Bible studies or paraphrase studies?

The popularity of paraphrases of the Bible has struck me as a negative development in Christendom. When I say paraphrase, I mean the reworking of Biblical texts, (rather than merely translating them from one language to another), and then marketing the reworking as "a Bible." Often times in the process, the length of the text is increased to make it more descriptive or colorful for the reader. (Rick Warren's best seller The Purpose-Driven Life makes extensive use of quotes from various paraphrases.)

While the popularity of paraphrases strikes me as negative, it doesn't strike me as surprising. I've read these paraphrases, and I can understand people deriving insight, and enjoyment, from reading them. But here's my concern:

What are we saying about the adequacy of Scripture if we (or scholars) act as God's editor? What are we saying when we substitute the inspired text with a text we find "more insightful"? Did God fail to get it right the first time?

In a way, these paraphrases are Biblical commentaries in disguise. Commentaries are fine for what they are. But when they're substituted for the actual text of Scripture, my concern is that Christians will file away what they read in them as being God's word. These commentaries don't claim to have the authority of Scripture, yet, in usage, such authority is certainly implied. (And what if the commentator gets it wrong?)

So are there any legitimate uses for biblical paraphrases? I think so.

Open along side a translation of Scripture, I can see a paraphrase serving as a legitimate study tool. Optimally, it could help illuminate the actual meaning of a Biblical texts. Sometimes I know I've lost the understanding and appreciation of particular passages due to over-exposure, in which case, a paraphrase has the potential of helping me "rediscover" these passages with fresh eyes.

We just need to make sure we don't jettison the actual Bible from our Bible studies.

"judge not"

Below is something my pastor wrote last week for a study of Matthew we're doing. This was for chapter 7. I thought it was worth sharing.

Judge Not. For generations the most famous Bible passage was Jesus' beautiful summary of the Gospel in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave Hi only begotten Son, so that whoever believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The last few decades have seen a shift, and now perhaps the most famous passage is Jesus' warning about judgment in 7:1: “Judge not, that you not be judged.” This text is wrongly used as the banner text for lawlessness (called “tolerance”): no one has the right to say anything negative about anyone else's thoughts or words or deeds. There is no judging because there is nothing wrong, nothing bad, nothing evil; the standard of good and right is simply what I want or what I feel like. This is the law of tolerance, we are to tolerate each other's actions, live and let live. But tolerance is not merely passive, we are also supposed to embrace all the nuttiness and flat out wickedness of others. To 'tolerate' gay marriage is to approve of it, anything less is homophobic. To 'tolerate' Islam is to approve it, speak well of it, not be critical, “Judge not!” The only act that is considered 'sinful' is being intolerant.

So we often hear the criticism that the Lord's Church is “judgmental” because it is slavishly bound to the conviction that there is a right and a wrong way to believe, think, speak and live. According to the law of tolerance, if we want to keep the Lord's command and “Judge not,” then we need to jettison the Ten Commandments as a norm for good behavior, in fact, we need to jettison all norms for behavior and life, and tolerate everyone's free choices. It this what Jesus is teaching?

Perhaps the best way to begin an answer is to consider Jesus' own actions. He is, after all, the supreme example of obedience to the Father. His life is, therefore, the perfect picture of what it means to “Judge not.” (This is to be understood absolutely. One of the reasons that we can go about not judging is because we know that the Lord Jesus will do the judging Himself. We can leave it is His hand.) But still the question remains, was Jesus tolerant? We need only think of a few examples to say, “No.” Consider the overturning of the money-changers table, or the “woes” to the Pharisees, or the “Go and sell all you have” to the rich young ruler, or even His teaching in the sermon on the Mount. Does this sound tolerant, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven... If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off... When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites... No one can serve two masters... Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye... Beware of false prophets... Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven...” Are these examples of tolerance? Indeed the very idea of a last judgment is anathema to the creed of tolerance.

What begins to emerge, then, is the need to have a better understanding of “not judging.” If “being tolerant” is not the opposite of “not judging,” what is the opposite? The answer Jesus has already given: forgiveness. “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” [6:14] Whereas tolerance tries to get around the law by ignoring the law, in the kingdom of heaven the law is triumphed over by the Gospel. “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” [James 2:13] So the law stands (not one jot or tittle is passing away), but the law doesn't have the only word or the last word. “Not judging” means that the Lord's word of life and salvation and the forgiveness of all sins has been heard by us, and then cannot but be spoken by us to our neighbor. We know that the exceeding righteousness and the perfection of the Father has been given to us in spite of our unworthiness; that the Father has withheld, for Christ's sake, the judgment that we deserved because of our sin; that God's affections and actions toward us are full of love and compassion and mercy and forgiveness, and therefore, as His children, our affections and actions towards our neighbors ought to look the same.

On the other hand, if our attitude toward our neighbors reflects a harshness and criticalness and an unwillingness to help, that same measure of judgment will be turned onto us by our heavenly Father. “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” [7:2] We should not be poking around, looking for our neighbor's flaws, speck hunting, trying to 'help' them by showing them their sinfulness and unworthiness. Jesus uses the parable of the plank and the speck to explain. It is the height of foolishness for a man with a plank or a beam stuck in his eye to attempt to help his neighbor dig a speck out of his own eye. This is like the man who goes, uninvited, to help his neighbor fix a leak in the faucet while his own basement is flooding. “Tend to your own unrighteousness first,” Jesus is saying. “Judge yourself, and then you will find reason for mercy and compassion.” All of our judging is to be tempered with mercy.

This also helps make sense of all the passages in the Scriptures that command us to make judgments. For example:

St John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

1 Corinthians 5:11-13 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (12) For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? (13) But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. We see this teaching of Jesus reflected in the apostles. (See also Romans 2:1; 1 Corinthians 4:5; James 2:8-13)

Romans 14:10-13 But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. (11) For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. (12) So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. (13) Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

James 4:11-12 Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. (12) There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

unconditional love?

Today Dennis Prager is questioning where the idea came that unconditional love is a desirable quality in people. It's an interesting question. I suppose it depends on how you define unconditional love. But in its strictest sense, it seems to me that even God does not exhibit unconditional love. The Bible describes God as hating some people. And I doubt He loves Satan.

However, being a father, I can say that it seems that I have unconditional love for my children. Although, maybe there is a condition: that they be my offspring. And since that's a condition that is inseverable, the love always remains. And in a sense, it's the same way for us as God's adopted children. Well, maybe not. We still have the freedom and reject God and thereby face his rejection.

the Trinity: one + one + one = one?

Last month contained the day in the church year called Trinity Sunday. My pastor included these statements in his sermon that day:

First, what is the teaching of the Trinity? There is one God in three persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but there are not three gods but one God. We worship the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity. Who can understand this? One + one + one = one. This is incomprehensible. God has not given us minds to comprehend this; only hearts to believe it and mouths to confess it. (Pastor Byran Wolfmueller)

I really like my pastor and learn a lot from him, but I don't like the way he characterized this. One + one + one is not incomprehensible because our minds are lacking. It is incomprehensible because it is logically impossible. Not even God can understand something that is logically impossible.

Comprehension means to take in the meaning, nature, or importance of something -- to grasp it. If something is incomprehensible, its meaning, nature, or importance are not knowable. So one has to wonder, if the content of the teaching of the Trinity is incomprehensible, does the "teaching" really teach us anything? Incomprehensible words, by definition, bring us no closer to understanding the nature of something than we had prior to hearing them.

If someone told me that, all things being equal, three objects weighed one pound each, but together also only weighed one pound, he would be telling me something inconsistent with logic and the concept of weight. While one can say that to believe such a thing would require "faith," I would question whether such faith was really a belief in something, or merely a rejection of logic and mathematics. If I had to do something that required an accurate perception of the weight characteristics of these objects, I would have to ignore at least one of three things: (1) I would have to ignore the knowledge that their quantity was three and that they each weighed one pound, or (2) I would have to ignore the knowledge that in total they weighed one pound, or (3) I would have to ignore mathematics. If I ignored none of these, and claimed "faith" in all of them, I would be no closer to grasping the nature of the objects than I was before, because these pieces of knowledge are inconsistent. Such "faith" would be merely an exercise in justifying belief in things absurd. (And once you open that Pandora's Box, the distinction between knowledge and ignorance evaporates.)

The doctrine of the Trinity uses the concept of quantity, and uses numbers as a means of qualifying quantity. If the numbers used violate the most rudimentary concepts of mathematics, then they must not be numbers as we understand numbers. And if someone talks to me about such numbers, they might as well refer to them using nonsense words, because I don't have any idea what they are. Using numeric terminology will only send me down the (apparently wrong) path of trying to integrate them into what I already know about numbers.

Now lest you think I'm arguing against the doctrine of the Trinity, I'm not. I'm merely arguing against this type of characterization of it.

I read a thought provoking book by RC Sproul a while back called Not a Chance. It contains the following passage on the topic of the Trinity which I found quite helpful:

Christianity rests on two profoundly important and profoundly difficult paradoxes that remain mysteries: the Trinity and the Incarnation. Classically, the Trinity was defined in these terms:

God is one in essence
and
three in person.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard or seen this formulation described as a "contradiction." Why is it called a contradiction? We are accustomed to thinking in terms of "One person equals one essence." This equation may be a convenient one, but it's not a rationally necessary one. The Trinity is indeed unusual and mysterious, but it is not inherently or analytically irrational.

If the formulation for the Trinity asserted that God is one in essence and three in essence or that he is three in person and one in person, we would be engaging in the nonsense of contradiction. Something cannot be one in A and three in A at the same time and in the same relationship. That's a contradiction.

The classical formulation of the Trinity is that God is one in one thing (one in A, essence) and three in a different thing (three in B, persona). The Church Fathers were careful not to formulate the nature of God in contradictory terms. . .

The formula is not meant to say that essence and person are the same things. Essence refers to the being of God, while person is used here as subsistence within being. Essence is primary and persona is secondary. Essence is the similarity, while persona is the dissimilarity in the nature of God. He is unified in one essence, but diversified in three persona.

the da vinci dud

From this and other reviews of The Da Vinci Code, it sounds as if the book got the movie it deserved.

true gnosticism is not much of a da vinci code ally

In researching the Gnostic gospels, I came across gnosis.org, a web site (I think) run by this a guy in Hollywood, Stephan Hoeller, "the sole American bishop consecrated by the Duc de Palatine, mysterious bearer of the English Gnostic Transmission." The site links to an interesting story about Hoeller in LA Weekly. Reading it, I can again see why early Christians rejected Gnostism. It's a completely different religion!

What is ironic is, I can't imagine most critics of Christianity out there who celebrate that the The Da Vinci Code is uncovering some suppressed truth that kills Christianity's credibility would have any comfort whatsoever with the far-fetched, unfounded religious claims of the Gnostics. It strikes me as a classic case of, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

But true Gnostics may not be as much of a friend as they'd like. From the article:

Since Bishop Hoeller is a bona fide scholar of the lore alluded to by the now stupendously rich Mr. Brown, the question must be posed: Was it some sort of tantric sex thing between J.C. and M.M. [Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene]?

"Although I'm delighted by the interest in Gnosticism it's stirred up," Hoeller says, "and by its part in restoring Mary Magdalene to her place at the side of Jesus, I must confess that my regard for The Da Vinci Code is considerably less than for The Matrix. For one thing, [Da Vinci Code author] Mr. Brown seems to have an agenda. He appears to be deliberately courting certain "interest groups," among them conspiracy buffs, enthusiastic but badly informed Goddess worshippers and almost anyone who harbors a grudge against the Christian faith. And though the Gnostic Gospels do identify the Magdalene as having a unique spiritual kinship with Jesus, there's no suggestion that the relationship was sexual, much less that it produced offspring. This is a canard derived almost wholly from an earlier piece of sensationalistic pseudo-history called Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

"According to which," I interject, "the bloodline of Jesus produced the French monarchy . . ."

"Yes, well . . . the Merovingian dynasty."

"And your opinion of the Holy Blood theory?"

"Flapdoodle."

the gnostic gospels

It's insightful to read the actual text of the Gnostic gospels. What's striking is, they aren't very large, they don't read anything like the Biblical gospels, they don't say very much, and they sometimes don't made a whole lot of sense. It's obvious why they never gained legitimacy with the early Christians.

The books may be interesting from a historical perspective. But it escapes me why anyone would consider them a threat to the Biblical accounts. If readers of the The Da Vinci Code would actually take a few minutes and read the Gnostic books, the far fetched claims about them would certainly have a lot harder time gaining traction.

Here's a particularly goofy quote from the Gospel of Thomas:

Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."

Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

Some of the more talked about Gnostic gospels:

The Gospel of Judas
The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene
The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Philip

The books the early Christians considered scripture (and are actually in the Bible):

The Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Luke
The Gospel of John

the da vinci code cracks

Stand to Reason has a very good article explaining what junk history is contained in The Da Vinci Code. It doesn't take much knowledge to realize how outright false the work is. It's disturbing that something like The Da Vinci Code can gain any footing whatsoever. I'm really disappointed Tom Hanks is doing the film. It seems like any movie he stars in anymore is nothing less than outstanding. What a disservice to his audience. He should have done his homework.

mysticism within the Christian community

Here's a critique I wrote a while back on a book by a popular Christian author and retreat speaker, Ken Gire. It's a good example of a guy teaching mysticism within the Christian community.

What's wrong with Ken Gire's book Windows of the Soul?

my wife has been having an affair

I found out over Christmas that my wife has been having an affair since before we separated. That explains a lot as to why she has had no desire to work things out. The pain I feel from the deception, the infidelity, and the kind of future I face, goes beyond words. I never imagined a thing like this could happen to us.

Here's an article that explains what happened in our marriage: The Walkaway Wife Syndrome. The only difference is that my wife admits she was never the "relationship caretaker."

Hopefully I'll be getting the blog going again soon after the divorce is final, which looks like March of 2006. Please pray for my family. At this point, I'm still seeking reconciliation.

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Here's an update as of May 9, 2006: We went to court in March and experienced a mistrial. The judge announced his anticipated verdict before we had hardly begun and told us we'd be wasting our money to go on. It was really awful. We'll be returning in August. My confidence in our legal system is very low at this point. That judge cost us about $10,000 in legal fees that day.