WEEK 5

Guests:

Lauren Huff 

 

Karen Calvina Voss Greenwood‎ 

Baptizing Lauren:

Here's the text (VERSE 4) from Philemon that Lauren made for me:

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I am sure you remember this opening song of LAMENT.

Something surprising and subversive happens, to say the least:

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What do you remember about this? "My God...My God"..like Psam 22.

Is every "My God" eventually prayer?

we didn't show this one..but what do you notice hear: God, Jesus etc:

Appreciated  hearing your 9/11 stories---

I remember thinking as I picked up this flyer at the World Trade Center c.1974 : What if the towers DID fall?”

Jesus died SINGING PSALM 22..BUT ALSO DIED NAKED.
ONLY ONE STUDENT RAISES HER HAND THAT SHE KNEW THAT.  THAT'S ABOUT THE AVERAGE.

Jesus died naked..but not in Christian art and movies

I am not here to offend anyone unnecessarily.
But I believe Corrie Ten Boom was right and right on:

Jesus died naked.

Even the (very conservative)Dallas Theological commentaries assume this, so this is not just some "liberal" agenda:

"That Jesus died naked was part of the shame which He bore for our sins. " -link

Which means this picture
(found on a blog with no credit)
is likely wrong(Jesus looks too white).

...and largely right (What Jesus is wearing).

I answered a question about this a few years ago, I would write it a bit differently know, but here it is:

First of all, it is probable that (again, contrary to nearly all artwork and movies), Jesus hung on the cross absolutely naked. This was a typical way of crucifixion, to increase the shame factor. Romans might occasionally add a loincloth type of garment as a token concession and nod to Jewish sensitivity; but not very often, it would seem. Of course, once we get past the emotive and cultural shock of imagining Jesus naked, we realize that if He indeed die naked, the symbolism is profound and prophetic: In Scripture, Jesus is called the "Second Adam". As such, it would make sense that He died "naked and unashamed." We are also told that "cursed is he who dies on a tree." The nakedness was a sign and enfolding of shame and token of curse. And the wonderful story of Corrie ten Boom and family, told in the book and movie "The Hiding Place," relates. One of the turning points of her ability to endure the Ravensbruck concentration camp, particularly the shame of walking naked past the male guards, was her conviction that Jesus too was shamed and stripped naked before guards. "Finally, it dawned on me," she preached once," that this (shaming through nakedness) happened to Jesus too..., and Jesus is my example, and now it is happening to me, then I am simply doing what Jesus did." She concluded, "I know that Jesus gave me that thought and it gave me peace. It gave me comfort and I could bear the shame and cruel treatment."

continued''

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.Psalms 22 in The Message Translation.

Did this sound like the "Victory Song" and "greatest song ever sung" that Leonard Sweet spoke about?

Psalm 22 The Message (MSG)

A David Psalm

22 
    Why did you dump me
    miles from nowhere?
Doubled up wit1-2 God, God . . . my God!
h pain, I call to God
    all the day long. No answer. Nothing.
I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.

3-5 And you! Are you indifferent, above it all,
    leaning back on the cushions of Israel’s praise?
We know you were there for our parents:
    they cried for your help and you gave it;
    they trusted and lived a good life.

6-8 And here I am, a nothing—an earthworm,
    something to step on, to squash.
Everyone pokes fun at me;
    they make faces at me, they shake their heads:
“Let’s see how God handles this one;
    since God likes him so much, let him help him!”

9-11 And to think you were midwife at my birth,
    setting me at my mother’s breasts!
When I left the womb you cradled me;
    since the moment of birth you’ve been my God.
Then you moved far away
    and trouble moved in next door.
I need a neighbor.

12-13 Herds of bulls come at me,
    the raging bulls stampede,
Horns lowered, nostrils flaring,
    like a herd of buffalo on the move.

14-15 I’m a bucket kicked over and spilled,
    every joint in my body has been pulled apart.
My heart is a blob
    of melted wax in my gut.
I’m dry as a bone,
    my tongue black and swollen.
They have laid me out for burial
    in the dirt.

16-18 Now packs of wild dogs come at me;
    thugs gang up on me.
They pin me down hand and foot,
    and lock me in a cage—a bag
Of bones in a cage, stared at
    by every passerby.
They take my wallet and the shirt off my back,
    and then throw dice for my clothes.

19-21 You, God—don’t put off my rescue!
    Hurry and help me!
Don’t let them cut my throat;
    don’t let those mongrels devour me.
If you don’t show up soon,
    I’m done for—gored by the bulls,
    meat for the lions.

22-24 Here’s the story I’ll tell my friends when they come to worship,
    and punctuate it with Hallelujahs:
Shout Hallelujah, you God-worshipers;
    give glory, you sons of Jacob;
    adore him, you daughters of Israel.
He has never let you down,
    never looked the other way
    when you were being kicked around.
He has never wandered off to do his own thing;
    he has been right there, listening.

25-26 Here in this great gathering for worship
    I have discovered this praise-life.
And I’ll do what I promised right here
    in front of the God-worshipers.
Down-and-outers sit at God’s table
    and eat their fill.
Everyone on the hunt for God
    is here, praising him.
“Live it up, from head to toe.
    Don’t ever quit!”

27-28 From the four corners of the earth
    people are coming to their senses,
    are running back to God.
Long-lost families
    are falling on their faces before him.
God has taken charge;
    from now on he has the last word.

29 All the power-mongers are before him
    —worshiping!
All the poor and powerless, too
    —worshiping!
Along with those who never got it together
    —worshiping!

30-31 Our children and their children
    will get in on this
As the word is passed along
    from parent to child.
Babies not yet conceived
    will hear the good news—
    that God does what he says.

The Message (MSG)

Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterso

We watched the second section of Drops Like Stars, posted under 6.2a

6.2 a) VIDEO VENTURE: Drops Like Stars part 2 (do asap, due to length)

Based on the second part of Drops Like Stars  that we watched in class (watch video on 5.2 if you need to.  Start with  "Are there any Johnny Cash fans here tonight?" at 54 minute, 35 second mark, finish at 1:40

answer the following:

a) 2-3 paragraphs of summary and review. Convince the teacher you watched it all and well.

b)What is the third art?  .  What  (specifically) might you remember a year from now from this section, and why? Do your best to give a personal story or example  that came to mind of how you have seen this art in your own life.

c) What is the fourth  art?  .  What  (specifically) might you remember a year from now from this section, and why? Do your best to give a personal story or example  that came to mind of how you have seen this art in your own life.

d)This was a very inductive or EPIC film.  Instead of traditional (RRWI)   order, he told stories and illustrations of each art/point BEFORE he told you what the art/point was.  Note he didn't  won't even reveal the meaning behind the film's title until the very end; in fact they are the last three words of the film and might even be the thesis statement (Challenge: save your thesis for the end of Philemon paper?_   He also was very E (Experiential) in that he used props and audience interaction (much more so in the second section: cards, soap, etc).  How did you respond to this kind of presentation?    

e)Don't research the meaning of the title, and venture a guess as to what it means

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Bonus: one guy who attended "Drops Like Stars," sketched sections of the show.  Examples from tonight's section below.  See them all here

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The shocking story  about Bill Beechy , the retreat speaker--

"I almost didn't come.. my wife left me..told here..start at.  53 second mark

PSALMS

PSALMS are the Jewish prayer-book   that the early Christians used.  What's wonderful, refreshing, honest...and sometimes disturbing  (to us in the West) is that they cover the whole breadth of life and emotion.  They are all technically songs and prayers..  But note how some weave in and out from a person speaking to God, God speaking to a person, a person speaking to himself.  Somehow, Hebraically, holistically, it all counts as prayer.

...And as "song"  Note in your Bible that several psalms have inscriptions which give the name of the tune they are to be prayed/sung to.  Some seem hilarious, counterintuitive, and contradictory, but again not to a Hebrew mindset and worldview, with room for honesty, fuzzy sets and paradox:

• Psalms  (click) with the line "Destroy my enemies", "break their teeth!!" ... To be sung to the tune of "Do Not Destroy"  !!  (Psalm 58:6)
• Psalm 22, a depressing ditty and LAMENT about someone in the throes of rejection despair and death.  To be sung to the tune of "Doe in the Morning"   ??

• Psalm 137:9  "Blessed is the one who 

• seize yours infants and violently dashes 

• them against the rocks"

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We also listened to Trucker Frank's journey/timeline.  JOURNEY OR DESTINATION?

H

Journal

P

Complaints/laments/questions have to surface somewhere. =

The

Complaints Choir

 movement, ,

suggests that an outlet must be found,

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Remember the painting I showed?
Watch 2:10-2:45 of this video.  Then skip to the end (4:41)

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Tonight's timelines:

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What do you remember about this story?

clue: it had something to do with why I was wearing this:

Remember the story about how our Bibles got verses?

Stephanus riding his horse?  Read about that:

THE ADDITION OF CHAPTERS AND VERSES
In the year 1227, a professor at the Univ of Paris named Stephen Langton added chapters to all the books of the Bible.
 Then in 1551, a printer named Robert Stephanus (sometimes called Robert Estienne) numbered the sentences in all the books of the New Testament.

 According to Stephanus’s son, the verse divisions that his father created do not do service to the sense of the text. Stephanus did not use any consistent method. While riding on horseback from Paris to Lyons, he versified the entire New Testament within Langton’s chapter divisions.

 So verses were born in the pages of holy writ in the year 1551. And since that time God’s people have approached the New Testament with scissors and glue, cutting and pasting isolated, disjointed sentences from different letters, lifting them out of their real-life setting, lashing them together to build floatable doctrines, and then calling it ―the Word of God.

 Seminarians and Bible college students alike are rarely if ever given a panoramic view of the free-flowing story of the early church with the New Testament books arranged in chronological order.  As a result, most Christians are completely out of touch with the social and historical events that lay behind each of the New Testament letters. Instead, they have turned the New Testament into a manual that can be wielded to prove any point. Chopping the Bible up into fragments makes this relatively easy to pull off.

HOW WE APPROACH THE NEW TESTAMENT
We Christians have been taught to approach the Bible on one of eight ways:

• You look for verses that inspire you.
•  Upon finding such verses, you either highlight, memorize, meditate upon, or put them on your refrigerator door.
•   You look for verses that tell you what God has promised so that you can confess it in faith and thereby obligate the Lord to do what you want. 
•  You look for verses that tell you what God commands you to do. 
•  You look for verses that you can quote to scare the devil out of his wits or resist him in the hour of temptation. 
•  You look for verses that will prove your particular doctrine so that you can slice-and-dice your theological sparring partner into biblical ribbons. (Because of the proof-texting method, a vast wasteland of Christianity behaves as if the mere citation of some random, decontextualized verse of Scripture ends all discussion on virtually any subject.) 
•  You look for verses in the Bible to control and/or correct others. 
•  You look for verses that ―preach‖ well and make good sermon material. (This is an ongoing addiction for many who preach and teach.) 
•  You sometimes close your eyes, flip open the Bible randomly, stick your finger on a page, read what the text says, and then take what you have read as a personal ―word‖ from the Lord.

 Now look at this list again. Which of these approaches have you used? Look again: Notice how each is highly individualistic. All of them put you, the individual Christian, at the center. Each approach ignores the fact that most of the New Testament was written to corporate bodies of people (churches), not to individuals.

But that is not all. Each of these approaches is built on isolated proof texting. Each treats the New Testament like a manual and blinds us to its real message. It is no wonder that we can approvingly nod our heads at paid pastors, the Sunday morning order of worship, sermons, church buildings, religious dress, choirs, worship teams, seminaries, and a passive priesthood—all without wincing.

 We have been taught to approach the Bible like a jigsaw puzzle. Most of us have never been told the entire story that lies behind the letters that Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude wrote. We have been taught chapters and verses, not the historical context.

 For instance, have you ever been given the story behind Paul’s letter to the Galatians? Before nodding, see if you can answer these questions off the top of your head: Who were the Galatians? What were their issues? When and why did Paul write to them? What happened just before Paul penned his Galatian treatise? Where was he when he wrote it? What provoked him to write the letter? And where in Acts do you find the historical context for this letter? All of these background matters are indispensable for understanding what our New Testament is about. Without them, we simply cannot understand the Bible clearly or properly.

One scholar put it this way, ―The arrangement of the letters of Paul in the New Testament is in general that of their length. When we rearrange them into their chronological order, fitting them as far as possible into their life-setting within the record of the Acts of the Apostles, they begin to yield up more of their treasure; they become self-explanatory, to a greater extent than when this background  is ignored.

Another writes, "If future editions [of the New Testament] want to aid rather than hinder a reader’s understanding of the New Testament, it should be realized that the time is ripe to cause both the verse and chapter divisions to disappear from the text and to be put on the margin in as inconspicuous a place as possible. Every effort must be made to print the text in a way which makes it possible. Some of us have been taught a little about the historical background of the Bible. But it isjust enough to inoculate usfrom searching further and getting the whole story. for the units which the author himself had in mind to become apparent."

You could call our method of studying the New Testament the "clipboard approach." If you are familiar with computers, you are aware of the clipboard component. If you happen to be in a word processor, you may cut and paste a piece of text via the clipboard. The clipboard allows you to cut a sentence from one document and paste it into another.

 Pastors, seminarians, and laymen alike have been conditioned by the clipboard approach when studying the Bible. This is how we justify our man-made, encased traditions and pass them off as biblical. It is why we routinely miss what the early church was like whenever we open up our New Testaments. We see verses. We do not see the whole picture. This approach is still alive and well today, not only in institutional churches but in house churches as well. Let me use another illustration to show how easily anyone can fall into it—and the harmful effects it can have.

The above is an excerpt from Chapter 11 of Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.   Used by permission.  Link to PDF. Link to buy the book

We did the LITERARY WORLD worksheet of Philemon, page 24 of syllabus.

STUDY QUESTIONS FOR The Literary World: A description of the argument used by Paul

1.     a).How does Paul open and close the letter (inclusio)?  b).Do you catch any chiasm in the letter?

2.     What is the basis for the “for this reason” at the beginning of verse 8?

3.     Why does Paul introduce a hypothetical reason in verse 15 (using “perhaps”)?

4.     What is the “so” in verse 17 there for?

1.     Some see Onesimus as a literal slave; some do not.  Based only on literary evidence from the text (and using only the class translation (NRSV), do you take the slavery as literal or metaphorical? Also, are Philemon and Onesimus literal brothers; master-slave, both, or something else?  Deal well with v 16, as well as other clues throughout the text. Defend your interpretation.

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Extra credit: Post  answers at the bottom of this page (use "anonymous" if you don't have

 one of the accounts listed):

• a)Did you notice the phrase "I am moody
•  and I have a nice butt" on the whiteboard all night? 
• b)Post a guess as to what it might mean.
• c)Then click this to read the reveal as to what it meant. Post a response about that.