Archived Posts For 2007 October
lay your hands on me
Posted on October 31, 2007 by Bryan Riley
Filed Under Bible Study | 3 Comments
Jon Bon Jovi, who has one of the best male voices on the radio, once sang a tune about the laying on of hands, but I think he was talking about something quite different than the subject of this topic. Growing up Southern Baptist in America, where people tend to have personal spaces and where my church was largely suspicious about anything that had the appearance of charismatism, the laying on of hands just didn’t happen.
But, when you think about those who have gone before us it seems that there must be something to a touchy-feely faith.
Think about the story of Issac, Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, with all the trickery that went into ensuring that Isaac laid his hands on Jacob, not Esau, so that the blessing would fall upon Jacob. Genesis 27.
Think of the interesting story of Jacob, now Israel, blessing Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, where he deliberately crosses his hands over so that his right hand is laying on the youngest son, Ephraim, even after Joseph tries to “correct” his father. Genesis 48.
The bible tells us that Joshua was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses laid his hands on him. Deuteronomy 34. When the Levites were set apart for the priesthood, the entire family was brought before the rest of the nation of Israel so that they could lay their hands on the Levites. Numbers 8:5-11.
These are just a few OT examples. In the New Testament, it goes beyond just being interesting that Paul reminds Timothy to keep the gift of God aflame, a gift that came upon him through the laying on of Paul’s hands. 2 Timothy 1:7. There is the difficult passage in Acts 8 where Simon the sorceror wants the ability to give the Holy Spirit by laying on hands just like the apostles did it. And, in Mark 6, Jesus couldn’t do many miracles in his home town except “lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.”
These passages really challenge me to rethink the laying on of hands. But the passage that really puts me over the edge can be found in Hebrews 6. There the author of Hebrews made me want to write this post. It is there that he or she writes the following:
Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead,
and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.
Why is this so interesting? Because the author clearly considers the laying on of hands an elementary teaching about Christ. It is included in a list of “elementary teachings about Christ” with repentance, faith, baptisms, resurrection and eternal judgment. It is basic and foundational. It is primary. It is something upon which we build.
I suppose it is one of those things that I don’t need to understand how or why it works, but I need to believe in it nonetheless, and believing in it necessarily includes acting upon it. What do you think?
monologue avoidance desires (MAD)
Posted on October 30, 2007 by Geoff Matheson
Filed Under Site Notices | 2 Comments
This is a friendly reminder that the reason there hasn’t been posts up here for the last few days is partly because I haven’t had anything slide across my brain, but also because nobody else has submitted anything. So, in the interests of seeing out my MAD plans: I offer the following suggestions for posts:
- Idealistic dreams. There’s a whole category for “Crazy Idealism” and it would be sad to see only my meagre post on advocacy as the best effort at the idealistic world. Have a go - there’s nothing quite as fun as having people shoot down your idealism. (Kidding!!!)
- Why I… whatever. Why I’m a Calvinist. Why I hate Calvinists. Why I wish I was an atheist. All of these make good titles for posts. And there’s a category for these too
- Book Reviews. There’ll pretty soon be a review of McLaren’s “Everything Must Change” (I’ve just got to read it first), but you can get in first and tell everyone about the last book you read.
- Whatever else you feel like. I just like having this site being about more than whatever’s on Geoff’s mind at the time.
If any of the above inspire you to contribute to Amateur Theology, just send your post in an email to submissions@amateurtheology.org . I pseudo-promise to have something up tomorrow of greater value. Until then - happy submitting.
a bit of a dream for advocacy
Posted on October 25, 2007 by Geoff Matheson
Filed Under Crazy Idealism, Emerging Questions | 18 Comments
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ lend to ’sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
- Luke 6: 32-36
I know that I said I was finished with the feminism conversation for the time being, but stick with me, that’s not what this is primarily all about. But in interacting with that discussion there were two, fairly obvious and unsurprising general trends:
- The strongest, loudest pro-feminist voices were primarily women
- The most reluctant voices with regards to feminism were from men
I realise that about now you’re wanting to award me the Nobel Prize for Pointing-Out-The-Blatantly-Obvious, but stop being so rude and let me finish. What if we, as followers of the man who spoke the words in the quote above, chose to live to a higher standard? What if our most passionate responses came in defence of causes that cannot benefit ourselves? This isn’t a potshot at those in either category 1 or 2 above - that’s just how I got here. But what if we passionately got behind the issues that mean letting go of our own control.
Imagine if the church’s loudest feminists were men? If the loudest advocates for the poor came from financially prosperous backgrounds? If the advocates for Aboriginal Australians came from the white people? What if we were able to give up the causes that could benefit ourselves the most, in place of those which benefited us the least?
OK, now if you’re willing to put up with one more rhetorical question: what if the loudest voices for improving homosexual rights came from the Christians who believed that homosexuality is a sin? What a church that might be.
not all differences are differences in value
Posted on October 23, 2007 by Geoff Matheson
Filed Under Emerging Questions | 11 Comments
“The two most popular philosophies of sexuality today seem totally opposed to each other; yet at a most basic level they are in agreement and are equally mistaken. The two philosophies are the old chauvinism and the new egalitarianism; and they seem totally opposed. For chauvinism (a) sees one sex as superior to the other, “second”, sex. This is usually the male, but there are increasingly many strident female chauvinist voices in the current cacophony. This presupposes (b) that the sexes are intrinsically different, different by nature not social convention. Egalitarianism tries to disagree with (a) totally; it thinks that to do so it has to disagree with (b) as well. But this means that it agrees with chauvinism on (c), the unstated but assumed premise that all dfferences must be dfferences in value, or, correlatively, that the only way for two things to be equal in value is for them to be equal in nature. Both philosophies see sameness or superiority as the only options. It is from this assumption (that differences are differences in value) that the chauvinist argues that the sexes are different in nature, therefore they are different in value. And it is from the same assumption that the egalitarian argues that the sexes are not different in value, therefore they are not different in nature.”
- Peter Kreeft: “Is There Sex In Heaven“
When you have a spare moment, take a read of Kreeft’s essay - it covers a much wider area than the slither I’ve quoted. This will be my last word on the whole feminism thing for the time being (although if you wanted to submit something yourself, you’re very welcome), but I did want to pass on the above quote to highlight an area which I think has been a stumbling block for people to be willing to take on the feminist cause in churches. Because the assumption has been that taking on the cause of gender “equality” has to mean that men and women are the same.
So once we accept that there are differences between men and women - not differences of value but differences nevertheless; there is a temptation to use those differences to justify relegating women back into the same roles and positions as they’ve always been in. We’ve probably all heard it: people mis-appropriating the church as body to justify why we keep women away from leadership and teaching roles. So, the big question is: what do you do about it?
just added: comments policy
Posted on October 22, 2007 by Geoff Matheson
Filed Under Site Notices | 5 Comments
There have been a couple of comments recently that have been bordering on getting a little bit too close to personal attacks for my liking, and so as a result (and mostly because this way I don’t feel bad when I do it), I’ve added a comments policy to the site. If you can keep that in mind, that would be wonderful. Disagreement is expected and even sought after, but I’m not going to let you get away with making judgments about a person’s character because of their theological beliefs.
(note: also from the comments policy - “in the interests of keeping the comments to being discussions rather than theses, you shouldn’t need any more than 5 paragraphs to make your point. Any longer than that, and you can post it on your own blog and link to it. (linking to interesting comments is encouraged) Or even better: send it to submissions@amateurtheology.org and we’ll post it up here. ” - just another attempt at plugging the idea that it would be great to have more non-Geoff posts up here :))
