Category: Of Random Interest

Wow–Jack, author of Intregrity blog made several comments back-to-back in response to my earlier posting about baptism.

I’ll have to wait to address his lengthier comment, but I’ll tackle his shorter question right now: To make my question more explicit: what I don’t understand is how you reconcile this “physical birth” interpretation in the context of Jesus stating the conditions of entry into the Kingdom. Are you suggesting that it read as, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is physically born and spiritually born, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Doesn’t seem odd to cite physical birth — something we all have experienced by the virtue of our existence — as a condition to entry into Heaven? Doesn’t that interpretation render the “of water” part of the phrase a moot point? After all, who hasn’t been physically born?

Thanks–I was worried that I wasn’t clear enough in my previous posting. I now know that I was positively muddy!

Here’s the flow of conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in the NET Bible translation of John 3.5–7:

Jesus replied, I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above [anothen], he cannot see the kingdom of God.

In this snippet of dialog, Jesus explains the whole shebang: you must be born from above. The word anothen is ambigious in Greek. In this context, it might either mean “from above” or “again”. Recent scholarly translations come down on the side of “from above,” which makes the most sense of the conversation (NET and NRSV are two of the translations: check them out).

Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mothers womb and be born a second time, can he?

Nicodemus doesn’t understand what Jesus is saying. Being born from above doesn’t make any sense to him, but neither does being born again. Evidently, he thinks being born again is the more likely meaning, so he asks Jesus the above question based on that mistaken understanding.

Why would Nicodemus assume that Jesus was talking about physical birth? Because Nicodemus thought his own physical birth was salvific. Nicodemus was trusting in his status as a biological member of God’s chosen peole to assure him of citizenship in God’s Kingdom.

Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ ” (John 3.3–7, NET Bible)

Jesus is now trying to help Nicodemus understand his real point–that everyone must be born from above. To that end, he draws a contrast between the physical birth that Nicodemus thinks Jesus is talking about and the spiritual birth that Jesus is driving at.

What evidence is there for this point of view?

1) It makes sense of the flow of conversation. Jesus talks about spiritual birth, Nicodemus thinks he’s talking about physical birth, so Jesus bridges from physical birth back to spiritual birth.

2) “Born of water” is clearly a metaphor for something. Physical birth is the topic being discussed when the metaphor is used, and the metaphor fits.

3) The parallelism in the text itself. The unclear term “born of water” is in parallel construction with “born of flesh”. Using the clear to interpret the unclear, we see that “born of water” means the same thing as “born of flesh.” In other words, being born.

4) It does justice to Nicodemus’ likely frame of mind. Nicodemus thought he was guaranteed access to the Kingdom of God based purely on the accident of his birth as a Jewish person.

I hope that helps.

There are other interpretations out there: just do a search on Google for “born from above.”

This post is part of an ongoing dialog I’m having with Sean Gallagher at his Bene Diction blog. Right now we’re discussing what it means to follow Jesus, and the current subtopic is how baptism relates to that. This post will be concise because of the blog medium, so please let me know if anything is unclear.

Sean believes that one becomes a Christian upon being baptized. In his own words,

As a Catholic, I believe that a follower of Jesus is one who is born of water and Spirit (Jn 3:5), that is, one who has been baptized… Once a person has been baptized, at any age, this ability is never taken away… even if a person totally refuses to work with that grace [of baptism], that person is still a follower of Jesus.

Wow. It took us exactly one round of replies to get to core Catholic/Protestant differences.

One of the crucial texts here is John 3.3–7:

Jesus replied, I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mothers womb and be born a second time, can he? Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ ” (John 3.3–7, NET Bible)

In this passage, Jesus tells Nicodemus that everyone must be born anothen. The word anothen is ambigious in Greek. It can either mean “again” or “from above.”

Nicodemus thinks Jesus is saying “you must be born again” (hence his question, “How can a man be reborn? He can’t enter his mother’s womb again, can he?”) Nicodemus has misunderstood Jesus, and that is the context for what follows!

Jesus answers, “No, I’m not telling you to be born twice in a physical sense. You have to be both physically born [born of water] and spiritually born [born from above]. What is produced by flesh is flesh, but what is produced by Spirit is spirit.” (please note the use of parallelism here–it’s essential for interpreting the passage properly: ‘flesh’ parallels ‘water’ and ‘from above’ parallels ‘spirit’.)

In other words, neither person is discussing baptism. Jesus says that we are given physical life in our first birth (a birth of water), and that now we must have spiritual life planted in us (a birth of spirit). He goes on to explain exactly what that means later in the same conversation:

“For this is the way God loved the world: he gave his one and only Son that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.” (John 3.16–18, NET Bible)

In other words, we are made alive spiritually by placing our faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

I’m sure there are other references that Sean takes to support salvific baptism, and I’m eager to dialog about them. I’m also curious to see what people think about the “born again/born from above” interpretative issue. I find that the wording is one of those sacred cows in the evangelical world even though it’s an untenable translation.

P.S. The NET Bible is one of my favorite translations, but I can’t find a way to directly link to a reference them. Hence my links are to the NIV at http://bible.gospelcom.net even though I quote from the NET Bible! If you know how to link directly to a NET Bible reference (a specific chapter and verse), please let me know!

Hermann Burchard, mathematics professor at Oklahoma State, has suggested that we invent a cosmic-sized airbag to bounce incoming metors away from earth.

Hmmm.…

That reminds me of what a friend of mine thinks might be the (unintentional) funniest line in a movie. In Armageddon, all the science gurus at NASA are trying to figure out how to avert the annihilation of all life on earth, when someone says (roughly), “What we need here is the world’s best deep-core oil driller.”

On a sad side note, Boston college has a leg up on Stanford when it comes to washing machine technology.

Oh well, I guess we’ll have to console ourselves with the thought that we’ve been the #1 sports school in America 8 years in a row!

I’ve been meaning to mention for a while now that I’ve started a blog conversation with Sean Gallagher (a Catholic who runs a blog title Note Bene) about the reason Petencostal missionaries seem to target Catholics.

Here’s the rundown so far: it all began when I read Sean’s August 24th post about Pentecostal proselytism. I made a comment on that posting explaining my point of view.

As a Pentecostal missionary (albeit to Stanford and not Latin America), I’d like to comment.

Some people who attend Catholic churches are followers of Jesus, and some are not. My strong impression is that here in the Americas the majority are not.

By way of disclaimer, I would like to add my belief that the same problem exists in most denominations (including mine): too many people are involved because of momentum and not because of faith. I do think the problem is particularly acute in the RCC.

That being said, I never deliberately seek to proselytize people who are faithful adherents of another Christian tradition. In general, if a student tells me they are a Christian I believe them, and I try to help them grow in their faith. If I am of significant help to them, they often wind up switching their adherence.

However, when I meet someone without a vibrant faith (such as the infamous Easter and Christmas only crowd), I try to help them either reawaken a faith grown cold or discover true faith for the first time. Whenever that happens, they almost always switch their adherence. This is what I believe is happening in South America.

The switch has two roots, I think: one is an emotional intuition that what’s working for us might work for them since we were so helpful to them, the other is that we express significantly different doctrinal positions from the RCC that if believed make a switch virtually inevitable.

He thought that what I said was pretty interesting, and brought it to the attention of his readers. Shortly thereafter, he posted a series of questions for me answer

.

I answered his questions via email, but for your convenience, here they are:

I’ll answer your questions as best I can, just remember that I’m not a spokesperson for my denomination (much less for all of Pentecostalism)… I come from the strand of Pentecostalism that values other traditions without compromising the integrity of my own (much like the founders of the Society for Pentecostal Studies).

First, what is a follower of Jesus? I should state for the record that I am using this term synonymously with Christian. The authors of the New Testament seem to have been incapable of conceiving of a Christian who was not actively seeking to emulate Jesus. Jesus’ call was (and is) to “come, follow me.” In fact the very label Christian refers to the concept of ‘little Christs.’ Having said that, I would define a follower of Jesus as someone who has embraced the teachings and example of Jesus as the foundation of their lives and has brought their lives under the influence of the God (become citizens of the Kingdom). The classic word for this action is repent: to turn from a self-directed life to a God-directed life.

Second, defining a faithful adherent is always tricky. I mean both faithful (consistent participant in a local community of Christian faith) and faith-full (conforms to the definition above). Allow me to demonstrate by way of counterexample what I’m getting at:

* Suppose that I’m in conversation with a student and they discover that I’m an ambassador for Christ. They make some sort of comment along the following lines, “Yeah, I was raised in church, but I just don’t find it meaningful. I stopped going when I was a teenager.” In my mind, they flunk both tests–they need to be introduced to the King and enrolled in a local community of like-minded believers.

* Suppose that I meet a student who says, “Yeah, I love going to church–that’s where all the cute girls go!” (and upon investigation I discover that they really are that shallow). They pass the consistency test but fail the follower of Jesus test.

* Suppose that I meet a student who says, “Yeah–I really admire Jesus. But I hate the church–they’ve really let me down. I’ll never set foot in a church again!” Perhaps they pass test #2 (further investigation is needed), but they fail test #1.

I would consider all these people in desperate need of God’s grace expressed through human love in the context of a community earnestly following Jesus. Please note that I never mentioned a specific denominational background for any of them–it’s irrelevant to these examples.

Third, how would I as a Pentecostal help a Catholic grow in their faith? That’s an excellent question! Basically I do it the same way I help anyone to grow in their faith: love them unconditionally, pray for them consistently, encourage them in righteousness, and rebuke them in sin. Teach them the lessons of Scripture (I should note that my interpretation of Scripture differs from the Catholic understanding at points. I obviously teach what I believe to be true). Give reasonable answers to honest questions. In addition, here are a few other actions I’d take with someone from a churched background:

* I’ve noticed that many college-aged people engage in liturgy by rote and fail to understand its significance (confirmation notwithstanding). I’d try to help them see it with fresh eyes: as a heartfelt expression of worship and devotion to God. I’d probably also give them a copy of something like Peter Kreeft’s One Catholic to Another.

* I’ve also noticed that many students raised in church (of whatever tradition) have a very juvenile understanding of faith–their religious education stalled at a junior high level and they’ve never probed their faith at an age-appropriate level. Incidentally, I think that’s one of the reasons so many college students bail on the church. They’re trying to incorporate irreconcilable worldviews in their minds: one a 7th-grade understanding of the good news and the other a college-level understanding of secular philosophy. Guess which one wins? To that end, I’d try to help students reframe their questions and seek answers in a more sophisticated manner.

* Another high priority on my list is to help students experience the immediate supernatural power of the Holy Spirit (including the charismata). The Bible portrays charismatic Christianity as the normative model for followers of Jesus. We are to exhibit not only the fruit of the Spirit but also the gifts of the Spirit.

Fourth, I think I’ve addressed this question in my response to questions one and two. A vibrant faith is a combination of belief and trust that makes a difference in one’s day-to-day opinions, feelings, and behavior.

I hope I’ve answered your questions meaningfully. I’m sure you’ll have some comments in response.

So far he’s posted his reponse to my answer to his first question: What Defines a Follower of Jesus? I’ll try to respond as soon as I can (although my in-laws are visiting and that will make computer time harder to come by).

A British girl was struck in the foot by a meteorite.

Yeah, you read that correctly. She was hit by an object falling from space.

If you’re like me, you’re first thought is to assume that she should be dead (or at least footless). The article doesn’t even mention that the impact hurt.

So I did some quick research. The meteor would have reached terminal velocity well before impact. Terminal velocity for medium-sized meteors is only around 45 miles per hour. This one was much, much smaller (looks to be only around 1–2 inches in diameter). That means its terminal velocity is below 45 mph.

So I guess it felt like getting hit in the foot by a baseball.

I’ve just kicked off a discussion over at The Idea Exchange (national Chi Alpha’s peer-learning site) about the ethics of downloading music and movies.

You can find the discussion (along with a poll) over there, so why not join in the fray?

My initial posting poses three questions:
1) What is the law?
2) What should the law be?
3) What should we do?

Noted philospher Charles Taylor (who seems to be a Christian) has just been interviewed in Books and Culture on What It Means to Be Secular.

It’s pretty interesting stuff. For example

To say we live in a secular civilization is to say that God is no longer inescapable. It doesn’t mean that we live in a society from which God has been expelled. I don’t think we ever will live in such a society for very long; the Communists tried that. But the nature of this modern secular society is that it’s deeply plural. We have to accept that the ultimate grounding of the civilization we share in common is up for grabs.

and later on

There is an alternative readingnamely, that we’re moving to a society where more and more the consensus will be around an unbelieving variant of the modern social imaginary. But to me this seems to be just a dream. It’s a dream that arises among those who are deeply into an atheist or non-believing position and are convinced as a matter of faith that religion will gradually disappear and everyone will think as they do. For them, the secular world is one in which we all end up agreeing fundamentally that there’s no God, and that agreement is the basis of everything. That’s an impossible scenario, and the more they think like that, the worse it’s going to be.

Check this out on CNN: A Pornographer Hacks An Al-Quaeda Site. This is one of those bizarre little situations in which someone we thoroughly disapprove of does something we greatly approve of.

Evidently his expertise in running a smut site was immediately applicable to the challenge of hacking a paranoid and ruthless organization’s computer. Messner, using the aggressive tactics he’s employed to run his adult site, said he “hijacked” Al Neda for five days It kind of makes you wonder exactly what skills porn site operators pick up… One more good reason to avoid porn like the plague–some of these guys are ace hackers!

I found the following excerpts sad: “I bought a digital camera and convinced my wife to get naked for the Internet.” … His Porsche and its “WIVES” vanity plates memorializing his success in adult entertainment are, he believes, a testament that he and his family are living the American dream. And, in his own way, Messner said, he is fighting an American war.

In the entire CNN article there’s not a hint of appropriate moral indignation that this man is both destroying the sacredness of his own marriage and enticing men across the world to violate their marriage vows. I’m willing to bet that it didn’t even cross the journalist’s mind… *sigh* Does no one see how destructive pornography is?

I ran across a very interesting rant comparing Islam and Christianity by a blogger I’d never heard of called James Lileks (I found the link on blogdex).

At one point, Mr. Lileks identifies himself thusly I am a Deist, which means EVERYONE disagrees with me.

Translation: a lot of his underlying assumptions will differ from yours, but you should still read the piece. He puts some very important points in a very direct way.

Here’s his opening statement:
There are two ways for a religion to approach life:

A) Everything is permitted except that which is forbidden; over time, we work out the details as the situations arise.

B) Everything is forbidden except that which is permitted, and we will work out the details in advance.

After an opening like that, how can you not read the rest?

(there’s a similar diatribe at Little Green Footballs, although it’s not as reflective it does have the virtue of a very active comments section)

I added this next bit on 8/9/2002
Ever wonder what an Episcopalian terrorist would look like?