Nielsen’s Nook

Translation

3 And those paying attention to the grace of Christ were despising the worldly tortures, through the span of one hour they were buying out [1] eternal punishment. To them even the fire of their inhuman torturers was cold. For they held before their eyes the escape from the eternal fire that is never extinguished, and with the eyes of the heart they looked again upon good things, that are reserved for those who endure patiently [2] the things that neither the ear heard nor the eye seen, neither have they ascended upon the heart of man, but were made known by the Lord to them, who were no longer with man but were already angels. [3]

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[1] ἐξαγοράζω is a work when taken in the context of the NT canon that is unique to Paul. In Gal 3:13 we find Χριστὸς ἡμᾶς ἐξηγόρασεν ἐκ τῆς κατάρας τοῦ νόμου (Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law). In Gal 4:5 it is written ἵνα τοὺς ὑπὸ νόμον ἐξαγοράσῃ (in order that he might redeem those under the law). These are straightforward enough. The last two times we find this word used in the Pauline corpus, they are more ambiguous. Eph 5:15-16 reads Βλέπετε οὖν ἀκριβῶς πῶς περιπατεῖτε μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἀλλʼ ὡς σοφοί, ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν, ὅτι αἱ ἡμέραι πονηραί εἰσιν (Therefore see carefully to it how you walk not as unwise but as wise, who are redeeming/buying out the season/time, for the days are evil). Likewise, Col 4:5 teaches Ἐν σοφίᾳ περιπατεῖτε πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω τὸν καιρὸν ἐξαγοραζόμενοι (In wisdom walk, you who are redeeming/buying out the time, with those outside the church). BAGD reminds us that this middle form of ἐξαγοράζω “cannot be interpreted with certainty” and then ponders the question as to whether the way the writer of the Martyrdom of Polycarp uses the word here does not shed light on the usage in Eph 5:16 and Col 4:5 (BAGD, 271).

[2] ὑπομείνασιν (ὑπομένω) to endure patiently, the same thematic word used in 2:2 and later in 2:4.

[3] Perhaps this is a figure describing the valiant nature of the martyrs’ suffering or it could also be evidence for a belief rooted in a sort of dualism that believed the martyrs had escaped the body and by becoming incorporeal angelic beings.

One of the things post-modernism has exposed for us is the bankruptcy of modernism. However, in doing so post-modernism, at least in its most consistent and extreme forms becomes self-referentially incoherent. That is, in making the assertion that we cannot know anything certainly the post-modern asserts that he may know that much at least certainly.

As I have recently written here, most of the Evangelical expression of Christianity, in particular those groups that have fought modernism (”I think therefore I am”) have become theological modernists (”I think therefore I believe”), continuing to reduce the Christian faith to pithier and pithier propositions. OF COURSE this does not mean that I think the rational has no place in Christian faith (give me some charity here), but it is to speak to the anemia that from at least my vantage is of pandemic proportions in the theology and practice of the aspect of Christendom that we would describe with the adjective Evangelical.

In so far as “evangelical” means Gospel centered as it was handed down to us in the scriptures by those who came - and died - before us and as long as that Gospel centeredness is not merely propositions about a person and a history, but is focused on the adoration of the Person who makes history possible and gives history it purpose, then I consider myself evangelical and care very deeply about things evangelical. My wife, who blogs at per caritatem, recently turned me on to a thought provoking article by James K. A. Smith, a professor at Calvin College. Dr. Smith wrote this article entitled, “Is the Future Catholic?” (which I commend to you for contemplation) on a blog sponsored by Baker Academic called the church and postmodern culture: conversation.

In “Is the Future Catholic?” Smith asserts that post-modernism is just as singularly rationalistic as modernism, just with different skin on. The problem as he sees it is not modernism or post-modernism but the lack of holistic worship. In other words, both post-modern and modern worship is reductionistic (anemic). The solution then is not novelty, according to Smith, but culling pre-modern worship for those aspects of liturgy that would return contemporary worship to its God-given holistic (fully human) form.

At the very least, Smith’s article is worth pondering. Even in recent church history of the last 150-200 years we have seen the fall-out of the church defining herself over against something.  Foucault reminds us that in doing such things we inevitably take the “other” on, becoming like it uniquely.  Rather, the Church must regain her first love, defining herself solely by the one she was created to adore wholly. Christ alone must define his people.  I think there is much that can be learned and applied to our contemporary worship in myriad ways.

There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies blow. [1]

If you’re like me when you read just those two lines of poetry you probably spent as much energy if not more trying to fight off ridiculous images of flowers growing out of the pores of a woman’s face as you did trying to imagine what Thomas Campion was actually describing in his poem, There Is A Garden in Her Face.

Dorothy Sayers, a colleague of C. S. Lewis, quotes Campion in making the point that the modern day person generally has great difficulty with poetry, figures and symbols. We don’t like them because they ask more of us than we have the faculties to appreciate. We tend to like the things that can be measured and then exhausted; yet, poets and prophets have given us figures and symbols that move us beyond ourselves - to something beyond the maximum.

This seems to be true in the way we approach church and worship, in the way we order our lives, in the way we think about happiness and fulfillment, and particularly in the way we think of and relate to Jesus, our Lord. Writing to those who misunderstood the figures in Dante’s Paradiso, his work on Heaven, Sayers writes:

… one of the results of having substituted a philosophy of becoming for a philosophy of being is that the very notion of an achieved happiness has become not merely inconceivable but actually repugnant to us. Timelessness, or eternity, like Heaven itself, passes man’s understanding.2]

What Sayers writes about Paridiso applies to our approach to Romans 12:1-2 with its figures and symbols. In lusting after the measurable and exhaustible we have begun to think of the Christian faith in such terms. We have reduced Christianity down to mere propositions and steps and functions. The consequence is that the way we think about God, Christ, his Cross and even ourselves has become frozen still, comatose, even demonstrating a spiritual rigormortis of sorts.

The Pattern of Eternal Irruption into Paul’s Life

Many of us come to the Apostle Paul’s writings and we resonate with the structure of his argumentation. But let us not forget that Paul wrote as an Apostle not because he studied hard enough or tried harder than anybody else, but because God in His mysterious providence was pleased to irrupt into the Apostle Paul’s life and change everything here and now with a view towards eternity.

We are given that paradigm at the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans where Paul reminds us that he is a servant of Jesus set apart for the gospel of God

… concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh ⁴ and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, (Rom 1:3-4, NRSV)

God had come to earth in the flesh of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. In his perfect human life, Jesus lifted his new humanity to a place so great that sinners clutching to our failed depravity cannot imagine or measure or exhaust it. He has lifted us back to a place of integration and fellowship with God in himself.

Jesus Christ, Paul reminds us, was declared with power to be the Son of God on account of his resurrection from the dead, which demonstrated his life before the grave as perfect.

But resurrections don’t happen all the time do they? Scripture teaches us that all but a few resurrections will happen at the end of time, when Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, will judge the living and the dead.

Paul is telling us that something of the future has broken into the past and changed everything.

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[1] Campion, Thomas. Campion’s Works. Percival Vivian, Ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909. 178. Quoted in Dorothy L. Sayers “Introduction” to Dante’s Paradiso, (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 28.
[2] Sayers, 28.

My wife just launched the new version of her blog, percaritatem.com (converted from blogger to Word Press):

The introduction and first section of Osborne’s article in the IVP Dictionary of Paul and His Letters is concerned with “recent hermeneutical issues.” It is where Osborne defines foundational trajectories that will carry and influence the more practical sections of the article the follow. The scope of my interaction here is not to critique each of his interactions with the variety of interpretive traditions Osborne critiques, but to identify and briefly reflect upon some of the foundational elements of Osborne’s own thinking that seem to rise to the surface as he considers these other interpretive traditions. Osborne begins:

Classical hermeneutics has always identified the goal of interpretation as ascertaining the author’s intended meaning. Even in the Middle Ages, with the “four-fold sense” (literal, allegorical, tropological/moral, anagogical), scholars felt they were drawing out the meaning of the text (the “literal sense” on which the other senses were based). Recently, however, this approach has come under increasing attack, as attention has shifted from the author to the text (semiotic theory) and then to the reader (postmodern theories) as the locus of meaning.¹

Classical hermeneutics (CH) is a term that this writer wishes would be defined rather than assumed. From this opening paragraph, CH is clearer only by way of remotion. It is not obvious whether it includes the hermeneutic of the Middle Ages, which employed the so-called ‘four-fold sense’. However, CH is apparently other than (and over against?) the traditions Osborne considers in this section on “recent hermeneutical issues.”

I am encouraged to see Protestants considering interpretive traditions that precede the Reformation. However, it does not seem clear that Reformers saw their own hermeneutical methods as antithetical to the medieval tradition’s many senses of scripture. Nevertheless, the abuses of fanciful interpretations were surely something reformers sought to avoid.

Calvin may provide an interesting addition here. One of the greatest differences this writer sees between Calvin and his own Presbyterian and Reformed heritage is the interaction and employment of the patristics. Gamble observes that while Calvin rejects the allegory of Augustine, Origen, Jerome and other patristics, “he also maintained that there were many senses of Scripture.”²

At this point, I believe we have only clarified a bit of the scope Osborne may have had in mind with CH. If as Protestants the rubric of classical hermeneutic is going to truly be classical, i.e., connected to Christian interpretation throughout history, then it would seem to be necessary to make room for Calvin and Luther. Calvin rejects allegory while Luther employs it; both adhere to a multi-sense meaning of scripture.

If what is meant by classical hermeneutics is narrowly the notion that only the grammatical historical approach has been recognized by the church as legitimate, then we find that such a narrow scope on the definition becomes problematic. For such a narrow definition, seems to cut out those reformers who most certainly held that the meaning of the text was much larger than the so called “literal sense.” Luther, being an Augustinian monk, is known for his allegorical interpretations of scripture.

If the narrow scope is more representative of Osborne’s view then “classical hermeneutics” seems to not be so classical at all. It would not seem to account for patristic, medieval, or Reformation hermeneutics that all hold that the meaning of the text is multidimensional in its meaning.

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¹ Grant R. Osborne, “Hermeneutics/Interpreting Paul,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 388.
² Richard C. Gamble, “Brevitas et Facilitas: Toward an Understanding of Calvin’s Hermeneutic,” Westminster Theological Journal 47, no. Spring (1985): 4.

Osborne, Grant R. “Hermeneutics/Interpreting Paul.” In Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid, 388-396. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

I have some time off from preaching for a while, so I am diving into Paul, especially the book of Romans after spending much time in Genesis, Deuteronomy and the Psalms.� In trying to understand how first century apocalyptic elements may have featured in Paul’s writing, I came across this article by Osborne.� I found it engaging and insightful, while at the same time troublesome, such that I felt the need to work out some of the reflections I had here.� Perhaps readers of the Nook will have irenic insight for me also.

Osborne’s article, after brief introduction, falls plainly into three sections.� First, he addresses recent hermeneutical issues, establishing so called “Classical Hermeneutics” over against various interpretive theories and hermeneutical frameworks.� Second, the article briefly considers the rubric and specifics of the forms Paul uses in his epistolary writing.� Finally, Osborne marches through territory he names “Special Issues.”� Here Osborne touches on rhetorical criticism, Paul’s use of liturgical material, social codes impacting Paul, the center of Pauline theology, Paul’s theological development, Paul and sociology, narrative criticism, and the contextualization of the Pauline corpus.

In the coming posts, I will lay out some of the high points Osborne makes and attempt to interact meaningfully with them.