Who gets to give the gift? & Is that the answer to my prayer?!?

  Romans 1 is quite common passage to hear sermons on; this probably explains why a rather unremarkable connection that I made today seemed remarkable to me. I've heard this passage discussed so many times, but I've never seen it connected to this one part of its larger context, the preceding chapter.

  The New Testament writings are arranged in sets with the narrative portions (the 4 Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles) at the beginning, followed by Paul's letters (largely arranged in descending order of length), and then the letters and writings of the other earliest leaders of the followers of Jesus's way. Due to this arrangement, the first chapter of Romans immediately follows the last chapter of Acts. However, chronologically Romans 1 actually precedes Acts 28 by about 2-3 years.

  In Romans 1, Paul expresses his long-term desire, prayer, and intent to come to Rome to share with the Roman believers and to be shared with by them. He longingly awaits God’s will in the timing of this visit.[1]

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. (Romans 1:9-13, ESV)

   When this passage is combined with the events leading to Paul's actual arrival in Rome, we get a beautiful, difficult, and instructive example of the interweaving of human desire and intent and request with divine design and purpose. Paul's circumstances upon arrival were certainly not the ones he would have proposed for his visit to Rome (see Romans 15).[2]

 Anyways, in the 18 verses of Acts 28 which deal with Paul’s time in Rome, we find that it was the Roman family of Christ who first encouraged Paul! Having arrived after a long-term detention, a journey as prisoner to the Emperor’s tribunal, and a shipwreck, Paul needed encouragement, and it was the Roman ‘brothers’ who provided it by coming out to meet Paul's group (Acts 28:14-15). This seems to initially reverse Paul’s major hope to serve and strengthen the Roman believers. Instead of strengthening and encouraging others, the apostle finds himself being encouraged and strengthened! This is a fabulous reminder that even a 'great spiritual leader' will often need encouragement from 'ordinary believers', even when they don't expect to need it. Paul came primarily expecting to give a spiritual gift, but when he arrived, it was he who needed to receive one. 

   These passages together also give a beautiful view of the way in which divine and human will and desire can work together. They hint again at how our prayers often are answered not by giving us our imagined answers but by giving the divinely-prompted deeper desires which lie at the root of the prayer. Thus, the path to answered prayer and walking willingly in God's will is often much more complex, difficult, and unexpected than our conscious prayers. May our prayers be Spirit-prompted and our reception of them received gladly from the hands of our loving Father.

---

[1] Later, in Romans 15, Paul mentions more details about his desired journey and how he plans to use a visit to Rome as a springboard for a journey to the far West (to Spain).

 In Romans 1, Paul also speaks of proclaiming the Good News to both Jews and Gentiles, those who have already believed and those who have not yet. Both of which are also dealt with in Acts 28.

 

[2] Regardless, based on his attitude toward ministry in Jerusalem (cf Acts 21:1-15), Paul probably wouldn't have changed paths even if he had known these circumstances.

The Drier of Tears

    And [the Lord of hosts] will swallow up on this mountain
        the covering that is cast over all peoples,
        the veil that is spread over all nations.
    He will swallow up death forever;
    and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces,
        and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
        for the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 25:7–8, ESV)

The exalted title the Sovereign LORD calls attention to the fact that in all the dignity of his divine sovereignty, it is the Lord himself who will attend to our tears, moving from person to person until each eye has been dried. On the disgrace of his people cf. Joshua 5:9 where the rite of circumcision was renewed for the Lord’s people. It symbolized that the days of covenant abeyance were over and that the ‘disgrace of Egypt’ was gone – the disgrace to the Lord’s people of living in slavery, bondage and misery. So also, as long as life in this world endures, there are innumerable ways in which the people of God are under reproach and hindered, by circumstances and sin, from living according to their true dignity. All this will be taken away. The new nature will be given full and glorious expression in an environment where everything conduces to holiness (cf. Phil. 3:20–21). Covenant promise will have become covenant reality.(Motyer, 210, Kindle) 

 ‘The Drier of Tears’, of course, brings the Psalmist’s bottled tears to mind as well as the more well-known reflections of this passage in John’s Revelation. Imagine a loving parent as they comfort a child and wipe away the tears of their hurt child. They do not deny the pain, but they comfort and enter into it. They encourage the child with reasons that things will end okay and that the pain will not conquer. This Sovereign’s attentions are not the ‘be tough’ shushing of an impatient or distant parent to a child genuinely in pain, nor does the Sovereign unnecessarily comfort an emotional or manipulative outburst. 

 Instead the image given here is the Sovereign Lord squatting down before each child taking them in turn and re-opening all those bottled tears which have been stored up, not to re-live the pain but to engage its reality with empathy and bring resolution and full healing. Waiting with each tear till it has been dried, the Sovereign Lord stills and heals the heartbreak of all of His own: each loss, each grief, each pain, each betrayal, every agony of birthing, all the reproach which has been heaped on the child publicly or privately whether by themselves or others, each unfulfilled longing, every scarcely understandable cry of rage, each pang of guilt and insufficiency, every moment of teeth-gritting or of grinning-and-bearing-it, all the despair and disillusionment, in short, all the groaning and mourning and suffering which had been brought on by the curses in this cosmos. All of these heartcries will be engaged, even authenticated, and defanged by the One who values what may have, until that moment, been unseen and unacknowledged by any other in the universe. 

  Within this context, the sorrows of judgment must be mentioned; the tears which were mourned in the Lord’s comprehensive judgment of chapter 24 will also be dried. This One pauses for each tear till the heart that has held it is clear, the eye that it trickled from is dried. At that moment, nothing will be more important than these hurts and this healing. This is a key piece of the great salvation, and it will not be denied! Isaiah insists upon this point (Isa 30:19; 35:10; 51:11; 65:19). May hope in the Drier of Tears, who is also the Remove of Reproach, steady our hearts.

NOTE: There is no destruction of the human emotional capacity here; this is a making well of heartache. In the context (notice Isaiah 26), there is a full range of emotions during and following the ‘healing of sorrows.’ This is about healing and wellness, not simply or superficially about tears; tears are foregrounded as the powerful symbol summarizing the need for comprehensive healing. So, it is about tears; they are vitally important, but they are not ultimate, they will pass at the right time.

my first visit to İznik (ancient Nicaea)

 A few short days after we returned to Istanbul, we slipped away to be with dear friends - the sort you gladly do holidays and vacations with - whom we hadn't seen for a year or two. A friend of a friend offered us all a place to stay in İznik, ancient Nicaea, a city our family'd never been to before. Actually we realized it's been years since our family has visited a new province in Türkiye, so I guess it was about time for that too. This was a great choice!

 One of the most interesting features of Iznik is the lake, which has a sunken basilica in it, which may be where one of the two Councils of Nicaea were held, although they seem a bit small, so it seems unlikely. Anyways, the underwater basilica is worth a look: article here, and I've linked a picture from it. Naturally when we went swimming, we swam over to it though you can't actually swim among it, of course.

 

 Below are some additional pictures that you may enjoy from Iznik; it was a lovely, friendly setting with traditional pottery still being produced, olive groves surrounding our house, and delicious food to supplement the history. There were lots of jokes about retiring their someday.

Storks nesting on a mosque

Seeing the old inner walls

A vine-covered portal in the city wall

the Iznik city wall (inner wall to the right, outer wall on the left hidden by greenery)

items in the museum - glass bowls, a diadem, a clay lamp, jewelry, etc

This inscription (translation in the next picture) looks like it has hearts bracketing the text. Despite the appearance, they seem more likely to be leaves. 

According to the notes, this mini-sarchophagus (ostotek) held the ashes of a cremated person, which is odd since it is clearly marked with a cross, and I have not heard of any Christian tradition that supports cremation, (although a solid biblical basis for this eludes me).

The Iznik Hagia Sofia (Ayasofia) from the outside. (Like that of Istanbul, this building housed a church, became a mosque, then a museum, and is now a mosque again.)

According to the imam who shared some of the building's history, this was the spot where kings were crowned during one period.

The main interior of the Hagia Sofia

remains of frescos in Iznik's Hagia Sofia

fresco in the Iznik Aya Sofia

Real Unity and Humility

So unique and so God-like a thing is real unity on earth, absolute disinterested agreement in heart and motive, that its occurrence is not, and cannot be, anything short of the presence of God Himself. We know the agreement of the Triune God: earthly agreement is its manifestation.

This, then, cuts at the root of all envy, jealousy, petty irritation, personal dislike, contempt, conceit, self-assertiveness.

It is often more a sign of grace and love and humility to say "Amen" to another's prayers than to lead in prayer oneself.

~ Temple Gairdner (cited in Temple Gairdner of Cairo by Constance Padwick, pg 126-127)

 

 

Change that Matters

 Addressing systemic injustice will look different in each specific context. But change that truly matters will always manifest as tangible acts of justice that help people and communities thrive and flourish. This will require working together with people in your local communities who are being adversely affected by unjust systems and structures. Those people are the experts on what issues need to be addressed and what would really solve the problem. 

~ Brenda Salter McNeil, Becoming Brave, pg 190.

The promise and the paradox of the resurrection is that if you lose your life for the sake of the reconciling work of the gospel, you will find it. I can't promise that it will always be easy. I can't promise that you will be victorious in your pursuits on this side of heaven. But I can promise that God will bring life out of what you lose and will ultimately restore all things. There is much to be hoped for, despite the inevitable setbacks. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope." (192)

  Having finished the above book now, I'd recommend it for those who believe in reconciliation and justice as a key part of the work of God on the earth today. And, I suppose that if you don't believe in that, I'd recommend the book anyways since it presents compelling reasons why Christ-followers should. 

Yesterday's Trip: A saga

  Tonight, we are staying in a hotel in Kansas City that we were supposed to stay in last night, until our alternator quit - intermittently, apparently. The hotel kindly adjusted our reservation in spite of the 'nonrefundable', 'nonchangeable' nature of the reservation. But that was not the first little kindness that we had been shown yesterday. 

 We left Chattanooga (after a kind friend made us an early breakfast!) intent on making it 10+ hours to KC yesterday. A few miles outside the little-known town of Monteagle, TN - one hour from our starting point, 9 from our destination - the red battery light came on. We stopped and were helped with an urgent and quick battery change and alternator test by the professionals at Monteagle Tire and Auto Service. Auto shops appear to have an extra gear when helping stranded travelers. We were on our way again.

 Two-plus hours later, having escaped a strange cluster of traffic in Nashville, as we approached Pleasant View, TN, the crimson light reappeared. Once again, we made an urgent pitstop at an autoshop, Auto Service of Pleasant View. Here the mechanic again checked things out and recommended that we go on to the dealership where they could better identify our exact problem and should have the parts to fix it. He was not only quick and thorough, but he was also willing to get soaked in a cloudburst, and he would not accept payment for his time. More kindness.

 The dealership was about 20 miles away, and the mechanic believed we would make it but gave some instructions in case we couldn't. These gave me a sense of what to expect 'in case of emergency.' Unfortunately, that 'sense' was needed. About 5 miles farther along, the Pilot started choking to death. Thankfully an exit appeared right ahead, and so I headed for it slowly. The exit appeared to exist solely for the sake of an empty road, an abandoned gas station, and an extant gas station. We choked our way to the extant gas station, parked, and shut off the vehicle. Then it was time to ponder. As I normally do with any vehicle problems, I called my dad. He advised that getting a new battery might be cheaper than getting a tow. But the gas station lacked new batteries.

 However, as I came out of the door, I saw a tow truck idling by the road in the gas station parking lot. Lest it escape, I jogged over and started asking questions to the driver. (Typically, I refrain from random jogging in public and from talking to strangers, even when in distress; however, this seemed like a perfect time for exceptions.) 

  Since he was already there, the driver arranged with dispatch to get us to the dealership for about a quarter of what I expected to be charged for a tow ($60!), saving us not only money but also time. He loaded up the Pilot, and we all piled into the passenger side of his cab, and we were off. 

  At the Honda dealership, the outlook was bleak... "It'll be a while till they can do the 1-2 hour check of the battery, alternator, and starter." "We'll call you eventually." "We may not even have that part in stock; and if we don't, it could be a day or two." Oh, and it's still rainy.

 However, since they were also trying to sell new vehicles in this location, there were amenities. A playground for children... a coffee and cocoa dispenser... clean restrooms... comfy chairs... and a kids movie playing in a nearly-soundproof glass room. So, while the diagnosis took several hours to be given, our physical distress was quite minimal - basically involving trying not to get wet on the playground. 

 Anyways, the diagnosis was rather pricey; the alternator failed; the BRAND NEW battery failed (!?!?!); some gasket-y thing should be replaced since it probably leaked onto the alternator and caused the failure. On the up side, the next new battery would include a ten-year warranty... but I'm selling the vehicle to a friend in 2 weeks. So we compromised. The gasket-y thing would have to wait till Denver. They were authorized to change the other two, but that wouldn't start till today. However, they start work at 7AM, so before 8AM, I'd gotten a call that all was now well. 

 When I went to pick it up, I found out that they had also tried recharging the battery. It was okay after all. So, no ten-year warranty, and the price was better. Saga/adventure over.

 We let the kids swim a bit longer in the hotel pool, and we headed out, arriving in KC a day late but thankful to be here.

Points of thanks to the Lord:

- We didn't break down on the highway itself!

- A tow truck was waiting for us at the gas station we made it to. (The driver said we were lucky some lady needed to be pulled out of a ditch near there.)

- The parts were available. 

- The supposedly dead battery came back to life.

- The hotel rescheduling our reservation so easily.

BONUS: The Honda dealership shuttled us to and from the hotel we stayed at last night. When I got into the car this morning, it started acting up. The driver told me that it had worked perfectly until I got in and that I might consider myself a 'black cat'. We barely made it back to the dealership with the shuttle car's engine light on and it coughing and spluttering along at less than 15 mph.

Random observation: Upon learning of our situation, three different people mentioned 'hotel with a pool'. Apparently, there is a well-recognized truth that 'when traveling with children, a pool can rectify nearly any situation.'

Justice, Storytelling, and a tiny fraction of God's magnificent enterprise

I recently heard Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil speak and was deeply challenged by her message. So, I decided to read her book Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now. (Check your library or bookstore!) In it, she chronicles parts of her own journey in pursuing not only reconciliation but also justice, and she interacts with the biblical narrative of Esther. It's not a simple book to summarize, so I'm not going to try. 

However, what I have probably appreciated most about it is that she discusses justice across great swaths of humanity, not just one or two selective groups or 'races'. She is concerned with those you might expect and with those you might not. Here are two small excerpts that I want to share from her book, one of which is actually from someone she quotes.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long​ ​view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they​ ​hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further​ ​development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our​ ​capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of​ ​liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

(by Ken Untener)

THE STORY a person tells about other people really​ ​matters. I've learned to be much more careful and conscious of the stories being told to me about others. I pay attention to who is telling the story and their purpose in telling it. I also know that where someone begins the story shapes the overall narrative being told. (Pg105, emphasis added)

After the second quote, she tells the story of Haiti’s independence and how other nations ostracized it out of fear and greed. If you're not familiar with the story, you can get an introduction here: Investigating Haiti's 'Double Debt'.

Cragg's 'Call of the Minaret'

  Early in his classic work, The Call of the Minaret, Kenneth Craig surveys Islam at the current time; I am reading in the third edition published in 2000. In the first section, as he recounts different aspects of the Islamic (and Muslim) encounter with modernity, his thoughts - in many ways - apply to more than just Islam. They speak to the larger encounter of religion with the technological age. (All emphasis added to the quotes below.)

"For these [who see the Shari'ah and tradition as unchanging] there is no option between chronic permissiveness and the strictest literalism. Nor is this simply a male verdit or an authoritarian tyranny. Secreted in the home and behind the veil, Muslim womanhood finds no immolation or feminist restlessness, but devoted fulfillment of authentic Islam in a role positively undertaken. Sociologists may explain the phenomenon as they will. Religion has as great a capacity to resist modernity as to survive it. Only the opinionated would identify which is the truer Islam." (pg 17)

"There are those who cannot find the ancient reality in the new thoughts, others who cannot identify the ancient reality without them. In the strange but indispensable interaction of the faith and the faithful, the structure of belief and the participant believer, Islam and the Muslim, change is absorbed and continuity attained. That it is so is the genius of the partnership." (pg 26)

"Certainly a monotheism so tremendous as that of Muhammed and Islam is through and through a divine-human encounter. As such we must strive to know it. Whenever we study or confess doctrines of God we proceed upon parallel affirmations about humanity. So inseparable are the two realms that every theology is inevitably also a view of the human." (pg 38) 

  This book came highly recommended to me through the classes on Islam and Christianity that I have taken in the last couple years, and indeed this has the same sort of caring insight that Cragg is known for, being himself Christian but an accepted scholar of Islam. (previous post)

'Pollution and the Death of Man' - an odd title for a helpful book

  Books that speak to the real issues of humanity have a way of enduring. About 2 years ago when I posted 'Wasteful Wardens of the Planet', one of you readers suggested 'Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology' by Francis Schaeffer. Excepting the appendix, his words fill only about 80 pages and were published in 1970 with deep concern for both the destructive human habits towards our world and the lack of a biblical mindset on the topic by those who claim the Bible as their guide. The book can still be read with benefit as a valuable guide to where we're [still] at, where we should be at, and where others are [still] at around us. Schaeffer, as normal, is gracious, perceptive, and unafraid to say when he believes others are more biblical in their thoughts or actions than Bible-claimers are.

 Below I just want so share some of the quotations that I found thought-provoking although these quotations won't form a full comment on the book. (Bold emphasis added; italics original.)

Psychologically I ought to "feel" a relationship to the tree as my fellow creature ... we should realize, and train people in our churches to realize, that on the side of creation  and on the side of God's infinity and our finiteness-we really are one with the tree. (pg 54)

So the Christian treats "things" with integrity because we do not believe they are autonomous. (pg 54)

God makes a promise here [in Genesis 9] that embodies  all creation. God is interested in creation. He does not despise it. There is no reason whatsoever, and it is absolutely false biblically, for the Christian to have a platonic view of nature. What God has made, I, who am also a creature, must not despise. (pg 61)

[Citing Romans 8], The blood of the Lamb will redeem man and nature together, as it did in Egypt at the time of the Passover, when the blood applied to the door-posts saved not only the sons of the Hebrews, but also their animals. 

It is interesting that almost the whole "curse" in Genesis 3 is centered upon the outward manifestations. It is the earth that is going to be cursed for man's sake. It is the woman's body that is involved in the greatly multiplied conception and pain in childbirth. (pg 67)

On the basis of the fact that there is going to be total redemption in the future, not only of man but of all creation, the Christian who believes the Bible should be the man who -with God's help and in the power of the Holy Spirit- is treating nature now in the direction of the way nature will be then. (68-69)

Killing of animals for food is one thing, but on the other hand they do not exist simply as things to be slaughtered. ... Many men fish and leave their victims to rot and stink. But what about the fish? Has he no rights -not to be romanticized as though he were a man- but real rights? On the one hand it is wrong to treat the fish as though it were a human baby; on the other hand, neither is it merely a chip of wood. 

It is always true that if you treat the land properly, you have to make two choices. The first is in the area of economics. It costs more money, at least at first, to treat the land well. ... The second choice involved is that it usually takes longer to treat the land properly. And these are the two factors that lead to the destruction of our environment: money and time- or to say it another way, greed and haste.

[Regarding certain people's explicit call to pantheistic belief as an aid to ecological responsibility,] Pantheism gives you an answer for unity, but it gives no meaning to the diversity. (pg 30) [This philosophical question of unity and diversity is also important in his discussion of the Trinity elsewhere.]

Mañana - insights from Hispanic theology

 Years ago, I first heard of Justo Gonzalez when I was assigned to read his two-volume The Story of Christianity, which is still far and away the most engaging work of Christian history I have read, as well as likely the most comprehensive since it goes beyond European and North American history. At some point, I also became interested in reading Christian theology written by those from non-European cultural backgrounds like Toyohiko Kagawa. I believe that's when I came across Gonzalez's book Manana. I'm finally reading it now, and it has been very insightful in spite of being over 30 years old, likely because it includes much of the historical perspective which Gonzalez is so good at writing. Some excerpts...

  In short, biblical history is a history beyond innocence. Its only real heroes are the God of history and history itself, which somehow continues moving forward even in spite of the failure of its great protagonists. Since this is also the nature of Hispanic history, it may well be that on this score we have a hermeneutical advantage over those whose history is still at the level of guilty innocence, and who therefore must read Scripture in the same way in which they read their own history.
  To those who think of their own history in terms of high ideals and purity, this may seem to detract from the power and inspiration of Scripture. This, however, is not the case with Hispanics. We know that we are born out of an act of violence of cosmic proportions in which our Spanish forefathers raped our Indian foremothers. We have no skeletons in our closet. Our skeletons are at the very heart of our history and our reality as a people. Therefore, we are comforted when we read the genealogy of Jesus and find there not only a Gentile like ourselves but also incest and what amounts to David's rape of Bathsheba. The Gospel writer did not hide the skeletons in Jesus' closet but listed them, so that we may know that the Savior has really come to be one of us--not just one of the high and the mighty, the aristocratic with impeccable blood lines, but one of us. (77-78)

  A book of "Bible stories" usually includes the story of David and Goliath, but not of David and Bathsheba; the story of Solomon's wisdom in threatening to divide the disputed baby, but not of Solomon's idolatry. This is a subtle way of disparaging the Old Testament, for it amounts to improving on it. (78)

  This semi-Marcionism holds that since Jesus is the final and supreme revelation of God, the whole of Scripture is to be read and interpreted from the viewpoint of his message. This is true as far as it goes. But it forgets that since the Old Testament is the history of God's revelation and action in preparation for the coming of Christ, the message of Jesus must also be interpreted in the light of that revelation and action. In other words, the argument of the new semi-Marcionites fails in that it takes for granted that without the preparation of the Old Testament, we know what Jesus' message is. History shows that this is not true, for in the early church, as increasing numbers of Gentiles began to join the Christian community, it was clear that these Gentiles needed the background of the Old Testament in order to understand what the message was all about. Otherwise, they risked viewing Christianity as the gnostics and Marcion did. (81)

  Thus the "apolitical" Christianity that many advocate is in truth a Christianity that supports the politics that exist, that is, the power of those who are presently powerful. (83)

(All emphasis is added.)

  Anyways, I've just gotten to the more theological section, so maybe I'll have more later, but the first half of the book is very insightful whether one agrees with all of it or not.

What does this image mean?

 Even some rather basic images can communicate in some surprisingly intricate ways. You may remember this picture puzzle from childhood:

 Last night while with friends, I saw the this image on one of their hats. The friend had gotten the hat from lost and found and hadn't interpreted it yet. Together we mumbled through key words and stumbled upon the hidden meaning in a brilliant flash of illumination. I'll put our key words in light text below so you can work through it for yourself. Select the text if you want to see them though.

(source of above image)

  The interesting takeaway is that an apparently random picture can cause a group of people with shared knowledge to suddenly yell the same thing. Images are powerful.

"Is that a Bengal goat? 😀" 

"My friend had a golf hat."

"It's striped. Isn't it a tiger?"

"Oh!"

Tiger is the GOAT!!!

Ruth: Overturned expectations

  I'm doing some studies in the books of Judges and Ruth, and I am currently reading a commentary written by a Jewish scholar on Ruth, Yehoshua Bachrach; it's called Mother of Royalty. It's got a variety of helpful insights, but two that I found particularly interesting come from Ruth chapter 2.

  This chapter starts out by introducing Boaz, the wealthy, "mighty man of valor" and relative of Naomi's dead husband, whom one might naturally expect to take up the slack and fill the needs of Naomi and Ruth which were known to the town and which Boaz can intuit from what he has been 'fully told' (2:21). Yet, he does nothing apparently. Then 'by chance', Ruth ends up gleaning in his field, and when he speaks to her, he allows her to continue as one of the poor who glean in the corners of the field and offers her water. Her response to him contains a rebuke: "I am a foreigner. Why do you even care about me?" (2:10) He should have already cared and shown it:

Ruth’s remarks contained an unintentional reproach – a rebuke to the kinsman, the redeemer, who had ignored his own relatives and had allowed Naomi to sit at home, alone and hungry. Here was Naomi’s daughter-in-law. She had come to gather food for her aged mother-in-law. […] Was she not instead crying out in protest at all the humiliation inflicted on the entire house of Elimelech, so cruelly treated in Beth-lehem? (pg 85, emphasis mine)

  Whether or not the reproach is intentional, Ruth is suddenly rebuking the 'mighty man of valor' who has not taken responsibility for his aged relative's poverty and has instead allowed a foreigner to do so! Indeed, Ruth's being a Moabite almost certainly told against her being socially accepted in Bethlehem according to the understanding of the Mosaic Law, but did it require others' inaction to care for her poor mother-in-law? Here was a 'foreign woman' who had acted upon YHWH's Law better than YHWH's people.

 A bit later (2:19-20), we find another reversal of our expectations regarding this 'man of valor'. Instead of the wealthy man blessing the two widows, it is the two widows who have here blessed him, and one of them is a Moabite! Citing Yalkut Shim’oni, Ruth Rabba 5.9, Bachrach quotes:

More than the householder does for the poor man, the poor man does for the householder, for so Ruth said to Naomi: “The man’s name for whom I wrought.” She did not say “who wrought for me” but “for whom I wrought.” I wrought him many benefits in return for the one morsel of food which he gave me. (94, emphasis mine)

 Even if Ruth is not quite as bold as the above comment suggests, this is still a remarkable set of verses as the order of blessing is unexpectedly overturned. Over and over in the LORD's system, we see that the weak, the poor, the unworthy, or the unknown are only so labeled in the eyes of those who don't see clearly. May we grow in seeing and being properly, as the One does!

CoTESOL - What I still want to remember 4 months later

 Last November, I got to go to CoTESOL, Colorado's TESOL conference; it was a great experience with a healthy variety of speakers. Many of the sessions focused on a different area of language learning than I usually do, cross-cultural K-12 English users. Due to this, some of the most interesting sessions were connected to the presenters' stories of migration, emigration, and immigration (or their families'). I thoroughly enjoyed many of the speakers' sessions: Lulu Buck, Emily Francis, Don Vu, and Beth Skelton are all people to learn from and enjoy it. But I want to mention a few other sessions that I found particularly interesting. 

 But before that... For any non-teacher Americans who have gotten this far, some statistics might be the most interesting takeaway. In the USA, 10% of K-12 students have a home language other than English. 80% of those multilinguals speak Spanish. After Spanish, the next four most common additional languages in US schools are Arabic, Vietnamese, Russian, and Mandarin. Overall American schools have a rich diversity with over 300 different languages being spoken in its K-12 schools nationwide. 

 Specific to Colorado, in 2022, there were 110,000 multilingual learners with 280 different languages. Here Amharic (#4) is added to the above list of commonly spoken home languages. All of this suggests why it's possible to see monolingual people as somewhat limited. 😳😬🙊 (This data also suggests why it could be reasonable and beneficial to expand the amount of translation that is done in official spaces since only 4-6 additional languages would be needed in most states, not 300. Oops, this is beginning to sound political... 😳😬🙊, again.)

Carol Salva 

-  I don't have a long list of quotes from Dr. Carol, but she talks about teaching in the way I want to teach. She exudes love and hope for her students. If you get a chance to hear her or follow her on FB, I'd highly recommend it. Her ideas are practical and caring and focused on the students' potential. Also, she's humble enough to ask for help and then talk about it publicly...

- "[Students] aren't going to believe anything more than what I believe." (for and about them and their abilities)

Monica Lara

- "When you're a second language learner, you're a second language learner for life."

-  quoting Luis Moll, "The concept of 'funds of knowledge is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge."

- She also talked about the QSSA strategy for conversations; it seems like a valuable riff on think-pair-share.

Jamal Khlifat - "Cross-linguistic Syntactic priming between Levantine Arabic and English in bilingual speakers"

- This presentation sounds incredibly complex, but it was extremely interesting. Basically, Dr. Khlifat's study shows that exposure to greater complexity moves students to express themselves with greater complexity. This is true even if the exposure occurs in the learner's native language! In other words, if you give a language learner a relatively complex text in their own language and then have them write in the target language they are learning, they will write with relatively more complexity than if you prime them with a simpler text (in their own language). The research was done between Arabic and English, but studies to explore this in other languages are ongoing.

- This study seemed to me to both support the concept of grammaring (showing grammar in real contexts instead of starting from the textbook with definitions and prescriptions), and it also "could serve as a counterargument to monolingual-immersion  teaching/instruction." This was one of three pedagogical implications given. The other two were "A learner's native language should be viewed as a resource, rather than a problem for educators to circumvent." and "Priming texts in a learner's native language serve[s] as a scaffolding tool."

Sonia Felix Naix - regarding "Ilots bonifiés" - "Collaborating to Maximize Participation in EFL Classrooms"

- This presentation was fascinating and presented a beautiful system for encouraging participation. She shared the main form needed to implement the system as well. The major challenge with learning the system was that one needed to know French as it was developed by a French teacher, Marie Rivoire in 2012. Little to nothing about it seems to have appeared in English before this presentation. Ms. Felix Naix was most interested in hearing from anyone who tried out the system.

Dogs in the Bible

  Yesterday evening in our small group Bible study, a couple of us were interested in this reference: "But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel." It's in the context of the angel of death who is going to execute the firstborn sons throughout Egypt, and it is of rather minor theological significance. However, in a culture which loves puppies, it is interesting: this appears to be the first reference to dogs in Scripture.

 So, how are canines mentioned in the Bible? Well, honestly, the references to dogs don't seem particularly different from today.

"Pets" (domesticated or household dogs)

- Exodus 22:31; Matthew 15:26-27 & Mark 7:27-28 (food thrown to dogs)

- Job 30:1 (sheep dogs)

- Psalm 68:23 - 'the tongues of your dogs may have their portion from the foe' - sounds like guard dogs

- Isaiah 56:10-11 - watchdogs

Name-calling or Self-deprecating humility

 - 1 Samuel 17:43; 24:14; 2 Samuel 9:8; 16:9; 2 Kings 8:13; Psalm 22:20; Philippians 3:2; Revelation 22:15

Packs of Dogs

- The above Exodus 11:7 reference seems to be concerned with possible violence from a dog. It could be a watchdog, but it seems more likely to refer to packs of dogs in light of some of the later references. Other references in this category would include 1 Kings 14:11; 16:4; 21:19, 23-24; 22:38; 2 Kings 9:10, 36; Psalms 22:16; 59:6, 14; Jeremiah 15:3

As dirty animals or animals with dirty or inappropriate-for-a-human habits

- Judges 7:5 - "a dog laps"

- Proverbs 26:11; 2 Peter 2:22 - "A dog returns to its vomit"

- Matthew 7:6 - "do not give dogs what is holy"

Unclear or Random 

- Deuteronomy 23:18 - "wages of a dog" - maybe a dog loaned out for hunting purposes???

- Proverbs 26:17 - "a passing dog"

- Ecclesiastes 9:4 - "a living dog is better than a dead lion" - maybe for guarding???

- Luke 16:21 - dogs licking sores - this could be seen as sympathetic and healing, or a sign of misery; the dogs could be from the household or a pack potentially ???

 

**Prov 30:31 mentions an animal which is unclear for translation ("girt of loins"), possibly a greyhound or a strutting rooster.

from Augustine's The Teacher

Somehow Augustine's The Teacher made its way onto my reading list. This afternoon I took the time to read it. It's interesting, but what follow are not organized quotations, just notes and quotes that I wanted to preserve somewhere. The early discussion in the book about words and meanings is also interesting, but the discussion on the difficulty of actually 'teaching' mirrors  something I've talked about often with my students: demonstrating that learning happened is much easier than demonstrating that teaching has. I've heard it said that 'teaching' cannot be demonstrated to happen, only learning. Anyways...

from Augustine's The Teacher. trans by Robert Russell. 1968.

- pg 42 - Adeodatus, Augustine's son, touches on just how hard it is to define teaching. At the beginning of the dialogue, they have already pointed out that speaking in pursuit of learning is a method of teaching what one wants to know. 

- pg 44 - " Then it has been established that nothing can be taught without signs, and that we should value knowledge itself more highly than the signs which lead us to it, though it maybe that some of the things signified are not superior to their signs." 

pgs 45-46 - Augustine goes on to show how one can teach through real example the way to do something for an intelligent observer, not just through signs.

- pg 45 - "It is hazardous to mistake what is not known for what is known."

- pg 49 - "Certainly, when I learned to know the reality, I did not rely upon the words of another, but upon my own eyes, though I did possibly rely upon words to direct my attention, that is, to see what there was to see by looking."

- pg 49 "But the man who teaches me is one who presents to my eyes or to any bodily sense, or even to the mind itself, something that I wish to know."

- he then goes on to demonstrate how hard it is to use words to teach words; if we know what something means, we can't learn it. If we don't, we can't say we know what it is until we know the meaning.

- pg 54-55 - When one is asked a question and answers in the negative but then led to answer positively through a series of questions, this is still not teaching. It is simply that he is being led to perceive the problem more completely. They are helping the person to see things more clearly with their 'inner light'.

Then he discusses that questions must be matched to "that Teacher who teaches from within" apparently referring to Christ, who had been mentioned earlier.

When someone hears something I express with words... "In none of these cases, therefore, does he learn. It follows, therefore, that one who does not grasp the reality after hearing our words, or who knows that what he heard is untrue, or who could have given the same answer, if asked, has learned nothing by any words of mine."

pg 59 - "Do teachers ever claim that it is their own thoughts that are grasped and retained, rather than the branches of learning themselves which they purport to transmit by their speaking? What foolish curiosity could ever prompt a man to send his child to school in order to have him learn what the teacher thinks? But when teachers have made use of words to explain all those branches of learning which they profess to be teaching, including even those dealing with virtue and wisdom, then those who are known as pupils reflect within themselves whether what has been said is true, contemplating, that is, that inner truth according to their capacity. It is then, therefore, that they learn. And when they discover within themselves that what has been said is true, they praise their teachers, unaware that they are not so much praising the teachers as they are praising those who have been taught, provided, however, that the teachers also know what they are saying. But, men make the mistake of calling people "teachers" when they are not that at all, because there is generally no interval of time between the moment of speaking and that of knowing, and because their coming to learn from within follows quickly a upon the suggestive force of the speaker's words, they think that they have learned externally from him who spoke those words."

pg 60 - "Words merely stimulate a man to learn."

pg 60-1 - "He alone teaches who made use of external words to remind us that He dwells within us."

fun with alarms and their verbs

 

 Yesterday evening in class, a dear elderly gentleman, one of the most diligent students I've had, had a new question for me. The text in the book was having the students use 'phrasal verbs', those amusing two-word, one-meaning verbs like 'get up' or 'go ahead'. The text was specifically using them in the context of alarms, like smoke alarms. He wanted an explanation for the phrasal verb used when an alarm sounds. 

Why do we use 'goes off' to say that an alarm 'turns on'?

 After asking his question, he carefully stared off into the middle distance so as not to put me on the spot as I publicly and verbally pondered the ridiculousness of this linguistic oddity for the first time. "Your alarm is going OFF; please turn it OFF, or it won't go OFF... er, ahh, I mean it won't stop going OFF."

 After a bit, I readily admitted to the class that this certainly had the potential to throw off (!) a night's sleep, at least until my alarm...

A Recommendation, a Waxwing, and a... well, one more surprise

  The smallest graces and beauties in life often arrive quite unexpectedly. I truly love birds and seeing a variety of them. One result of this is that my current favorite game is Wingspan, a beautifully drawn and well-designed board game which a friend gifted us a few months ago. Somehow competition is combined with beauty and a pinch of education to make a thoroughly enjoyable game experience, although it's too complex for the kids still. But I digress...

  Last week on a walk along a bike trail I saw a flock of Bohemian waxwings. I wouldn't have known their name if I hadn't happened to see this article about it in the Denver Post a few days before, "A rare and beautiful bird is turning up all over Denver this winter." Apparently these waxwings haven't been to Denver since I was a toddler. They were far more beautiful than the rather distant picture below suggests. The two colorings, presumably male and female, were both lovely; and the dozens of waxwings were in no rush to go anywhere else. But this morning...!

Bohemian waxwing

 Driving down Holly Street to drop kids off for school, I saw a bald eagle! I have loved eagles since I was very young, and they always make me think of my granddad because he had a house full of bald eagles (pictures, sculptures, and whatnot). Again, the picture quality below is lacking, but the gift of seeing beautiful birds wherever I'm at was not lacking in any way. Thankfully, we had a couple minutes to get out and take pictures of the bird before I dropped the kids off. Then I went back to look at it again in quietness.

A bald eagle, in Park Hill, Denver

 I said 'quietness', but actually you may notice in the video below that the crows and magpies were thoroughly disturbed that the eagle had entered their normal space. That's what the racket is, but the eagle seems unconcerned with it. And well he should!

 Actually this is the second time in the last several months that we've seen eagles. In November, driving back from Thanksgiving, we saw some bald eagles in Kansas, but they were away across a field. So even though we trespassed into a corn field, we still couldn't get particularly close.

 

Philippians and the Presence

 

The Albanian Alps

 

  That the Maker of this unimaginably great universe would approach -draw near to- creatures he made is one of the great mysteries and realities in the Bible. What kind of God cares about minute creatures on a tiny planet in the midst of this stunning magnificence, especially ones who have rejected his lordship? Yet, throughout Scripture, we do not only find the Maker coming as a Judge of rebels, though that is certainly part, and we do not only find a Presence through pure symbol like fire or cloud or dove, but we also see the approach of intimate call to relationship and friendship with the One. Of course, this was manifested ultimately when God became human enfleshed. [This is not the often-accused impossibility that a human should somehow became GOD, but the belief that GOD stooped low to become one of us.]

  As I've been reading in Paul's letter to the Philippians, I was struck by the practical relevance of the Lord's presence for the Jesus-follower. In 4:5-6 (below), the soon-coming or approach of the Lord is the basis for not worrying. In other words, don't worry about the future because the Lord will be there. Several verses later, Paul says, the way to practice right thought and action is with the knowledge of the God of peace's current presence with you. In other words, you can live in God's way now because the God who will gives peace is actually with you. 

  Since these verses about the presence of God in the future and the present came so close together, I wonder if this letter mentioned the presence of God in the past with these sorts of practical implications. And it does. In chapter 2:4-8, Paul writes that Jesus-followers are to have a sacrificial and unified attitude towards each other and others. Then he gives the basis of this as such an attitude is already 'yours in Christ Jesus' because of Jesus' past presence in coming and dying, along with his exaltation. From other Scriptures, we can see that being 'in Christ Jesus' relates directly to our being in the Presence. So, we have here the past presence of God enabling a God-ward present inner life and attitude. 

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Phil 4:5-9, ESV)

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:4-8, ESV)