Jim West is correct: there is nothing new about the NPP

I disagreed with him on this count a few months ago, but I have come to realize that he is essentially correct. The "New Perspective on Paul" is no longer new.

In fact, it never was new (really, it wasn't) for according to Solomon: Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before. Ecc.3:15a.

James Dunn and his thesis about "works of the law" really being boundary markers such as circumcision, the feast days and the Sabbath? Yuup, Roman Catholic apologists were spouting this idea in the 16th century against the Reformers, who interpreted "works of the law" to mean a certain type of meritorious righteousness (that the law gives life based on one's personal merits, which, by the way, is the scriptural view).

N.T. Wright and his silly idea that God rewards us with eternal life on the last day based on our cooperation with the grace of Christ in producing good deeds? Well, one way or another this view has been promoted by the Roman Catholic church for the last 2,000 years. It is also to be found among the semi-pelagians, certain Anabaptist groups and the Holiness camps (also among some types of pentecostals).

The idea that Paul was really not opposing "works righteousness" in his epistle to the Galatians and the Romans? Catholicism.

The idea that sola scriptura gives you an excuse as a scholar to ignore the last two millenia of exegesis of the pauline letters as if they had practically nothing of value to say? As if your reading and the problems it poses have not already been discussed and discarded long ago? Yep, Anabaptists have been terribly guilty of this from the start.

So Jim is correct, we should not call this perspective "New". We could call it "the idiotic perspective on Paul" or the "philistinic perspective on Paul" or even "the new perspective on Pelagius" or we could simply give them a measure of what they have given the rest of the history of biblical scholarship: a cold shoulder. This is likely the best option.

The puzzle of the Doctrine of the Spirit of Adoption.

Examine these two texts from 1 Corinthians side by side:

"Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." 1:3

"We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did-and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died....These things happened to them as examples for us, and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come." 10:8, 11.

Do you note the very troubling paradox in Paul's letter? God is somehow simultaneously our Father and the one who threatens to destroy us in fire if we do wrong.

I am actually amazed that few people have taken this doctrinal lacuna seriously. Let me put it in the form of a question: "What would be the quality of your relationship with your dad if he threatened to throw you into an incinerator if you grumble, commit a sexual sin, or test his patience? Moreover, lets say your dad pointed to an example in the past where he actually did torch people to death for disobeying him."

This awful paradox has been troubling me for two years. I can't make heads or tails of it.

Patriarchal? Suuuuuuure.

"His daughter was Sheerah, who built Lower and Upper Beth Horon as well as Uzzah Sheerah." (1 Chr. 7:24)

Seen any feminists build cities lately? Well, have you? Probably not. They're too busy getting drunk off of the spoils of some such thing called the sexual revolution or sitting in some college campus whining about the way they have been victimized in the past. Meanwhile they just got their bootstraps licked by some poor, marginalized woman named Sheerah who lived in an age of utter male cruelty and bombast....and also found the time to build up two or three cities (no big deal) and get mentioned for it by a Jewish chronicler. Man, those must have been some chauvinistic pigs back then who only let Sheerah build on three sites. How dare they! Thank goodness things are different today, thank goodness for the freedom women have now to......to......wait, what exactly have women done these days that can even stand in comparison to Sheerah?

Quote of the Day

When someone asked me to act out in violence, I said to them:

"I'm a Mennonite. The only thing we harm is doctrine."

What Ignatius of Antioch has to say about the Jewish-Christian dialogue.

"But if anyone expounds Judaism to you, do not listen to him. For it is better to hear about Christianity from a man who is circumcised than about Judaism from one who is not. But if either of them fail to speak about Jesus Christ, I look on them as tombstones and graves of the dead, upon which only the names of men are inscribed." (Phil. 6a)

Well said Ignatius. Well said.

Things pastors say when they want to get laid with a congregant.

No joking here. The following sayings have been reported by actual victims of pastoral wickedness:

"After I told him about the sexual abuse by my father, he said we needed to re-enact it in order for me to get over it..."

"He was the first person to take me seriously as an intellectual person, who would teach me the Torah..."

"I didn't want to do what he asked me to do, but he said it would help my marriage problems. I trusted him."

This one really disgusts me: "He said,'Think of me as Jesus and you are Mary Magdalene.'"

"He said we should 'sin boldly so that grace may abound.'" Was that minister, by any chance, a Lutheran?

"No harm, no foul. But he said it was our special secret."

Extracts taken from Responding to Clergy Misconduct: A Handbook by Rev Dr Marie M Fortune, FaithTrust Institute, 2009.

You'd think someone who makes a living delivering a half-hour speech once a week would be able to develop better one-liners, eh? The Lutheran one cracks me up a little, but the rest are utter stupidity. And why, Mr. Cassanova, would someone find appeal and comfort in you re-enacting their father's sexual abuse? That would be like me suggesting to a victim of drunk-driving that they let me run them over while I'm hammered. It may stop the pain....because I just killed them. Or how would someone who lost their family because an arsonist lit the house on fire like it if I locked her friends in a room and torched the place? Convincing, no? I bet you droves of people would come to me for counsel. I should publish a book.

Fuel for the Zionist flame.

I wonder if modern Zionists and supporters of the current state of Israel read Obadiah?

"Then those of the Negev will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the Shephelah the Philistine plain.....The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Edom, and the kingdom will be the LORD's."

Luther inculcated a spiritual interpretation of these verses, seeing their fulfillment in the spread of the gospel to the regions surrounding Judea. This is a sober view. It is eisegesis, but sober nonetheless. For if you read these oracles as Obadiah no doubt intended them to be read, you could make a good case for fulfilling God's Word by taking possession of the nation of Jordan and the Gaza strip. Of course, those who actually take scripture reading seriously (qua scripture) know that the author's intent is not the Word of God. The author's intent is a human perception of the Word of God. In other words, it can be just as fallible as any other due to the fact that it is human. The only perception that is infallible is the perception of the God who chose to call these oracles His own.

So anyways, I suspect that neither the Zionists nor the spiritualists have any clue what this text means to God, and we may patiently bide our time quibbling about its meaning until the Lord God takes the initiative and carries through its proper fulfillment (if He hasn't already).