Theology

Some of you are thinking "that's obvious!".

I'm not sure anyone has taken the (alleged) implication Mayan prediction that the world will end on 21st December 2012 totally seriously. Actually, what the Mayans and others really thought about this is somewhat more complex, although unsurprisingly the media aren't terribly interested in nuance.

I've been re-acquainting myself with the second century heretic, Marcion.

In the Lion Handbook: The History of the Christian Church, there is a very helpful short article by H Dermot McDonald that summarises Marcion and his teaching. (You need the 1990 edition of the Lion Handbook - there is a 2009 edition out which I've never seen, but it seems it is a brand new book so won't have this exact portion in).

In our Christianity Explored group last week, we were discussing Jesus' predictions of Peter's denials, and of his own suffering, death and resurrection, as a prelude to a very good session on Jesus' resurrection.

One of the members of the group asked a question about a detail that I had never noticed before in Mark's text:

It's easy to trot off the tongue that we believe in a doctrine called "the priesthood of all believers".

It's harder to explain what we mean by that, and what we don't mean.

It's harder still to articulate the cash-value: What impact does this doctrine make to the lives of Christians and churches on a daily basis?

Well, my friend of many years, Jules Beauchamp, has just put up a website to develop some of these things further. There are already some very helpful posts there coming at this from various angles, but I get the impression that there's more to come.

Go take a look at http://www.biblicalpriesthood.co.uk.

Matthew 28:19 has a command ("go and make disciples"), followed by two participles: "baptising... , and teaching...".

Here's France again:

The order in which these two participles occur differs from what has become common practice in subsequent Christian history, in that baptism is, in many Christian circles, administered only after a period of ‘teaching,’ to those who have already learned. It can become in such circles more a graduation ceremony than an initiation. If the order of Matthew’s participles is meant to be noticed, he is here presenting a different model whereby baptism is the point of enrollment into a process of learning which is never complete.

I've been re-reading John 16:12-15 again. To remind you, here's what it says:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

I recently spent a very happy day with Dr Garry Williams at The John Owen Centre studying the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. (That's to say: Take the sentence "The Bible is the word of God"? How does that statement relate to other areas of theology - like what God is like, and the acts by which he makes himself known in history? What do we mean when we say "The Bible is the word of God"? What are we not saying when we say that? What biblical data would support that assertion?) A happy, and a very useful, day.

The Lord's Supper is the world in miniature; it has cosmic significance. Within it we find clues to the meaning of all creation and all history, to the nature of God and the nature of man, to the mystery of the world, which is Christ. It is not confined to the first day, for its power fills seven. Though the table stands at the center, its effects stretch out to the four corners of the earth. (Leithart, Blessed are the Hungry, page 11)

People sometimes worry that the 4 Gospels don't tell the resurrection story in exactly the same way. This is to worry needlessly. If the 4 Gospels told the resurrection story in contradictory ways, that would be a different matter. As it is, we simply have a difference in perspective. Look at the story from different angles, you include different details and stress different things. It couldn't be otherwise. The four Gospels are not an assortment of favourite deeds of Jesus, thrown together haphazardly.