a Woman's Authority

More accurately, concerning an area of women's authority specified in the Bible...

Kevin Bauder wrote what I've posted below during a discussion on pastoral authority. Personally I found these thoughts more useful than the overall essay in stimulating my thoughts toward careful, biblical thinking.  Obviously, this is addressing a very particular slice of life, but it seems like one that should be given deeper thought, by men especially.

   [...] Significantly, 1 Timothy 5:14 does not present the wife exercising oikodespotein under her husband’s delegation, but under God’s. What this probably means is that a wife has a sphere of authority—actual, decision-making power—that comes directly from God and not by grant from her husband. Her responsibility is to govern the household. In a modern home, this responsibility would give her authority over such matters as meals, décor, and cleanliness. She can tell her husband to move the sofa. She can decide what color the walls will be, how to hang the drapes, and whether the home will have hardwood floors or wall-to-wall carpeting. She has the authority to order her husband to take out the garbage or to pick up his socks and put them in the hamper, and he needs to obey her.

Even though the text does not indicate that this household authority is mediated through the husband, a wise wife will exercise it deferentially rather than demandingly. Within his sphere of authority the husband will do the same. In any case, within a certain sphere the authority of the wife acts as a check upon and limitation of the patriarchal authority of the husband and father. [...]

 (The full essay: Bishops and Fathers.)

Visiting the city of Van

Several weeks ago, I got to visit a new city here in Turkey, which is actually a very old city.  It just happens to be the first I've visited there.  Because the girls were with me, I didn't get to explore in detail, and there's much more to see.  But at least we got to see the old castle, the site of the old city and Lake Van, which is pretty, though I didn't get a picture of it.

Van's old fortress can be seen at the end of the street

Van fortress with a restored mosque's minaret also visible

An ancient inscription from much earlier versions of the fortress

With the girls at the old city of Van, originally Tushpa capital of the Urartian kingdom

  There's lots of other stuff to see in the area.  Soon, a new museum should be finished with lots of ancient artifacts; there's an old cathedral on an island out in the lake, and Mount Ararat is not too far away.  It's a great place to visit, and I will hope to go back someday and keep seeing more.

The One-ness of God and Prejudice

  Earlier this week I watched a soccer game with one of my good friend who is atheistic; afterwards as we talked, he was surprised when I said that the duties of Jesus followers can be summarized in two commands: Love God; love your neighbors.  Coincidentally this week, I just read Jesus' expression of this truth in Mark 12, and I was struck by the fact that Jesus in this place quotes the entire command beginning with "Hear, O Israel," continuing through the expression of God's One-ness, His command to love Him with your whole wholeness and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Then, the entire sequence is repeated by the scribe to whom Jesus was talking.  Why is the One-ness of God so important to these commands?  

 I think this is related to the fact that there is only one God to worship, and so He must be worshipped supremely.  But regarding the second command particularly, the reflection of the One God in all of His created image-bearers is the cause for loving each of our neighbors as we love ourselves. In the first part of James 2, love of our neighbors is again given as a summary of the law; partiality and prejudice against any fellow human is a betrayal of divine law. (Interestingly, the unity of God is key to the argument in the second half of James 2.) 

 What's the point?  I think the point is that God's One-ness and supremacy creates the first command; His imparting of His image to people raises them to where they are each individually the object of the second command.  Any prejudice towards my neighbor is prejudice against the reflection of God in him or her. Obviously this does not address the fact that God's image in each of us has been marred, but prejudice suggests that I believe I was more worthy of God's restoring His image in me than such a restoration in my neighbor.  And that is not the Gospel. 

 If we believe in the greatness of the One God, if we love Him with all we are (by His grace), then we must love and embrace His reflection in all those around us! This truth is not simple: God's greatness and the honor that He has set upon each of us do not agree well with our natural self-righteousness, nor does it thrive in a secular mind. Yet no other way gives more than pragmatic honor to our neighbors: if we are each just working for our own good when we 'love our neighbor' this is no true love. The Lord God is one: love Him with all you are, and love those whom He has put around you as you love your own self.

(From a Trinitarian perspective, it is interesting that Jesus' next discussion in Mark 12 is about the divinity of the Messiah.)

Paul Bunyan: a new Tall Tale (by a young student)

 Paul Bunyan was America's greatest lumberjack. He was the biggest man in the whole world at that time. He was much more than 25 feet tall.

 When he was a baby, he would eat trees like broccoli. His crying used to make tornados that would make the rocks and trees fly into the air.

 At thirty years old, he was stronger an bigger than ever. But his shoes smelled like all the American garbage gathered in one place, but only when he took them off.  He could only make a bath in the sea. So Paul sometimes got lice as big as a blue whale.

 If he dropped his ax he would split apart America. Then Paul and Babe the Blue Ox would have to push on America's two sides and rejoin them. Twice he dropped the ax, and it made the Continental Divide and the Mississippi River.

 When he was 90 years old, he died. They buried him in Denver, with Pike's Peak as his headstone.

[This new tall tale was imagined with a bit of direction and a few place names by a young student; she'd never heard of Paul Bunyan till today.]

Cynicism concerning victories and light bulbs

  It is a statement on the disfunction of the Republican Party and its tactics that in the $1+ trillion spending bill, issues that they claim to have won are as follows:

1.  Incandescent light bulbs can still be manufactured. [This seems to be both a symbolic and a pyrrhic victory given that there replacements would save everybody money (except, possibly, electricity producers), and this is a rather innocent and insignificant case of government meddling. I agree that none of us like meddling, but...] [I suppose that all "natural market-weeding-out" is good, as when Bernie Madoff's clients were weeded out of the market for being inefficient? Truly regulations are inherently evil.]

"The light bulb issue has been an ongoing battle for Republicans, who argued that if incandescent bulbs are inefficient, the market will weed them out naturally without government pressure.

2. A ban on DC using local tax money to fund abortions. [I agree with the principle, but will it actually change anyone's life? Truly, I'm asking a question.]

3. Limit on federal agencies' spending on conferences. [Good! Glad someone did this finally.]

4. Halting new funding for the IMF and UNESCO. [Two more empty 'victories' that neither advance America's interests abroad, nor help the human race.  However, for the anti-World club, they are definitely a win, since it will allow other nations to be influential in areas where America will no longer be as involved... like global education, science, and culture!]

Other battles Republicans said they won include continuing a ban on the District of Columbia using its local taxpayers’ money to fund abortions; limits on federal agencies’ spending on conferences; and halting new funding for the International Monetary Fund and the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization." (Source: Washington Times)

 Where'd the Republicans lose any real bargaining power? Probably in the government shutdown that made them even more deeply unpopular than Congress generally, or in the 5 years of saying that all compromise was bad [Isn't this a republic representing everyone's interests theoretically?], or...

 Now that I'm probably in trouble with all my friends, I shall step aside, realizing that this post will be obsolete in every way in the immediate future. 

Language Learning

If you are going to learn a language...

This should help with the practical: Language Learning in the Real World for Non-Beginners as well as other resources by Greg Thompson

Your long-term possibilities are better, because... language learning stalls dementia and Alzheimers.

Prepare for smiles...

Christianity, Arabia and early Islam

  Extracts from Christendom and Islam: Their Contacts and Cultures Down the Centuries by W. Wilson Cash, an old book that I am editing for reprinting in my free time... this has become another fun project for learning. Wilson speaks particularly to the need for indigenous and faithful Christ-following for every community.  As the book's title implies, he also speaks to the nature of earlier Islam in relation to Christianity.

In the expansion of Christianity in that period there seems to have been no idea of making the Church indigenous. On the other hand, everything seems to have been done to emphasize its Greek character. Harnack says, “There are no pre-Mohammed translations of the Bible into Arabic, and that is strong proof that Christianity has not found any footing at all among the Arabs in early times.” Bell, too, tells us in The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment (page 17) that “the language of Christianity in the East was Aramaic or Syriac and there is no evidence of a Christian Church using Arabic in its services.” [...]

It is significant that Mohammed supplied for the Arabs just those elements which, if they had been provided by Christianity at an earlier date, would have made the Church a national, indigenous body with its own Arab expression. He gave them a book in their own tongue, and composed in a style that was beloved by all Arabs. They were illiterate, but they would listen for hours together to recitals of stories mainly taken from the Bible, stories spoken not in dull prose but in a rhythm that has a peculiar charm for all who know the language. He presented religion to them as a great adventure, and he centered their faith in the simple dogma of the unity of God. He attracted his followers to himself and made Islam a matter of personal loyalty and allegiance. Every Arab who became a Mohammedan felt that the Prophet belonged to him. He was a son of the desert. He lived their life and understood their point of view. While they had refused to give up their idols and their pagan customs for the Christian appeal, they readily accepted Islam. To them one faith was foreign and the symbol of a foreign power, the other was indigenous and offered security and independence.

 

“Had Christianity produced a deep impression upon Arabia it would no doubt have burst through the conventions which confined poetry to the subject and temper of the old desert life, or at least have produced a religious literature of its own. But it was left to Islam to bring that impulse, if indeed Islam did convey it to the Arabs of the desert.” (Bell, p, 50.)

 

It is doubtful indeed whether the Scriptures were ever translated into any of the North African vernaculars.

 

When Constantine the Great gave his patronage to Christianity and made the Christian faith a factor in State policy, he was laying the foundations for the collapse of Christianity four centuries later through an invading Moslem army.

 

[Early] Islam to many was a lay movement and appeared very much like a simplified and reformed Christianity.

Top Recommendations from 2013

  This year, my life has been more obviously structured to learn and increase both knowledge and understanding; thus, I've read more on a variety of fronts.  I will recommend some of those books below; but first, a word about why I rarely add disclaimers to my recommendations: if you find something that you disagree with in a book, it is proof that your mind is engaged.  If I recommend a book, it is because I think the author has presented 'something' well from 'some' perspective.  In other words, I assume we all know that authors are neither omniscient nor inspired.  Thus, I hope all of us can critique something in any book we read.

The Lost History of Christianity (John Philip Jenkins) - This book is very appropriately named; it is also well-written and engagingly presented. The author is balanced in many areas where balance is difficult to maintain. It covers an area of Christian history that I've never heard dealt with properly, particularly the Asian and African churches which comprised up to 50% of the Church for many centuries. (My blog post about this book.)

Honor & Shame (my related blog post) - Several friends and I have spent much of this year digesting the meaning of Honor and Shame together; it is excellent and applies to a postmodern culture nearly as much as to an Asian one. (Shame Interrupted - is a more pastoral look at dealing with shame, while Redeeming Love is an excellent novel which explores the topic well.)

From Foreign to Familiar - A short, useful book about culture and adapting!

Mother of Wolves - This was an excellent novel which I got free on Kindle and was happily impressed by both the unusual setting and development of the plot! (Honorable Mention: In Search of Castaways - a prequel to Jules Verne's classic The Mysterious Island [free on Kindle])

Once There Was, Twice There Wasn't (Michael Shelton) - A book of classic Turkish fairy tales are retold for the delight and instruction of children or adults. A few of the stories were familiar to me from childhood, but most were new. Nasreddin Hoca would have appreciated Aesop, Brer Rabbit and Anansi.

The Corsair King (Mor Jokai) - Good historical fiction, much of this older author's work is available free.  This particular work is based on the same figure as "The Dread Pirate Roberts" in The Princess Bride! [free on Kindle]

Teaching English to Young Learners - This book by David Nunan has been a tremendous help with ideas and instruction, as I've tried to become a better teacher.

The Three Little Tamales - Easily wins best kid's book of the year as the final tamale outsmarts Senor Lobo.

Muhteşem Yüzyıl is my favorite soundtrack from the year, with Crayola Doesn't  Make a Color for your Eyes and Song of the Lonely Mountain being favorite individual songs, while the Piano Guys are the addictively good artists that I began really loving this year.

Previous Lists:
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM 2011
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM 2012

An ancient poem 'to be read on the Feast of the Holy Nativity'

  I recently came across this poem, supposed to be by Khamis bar Kardahe whom we would call a Nestorian. Parts of the poem, which can be found more fully here, clearly reflect differences in theology from what most Western Christians would believe. Much of it also reflects Eastern thought and poetry in ways that we might not use in the West. Still, I think you can appreciate the beauty and truth in his meditation. Here are some parts:

Ten thousand times ten thousand glories uttered by the Church, and never-ending springs of the pouring forth of the Spirit, flow towards the dust, unto Thee, Thou Bay of the Mysterious Orb, the Everlasting, the Son of the essence of Self-existence, Who from virginity took a garment of humanity, and hid therewith the effulgence of His Divinity!

...After the similitude of His hidden likeness had become corrupt, and the image of His mysterious self had been defaced and defiled, and the transcript of His similitude had been utterly ruined, and after the model of His own creation had been swallowed up in the gaping bowels of the insatiable sheal, the good God deigned to renew and to restore it. And when the set time for the fulfillment of this His benevolent purpose towards the creation had arrived, the Lord spread abroad His mercy as the sea, and His pity as the great deep, and He poured forth and enlarged the goodness and the grace of His Divinity, by sending His consubstantial Son,----the Son of Self-existence. In a befitting way His Will descended towards men; He sent His Beloved, the Begotten of Himself, that is, His Express Image, Who in consummate wisdom, took upon Him, from us, a nature and a person. In a wonderful manner he clothed Himself with a corruptible garment, covering therewith His excellent glory; and when the time appointed in His wisdom had come, He mended and repaired it, and sewed together its rents. He was borne in the womb according to the laws and peculiarities of nature, and was brought forth by His mother.

The Begotten, the Highest, the Ancient of days, Who has set us free, drew milk from the breast as do sucklings and infants, was bound in swaddling clothes, and was placed in a manger like a child of the poor and needy, although He is verily and indeed the King of kings, to Whom the highest worship is due. Crowds of simple and untutored shepherds surround the cave where He lay, and bow to Him in adoration. Legions of spiritual, excellent, and adoring Powers,----the living chariots of the wonderful cherubim,----the speaking wheels, with open eyes and replete with wisdom and intelligence, now stationary, now lifted up,----myriads of Seraphim, as quick as light, with outstretched wings, whose it is to sing thrice Holy,----the glorious, admirable, and awful company of exalted thrones,----the company of those who keep watch over the kingdom of the Lord, all the beautiful armies, lordships, dominions, invincible powers, archangels, angels, and messengers, surround Ephratha in nine circles, fly to and fro, ascend and descend as eagles, dance, rejoice, clap their hands and feet like children of freedom, sing and sound their trumpets on the day of the Nativity, and on their lyres praise the Child Born,----sing the most exalted hallelujahs, thrice Holies, psalms, glories, and holy songs, unto God in the highest, increase of security and peace upon the earth, and the descent of good-will and its continuance among men. [...]

Behold Him, Who is clothed with light, wrapped in swaddling bands; what a mystery is here! No less wonderful is it that He Who is seated on the throne of heaven should have been laid in a manger! The Ancient of times became a Son of Mary in the latter time, and appeared as the Father, Lord, and Master, of the sons of Adam, loosing from off their nature the bands of the curse and of sin, and causing a light to shine forth through the shadows of death. The sun of His love chose an orb from the firmament of humanity, and made the rays of His moon to be the rational confidence of man; so that henceforth the grossness of the dark earth cannot hide the one from the other, He having destroyed it by the splendor of His brightness. He brought down the Spiritual, and guided it to the nature of the dust, wherefrom He chose Him out an abode to manifest forth the mystery of perfect and great salvation, and to exhibit true liberty to the children of flesh, who had become the slaves of falsehood and error...

...now that the true Jewel has been brought up by the power of the Almighty arm of God, enclosed in the shell of the chaste Virgin, and elect bosom, which shall, having indeed the companionship of a human body, but without any [conjugal] intercourse, open upon the shore of the cave of Bethlehem, the rivulet of which is small. Towards this Jewel we bow the neck and shoulders, and for it we barter our souls; because it sheds forth light in darkness, and is a Pearl which all the merchants extol. Not all the wealth of the world can purchase it, therefore let us cast away all our silver and gold, and all that we possess, and hasten and gaze on its pure and varied beauty, so that perchance its reflection may be impressed upon our minds, and it may become to us a treasure of life in earthen vessels...

Behold Adam, the begetter of nations, is begotten again, and the Creator of men has become a little child! He [the first Adam] who would have arrogated to himself the sovereignty unreasonably, took it [in Christ] when He was born an infant. Hail to thee, O daughter, whose Son caused fatherhood to exist! Hail to Thee, O Infant, Who filled the womb of Thy mother with grace! Hail, Mary, who honored in thy bosom a united Man filled with purity, the reasonable temple of the Divinity! The Holy Spirit was the Master Who wove in thee the tabernacle of the Humanity, and the words of the Angel messenger were as His threads thereto. Hail to the Begotten, the Unspeakable, the Wonder-working! Hail to the Begotten, the equal with His Father in dominion and sovereignty, Who became the origin of reconciliation and peace! [...]

Great is He Who is Born, Who strikes all creatures with awe!

The Fortress of Seven Towers - Incredible!

I've traveled a lot of places, but today I saw probably the second most amazing historical site that I've ever seen, Yedikule Zindanları or The Castle of Seven Towers. (My top favorite would be Ephesus, which I blogged about briefly here.) Amazingly, this site is here in Istanbul, and I'd never heard of it till about 3 weeks ago.  It costs  $5 and is the chance to explore a 555-year old fortress with a few niceties... basic handrails sometimes, some rickety balconies to transfer between prison cells, and a couple of the passageways even have lights, though most of them you get to navigate in the pitch darkness if you are lucky enough to visit on an overcast winter day!  

The view was amazing, probably the best view of the western half of Istanbul that I've ever seen.

The setting felt epic.  Why are there not movies filmed here?

Rickety balcony, now look down and try not to notice the rust.

These towers also served as prisons and places of execution during various periods... not very cozy, even for royal prisoners of whom there were quite a few... Turkish, Hungarian, Georgian.  Which cell would you like?

Oh, and I forgot to mention the indoor-outdoor plumbing... this ran from the cell, right out the wall.

Finally, I should mention that if you want to visit, access is really easy due to the Marmaray Underground which has a station (Kazliçeşme) a very short walk from the unmissable fortress walls.