Teaching as Torah the Talmud of Men

/ W. Keith Brenton / 13 Comments

Okay, I know those probably aren’t the exact words of Jesus. (He wasn’t speaking English, after all.)

But I wonder if that’s what his listeners heard.

The Torah, as I recall from freshman Bible class, is the law given by God to Moses – much of it in narrative form. Then there’s the Tanakh, which recorded a lot of other oral traditions of law and history. There’s the Mishnah, a sort of commentary on the preceding. Finally, there’s the Talmud, a kind of super-commentary which was intended to illuminate and expand upon all of those teachings.

I don’t know whether all Jews see them as equal – and there are a lot of different views within Judaism – but there does seem to be a consensus that the Torah came from God and that good men wrote the Talmud. (In fact, I think that the Babylonian Talmud generally receives preference as older and more authoritative when a conflict with the Jerusalem Talmud is perceived.)

Probably some Christians somewhere make the same distinction between the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, but I’m not one of them. I believe in God’s inspiration through His Holy Spirit, and a deep purposeful truth within each volume of the Biblical canon.

What I don’t believe is that the messages within them all carry equal weight in our lives and our walk with God. And I don’t believe that the commentaries written about them carry equal weight – with each other, or with scripture. And I don’t believe that the articles written about the commentaries written about scripture … well, you get the picture.

So when we teach something – and we really pound the pulpit about it – is it generally something that is Torah or Talmud?

When we tell someone the story of Jesus; describe His compassion for others; repeat His teaching about our relationships with God and others; relate His sacrifice as the ultimate innocent for our guilt – do we really have to pound the pulpit? Isn’t The Story powerful enough that it persuades all by itself, though told with the gentlest of tone and the most timid of sociability?

And when we really want to persuade someone of our “rightness” on a particular question of doctrine that does not immediately “sell” itself by its intrinsic qualities, isn’t it then that we find ourselves proof-texting and cross-referencing and committing assault and battery on an innocent lectern?

Isn’t it then that we are tempted to generalize, exceptionalize, rationalize, extemporize and categorize? When the “truth” isn’t so simple, so obvious, so heart-wrenching and will-breaking?

Maybe that’s because what we’re defending is a tradition of men and not necessarily of God.

Jesus wasn’t fond of men’s traditions that took priority over – or contradicted – God’s teaching. He said it nullifies our worship. He said it puts our lips in a different segement of life from our hearts.

He said it was teaching the commentary as if it were the law itself.

That sounds like a really dangerous mistake to me.

Having Arrived

/ W. Keith Brenton / 9 Comments

Angi is drafting a workbook to accompany the group study of her colleague Darryl Tippens’ book Pilgrim Heart, and while perusing her work – and remembering Darryl’s from our LIFE Group’s study of it last summer and fall – it became “real” to me that God’s intention for us all along was to be on a journey.

Israel got in trouble when no longer bound for the promised land, but when they had occupied it – when they felt they had arrived, and were no longer on the journey.

They failed to exterminate the foreign gods. They coveted and stole the property to be wholly dedicated to God. Their worship at the tabernacle and temple became rote. Then they forgot to meditate on the law of God daily, and to read the law annually, and to live it out constantly.

Pretty much the same way that I live, and maybe that you live. I don’t drive out the things more important than God in my life. I want things more than I want Him. My worship becomes dutiful, but not heartfelt. I neglect God’s word for my life.

I feel I’ve “arrived,” as a Christian; blessed with grace and forgiveness. I don’t see my own distance from God anymore, or my life looking less and less like His Son’s instead of more and more like it. I’ve left the journey, and taken up comfortable residence in myself.

Oh, I’m not a horrible person; I don’t try to drown little fishes or pull the wings off of puppies.

I’m just all about me.

And I need to hear the call – like Abraham, like Moses, like Nehemiah, like Saul of Tarsus – to get up and get out of me and get on the road to a land that God will show me and a people yet un-reborn.

Does Hollywood ‘Get’ God (Better Than Evangelical Christianity Does)?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 7 Comments

I put off seeing Bruce Almighty for a long time. I didn’t go see it at the theaters. I didn’t rent it. I enjoy a good Jim Carrey flick – maybe more than the next average guy – but I didn’t expect to like Bruce at all.

More accurately, I didn’t expect to like the depiction of God in Bruce.

Finally, a very obviously-sanitized version of the movie came on USA Network last week while I was sick and, having nothing better to do, I took it in.

And I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised. Morgan Freeman’s version of the Deity was someone you would actually like – and someone who would actually like you, even though knowing everything about you. This God would take time out to page you on your phone and pull a cheap stunt or two to get you off-balance and chat with you and trust you with ultimate power … well, within a fourteen-block area of Buffalo, New York, anyway. Without neglecting everyone else, he would still care enough about you to let you learn the hard way that your girl – with whom you have been unforgiveably selfish – prays about you every night, until she just can’t pray any more.

He’d listen to your questions: “How do you make people love you without interfering with free will?” Answer: “Welcome to my world.”

He would even help you learn how to pray. Not just a little peace-on-earth-wish-from-a-Miss-America-candidate kind of prayer, but one that comes straight out of your heart and your unselfishness and your own love.

So I actually wondered: In spite of all the flaws, pratfalls and downright inaccuracies that any movie Hollywood makes about God must have, is it possible that Hollywood sometimes actually hits the mark?

In the first of the Oh, God movies, George Burns as the Deity takes a turn at answering mankind’s questions, posed through grocer John Denver. High on the list: “Is Jesus your son?” The answer: “Jesus was my son. Buddha was my son. The guy who overcharged for this room-service steak is my son. Next question.”

Corny, politically-correct drivel, right? Sure. And perfectly true. Evangelical Christianity wants to claim God as its exclusive property, and vice-versa. It says, “Validate me! Tell them I’m right, God!” But God isn’t in that business. Everyone is His child … some already adopted; others waiting. There weren’t any that He didn’t send Jesus to redeem.

Too bad the movie’s God didn’t have a stronger message than “You can make it work.”

That’s the same message you hear from too many of evangelical Christianity’s televised prophets. “You can make it work,” they’ll tell you; “… and God wants to make it work for you.”

So buy God in the convenient cosmic size, good for all uses and guaranteed to work for you. God wants you to have it all!

Not the God I read about in scripture. He’s truly almighty. The kind of God people fall down in front of and beg for rocks to fall on them; the kind of God before whom people feel so unworthy to speak that they’d only feel cleansed by having their tongues cauterized by a burning coal. He’s no chummy fellow bent on blessing exclusively me or exclusively you. He’s more pragmatic. He agrees with comedian Stephen Wright’s musing: “You can’t have it all. Where would you put it?” And more importantly, would you spend more of yourself trying to figure out how to keep it, rather than redistribute it to help those who have nothing? The God I read about just says, “Come work for Me. Help it work out right for others. You don’t have to worry about yourself; I’ll take care of you.”

Morgan Freeman’s Deity returns to bedevil (sorry; couldn’t help myself) the hapless anchor of the news station in Buffalo in an upcoming sequel, Evan Almighty. You remember Evan, don’t you? The poor fellow that omnipotent Bruce terrorized by forcing him to babble incoherently during his first moments as anchor? In this go-around, he’s being asked to build an ark.

In a preview, Evan sees the Deity in the back seat of his car via the rear-view mirror and goes absolutely blithering beserk. “Let it all out, son,” he is encouraged. “It’s the beginning of wisdom.”

Yeah.

We could all use a bit of that.

More Highly Resolved …

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

This Christmas could have gone a lot worse. I started feeling puny while operating the A/V booth Wednesday night at church, went home and to bed – and by the middle of the night, was running a 102-degree fever and enduring miserable sinusitis pains. I was too sick to go to work the next day, rallied enough Friday to put Sunday’s worship PowerPoints into EasyWorship and to print the orders of worship, then came home and crashed while the rest of my family went out to a Christmas dinner with (and at the treat of) our dear friends, the Rowes.

Saturday morning, Laura discovered that her second mouse Carmel had squeezed out of his cage and into Tuxedo’s. Tuxedo is her brother’s mouse, who welcomed Carmel pretty visciously. Angi and Laura had to take the poor thing to the vet to be put out of his suffering. Then later in the day, Angi took me to the family clinic for a shot – but I survived it.

Sunday morning I was still too far under the weather to be able to go to worship, but I heard it was wonderful: one service at 9:00 a.m., people packed into pews and folding chairs like subway riders (you thought I’d say “sardines,” but sardines don’t sit in pews, folding chairs or subways).

But on Christmas morning I felt good enough to lumber downstairs and open gifts, have breakfast, and relax – even entertain a luncheon guest for a while. It was really a very lovely Christmas.

All those nights when I’d be awakened by almost-hourly hacking-and-wheezing fits, I could go back to sleep pretty easily by thinking about my New Year’s resolutions.

Until last night, when it suddenly occurred to me that all of my new year’s resolutions were about me.

Well, of course they were, you might think; you can’t make somebody else’s for them (which is sometimes a pity…).

No, I mean they were things about me that I wanted for my own sake: To look better. To be perceived better. To feel better about myself.

I didn’t have resolutions that were achievable goals about wanting to become a better listener … more generous … more cooperative and collaborative … more forgiving; less judgmental.

It was good to have achievable goals. But they really need to benefit others and glorify God, first of all.

I have a feeling if I pursue those goals, no one will care greatly whether I’m fourteen pounds overweight or sporadic at blogging or behind on a long-term project or any of those others. Least of all, me.

And 2007 will go better for everybody.

Christmas, The Secular Holiday

/ W. Keith Brenton / 7 Comments

I have religious friends and kinfolk who beleive in good conscience that Christmas can be celebrated, but only – as the traditional term in the prayer between the Lord’s Supper and collection goes – “separate and apart” from any religious connotation.

It’s okay, in other words, to exchange gifts and take your children to sit on Santa’s lap at the mall – but it is condemned by the silence of scripture to mention the gifts of the visiting Magi, or to talk about St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra.

The logic of this conclusion simply escapes me.

Jesus celebrated traditions that predated His incarnation. He went to temple … well, to synagogue. Nowhere in Old Testament scripture is synagogue required, authorized or condemned. Does Jesus stand condemned for violating the silence of scripture?

He also clearly opposed the then-current teaching about keeping the Sabbath – which was, scripturally, to be kept holy to the Lord – in order to heal a man on that day of rest. He even seemed to advocate rescuing an unfortunate animal on the Sabbath; for He is Lord of the Sabbath, and it was made for man – not vice-versa. Does Jesus stand condemned for violating the clear instruction of scripture?

When angels in heavenly host sang so loudly at the birth of the Savior-King that shepherds could hear them in their fields that night, were they in violation of keeping heaven’s silence? Or if they had withheld their praise and celebration, would the rocks and stones themselves begun to sing – as Jesus said during his triumphal entry into Jerusalem years later?

And when we give gifts, do we not imitate our Lord Jesus, His Father and His Spirit – who have made an eternal career of gifting mankind with what we need most? Do we not mimic the generosity of the Christ who gave up everything in heaven to be born, live, teach, die and live again among us?

Christmas a merely secular holiday?

Bah.

Humbug.

The Season of Reduced Expectations

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

Christmas is crunch-time. And I’m not talking about snow.

It’s time to hike it all up a notch; time to want less and give more; time to be the wisest shopper and the most generous heart and the most pious Christian. It’s time to entertain and be entertained; to party and throw parties; to overextend, overeat, overdo, over-achieve.

All to honor the Baby in the manger.

Because that, of course, is what happened the night He was born. Joseph and Mary invited the Shepherds and the Kings and any other neighbors over and threw a big bash – even though dreadfully tired from travel and improvisation at lodging and probably a few hours of labor.

Then the Kings were, maybe, a couple of years late and almost missed the party heading down to Egypt for a really big time. Their stellar navigation thing evidently had gone out while they were in transit and they had to go ask Herod for directions.

To make up for it, they probably went a bit overboard on the shower gifts, but hey, it’s the holidays – and you only get one chance to fete a baby, right?

Even a Baby who has come to give the gift of reduced expectations.

I believe that.

I believe He came so that we wouldn’t have to worry about eternal damnation. Or about having too much stuff. About toiling and spinning and spending and having and storing-in-barns and moths and rust and thieves. He came to tell us to ask, and we would receive; to seek, and we would find; to knock, and the door would be opened to us.

Even if it was the door to a stable. Or a prison. Or an arena full of hungry wild animals ringed by horrific wild pagans.

He came to encourage us to give that last mite in the temple treasury; to give without expecting to receive in return; to give of ourselves lavishly and extravagantly to people we barely know, or don’t know at all. He came to ask us to sell our possessions and give to the poor, with no expectation that we could ever redistribute so evenly that there would never again be the poor.

He came to give us the expectation that we would be reviled and persecuted and accused falsely.

He came to tell us to expect a cross – and when crunch-time came, He let Himself be nailed to it – all so we could share a crown with Him. Because He would never ask us to do anything He wasn’t willing to do Himself.

And He gave us something far more precious than wealth or power or worldly blessings or high expectations.

He gave us hope.

Who Trumps Whom?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

I’m still struggling with the questions in the previous post.

What if Paul’s command explicitly says, “…women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.” (I Corinthians 14:34), but Jesus’ example is not to forbid a woman of poor repute from testifying about Him – or even to exaggerate it – so that “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers” (John 4:39-41)?

Who trumps whom?

What if Paul’s command above seems to contradict his permission for women to pray and prophesy in what seems to be a public worship setting – as long as her head is covered, possibly with long hair; possibly with a veil (I Corinthians 11:5 – a segment sandwiched between two discussions of what is permissible at the Lord’s table, and presumably having to do with a worship assembly)?

Does Paul, chapter 14 trump Paul, chapter 11?

Thank heaven the eating of meat sacrificed to idols is not an issue these days. I can’t even begin to sort it out. If you eat it in private, it’s alright because you know the pagan gods to whom it was sacrificed are nothing and God made everything good in and of itself (I Corinthians 10:25-26, 30). But if someone has a conscience problem about it, you can’t eat it in front of them. If someone offers you meat at their table or you buy it in the market, you should not ask if it was sacrificed to an idol (I Corinthians 10:27). But if they do tell you it has been sacrificed to an idol, you can’t eat it (I Corinthians 10:28-29). Sort of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy? Yet, the fact remains that meat sacrificed to idols was actually sacrificed to demons, which are real, so you should have no part of it. (I Corinthians 10:19-20). So you’re pretty much danged if you do and danged if you don’t, so you might as well just do what your conscience suggests and glorify God for having one (I Corinthians 10:31).

But, in so doing, don’t cause somebody else to mess up and violate their conscience because of what you did (I Corinthians 10:32). Just try to make everyone happy (I Corinthians 10:33).

I know I’m paraphrasing wildly but … didn’t I get most of that condensed version right?

(Please don’t ask me to factor in Romans 14, too.)

Can ANYONE sort that out and make sense of it and figure out what the rules are – and live by them in any given real or hypothetical situation?

My inclination is to say “no.”

Maybe because that’s not the point.

Maybe Paul is pointing out how pointless it is to bullet-point a bunch of rules. Perhaps the gist of it is that people can disagree on matters of conscience and still eat or worship together without condemning and offending each other if they’re willing to respect each other, show a little deference, talk about it – even agree to disagree.

Maybe the point is that we need to struggle with questions of conscience together, and draw closer to God in the process by being transparent, listening, sharing, respecting, seeing the viewpoints of others and being enriched by them.

Or maybe I’m just really awful at turning the Bible into the right rules to live by.

Good thing there’s grace, huh?

Applicability

/ W. Keith Brenton / 9 Comments

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, so bear with me.

There are some passages of scripture that are meant for all people for all time everywhere. Right?

And there are some that are meant for some people at a certain time and place. Right?

We can’t keep a whole lot of the commandments in the old covenant, because 1.) most of us Christians aren’t Jews; 2.) there is no temple in Jerusalem where we could sacrifice even if we were; 3.) the Law was a schoolmaster until ….

Okay, how about the new covenant:

“Slaves, obey your masters.” Meant for some people at a certain time and place. Or not?

“Love each other deeply, for love covers a multitude of sins.” Meant for all people for all time. Or not?

Maybe those seem obvious to you. But there are a lot of things in the new covenant that aren’t that clear to me. To whom were they written and meant to benefit? For all time or for a certain time? For every people, race and nation or for a small definite group of people in a nation which perhaps no longer exists?

How do we decide?

If context gives clear clues, are we allowed to ignore those clues if they conflict with what we’ve been taught – or have otherwise always believed?

If what Paul teaches as command seems to conflict with what Jesus taught by example, who trumps whom?

If some of those teachings are contingent upon a certain event – such as Christ’s return and judgment – and I understand that differently from you (and most everybody else!) should I continue to teach something that I do not in my heart believe is applicable to us and now and everywhere and forever?

Like I said, I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I really don’t have these answers.

And I really, really do want to know them.

What Was Hell Like?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

I’ve had a year and a half to think about things since my last post on this subject, What Isn’t Hell Like?. I’ve read a little of Edward Fudge’s thoughts on annihilation as a good explanation of what “eternal punishment” means.

And I’m wondering …

What if hell isn’t eternal – at least for us mortal folk? Suppose the “hades” aspect of it really was just a holding tank for those before Jesus’ time on earth, awaiting His judgment? And that, at the time His judgment came, it was tanked in the lake of fire for all time?

What if hell – the eternal, ever-burning, lake-of-fire aspect of it – is reserved for the devil and his angels: created, half-eternal beings who knew God and yet rebelled against Him? Because they were created to be eternal from that point on; created to be close to Him and still stood against everything good about Him?

What if eternal punishment is simply that those of us mortals who were created to choose immortality close to God – yet never having seen Him except through His creation and the story of His Son – we choose death when we choose to be anything other than closer to God? Forever-death? Irrevocable, un-appealable and unappealing permanent nonexistence?

When we had the chance to choose to be with Him forever, instead?

When we had the choice to be like Him, and carry His story forward, and live it out each mortal day?

When we were appointed to judge angels by showing them that the right choice could be made in faith and not just by sight alone, making their crime of rebellion all the more heinous?

Isn’t “eternal death” the opposite of “eternal life”? Rather than its opposite being “eternal torture”?

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:23

And why is there something deep within me that wonders how a God – even a God of great righteousness and unimpeachable wrath – can be just in dispensing eternal torture to rebels whose sins were temporal; choices made blindly and in lack of faith?

Thanksliving

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

I made that typo today while trying to rush together the bulletin for my church; trying to squeeze five days of work into two-and-a-half.

It’s a fortunate – and possibly freudian – error. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. (Sorry, Angi. I know yours is Christmas. And the only reason that I’m not fussing about putting up Christmas decorations tonight, before Thanksgiving, is that we’re having your faculty Christmas dinner Sunday before our friend has to have his major surgery.)

It isn’t the food. It isn’t the football games. It isn’t even the gathering of family (when we can). There’s just something inside that wants Thanksgiving to be a year-round, 24/7 thing. I want every day to be one of my blogging friend JettyBetty’s Thursday Thanksgivings. (She faithfully writes one every week.)

I want it to be an ongoing holiday. A moveable feast of gratitude. A lifestyle.

Thanksliving.

Four years ago I wrote this inverse-rhyme poem for my weekly column in the Abilene Reporter-News; a column called “Parenting on Purpose.” I haven’t always lived as brightly the fluorescent hues of thankfulness I painted in that work – kids can be challenging! – but I am more grateful to God for them and for their mother than words can ever express:

I’m grateful my kids’ toys aren’t neat
and that their shoes litter the floor.
It testifies – no less, no more –
that they have hands and feet.

I’m thankful though they don’t come home
the moment playtime ends.
It tells me they have good friends
within a few yards’ roam.

I’m even glad for muddy floors
and grubby, smiling faces
and dug-up garden places.
For they love to be outdoors.

As costly as they seem,
I pay for jerseys and the Y
– and gladly, too. Need you ask why?
It means they’re on a team.

For practices that run too long
and games in cold and heat,
I’m thankful. Even when they’re beat,
they’re healthy and they’re strong.

I’m thankful though my children view
a bit too much TV.
It says to me they hear and see,
and want to know what’s new.

I’m thankful for the homework check
I must conduct each night.
Though answers are not always right,
I learn when I inspect.

I’m grateful when my children’s grades
are not quite up to snuff.
It shows me they try hard enough;
like mine, their memory fades.

I’m glad to see a teacher’s note
with praise or warning there.
It proves their teachers care
and my kids’ learning isn’t rote.

I’m grateful for each curious rule,
and each fund-raising drive.
Though wits and wallet won’t survive,
it means they have a school.

I’m thankful though I am accused
of never being fair.
My role as judge is always there;
I’ve never been recused.

I’m thankful when “Let’s go to the park!”
they goad – though other matters task.
I go – and hope that they’ll still ask
four decades down the road.

I’m thankful that they think of me
as worth much of their time.
(Though “Hi, Mom!” is what they would mime
on national TV.)

I’m glad to see their reams of art.
Stick-figured Mom and Dad
in colors wild – the fun they’ve had
while drawing from the heart.

I’m grateful though the lyric’s wrong
and when they sing off-key.
For it means all the world to see
their hearts are full of song.

I’m thankful though my children fuss
and fight with one another.
It means they’re sis and brother,
and I know they’re part of us.

I’m thankful when they flip their lids,
as well as when they sing.
Because, as much as anything,
I’m thankful for my kids.