Maybe I'll Actually Do This

I'm thinking that I may try again.

It's been a little over a year since I last posted. Life got pretty crazy once I left for Minnesota after that semester, and I never really got back on the horse. But, I've been learning a bunch, and it might be a good outlet to reflect on some things. One of the biggest deterrents to blogging consistently is the pressure to interact with other blogs and actually put something up that's particularly coherent or interesting.

Well, enough of that!

If I'm going to blog, it's going to have to be the musings and interests of only one mind: MINE. Therefore, I hereby authorize this blog to assume the same kind of disjointed confusion that occurs within my own head. Hopefully, that will give me a bit more impetus to put things up. Given the sweeping range of interests that I entertain, this may be almost completely useless to most everyone.

Since Rach has been put on bed rest and there's another Wilson pending entry to the land of the living, I'm also thinking about taking fewer credits this next semester and trying to take it a bit easier than I have been. Greek and a bit of church history will be my academic pursuits, and I'll just be readng when I find time here and there. I had a great time this past semester doing a TON of reading in the Cappadocians and some more recent trinitarian theology. So, hopefully what ends up here will be worth reading...if anyone even reads this thing... :)

Many blessings!

Getting Close to the End...

So, the semester is starting to get to that point where everything seems to want to be due. It's been a really interesting semester thus far, and I hope that these last fours weeks are just as good as we wind things up. I hope to have a bit of time to work some things over in my mind before the next semster begins since I've had several things pique my interest that I'd love to pursue. Here's a list of some hopeful inquiries:

1) Is Luther's argument for justification by faith actually built on a misreading of Romans? Would it matter?

2) Would John of Damascus' "Three Treatises on the Divine Images" have much to say regarding the use and limitation of theological language?

3) How can/does apophaticism intersect ethics?

4) In what ways are fiction and theology similar? Different?

5) How do I know that a "shewa" is vocal or silent? (I know that we've talked about the rules over and over in Hebrew, but I still can't figure it out)

Those are some of the many ideas floating around my head right now. I'm in the throes of putting together my thoughts regarding Ignatius' view of martyrdom, and I'm turning up some interesting things. That's my last major project besides two rounds of preaching coming up after Thanksgiving for my Homiletics class. It's been a wild ride, but I feel like my sense of early church thought has grown by leaps and bounds, and I feel as though I could take quite a bit of time investigating the many different issues presented to me, especially in my patristic and medieval theology course. It's a doozy! Not much more to go!

"What good is a hermeneutic...

...if you don't have a life?"

Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, p. xiv

Maybe I'll write on here again...

So, the summer and the beginning of the school year have been a major blitz. Beginning to shoot weddings (with my camera, of course) while also waiting tables to fill in the gaps took up a TON of time, and things haven't yet slowed down with the onset of school. I'm a busy busy busy boy, but I'm really liking my classes. Rather than list those (you can see 'em on our family blog), I'm going to give you all the run-down of my paper/reading topics to pursue over the next couple of months.

1) A brief paper/presentation on Martin Luther's spiritual writings. My emphasis will be on his "Three Treatises" that he wrote in 1520, one of which is entitled "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church". It hopes to be rockin'.

2) Learn Hebrew as best I can.

3) My proposed paper topic for Patristic and Medeival Theology regards Ignatius' theology of martyrdom in the 7 letters written on his way to Rome to be executed. While my preliminary research had largely dealt with text-critical issues related to the 7 letters, I am going to move quickly into dealing with the texts themselves. Even if they aren't verifiably from Ignatius, the fact remains that they are an integral piece of the church's history. I was provoked to read more Ignatius after reading a brief selection from his letter to the Roman church, his final destination as it were. In this letter, he implores the church not to intervene for his sake and to let the martyrdom take place, making some very poignant statements to the effect of "now I become a disciple." It should be really interesting. If I have more time after my intitial synthesis of the letters is complete, I may begin to incorporate more contemporary voices into the discussion, especially those who connect martyrdom and sacrament.

4) I will be reading and reporting on Richard Hays' "Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul". I've been wanting to read this work for a while, and my NT use of the OT biblical theology class seemed to be the best place to do so. I'm struggling a bit in that class since I only have about 3 weeks worth of any biblical language under my belt. I also found a very cool source to go along with my reading of Hays' book that is a collection of essays written in dialogue with Hays a few years after the publishing of this work. All the essays are specifically addressing at least a piece of what Hays brings to the table. What a find, eh? Praise the Lord!

Ok, that's it for now! Grace and peace be yours in Christ Jesus!

Kinds of Knowledge

Since I'm done with the school year, I thought that I'd pick up another novel to read before starting to study Greek and reading Theopolitical Imagination by William Cavanagh. I've never studied Greek before, so I guess this probably would best be described as procrastination but hopefully not time wasted or fruitless. Having read Lewis' space triology over the past several months, I found again that I much prefer his fiction over his other works by far, and I decided to reread Til We Have Faces. I ran across this quote this morning while, and I'm interested to hear what you think.

To set the stage, the kingdom of Glomeis in great turmoil. For several years, the kingdom has been plagued by all sorts of ills: pestilence, famine, lions, external threats, etc. Having recovered from the plague himself, the great priest of Ungit (Aphrodite) approaches the king to tell him that Ungit requires a specific sort of sacrifice in order that these maladies may diminish. Having listened to the description of the necessary sacrifice, the Fox--a Greek slavce taken in battle--loses his patience and names the apparent contraditions in the priest's checklist of requirements for the sacrifice. Here is how the priest replies:

"'We are hearing much Greek wisdom this morning, King,' said the Priest. 'And I have heard most of it before. I did not need a slave to teach it to me. It is very subtle. But it brings no rain and grows no corn; sacrifice does both. It does not even give them boldness to die. That Greek there is your slave because in some battle he threw down his arms and let them bind his hands and lead him away and sell him, rather than take a spearthrust in his heart. Much less does it give them understanding of holy things They demand to see such things clearly, as if the gods were no more than letters written in a book. I, King, have dwealt with the gods for three generations of men, and I know that they dazzle our eyes and flow in and out of one another like eddies on a river, and nothing that is said clearly can be said truly about them. Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood. Why should not the Accursed not be both the best and the worst?'"

C.S. Lewis, Til We Have Faces, Orlando: Harcourt, 1984. p. 50

One Movie Meme

1. One movie that made you laugh:
So I Married an Axe Murderer

2. One movie that made you cry:
In America

3. One movie you loved when you were a child:
The Three Amigos

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once:
Thank You For Smoking

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it:
Little Women

6. One movie you hated:
Star Wars: Episode 1/3 (My wife also informed me that ought to be embarrased by the fact that I know which one is which)

7. One movie that scared you:
Labrynth

8. One movie that bored you:
From Russia, With Love

9. One movie that made you happy:
Transformers

10. One movie that made you miserable:
There Will Be Blood (Wow...depressing...)

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see:
The Ring (The Camp I worked at contracted with the makers of The Ring to use part of the waterfront during the filming, and sie I still have good memories of that place, I don't want to corrupt them with horror film images)

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with:
Amy March in Little Women (Kirstin Dunst...whew, that was a long time ago...)

13. The last movie you saw:
There Will Be Blood

14. The next movie you hope to see:
Quantum of Solace (New Bond Movie)

15. Now tag five people: Sam, Eric, Luke, Josh, Jonas.

Priesthood as Foundational

So, here's a thought that I've been pushing around my head for a while now. At our home community with Imago (think small group), I have had the privilege of leading a study through the book of Hebrews, with several detours into issues of doctrine, heresy, authority, and other such pursuits. It has been, at least for me, a pleasure. In the process of gathering my thoughts last summer, I found a vaguely formed idea taking root, and I'd like to test it out here for any who would be interested in hearing it. Please feel free to qualify, rebuke, correct, whatever if you deem it necessary.

In chapter 7 as almost an aside, the writer of Hebrews notes that the law was given on the basis of the priesthood. In this instance, the law means the Mosaic law and the priesthood is the Levitical priesthood and Aaronic high priesthood. I find that connection backwards to what I would have expected. Instead of having the cultic framework (mean cultic not in the sense of cult-ish or occult, by the way) contained within a moral framework, it is the other way around. The cultic framework serves as the foundation of a code or political paradigm, so to speak (I'm tempted to use Cavanaugh's language here, but I've only read like 5 pages of Theopolitical Imagination, so I must refrain). The way that the people of Israel are instructed to live together is governed by the prioritization of the priesthood.

This is fascinating to me, but it makes so much sense at the same time (at least, to me it does). Why would the rules of our life together be foundational to worship? Wouldn't that, in a sense, prioritize the life of the community apart from its dynamic relationship to the God sustaining it and forming it for His glory? But this is exactly what often happens! The values which govern our social interactions so often become prioritized over the priestly conditions under which those law could make sense, and when disordered, they tend to look arbitrary, voluntary, and be divisive. We often understand these issues as a subordination of spirituality to institutionalized ecclesial forms (more or less faithful...though when this happens, faithlness is at the heart of the matter) such that the rules which govern the Church's life become somehow absacted from their cultic foundations
and become ingrown.

It is interesting to me in all of this that the law is built upon the priesthood, the institution of mediation set up by God so that the people could stand vicariously before their Creator and Deliverer. In the tabernacle, the high priest interceded for the people and brought blood into the most holy place--the very presence of God. In the heavenly tabernacle, Christ reaches behind the curtain and forever intercedes for us before the Father, offering His once-for-all shed blood in bringing many sons to glory. The writer is clear in that the priesthood that Christ occupies is superior to that of the Levitical order and thus moves the latter into obsolescence. The point that I'm wondering about is that if the priesthood is the basis of the law, then a new priesthood both renders the old law useless and futile and introduces one of its own that moves inexoribly out from it. We could say that the Church isn't governed by the Mosaic Law because it doesn't require the Levitical priesthood to mediate between God and community. Rather than finding ourselves in hermeneutical pretzles, why not just answer the question on these grounds? Instead, the Church finds Jesus to be the one mediator between God and man, and thus the law the governs our life together is bound up in the nature of Christ's work, on His priesthood alone. Similarities are bound to be developed if for no other reason than that the tabernacle, the foundation of Israel's political paradigms, was a shadow of heavenly realities.

I am also particularly interested in the idea of appointment/election as this connects to priesthood, but that will have to wait.