Musings from the City of Brotherly Love

I'm here in Philadelphia, a city still in mourning over Monday night. Nonetheless, I am certain the meetings I am part of, the Evangelical Theological Society, will help bring life back to the city. After all, this is where the action is. Okay, so I am exaggerating. To be honest, probably almost no one knows we're here, except some hotels and a few rental car agencies. These are the kind of meetings bartenders hate--but then, some of the papers could drive one to drink. It's here that papers are presented by academicians, with "on the edge of your seat" titles like "The Exegetical Significance of the Athnach". I'm serious. Not to be outdone, Daniel Leavins presented his "Runaway Lamed? Can the Preposition L mean 'away from' in Biblical Hebrew.” And then there was Victor Copan's "MAQHTHS and MIMHTHS: Exploring an Entangled Relationship". You can begin to understand why I served on a panel titled "What the Church Needs from Seminary Graduates". When the mic was passed to me, I replied with one word - - “REALITY!!!!” No wonder the church feels disconnected at times. I really wonder if some of these guys ever walk in a church. But actually, most do, and some even write some pretty impressive papers. It's just that if they do not ultimately reach the person in the pew, if they don't contribute to what it means to live a radical Christ-like life, you kind of wonder the point. Still, even here, I am reminded the seminary and the church desperately need each other. One of the redeeming things out of this time here is the books at 50% off; and that leads me to Nigel Wright's incredible A Theology of the Dark Side: Putting the Power of Evil in its Place. If you are long past This Present Darkness, and want something substantive on sin and darkness, it is hard to find a better read. I enjoyed it as much as Plantinga's Not the Way it is Supposed to Be. Here's one excerpt to take with you.

As the human race expands in size and involvement in personal and corporate sin, so the power of darkness grows. Conversely, when humans shun sin, the power of darkness is weakened. Its only power is the power of deception and its ability to draw its own energy from disordered humanity.

That is a huge and powerful and largely missed thought. It’s an encouragement to follow through with James 4:7 - "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." It's not merely that resistance means the devil flees, but that his power is weakened. For evil has nothing in and of itself. It can only survive by hijacking goodness. Let's hope none of the papers tomorrow have been hijacked.

Comments

[Jon Knapp]

I am with you John, I have been to the Evangelical Theological Society before and I walked away with similiar feelings.

Shouldn't an organization like that tackle a topic like, "How to present the Gospel in a way that compels people to give their life to it." Or "How to present the Gospel to a culture that doesn't seem to care."

I wonder what would happen if you came, and presented a paper like that with a challenge to the Theological Society to be theological--which means to be relavent. The bible never separates theology from life. They are to be learned together.

[bob hyatt]

John- I'm consistently impressed by your blog. You are doing some outstanding blogging here! :)

See you next wednesday... I want to start podcasting some of our discussions!
I'll talk to you about it then...

[Bill Brown]

Hi Pastor John - it looks like you're enjoying ETS... I also look forward to a day where all the papers presented at a meeting like ETS will be directly practical to ministry... I also look forward to the day where all practical ministry is done with a firm theological foundation...

Wright's book looks like a good one - The more I consdier passages like James 4:10, the more I feel like there has to be some heavier significance to "resisting" the devil. "Shunning sin" definitely has to be a part of it, but it just seems like there's more to it than "just saying no"...

[Faimon Roberts]

Mr. Johnson,
I ran across your blog and I had a couple of thoughts that I wanted to share:

1) Daniel Leavins is a friend of mine, whom I have known for almost 10 years now.
2) Mr Leavins is a young sigles director at Emmanuel Bible Church, running a program for young adults called Venture. this is a full time pastoral position, so I am quite sure that he, as you say "walks in a church."
3) Mr Leavins also served as a missionary in Moscow for 2 years. For this and the above reasons, I believe, Mr Leavins has a good feel for "REALITY."
4) It was this ministry experience is that lead Mr Leavins to the conviction that proper ministry requires solid biblical exegesis and exposition. If we hold to inerrancy (as ETS requires), then we recognize that it applies to the autographs, which were written in Hebrew. In Hebrew exegesis, ambiguity in the preposition lamed can impact the meaning of passages. Perhaps the reason that people in churches feel 'disconnected' from academia is because they don't value the work that academics do. Ridiculing only contributes to the disconnect, it does nothing to heal it.

[Joe Hartman]

"...if they do not ultimately reach the person in the pew, if they don't contribute to what it means to live a radical Christ-like life, you kind of wonder the point."

I don't necessarily disagree with this statement; in fact, I think it's right. However, the implication that the seminary and theological study "do not ultimately reach the person in the pew" is simply wrong. As Richard Weaver famously put it, ideas have consequences.

If we accept the truth of God's Word, and we further accept the truth that language at times is an inexact tool, then it is vitally important that we have scholars among us conversant with Greek and Hebrew who are able to assist the Church in understanding God's Word. Sure, the people sitting in the pews aren't reading these papers, but their pastors and ministers are, and it is they who often rely on the studies of the theologians to communicate God's Word to the lay believer.

The body of Christ needs the "mind" of scholars who wrestle with the original Hebrew and Greek in order to better understand God's revealed truth through His Word just as it needs the "voice" and "feet" of people who can make theology practical and relevant to the average "person in the pew."

It's easy to take potshots at ivory-tower academics, but the truth is that the ideas and concepts that originate there have profound consequences for the rest of society. Criticizing them for the technical aspect of their study seems to me to miss the point and deny the diversity of the gifts given to the body of Christ.