Monday Miscellany
20 May 2024
Greetings!
Peace, mercy, and grace be with you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I’m back in California again! It’s good to be back, but I did enjoy a great training experience at the Summit Bechtel Reserve.
Sunday, May 19, 2024
The Voice 14.20: The Levites and Their Service | Numbers 3:1-4:49
The twelve tribes had been counted for military service and organized around the Tabernacle. Then the time came to organize and deputize the Levites for the service of the Tabernacle. God has always been interested in maintaining good order and discipline in His service. It’s not everything; it would not even rank as nearly the most important thing; but it’s not nothing, or to be treated flippantly, either.
Peace Upon the Israel of God | Galatians 6:1-18 | Paul’s Letter to the Galatians
Outline | Podcast | Conversation
The conclusion of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.
This might get a rise out of those who are very committed to a “new law” framework of Christianity. I invite anyone in that posture to re-examine what motivates the desire to impose this framework when Paul resisted doing so, and explicitly taught against it. Why are we so afraid of entrusting ourselves to the Lord Jesus and to see how He liberated us from the law to serve Him and one another faithfully?
Above all, however, what really counts is the new creation. Works of the Law and works of the flesh alienate and condemn. Walking and living according to the Spirit, demonstrating the results of His work in our lives through love, is what it is all about.
This week’s image is Westminster Abbey in London. Originally started as a monastery, it would grow to become the seat of the Church of England in London. All kinds of famous people are buried within it.
Participation in their evensong service provides a surreal experience. Say what you will about the difficulties with the institution; it remains humbling to participate in songs, prayers, and Scripture readings as they have been presented every single day for over a millennium in that same space.
Book Reviews
Since the sermon series on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is finished, so is the commentary reading which accompanied it.
I considered three Galatians commentaries while writing this series: the Brazos Theological Commentary by Greene-McCreight (affiliate link; galley received as part of early review program), the Interpretation commentary by Cousar (affiliate link), and the New Covenant Commentary by Williams (affiliate link).
All three proved fairly similar in terms of outlook, interpretive framework, contextual decisions and understanding, and in ultimate interpretation. All three come from the Protestant tradition, likely Evangelical to a significant degree.
The Brazos Theological Commentary series tends to want to highlight various theological premises and particular contributions of a given text to our theological understanding. Greene-McCreight did not disappoint in this regard; she well highlighted the various ways in which Paul’s Letter to the Galatians thus contributed to our understanding of Paul’s perspective on theology and on theology in general.
In the epilogue Greene-McCreight grappled with how to best understand the relationship between the church and Israel in light of Galatians. One can tell how constrained she felt by Protestant mixing of covenants and an intense desire to stay as far away as possible from anything resembling supersessionism or “replacement theology”, coming up with the neologism “infrasessionism” to attempt to explain the situation. Her claim no Jewish people were part of the churches of Galatia seems a bit strong for the evidence, and thus her conclusion that Galatians says nothing about how Paul considered the relationship between Jewish Christians and the Law of Moses proves a bit baffling. Paul never declaimed his Judaism; but he did speak of how in Christ there is neither Jewish nor Gentile (Galatians 3:28), considered himself as having died to the Law and crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20-21), and spoke at length regarding how “we” were under the paidagogos until faith in Christ came, after which the paidagogos no longer had any authority over him.
I understand the concerns regarding the ugly heritage of antisemitism in Christendom and how flippant many who uphold a form of supersessionism/replacement theology can prove. Yet as in all things religious, let alone Christianity, so much distortion and error derives from over-reactions to the bad doctrinal and practical views and actions of others. Yes, Paul did see points of continuity; he asked God to bring peace and mercy on the Israel of God, after all, and considered all who share in Abraham’s faith as children of Abraham. There’s no ground for Marcionism in Galatians. But the problem in Galatia were “Judaizers,” those attempting to impose circumcision and Jewish rituals on Gentile Christians, and those Christians were not to tolerate anything of the sort.
Interpretation commentaries are designed for those involved in preaching and teaching and seek to focus on application. Cousar made sure the audience was aware regarding when various Galatians readings would show up in the lectionary, and to what end. The commentary on the text proved generally robust, staying within the standard framework of a “south Galatian,” middle date position. There were not as many points of application as is found in other texts, but such is understandable in terms of much of what Galatians is about, and the author does the best he can under the circumstances.
In his New Covenant Commentary, Williams likewise stayed within the standard framework. He did well at bringing in the appropriate points of connection with the greater Greco-Roman and Second Temple Jewish worlds of Paul and the Galatians. He spent considerable time with some passages but only briefly covers many others.
Williams especially found himself in quite the predicament in attempting to uphold the traditional Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican/Protestant desire to consider many aspects of the Old Testament as providing authority for modern Christian faith and practice in light of how Paul was adamantly resisting such a position. His aside on the issue did not exactly persuade or convince.
Yet overall all these commentaries helped to provide insight from Old Testament, pseudepigraphal, and Greco-Roman texts and assisted me well in preparing the sermons presented on Galatians.
Thanks again for your interest and support. Please share and subscribe!
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirits.
Ethan