Couldn't Help Noticing

A Page a Day

It's almost time to retire the old wall planner and get a new one for 2006. Yesterday I went past a stall and, amongst the calendars sporting pictures of dogs, cats, horses and ferrets, and fruit and vegetables dressed up to look like dogs, cats, horses and ferrets, I saw a bunch of Page-A-Day boxed calendars. I've never understood their appeal; surely they make organising and recording engagements a little difficult since you get no sense of the big picture of what's going on from week to week? And they're inconvenient to flip through. Furthermore, who needs 365 knitting patterns? Even I can't get through that many projects in a year!

I suppose their attractiveness lies in their novelty—something new every day, be it a Lord of the Rings exclusive movie still, a Dilbert comic, another Sudoku puzzle, a quilting pattern, some sports trivia, or a bit of received wisdom courtesy of Helen Steiner Rice, Stephen Covey, church billboards or even the Bible. Something to admire, something to amuse, something to bemuse, something to entertain or educate before being crumpled up and thrown into recycling oblivion.

Consider the 365 Bible Verses Page-A-Day 2006 Daily Boxed Calendar:

“For thou art my lamp, O Lord: and the Lord will lighten my darkness.” (2 Samuel 22:29) Take comfort and inspiration from the eternal source—the Bible. Every day, 365 Bible Verses features a gem of profound wisdom, cited chapter and verse from the King James version, that is a beacon to those seeking a virtuous life.

From Deuteronomy comes a call for courage, from Proverbs, a celebration of learning and understanding. Ephesians counsels faith, Zechariah urges compassion, and John exalts the peacemakers. Enjoy these timeless words and rock solid values.

Apart from thinking that the compilers have missed the point of Deuteronomy, I wonder whether such a thing expresses proper reverence for the Bible in extracting a bit of it to grace Tuesday 11th July just because it sounds nice and appeals to our craving for spiritual fast food. I wonder whether it misrepresents what the Bible is all about—not upliftment, encouragement, inspiration or feeling better but knowing the one true God.

Would it be possible to make a calendar about, say, the Trinity, where the user is confronted with 365 aspects of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Would it be possible to make a calendar that helps one to reflect on the impact that knowing the Triune God God has on the Christian? Would it be possible to make a calendar that, instead of presenting something new everyday, reminds us continually of what is old but good?

All this reflection on verses and calendars just makes me want to dive more into the Word of God. For me anyway calendars are more for planning and organising rather than growing and learning, and I know I'll meet my heavenly Father more in Scripture rather than in schedules.

Apostle and Abortion

In 1 Corinthians 15:8 Paul refers to himself as an apostle “untimely born”. To be perfectly blunt, Paul appears to be associating himself here with an abortion or the result of a miscarriage. It's a grotesque image.

Paul may have chosen it simply because he came to the whole apostleship game late. That is, he was not someone who lived with Jesus and heard his teaching firsthand; although he was a witness to the resurrection (see Acts 2:22-23; compare Acts 9:1-19).

On the other hand, there may be more to this phrase. There is plenty of evidence that the Corinthians did not think at all highly of Paul. He was weak and trembling, an unimpressive speaker (1 Cor 2:3-4). The Corinthians are the most likely source of the quote about Paul which says that “his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account” (2 Cor 10:10). He was known to have physical problems (2 Cor 12:7). These are just some of the more obvious complaints that were made about him.

So it may be that by calling himself one “untimely born”, Paul is frankly acknowledging that he looked bad. And even if he'd been Brad-Pitt-handsome to begin with, years of bodily testing, persecution and imprisonment would've left their mark.

Yet the fact is that he really was born an apostle, timely or not. His authority stemmed from the undeniable truth that he really had seen the risen Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. He really had been appointed by Christ Jesus personally to carry the message of the gospel, including the resurrection, to the Gentiles. There's no point pretending that Paul gained authority because he was personally powerful, convincing and impressive. His power came from God alone, and God's power in him was all the more convincing because of the weakness of the bearer. “Therefore”, says Paul, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor 12:9).

If your pastor looks like he suffered an accident at birth, don't be too hard on him. Listen to the gospel he preaches.

Speaking in Tongues

Since I speak Swedish at about 4th class level, I like to let it slip occasionally that I have ‘the gift of tongues’, as referred to by Paul in 1 Corinthians. I'm occasionally confronted, however, by people who are convinced that ‘the gift of tongues’ in the Bible refers to a supernatural or divinely inspired babbling, understandable only to God and someone with the divine gift of interpretation.

So, is there any evidence at all that the gift of ‘tongues’ to which Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 12-14 refers to anything other than normal speech, in a regular human language that the speakers don't understand?

As Paul nowhere defines ‘tongues’ we have to make a bit of a stab at what he means when he uses the Greek word glossa. In the gospels, this word literally means the ‘tongue’, the piece of flesh that is found inside the mouth. However, it's hard to see how even the Corinthian church would consider the sprouting of an extra tongue, say from an earlobe or a shoulderblade, as something to boast about; and it is even more difficult to see why God would choose to give such a tongue as a gift for the building up of the church (1 Cor 14:12).

Glossa, or ‘tongue’, does have another meaning, however. In Acts 2:4-6 (a highly significant passage for a number of groups who want to encourage ‘speaking in tongues’), the Holy Spirit comes down at Pentecost, with the spectacular result that people from right across the Roman Empire hear the gospel in their own language. This is because the speakers are speaking in ‘tongues’, and here we can't avoid the conclusion that—apparently miraculously—the speakers are speaking other human languages. The hearers are gobsmacked, so to speak:

Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues [Greek glossai] the mighty works of God. (Acts 2:8-11)

Outside Acts—and leaving 1 Corinthians aside for the moment—the 21 of 49 occurrences of the glossa word group can in their various contexts only mean either the physical ‘tongue’, or simply a ‘language’ of the normal or garden variety human sort.

So a reasonable assumption as we approach 1 Corinthians is that here, too, “tongues” means ‘normal human language’ (having already excluded the other meaning, ‘piece of flesh normally found growing in the mouth’ as improbable).

Whilst this meaning makes perfect sense, there are two verses that might cause us to suspect that something else is meant. In 1 Corinthians 13:1 Paul refers to tongues “of men and of angels”. And in 1 Corinthians 14:14, Paul acknowledges that “if I pray in a tongue ... my mind is unfruitful”, suggesting possibly that he himself doesn?t understand what he's saying.

However, both of these tricky verses can be understood in a simpler way that doesn't require us (or God for that matter) to create a whole new class of languages that no human being could ever understand without the intervention of an extraordinary miracle. 1 Corinthians 13 uses hyperbolic, over-the-top language to show the Corinthians just how silly their preoccupation with spiritual gifts is. In the verses straight after, Paul imagines situations where he is variously given insight into every single mystery in the world and every piece of knowledge, having the faith to shift a Kilimanjaro, a K-2 or Kosciuszko (all mountains ranging in size from S to XXL), losing everything and giving his body to be burned. It is extreme language, sarcastic and satirical. Paul mocks the Corinthians for their preoccupation with the supernatural and the impressive. In so doing, he doesn't necessarily imagine any of these scenarios to be true-to-life; indeed, his satire is all the more biting if the Corinthians can recognize just how grotesque his suggestions are.

As for the idea that praying in tongues means that Paul's mind is unfruitful, it doesn't mean that his mind is actually inactive. Trust me when I say that during the times when I have attempted to carry on conversation in Swedish with my Swedish cousins, my mind has been revved up into the red zone and has quickly overheated. But if I were to decide, for reasons best known to myself, to preach to an English congregation in Swedish, I can guarantee ahead of time that my mind would be unfruitful in the extreme. No-one would understand a word I said, and the more I spoke, the more confusing I would become.

Far better to follow Paul in his thinking when he insists that “in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue”.

Or, to put this in terms that any Briefing reader can warm to, I would rather put one half-baked idea into a CHN, than compose the most erudite three thousand word Briefing article that only someone with the loyalty of a wife would read (no TP, I'm not having a go!). For which reason, I shall now stop.

Don’t believe what you read

As if we needed any more reminders not to believe what we read in the papers or are told in the electronic media, Reason magazine chronicles the spread of false and exaggerated media stories in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“Katrina evacuation halted amid gunfire—shots are fired at military helicopter” screamed one headline that was featured on at least 150 news outlets around the globe. Except that it didn't happen. Subsequent investigation showed that the evacuation was not halted at any time because of gunfire at a helicopter, military or otherwise. In fact, there is no evidence of any helicopter being fired at, full stop.

The same is true of the story of the seven-year-old rape victim with her throat cut, the story of the Convention Centre freezer stacked with 30 or 40 bodies, and the reports of widespread rapes and gang violence—all either completely untrue or wildly exaggerated.

There are two plausible explanations for this rash of of bad journalism. The first is the chaos and pressure of the emergency situation. In the heat of the moment, and under the intense pressure of deadlines, journalists swallowed rumours and fabrications that they might otherwise might have regarded with more scepticism, and checked more carefully.

The second is the power of the ‘story filter’. All journalists have a series of convenient templates or story filters in their brains which they use to cope with the daily pressure of writing stories with limited time based on limited facts. We see it with the reporting of Christianity all the time: there's the ‘church persecutes women and gays’ story, the ‘out-moded church in decline’ story, the ‘unconventional priest trying new tricks to win converts’ story, and so on. When a piece of information comes along that seems to fit into one of these templates or filters, the journo can quickly write the story.

In the case of New Orleans, one suspects it was the ‘humans descending to primitive savagery when under pressure’ story; or even the more sinister ‘blacks reverting to dangerous violence’ type story.

Or perhaps there's a third reason for all this, the one that the Psalmist points to: “And in my dismay I said, ‘All men are liars’” (Ps 116:11).

Beach mission idea

Many of our evangelical community will be engaged in beach missions and country missions over the Christmas break. Here's an idea for those who are trying to take the gospel to infants and primary children during those missions. If you know people who are involved in that great ministry, perhaps you'd like to pass this idea on to them.

The idea is to make use of Kel Richards' new ‘Aussie bush yarn’ for kids, Gumtree Gully. It's a parable of the gospel (based on Two Ways to Live), using characters which are all Australian native animals (and, of course, the human park ranger).

Why not invite the kids to a ‘story-telling’ time each day, and read a chapter each time (there are six chapters). Read the story in a nice dramatic way (perhaps with different people voicing the different characters and a narrator). Then the narrator can work through the ‘What's inside this story?’ section, which seeks to explain the meaning of the parable to the children. And, to get the children to think and respond to the story, you could also use some of the discussion questions from the ‘Things for adults to talk about with kids’ section at the back of the of the book.

At the end of the sixth session, you could offer the children a copy of Gumtree Gully or Who will be king? to take home.