In Deep Comedy, Peter Leithart compares the Bible’s essentially comic and hopeful view of history with the Greco-Roman view, which is essentially and irredeemably tragic.
In Paul’s estimation, anyone who thought that the new life through Jesus pertained to some realm outside this history was simply an unbeliever. For the gospel says otherwise.
Part of the process of maturity for the Spirit-led Church is to go where no institution has gone before. The Jews crossed Land and Sea to make proselytes, their Temple a spring in the desert, but Christian mission was the over-tipping of the cleansing Laver, the baptism of the first century world. Of course, this was bound to have political consequences.
“In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its race.” Psalm 19:4-5
The Bible Matrix is found throughout Scripture and Creation at every level. It is the foundation for the best novels and movies because they resonate with us at every level. Like the Bible, the best literature, art, music and movies show us something new every time we review them.
A prime example is a movie I discovered last week, Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle. It follows the basic pattern, but after some thought, there are many more elements within it that illustrate the history of Adam than immediately meet the eye.
“Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload: a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose: to create a star within a star. Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to the Icarus Two.”
If you don’t want the movie spoiled for you, watch it before reading this post. You won’t really get the post anyhow if you haven’t seen it.
by Mitch Stokes. Available from Canon Press.
In 1633, the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of “vehement suspicion of heresy” for his support of Copernicanism, the view that the earth moves around a stationary sun. The ill and elderly scientist was then forced to recant his view and spend the rest of his life under house arrest. He died in his country villa in 1642, entirely blind.
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Spotted by Burke Shade:
Does the Bible Matter In the 21st Century? by Vishal Mangalwadi
“In his quest to change oppressive regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, President George W. Bush argued, ‘Everyone desires freedom.’ True. Everyone also desires a happy marriage: can everyone therefore have one?
(Michael Jensen has published an interesting article:)
Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. Justin Martyr (103-165), First Apology VI
I should like to propose a thesis that may seem somewhat unlikely for a Christian theologian: namely, that the atheists are right.
“…how we feast and celebrate is a reflection of our beliefs concerning the salvation of the world.”
Sermon Notes on Deuteronomy 14:22-29 - Part 1
Guest post by Michael Shover
It has been one of the most unfortunate developments in the history of the Church that we have gotten away from and have forgotten the Biblical mandate to feast before the Lord. We so often lead lives that are shallow in piety and so consuming in busyness that we become forgetful, nay even neglectful of the fact that our God commands such things as, “And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or strong drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.”
Richard Bledsoe has posted an interesting article in two parts on the Biblical Horizons blog.
“The great question for the emerging East, for Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, ‘what fate awaits them?’ They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here an amazing quotation from David Aikman, the Time Magazine religious editor. He is a quoting from ‘a scholar from one of China’s premier academic institutions, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, in 2002.’
After reading (”orthodox”) preterists for a few years, the failure of modern evangelicals to read the New Testament in its historical context, and to understand its constant allusions to Old Testament event structures now floors me. How is it that we so easily underestimate the importance of the destruction of Judaism in AD70? And worse than that, how is it that we fail to understand that the imminent warnings of the apostles as prophets related to that event? Here’s a perfect example that hits both these ugly birds with one stone; some pure gold from Peter Leithart this week:
(Pilfered from Tim Gallant’s blog.)
A quote from David Field’s Samuel Rutherford and the Confessionally Christian State:
Evangelical defeatism is a failure of Biblical perspective. After all, the risen Lord Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and has been made head over all things for the Church; he is the ruler of the kings of the earth and he is currently putting his enemies beneath his feet; he has presumably asked the Father for the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession – and so he will receive them. All nations will bow to Jesus and all kings will serve him and his kingdom will grow to become the largest plant in the garden with the nation-birds finding rest in its branches. His kingdom is the stone which crushed the kingdoms of men in Daniel 2 and which is growing to become a mountain-empire which fills the whole earth. He is the firstborn from among the dead and therefore it is right that in all things he has the first place. He has been highly exalted and not only will every knee bow to him but every knee should bow to him.
