Great chain of redemption

Calvinists get all excited about Romans 29-20

²⁹ For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; ³⁰ and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

 I know this is their wet-dream, but if only with the tendentious Calvinistic verse-picking at work.

Even while he tends to Arminianism, Clarke's commentary on this segment is more to the fact of the matter. I also read it with a Molinist tinge, but I nevertheless don't think 'Middle Knowledge" is either necessary or helpful as it seeks too much without providing enough.

Let's move slowly:

 

God knew there would be those who had faith in Christ.

Because God is creator and  made us in his image he knows what humans are like and capable of (although child sacrifice took him by surprise: Jeremiah 19:5) and the range of their dispositions and inclinations. The range of human thought, capability and motivations is for God is finite and tiny. We can present to God no conundrum.

We are constrained by the reality we are in, so God has no need of meticulous or even particular 'foreknowledge'. In whatever combination of options available to any person and between all persons no impediment can be given to God's achieving his objective. He doesn't need to 'look into the future' because for God's no-limit-ness the finite (but very large to us) set of possible outcomes for humanity are trivially differentiated for God. Also the challenge range in the set is always within God's much larger capability range with respect to Romans 8:28.

That said, back to Romans 8

For that he knew there would be people who would become faithful to Christ

The destination of  those people he established was that they will be conformed to Christ and so in the New Creation and in my family.

How I will do that? I will have invited who those who are faithful and will justify and glorify them. So all who turn to me will have been those I've invited...but not all invited will necessarily accept the invitation, of course...I know people!

Ephesians 1:13

This is the true order of salvation (what theologians like to latinize to impress as Ordo salutis). Note, the 'in Him' is the theme of this pericope: all of it is about the result of being 'in Christ'.

 ¹³ In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise...

 

Achievement badges.

In the diocesan newspaper there was a list of recent church worthies, both clergy-people and not, who had received a gong from the government. The equivalent to my mind of a primary school merit award or a boy-scout achievement medal.

Matthew 6:2-16 sprang to mind.

Why would one bother?

What is the point?

Does it aid the recipient in their humility, their growth in Christian maturity or the work of the gospel or making disciples?

No. It's just aligning with the powers of the world. 

I would be humiliated by such a bauble. 

Actually I did get a badge from the government once.

As a kid I was in a radio club run by the public-funded radio station. The government sent me the club badge. That's good enough for me! 

Why 4 Gospels?

Why not just one gospel?

The critical issue for any account of an event is evidence. The more witnesses the better. And better still if they have differing perspectives, that way you can be more sure that it is not a put-up job.

When police collect witness statements it gets very suspicious if they are the same, because everyone has a naturally different perspective. Same perspective points to collusion or fraud and raises the suspicion of just one witness giving a self-serving, and distorted report. This would probably be, in reality, an event in private and could be a complete fabrication

Such suspicion attaches to the Quran which was both 'revealed' in private and with circumstantial convenience, and the Book of Mormon, read by Joe Smith alone through magical glasses on gold tablets, which he did not and so probably could not produce!

Still, a sucker is born every minute...both these 'authors' had  predilections for multiple wives and violence, that would also attract the suckers!

Now think about the witnesses of a traffic accident where a number of reports are prepared by those who saw the event or attended the scene for the police to use.

The vehicle removal operative would have a report that was about vehicles and their condition, their place on the road and what had to be done to remove them.

The ambulance crew would talk about the conditions of the injured, perhaps how they were extricated from the cars, what immediate medical aid was given and the hospital(s) to which they were transported.

The on-lookers would give very different views depending on their location when the accident happened, their familiarity with cars and their degree of shock. If they knew the injured or  not would also be a factor.

The  police report from the GD police would provide one perspective, the technical report in evidence from Accident Investigation another.

All reports would differ, but al about the same accident with differing perspectives and purposes.

So the Gospels.

Mark gives a short action-filled account for the average Jewish disciple, let's say.

Luke is interested in fine detail for an educated Greek readership.

Matthew concentrates on the theology and

John writes with a more philosophical or spiritual interest for the more sophisticated Jew or Greek, perhaps.

Some different emphases are given by the writers for their different readers. Variously emphasizing this and sometimes that.

Differences don't mean contradiction, they mean different perspectives with different emphases and referring to different parts or aspects of the mission..

The multiplicity of gospels show this was not an mission or events in secret, but were before witnesses consistently.

If there is only one witness, the cops are understandably sceptical that there is a case without substantial evidence. Once again, compare the Quran where the only witness was self-proclaimed beneficiary of the 'revelation'.!

 

 

Schaeffer and Sartre?

Francis Schaeffer claims that Sartre asserted (words to the effect) that without an infinite reference point man has no true meaning.

Now, I've not found that specific remark, or anything that directly echoes it in what I've read of Sartre...and life is too short to wade through Being and Nothingness without a PhD at the end, but I have read allusions to that in Existentialism is a Humanism and Nausea.

The idea is also consistent with what I recall of what Jaspers had to say in Philosophy of Existence. One only finds definition in some ultimate act of definition...and that is undefined. And, I would say undefinable when the self-experience is the locus of definition. It is a definition based on nothing which has a grounded basis. It floats arbitrarily unattached and truly undefined. So it has no 'meaning' (whatever that word now means) to even the one seeking definitive meaning.

So, lets clarify the conundrum to "without an infinite reference point there is no real self-knowledge."

We can only know ourselves in relation to others, in interpersonal relationships. There are no possible relationships in the non-personal world and any fake or imagined relations ships are in fact mute.

But if true significance ("meaning") comes only through relationships then there must always be a 'reference' relationship, let's say its one's parents. But this is not final. This reference relationship also needs a 'reference' relationship.

In a cosmos that is finally material, the final 'significance' has to be founded or grounded in some mute material thing or process. But it is inter-personally and therefore finally meaningless. It does not communicate, it reflects or responds to nothing of who one is and the only quality of the "relationship" is blank indifference. A nullity.

Yet we still have an inner quest for significance and live and relate as though this is a real thing.

An infinite regress explains nothing as it never ends in a final ground. It vanishes into the indefinably remote and unconnected other which results in the same abject indifference that the material cosmos characterizes.

True self-knowledge, significance or referentially secure "meaning" must remain the product of relationship. To be true and truly significant there must be a viable relational ground in which it terminates and gives a resolution or definition. A self-existent ground, an independent ontology.

Thus we need the Creator God who is person who sustains and anchors all relationship through being the ground and source of personhood and the final 'relater'.

Now the flip-side for the one who denies a Creator-God, who demands we applaud their faux independence and nonchalant self-applauding bravery.

The atheist's dilemma.

We all seek meaning, and often has it in life yet there can be no real axiological pay-off in a material cosmos, Whence the drive for, often achievement of 'meaning' or true significance? Each relies on an implicit teleology which is denied by the meaningless (literally) atheistic conception of termination.

Yet atheists typically act as though their teleological impulse is real while denying a real basis for the 'meaning' quest. So, what is it? The existentialist's self-defining grand act? But to what point? It all ends in dust and in the end no-one cares!

There is really no point, so an atheists has to explain to him/her-self why they even go to the doctor when feeling ill. That too is finally dust and a pointless way-post on the way to a pointless end.

Some provisional thoughts.

What to say when...someone asks why Easter is so important to Christians

As our senior minister this morning said:

"Death was broken when Yeshua the Nazarene rose from the grave, alive." 

He showed through his mission that he was God, others recognized him as God, God showed him as God, and he finally claimed he was Daniel 7's "Son of Man".

Then he proved it by rising from the dead to open the coming of the New Creation. By this bringing the final resolution of the "human condition" and mankind's basic dilemma of seeking grounding and its value in an immaterial and mute cosmos in which we are otherwise the aliens.

The small group newbie

This is a common enough situation. You conduct (facilitate, serve, convene) a small group in your congregation (youth or not), and a newbie shows up.

 A real newbie, someone new to the group's larger context (the Sunday congregation), someone not even Christian, perhaps. 

How to help them fit in?

Perhaps this:

Ask one of the established members if they would be hospitable to the new-comer. Of course this eventuality had been discussed early on, so no surprise to the member.

Just be hospitable. Introduce self, and sit with them.

Let them know they can quietly ask you anything. "I'll give a quick answer if I can, or I'll ask the group as though its my question." You explain.

Then the convenor will ask a couple of questions through the meeting with people in pairs/trios to discuss then offer their view. Here the new-comer can get a little more involved and acclimatized, even be the speaker of the concluded response. The person's steward might suggest this.

Perhaps the person acting as their steward could offer to attend a forthcoming Alpha group with them, or your church's intro afternoon in a couple of week's time at a friend's home.

Is your church up to the game, or does it rely on words, not actions?

This is discipling at work. Not for the new-comer, for the steward. 

 

Street 'evangelism' or is it the Harangue?

 The street corner 

Stand on a street corner or in a square grab a microphone and blast the by-passers with passages from the Bible. Or worse, just verses isolated from context. And keep doing it, telling people stuff they have no idea of the meaning. 

That's the Harangue. Even if you have colleagues handing out leaflets (please don't call them 'tracts'. No one knows what that means), engaging in conversation and offering to pray the sinners prayer, I doubt you are following in Paul's footsteps. Certainly our Lord told us not to pray showily in public (Matthew 6:5).

Paul slipped in to the culture of time and place and made sense to the hearers (Acts 17). The Harangue does not.

I saw a video of a quasi Harangue at a Muslim street fair for Ramadan (the Islamic knock-off of Lent). There was a bit of engagement, I was gratified to see. But no evidence of the real work. And maybe that was not shown at all.

The real work

This is working through the crowd either with or not a satchel of leaflets and Bible books, engaging people in conversation, perhaps assisted by provocative T-shirt slogans: "Is Issa Allah?" or "Is Allah 3?"

In an effort to Muslims the starting point has to be the keen religiosity of many,

Perhaps our common ground where the Quran calls as "people of the book" on which we should stand (The Quran instructs the "People of the Gospel" to follow the teachings therein: Surah 5:47). or that we are the worst of people!

Then we could raise that the Quran shows that Isa is God Surah 3:49, Surah 5:110 , or that Allah is three in one Surah 9:31.

These could  be T-shirt slogans or handout leaflets,

We might also have copies in relevant languages (Arabic) of John and Luke's gospels along with extracts of stories the Quran jumbles from the Torah.

We might even have QR codes for Bible downloads. Is there a book called The Book for Muslims? We might have the Prophesies of Moses (extracts from Torah) or those of Issa to give.

Handouts on Issa and the Quran and Musa (Moses) and the Quran or Quran and Injil could be very helpful to straighten out Islam's errors.