Come and Go Sunday School Lesson with
Dr. Herb Prince and Dr. Frank Carver for Sunday, 1 June 2014 at San Diego First
Church of the Nazarene
Long Ago God Spoke
Part 12: Good Christian Practices
Hebrews
11: 1 Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. 2
For by this, the elders obtained testimony. 3 By faith, we understand that the
universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been
made out of things which are visible. 4 By faith, Abel offered to God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had testimony given to him that
he was righteous, God testifying with respect to his gifts; and through it he, being
dead, still speaks. 5 By faith, Enoch was taken away, so that he wouldn’t see
death, and he was not found, because God translated him. For he has had
testimony given to him that before his translation he had been well pleasing to
God. 6 Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who
comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those
who seek him. 7 By faith, Noah, being warned about things not yet seen, moved
with godly fear,[a] prepared a ship for the saving of his house, through which
he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according
to faith.
Footnotes:
a. Hebrews 11:7 or, reverence
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore let us also, seeing we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin
which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the
joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider him who has endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting
in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin; 5
and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children,
“My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the
Lord,
nor faint
when you are reproved by him;
6 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens,
and
scourges every son whom he receives.”[a]
7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals
with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t
discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made
partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children. 9 Furthermore, we had
the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not
much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they
indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our
profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. 11 All chastening seems for
the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful
fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby. 12 Therefore
lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees, [b] 13 and make straight
paths for your feet,[c] so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather
be healed.
Footnotes:
a. Hebrews 12:6 Proverbs 3:11-12
b. Hebrews 12:12 Isaiah 35:3
c. Hebrews 12:13 Proverbs 4:26
For it is not
right for a human to grasp with the mind or to explain in words all the
contrivances of God’s work.[Karl
Barth, Church Dogmatics. Volume IV, Part 2, The Doctrine of Reconciliation
(Hendrickson Publishers, 2010 [first
edition 1958], 742.]
Faith is
simply following, following its object. . . .
The object of faith, the objective res
subjectivised in faith is Jesus Christ, in whom God had accomplished the
reconciliation of the world, of all men with himself. . . .[See Frank Carver, “A Prison Witness,” Come and Go
Class (May 11, 2014)]
Introduction
Dr. Frank Carver’s recent lesson on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)[See Frank Carver, “A
Prison Witness,” Come and Go Class (May 11, 2014)] brought to
mind another person’s situation, that of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c.480-c.525/6). Bonhoeffer wrote of his confinement and
longings while incarcerated. Boethius,
too, pondered and wrote of his own circumstances while imprisoned. In both
cases the men were charged with treason and died violently at the hands of the
state. Bonhoeffer was hung; the death of
Boethius was through torture and clubbed or by a sword (there are two accounts).
Both died relatively young. What the two men produced in their prison writings
have become “classics,” Bonhoeffer’s Letters
and Papers From Prison and Boethius’ The
Consolation of Philosophy.
In addition, the juxtaposition of faith and discipline in
chapters 11 and 12 of Hebrews adds to the similarities between Bonhoeffer and
Boethius. While the lesson is not directly on the two men, they serve as
witnesses as to how to live when days turn dark and time will not allow the
opportunity to fulfill dreams. In brief
death is at hand. However in that
respect when death’s door is faced a sharp dissimilarity is seen between Bonhoeffer
and Boethius! More on that point appears
later in the lesson.
A widely-used handbook on grammar opens with these lines: “A key
to good writing is to possess or develop sentence sense. Sentence sense is the awareness of what makes
a sentence–the ability to recognize its grammatical essentials and to
understand the relationships among its parts.”
Today’s lesson deals with “sentence sense.” The key terms are “faith” and “discipline.” What is the sentence sense when these two
terms are brought into association with each other? Evidently, faith has a grammar and makes
sentence sense. After all, there are literally
hundreds of volumes written on faith, about faith, and even the history of
faith. In fact, one of the
distinguishing characteristics of the 20th century particularly among
Protestant theologians is the energy, time and funds spent by Christian authors
to explicate faith. But just what is the
sentence sense of faith? Can faith be
substantial if it is not rooted in the course of life itself? Can faith make sense if it does not deal with
evil and suffering? And, to add an
additional factor, what about discipline?
Is the Christian free to do as one pleases? Can one as the end of life approaches just
forget or overlook a lifetime of commitment to One who gave his life for all of
us? Does that make any sentence sense?
Perhaps the oldest and most formidable weapons against
Christianity are the existence of evil and its concomitant, suffering. World events are down-right perplexing at
times. We must “not neglect the multifariousness
of the world–the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross.”[Alfred
N. Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, corrected ed. David R. Griffin and Donald Sherburne (Free
Press, 1978)] Cases of children
with incurable cancer or only half of a brain are disheartening, to say the
least. The death of a son led a rabbi to
write what turned out to be a best seller.
In his book, Harold Kushner confesses, “I can worship a God who hates
suffering but can’t eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who
chooses to make children suffer and die for whatever exalted reason.”[
Harold Kushner, When
Bad Things Happen to Good People (Avon Press, 1983)] Suffering is an intellectual
problem, an existential reality, an enigma of existence.
For some positions, evil and suffering pose no intellectual
difficulties. A thorough-going dualism
is a case in point. If Good and Evil are
eternal principles, Evil is simply accepted as a given since it could not be
otherwise. Evil only becomes an
intellectual issue when things are suppose to be different than they are, as is
the case with Christian teaching. If God
created the world out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), then from whence
could evil come if not from God? Various
attempts to meet this question then follow (the Fall, free-will defense,
etc.).
Moreover if God is all-powerful, as the Christian tradition has
taught, God should be able to eliminate evil.
If God is good, as every Sunday school teacher worth her salt has
stressed, God would want to eliminate evil and suffering. However, evil and suffering remain. Theodicy is the result–attempts are made to
justify the ways of God at the bar of reason.
In the 20th century, some people rejected the notion of God’s
omnipotence in dealing with the question of evil (e.g., theologian John B.
Cobb, Jr.) In other instances the loss
of a loved one directly led to thinking that God, too, struggles with evil and
suffering (e.g., philosopher Edgar Sheffield Brightman). [See John B. Cobb, Jr., God and
the World (Westminster Press, 1969); [Edgar Sheffield Brightman, Person and
Reality: An Introduction to Metaphysics, ed. Peter Bertocci (Ronald Press,
1958)]
Stanley Hauerwas approaches the matter of suffering differently
than traditional theodicy claimants have done.
“Explanations” are said to be a “theological mistake.” Hauerwas writes, “We cannot afford to give
ourselves explanations when what is required is a community capable of absorbing
our grief.” [Stanley
Hauerwas, Naming the Silences: God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering
(Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990). This
quotation could be said to be at the heart of today’s lesson.] The writer of Hebrews would
seem to be close to Hauerwas. For
Hebrews, suffering is a concern but not as a theoretical problem. The book “relates to suffering not merely as
remover or consoler. It offers no
‘supernatural remedy for suffering’ but strives for ‘a supernatural use for
it.’” [Dorothee
Soelle, Suffering (Fortress Press, 1975)[.Rather than explain suffering, Hebrews has a more
practical goal in mind: to encourage people to endure faithfully rather than to
become bitter and lose hope.
A Grammar of Faith
Heb.
11:1-7
Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2Indeed, by faith our
ancestors received approval. 3By
faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that
what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
4By faith Abel offered to God a
more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as
righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his
faith he still speaks. 5By
faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and “he was not
found, because God had taken him.” For it was attested before he was taken away
that “he had pleased God.” 6And
without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him
must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7By faith Noah, warned by
God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save
his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the
righteousness that is in accordance with faith.
The opening verses of Hebrews 11 are helpful. The author is concerned that faith be defined
and that faith be illustrated. “Faith is
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction [or evidence] of things not
seen” (11:1). Here is the classic definition of faith. Israel’s elders are said to have received
approval by their faith, setting up the recitation of the faithful that follows,
in Abel, Enoch, and Noah. Before
proceeding through the list, however, an illustration of good Hebraic faith is
given.
3By faith we understand that the
worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from
things that are not visible.
Thus, sentence sense has been made of faith, by definition, by
illustration, by suggesting a perspective within which faith can be explicated
through the remainder of the chapter.
It is necessary to appreciate the limits of this initial
definition of faith (in 11:1) since it is often taken as definitive, as the
final word. As the end of the chapter
will note, “all these [elders], though they were commended for their faith, did
not receive what was promised, since God had promised something better...”
(11:39). However those to be named in the gallery of faith are worthy of
emulation, beginning with Abel (Gen 4:3ff), Enoch (Gen 5:21-24) and Noah (Gen
6:8ff).
A Grammar of Practice
Heb.
12:1-13.
Therefore, since we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight
and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race
that is set before us, 2looking
to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has
taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured
such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or
lose heart.
4In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten the
exhortation that addresses you as children— “My child, do not regard lightly
the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; 6for the Lord disciplines
those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts.” 7Endure trials for the sake
of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a
parent does not discipline? 8If
you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are
illegitimate and not his children. 9Moreover,
we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be
even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For
they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines
us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness.11Now,
discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it
yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by
it. 12Therefore lift
your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13and make straight paths
for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be
healed.
In
Hebrews the focus is soon on the hostility of sinners that Jesus endured. The readers are to
run with perseverance the race
that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,
who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne
of God (12:2).
A key term in the verse is the preposition anti,
variously translated as “for,” “for the sake of,” “instead of.” Prior to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th
century the most common translation of the preposition in this case was “instead
of.” This “instead of” suggests the
notion that Jesus self-consciously chose to suffer instead of enjoying his
pre-incarnate life. Fred Craddock points
out that it is common for Christological hymns in the New Testament to begin
with a relative pronoun “who” (as in Phil 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20; I Tim 3:16) and
then to present Christ in two states, in heaven and on earth. [For what follows see Fred
Craddock, “The Letter to the Hebrews,” The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander
E. Keck and others, Vol. XII (Abingdon Press, 1998), 149] If the pattern of inverted
parallelism is followed here and the earlier “instead of” is cited then the
following result occurs:
Who instead of the joy set before
him [heaven]
endured the cross, [earth]
disregarding its shame, [earth]
and is seated at the right hand of
the
throne of God. [heaven]
Since
the Reformation most English translations and commentators prefer “for the sake
of,” as in the present NRSV rendering:
Who for the sake of the joy set
before him [heaven]
endured the cross, [earth]
disregarding its shame, [earth]
and is seated at the right hand of
the
throne of God. [heaven]
The value of “for the sake of” is that it agrees with an earlier
reference in Hebrews 12:1; namely, that “set before us” refers to the
forward-looking aspect of faith. Jesus,
too, looks forward. He endured by
looking ahead to the joy of God’s right hand.
It is assumed that the reference is shaped by the situation of the
recipients of the book. The goal of
their endurance is expressed negatively–“that you may not grow weary or loss
heart.” A shift to the situation of the recipients occurs in verse 4. The
recipients are not being martyred; rather, social ostracism and humiliation may
be underway against them for their faith.
The writer may also be preparing the readers for what may lie ahead in
terms of more severe hostility. A note
of rebuke in verse 5 occurs with respect to what had been forgotten but the
rebuke is paired with a note of encouragement through the citation of Proverbs
3:11-12:
My child, do not despise the
Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
for the Lord reproves the one he
loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
God treats the recipients like a parent treats one’s
offspring. Discipline is the mark of one
who cares. In fact the author could have
said, “Do not take discipline lightly!”
As the early preacher Chrysostom commented: “It is those very things in
which they suppose they have been deserted by God that should make them
confident that they have not been deserted.”
By the end of this portion of text a more positive resolve is given
(12:12-13):
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak
knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be
put out of joint, but rather be healed.
Sustaining Sentence Sense
This brings us back to this morning’s opening remarks about two
Christians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Boethius.
Let’s take the latter first.
Boethius has been likened to a Christian conduit, as a feeder of ancient
ideas into the medieval period. He lived
at a time when veneration for the traditions of Rome, a knowledgeable interest
in Greek culture, and Christian belief were favored. Fully trained in ancient
literature, Boethius’ subsequent influence on theological aspects of
Trinity and Christology are noteworthy. In
addition he set a goal of translating all of Plato and Aristotle into Latin, a
feat only partially completed due to his arrest and then death on trumped up
political charges.
What has confounded scholarship to the present day is the last
book Boethius wrote. Composed while in
prison with a death sentence hanging over his head, The Consolation of Philosophy is a literary masterpiece by this Platonic
influenced writer. The book is a constructed
dialogue between Boethius and a female personification of Philosophy “(philos + sophia [“love of wisdom’], sophia
is feminine in Greek). Philosophy
herself consoles Boethius in the midst of his unjust condemnation to death,
hearing and responding to the claims of injustice being done to him. As he struggles to understand what life has
dealt him, God, providence, predestination, free will, luck, fate, are all
addressed in the conversation between the two.
By the end of the book Boethius’ confidence has been renewed and a
philosophical understanding of the world and of God has been realized. Faith and reason work together. God’s purposes are at work in his life and
world! Lady Philosophy has the last
word:
God looks down from above,
knowing all things, and the eternal present of his vision concurs with the
future character of our actions, distributing rewards to the good and
punishments to the evil Our hopes and
prayers are not directed to God in vain, for if they are just they cannot
fail. Therefore stand firm against vice
and cultivate virtue. Lift up your soul to worthy hopes, and offer humble
prayers to heaven. [Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans.
Richard Green, The Library of Liberal Arts (Bobbs-Merrill Educational
Publishing, 1982), 119]
However nowhere in Boethius’ book is any attention given to
Christ, even by name, or to any distinctive Christian idea! Did he give up his faith at the end of his
life? Was Boethius really a Christian? [Presently almost everyone recognizes that Boethius
was a Christian. John Marenbon writes,
“Boethius respected the philosophical tradition in its own integrity, not as a
competitor with Christianity, but as an irreplaceable accompaniment, which
leads a long way towards the same goals.”
See Marenbon, “Introduction:
Reading Boethius Whole,” The Cambridge Companion to Boethius (Cambridge
University Press, 2009), 8.] No clear resolve on these and
similar questions appear in the text.
Quite different is what we read in Bonhoeffer’s writings from
prison. In Dr. Carver’s fine exposition
of Bonhoeffer we learned of this young Germany theologian’s commitment to
Christ. A year before his death
Bonhoeffer wrote: “What is bothering me incessantly is the question what
Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today.” [Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison,
The Enlarged Edition (Macmillan Company, 1971), 279.] Hope in Christ continued to be at the center
of his life. As he exited his cell for the last time on the way to the gallows,
reportedly his last words were: “This is the end.—for me the beginning of life.” He might well have had the words of the poet
in mind.
Yea, whate’er I here must bear,
Thou art still my purest Pleasure,
Jesus, priceless Treasure!
- Johann Franck
Let’s keep ‘keeping on,’ as the Hebrews writer urges his readers
to do. Faith and discipline are the
order of the day. They make for good sentence sense but more importantly they make
for good Christian practice.
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First Church of the Nazarene
3901 Lomaland Drive
San Diego, CA 92106 United States
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