Unlocking the Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly

A man from a city decides to move to the country and start a chicken farm.  He goes to the local feed store and buys one hundred baby chicks.  A week later he buys two hundred baby chicks.  The third week he buys five hundred baby chicks.  The feed store owner says, “Wow, you must be really doing well.”  The man replies with a sigh, “Not really, I’m either planting them too deep or too far apart.”

Jesus says God’s kingdom is like a farm and unfortunately, the church which represents that farm seems to continue to keep losing ground.  I spoke to a man in the county jail the other day who told me his struggles to listen to the message I gave about God’s kingdom and church because his family were very involved in church and all they did was reject and judge him.

Betting on the Farm

When we look at what is happening in the American church today, we see a growing number of the unchurched, a breakdown of many families, and the rise of atheism in our nation.  There has been a fifty percent growth of atheism in our country in the last fifteen years.  If that was happening in the church, people would be saying this nation was going through a national revival.

If the parable of the soils teaches us that good soil produces a miraculous harvest by the power of God then what does this parable mean concerning the seed of God’s kingdom growing secretly?  Why does God’s kingdom so hidden and Jesus message seem so secretive?  I met a man named Kenny Moore this week who told me this incredible journey he was on with God for the last ten months.  He has been a Christian for many years but its like his relationship with God went into hyper-drive this past year.  God is using Kenny to not only transform his family but the community he lives in.  Despite all the terrible numbers and negative signs of the times we live in, Jesus says the kingdom of God can start like a little mustard seed or with one person who may produce such a supernatural harvest that the positives will way out weigh all the negatives.  Listen to the reading of God’s Word:

And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.  For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.  But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts a sickle, because the harvest has come (Mark 4:26-29)

 The Secret Message of God’s Kingdom Coming to Earth

Why is the message that Jesus teaches through the parables so hidden?  Parables are to stretch us and get us to ask more questions.  They get us to search a matter out and wrestle for the answers.  Jesus is never one who gives easy answers or takes short cuts to truth or ever gives five quick and easy steps to find success in life.  What we need to learn is not to listen to parables with our ears but with our hearts.

The seed is hidden under the soil.  God plants His word deep into our hearts.  Truth is often hidden and we have to dig deep and passionately seek after it if we are to really search things out.  Our heart is the place where growth secretly happens.  Pride says I have nothing new to learn.  Humility says, “I don’t understand.  Teach me some more.  Help me to understand.”

Last year I saw the movie “God’s Not Dead” which powerfully portrayed a college student standing up for his faith in a college class whose professor was an outspoken atheist.  Atheists got upset at this movie because they could only see an atheist being presented in a negative light.  Paul says it this way that “knowledge puffs up but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1).  What I have seen in the academy and higher education is whether the teacher is an atheist, agnostic or even a Christian, there have been many teachers who have fallen into the trap of intellectual pride and conceit.  Jesus parables often strike right at the heart of things and goes directly for our hearts.  His parables have a way of exposing our pride and arrogance and forcing us to look deeper at our own attitudes and prejudices.

Jesus parables often surprises us and takes us off guard.  Just like this parable, we can not hold the seed in our hand and expect anything to happen.  Unless we put the seed in the soil (one’s heart) then it will not grow.  When we do that we will see what the power of God does.  Another related teaching of Jesus is the seed must die to self.  John 12:24-25 says,

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.  He who loves his life will lose it, and he who keeps his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Notice the farmer does not go out to the field each day to dig up the seed and see if there is any progress.  Life is in the seed of God’s word that grows quietly, secretly, hidden in your heart.  Within this parable is the pregnant expectation of resurrection.  Death turns into eternal life.  Dying to oneself turns into resurrection new life. 

You need to stop looking at what you are trying to accomplish for God and look to what God is trying to accomplish in you!  

God Delights in Us

God’s dream is to build a home in you!  God’s desire is to plant his Holy spirit in you.  You are the place where God’s dreams come true.  God delights in you and hides his treasure in you.  The mystery of the kingdom is God planted his kingdom on a bare hill called calvary and He also plants his kingdom in you.

The church like the  world wants everything superficially fast when it comes to instant spiritual growth or maturity.  But notice in this parable how God kingdom grows slowly and hidden.  Silent slow growth is the pathway towards deeper spiritual maturity.  This especially happens when we do as the parable suggests and plant and scatter seeds of faith, hope and love to others.  Where we tell our neighbors and co-workers and friends that no matter what they are going through, God’s kingdom grace and power is available for every situation in life.

How To Grow Seeds

      1.     Cultivate a vision of God’s kingdom.  God’s secret kingdom is more powerful and cosmic

               in nature.  God’s beauty, mystery and majesty is so wonderful to behold.

      2.    Patiently listen to God’s word.  God has planted his word deep into your soul and

             just like God patiently waits for the seed of life to grow in us, we also wait
             patiently on the God who waits on us.

3.  Learn the discipline of silent contemplation of God’s word.  Silent contemplation is where we wait on God and learn to be His ambassadors for His kingdom.

     4.  The secret message of Jesus is God’s kingdom coming to earth.  The church has
          focused so long on heaven as the goal at the end of life without calling people to
          the kingdom now focus of Jesus.  Jesus brings heaven to earth and he wants us to
          be a part of His great mission to bring heaven to every part of the world around
          us.

 When we keep the message to ourselves and not share it, we betray the message of God’s kingdom.  When we simply defend the status quo around us and not challenge the ways of the world, we betray Jesus message of the kingdom.  When we get caught up in pursuing money, power and status over others, we betray God’s kingdom message.

 Hiding the Message in New Places

Where have you taken the message of God’s kingdom lately?  Are there new places God is calling you to take his revolutionary kingdom message?  Is the secret message of God’s kingdom getting out in your life?  I spoke about Kenny Moore earlier in how God was producing a greater harvest in his life which is growing in abundance in God’s field of this world.

I am excited about the new mission and season of being a caregiver for my Dad.  I am moving him to an assisted living nearby and I look forward to the many opportunities and ways God takes me to this new field, new work, and  new ministry with my Dad and those who surround his life.  Ephesians 3:20 says it like this:

Now to Him (God) who is doing exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us . . . 

Unlocking the Parable of the Sower

A scientist announces to God one day, “God, we don’t need you anymore!  Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing.  In other words, we can do now what you did in the beginning.  We can take dirt and create a human being.  God says, “That’s interesting, show me!”  The scientist bends down to the earth to scoop up some soil.  God interrupts, “Oh no!  You get your own dirt!”

Jesus tells the parable of the sower and says this parable is the key to unlocking the meaning of all the other parables.  Jesus is saying God is the sower, the Word of God is the seed, and you are the dirt!  Jesus parables surprise, shock and turns our world upside down.  Jewish parables were more concerned about concealing that revealing.  Parables often confounded the listener where we are forced to say things like, “I don’t understand?  Help me Jesus.  Parables force us to look deep within ourselves and to dig up the hidden truth to discover the secrets of God’s mysterious kingdom.

 God takes ordinary dirt, clay vessels and God puts His Spirit in them and makes them into precious vessels that can produce an impossible harvest.  We are the dirt and the dirt reveals the condition of our hearts.  Jesus does not just want you to recognize what kind of heart do you posses?  Jesus wants us to see how at different times, each one of these different soils represents the condition of our hearts at different times.

Hard hearts really don’t hear or understand at all what Jesus is saying.  It is not tuned into spiritual truth.  Rocky hearts hear what Jesus is saying but one’s faith is very shallow.  There are no deep roots so faith in Christ is temporary.  When trouble or difficulty comes, and it will, it simply will not hold in the end.  Thorny hearts receive God’s word with joy at the beginning but when the stress and worries of life hit, it folds under pressure.  Chasing after material things quickly chokes out the life of faith.  The good soil produces and enormous bumper crop.  This harvest is miraculous.  Thirty yield is rare. Sixty yield is impossible.  A hundred fold is miraculous and revolutionary.  This can only happen by the power of God.

Jesus is God’s farmer sowing the seeds of the kingdom into the hearts of all people.  We are the dirt and God wants to plant his word deep into our hearts.  Hear the reading of God’s Word:

Listen!  Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it.  Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth.  But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had had no root it withered away.  And some seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up and chocked it, and it yielded no crop.  But other seed fell on the good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.  And he said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!  But when he was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable.  And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that:

Seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them (Isaiah 6:9-10)

And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable?  How then will you understand all the parables?  The sower sows the word.  And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown.  When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.  These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it will gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time.  Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.  Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.  But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it and bear fruit; some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred  (Mark 4:3-20).

RECLAIMING DIRT

Jesus warning concerns spiritual soil erosion.  Soil is not the problem.  The problem is what do we do with the soil?  If we misuse and abuse it then we ruin the condition of our hearts with inward poisons, toxins, and our hearts become rocky and hardened.  We like to ask the question today, “What would Jesus do?  Do we really want to ask the question? Jesus often exposes and reveals things in us we would rather not see.  In other words, Jesus would probably make us mad.

I remember some time ago I went to a Christian conference where Clark Pinnock was the featured speaker.  Clark Pinnock was a popular Canadian Bible scholar who was well know for both his great humility and learning as well as not afraid of controversy.  I spent the weekend with Clark and it was a bumpy ride.  There were moments I loved being with him and his generosity filled the air with sweetness.  But there were other times where he seemed to be a magnet for controversy and he simply would never back down.  Those were moments I wanted to run and hide.  Not only did it seem like everyone was mad at Clark Pinnock but they seemed to be  mad at whoever happened to be standing beside him at the time which usually was me.

Why couldn’t Clark just easily fit in with the crowd like everyone else.  Why did Clark have to say the most outrageous things at the most inopportune times?  Why couldn’t Clark back off and not make so many people upset?  We all say we want to be with Jesus but I wonder?  I remember after the conference I wondered why it was so difficult to be around Clark Pinnock?  I suddenly realized Clark was one of the most Christ-like person’s I had ever met or spent time with.  If it was hard being around Clark, it is probably also harder being around Jesus than we think.

 FARMING IS RISKY BUSINESS

Jesus says this parable is the key to unlocking the mystery of God’s kingdom (verse 11).  Why was this parable so important to Jesus?  If Jesus disciples didn’t even understand this parable then how are the rest of us going to do any better? (verse 13).  What this parable teaches us is the heart is the key to spiritual understanding.  Is our heart humble or hard?  Is it stretchable of the fullness of God in us or brittle?  If the heart is an actual muscle and the blood flows and channels through it then this is the place where we get our endurance, our power and our strength.  If our heart is a muscle, like every other muscles, we either use it or lose it.

Jesus Christ would not make a good future Farmers of America.  Did you notice what Jesus did not say?  Jesus never said till the land or plow the field.  Worse, he’s throwing seed everywhere!  What farmer does that?  This is a powerful description of the radical grace of God.  Jesus parables not only show the all sufficient grace of God but they also reveal the radical spiritual revolution Jesus is calling people to join.  A little dab of faith will not do!  A little dab of God’s Spirit won’t sustain us in the end.  We need the all consuming power, grace and love of God flowing like a mighty river in our lives.

People are hungry today for God’s love and presence and word.  People say they are starving for God’s word but when they get it they say, “I’m good for the next six months!”  People say they are looking for the presence of God and when they run smack into the Creator of the universe, they say, “Wow, now I know God is real.  It is time to get back to my normal routine of life.”  What is the normal Christian life?  Michael L. Brown once said,

Our Spiritual temperature has grown so cold that when it comes to what God calls normal, the rest of the church will think they have a fever!  Jesus word is challenging us once again.  Some of us have lost our health for the Devil and we won’t lose our reputation for Jesus.  Some of us were brash for Satan but now we are bashful for Jesus.  Some of us were on fire for Hell and now we are lukewarm for heaven.

 The question this parable confronts us with over and over again is what is the condition of your heart?

SOIL DETECTIVES

If this parable teaches us anything it is the issue is not our ability but God’s generosity.  The point of the parable is not for us to try to use our wisdom and logic and figure out which soil other people are to whether they get to hear the gospel or not.  Who deserves to hear the gospel?  None of us do because of our sin but all of us do because of God’s grace.  Nor is the church’s mission to figure out who is in God’s kingdom and who is out.

Jesus makes people mad in Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and the goats.  Why?  Because those who thought they were sheep and were in found out they were goats and were out.  Those who thought they were out and were goats discovered they were in and were sheep.  Jesus teaches their will be surprises in heaven on who is in and who is out.  Don’t presume about others or even yourself.  It is only by the grace of God that anybody ends up in God’s magnificent kingdom.

Several weeks ago there were people handing our flyers in my neighborhood.  It was a block party for the whole family.  I knew it was a church sponsoring the event so I asked one lady which church was throwing the block party.  She stuttered and stammered and did not want to tell me.  She asked another lady what to say and that lady very hesitantly told me the name of the church.  I thought this is crazy where people today are afraid to tell other people what church they are representing.  Maybe they were afraid of a bad name that church has received and was trying to turn it around or maybe they were simply embarrassed by the denomination they represented?  But I thought it was great that here was a church that was trying to do something for and in their community.  I just found out they had thirty nine baptisms following that community event.   Now that is a church that is impacting their community for God and God’s kingdom.

 The whole point of the parable is sow the seed!  Throw it out to anyone who will listen!  When I was a teen, I worked on a farm.  I knew a guy named Danny who used to mock me for my Christina faith.  I wrote him off as somebody who was outside the grace of God.  When I saw Danny later give his life to Jesus, I realized then that nobody was outside the grace of God.  I also knew a woman who was miraculously healed from cancer and she lived her life for fifteen years for God.  Suddenly, she decided she wanted to live for the world again and I thought that is crazy.  I don’t get it.  Okay, I also know some people don’t get me.

              Sow the seed. Get over your fear and choose faith.

 Sow the seed and get over failure and trust God completely. 

 Sow the seed and get over yourself, see Jesus in all His beauty and glory and

 power.

JESUS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

I am currently teaching a bible study series working through Jaroslav Pelikan book Jesus Through the Centuries (Yale University Press, 1987).  What is fascinating is looking at how every century of history has captured a particular focus or snapshot of Jesus life.  In the first century, it was Jesus the Jewish Rabbi.  In the second century it was Jesus mission to the Gentiles.  In the third and fourth century it was Jesus as King and Lord.  In the twenty first century it is the global Christ over all the nations.

What is interesting is through the fifth through fifteenth centuries was this focus on the mystical Christ and mystical marriage of the soul.  How Jesus brings us into the intimate love that completely captures our heart and soul.  This mystical marriage is what God desires for our lives.  In the parables of Jesus we not only discover  the mystery of God’s kingdom and grace but the mystery and depths of God love.

*We know we are dirt but God is molding and forming us into something more.

*God is forming a holy union where each of us bear great fruitfulness for God’s kingdom.

*Where each one of us fully discovers what it means to be totally engulfed by God’s light and love.

Empire Baptized

I am just starting Wes Howard-Brook new book Empire Baptized (Orbis 2016).  Here my quick breakdown of the changes from the second century to the fifth century church:

Church Before Constantine                        Church After Constantine
persecuted minority                                    privileged majority
no political power                                       political clout and power
counter-cultural church                              status quo keeping church
church of powerless                                   Church of rich and powerful
no king but Christ                                      Pope and King often joined together

Finding Rest in a Dark World

We are being born out of time and into eternity
We enter God's rest because God's rest has entered us

Like a wound in His side,
the side of the light of the world
Like a womb in His belly
waiting to be filled with light

Evil is a shadow with no real substance
To make a shadow disappear, one must shine light on it


(thoughts from Peter Hiett The History of Time)

Bumper Sticker Theology

Have you seen the bumper sticker of the Jesus fish eating the Darwin fish?  Isn't that very Darwinistic?  Wouldn't the Darwin fish be crucifying the Jesus fish?  If the Darwin fish eats the Jesus fish, could that be because Jesus said, "Here, take it and eat.  My body broken for you.  My blood shed for you.  My way of winning is totally different than the way the world wants to win."

(R)EVOLUTIONARY CHRIST

Jesus did not come to start a new religion
Jesus came to start a new revolution
His teachings were not calling people to a fist fight
His teaching were calling people to all that is right

The Jesus revolution continues on to resolve
By His Spirit we continue to change, grow, and evolve
Evolution has been nature's way to survive
Spiritual evolution is God's way to ascend and be alive

Revolution and evolution are two sides of reality
They both take us into God's creative vitality
One leads to change and victory
The other leads to growth and history
Together they take us into the beauty of mystic mystery

Martin Luther to the Present (YEC)

Luther did not agree with Augustine that God created everything suddenly.  He was challenging the
Greek view at the time that the universe was eternal.  For Luther, only God is eternal.  Luther like others did believe the world was about 6000 years old. 

Calvin wrote that Moses was not doing science or trying to give a scientific description of the cosmos.  What one does find is  both Luther and Calvin believed was the Bible taught that the sun and the stars went around the earth.  When Copernicus put his idea forth that the earth went around the sun, Luther called him a heretic and Calvin said he was mad and possessed by the Devil.  Like other Christians before them, they struggled with how to deal with new discoveries of science in how it related to their understanding of the Bible.

Charles Darwin published his Origen of Species in 1859.  Through the theory of evolution, science, and the fossil record, he concluded that the fossil record revealed an old earth rather than a young earth.  Many clergy of the time that believed in the inerrancy of the Bible also believed in an old earth.  They did not see a contradiction between scripture and science, clergy like Henry Newman, Charles Kingsley and the famous conservative fundamentalist B. B. Warfield

William Paley was the forerunner to the intelligent design movement.  Some of the scientists of this group viewed god more deistically as winding up the universe clock and letting it go on its own afterwards.  The Scopes monkey trial pitted evolution and creation against each other in a political way.  What people fail to understand about William Jennings Bryan was his issue was not as much the actual theory of evolution as it was the dangers of science without a moral code.  Social Darwinism is the real enemy of religious faith, not the science of evolution.

Historically, its been mainly the Seventh Day Adventists who have claimed the world is only 6000 years old.  The conflict between science and religion before this has not been over a hyper-literal reading of the Genesis story.  It has only been recently since Henry Morris published his Genesis Flood and later Ken Ham promoting young earth creationism that these ideas have come to the forefront. 

The religious front is now split over these issues but in the scientific community, there is no debate over whether the earth or universe is young or not.  Why?  Because there is no scientific evidence to support YEC.  This is not an issue of rebellion against God as YEC suggests but rather a lack of factual evidence.


(A Review of chapter 4 of Joel Edmund Anderson "The Heresy of Ham")

The Early Church to Today (Genesis 1-11)

Chapter 4 of Joel Edmond Anderson is a powerful quick tour of how the early church fathers interpreted the early chapters of Genesis which was spiritually and sometimes historically but not scientifically.  Anderson shows the whole history of the early church from its beginning to modern history has interpreted the book of Genesis very differently than YEC (Young Earth Creationists) who have tried to suggest that this is how every true believer has interpreted Genesis throughout church history.  Anyone who will look at the history of the church will discover that YEC is a very novel and modern invention and not an ancient understanding of the biblical text.

Early exegetes like Philo, Origen, Augustine, and the Cappadocian fathers understood the early chapters in Genesis very differently than the conclusions of modern creation-science folks of today.  The early Christians were not explaining biology but salvation.  They even understood development, progress, and growth as God calls us to a kind of spiritual evolution of loving as God loves us.  Christians through the ages have been more concerned about readers of the Bible understanding not so much that Adam was a historical person (which many of them did believe) but how the story of Adam is the story of us.

Thomas Aquinas taught that God did not create everything instantly but rather nature has the capacity to develop over time and God is continually creating new life.  The problem with YEC is the Enlightenment assumptions they impose on the biblical text and then go further by imposing it on everyone else if you are a faithful believer in Christ.  If evolution would have been taught in the early church's day, many of the early curch fathers would have understood it to simply be the process which further proved God's providence in the world around us.  Next week I'll finish Anderson's chapter that covers the Protestant Reformation to today.

Sunday Blessing

Quote of the Day: (Words that humble me on the fifteenth year anniversary of 911)

"Do you want to know who will be blessed?  Not the powerful ones with lots of money and weapons.
No, the poor will be blessed.

Not the ones who can shout the loudest and get their way.  No, the meek will be blessed.

Not the ones who will kill their enemies. No, the ones who are persecuted for doing what's right.

Not those who play it safe, but those who stand up for the sake of justice.

Not the clever and the sly, but the pure in heart.

Not those who make war.  No, those who make peace."



Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, p.15)

The Bible and Science

Quote of the Day:

Evangelicals too often worship at the shrine of science.  They are under the illusion to convince their audience that they are merely contemplating simple conclusions from the Bible, when they are really contemplating conclusions from the Bible shaped by their preunderstandings of how the Bible should be read . . . Millions of Evangelicals think they are defending the Bible by defending creation science, but in reality they are giving ultimate authority to the merely temporal, situated, and contextualized interpretations of the Bible that arose from the mania for science of the early nineteenth century"

(By Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind)

A Theology of Revolt

Quote of the Day:

"Here is the thing, for the past few hundred years we have treated the problem of evil/suffering as a mathematical problem that can be answered. The Bible never really does that. You will find no answers in the Bible about why there is so much evil and pain in the world. What you are given instead is a theology of revolt against that evil."

(by Jonathan Storment)

The Riddle of Isaac - Part 2

Some people are good at getting riddles and others are not.  Some people are so literal that they don't even recognize a riddle even when it is staring one in the face.  Scripture is always more pregnant with meaning than we understand.  God's Word is not a book that can be tamed or stroke our intellectual egos.  When it comes to the journey and story of faith, faith is always a mix of belief and unbelief, flesh and spirit, mystic sweetness and messy junk hidden deep inside our lives.

Christians can take a very simplistic reading to this story or try to reinvent it for the modern ears that are scandalized by it.  Jews find the hope of atonement and the cry of lament in the Abraham and Isaac story.  Skeptics and atheists stumble and can't get the riddle so they abandon the story and move on in their lives.  For one person, this is a story of hope and redemption.  For another, this is a story of absurdity and moral failure and evil being masqueraded by a god who pretends to be good and just but is neither.

Since nobody died in the story, the question is was God wrong in asking Abraham the question which demanded a response?  Can God present us with riddles we don't understand and ask us to do the impossible?  Can God ask us questions God already knows the answers to like "Adam, where are you?"  Can God ask us questions that say something more about us than they do about God?  Jesus at times refused to answer questions and gave answers to questions where he said it was for our benefit and not his in his response.

When Jesus is asked about the divorce question in Matthew 19, his answer is met with unbelief because God told Moses to give permission for divorce.  Jesus said God spoke, God commanded, and God permitted not because of any hardness in God's heart but because of the hardness that was within our own hearts.

So once we receive the answer we were not expecting nor even wanting, then we move onto the next question.  Why did God send an angel of death to the Egyptians?  Why did he drown all those Egyptians?  Why did God order Joshua to kill and destroy all the Canaanites?  If that is not bad enough, why does God allow all the tyrants and oppressors to continue to rule the world?  Why does God act in ways we don't like in killing people and then why doesn't God destroy the very people we think should be killed?  We want simplistic answers.  Don't speak in parables or riddles.  Give us an answer God or whoever the spokesperson is for God.

What we miss is God always invites us back into the story for us to ask the hard questions.  God calls each of us like Israel to wrestle with God (which by the way is what the name of Israel literally means, "God-wrestlers").  The bottom line is entering into the wrestling match and to keep digging deeper and keep wrestling.  People leave the wrestling match prematurely and often declare themselves the winner.  This is not how the wrestling match with the Bible and God works much less how it works in real wrestling today.  You keep wrestling till you get an answer or a blessing.  Now that is something worth going after! 

The Riddle of Isaac

Repeatedly God's Word prohibits child sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21; Jeremiah 18:21; etc.).  It is an abomination to God and what the pagan religions practice.  The paradox, tension and riddle within scripture is where God tells Abraham to bind his son and offer him as a sacrifice (Genesis 22).  How can God tell Abraham to sacrifice his son if it is morally wrong and goes against God's own commandments?

This biblical text may be one of the most misunderstood and scandalous texts in the Bible.  What people don't see spiritually is it is a riddle.  The riddle of Isaac.  The ancient Jewish rabbinic literature speaks of "the sacrifice of an innocent or righteous person will redeem the world."  We don't get the riddle or can wrap our brains around it because we think like Greek philosophers today and not like the ancient Hebrews.

What is the riddle of Issac?  It is Abraham's silence.  Abraham spoke out and argued with God over the destruction of Sodom but not about his own son?  The book of Hebrews says Abraham thought if he killed his son, God would raise him from the dead (ch.11:17-19).  That answers the first part of the riddle for Isaac but what about the part of child sacrifice being an abomination to God himself?  Why did Abraham not speak out concerning that?

Rabbinic Judaism has within their own writings a kind of resurrection of Isaac.  Every year this story is read during Rosh Hashanah.  They remember Jewish martyrs, they lament the persecution and suffering of God's people Israel.  They enter into the story and thank God for providing atonement so they can be at one with God.  Is Abraham an example of obedience and faith here or not?  The answer is yes and no.  Abraham succeeded in trusting God in faith and obeyed what God told him to do.  Abraham failed to question God or argue with God over the requirements of God's own word.

I love the rabbinic story of Akeda.  A father asks his son, "Why are you crying?  The boy replied in response to his father telling him the binding of Isaac story, "But what if the angel had come a moment too late?  The father answered, "Human beings are sometimes late but angels are never late."
The Jewish faith recognizes that Abraham raised the knife twice to Isaac.  The first time at his circumcision and the second when Isaac was an adult child and consented to his Father's request.

Abraham could say his silence was guaranteeing future generations that God would show compassion on the sons and daughters of Israel.  Job could say to Abraham but you should have questioned, demanded God to answer his own dilemma.  For the Christian, Isaac is a type of Christ and a foreshadowing of Christ's death and willing sacrifice on the cross for all people and for all time.

1.  Isaac is called Abraham's "only" son.  Jesus is called the only begotten son of God.

2.  Abraham and Isaac rode a donkey to Mt. Moriah.  Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem on the Sunday before his crucifixion.

3.  Isaac willing lay down his life (Gen.22:6) and Jesus willingly laid his life down on the cross (John 10:17-18)

4.  The Torah says Abraham and Isaac" walked on together" (Gen.22:6).  Jesus said, "The Father and I are one (John 10:30)

5.  The ram was caught in a thorny thicket (Gen.22:13).  Jesus wore a crown of thorns (Matt.27:29)

Each autumn in Judaism, the Isaac story is read and chanted out loud with the story of Elisha and the miraculous conception, death, and resurrection of the Shunamites's son.  Ancient Jewish Midrash has contained and withheld this seed idea of sacrifice linked to resurrection.  The Jerusalem Talmud says, "Since Isaac was redeemed, it is as though all Israel has been redeemed" (Tannit 1:4).

The Deepest Story

The deepest story is not the fall.
The deepest story is not your sin.
The deepest story is God making
you into the image of his Son Jesus.

We are created and then fall and rise again.
Like Adam we fall and then feel exiled.
Like Israel we wander in the wilderness feeling lost.
Like Christ we crucify our passions and flesh.
Like Jesus we rise from the dead.
Like the bright morning star we ascend to the Father.
Our story becoming one with God's story and making His-story.

The Church, The Bible, and Tradition

For years, one of the greatest Eastern Orthodox writers on the relation of the church, Bible, and tradition has been out of print for years.  I am excited that in April of 2017, The Patristic Witness of Georges Florovesky is going to be released.  I have an Eastern Orthodox priest spiritual director and wonderful friend. I am also discovering other wonderful Eastern Orthodox scholars and writers like recent converts to orthodoxy like Brad Jersak and Joel Edmund Anderson.

Chapter 3 of Joel's book, The Heresy of Ham, covers important issues like the living tradition of the church and defines issues of understanding little t traditions (non-fundamental Christian teachings) and big T traditions (fundamental core teachings of the Christian faith).  Joel correctly points out the muddled confusion by Ken Ham's YEC (Young Earth Creationism) that blurs the traditions of scripture and the traditions of man together.

Joel briefly gives descriptions of the three great traditions of the historical Christian faith (Catholic,Church tradition, Protestant church tradition, and the Eastern Orthodox tradition).  Joel seems to focus on medieval Catholicism in defining the Roman Catholic Church.  He declares church tradition in the Catholic faith is church tradition as being "over" the Bible.  Although that is not technically correct, for brevity sake, I think he is onto something that many Catholics during that time-frame did function as this even if that was not the official teachings of the church.  The church at that time was plagued by superstition, ignorance, illiteracy and the like.  This context does link his next thoughts to why the Protestant Reformation happened but I am not sure this truly reflects what the Roman Catholic Church has taught for all time and for all people when it comes to their understanding of church tradition and its dynamic relation to scripture.

Joel better reflects the Protestant rejection of going to the other extreme of the Bible over church tradition and the Bible alone "Sola Scriptura" which the reformers could easily place against church tradition.  If the Catholic Church put authority in the magisterium and Pope, the Protestants put authority in human reason and the Holy Spirit to lead and guide individuals into the truth of God's Word. The dangers and divisiveness of the Protestant faith has become both obviously divisive and dangerous in todays political and religious conflicted world.  Many Protestants function like history and church tradition do not matter at all (modern pop-evangelicalism) but more historically minded Protestants understand sola scriptura to mean more like scripture is primary over other authoritative writings rather than standing alone as the arbiter of truth by the individual interpreter.

Joel's preference obviously is Eastern Orthodoxy where the Bible is part of church tradition and stands in dynamic relationship working together rather than against these other areas.  My own theological understanding is in agreement with both the Catholic and EO church views of the Church, Bible, and Tradition (with the Papacy being the big difference standing in-between these two oldest church traditions).  Joel is spot on suggesting we should not pit church, Bible or tradition against each other but they all are important components of the living faith of the church today.

Joel ends his chapter showing how Ken Ham's core essential of YEC fails the test on all three accounts and literally fails the test of history.  The Bible needs to be interpreted within the context of community and with all the saints throughout church history (especially the early church fathers),  Joel wonderfully sums things up by saying a proper understanding of church tradition helps us in three ways today:

1.  It guards against heretical teachings (like ancient heresies or modern ones like YEC)

2.  It tells us what are the vital core theological issues (especially understanding capital T Tradition)

3.  It reassures us that there is room for discussion, debate, and disagreement on a variety of topics that are not core theological issues.

Abraham binding Isaac in the Context of the Book of Job

I finally found Richard Middleton's blog where he discusses some of his interpretive moves in regards to Genesis 22. God wants Abraham to argue like Job and show a discerning faith. Abraham shows a blind allegiance in following this pagan act of child sacrifice which Abraham should have argued with God like he did concerning the Sodom incident. He also says the angel commends Abraham because even though his faith is imperfect, God's mercy always works with imperfect people (this is my short summary of his view).

I do want to say that Richard is not doing anything much different than some of the ancient Rabbi's who had problems with this story as well. I always love his provocative ways he makes me think about the biblical text in new ways. Richard is one of the best and most prolific Old Testament scholars I know of today.

After saying all that, I think this is a possible way to look at the biblical text but I am going to push back some.

1. The book of Hebrews says Abraham believed that God was going to resurrect his son (11:17-19). I have no idea where the writer of Hebrews gets this information because it is not in the Genesis text at all. After saying that, if fuller progressive Christological revelation is correct (the writer of the book of Hebrews received it from the Holy Spirit), then Abraham was silent and never pushed back because he firmly believed God would restore his son. The writer of Hebrews at least throws some doubt on the silence imagery being pushed as far as Richard may be doing here?

2. There are always exceptions to rules and Richard could be right in the end. I will say I am concerned when our interpretive moves goes contrary to how ancient Judaism and Christianity has always understood the biblical text. There would have to be excessive weight of evidence or a powerful seed idea of the Spirit moving us forward and beyond to tread a different path than the ancient Jewish-Christian tradition.

3. Lastly, by analogy, let me share where I think Richard has a great insight in one regard. Abraham believes God will let him kill his son and fulfill a pagan like child sacrifice. Ancient proclivities can be very different in their context and day but it does seem like as Richard suggests that this should have been a problem for Abraham. Why is he silent here?

Now the analogy, some Christian missionaries ask people who are converting to Christianity, are they willing to give up their multiple wives? If they answer, yes, they baptize them without making them give up their wives. If no, they don't baptize them for they are not ready yet. It is a matter of Jesus Lordship and willing to go against one's tribal traditions (in one's heart----the heart is the issue).

It seems if God never ultimately intended to force or make Abraham sacrifice his son but he wanted to see if he would hold nothing back, even his own child (anything can become an idol, even our own children) then moral problems of the text may not have to be pushed to the extent for Richard's interpretation?  I will say that I do believe God wants us to wrestle with the biblical text and that is exactly what Richard Middleton does do.  I do concur with Richard we need a deeper theology of lament.

The Word of God in Us

We say we are searching for God
Maybe God is searching for you?

We say Christ is the Word of God
Can the Word find me?

Some try to prove the Word
Maybe the Word is proving us?

Some are trying to comprehend God
Maybe we can't comprehend God
But God comprehends us?

We like to ask questions looking for an answer
Maybe the question is the answer and the
answer is already found in us?