνεία in the New Testament, see Raymond Collins, Ethics and the New Testament: Behavior and Belief (New York: Cross Road Publishing Company, 2000), 80-83; William Loader, Sexuality in the New Testament: Understanding the Key Texts (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2010) 71-76. William Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2007), 73. The terms ἀσέλγεια (sexual immorality, impurity) and κοίτη (sexual immorality, lasciviousness), also function as general terms denoting sexual misconduct, but are used in the New Testament with less frequency. For the full range of terms denoting sexual misconduct, see the entry in Louw-Nida on sexual misbehavior (88.271-88.282).

    [2] My brief reconstruction here follows the standard interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7, i.e., that Paul is addressing a form of asceticism. For interpretations along these lines, see Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (Louiseville, KY: Westminster, 2004), 77, and Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, S. J., SP (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1999), 253. Contra this reading, see Barry Danylak, Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2010). In either case, my central point above remains valid regardless the extent to which the ascetic question is resolved.

    [3] Only in relatively recent times has this sexual ethic been questioned. The contemporary rise of homosexuality, combined with a post-modern way of reading texts, has raised questions about the church’s traditional sexual ethic. For a detailed analysis of the New Testament’s sexual ethic, see Collins, Ethics and the New Testament; Loader, Sexuality in the New Testament; Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex.

    [4] The Colorado Statement on Biblical Sexual Morality offers us a standard evangelical articulation: “Sex outside of marriage is never moral. This includes all forms of intimate sexual stimulation that stir up sexual passion between unmarried partners.”  Quoted in Heimbach, True Sexual Morality, 370.

    [5] Even non-sexual touch can arouse sexual desire. Further, physical affection (whether sexual or not), makes a statement about one’s intentions, and often creates misplaced expectations. For a discussion about the mixed messages men and women send to each other via non-sexual interaction, see my Raising Purity, 53-100.

    Categories: General | Gerald Hiestand | SAET Fellow Publications | sexuality

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  • January 31, 2012 by Matthew Mason

    The Game of Temptation, Maturation, and the Obedience of Christ

    This isn’t the most refined illustration; it popped into my mind as I was teaching a lesson on the person of Christ this morning, but I think it works (though it needs room for an already-not yet eschatology and the gift of the Spirit). For its full effect, however, it relies on the British version of the game of Chutes and Ladders—Snakes and Ladders.

    God’s goal in creation was always that humanity, in dependence on his grace and obedience to his word, should advance, with all creation, from square 1 (immaturity) to square 100 (maturity, glory)—”Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion”. However (and here’s why our version of the game matters!), the snake got Adam, and he slid, not just back to square one, but off the board completely (and here’s where the illustration stretches, or maybe breaks!).

    The Word became flesh, as the Last Adam, not to put us back to square one. Salvation doesn’t take us back to Eden. The end is better than the beginning. Jesus’ obedience and death does get us back on the board, but because of his resurrection, not at square one, but at 100, the goal of the game. He fulfilled Adam’s role and atoned for Adam’s sin advance us to full, glorified, mature humanity.

    Categories: Biblical Theology | Christology | General | Matthew Mason

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  • January 30, 2012 by Matthew Mason

    The Don on the Church in the UK

    One of the things I’ve learned in 2+ years in DC is that it takes a long time to understand a different culture in any meaningful way, particularly when the cultural gap seems, in many ways, so small. It takes a similarly long time to begin to understand the church situation in a new country. I’m all too aware that US culture is far from monochrome, and my understanding of the church in the USA is mediated by my experience in DC, which is peculiar in any number of ways. I doubt I’m even close to “getting” the church in the rural south, for example. In fact, I’m not even close to getting the African American church scene in my own city. I suspect, given the shape of the religious landscape in England, that I have more of a sense of conditions in the urban areas of New England, though even then the lack of an established church makes significant differences.

    I have opinions (of course!) about the church in the US as compared to the church in the UK. But I still don’t feel competent to comment too strongly or broadly; two weeks ago I was at a conference for Anglicans in my denomination, and was struck how different the conference and its attenders felt compared with similar events in England. This was in part cultural. But in significant part it was also due to the different histories, influences, and cultural locations of the Church of England compared with the Episcopal church and continuing Anglican denominations, and of evangelicals within those different denominations.

    All this is to say, I really appreciated Don Carson’s comments on the church in the UK, not least because they come from a seasoned Christian leader who has a lot of experience of what he speaks, and a broad knowledge of the church in many parts of the world. His experience enables him to speak thoughtfully, charitably, and wisely, and encouragingly about the great gospel needs across the pond and also the signs of God’s great grace to us.

    Categories: General | Matthew Mason

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