The Christian Virtue of Patience (but I digress)

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

I caught myself banging on the side of my computer yesterday. Can you believe it? It’s a MacBook Pro. Only two years old, which, in dog years now, is like driving around in my dad’s old 1964 Buick Electra, the dark blue one with the big fenders and the automatic windows (but I digress).

Perhaps it was the sound of the banging that jolted me back into the Middle Ages when seven deadly sins and the great seven heavenly virtues ruled the day. Patience. That’s what I need more of. (Patience…and a better memory. Upon further research, patience is not one of the original virtues, but for our sake here, let’s say it is one of the great eight heavenly virtues…but I digress).

Imagine, the Christian virtue of patience is now being defined by the length of time that it takes for me to blink my eyes. My entire psychological makeup—to say nothing of my sense of spirituality—now hangs on the thin mili-second thread that strings together my past to my present to my future. My understanding of God and His omnipresence is being redefined. My ability to trust patiently in Him is being reworked.

And then I thought about my grandfather, the potato farmer from Minnesota. What did patience look like to him during the early part of last century? How did he live up to his moral obligations to God and his friends and family during those lean years during the 1930-1940’s? For Enoch Bjork, patience was like a long-legged farm dog stretching out before a fire on a cold winter night. Once the dog got down on the floor it seemed like it took an entire day for him to untangle himself and throw his long appendages into all corners of the room.

For my grandfather, patience was measured by the seasons. In his mind, it started in spring when he put in his corn and it was tested all the way to the fall when he—hopefully—saw some fruit from his labor. The winter in between stretched out as a long, cold interlude that never seemed to end.

I wonder what it was like before clocks when Middle Age man lacked the capacity to look down at his wrist, at any given moment, to measure with precision how his day was passing. Imagine how he ordered his day—as it moved from past moment to present to future—without this basic technology that allowed time to pass before his very eyes. More to the point, I wonder what it meant for him to be patient without an instrument to measure patience.

Neil Postman has it right in his book, Technopoly, when he says that all technologies possess inherent ideological biases. They are not neutral tools but they shape us in ways we cannot begin to imagine. Just imagine, the presence of a simple piece of technology like the watch has altered our ability to be patient. Just imagine, I am banging on my computer because time is no longer fast enough. Just imagine (but I digress).

Searching for the Righteousness of God at Gordon-Conwell: The New Perspectives and the “Downsizing” of the Law?

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

I

was at the xerox machine in the faculty workroom, duplicating some class handouts for my Systematic Theology III class on Justification and the “New Perspectives.” A faculty colleague whose classes also address these issued happened to be passing by, and our conversation turned into an animated and vigorous discussion on justification, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, the “New Perspectives on Paul”, the role of good works in the final judgment, the definition of the “righteousness of God,” and other important matters in biblical theology and the doctrine of salvation. Several other faculty colleagues were in and out of the discussion, which lasted for about 90 minutes, and several students who happened to be there at the time enjoyed this somewhat unusual opportunity to hear two faculty members engage in friendly discussion and debate on matters that are at the heart of our biblical faith.

He graciously gave me some of his class handouts on these issues, and I gave him copies of mine, and both agreed that further discussions on these topics would be good for us, and for the school as a whole. In case you are interested in these discussions, I want to make available to you by the following links several of the class handouts that I am using in my theology classes: “Where N.T. Wright Isn’t Quite Right: Further Brief Perspectives on the New Perspectives” [revised version]; “Reflections on the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ,” defending the imputation of Christ’s active obedience, and responding to some objections; and “On ‘Righteousness’ of God, Man, and the Law”, arguing against a “New Perspectives” definition of the “righteousness of God” which tends to reduce it to a generalized sense of “covenant faithfulness,” and so tends to “downsize,” so to speak, the concrete demands of the moral law in salvation and the Christian life.

I hope you might find these materials helpful as you continue to proclaim with clarity and confidence the wonderful saving truth that because of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, we can stand confident before the throne of God, clothed in Jesus’s blood and righteousness.

Christian Life as a Work of Translation

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

I find myself writing this from Misano Adriatico, Italy, at the start of the second week of the 2009 Nida School for Translation Studies, where about 30 scholars from around the world have gathered to discuss various topics related to the general theme of “translation and culture.” We are hearing lectures/presentations on topics like “Translation and Comparative Literature,” “Gender Issues in Translation,” “Linguistic Aspects of Translation: the case of metaphor,” “Translation, American English and the National Insecurities of Empire,” “Translating Hebrew Poetry,” and “Translation Studies and Bible Translation,” along with many other topics related to the translation of literature, comic strips, video games, the Quran, and the Jewish and Christian Bibles. An amazingly diverse set of approaches and issues is being discussed and the stimulation is wonderful. The hope and expectation is that this experience will result in fruitful crosspollination that will benefit both the work of Bible translation and translation studies in general.

Gordon-Conwell is starting a new D.Min. track in Bible Translation and I look forward to the participation of our D.Min. students in the Nida School of 2011 and am sure they will find it to be a stimulating and challenging place in which their own thinking about translation will be enriched.

Spending so much time thinking about translation also reminds me of the numerous ways in which translation may serve as a powerful theological metaphor. As the body of Christ, the church is to continue being built up “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13 NIV). We are to “to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24 NIV). That is, we are to become better and better translations of Christ in this world – translations that are undergoing constant revision so as to become ever more perfect (or, better, less and less imperfect) representations of Christ.

We tend to be such imperfect translations of Christ (or perhaps I should just speak for myself) that it is very easy for other people to get the wrong message, to get the wrong idea about who Christ is and what he is all about. By God’s grace and the power of his Spirit, may the world recognize Christ’s people to be (imperfect but) adequate translations through which they may come to know his truth, love, grace and righteousness, giving praise and recognition not to the translation itself, but to the One who has provided such a translation so that he might be known (cf. Matt 5:16).