Archive for December 22nd, 2008

Highlight(s) of the week: (1) Family Christmas party at the Cock & Bull in Peddler’s Village this past Sunday. (2) Amanda and I were able to hang out with Jon (brother) & Katie (his fiance) and Phil (brother) & Arielle (girlfriend) afterward at TGI Friday’s. (3) Both Amanda and I are now off from work for Christmas break! (4) Another person and I did the Call to Worship at church on Sunday. It was a responsive “singing.” We read verses from Psalm 13 (How long? passages), and everyone responded by singing the lines “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. And ransom captive Israel.” Didn’t tell Todd we were going to do this ahead of time, but it actually fit into his sermon. Cool. (5) Won our fantasy football league saving me from paying someone else $60! Spanked Aaron 127-67 (at this point, unless his kicker can make up 60 points tonight. I’m calling it a win!).

I’ve recently started re-reading Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Enns’ “incarnational analogy” of Scripture is basically that Christ being the “Word of God” is equally fully man and fully God, and so is Scripture being the “Word of God” is equally fully human and fully God. I have been moved by the following quotes:

On the interpretation of Scripture: “To put it succinctly: the Spirt leads the church to truth–he does not simply drop us down in the middle of it. To say this is not a low view of Scripture or the role of the Holy Spirit. It is simply to recognize what has been the case throughout the history of the church, that diverse views and changes of opinion over time have been constant companions of the church and that God has not brought this process to closure” (p. 49).

On the uniqueness of Scripture: “What makes Israel’s law and wisdom literature unique is not so much what it says (although that is certainly true with various laws), but Israel’s claim to be connected to the one true God who alone has the right to lay these claims upon them. That is the message to the other nations: This is the law of God who delivered us from Egypt; this is the wisdom of God who created heaven and earth. We worship him. The similarities between Israel’s conduct and that of the other nations does not make Israel less unique among the nations any more than Jesus’ sharing in the customs of practices of first-century Palestine makes him less unique. Rather both Israel’s practices and Christ himself are evidence of ‘God with us’” (p. 59; bold mine).

Enns, P. (2005). Inspiration and incarnation: evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament. Baker: Grand Rapids.

Aren’t they great?! I think so.

It would be better if when offering people advice, we’d, instead, offer them stories. I tried to think if I ever remember Jesus giving someone what we typically would call “advice.” He told people parables, or stories, if you will. Stories resonate with the human-ness of an individual or individuals. We understand them better because we can live within the story the person is telling us. When Christ told parables, the characters represented something other then themselves, and you could see yourself as the prodigal son or the rich man (even if Jesus was trying to paint a picture of something else entirely). Also, the individual could see themselves playing a different character within the same story. For instance, in accordance with the holiday, have you ever watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas (I prefer, the Jim Carey version)? At times, you see yourself as the Grinch; other times, the Whos; other times, Max the dog (?, or at least, I have). Depending upon where you are at the moment, you could be anyone of them.

So, next time your friend is struggling with an addiction or a sickness, put down your college psych textbook and offer him or her a story to ease his or her pain.