Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Archives for August 2014

Proposal: Center of New Testament Theology

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I propose that at the center of New Testament Theology, descriptively, lies the gospel about Jesus.

This means that though the gospel message is expressed differently among the NT authors or even is not mentioned by name in some books, it is the controlling narrative or central notion of all of the books in the New Testament. Here’s how it looks:

  1. The four gospels are the gospel of the early church in biographical format.
  2. Acts is a summary of how the apostles spread the gospel of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. Also, Acts contains several sermons that follow the same outline as the four gospels (despite how weird John is).
  3. The epistles and the apocalypse are all, in some way, a call to show fidelity to the message of Jesus and his apostles.

This has several advantages:

  1. It connects the documents of the New Testament not only my their internal themes, but by the purpose of the collection itself.
  2. Instead of making a theme like Christology, Theology Proper, God’s glory, wisdom, or even discipleship itself central, it makes the message preached by the early church central (regardless of the individual expressions of foci of various authors).
  3. It can be demonstrated with ease that the gospel functions conceptually in most books of the New Testament as: revelatory, salvific, the common confession of the church, and a a structure and source for ethics. Thus it holds together several other emphases of the New Testament.
  4. Even books that do not utilize the word “gospel” refer to the word of life, the word preached, the word of Christ, the word of God, or the word of truth, as the source for the group identity or of the individual Christian experience.
  5. Rhetorical and conceptual moves made by Paul and other authors can be seen as moves meant to express, clarify, apply, or defend the gospel (or the apostleship of Paul…which means defending the gospel). Thus, we do not have to assume a fundamental contradiction between James’ view of the Christian life as a life of wisdom and Paul’s view of the Christian life as being “in Christ.” Both are true ways of expressing the truth of the gospel. Both might even be true beyond metaphor and rhetoric, but ontologically, but this isn’t the place for that discussion.
  6. If we take the gospel story as it is expressed in the gospels as primary then we do not have to look for idiosyncratic themes in some of Paul’s letters (justification by faith alone) as though they are central to all of New Testament thinking.

 

I am writing, when time allows, a longer essay on this topic, but these are my thoughts.

Great-Grandfather

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Last night we held my great-grandfather’s memorial service. Here’s his obituary.

He made it to 101. I got to officiate the service, though his Catholic funeral will be held this morning.

We had time for members of the family and community to express their fond memories, but I asked especially for stories of Grandfather’s service to others after a reading from Mark 10. He had a tendency to keep his service to others quiet. A legend even circulated in my youth, that turned out to be true, that he gave land to the school system, but didn’t want the school named after him so he deeded it to a friend in secret so that he wouldn’t be named. His friend spilled the beans, but it was a noble effort.

  1. Grandfather helped my aunt by caring for my cousin and taught him how to care for the homeless.
  2. He and Grandmother always invited the town never-do-wells to dinner. Thus everybody in the family remembers strangers at holiday dinners and lunches.
  3. He fastidiously opposed all television except for the news and the discovery channel because “it’ll rot your brain.”
  4. He let “an old wino be buried on the family plot because he died with nobody.”
  5. He did a tremendous amount of pro-bono legal work for the poor.
  6. He fought in WWII.
  7. He “never left a place without making it better.” Examples: always took a trash bag or a bucket and picked up garbage. Would often bring a rake, mower, and/or shovel and clean up various properties and teach grand kids to do the same.
  8. Also, not so much service as hilarious, if you didn’t finish your dinner he would cook it into your pancakes the following morning to make sure you ate all your food.

There were many more stories, but these stick out in my mind.

New blogspot post from my wife.

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http://avery-reflectivejourney.blogspot.com/2014/08/re-thinking-ordinary.html

Here’s my favorite bit:

I’ve had to re-think how I view the Christian life and one thing I’ve had to admit to myself is that my desire to do big things and have an impact was driven in large part by the desire to feel significant. And the motivation to feel important and significant is drawn towards words like radical and runs from words like ordinary. The desire to make an impact might have more to do with boosting my self-esteem than it does with calling or vocation or long-term commitment. It’s not that these desires are wrong. They are wired into all of us.

No go read it. Quickly, before you’re trampled by tiny lizards or you meet an alien who gives you super-powers and you get caught up in some crazy adventure and then you forget!

Always Have Something to Say: On Keeping a Digital Copia

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Have you ever said aloud, “Oh, I wish I could remember that special quote!” Or perhaps instead, “Who made that three point argument?” Or perhaps, “What was the last line of that poem I otherwise memorized?” Well, if that’s you, then this post is on me. Or this post is for you.

Copia or a commonplace book which is essentially a notebook of aphorisms, quotes, poems, paragraphs, etc that you maintain for the express purposes future writing and research. I prefer to organize mine topically. The topics include almost anything. Seriously, things like “the purpose of Paul’s letter to the Romans,” “Misunderstandings of Statistics in Science Journals,” “funny tweets,” “lines from novels,” etc. The quotes can be as complicated or simple as you wish, but the point is that any idea, paragraph, or quip you wish to ponder, utilize for research, or quote is all in one place. I even put the source under each one in Turabian format. It’s like an annotated bibliography for your life. I would even recommend putting your own thoughts about the quote underneath the quote in bold. This way you also have a pithy version of a story for illustrative purposes.

Having a copia document allows you of simply searching for that whatsit or whosit you have in the shadows of books past in the deep caverns of your mind. There are two ways to keep a copia.

  1. A physical copy
    You see this in George Herbert when he gave advice to pastors. I’ll give the quote in a moment. But this can be used is lots of ways, you could have several topical note books or even one mega binder (so that making things alphabetical is easier). The problem with this method is that it loses its searchability. The nice thing is that writing things helps one commit them to memory. If I were keeping a copia by writing, I would keep a large binder of several topics, but for large writing projects or for specific courses I teach I would keep a separate binder for each. Here’s the quote from Herbert on keeping a copia in the form of a systematic theology:

    THe Countrey Parson hath read the Fathers also, and  the Schoolmen, and the later Writers, or a good proition of all, out of all which he hath compiled a book, and body of Divinity, which is the storehouse of his Sermons, and which he preacheth all his Life; but diversly clothed, illustrated, and inlarged. For though the world is full of such composures, yet every mans own is fittest, readyest, and most savory to him. Besides, this being to be done in his younger and preparatory times, it is an honest joy ever after to looke upon his well spent houres. This Body he made by way of expounding the Church Catechisme, to which all divinity may easily be reduced. For it being indifferent in it selfe to choose any Method, that is best to be chosen, of which there is likelyest to be most use. George Herbert, The Country Parson: The Parson and His Accessory Knowledge

  2. A digital copy
    There are several ways to do this and it works nicely with the obscene quantity of digital books out there. Seriously, for the purposes of saving money by using sales I have books on kindle, pdf, real life books (that smell like tobacco, mildew, glue, and paper!), Logos Bible software, Bible Works, Google Books, and a collection of journal articles that I’ve saved from Ebsco! Keeping track of it all isn’t what’s hard, but remembering a quote in a pinch can be difficult if I don’t immediately remember which version of the book I possess.

Here are some protips:

    1. Keep a persistent document
      Title the document Copia or Interesting thoughts and quotes.
    2. Save this file locally and in the cloud
      It’s useful to be able to can add to it from anywhere on a phone, tablet, or local computer.
    3. Memorize the best stuff
      Memory is still the most useful tool for keeping important information in a usable format. Having data in your mind makes it far more useful to you than having it in a computer. This is especially true of inspirational quotes or poetry if you’re a romantic.
    4. Utilize a service like Onenote or Evernote
      These tools can help you you can snip things from websites with very little effort then you can later paste them into your copia. With these you can even utilize pictures and diagrams. Here’s somebody showing how to get kindle highlights into Evernote.
    5. Utilize Zotero or some bibliographic manager
      Zotero and tools like it keep track of all of the bibliographic data ever. Adding one to your browser is an excellent idea. It’s even better if you force it to save everything on your computer rather than in their database, this way any journal article you save is put into a file on your computer. But then any highlights you do, just remember you copy into your copia.
    6. Transfer hard copy resources to the copia
      Make the effort to type your underlines and highlights into your copia as this will help you to etch them into the wax tablet of your memory (though not as well as with writing).
    7. Remember to keep things simple
      If you get to the point that you have a copia, some note files, and annotated bibliographies for different projects you’re probably fine. If you get to the point that you’re using Evernote, Onenote, keeping a copia, utilizing annotated bibliographies, and writing notes in zotero (which is a useful function if you’re not doing it elsewhere), then you’re over complicating things and not spending enough time actually writing and thinking. You’re a collector but not a thinker or producer at that point.

Concluding Remarks:
If you’re in high school or just starting college, I highly recommend you start a copia and an annotated bibliography. Keeping this type of useful information in two places (copia and annotated bibliography) will help you for the rest of your life but at least for the rest of your academic career. If you’re a preacher this is incredibly useful, take note of Charles Spurgeon’s thought’s on knowing things from the sciences and put it to practice for all things you study:

It seems to me that every student for the Christian ministry ought to know at least something of every science; he should intermeddle with every form of knowledge that may be useful in his life’s work. God has made all things that are in the world to be our teachers, and there is something to be learned from every one of them; and as he would never be a thorough student who did not attend all classes at which he was expected to be present, so he who does not learn from all things that God has made will never gather all the food that his soul needs, nor will he be likely to attain to that perfection of mental manhood which will enable him to be a fully-equipped teacher of others.C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students: The Art of Illustration; Addresses Delivered to the Students of the Pastors’ College, Metropolitan Tabernacle, vol. 3 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1905), 144.

Though human memory can be greatly perfected with use and attention to treating it as a skill, not all things can be treasured up in your heart. Therefore, you would do well to store them up externally, like a tool shed of ideas and thoughts.

Jesus and the Gospels

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Jim West, in a post I cannot find, says that the two presuppositions for understanding the gospels aright are:

  1. Jesus was God in the Flesh
  2. Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi.

I’ve been reflecting upon these. Whatever you think of Jim West (I think he’s from outer space, some think he is as timeless as the moon and stars, and others think he’s fairly eccentric), I think he’s got this right. More in the future.

This Week

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This week I restart college in a very official way. Yesterday I got off of work at 4, took a brief break, then went to Calculus 3 until 9pm.

Today I learn, or rather re-learn because what I know is dated, computer programming. Then I take fundamentals of engineering, followed by Physics. Working as a teacher 3 days a week and going to college four days a week may prove to best me. But I have a feeling that my hypothesis remains true: If you can learn to read Greek and Hebrew, you can learn anything. There is simply no reason to suppose that school, though long and tiresome, won’t prove fairly easy once again.