Heat-Spurs Game 6, and Christian Joy

By any estimation, last night's Game 6 between the Spurs and Heat
was one of the best games in NBA history. The Heat rallied from what looked like a certain loss, led by man-beast Lebron James in the fourth, to force overtime (and eventually win). Ray Allen's three pointer to tie with less than six seconds left will go down as one of the great clutch shots in NBA history.

On ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning today, the discussion involved who was to blame for the Spurs blowing such a big lead. Should Popovich have pulled Manu out of the game, should Duncan have been in on the final play, etc.

Guest Dan LeBetard made a spot-on observation at this point. He questioned why it is that we always try to find the negative (who to blame for the loss) instead of focusing on the positive (a classic game with an historic comeback, led by this generation's best player)?

LeBetard pointed out that the same is true of us in regular life. We go to an amusement park or Disney and we complain about the high prices or the crowds or the heat or the rides that we can't go to, rather than enjoying the magical moments we are experiencing.

I think LeBetard is definitely onto something here. We have a natural, worldly tendency to seek out the negative, to find the disappointment, to revel in the dark times. We want to be disappointed, to some degree.

Contrast this with Christian joy, one of the fruits of spiritual living according to our Scripture. The Greek word for joy (chara) derives from the word for grace (charis): the implication being that joy is not mere happiness or momentary pleasure, but rather a profound and spiritual appreciation for the receipt of something that we do not deserve.

We did not deserve, or do anything to earn, the right for last night's basketball game to be excellent. So a person with a spiritual worldview would, according to Paul, receive joy in the watching--appreciation and pleasure for getting to enjoy something that we did nothing to earn.

When you go to an amusement park it is true that you paid to get in, and therefore one would be right to be disappointed or upset if you were denied the right to enter. But once you have entered, you have no right to expect, nor have you done any work to deserve, that the rides are all available or lines are all short or the day is not too hot. Therefore a spiritual lifestyle will focus us not on the negative things that aren't perfect, but rather seek joy in the magic that is available to us.

Therein, for me, lies the key spiritual attitude, the deep truth underneath LeBetard's wise observation: the worldly man selfishly believes that all things should go his way, and thus hates anything imperfect; whereas the spiritual man believes he does not deserve anything from those around him, and thus finds at least some joy in any situation.

Youth Group Series "F.A.Q.": Week 2 - How do we know our copy of the Bible is a reliable copy?

Last week, we helped the students see that the evidence is strongly in favor of the traditional New Testament canon. This week, we wanted to provide some confidence in the textual analysis of the Bible--how do we know that the New Testament is a reliable copy of the original autographs?

To do this, we played three games that helped illustrate the point.


Game 1:  Text Race

There's no better way to learn textual criticism than to do it yourself.

We divided into teams and each team selected a leader. The leader was given the same passage (Luke 4:1-3, ESV) to copy by hand, as quickly as they could--but as accurately as possible.

Those leaders then took the copies back to their teams and the teams had to copy them as many times as possible, also as accurately as possible. The first team to make 5 copies, wins. (You could do 10 or 15 or 20, depending on youth group size.)


Then the real contest began.

I took the original copies that the leaders had made and threw them away. The youth group--now all working together--then had to re-create the original document from their copies.

What this did was help drive home some points very quickly. Without any training whatsoever, they quickly realized that by comparing the copies to each other, one could very quickly see which ones were flawed manuscripts and which were legitimate. Some of the ones they had were complete copies, and some only fragments (because one team had not yet finished all of theirs). Some had commas or misspelled words while others did not.

So the teams worked together and found that it was actually rather easy to recreate the original accurately (and they did so!). They simply had to look at the evidence and make wise decisions.

The points:
1.  The more copies you have, the easier it is to recreate the original.
2.  The earlier/more original the copies, the better.



Game 2:  Basketball Shoot

Next, we had a basketball shoot. We picked the six most commonly-quoted texts from this time period:  Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome; Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War; Caesar's Gallic Wars; Homer's Iliad; and the New Testament.

One youth group member played on behalf of each book.

The key metric here is, "How long a time span existed between the original writing and our earliest existing manuscript?" Obviously, the smaller the time gap, the better for our analysis.

So what we did was that each player had to stand 1 foot away from the goal for every 50 years of time span gap.

The measurements are:

• Tacitus:  20 ft
• Thucydides:  26 ft
• Caesar:  20 ft
• Plato:  24 ft
• Homer:  10 ft
• New Testament:  1 ft

The players then shot baskets, the question being--which one is the most likely to score consistently? Obviously, the one playing for the New Testament, because the gap between him and the goal is so small.

The points:

1.  Compared to other works of the same era, the New Testament manuscripts are FAR more reliable, because we have copies which date 10x closer to the original than we do of the next best ancient text.

Game 3:  Milliliter drinking game

Yes, we had a drinking game at our church youth group. Don't worry, it was Dt Mountain Dew.

So again, one person had to play for each of the works above. This time, the question is how many copies of early manuscripts do we have?

So what we did is that each person had to drink 1 mL of soda for each early manuscript copy that we still could lay hands on today.

As a result, there wasn't much drinking going on for most of them:

• Tacitus:  2 mL
• Thucydides:  8 mL
• Caesar:  10 mL
• Plato:  7 mL

So for most of them, they were getting a few drops of soda--barely enough to taste.

Next, we upgraded to the Iliad--which has several hundred early manuscripts available to us today.  For the boy who was representing the Iliad, he had to try and drink down two cans of soda. (He was able to get one down without puking.)

This really drove home the point to them that the Iliad had more early manuscripts than all these other ancient works added together.

So what about the New Testament? Well, for him...

I pulled out a two-liter.

Then another.

Then another.

Then another.

In total, we needed 12 two liters, representing 24,000 early manuscripts of the New Testament. (Only 9 are pictured here because I let the poor kid keep three as a prize.)

The point was driven home well:  we have FAR more early manuscripts of the New Testament than of any other ancient text. Add all of the others together and you still have 98% fewer than the New Testament texts!

Bringing it all together

So in our discussion time at the end, we discussed exactly what we learned this week. The kids got the following understanding:

1. We have far more early manuscripts of the New Testament than we do of the other ancient works.

2. We have far earlier manuscripts of the New Testament than we do of other ancient works.

3. The ancient New Testament texts agree with one another 99.5%, mostly spelling and grammatical differences. 

4. By comparing these texts to each other, we can accurately re-create the original documents.

5. There are really only two texts in doubt: Mark 16:9-20, and John 7:53-8:11. The Mark passage is repeated elsewhere in the current canon, and the John passage also shows up in some early fragments of Luke. So both are probably fine, but even if you throw them both out, you receive no doctrinal changes.

It was a fun and informative week. 

And so our case continues to build:

Week 1 - The New Testament canon has not been corrupted  by false books or left out important books.

Week 2 - The New Testament we hold today is an accurate representation of the original.

Next Week - What does it mean when we say the Bible is inspired and inerrant?

The declining influence of the Southern Baptist Convention

I have written often of the American Civil Religion on this blog--and why Christians need to avoid it (see articles here, here, and here, for example).

Well this week Jonathan Merritt wrote an insightful article about the Southern Baptist Convention and its waning membership and influence. He listed three things that the SBC must do to regain their cultural influence.

But what stuck out to me was a statistic right in the middle of the article:

"Of the 117 resolutions passed by the denomination at their annual meeting since 2000, a breathtaking 70 of them have been political."

Whoa. Stop and let that sink in. When the SBC gets together to talk, 60% of their discussions are about politics. They pass resolutions on wars and elections and whether to say "Christmas" or "Holidays"--meanwhile making no significant impact for God's kingdom.

Compare that to the New Testament letters and 'resolutions' written by Paul or Peter or James. How many were political? Read the early Christian writers--how many of theirs were political?

They lived in a much worse society and culture (pagan Rome), and yet their approach to politics was, "Pay unto Caesar what is Caesar's." They simply ignored politics and instead focused on bringing about God's Kingdom.

And until the SBC does the same, they will never again be relevant to the Kingdom of God.

A horrifying letter from a pastor

Yesterday I ran across a series at Slate titled, "How do you maintain desire in a long-term relationship?" Slate occasionally has some good psychological stuff on there, so I was expecting to see things about communication and date nights away from the kids and fostering ongoing love, etc.

Wow. Was I wrong with where they were going with this series.

I won't link to the series because, well...they have five articles:

1. Date people outside of your marriage.
2. Have group sex.
3. Wear costumes in bed.
4. Have threesomes.
5. Sleep around a lot before you get married.

My jaw just flat-out dropped. I mean, I've heard of people doing this stuff but to so blatantly advise it...and to pretend as though this makes a relationship healthier?? It's unreal.

Then I moved from shock to horror when I read this in one of their articles:

"I am a pastor in a mainline, traditional church. I preach weekly and often lead Bible study. From the exterior, the church I serve is quite ordinary. I would not say that we are a liberal congregation, although we are certainly not fundamentalist or decidedly conservative. This church is in the American Midwest.

I am very happily married with one child. We live a clean, community-oriented lifestyle.
About once a year we get together with friends, who are also pastors, and have group sex. As the years have gone by, the sex has become more open and vigorous. Our winter vacation to Arizona involved my wife having robust sex with a mutual male friend and me at the same time.

We only have sex with other clergy and their spouses, as they are the only people we trust. I believe in my theological tradition, I want to see it grow, and my career and therefore ability to serve the church would be shattered if anyone found out.

As a pastor, I have had members of my church confess to me that they have been involved in group sex. They come to me with a sense of remorse. This puts me in a bit of a theological conundrum. But, at the end of the day, my wife and I are happy. Our relationship is strong. Sometimes I feel that I am enjoying the best of both the sacred and secular worlds.

Beyond my circle of friends, I have no idea how common this practice is among clergy.

For the sake of my career, I ask that you keep my identity anonymous.

--Blessings, Anonymous." 

It is rare for me to be speechless, but here I am. How in the world could a pastor possibly believe that this is acceptable--and indeed, numerous pastors? Intentionally or otherwise, he shares the real truth when he says, "I feel that I am enjoying the best of both the sacred and secular worlds."

Because that's exactly what he is doing. He is picking the parts of our sacred religion that he likes, and the parts of the secular world which he likes, and merging them as though somehow it is not mutually exclusive.

You see, he's let the yardstick he uses to measure "goodness" and "best" to become corrupted: his context makes it clear that by "best" what he means is not, "Best in God's eyes," but rather, "Most physically pleasing to me."

This pastor says that he leads Bible studies. I would highly encourage him to read Acts 15 sometime. As I have written before, this passage clearly indicates that we Gentiles are held to two (and only two) parts of the Law:  the bans on idolatry and sexual immorality.

I am a grace-giving guy: you all know that. I rarely draw lines in the sand. But Acts 15 leaves little doubt. We Gentiles are not the chosen people. God owes us nothing with regard to forgiveness and salvation. God invited us into the wedding feast of salvation even though we were not the original guests and are not properly clothed to attend. God adopted us, choosing that we were holy and blameless even though we were not.  He grafted us onto the tree of the Jews, even though we are wild branches and not part of the original covenant.

And what He asks of us--according to the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15--is not very much! Don't worship false gods/idols; don't make sacrifices to false gods; and follow Jewish sexual ethics (Lev 18--no incest, no homosexuality, no sex before marriage, no adultery).

Not much to it, guys. And before you get as arrogant as this pastor, and decide to change the laws of God, please remember Paul's warning to the Gentiles in Rom 11:20-21:  "Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either."

Youth Group Series "F.A.Q.": Week 1 - How do we know that we have the right New Testament books?

I've mentioned before that during the school year I lead a small group with our church youth, then in the summers I teach a topic to a combined large group of youth. Last year I taught, "Evangelizing to Evolutionists."

This year's topic is "F.A.Q."--where we are addressing the frequently asked questions about the faith. Our first two weeks deal with the reliability of the Scriptures, for example: last week we answered the question, "How can we trust that we have the right books in the New Testament?" We focused on attacking the myth that the Catholics in 325 AD set the canon.

As we go through this series each week I will briefly summarize what we did and attach the files. This series is going to be very interactive/game-intensive...I find that younger kids in the middle school range in particular stay engaged more and absorb more information that way.

This week we essentially played two games.

Game 1:  Draw a Zoo Animal

• The group was told that I would take two witnesses from the group along with my kids into a separate room. My kids would describe their favorite zoo animal and the two witnesses would draw it and sign their names.
• Each other member of the youth group was supposed to guess and draw their guess.
• When all was done, we put them in a big pile in the middle of the floor.
• One youth group member then had to create a book that best represents my kids' favorite zoo animal. They were given no instructions on how to do it...they just had to figure it out themselves.

What they did was the only logical thing, of course: they chose the drawings of the two witnesses and then chose any others which matched.

The point of the game:  there is no magical method used to pick the New Testament canon, it was common sense--the things written by witnesses (apostles) or their followers (Luke and Mark, for example) are canon. Other things written later aren't.

Game 2:  Archaeology Game

• Prior to the game, I spread out on the floor a 20 foot long timeline. One end of the timeline represents 1 AD, the other end is 2013 AD.
• Along the timeline I wrote a series of numbers. Each number corresponds to a scroll that I made. (the list of scrolls and numbers are in the linked Excel file). They are placed on the timeline at the appropriate "year"/inch mark.
• Each youth group member grabbed a scroll and stood on the appropriate number.
• One youth group member was dressed as Indiana Jones, and he had to "investigate" the evidence. Every time he touched someone, that person opened their scroll and read the evidence.
• By the time we were done, we'd read most of the ancient evidence available to us today about the early canon.

The point of the game:  the students were able to see a few things:

1. The Canon was established very very early in church history.
2. The councils which met never set the canon. The canon was nearly universally accepted even by 100-150 AD. The councils met whenever someone proposed a radical departure, and often cast that person (like Marcion) out.
3. There was a lot less disagreement than people might think, considering that there were about 1800 bishops out there!

The purpose of these games is to engage the kids and let them see that the evidence for the Biblical canon is actually quite strong.

Link 1:  timeline Excel sheet for Game 2

Link 2:  presentation

Update:  The links should now work for sharing. :)

Two great quotes from the early church fathers

"I do not wish to be a king; I am not anxious to be rich; I decline military command... Die to the world, repudiating the madness that is in it."  --Tatian, Address to the Greeks (c.160-170 AD)

"For since we, a numerous band of men as we are, have learned from His teaching and His laws that evil ought not to be requited with evil, that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with that of another, an ungrateful world is now for a long period enjoying a benefit from Christ, inasmuch as by His means the rage of savage ferocity has been softened, and has begun to withhold hostile hands from the blood of a fellow-creature." --Arnobius (c.300 AD)

All Scripture is God-breathed

A key Scripture, about which I have written before, is 2 Tim 3:15-17:

"From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

I wanted to talk a bit about this passage, and eliminate one misunderstanding. As I explained here, this is a key verse in our understanding of the inspiration of the Scriptures--and though technically Paul was referring only to the Jewish Tanakh (Old Testament) here, Christians would agree that the same principles apply to the New Testament.

As I explained, these verses say that God inspired the Scriptures for two primary purposes: (1) to make us wise for salvation, and (2) to teach us how to do good works.

However, people often stretch this and make a very bad assumption:  If all Scripture is profitable, then all Scripture must be equally profitable.

When people fall into this bad assumption, then they forget that they need to worry about what the Bible actually meant, and how the passage of Scripture was written, and instead they can just rip it out of context and use it however they want.

Though the Jews (like Paul) saw all of the Tanakh as God-breathed, they by no means saw them all as equivalent. Rather, they saw the Old Testament as divided into some different general types of Scripture:

• Torah, the "Teaching" of God
• Nevi'im, the writings of God's prophets
• Ketuvim, other ancient Jewish writings

The ancient Jews saw all three sections of Scripture as being God-breathed and divinely inspired, but they saw them as having three levels of inspiration.

Torah was the most important section of Scripture. It was inspired by God to Moses, and carried by the Jews in the Ark of the Covenant. When copied, the entire scroll was thrown away if a single mistake was made. If you read my Pentateuch series, you get an idea of the importance of this passage of Scripture. It records how the Hebrews ended up in Egypt as slaves, how God led them to freedom, the requirements of the religious worship of God, and the constitution of their newly-formed nation. It is as if we had our Constitution and New Testament and a history book, all rolled into one...and given us by God. It was really, REALLY important. Books:  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

A slight step down from Torah was the Nevi'im. They are read each Sabbath in synagogue, along with Torah,, so that in the course of each year all Jews have heard all of the writings of the prophets. These passages can be seen almost as historical commentaries on the Torah: generally speaking, they cover periods of time in which the Jews have rebelled against God, and a prophet is inspired to move the Jews back into the right paths. Books: Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

The lowest level of inspiration was the Ketuvim. Also inspired by God, these books were seen as valuable and useful for teaching, but not carrying the same spiritual weight as the writings of actual prophets of God. Thus they were not studied in synagogues like Torah or Nevi'im. Quotes from them were used in services as songs or poetry to aid in worship, but not for instruction or as a sermon topic. There are three divisions: 

• The Books of Poetry: Psalms, Proverbs, Job
• The Five Scrolls:  Song of Solomon, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes.
• The Historical Books:  Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and 1&2 Chronicles.

This division was important to the ancient Jews. All of this Scripture was seen as inspired by God and profitable for teaching, but not equally so. To the Jews, learning the Law of Moses was by far the most important thing, followed by the prophets (and their evidence of what happens when you failed to follow the Law of Moses).  The ketuvim were useful for poetry, songs, historical thinking, and reflections on God...but these are a clear "lower level" of Scripture.

The Modern Christian Approach

What scares me about modern Christianity's approach to the Old Testament is two-fold:

1. Most pastors simply ignore the OT and spend almost their entire time in the NT
2. Those who do teach the OT tend to give disproportionate weight to the "lesser" Scriptures and very little weight to the "greater" Scriptures.

Think about it: how often have you heard a theology based on a proverb? It happens all the time:  "wine is a mocker" so we shouldn't drink; "spare the rod spoil the child" so we should beat children with a stick if they misbehave; etc. Ditto with psalms. Or Song of Solomon as the source of 90% of our sexual theology. Etc., etc.

Of course all of these are important things that we should consider: we should consider what Psalms and Proverbs and Solomon tell us. We should know them like the back of our hands, for these "wisdom" books contain a great deal of good guidance for our lives.

But we do a serious wrong when we treat a proverb about Godly living--which is meant to be a 'rule of thumb'--as though it were equivalent to the Law of God in the Torah.  When we are building a theology based on the OT, we must always give primacy to the same Scriptures that Jesus gave primacy to: when He preached, it was almost exclusively about the Torah, and occasionally about the Prophets...as was typical for an ancient Jew.  

Remember what He said in Matthew 5:17:  "Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." He was not using these terms loosely: He--like most Jews--saw the Law and Prophets as the central Scriptures for their faith. 

And this is completely okay.

Of course the Gospel of Luke--written by a Gentile to a Gentile--is more applicable to us than the letter of Jude. Of course the letters of Paul--written to Jewish-Gentile mixed audiences, focused on the theology of the Gentiles--is of more value to us today than, say, the letter to Philemon. That does not mean that Philemon or Jude are unimportant...it just means that some Scriptures are of course more central to our faith than others. In fact, most early Christians saw the New Testament similarly to the Jew's approach to the Old Testament: the Gospels-Acts were like the Torah, the writings of Peter and Paul and John were like the Prophets, and the other letters and Revelation were like the Ketuvim.

So my first message to you today is:  do not feel bad if you don't mind much of interest in the book of Ezekiel. It's okay. You are not a bad Christian just because some parts of Scripture are more critical to your spiritual growth than others.

The second message to you today is:  be careful of your sources when you build your theologies.

When you are building your theology for sex, it is true that Song of Solomon has something to teach you: but it does not supersede or overrule Leviticus, which is actually part of God's divine law. 

When building a theology for parenting, it is true that Proverbs and Psalms have some good things to say: but they do not supersede commandments in Deuteronomy or the Gospels.

So when you hear a person who is teaching something, ask yourself--from which Scripture is he preaching? Is his entire theology based upon a non-central Scripture, like a proverb or a psalm? If so, be careful and wise: he may be (knowingly or unknowingly) taking a line of a proverb or a line of a song out of its context and setting it up as a commandment from God Himself.