Hi folks, I hope you are well! This week we are meeting at the Crescent Club at 7.30pm in the front bar upstairs, we hope you can join us.
This week we are back thinking about the bible, with just one more chapter of the book left. We hope you have found the blogs based on the book helpful and insightful, I know they have helped me enormously.
So, on to our penultimate chapter entitled ‘figuring it out’. Pete turns again to the New Testament and ‘the letters’ – yes letters, let that sink in for a moment… Pete compares these chapters to opening a letter that was never meant for you. We would read about people and situations we didn’t know, described by someone we didn’t know. And with these letters we only get one side of the story.
With that in mind, why would God use this method anyway? We need to use, wait for it… WISDOM to even begin to figure out how or even if these words speak into our current context. But as we’ve discovered wisdom is important for understanding scripture. Maybe the use of letters is a pretty decent idea as we can’t just drag the words into our own situation and see a natural fit. We have to do some work to find the connections between then and now. This means taking time to understand the context and history of the writer in order to discern how they work for us today.
Now of course we know that some texts in these letters have been lifted out of the bible and used for all kinds of things. Petes talks about Romans 13:1:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
What does this actually mean? Does it actually mean what it says, if not what? Now when Paul wrote this (around the time the Jews had recently returned to Rome after being in exile) the king had died. Pete believes, Paul was suggesting that they may want to keep their heads down for time. Or maybe Paul was playing on the pro–Roman political devotion of some of those who would read this letter? Whatever the reason, it is still too simplistic to pull out and use it for all times sake in every political situation.
We could also talk about slavery – Now its true it would have been more helpful if Paul had been a little clearer about this. Pete says, he didn’t argue for it, but he did assume it’s legitimacy, as does the Old Testament. He never tries to abolish it but in Galatians 3:28 he does argue that slaves are ‘equal’ to free folk, which would have pushed the boundaries and gone against thinking at the time. Slavery is a great example of how thinking had changed, both the abolitionists and those who were in favour all used scripture to justify their views. Abolitionists had to argue differently, not in individual passages but on a trajectory of where the bible was heading – towards justice and equality.
Pete also talks about Paul in relation to his views on women, texts such as 1 Cor:14:34 about keeping silent and 1 Tim 2:12 about not letting women teach or have authority over men. And yet in Romans 16: 1 Paul is content to allow Phoebe a key role in delivery of a letter to the Roman Church and then in 16:7 praises Junia for being a prominent apostle. We might have wanted Paul to do more with this subject but he didn’t, who knows the reasons why.
Pete suggests that Paul’s comments about women seem to straddle the realities of his time and the liberation that comes with Christ. Maybe Paul was kick-starting that conversation but as we know from our present reality women’s rights is still a global issue and there is much work to be done, but the trajectory is moving although ever so slowly in many places! But it does behold unto us that we should do more.
Pete finishes this chapter by starting to reflect upon same sex relationship, his premise here is that we cant just throw bible verses at it, we need to look at the purpose and context of passages as well as thinking through our current situation, much as we have had to do with slavery. Whatever we do though it needs to be with grace and guess what…. WISDOM!
Some questions.
When was the last time you wrote a letter? And what for?
What is your favourite letter in the bible?
We may have ended slavery in formal sense, but modern slavery is still a thing, what else needs to be done and what can we do?
Equality for women is still a live issue, what needs to change and how can advance the cause of equality?
How do we deal with issues that aren’t referenced in the bible – What issues are you aware of eg. mental health, addiction?
Peace, Rob
Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team. He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held. He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.