"I said you are gods"

There is a great series of posts over at Berith Road on the intriguing text in John 10:34 "I said you are gods" in its context and against its OT and ANE background. This issue has been doing the rounds of the blogs lately, and I find Steven’s the most insightful treatment and one that underscores the uniquely divine-messianic role of Jesus. There is also a couple of good follow-up posts relating to divine postures of sitting and standing. Well worth a read.

New Lecturers Nominated

Some exciting news about staffing for PTC is now public. The two nominated lecturers both have strong connections with PTC, one was a part-time lecturer in the 1990's, the other is a current student. They both bring great strengths in their respective areas.

The executive of the Theological Education Committee Executive (the governing board of the PTC) has nominated Murray Smith and David Burke to be full-time lecturers at the PTC. These nominations need to be endorsed by the Standing Committee of the Theological Education Committee (in April) and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australian in NSW (in July). The nominations are for the Rev. David Burke to be lecturer in Ministry and Practice from January 1, 2011; and for Mr Murray Smith to be lecturer in Biblical Studies from July 12, 2010.

David Burke comes with extensive ministry and academic experience, having been the minister of the Presbyterian churches in Henty, Strathfield, and Orchard Road, Singapore. He has been the Christian Education Director for the Presbyterian Church in NSW and he has lectured at several theological colleges including the PTC, and Singapore Bible College. He is married to Glenda and they have three adult children.

Murray Smith is an elder at Kirkplace Presbyterian Church in Kogarah where he coordinates teaching and training. He is in the final stages of a PhD at Macquarie University. He has had ministry experience in congregations, in secondary teaching, in university student work and in academic roles in the university sector and theological colleges (including the PTC). Murray is married to Lynette and they have three young children. (In the picture Murray is on the left, David on the right - the hairstyle is about to become the PTC standard and Ian and John Davies will just have to conform!)

This is great news for the PTC. Please pray for the ongoing process as the Assembly approaches. Please pray for these men and their families and the PTC as the team changes and grows.

Early Canon - canonised or not canonised

In the last blog post John discussed the possible canonisation of Mary MacKillop as an Australian saint. As I write this in Cambridge I wonder if the proclamation has taken place, on Australia Day, and here in the UK I missed all the excitement. In any event, we had our own kind of excitement here yesterday.

Last night in the Cambridge University Divinity School, Judith Lieu gave her inaugural lecture as Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity - a chair that dates back to 1502, so that is quite something. Judith Lieu, whose husband Sam is a professor at Macquarie University (but naturally enough here for the big event last night) formerly taught in Sydney at Macquarie.

It was a particularly skillful, and very carefully argued lecture on the topic of 'Conflict and Convergence'. In particular we considered the extent to which Christianity was i) a distinctive religious movement in the second century, say from Judaism, and ii) coherent or disparate within 'itself' whatever 'it' means? (my words, not the professors.) In particular, is the idea of a monolithic 2nd century Great Church based on apostolic doctrine (as we now hold it) a myth forged in the fires of 4th and 5th century controversy? As I understood it, that was certainly the well nuanced thesis the Lady Margaret Professor was presenting (far better nuanced than any blog post could be!)

In one section of the lecture - which you can download on http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/732482/formats;jsessionid=F8F60B863A85E20DFA5673CB7F45DF68 - she suggests that Christianity was quite fragmented. As to N.T. 'canonisation'(!),she presented a picture of the 2nd C where the Canon was not only unformed but no-one had even thought putting together a canon. Thus, when Melito of Sardis (died 180?) refers to the "Old Testament", [ta palaia biblia] we shouldn't take this to imply that he considered there to be any "New Testament".

David Instone-Brewer one of the Research Fellows here at Tyndale House, reminded us here this morning of the words of Tertullian - in my understanding only a decade or two after Melito - where he refers to vetus and novum instrumentum ['old and new testament']. That certainly looks (in the late 2nd century) like Tertullian had something like a New Testament in his mind, as distinct from an Old one - whatever instrumentum means.

As you can see I may have missed out on the lamingtons and BBQed lamb yesterday, but there were still interesting things to do here in Cambridge.

(Australia Day even got a mention in Judith Lieu's lecture!)

Australia’s first saint?

The Vatican has all but proclaimed Mary MacKillop to be Australia’s first saint. We congratulate our Roman Catholic friends on this recognition of the accomplishments of a remarkable woman and her potential elevation to her Church’s “hall of fame”. It makes a pleasant change from the incessant focus on our sporting heroes. I don’t even quibble with this use of the word “saint” as many Protestants do. Words mean what people use them to mean and it is churlish of Protestants to claim that we alone have the true definition of a “saint” just because some English Bibles use this word as a translation of hagios, applied in the NT to all followers of the Lord Jesus, while we use different words for our “worthies”. Words are capable of more than one meaning, of broader and narrower definitions, and we regularly use words in senses other than their NT uses.

What is curious is the way the media have on the whole suspended their usual healthy questioning — regarding her alleged miraculous posthumous activity. Disturbing, at least at the level of folk religion, if not the official Roman Catholic position, is the attribution of the miraculous cures to Mary, rather than Mary’s God. All prayer other than that directed to God in the name of Christ, is misplaced. Sadly, I fear we are in for a rather confused time as superstitious popular corruptions supplant Biblical truth in the guise of honouring a great Australian woman. We might have opportunity gently to point people to the one in whom true healing is to be found.

PTC Anagrams

Truth and wisdom can sometimes be anagramaticaly concealed in a name. What happens when you take the blender to

Presbyterian Theological Centre?

The year we started, one could imagine a small paragraph in our denominational magazine headed

Tiny college trains preacher-to-be

Or perhaps, thinking of 1 Timothy 5:17, we might get

Ace preaching? Only better toilers!

Or a variant, based on 2 Corinthians 4:7 might be

Clay preachers — one toiling better

A vision statement, mission statement and action plan in one might be

One in Christ — A better college — Pray

Our world missions perspective finds expression in

Yearn to etch clear gospel in tribe

Orthodoxy and orthopraxis blend in

Listen to grace in brotherly peace

It would be interesting to see if other colleges can yield some apt anagrams.

Ageless Dinosaurs

No, I’m not referring to the PTC Faculty. A recent children’s book on dinosaurs boasts that it avoids the question of how long ago these lovable monsters roamed the earth and so should be acceptable to evolutionists and creationists alike.

What a great marketing idea! We could extend this please-all approach to future editions of the Bible. We could have a collapsible or expandable canon, with clever fold-out pages which could remain discreetly hidden for Protestants. There could be a version of the ten commandments which allowed a set of checkbox options as to which ones the reader would like included/omitted. The one on coveting might have some extra letters in brackets —You shall not co(n)ve(r)t — for those with an aversion to evangelism. The Song of Songs could come with brown paper wrapper, and instructions for gaining access once one has learned the meaning of the word allegory.

The gospels could come in the usual fourfold form, as well as a composite form for those who want to save the effort of hearing their different voices. The resurrection could be made an optional outcome in a choose-your own-ending to the life story of Jesus. There could even be some blank pages to describe the Christ of your own experience. It would be very handy to have a version of Paul’s letters which relegates to footnotes (only to be read by those with a peculiar bent for trying to understand the whole of his complex thought) all the troublesome bits and sticks to the ‘safe’ passages in the text.

There could be a high church liturgical account of the meetings of the early Christians, and one that doesn’t mention worship at all, so as to appeal to contemporary evangelicals.

The Book of Revelation could come with alternative sets of charts marked PRE-, A-, and POST-, and perhaps to cover those keen on the idea of Christ’s rule, but not sure of the other options, one marked PRO-. There’s no end to the possibilities this strategy opens up.

Divine flu: a health warning

Ben Myers has a recent post with an excerpt from an article by Kim Fabricius on the dangers of both neo-liberalism and conservative evangelicalism. While some of the critiques of the latter will take some readers of this blog beyond their comfort zone (and I'm not agreeing with all of the comments), it is well worth reflecting on the matters raised. We need to see ourselves as others see us and ask whether we have simply identified an evangelical subculture with revealed truth.