in medias res

…except for that part about not suing fellow believers. From Burning Screams:

Even while directly contradicting its belief in the “inerrancy” of scripture by disobeying the command to not sue your Christian family, I find it ironic Belmont’s endowment is approximately the amount the SBC (sic) is asking.

In the case of a SBC victory, how many scholarships will be cut? How many programs will be lost? How many people will lose their job? But the truest question and maybe the only one that matters is how many non-Christians will be completely repulsed by this Baptist action of selfishness and greed. How many non-Christians on that campus will swear off Jesus Christ forever because of pettiness of the Christian church.

…instead, one Christian sues another–right in front of unbelievers! - 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 (NLT)

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Derek Webb has an eloquent treatise on the state of Christian Music in his new podcast (click here), much like my argument here (though, again, much more detailed and sound).

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The TBC contributes $2.3 million a year, less than 3% of Belmont’s budget. Belmont has said it won’t have any trouble replacing the money.

More here.

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Well, I’m on Fall Break right now, the family’s all gone to bed, and I’m stuck on a college sleep schedule in a time zone one hour ahead of my norm. I was finally able to look deeper into the issue between Belmont and the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Perhaps I don’t understand the finer intricacies, but it seems to me that a shareholder commanding 3% of a company’s stocks can hardly demand a right to 100% of the trustee positions. But that’s just what the TBC does. They provide about 3% of Belmont’s financing, and are gettin’ all hot and bothered over a proposal issued by Belmont to have 60% Baptist trustees and 40% non-Baptist (but still Christian) trustees on the Board.

The funny thing is a letter to the editor in the Tennessee Baptist Convention’s weekly paper–Baptist & Reflector–bids good riddance to Belmont. As if it’s all Belmont’s loss. As if Belmont misses out on the TBC’s whopping 3% and can’t more than make up for it with contributions from donors that have been reluctant to donate as long as we’re controlled by the TBC. The letter to the editor reads like it’s all to the TBC’s benefit, since of course pulling funding from Belmont would mean increased funding for the two remaining Tennessee Baptist colleges, Carson-Newman and Union. But I suppose the author of this letter, Kevin Shrum, would say that. He’d be thrilled to see more money go to Union. That’ll give him and everyone else on Union’s Board of Trustees more to play with.

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Sometimes songs best express how we think or feel when we can’t find the words ourselves:

‘Cause I’ve got nothing of my own to give to you
But this light that shines in me shines on you
And makes everything beautiful… again
It’ll be alright… it’ll be alright

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Who are you? Who am I? Let’s go ahead and admit that we’re all constantly searching to find our identity. Often times it seems people are looking outwardly to determine their identity: from the particular styles of clothes they choose to the kinds of people they associate themselves with. Sometimes it’s not so apparent. Personally, much of the energy I spent on my identity in high school was in an effort to become the kind of person people wanted to be around, and hardly for noble reasons. I simply wanted to be surrounded with people who coddled me and told me they liked me. And I wanted to be “the sensitive guy” that all the girls claimed they wanted. All those personalities only bought me a lot of heartache.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Referring back to a post from about 4 months ago on the problem of speaking in tongues dealt with in Acts and Corinthians, there this.

It’s long. I haven’t been able to read it all yet, but from scanning it, it looks good. The author seems to take a quite exegetical approach to the question at hand, which I think is the most appropriate. As any philosopher would assert, it’s fruitless to prove something exists by making use of that something in your proof. If it doesn’t exist, then your proof is a lie. If it does, then your proof really shows nothing.

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http://www.huffingtonpost…-springste.html

David Corn, a contributor to the blogosphere’s infamous 250 car pile-up, opines on the greatness of Springsteen’s theological insight:

…the most engaging number is a short, simple, elegiac tune about the Man from Galilee, “Jesus Was An Only Son.” The chord structure is basic ballad; a church-like organ sets the mood. And Springsteen narrates the last hours of Jesus’ life. There’s no blood, no gore–only a man and his mother.

He is contrasting, of course, with a certain film that was responsible for the subsequent mistreatment of millions of Jews:

Many fundamentalist Christians claim victimhood–even though they are free to worship as they like in tax-exempt churches, to send their kids to religious schools, to display the Ten Commandments almost anywhere (such as in their homes, on their front doors, on their cars, on their T-shirts), to vote for politicians who share (if not exploit) their beliefs, and to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a film that graphically depicts the bloody sacrifice of their savior. [emphasis added]

It’s a good thing there’s no blood and gore with Springsteen’s song. (Wait, I just read the fourth line… scratch that.) Whatever the song means, it all comes down to this with Springsteen– I’d like to send out a big, “Get over yourself.”

I just love this Corn’s feelings about Christian freedom. Is that a little foaming-at-the-mouth I detect? I’m sorry, that’s just your latte.

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I’d been wondering about something, and now at least I’ve gotten the Presbyterian perspective on 1 Corinthians. I just had an opportunity to talk with Kevin Twit, a minister from Christ Community, about the study of 1 Corinthians 14. To the best of my knowledge, I understand the charismatic approach to this passage, but that’s what can be gotten from merely reading the passage and extrapolating without historical context or immediate literary context. Many times that can be very misleading in studying the scriptures. I wanted to know what’s Paul was talking about, who he’s addressing, and what the contemporary understanding would’ve been concerning his message.

There’s nothing I’ve read in scripture about tongues (only Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians mention it) that leads me to believe they are secret languages only God can understand. According to Kevin Twit, the historical understanding until only very recently (within the last couple hundred years) is that tongues meant other languages. Meaning that Paul was writing to the Corinthians about languages that were unknown to them specifically, but not necessarily unknown to everyone. In fact, he most likely meant that those languages were known by other people, just not to the majority of the church at Corinth. It seems that way judging from Paul’s reference to Isaiah 28:11-12; the juxtaposition of “unknown languages” and “lips of foreigners” seems to suggest that the unknown language will merely be the language of the foreign oppressors. As Kevin Twit argues, “Tongues in Acts 2 are clearly known languages, not some angelic tongue. Why should we take ‘tongues’ to mean something different in 1 Corinthians?”

And what of the prophesying? I know I’ve had many experiences where I feel God impressing something on my heart, but my knee jerk reaction is to check it in the scriptures. If it is contradicted in any way by the Bible, then it’s most likely the deceit of my heart. Are these prophecies just impressions on people’s hearts that are being misunderstood as an authoritative word directly from God? That’s a pretty strong statement to make, that a message is for you from God. It basically leaves you no wiggle room. How does one know that a word is truly from God? I’d say this is a pretty good test.

But I feel I should mention this: I am trying to come at this passage unbiased, but I have to admit that almost immediately I felt uncomfortable with the “speaking in tongues” thing. Uncomfortable in the sense that it seems there are many churches that emphasize this sort of thing, but it’s all concentrated. It’s a whole church doing it, but then over here you’ve got another church that doesn’t have anyone speaking in tongues. If this is something from God, the Holy Spirit manifest in a person, wouldn’t it just happen all over the place, unhindered by the walls of a church? It shouldn’t be some skill that you have to be taught how to do. Acts doesn’t portray Pentecost as a seminar on how to speak in tongues, it just happened (even assuming we want to interpret scripture to mean that speaking in tongues is a secret prayer language or utterance to God). Coming at it from a sociological viewpoint, it looks a whole lot like groupthink to me, but I’ll continue to study this and report on it more later.

[Edit]
I would greatly appreciate reactions to my current thoughts. I am merely charting my own study of this passage, and critique is most welcome, particularly the critique of those whom I may have offended or otherwise disagree with me.

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This passage perplexes me. Any inperpretations would be most welcome. Does anyone have any historical context for the time period in which Paul is writing the church at Corinth? It seems like that might be a huge necessity for really figuring this passage out.

1 Corinthians 14

¹Let love be your highest goal, but also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives, especially the gift of prophecy. ²For if your gift is the ability to speak in tongues, you will be talking to God but not to people, since they won’t be able to understand you. You will be speaking by the power of the Spirit, but it will all be mysterious. ³But one who prophesies is helping others grow in the Lord, encouraging and comforting them. ⁴A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally in the Lord, but one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church.

⁵I wish you all had the gift of speaking in tongues, but even more I wish you were all able to prophesy. For prophecy is a greater and more useful gift than speaking in tongues, unless someone interprets what you are saying so that the whole church can get some good out of it.

⁶Dear brothers and sisters, if I should come to you talking in an unknown language, how would that help you? But if I bring you some revelation or some special knowledge or some prophecy or some teaching–that is what will help you. ⁷Even musical instruments like the flute or the harp, though they are lifeless, are examples of the need for speaking in plain language. For no one will recognize the melody unless the notes are played clearly. ⁸And if the bugler doesn’t sound a clear call, how will the soldiers know they are being called to battle? ⁹And it’s the same for you. If you talk to people in a language they don’t understand, how will they know what you mean? You might as well be talking to an empty room.

¹⁰There are so many different languages in the world, and all are excellent for those who understand them, ¹¹but to me they mean nothing. I will not understand people who speak those languages, and they will not understand me. ¹²Since you are so eager to have spiritual gifts, ask God for those that will be of real help to the whole church.

¹³So anyone who has the gift of speaking in tongues should pray also for the gift of interpretation in order to tell people plainly what has been said. ¹⁴For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don’t understand what I am saying.

¹⁵Well then, what shall I do? I will do both. I will pray in the spirit, and I will pray in words I understand. I will sing in the spirit, and I will sing in words I understand. ¹⁶For if you praise God only in the spirit, how can those who don’t understand you praise God along with you? How can they join you in giving thanks when they don’t understand what you are saying? ¹⁷You will be giving thanks very nicely, no doubt, but it doesn’t help the other people present.

¹⁸I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. ¹⁹But in a church meeting I would much rather speak five understandable words that will help others than ten thousand words in an unknown language.

²⁰Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things. Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature and wise in understanding matters of this kind. ²¹It is written in the Scriptures,

        "I will speak to my own people
          through unknown languages
          and through the lips of foreigners.
        But even then, they will not listen to me,"
          says the Lord.

²²So you see that speaking in tongues is a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for the benefit of believers, not unbelievers. ²³Even so, if unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting and hear everyone talking in an unknown language, they will think you are crazy. ²⁴But if all of you are prophesying, and unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting, they will be convicted of sin, and they will be condemned by what you say. ²⁵As they listen, their secret thoughts will be laid bare, and they will fall down on their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is really here among you.”

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