It’s possible (maybe even probable?) to attend a Bible college or seminary – or to take a Bible course in a major university’s religious studies department – without having to actually study the Bible. Background reading isn’t bad, but John Sailhamer says it might make you miss the point:
In speaking about historical events (things), one may easily confuse what an author says about these events with the events themselves. As important as history and archaeology are for understanding the things that the Bible points to and talks about, they sometimes get in the way of understanding the words of Scripture. The Pentateuch may be compared to a Rembrandt painting of real persons or events. We do not understand a Rembrandt painting by taking a photograph of the “thing” that Rembrandt painted and comparing it with the painting itself. That may help us understand the “thing” that Rembrandt painted – his subject matter – but it will not help us understand the painting itself. To understand Rembrandt’s painting, we must look at it and see its colors, shapes, and textures. In the same way, to understand the Pentateuch, one must look at its colors, contours, and textures. To understand Rembrandt’s painting, one must study the painting itself. To understand the Pentateuch, one must study the Pentateuch itself.
- John Sailhamer, The Meaning of the Pentateuch, p. 19-20
For the first time in the history of Coram Deo, we are canceling a Sunday gathering due to weather. The blizzard has won. As of the time of this writing, Interstate 80 has just barely reopened; travel is treacherous; many residential streets in Omaha are not yet plowed; and the parking lots and sidewalks at Suckau Chapel are buried in snow. Additionally, many of our key Sunday morning leaders – worship team members, site coordinators, setup crews, children’s ministry teachers, and staff members – are stranded throughout Nebraska and Iowa due to snow and ice.
Many of you will be disappointed, like we are, not to be able to gather for worship. However, we’d rather err on the side of safety.
Language matters. Notice: we’re not canceling church; we’re canceling our Sunday gathering. We often say that we don’t go to church; we are the church. So don’t let our lack of a corporate worship gathering keep you from worshiping Jesus and serving others tomorrow.
More below via video, including an update on year-end giving. Mailing address here if you need it.
This month we are seeking to give an extra $60,000, over and above our normal giving, in order to plant a church in Austin, Texas next year (more here).
Update: as of December 20 we have received $48,008, so we are about halfway to our goal of $100k. Thank you for your generosity! Please continue to seek God about your role in being a good financial steward of the resources he’s entrusted to you.
If you are a generous Christian outside the Coram Deo community who feels compelled to give toward this endeavor, we welcome your involvement. Contributions can still count toward your 2009 taxes as long as they are received or postmarked by December 31.
If you’re a bitter, sarcastic blogger who hates when churches raise money, I’m sure you’ll find your way to the comment thread. Rest assured that we hope to plant a church in your neighborhood in the future so you can meet Jesus!
I am currently reading one of the most fascinating theological works I’ve ever read: John Sailhamer’s The Meaning of the Pentateuch. It’s a pretty rigorous 600-page theological tome, so if you’re not real familiar with your Bible yet, you probably don’t want to dive into it. But for any of you who are pastors, seminary students, or theologically-minded types, this is one book you absolutely must read. Additionally, if you have been raised in evangelicalism and its rather staid and scientific view of Scripture, Sailhamer’s work might rekindle a love for the Bible you haven’t felt in a long time.
One of the most fascinating discussions Sailhamer embarks on is an examination of meaning. Saint Augustine was the first theologian to really tackle the question of how we discern the meaning of biblical texts. According to him, words are signs which point to “things” in the real world (hence Augustine was also a thoughtful philosopher of language). In many ways this is a good, true, and helpful understanding of meaning. But the downside is clear: “once the words of Scripture have done their part by leading us into the real world of things… one has no further need of Scripture and its words. Consequently, Augustine believed, many Christians live happy and blessed lives without the Scriptures” (Sailhamer 76).
If you wonder how this understanding of meaning (which still exerts massive influence today) affects our reading of Scripture, just think about what most people do with the book of Revelation. Rarely do Christians seek to read Revelation as a narrative, following the storyline and getting inside the author’s mind by paying attention to the words and images he uses. Rather, we try to figure out what the words “really” point to. Who are the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Antichrist? Once we decide what “realities” these words point to, we have figured out the meaning of the book and therefore we don’t feel the need to read it anymore.
Sailhamer points out that Augustine’s view of meaning was not the view held by the Protestant Reformers or by the authors of Scripture themselves (though today much of evangelicalism has unintentionally defaulted toward an Augustinian view of meaning). In classic evangelical theology, the locus of meaning lies not in the things that words point to, but in the words themselves. “The biblical words point to and assign meaning to the extrabiblical things in the real world… the meaning of Scripture [is] tied directly to the meaning of its words.”
Sailhamer’s life work is to get us away from reading the Bible as an instruction manual or a codebook and back to reading the Bible as a coherent narrative. So far, he is definitely working on me.
Could it be that capitalism is finally taking on feminism? Register your guess for where the following excerpt is from… and no Google-cheating. Come on, on your honor, take a guess:
Once upon a time, men wore the pants – and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the line, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It’s time to get your hands dirty. It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to wear the pants.
________
ANSWER: this is a new Levi Strauss/Dockers ad campaign
Dustin Neeley is an Acts 29 church planter in Louisville who recently started a church-planting blog “speaking up for the guys who may never plant mega-churches, while being thankful for those who do.” In Louisville last month, Dustin asked me to sit down on camera and answer some questions about church planting. If you aspire toward church planting, or if you want to get a better feel for how we develop and train leaders, watch the interview at Dustin’s blog.
This past week marked Coram Deo’s 4-year anniversary as a church (we launched the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2005). To celebrate, we took some time to reflect on the evidences of God’s grace toward us in the past four years:
We started with 60 people in 6 Missional Communities in 2005; now we have 306 people in 19 MC’s
We’ve added 88 new members since 2006
We have baptized 45 people
We have performed 21 weddings
We have dedicated 22 babies
We have preached 208 sermons
We have had 192 Wed night prayer meetings
We have given away over $150,000 to church planting and missions
We have sent two of our founding members to plant a church in Cape Town, South Africa
We have produced a missional community curriculum that is now being used by churches all over the globe to help people understand the gospel
Even as we celebrate God’s grace to us in the past, we are looking forward to what He is calling us to in the future. In 2010 we will send a team to Austin, Texas, to plant a church. And to facilitate that effort, we are taking a special year-end offering during the month of December. We’re trusting God to help us raise:
$30k in startup funds for Austin church plant
$12k for staffing overlap (allowing us to hire new staff before current leaders transition out)
$18k for office space transition and buildout (our lease is up in June and we have outgrown our current office space, requiring us to move at the same time that we are launching our church planting team)
TOTAL NEED = $60k
All funds received in December, over and above our existing budget needs, will go toward this goal.
Will you help?
Pray for God to provide these funds
Be generous as God has been generous with you
Choose to live simply this Christmas so that you can give over and above what you normally give
Invite family and friends to consider giving toward this goal for their joy and God’s glory
Praising God for what He’s done in 4 short years… excited about what He has yet to do!
This past week marked Coram Deo’s 4-year anniversary as a church (we 