Thoughts on George Hunter's New Book on Evangelism

George Hunter's new book, The Recovery of a Contagious Methodist Movement is worth the read!  This book is in line with several other books that encourage United Methodists and Christians in general to reclaim what it means to share the good news of Christ with others.  It's a short read that quickly addresses the issues facing the United Methodist Church today.

Here are some of the points from the book that stand out in my mind:

• To reclaim Wesley's methodology to reach people for Christ is to reclaim the ancient church's approach to evangelism which is a relational/small group/intentional outreach model.
• Non United Methodist churches that are growing and reaching people for Christ are typically more Wesleyan than the majority of United Methodist churches!  While embarrassing for United Methodists, it just goes to show how easy it is to forget our rich heritage.  Sadly, we think of our Methodist heritage as how we did church back in the 40's, 50's, and 60's rather than the original Wesleyan vision of organizing lay people to receive the good news of Jesus Christ and spread scriptural holiness throughout the land. 
• The keys to reclaiming our heritage is to realize that we are to be a lay movement within the established church.  The problem is that what used to be a vital lay movement has now become the established church. 
• Empowering and equipping of lay ministry, intentional spiritual small groups, and a methodical plan to share God's love with all people are the key ingredients that are often missing in the church today.
• At the heart of our lack of vitality is the false belief that we just can't reach the people who are not already in our church.  This was never an issue with the early Methodist movement in the 18th century.  They had full confidence that God wanted and could reach the people that the Anglican Church was not reaching and those early Methodists experienced the fruits of their labor.
• Starting new classes and new congregations was the common thread when the Methodist movement was at it's height.  Coincidentally, this common thread is missing throughout our denomination today.

While books like these can be painful reading, they do give us hope to be the church that God has called us to be.  We have a wonderful heritage as United Methodists.  I probably wouldn't know of God's grace or have hope for my daily living if it wasn't for the Wesleyan small groups in my home church.  George Hunter's book reminds me that we need to refocus on lay ministry and vital small groups to guide us once again in spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land.

Thank you, George Hunter.

Books I'm Reading

How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, by Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart. (Have read 81%)
This is an excellent book to help people appreciate the several different genres found in the bible.  The authors go to great lengths to help the reader to NOT read the bible out of context and to know how to appreciate the different genres that we find in the bible like narrative, epistles, law, wisdom, poetry, etc.

Hijacked: Responding to the Partisan Church Divide, by Michael Slaughter & Charles E. Gutenson with Robert P. Jones. (Have read 31%)
The authors trace how white evangelicals became closely associated with the Republican Party.  According to the research, this began immediately after the Reagan presidency.  This is not a book to promote one party over another but to caution the Christian community to not allow political worldviews to trump our theological/Christian worldview.  As pastors over a long period of time, they have noticed this change in their churches where church members are mirroring the divide that we are seeing in the present political landscape.

Books Waiting to Be Read:  As my church prepares for our bicentennial celebration events, I will soon be reading, Why I Am a United Methodist by Will Willimon and Recapturing the Wesley's Vision by Paul Chilcote.
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Want to Know How to Read the Bible?

Just started to read the book, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart.  It has sold a lot of copies over the years, a classic primer to aid in the understanding and interpretation of scripture and to see each verse/passage/book in in it's proper context.

Based on solid mainstream bible scholarship, the authors help the reader to appreciate the different genres of the bible and to read them accordingly.  Here's one example early in the book as to why we need outside sources such as this book if we want to understand scripture in the way it was intended.

When Paul says,  "Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Romans 13:14), people in most English-speaking cultures are apt to think that "flesh" means the "body" and therefore that Paul is speaking of "bodily appetites."  But the word "flesh" as Paul uses it, seldom refers to the body - and in this text it almost certainly did not - but to a spiritual malady sometimes called "the sinful nature," denoting totally self-centered existence.  Therefore, without intending to do so, the reader is interpreting as he or she reads, and unfortunately all too often interprets incorrectly.

I'm also reading a couple of other books, but I do want to have future posts on some other examples of being aware of the biases we often bring to the scriptures and how we can interpret it more accurately.
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The Bible & The Ancient Near East Summary - Part II

Here are some more gems from the book I've been reading, "Ancient Near Eastern Thought & the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible" by John H. Walton.

• The Book of Genesis reference to humans being made in the image of God.  The surrounding religions viewed their king as the representative of the gods.  For Israel, all human beings bear this image.  We embody God's qualities and do God's works.
• Seeking direction from the gods through omens was a common ancient Near East characteristic.  The Joshua 10:12-15 passage that refers to the sun standing still can be interpeted through this understanding of omens.  Rather than a physical standing still of the sun which is the common interpretation, it really refers to the Israelites and Amorites battling on a "bad" day according to the Amorites' belief in omens.  The Amorites would have had low morale because of the "bad omen" day of battle.
• The Israelite's focus on covenant and the relationship YHWH desires with Israel is a unique understanding in the ancient Near East.
• The Jewish understanding that there will be a day when God will make the world right again is a unique understanding in the ancient world.  The beliefs of ancient Near East religions centered on striving to keep the status quo which was a worldview of, "this is as good as it gets." 

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The Bible & The Ancient Near East

Here are some gems from the book I've been reading, "Ancient Near Eastern Thought & the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible" by John H. Walton.

• The cultures of this time period had no dichotomy between natural and supernatural.  Everything was supernatural regardless if you were an Israelite or some other religion.  Religion was life.  This different worldview has so many implications for Christians today since we tend to think of God who intervenes once in a while (miracles.)  Actually, the ancient mindset was that God is constantly interacting within creation.  This makes me think of how we tend to view miracles as only special events when they really happen all of the time since God is always interacting within the cosmos.
• The Garden of Eden story is really a story of the garden being like the holy of  holies in the Temple.  The created world served as God's Temple.  The actual Temple had symbols of the Garden of Eden like the menorah which is a symbol of the tree of life.  In short, the Garden of Eden story uses Temple language.
• When Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, the biggest loss wasn't paradise but losing out on God's presence.
• The Tower of Babel story which I always assumed was a story about humans trying to get to God is really a story of trying to get God to come down to them.  The ancient Near East is filled with stories of towers that serve this purpose.  Bible translations misinterpret this story because of a lack of understanding of the ancient worldview.

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Bible Study is Hard Work

A book I am now reading, "The Lost World of Genesis 1: Ancient Cosmology and the Origens Debate" by Dr. John H. Walton from Wheaton College reminds me that bible study is hard work.  Walton can't emphasize enough how important it is for serious interpreters of the bible to first understand the biblical Hebrew/Greek language as well as the Ancient Near East culture before reaching conclusions about what particular biblical texts are seeking to convey.

One of the common mistakes we make in interpreting the bible is to assume that our English translation has the same meaning for us as it did for the original biblical audience in ancient time.  This leads to the potential problem for us of arriving at conclusions that were never intended by the biblical author.  We think that we are "being biblical" when in actuality, we are being very unbiblical!

One of the gems from my early reading of this book is something Dr. Walton includes in his first chapter.  By keeping this statement close in our consciousness when we study the bible, it will do a couple of things for us: 1) It will keep us humble because the bible wasn't first written for us.  It was first written to a people who lived in a very different culture and language than we do.  And 2) It will lead us to the important reality that if we want to understand the bible for our day and age, we first need to understand what it meant to the original hearers.

Here's Dr. Walton's statement: 

"The Old Testament does communicate to us and it was written for us, and for all humankind.  But it was not written to us.  It was written to Israel.  It is God's revelation of himself to Israel and secondarily through Israel to everyone else.  As obvious as this is, we must be aware of the implications of that simple statement. Since it was written to Israel, it is in a language that most of us do not  understand, and therefore it requires translation.  But the language is not the only aspect that needs to be translated.  Language assumes a culture, operates in a culture, serves a culture, and is designed to communicate into the framework of a culture.  Consequently, when we read a text written in another language and addressed to another culture, we must translate the culture as well as the language if we hope to understand the text fully."

Like I said, bible study is hard work.  But well worth it!
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What Happens After We Die?

One of our adult Sunday School classes at Lancaster First United Methodist Church will be studying the excellent book, "Surprised by Hope" by New Testament bible scholar, Dr. Tom Wright. The study begins Sunday, January 30, at 11 A.M.

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This study helps to explore questions such as:

• What happens after we die?
• What is heaven? What is hell?
• What is meant by the word, "resurrection?"
• What happened on that first Easter morning?
• What difference did Jesus' resurrection make?
• In what ways have we been influenced by non-biblical understandings of the meaning of resurrection?
• The Apostles' Creed says, "I believe in the resurrection of the body." What does that mean?

The author of "Surprised by Hope," Dr. Wright has carefully researched the meaning of the word, "resurrection" in the context of the biblical/Jewish understanding. By reading this book and participating in this video study, participants will have a much better understanding of how the resurrection of Jesus impacts our view of the after-life, the mission of the church, and the future hope of a renewed creation.

God Likes to Play Hide & Seek

Today, during my reading of the book, "Sabbath" by Dan B. Allender, I came across an interesting explanation as to why God feels distant at times. Many of the Psalmists speak of God feeling far away and we too experience those moments from time to time.

Some of the possible responses when we feel distant from God may include anger or disappointment. Or maybe we might even question if God exists. We've probably all been there at some point. Maybe, we're there now.

Dan Allender offers another possible way of dealing with those times when God seems absent or distant. His theology for this approach goes like this...

When God created the world, he called it good. This means that God takes great delight in his creation. What do parents often do out of delight with their children? They play with them! One of those games is hide and seek. Could it be that when we feel distant from God, that it's just God's way of taking delight in us and playing a little peek-a-boo?

While this may sound a little "cheesy" or far fetched, I think there might be something to this. This book is making a strong biblical case for God's delight with his creation. To appreciate this biblical theme, we might need to reconsider our understanding of who God is. God is so much more than a philosophical concept. The God of creation takes delight in us, even to the point of engaging us in child-like playfulness and joy-filled spontaneity.

Just as I'm finishing this blog article, our one westie came up to me with her favorite toy in her mouth begging me to chase after her. There's never a choice. I have to stop thinking/typing and chase her around the house.

I'm back now from that playful time with Lulu. Perhaps, there is something to this thought of God taking great delight in us. Why wouldn't God want to play a little hide and seek once in a while?

Is "Mainline" a Dirty Word?

In my review of Scott Kisker's book, "Mainline or Methodist," I shared this observation:

For Scott, the label "mainline" as in mainline denominations like United Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans, means that we have chosen an established path rather than a revolutionary path of living out our faith. For sure, mainline denominations have too often gone down that lazy status-quo path. However, for me, the label of mainline correctly identifies denominations such as the United Methodist Church as Christian communities that are willing to bring together a variety of points of views (left vs. right, democrat vs. republican, Michigan vs. Ohio State, etc.) and through scripture, reason, experience, and tradition, we can listen and help each other to discern God's voice.

The reason I see "mainline" in a positive way is because of something I saw on CNN today regarding a non-mainline pastor who is calling for all Christians to burn a Koran, Muslim's sacred book on September 11. This pastor claims that the Muslim religion is of the devil and should be stopped. OK, I do believe that the Christian faith is a particular faith that believes that Jesus Christ is the particular means by which we receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life, but that doesn't mean that I need to go out and burn books of a different religion in order to show that my religion is the only way. And to have this be done on September 11 when we remember those who died in the terrorist bombings which included Muslims, is appalling to say the least.

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And please read this disclaimer: Not all mainline Christians are tolerant and not all non-mainline Christians are judgemental. However, one of the strengths of mainline Christianity is that it tends to embrace diversity while retaining the historic Christian faith.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the point that Scott Kisker in his book, "Mainline or Methodist" is making. Sometimes we too often use the word, "mainline" to refer to a pro-establishment description of what it means to be a Christian which is not what we find in the Gospels! But what I do like about this term is that it seeks to keep the church from moving into a judgemental, disrespectul, and triumphalist direction that does not honor God and would have us not love our neighbors as ourselves as Jesus taught us to do.

The pastor who wants to burn books on September 11 reminded me what I like the word, "mainline."

Summer Reading - Finding Faith Connections

Summer is a time that many of us grab or download a good book to read. One Christian leader claims that pastors should spend at least thirty minutes everyday reading. A friend of mine who's a pastor recently commented that he wants to read non-religious books this summer to help separate his church work from his personal life. While I appreciate the need to separate church life from personal life, good books in general tend to touch on spiritual truths even if they aren't technically considered religious books.

I recently completed reading "The Art of Racing in the Rain" which touches on a lot of Christian/religious topics such as faith, life after death questions, and hope.

Presently, I'm reading a book by Scott Peck entitled, "A World Waiting to Be Born" which has a lot of connecting points with Christianity. It was wonderful to go to the park yesterday, sit on a bench in the shade, and read.

As we read books this summer, let's see how our faith is connected with what we are reading. It's amazing how thirty minutes can go by quickly.

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How Did I Miss this Book?

How did I miss seeing this recent book, "The Mystery of the Cross," by Judith Couchman, published by InterVarsity Press? For this past season of Lent, I put together a sermon series on "Crosses of Jesus," in which we focused on six different crosses of Jesus to help us reflect on the meaning of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world.

This book would have come in really handy if I would have stumbled upon it sooner. Since there is a wealth of information regarding the crosses of Jesus thanks to Christian tradition and historical sources, the research for this sermon series wasn't too much of a problem. The difficulty was in deciding what information to include and not include for each sermon.

When I stumbled upon Couchman's book this morning, I couldn't help but to imagine how this would have been really helpful six months ago when I began preparing for the series! And the real kicker is that her book is available on Kindle, my favorite way to read.

Speaking of preparing for future sermon series, for our fall stewardship program, I'm presently reading Jim Tressel's "The Winners Manual," as a source especially for the Sunday in that series when we will be talking about the importance of making and keeping commitments. This is a series that will explore the five United Methodist membership vows of prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and what those vows mean to us as we make commitments in each of these areas for the coming year. The title of that sermon series is "Marks of a Christian."

Final Thoughts on "Mainline or Methodist" by Scott Kisker

For my initial review of "Mainline or Methodist," by Scott Kisker read my earlier post. So here's my thought on this book. To be honest, it didn't start out well for me since he views the word, "mainline" in a negative way whereas I view it in a positive light.

For Scott, the label "mainline" as in mainline denominations like United Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans, means that we have chosen an established path rather than a revolutionary path of living out our faith. For sure, mainline denominations have too often gone down that lazy status-quo path. However, for me, the label of mainline correctly identifies denominations such as the United Methodist Church as Christian communities that are willing to bring together a variety of points of views (left vs. right, democrat vs. republican, Michigan vs. Ohio State, etc.) and through scripture, reason, experience, and tradition, we can listen and help each other to discern God's voice.

But putting that aside for the moment, I have very high marks for what Scott has done through this book. He wants us to reclaim the counter-cultural movement that once marked those early 18th and 19th century Methodists.

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Scott reminds us that Wesley's true conversion was when he decided to begin preaching in the fields on April 2, 1739 rather than the date of his heart warming experience at a prayer meeting on May 24, 1738. The Methodist movement really took off once Wesley offered the good news of Christ to where the people were. Wesley preached outside to the people twice a day!

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But Scott reminds us (and this is why I really like the book a lot!) that it wasn't just about Wesley being a street preacher. Wesley was creative, disciplined, and attentive enough to make sure that Methodists were planted out in the crowd who would then notice anyone who was stirred by the message. They would then invite the people who were moved by the sermon to join their weekly Methodist class meeting and that's where many of the conversions happened. They happened in these small group meetings!

Toward the end of his book, Scott makes the point that we United Methodists today need to get back to our roots by spending more time with people in our community and find creative ways of helping people to be part of a small group where they can grow in what it means to be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

The exciting part of the book is that Scott invites us to think about what this might look like in the church we attend. In what ways can we become less mainline (less status-quo) and more Methodist (revolutionary for Jesus) in our churches?

And if I may, I would add, and at the same time, how can we continue to be even more mainline in the way I define the word mainline (open to different points of view/less judgmental?)

Early Thoughts on the Book, "Mainline or Methodist: Rediscovering Our Evangelistic Mission"

I just started reading "Mainline or Methodist?" by Scott Kisker. His main point is that for United Methodism to be a thriving denomination, we need to see ourselves as a movement rather than as an institutional mainline denomination.

When we were at our best, we were a denomination that offered the radical and distinctive message of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The author claims that our slide into mediocrity began when a Methodist preacher conducted the funeral for Abraham Lincoln. By the time of the Civil War, we had become part of the establishment and ceased to be the revolutionary movement that characterizes healthy and vibrant churches.

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A great early quote in the book is when the author cites a line from the movie, "A River Runs Through It" in which a 1920s Presbyterian Minister refers to Methodists contemptuously as "Baptists who can read."

More thoughts on this book will appear on my blog when I finish reading it.

"After You Believe" - Reclaiming Christian Virtue

During commercials of the NCAA men's basketball championship last night, I was able to finish reading the book, "After You Believe," by Tom Wright. I won't spend a lot of time on the first part of the book since I already covered that in an article a week ago. By the way, congratulations to Butler on making this one of the best tournaments in recent memory! I also liked seeing the sign that read, "Duke Divinity School" which was lifted in front of the TV camara at one point.

First of all, as a United Methodist thinker and proponent of Wesleyan theology, this book articulates what John Wesley taught and believed throughout the formation of the Wesleyan movement - that salvation is more than simply raising a hand in the air to accept Jesus Christ. Not to downplay that significant moment when someone says "yes" to Jesus Christ, but salvation means a lifetime of allowing God's grace to help us to be the people we were created to be - priests and rulers who worship and work for God's justice in the world. To do this, we need to practice Christian virtue.

Wright doesn't soft peddle that this intentional life of exercising Christian virtue will be easy. No, we need to develop habits of reading/hearing scripture regularly, examples of mature Christians, stories of faithfulness to the gospel, participation in the community of faith, and practices (spiritual disciplines.) Because some Christians might be uneasy about this high emphasis on sanctification and the spiritual practices, Wright continually reminds the reader that all of this is born out of God's grace, and not something we are doing to earn God's love or favor.

What I most like about this book is that Wright reminds us that living a Christian life isn't a simple and easy matter. It calls us to be open to God's grace again and again and to practice the spiritual disciplines with the goal in mind which is to live our lives in such a way that anticipates that time in the future when heaven and earth will be as one and God's glory and beauty will flood this earth.

Not a bad goal to have in life, is it?

Early Thoughts on the Book, "After You Believe"

According to my kindle, I'm 34% through the book, "After You Believe," by Tom Wright. This is a book that focuses on an often ignored but essential topic in our Christian faith that centers on the question, "What is the whole point of our new life in Jesus Christ?" Is the whole point that we get saved so we can go to heaven? Wright says, "no" even though our salvation is an important part of our faith.

Wright suggests that the bible from beginning to end communicates that God's ultimate goal (teleios in Greek) for us is to be rulers and priests in which we lovingly bring to bear God's healing love to the world. Wright offers scripture references throughout the bible which talk about this twin vocation of God's people being rulers and priests.

Even before God brings final new creation upon the world, we as God's people are to anticipate that new future in the way we live in the present.

In the first part of the book, Wright compares Jesus' ultimate goal for this world to be flooded with God's justice and love with Aristotle's ultimate goal which was happiness and where you fit into the Greek-city state framework. Aristotle who lived before Jesus, emphasized the importance of personal character and virtue in order to reach the ultimate goal of happiness. Jesus also emphasized character and virtue but for the larger purpose of remaking God's creation that way it was meant to be.

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Developing Christian character is not easy. It takes a daily focus on practicing the disciplines of our faith and depending on the Holy Spirit so that when we encounter experiences in our daily living, we will be able to respond in ways that reflect our ultimate goal in life which again, is bring to bear God's new creation.

Wright knows that since Western Christianity has not emphasized this aspect of our Christian faith that focuses on what we are to be doing following our acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior, that some might think that we are getting into some kind of "works righteousness." But Wright is quick to point out that by developing Christian character after we accept Christ, we are simply responding to God's grace, not trying to earn approval from God.

So much else could be said about the first 1/3 of the book, but that's enough for now.

Books Recently Read

I just finished reading "Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels," by Dr. Craig A. Evans, New Testament scholar. Dr. Evans will be the featured speaker at United Theological Seminary's Heck Lectures next month which I will be attending. His topic will be on what we know about Jesus from sources outside of the New Testament.

Dr. Evans makes the point in his book that some bible scholars make the assumption that many of the words of Jesus we find in the four Gospels were not actually said by Jesus but put there by the gospel writers several decades later. These scholars tend to argue that at the time the four Gospels were written, there were several variations of Christianity and that our present New Testament list of books represented only one particular expression of Christianity.

One of the reasons some scholars argue that there wasn't one uniform expression of Christianity as expressed in our present New Testament listing of books is because there are other writings that offer us a different understanding of Jesus. For example, there are gnostic gospels of the life of Jesus such as "The Gospel of Thomas" which offers a very different perspective of who Jesus was. Gnosticism is a belief that the world is evil and it's through knowing secret wisdom that one can be released from this evil world.

The problem with this approach, according to Dr. Evans, is that the gnostic Gospels weren't written until the 2nd century, several decades after our present four Gospels were written. In other words, the four Gospels that we have are the earliest materials that we have of the life of Jesus Christ. The modern scholars who claim that the gnostic Gospels represent a more accurate picture of Jesus base this on their belief that these sources were written in the 1st century.

One of the reasons why people today are fascinated to think that there might be a very different Jesus than the one that we read about in our present Gospels is because of several misunderstandings. These include the belief that the gnostic Gospels were written much earlier than they really were and a move to de-Judaize Jesus (remove Jesus from his Jewish self-understanding and context.)

The point that Dr. Evans is making in his book is that when we see Jesus in his 1st century Jewish context, the four Gospels give us an accurate picture of what Jesus actually said and did in his life and ministry.

I look forward to meeting Dr. Evans next month!

Books Recently Read - "Axiom" by Bill Hybels

Last week, I finished reading Bill Hybels' book, "Axiom" which is a book on Christian leadership. It's a new book that was published in 2008.

Hybels has been pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois for over thirty years and "Axiom" lists seventy-six leadership principles that he has implemented with success over the course of his ministry.

He divides these leadership principles into four major categories:

• Vision & Strategy
• Teamwork & Communication
• Activity & Assessment
• Personal Integrity

Here is a very brief sampling of my highlights from reading the book:

• Don't be afraid to ask people to do something great for God
• Remember that vision leaks. We need to constantly fill the vision bucket and remind ourselves of God's preferred future for our church/ministry.
• Churches typically lose 10% of their membership each year which means leaders/congregations need to be very intentional if they want to see the church grow.
• Hybels uses a "rapture" theology reference which is incidental to his point, not that this surprised me, but it's not my understanding of the second coming of Christ. For my perspective on the 2nd coming, read the post, "Where's Jesus."
• The most important parts of a meeting are the beginning and the end. The last thing that happens in a meeting room will be what people remember. We tend to give the greatest focus to the middle of the meeting.
• I like the "umbrella of mercy" concept which encourages creative brainstorming so people know to not offer their personal judgments or criticisms too quickly when they hear an idea expressed.
• Every church leader should respond to people's requests/inquiries within 24 hours. There's no excuse for delayed responses.
• When beginning a ministry, always plan for making it sustainable. Most of us are so focused on getting a ministry off the ground, that we don't plan for it's long term sustainability.
• Studies show that if you work more than 10 hour days, your effectiveness will dry up and you will experience diminishing returns.
• Effective leaders read. Read a variety of books, periodicals, etc. that will help you to be effective in ministry.
• I like this leadership principle which is very Wesleyan. Don't be late for meetings. Show up ahead of schedule. Lead by example.
• Hybels references a personal story of seeing the great tennis player, Martina Navratilova working out in a gym at the crack of dawn, the morning after she had just won a grueling match in a different state! I've heard similar stories about Tiger Woods. Effective leaders are disciplined.

Too Many Books!

I love it when a book order arrives on my doorstep!

My NT Wright book, "Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision" and "Jesus, The Final Days: What Really Happened" by Craig Evans and NT Wright came this past week.

The first book is an explanation of the doctrine of justification and a critique of reformed theology's interpretation of this doctrine. Wright argues in this book that the issues which were facing the 16th century protestant reformers led to an overemphasis on an individualistic understanding of this doctrine rather than the Apostle Paul's more wholistic view of the redemption of all of creation which includes the individualistic dimension. In short, the modern western church has inherited this "me and Jesus" theology and we need to get back to Paul's understanding of this doctrine.

The second book is a compilation of lectures given by these two authors as a result of urban myths that are being widely circulated on cyber space regarding Jesus' last days. Rather than approaching this problem from an apologetic/faith perspective, although both authors are also committed Christians, the authors approach it from a historical/contextual view in debunking erroneous and popular misunderstandings of the events of Jesus' last days (the events of his death and resurrection.)

My only problem is before I can begin those books I still need to finish my Bill Hybels' book on leadership and I also started reading a book on the importance of networking with people to accomplish goals.
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So, no more ordering from Amazon for me, at least for another month!

Week #5 - The Blue Parakeet

Here's a quick summary of our Thursday morning bible study discussion today on "The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible," by Scot McKnight. We focused on the author's example of a biblical understanding of women in ministry.

First of all, McKnight points out several examples of women who were involved in ministry which included teaching, preaching, and/or leading from both the Old and New Testaments. His examples from the OT included, Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, and Esther. Examples from the NT included Mary, mother of Jesus; Priscilla, Junia, & Phoebe.

Of those examples, the most interesting one to me was Junia which many bible translations which have a biased against women in ministry have as Junias, a male name. Why the different names in various bibles? An ancient Greek manuscript has "Junias" because the copyist assumed a male name, a forgivable mistake since copying the bible is no easy task. However, there is strong textual evidence that the correct name is the female name of Junia. Attestation for this is provided by one of the early church fathers.

Of course, we still have some scripture passages which seem on the surface to imply that women should not be involved in the teaching/preaching ministry of the church. On closer examination, there are cultural reasons for those passages. Furthermore, why would we allow a couple of brief scripture passages to override the wealth of information of several women who were involved in significant leadership positions such as the women mentioned above?

Last but not least, some people claim that the entry of sin into the world in the Book of Genesis points out that men are to rule over women. But as the author points out, the point isn't that this is to be a permanent condition but as a consequence of what happened when sin entered the world. God desires both men and women to serve side by side in ministry. As Paul writes, "In Christ, there is no male or female..."

Next Thursday, we will wrap up our bible study on "The Blue Parakeet."

Vacation Reading - "Surprised by Hope"

One of my goals for vacation was to finish reading the book, "Surprised by Hope," by N.T. Wright, a New Testament scholar and Anglican Bishop who resides in the UK.

The main point of the book is to help Christians get back to an orthodox and early church understanding of the meaning of the word, "resurrection." Too often, people associate the word, "resurrection" with a vague belief that "after I die, I'll go to heaven." Wright argues that after a person who has faith in Jesus Christ dies, that person goes to heaven to be with Jesus, not as a final destination but as a two-part process.

The 2nd part of that process is for all of God's people to be given new transformed bodies when Jesus returns to this earth and sets up his kingdom of justice and peace once and for all. It should be noted that this understanding is very different from the "Left Behind" theology that claims that Christians will be snatched away one day (the rapture) and live in a disembodied state in a place called, heaven, for ever and ever.

From there, Wright explains how this proper understanding of resurrection affirms one of the most basic theological truths of the Christian faith - that God created this world, called it good, and through the life, death, and resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, has already inaugurated the project of new creation (defeating sin, disease, & death) which will find it's fulfillment when Jesus returns and sets up his kingdom on this earth.

When Christians have this proper understanding of resurrection and of God's desire to redeem and reclaim all of creation, the church's task is then to join God in working toward justice and peace through word and deed. We do this while knowing in advance, that one day we will live in God's new creation and be given new bodies that will not be subject to sin, disease, and death.