Passing-Thought

the suffering servant and new creation

When God answers His suffering servant's complaint out of a whirlwind, He calls Creation to His defense. Thus, His wisdom as Creator should be enough to vindicate God when He enters into His courtroom with Job. But such argumentation is not simply to say, "I am all mighty and all wise. Who are you to question me?" That's nothing more than ad baculum. To win a defense as a cosmic bully is to lose the case. No, the defense carries implications for Job's future. God's wisdom can be trusted to bring about goodness and order for the whole world. If God's ineffable ways in creation is sufficient to answer Job's patient complaint, then God's purpose in Job's suffering is an exhibition of that same wisdom: God has ordained Job's sufferings to bring about a new creation.

I am sad.

During Ed Welch’s lectures in Dallas this past weekend, I just heard for the first time that one of my favorite professors Al Groves is in the latter stages of melanoma cancer. I’m not sure how I missed the news. Even when our new professor Adrian Smith prayed with boldness for Al’s health during our Convocation ceremony, I guess I just wanted to believe it was a special prayer for Al’s chronic fatigue.

Dr. Welch spoke of Al most gloriously during his lectures on Suffering. How everyone who visits him goes to encourage and to bless, and leaves surprisingly encouraged and blessed by Christ in him.

My brief conversations and times with Prof Groves seem especially heightened in significance for me. I had the honor providing transportation for him after one of his lecture visits in Dallas. We talked about Sailhamer and movies like Magnolia. I think it was Al who introduced me to Magnolia, which continues to be a redemptive treasure full of treasures.

I’ve been bragging ever since about his Deutoronomic history class. Definitely one of my favorite OT courses. If the Lord ever calls me to be a professor some day, I would cite Al as a chief influence and role model. I am ever thankful that His love for the Lord and intimate knowledge of the Scriptures has overflowed the banks of Philly and spilled down to us in Dallas, as annointing oil trickles down from the head and onto a man’s beard.

"As one commentator says"

You know you've become somebody when teachers avoid referring to you by name in public. A particular Anglican bishop has gained such a controversial respect in conservative Presbyterian churches over the past couple of years. More and more pastors and teachers inevitably find themselves helped by his NT commentaries, but feel politically compelled to credit his insights to an anonymous alias such as "one commentator" or "one scholar". One of my friends shares his lay church experience, "It seems ironic that if I bring a book by Arminius to church with me, everyone assumes I'm reading it with a critical eye. But if I bring a book by N.T. Wright to church, people automatically assume I agree with everything he says."

We're getting close

trash receptacles and eucharist

Restaurant trash receptacles always give thanks. All we feed them are leftovers and discards. Even so, they swing open their mouths and say, "Thank you." Such steadfast disposition makes our daily complaining attitude look and smell like rotten garbage. Let this instruct us as we approach His royal banquet each Sunday. We sit with the highest King and our mouth receives not his scraps, but from a select cut and an overflowing cup. Even if the world throws us its manure, is this not fertilizer for the future harvest of glory? Give thanks for all things!

Culture shock

One morning early West African morning, Gordon, a co-worker of mine at SIL, arose to find his family had lost power to their house. He went outside to look at the teleophone poles. Behold: Not only had they lost power to their house, there was no longer any power line! 200 feet or more of power line had been completely stolen during the night!

Gordon phoned the utilities company. They said that their truck had broken down, so he'd have to pick them up if he wanted the line replaced. That's what he did. On their way out, Gordon, astonished by the stolen power line, asked the men, "Isn't it dangerous for people to cut a power line?" The utilities men knodded enthusiastically, "Oh yes. It is very dangerous. Half of the time when we come to replace these lines we find a dead man next to the pole."

Shocking story? Welcome to West Africa! Just goes to show how much we take our cultural infrastructures here in the US for granted.

Wisdom teeth

Why are "wisdom" teeth called so? Is just because they typically arrive in adulthood, after the naivity of childhood? Perhaps instead they are teeth for kings. The sleep-suffering experience through which we must be subjected to have them extracted bears wisdom in some cosmic existential sense. A sacramental surgery in which the four outermost teeth correspond to the four corners of the earth. Four corners were given to man, the territorial boundaries "good for food" in the realization of his image-bearing great commission project (Gen 1:28ff). Thus, man was not only called upon to put all things under his feet, but in the maturation of that kingdom-glory expansion, to enjoy all that the earth would yeild for him to eat.

The Garden was man's throne room from which he would rule the world under God's royal banner. The tree of knowledge of good and evil in its midst was to make one wise. Why would God call man to fast from the very fruit which would empower him to extend kingdom rule beyond the Garden to the ends of the earth? The serpent says, "take & eat. finish what you were called to be, God-likeness in all its fulness can be yours now. Death isn't necessary."

Extracting wisdom teeth is a rehearsal of Adam's exile from the Garden. God likeness is for God's giving. Even if it means accepting wisdom through death. We give up our perogative to enjoy the final fruits of ends of the earth according to the time table of our own stomachs and the lust of our eyes to own its glory. Eschatalogical communion and dominion must come through fasting before it can come through complete consumption.