Read Commentary on the Bible

            I have been talking about Pathways into the Bible.  I’ve mentioned several including memorizing scriptures and reading the Bible in conjunction with reading the news.  I will provide a full list of Bible pathways on this blog when the preaching series is concluded on February.

            Today, I suggest the Bible reader invite experts into the conversation.  The operating assumption is that the Bible is being read.  Along with it, read commentary.  There is the inspirational type of writing, books that act as extended sermons, by authors like Max Lucado.  There is critical-historical writing by authors like Scot McKnight, Craig Evans, and Luke Timothy Johnson.  Note that works of this type are sometimes technical, for academic reading.  Authors like Walter Brueggemann and N.T. Wright offer theological interpretations of the Bible.  Alister McGrath and Douglas Groothuis are examples of authors who write apologetics, leaning heavily on the scriptures.  Gabe Lyons, Andy Crouch, and other similar writers deal with current topics and refer to the Bible throughout their works. 

            I go on listing authors.  The point is there is a lot of good literature from men and women who unveil the deep truths of scripture.  In the course of reading, the Bible reader will encounter authors with whom he does not agree.  Excellent.  When I disagree with an author, especially concerning the Bible, I have to clarify my thoughts.  I need to try to know the material so I can be confident in my opinion.  Occasionally, I come across poorly written books.  I just close them and move on to better material.

            Read commentary as a regular part of your reading of scripture.  Your views will be enlarged, your understanding deepened, your mind quickened, and your wit sharpened.  

Communion - A Shared Worship Practice

The Transcendent Table (1 Corinthians 11:17-29)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, April 3, 2011 - 4^th Sunday of Lent

4^th Sunday in Church-wide Emphasis on Culture Making

The Corinthians Church got it wrong when they served the Lord’s Supper. Their blunders are to our benefit. If they had not messed up Communion so badly, Paul would not have needed to address it in his letter to them. First Corinthians 10-11 is the only writing from Paul that we have on this topic. Scholars might have guessed that in Paul’s churches they did not take the bread and cup. But, the Corinthians did serve communion and they did so wrongly, without proper regard for God or for the congregation. Thus Paul addressed their mistake and we have his teaching.

I mention that because I have met many people who approach the Lord’s Supper with a limited perspective and the misunderstanding is rooted in 1^st Corinthians 11:27-29. These verses feed our evangelical American tendency to see things from an individualistic perspective.

²⁷Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. ²⁹For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.

Hearing this, we think communion is about God and me; it’s individualistic. I have confess my personal sins. What’s happening around me is of secondary importance. In my quiet meditation, I block out all distraction, especially the other people in the room. That thinking is flawed. We do need to have the individual relationship with God. But, that individual relationship is not independent from the relationships we have with people. In fact, 1^st Corinthians 11 is based on how we relate to each other as we take the bread and cup in remembrance of the death of Jesus.

The Corinthian churches met in homes. There were no church buildings. The only people who owned homes big enough for community worship were the wealthy. Their dining rooms could accommodate 8-10 people and another 40 or so could gather in what was called the atrium.

Who got to sit in the dining room? The host and the host’s friends who were also wealthy. The poor and the slave congregated the atrium. In the dining room, there was a lavish feast. Those reclining there had their fill of rich foods. The outer crowd probably arrived later, when they finished work. They got to eat the leftovers. If no food was left over – too bad.

This set up was socially acceptable in Corinthian society. Of course the wealthy eat and the poor may eat or may not. Ancient writers consistently show that this was the norm. And this is what Paul attacks when he says, “I hear there are divisions … in this, I do not commend you.”

Paul expected the church to be different than the world. Let that sink in. People in Christ should behave differently toward one another than those not in Christ. Their taking of the bread and cup was not a religious ritual in as it is for us. It was part of a dinner, a time together.

In our church’s practice of the Lord’s Supper, we have tried to recapture that communal experience. Though we aren’t doing it today, most of the time, when we take the Lord’s Supper, we stay after worship and eat together. We sit at round tables, where the youngest and the oldest, the richest and the poorest each have an equal seat. Each and every one of is dead in sin, but saved by grace. We’re reminded in Communion that Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world, for my sins, for yours. In 1^st Corinthians 11, the Lord’s Supper is an experience shared by people who should be equals in Christ.

Paul loved that they got together and had fellowship. He hated how they did it, in a way that left the poorer members literally hungry and ashamed. As important as individual piety is, Paul was addressing the relationships of people in the church to one another.

What does Communion assume about world? Communion assumes that people are divided and what keeps them apart is sin and sin can only be overcome by Jesus. In Ephesians 3 we see a racial divide – Jews and Gentiles have trouble coming together. A couple of divisions come up in the story of Jesus and the woman at the well, which is in John chapter 4. Gender – Jesus a man broke with convention and spoke with a woman. And religion – Jesus a Jew, spoke with a Samaritan. In 1^st Corinthians, socio-economic status divides; the wealthy minority in the Corinthian Church had trouble welcoming and honoring the low-income minority.

The worst part about divisions is they happen in the church. I knew a woman from Costa Rica who wanted to cook the Wednesday dinners. Elderly white ladies, we don’t know what kind of food they eat, as if Hispanics are from Mars. She doesn’t know how to find things in our kitchen, as if the Hispanic members of the church were of a different status than white members. The comments were made so she could hear them. Finally, she quit. She wanted to serve God, but she was interrogated and treated like a child.

Divisions are ugly, sinful, and deadly. Jesus died to cover the sin of our failure to worship God and our failure to love one another. The only lasting hope we have of overcoming what divides us is that come together in Christ. The Lord’s Supper assumes the world is divided.

What does the Lord’s Supper assume about the way the world should be? First Corinthians 10:16-17:

¹⁶The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? ¹⁷Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

We who are many are one body – the Lord’s Supper assumes we should be united. The only possibility that we will be is if we are forgiven of filled with the Spirit of Christ. Only in Christ can we love one another in a way that will forever break down the walls that divide us.

The story I told about the Costa Rican woman being run out of the church kitchen by a couple of older white ladies happened about 13 years ago. It would not play out that way in that church today. That church has learned how to trust all of the members, regardless of background. In the second decade of the 21^st century, more and more churches are ethnically diverse and eager to welcome people from all over. However, Christians argue about theology. The Calvinists and the proponents of Free-Will have trouble finding common ground. That is one of many divisions within. In American society, politics is divisive. The more one is a certain political or philosophical dogma, the less he can hear others. Beyond our country’s borders, economic imperialism divides people. So does the disproportionate distribution of resources. So does religion. Catholics and Orthodox, Christians and Muslims and other groups have trouble being friends, being neighbors.

Jesus came for all people, and in the broken communion bread, we see his body broken for all people. In the wine, we see his blood shed that all people might drink and have eternal life with him and with each other. My favorite Bible verse is Revelation 7:9. John is in Heaven, seeing eternity, and this is what he tells us.

⁹After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

That verse addresses the coming together of people from different races and nationalities. It’s clearly implied that this gathering cannot be counted and includes the rich and the poor, the young and the old. They come together to worship Jesus. Communion assumes we should be united.

What does Communion as a practice that marks a specific culture make possible? The Lord’s Supper table is a meeting place. In identifying what Communion assumes about the way the world should by, I read from the previous chapter Paul’s words about the cup and the bread. He says, because there is one bread we who are many are one body.

Two points stand out in that statement. First, the bread represents Jesus’ broken body, his suffering for the sins of the world. Only Jesus can take the sin debt on himself. Only Jesus can suffer on a sinner’s behalf. For you. For me. There is no other salvation. There is no other hope. Jesus is the one bread, and salvation comes from Him and through him. Eternal life is lived in him, with His Holy Spirit in us.

Second, when we come to him, we are part of the body of Christ, no matter where we came from. In Corinth Roman traders come from the West; Asian travelers from the east; and the native Corinthians were Greeks. Slaves slaves would have come from Africa, the Northern Germanic areas, and Israel and Arabia. Corinth was an international city. Paul’s phrase “we who are many” was expansive then and is 100 times more so in the 21^st century.

We who are many are one body and Jesus makes is possible. We have in common that we are each sinners who fall short of God’s grace and are saved when we trust in Jesus. The communion table is the meeting place because no matter who are, where we’ve come from, or what we’ve done, we bring our sins to the table. We receive forgiveness there. And we look to one another as a community founded on Christ at the table. Jesus is the host who has invited each one of us. What does the Lord’s Supper make possible? It is possible for all people to come together, be forgiven, loved, and made new, and to be a community with one another. The communion table is a meeting place.

What does Communion make impossible? It is impossible for a church that truly remembers the death of Christ to conform to the culture around it. Remember in first century Corinth it was socially acceptable for wealthy people to host dinner parties where favored guests were treated like kings and poorer guests were treated like dogs. The practice in the Corinthian churches was the norm in Corinthian society. But Paul rejected such practice for the church of Jesus Christ. In the church, it was expected that they would behave in way completely opposite of the social norms of their day.

What practices in our culture are perfectly acceptable, but completely wrong for followers of Jesus Christ? One example that comes to mind for me is the practice of favorable treatment for people with a lot of money. Extremely rich individuals get better service and more options at the bank when they put a lot of money. They are gold card customers with Visa and MasterCard. They sit in club seats at the football game and box seats at the symphony. They buy first class seats on airplanes.

Communion makes such preferential treatment utterly impossible in the church. We are all in this together, worshipping Jesus together. If you put 1 dollar in the collection or $100,000, it makes no difference. There are no first class seats here you are part of this community for the same reason I am. We are both sinners. We need Jesus. He loved each of us enough to die for us. What we have in Christ is not something we buy or earn, but a gift of grace we receive when we turn to Him in faith.

We would be just like the world if we gave special treatment to people who could buy it. Communion forces us to be a counterculture community.

What new culture is created by the Lord’s Supper? The transcendent table. A few weeks ago, I ended by saying the new culture created by the church is a transformational community. To be transformed is to go through irreversible change. In the church, we are born again, made new in Christ.

Transformation is change. Transcendence means exceeding or surpassing in degree or excellence; in theology it means having continuous existence outside the created world. Both definitions apply to the Lord’s Supper table where people from all backgrounds meet and hold to their uniqueness and at the same time celebrate one another as they come together in Christ. This family, surpasses all others because it is a community of grace that is dependant on God. This community exists beyond today and into the eternal kingdom of God that was prepared before the creation of the world.

All those lofty words may not go through our minds when we chew the bread and drink the juice. So we remember. Jesus died for us. We are united in Him. We are forgiven. We come to the table as a group, a family, a church. We don’t take communion alone, but together. And, we will be together beyond this life because the Jesus who died rose, and invites us to join Him in resurrection. The table is transcendent and together we make up the community that forms around it.

As we take the Lord’s Supper today, I pray that we remember we are forgiven, and that we remember one another. Sharing communion is a response to God’s love and we reflect his love onto each other, and, carry His love out into a hurting world. Jesus died for people who have not yet turned to Him. He’s sending us to share the Gospel because all are welcome at the table.

AMEN

The Word of God creating a New Culture

Every year at our church, we do a 7-week church wide emphasis. This year our church-wide emphasis is on the culture of follow Jesus Christ, and the new culture Jesus creates. During the church-wide emphasis, all of our small groups focus on the same subject as the Sunday morning Sermon. We don't do this during the Sundays of Lent but this year, we are.

For more on the culture-making idea, check out Andy Crouch's website:

www.culture-making.com

Here is the sermon text from March 13, 2011:

The Word (John 1:1-18), Sunday, March 13, 2011

First Sunday of Lent

First Sunday of Church-wide Emphasis on Culture Making

What are we referring to when we say “the word?”

When I hear the phrase word of God, I think of the Bible. The entire Bible. Is that what we mean?

The word of God – are we talking about scripture? On Ash Wednesday service I suggested that disciples of Jesus Christ all agree we should read the Bible because it is authoritative in our lives. We should read it, listen, and live by what it says. But, when we say the word do we mean the Bible, Genesis to Revelation?

Or, referring to the word as Christians, do we mean the Gospel?

In the outstanding study guide Heather has written for our church-wide emphasis, she quoted Anglican scholar N.T. Wright. He says the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) give the story of the life of Jesus Christ. Gospel is the proclamation of the saving work of Jesus.

Is that the word of God? In that phrase are we talking about the details of the life of Jesus? Or more specifically, are we talking about the saving work of Jesus on the cross and in the resurrection?

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Here ‘Word’ does not refer to the scriptures and Word does not refer to something Jesus did; his saving work on behalf of people. In John 1:1, Word means Jesus. Word is capitalized, as if a person’s name in the New Revised Standard Version, the Homan Christian Standard Bible, the English Standard Version, the New King James Version; and the NIV. Bible translators who disagree often are unanimous on this even though in Greek word, ‘logos,’ is not capitalized. Scholars of all different stripes know who John means. The word is Jesus.

Yet, that does not mean we look at Word as simply another name for him. Word does mean Jesus. The word of God is the Bible. And the Bible does introduce the Gospel. Bible-Gospel-Jesus each speaks when we listen to the Word. So, everyone who can get there hands on a Bible can hear the Gospel and meet Jesus.

The Word changed history. For people who believe it, the word changes the future. No person anywhere is able to live as if the word never happened. The Word creates a culture – a way of being human and of being human in relation others, in relation to society, and to creation. To see how, we put five questions to the Word.

First, what does the Word assume about the world? It assumes that the world is lost, far from God, and unable to make its back to God.

Jesus said to a crowd that gathered for dinner in Zacchaeus’ home that he, Jesus, came to seek out and save the lost (Luke 19:10). He purpose was finding and saving the lost because the lost need to be saved.

The writer of John says, he wrote the fourth Gospel so that through reading we come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and through believing have life in Jesus’ name (John 20:31). Without Jesus, life is not possible. We are sinners cutoff from God. Only in hearing the story and believing in Jesus can we move from death to life.

One morning Jesus was slipped away from the group for pre-dawn time alone with God. Mobs of people led by his new disciple, Peter, found him. They were diseased people, tired and desperate and full of pain that blinded them to the fact that Jesus had healed late into the previous night and now needed solitude. The crowd couldn’t see how they were intruding, either on Jesus or on the home of Peter’s Mother-in-law where the healings took place. All they could see was Jesus as the only hope they had for anything.

Did he get mad? No. He said to Peter, “Let us go on to neighboring towns so that I might preach the message their also; for that is what I came to do” (Mark 1:38).

Jesus came to seek out and save. The gospel was written so readers would believe in Jesus and be saved. Jesus came to preach to people the Gospel of forgiveness of sins. What does the Word assume about the world? The Word assumes that the world is hopelessly sinful and the only salvation from eternal death comes from Jesus.

What does the Word assume about the way the world should be?

To all who believed, John 1:12 tells us, Jesus gave power to be sons and daughters of God.

We know John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

We listen as Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31b-32).

The word assumes that we should be sons and daughters of God who have the freedom of Christ as we spend eternity with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Victims of abuse needs to hear this. Abuse happens because we are lost in sin. When a husband strikes a wife it is abuse. When orphans go hungry it is abuse. When preachers thunder about certain people groups, how they are hell-bound; that is spiritual abuse. When governments manipulate the poor in their country or in other countries and cater to wealthy business men it is absolutely abuse.

If in your life, you have felt victimized or abused, or if you have been riled with passion on behalf of an individual who has been abused, then hear what the Word assumes about the way the world should be. This includes the way your life should be. The Word assumes you should be a child of God who as a relationship of spiritual intimacy with God. The Word assumes God desires for you to be with Him for eternity. The Word wants you to be free.

With that in mind, what does the Word make possible?

The Word comes before all that is; before the earth, before human culture, before the Bible, and before all that we see. In our text this morning, John 1, verse 3, we read, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” The Word makes existence possible.

The word is also the source of life. We read this earlier, John 1:4. “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” Elsewhere in scripture we see that the Son of God – Jesus – is the totality. Colossians says, “He himself is before all things and in Him all things hold together” (1:17).

The word makes life possible. The Word makes existence possible. And in John 1:12, from today’s reading, “To all who received him, he gave power to become children of God.” The Word makes relationship with God possible, and not just any relationship. It is a family relationship.

What does the Word of God render impossible?

Again look at John’s prologue, the Gospel of John, 1:1-18. The light of the Word shines in the darkness and darkness cannot overcome it. The Word makes it impossible for sin to claim victory over the human heart. The Word makes it impossible for Satan to impose His will on humanity. Evil does not win. Sin has been vanquished. Death will be no more.

Some may live with the mistaken notion that God and Satan are polar opposites, two sides of the same coin, rivals. Lies all. Not only is God completely superior to Satan, the two aren’t even comparable. What’s more, Satan has already been defeated. When Jesus died on the cross, Satan was snuffed out.

I recently read of a missionary couple that several years ago was serving in another country in a rain forest climate. Where they lived, anacondas – snakes that exceed 6 feet in length – roam freely. One day, an anaconda came right into their kitchen. The wife, as wives sometimes do, went to ask her husband to take of this unfortunate intrusion. Only she couldn’t ask him because he already had run out the front door. She quickly followed. They found a villager, explained the problem, and he went in with a machete.

A few moments later he emerged smiling, severed snake head in hand. The deed was done, he proclaimed. But then he warned them. The snake’s body doesn’t know it is dead yet. It’s blood, flowing through the 5½ feet that remained, would cause the body to thrash around for a couple of hours.[i]

Satan is like that headless, dead snake. He’s thrashing around, making a mess, not completely aware that he is dead and has been since Jesus came. The Word makes darkness impossible. The Word makes victory for Satan and annihilation by sin impossible.

The Word assumes the world is lost. The Word assumes we people should be in relationship with God. The Word made flesh, Jesus, makes that relationship possible. The Word makes Satan’s chances at victory impossible.

What new culture is created by the Word?

I believe the answer to this final question is church! I don’t mean HillSong Church or Mount Carmel Baptist Church or any other specific individual church. I don’t mean a denomination like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. I don’t mean a wider communion, like the Baptist World Alliance or the World Wide Anglican Communion.

The church is the new culture created by the Word. Church means all believers everywhere. Some have called this the church universal or the invisible church. It includes all who truly receive Jesus as Savior and acknowledge Him as Lord; all who worship Jesus and are baptized in his name and in the name of the Father and the Holy Spirit. The church created by the Word, with Jesus as its head, includes Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics, Coptics, and us – Evangelicals. The church is seen at work in the world, when the poor are fed, the lost hear the Gospel the captives are released, people love one another in Jesus’ name, and God is worshiped in Spirit and in truth.

Some may say the culture created by the Word is the Kingdom of God. I decided not to answer the question that way because the Kingdom has always existed. Jesus did not come to establish the Kingdom but to reveal it. We live in the Kingdom when we follow Jesus. We come to the Kingdom by way of Jesus and usually we meet Jesus in the church (either literally in a building like ours, or when the church goes out in the world to share Jesus).

The Kingdom is our destination. The Church is the cultural worldview created in us when we live in the Word and the Spirit of Christ resides in us.

To conclude then, I go back to Jesus-Bible-Gospel. To live in the cultural word created by the Word, receive Jesus, worship Jesus, and follow Jesus. To know how to do all of that, read the Bible, starting with the four gospels. Read and be filled with the words of the four gospels. To share the culture of the Word, be prepared to share the Gospel with unchurched people when the opportunity comes.

God loves us. Jesus died for us, to take away our sins. When we put our faith in Jesus, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and adopted as sons and daughters of God.

As we share, we remember who the Word is and what the Word does. And, we invite others into the world the Word creates. So we have our culture, a way of living, the culture of the Word.

AMEN

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[i] Carolyn Arends, “Satan’s a Goner, Christianity Today, February 2011, p.54.