By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

Can you believe this?: In fifth grade Sunday School I had to learn them all: Genesis...

Exodus…Leviticus…Numbers…Deuteronomy…through those pesky minor prophets, Micah…Nahum…Habakkuk…and on through the New Testament books…all the way to Revelation. Not only did we have to learn the books of the Bible, we were also tested on a list of the kings of Israel and Judah and, of course, the prophets. Our hero at the time was our classmate, Peggy Corneil, who could recite all three lists backwards and forwards. Amazing mind, that Peggy!

By present standards, this kind of curriculum would be considered wholly inadequate. The measuring line by which we measure such things as Sunday School curriculum and small group materials is the degree to which it is considered “practical.” This is the gold standard question: “To what extent is there a life application attached to whatever we teach?”

Pastors and others in ministry know this all too well. The pervasive value behind whatever goes on in the church is its perceived practicality. Every time a sermon is preached, a bible study is taught, or a small group is administered, the pastor stands against the proverbial door and the congregation measures his or her growth against the standards of this one core value.

And, what goes on in seminaries is no exception. The current market, in fact, places traditional theological education up against para-church organizations whose central mission is cultural relevancy and a commitment to practical daily living. A whole cottage industry of manuals and CD/DVDs and three ring notebooks are geared toward ways in which biblical principles are linked to a myriad of life contexts, be it family life, or leadership situations, or relational complexities.

Seminary curriculum is increasingly expected to meet this litmus test of practicality. Did I hear an alum/pastor right a couple of years ago when she stated that her seminary failed her because we did not offer an entire course on developing church capital campaigns? Apparently, she was in the middle of funding a new building, and she felt inadequate with the pressures that were being placed on her by her church. Gordon-Conwell just did not measure up to her expectations.

There is much to be said about relating biblical and theological truths to daily living. A dynamic life of faith is nothing, if not connected to the warp and wolf of our lives. But, perhaps we need to rethink what we mean by “practical.” All of those lists of the books of the Bible, kings, and prophets certainly didn’t connect easily, in my fifth grade mind, to a life being played out at Garfield grade school. At the end of the day, I could not readily make out a life application related to my little world.

Those lists were not practical in that immediate application sort-of-way. But, I have been feasting off of the knowledge of that fifth grade class for over forty-five years, all the way through my seminary education and into ministry in the church and the seminary. To be honest, I am sure I would miss a few of those kings and prophets right now, but the residue of those lists still cling to me. The larger backdrop of my life has been measured unconsciously against my fifth grade education.

And so it is with the seminary education you received at Gordon-Conwell. The seminary is just not going to be able to anticipate every practical ministry contingency you or I confront, including fund raising building strategies. The curriculum just couldn’t hold all of them. But, the aim is to be practical when measured against years, and not necessarily days.

Next Year in Jerusalem?

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

I’m writing this during my first trip to Israel. I’m here at Jerusalem University College (JUC), auditing their three-week course on Historical and Geographical Settings of the Bible, which is being taught by Dr. Carl Rasmussen (author of the Zondervan Bible Atlas, who lived here for 16 years and has an exhaustive knowledge of the land). This has been a wonderful experience. JUC has many years of experience in teaching these courses and their faculty (as in the case of Dr. Rasmussen) really know their stuff.

Although the course has more of an emphasis on Old Testament contexts there is plenty of New Testament context in the course as well. We have walked all over Jerusalem multiple times (I’ve done so a few more times in my free time). Just thinking of things relating to New Testament times or events, I/we’ve been to the pool of Siloam, the pool of Bethesda, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (traditional site of Christ’s crucifixion and burial and, hence, resurrection), the “Garden Tomb” and “Gordon’s Calvary” (alternative sites for the same, promoted by some), the traditional site of the garden of Gethsemane, the Temple Mount, sat on the steps to the Hulda Gates (gates in the southern wall of the Temple Mount), and more. Outside Jerusalem we’ve been (among other places) to the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem (and the traditional site of Christ’s birth), Masada, Qumran. Tomorrow we leave for a four-day trip to Galilee and then a day in Samaria. So far each day has given me clearer images and understandings of biblical things and events and why things happened they way they did or were done the way they were.

Does someone have to come to Israel to understand (most of) the Bible? Of course not. Most of the readers of the Bible throughout history never lived in or visited the places mentioned within it. Most of the original readers of the New Testament had probably never lived in or visited the places mentioned in the Bible. (Of course most of the original readers of the Old Testament did live in the land and knew these places.) But seeing these places and learning about the geology and geography helps one not only visualize what took place but understand more clearly the strategic importance of many of the places mentioned and how they relate to other places mentioned in the biblical narratives.

Visual perception and how maps, pictures and diagrams don’t do the same (at least for me) as actually seeing the places and things and recognizing their sizes, proportions, physical relationships with other objects, etc. If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you take a course like the one I’m doing right now. For the JUC course see their website and check out the short-term programs. Gordon-Conwell will be offering its own “Study Seminar in Israel and Jordan” in January of 2011, led by the highly competent Dr. Jim Critchlow. You can see his excellent syllabus. If you are interested in going along I suggest you contact the GCTS Hamilton registration office as soon as possible to see if there are any slots left!

If you are a student at GCTS you might speak with the chair of the division of biblical studies about how you might include one of these courses in your program. If you are an alumnus/alumna of GCTS and in full-time ministry, I recommend you consider coming for one of these courses during a sabbatical break from your ministry if possible. If you find yourself in a different situation you may have other means of or better times for coming.

For those who may not be able to come, I can recommend Dr. Carl Rasmussen’s website, “Holy Land Photos,” as a source of wonderful pictures about just about any place of interest in the lands of the Old or New Testament.

The words “Next year in Jerusalem” are usually recited by Jews at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder. But perhaps it would be an apt phrase to keep in mind when you think of your plans for biblical study, spiritual renewal or professional development as well!

Because He Lives!

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

As we approach Easter Sunday my thoughts go to a few key passages about Christ’s resurrection and what it means for our own present and future.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ takes us to the heart of the gospel. It is the climactic event to which all four gospels lead us to look forward as we read along. And other New Testament authors also make it clear that Christ’s resurrection is at the heart of the gospel message. In Romans 1:2-4, Paul refers to “the gospel [God] promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord” (NIV). That Christ now reigns as “the Son of God in power” is established by his resurrection from the dead. The long-awaited time has finally arrived when, rather than being merely a bit player in the politics of the Ancient Near East as was the case throughout , God’s anointed Davidic king now reigns over all creation to bring righteousness, peace and joy to all those who recognize him for who he is. The resurrection of Christ is the promise of our future and that of creation as a whole, and gives meaning to our present life in the midst of the sufferings and challenges we face in this world. As Paul says in light of the resurrection in Romans 8:18, “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

Here are a few more thoughts on the meaning of Christ’s resurrection, mainly in light of Paul’s discussion of it in 1 Corinthians 15 and drawn from the new Pillar commentary on 1 Corinthians (Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010], pages 737-9):

For Paul, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is at the heart of the gospel message (1 Cor. 1-15), gives meaning to our life and service to Christ in this present age (vv. 16-19, 29-32) and serves as a fundamental basis for perseverance in Christ (v. 58). It also clarifies (as do some other NT texts) the relationship between protology and eschatology (the beginning and the end of the human story, vv. 24-28, 45-49) and the relationship between Christ’s experience of resurrection and glory/reign and God’s intentions for the rest of his people (vv. 20-28). The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, more fully expounded here than in any other part of Scripture, makes it clear that God’s purpose has never been simply that of “saving souls” for a disembodied existence in heaven, as though creation itself was of merely temporal usefulness and significance. Creation turns out to be not simply the context in which God is working out his redemptive work, but reflects instead the breadth of God’s redemptive concern and plan. Physical, earthly and bodily existence have to do with the nature of creation as God made it and, in a completely redeemed and transformed version, are part of the nature of the context and existence that God has in mind for us and the rest of creation throughout eternity. Our life in this world matters, in part, because it turns out to be not merely a waiting room in which we pass our time until being invited into the rest of the building where we will really live. Our life in this world establishes the starting chapters for a story that will continue and flourish in radically new ways (and not merely begin for the first time) upon the resurrection of the dead.

As Oliver O’Donovan has argued (Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline of Evangelical Ethics, 13), “Christian ethics depends upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”:

In proclaiming the resurrection of Christ, the apostles proclaimed also the resurrection of mankind in Christ; and in proclaiming the resurrection of mankind, they proclaimed the renewal of all creation with him. The resurrection of Christ in isolation from mankind would not be a gospel message. The resurrection of mankind apart from creation would be a gospel of a sort, but of a purely Gnostic and world-denying sort which is far from the gospel that the apostles actually preached.[1]

O’Donovan also points out (p. 56) that “[t]he resurrection of Christ, upon which Christian ethics is founded, vindicates the created order in this double sense: it redeems it and it transforms it.” The proclamation of the resurrection of Christ “directs us forward to the end of history which that particular and representative fate is universalized in the resurrection of mankind from the dead… (15:23). The sign that God has stood by his created order implies that his order, with mankind in its proper place within it, is to be totally restored at the last” (O’Donovan, 15). This message gives meaning and significance to this present life, making it clear that our “life on earth is important to God; he has given it its order; it matters that it should conform to the order he has given it. Once we have grasped that, we can understand too how this order requires of us both a denial of all that threatens to become disordered and a progress towards a life which goes beyond this order without negating it” (O’Donovan, 14-15).

Although I’m not a big fan of Gaither music, I can’t argue with their famous chorus. It is because He lives that I can face tomorrow without fear, and life at this present moment has meaning in light of the fact that He lives and holds the future.

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[1] O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order, 31. “The work of the Creator … is affirmed once and for all by this conclusion [i.e., the resurrection]. It might have been possible, we could say, before Christ rose from the dead, for someone to wonder whether creation was a lost cause. If the creature consistently acted to uncreate itself, and with itself to uncreate the rest of creation, did this not mean that God’s handiwork was flawed beyond hope of repair? It might have been possible before Christ rose from the dead to answer in good faith, Yes. Before God raised Jesus from the dead, the hope that we call ‘gnostic’, the hope of redemption from creation rather than for the redemption of creation, might have appeared to be the only possible hope. ‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead …’ (15:20). That fact rules out those other possibilities, for in the second Adam the first is rescued. The deviance of his will, its fateful leaning towards death, has not been allowed to uncreate what God created” (Resurrection and Moral Order, 14)

Now, about 1 Corinthians…. Did you know …?

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

Having recently completed the one of the longest commentaries on 1 Corinthians in history, and being in the midst of a short adult class on the letter at church, I’m thinking about some things that many people don’t know about the letter or its interpretation. For example, did you know …

1 Corinthians has much to say to the modern world. No book in the New Testament, even Paul’s letter to the Romans, does more to explain the grace of God, the lordship of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit. The contribution of the letter to the practical knowledge of God is immense. Not only is its ethics searching and rigorous, but its theology, especially of the cross, announces the end of the world as we know it. In addition to supplying concrete answers to many problems which have comparable manifestations today, on subjects as diverse as leadership, preaching, pluralism, sexuality, and worship, 1 Corinthians models how to approach the complexity of Christian living with the resources of the Old Testament and the example and teaching of Jesus. Above all, it shows the importance of asking, How does the gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which envelop the letter in chapters 1 and 15, teach us to live? [Ciampa and Rosner, First Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1]

Did you know that Paul’s repeated phrase “do you not know” (1 Cor. 6:2-3, 9, 15-16, 19; 9:24) usually communicates an implied rebuke (indicating that they should have already known and not needed Paul’s reminder), unlike my following list of “did you know” questions (which raise issues that I expect many readers may not have already known)? Did you know that the vices listed in 5:11 share an OT background with the quote from Deuteronomy in 5:13? Did you know (re: 1 Cor. 6:19) that in the Roman world sexual immorality only counted as “adultery” if it entailed sex with a married woman (married men engaging in relations with unmarried women were not legally considered adulterers)? Did you know that Paul is not talking about “homosexuals” in 6:19 (that most of same-sex acts would have been done by married men who were having sex with their wives [and perhaps other women as well])? Did you know, regarding the euphemism of “touching” which shows up in 7:1 (translated “marry” by an older version of the NIV and “have sexual relations” by most recent English translations), that men and women didn’t “touch” each other, but that “touching” was a unilateral act – what a man did to the object of his sexual desire (contrast the mutuality repeatedly reinforced in Paul’s teaching in 7:2-5) and that the euphemism was not used of normal sex within marriage, but of various other kinds of sexual relations?

Did you know that the issue discussed in 1 Corinthians 8-10 is not the same as that in Acts 10:11-11:9 (in 1 Corinthians Paul is dealing with food that has been offered to idols [where association with idolatry is the key issue] while Acts 10 discusses the issue of “clean” and “unclean” foods [categories of animals expounded in Leviticus 11 and presupposed in Genesis 7])? Did you know that in 11:2-16, despite an introduction that seems to imply a gender heirarchy, no distinction is made in the passage between the ministries of men and of women (the conclusion is that both men and women will pray and prophesy as long as they are properly attired)? Did you know that Paul considers the gift of prophesy essential to the wellbeing of the church (and that the gift is present and operating even in churches that do not believe in it)? Did you know that the spiritual/natural dichotomy found in 15:44-46 is not the same as a material/immaterial or physical/non-physical dichotomy (the later is a modern conception foreign to Paul’s thought)?

Did you know that Rosner and I argue that 1 Corinthians is “Paul’s attempt to tell the church of God in Corinth that they are part of the fulfillment of the Old Testament expectation of worldwide worship of the God of Israel, and as God’s eschatological temple they must act in a manner appropriate to their pure and holy status by becoming unified, shunning pagan vices, and glorifying God in obedience to the lordship of Jesus Christ” (page 52)? Did you know you could learn more about all these and many other issues in the recently published Pillar New Testament Commentary?

May God lead us, through a growing understanding and assimilation of the message of 1 Corinthians, ever more deeply into the wisdom and power of God in Christ (1:24) that we might flee sexual immorality (6:18) and idolatry (10:14) and glorify God with our bodies (6:20) and in all that we do (10:31), until that day when all things are fully renewed and He is all in all (15:28)!