Hourly Schedule for the 2018 Symposium on Violence

For those who cannot make the 2018 Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture this year on the North Park seminary campus, you can watch the sessions through livestream. I'll update the link here. I'm unsure if they will post recordings of the sessions but if they do, I'll be sure to make them available here on this blog. 
    Please click on the links below for the sessions and times of the symposium from Thursday evening September 27 through Saturday afternoon September 29, 2018. 

The Thursday and Friday sessions are: 

Click the schedule to enlarge

The final Saturday sessions are: 

Click the schedule to enlarge

Hope to see you there, in person or online! MJL

Part 2 of Participation in / Union with Christ: Papers from the 2017 Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture

Continuing from Part 1 of the 2017 Symposium for the Theological Reading of Scripture at North Park Theological Seminary, here I offer comments on, and video links to, Sessions 5-8. 

Ben Blackwell giving the 5th paper of the Symposium

   On Friday night (9/29), the 5th session of the Symposium featured the paper read by Ben Blackwell, Assistant Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University and author of Christosis, entitled: "You Become What You Worship: Theosis and Story of the Bible." In his paper, Blackwell worked through the model of imitation as theosis (theosis = participating in the divine nature and becoming changed by it somehow) as it is practiced in the worship of the church. The very content of worship in the Old Testament and the New highlights the distance between the creaturely and the Creator. The gap is emphasized. Yet, at the same time, the gap is traversed, in part, as believers worship because they become like the object of their worship. Blackwell illustrated this thesis taking one divine trait of God, His holiness, and explained how participating in the divine life/nature of God through worship makes believers holy. He also discussed how idolatry is the sinister dark side of worship. If we worship idols, we embody the system of idolatrous values that the idol represents. 
      To watch the video of Blackwell's paper presentation and subsequent response plus discussion, see the link below: 

The response, by the way, was given by Cynthia Peters Anderson, Senior Pastor at Batavia United Methodist Church and author of the book Reclaiming Participation. She asked a helpful question that drew out the pastoral implications of Blackwell's paper: what symptoms of false or true worship do we need to observe in our worship practices at church so that we become more like Christ and not the idols of our age? 

Brent Strawn giving the 6th paper of the Symposium

   The next morning (9/30), I moderated the 6th session which engaged the paper read by Brent A. Strawn, Professor of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology. The paper was entitled: "Participation with God (and/in Christ?): (Re-)Reading the Life of Moses with Some Help from Gregory of Nyssa." It's hard to catalogue here all the nuggets of insight in this paper. For one thing, in his reading of Moses through the Exodus story, Strawn highlighted the unavailability of God and noticeable lack of divine participation. God is absent for much of Israel's history between the end of Genesis and beginning of Exodus. God's people cannot assume that they can participate in the life of God automatically, as if God is on call 24/7 at our beckoning. But when God does awaken to our cries and prayers, He himself first participates in the sufferings of His people (as He did with Israel's travail in Egypt) and then acts. 
    My favorite line in the paper was: God's people are called to "participate in God's verbs." God has a synergistic relationship with Israel where at times, it is unclear if God is doing the action or God's people are doing the action. God works by, through, and with Moses and all His people. 
    To watch a video of Stawn's paper presentation and subsequent response plus discussion, see the link below: 


The response was given by Nathan Clayton, Hebrew instructor at North Park and adjunct professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Moody Bible Institute. Among other helpful insights, Clayton asked Strawn to map out and describe in greater detail what "synergy" is: that is, how do divine and human agency work in a synergistic relationship with each other. 


     The 7th session featured the paper by Michael Gorman, The Raymond E. Brown Chair in Biblical Studies and former dean of the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary's Seminary and University. His paper was entitled: "Cruciform or Resurrectiform? Paul's Paradoxical Practice of Participation in Christ." In this paper, Gorman sets out to answer some of recent criticisms of his work (see what he calls his "accidental trilogy": Cruciformity, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, and Becoming the Gospel) that there is overemphasis on the cruciform character of theosis at the expense of resurrection. Engaging a group who wants to emphasize the "resurrectiformity" or "anastiformity" of participation in Christ, Gorman argues that while participation in Christ does have a resurrection quality, something is lost if the interpreter does not emphasize the cruciform nature of our life and union with God. 

Michael Gorman giving the 7th paper of the Symposium

To watch a video of Gorman's argument for the priority of cruciformity and how our cross-shaped participation in Christ is simultaneously a participation in his resurrection (power), see the following link below:

The response was given by given by a North Park seminary alumnus Markus Nikkamen, who is currently a doctoral student of New Testament at the University of Aberdeen. The response was a robust engagement of Gorman's paper in its exegesis and theological assertions. One objection Nikkamen has is the language that "self-emptying" is part of Christ's nature. Perhaps love, but not self-emptying or kenosis. The response and discussion are both worth hearing.


    The last and 8th session of the Symposium ended with the paper presented by Ashish Varma, Assistant Professor of Theology at Moody Bible Institute. His paper was entitled: "Jews and Gentiles Together? Acts 15 and Racial Reconciliation in Christ." 

Ashish Varma giving the 8th paper of the Symposium

Engaging with the work of Brian Bantum's Redeeming Mulatto and Willie Jennings' The Christian Imagination, Varma posits that the Acts 15 Council is a model of mutual accomodation between Jews and Gentiles, and not the assimilation of Gentiles into Jewish Christianity. As such, the Acts 15 Council provides a model of mutual accomodation of different ethnicities today into the church of God, and this work of accomodation and mutual incorporation as one church is a form of participation in the life of God and the mystery of Christ unveiled. 
     The response paper was given by Hauna Ondrey, Assistant Professor of Church History at North Park Theological Seminary, who challenged the thesis of the paper that Acts 15 is an ideal model of mutual accomodations. In her opinion, Acts 15 represents a non-ideal compromise to the Gentile mission which still favors Jewish Christianity. If so, then it is actually quite dangerous to posit the Acts 15 Council as a model example of incorporation of diverse ethnicities into the church. The model could be used, for example, to favor white superiority where white Christianity is the new Jewish Christianity and all other ethnicities are the Gentiles. 
    To hear more, follow the link below to the video of the paper presentation, response, and subsequent Q&A.

     This concludes the Symposium and all eight sessions. It was a tremendous weekend, and not only did I learn much, but I'm still reflecting on the implications of the papers/responses for the work and ministry of the church. MJL

Participation in / Union with Christ: Papers from the 2017 Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture at North Park (Part 1)

Every 4th weekend of the September month (Thurs evening to Sat afternoon), in conjunction with the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, North Park Theological Seminary holds its annual Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture. This year's theme is: Participation in / Union with Christ, a most fitting topic given that the year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. 

Bruce Fields delivering the 1st paper of the Symposium

     On the opening Thurs evening (Sept 28, 2017), Bruce Fields, Professor of Faith and Culture at Trinity International University, gave a plenary paper for the 1st session entitled: "The Christology of Augustine's City of God: Participation in Christ That Compels the Pursuit of Justice in the Human City." Describing Augustine's understanding of two cities as two loves (i.e., a love of self [= contempt for God] that characterizes the earthly polis or city versus the love of God [= contempt of self] that characterizes the heavenly city), Fields provocatively explains how for Augustine justice is interchangeable with love (charitas). Participation in the life of Christ takes place in the church where members internalize love as justice, but participation also takes place out in the world where the church, acting on that internalization, practices love-justice in the earthly realm.

The paper response was given by George Kalantzis, Professor of Theology at Wheaton College and Director of the Wheaton Center of Early Christian Studies, whose main criticism was the use of Augustine in support of Field's (evangelical) reading of Paul's letters when Augustine, in the opinion of Kalantzis, should simply be read for his own sake. 

     The next morning (Sept. 29), the 2nd session featured a paper read by Grant Macaskill, The Kirby Laing Chair of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, and entitled: "Union(s) with Christ: Colossians 1:15-20." Macaskill picked up where he left off in his Lund Lectures and further interpreted Col 1:15-20. 

Grant Macaskill giving the second paper of the Symposium

Here he argued that, building on the foundation that all things connect through the mediator Christ to God (see his Lund Lecture), we can now talk about unions (plural) with Christ. The level of participation is different depending on the type of union. God’s covenantal relationship with Israel is not just salvific. He cares about the way they farm, and the way they built houses, and under Isarel's covenant there are different levels of participation in the life of God. Covenant bears differently also concerning the alien or foreigner who lives in the midst of Israel. They are with Israel but not covenant members, and so a different kind of reciprocity is expected of them as they participate with Israel in the life of God. 
     It should be noted that Macaskill is careful, however, not to talk about unions as if it was a kind of flat universalism (a critique of Douglas Campbell's work in The Deliverance of God). Macaskill is not a universalist and does posit the unique union of believers with Chrsit but also recognizes it as a fullfillment of all previous types of unions established in the history of God with His people. The link to the video of the 2nd session of the Symposium is below: 

The paper response was given by Constantine Campbell, Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, who has also written his own separate monograph on Paul and Union with Christ. 
     It was a lively response and engagement with Macaskill's paper. Con (not be confused with Doug) Campbell engaged Macaskill's reading of Col 1:15-20 from the minute details of whether the genitive's attached to the word "first-born" were partitive (Macaskill's view, which makes the phrase a temporal reading, i.e., "first-born of all creation") or subordinate (Campbell's view, which would then read "first-born over all creation") to addressing larger historical issues as: which covenant (Abraham, Mosaic, David, creational) does Paul refers to at specific points in the biblical text. 

    The following 3rd session featured a paper by Olli-Pekka Vainio, Lecturer of Systematic Theology at the University of Helsinki, entitled: “Why Bother with Participation? An Early Lutheran Perspective." Vainio has written a "few" books and articles (195+), the most important of which for the symposium's theme include: Justification and Participation in Christ and Engaging Luther. Vainio represents the new Finnish school of interpretation on the theology of Martin Luther. Vainio paper's focuses on a second-generation Lutheran reformer named Martin Chemnitz (1522-86) who expanded on Luther's teachings and used the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ as a way of framing the separate divine and human agencies of participation. 

Olli-Pekka Vainio giving the 3rd paper of the Symposium

The response was given by North Park's own Stephen Chester, Professor of New Testament at the seminary, who just published a phenomenal book (deserving of its own blog post review) with Eerdmans entitled: Reading Paul with the Reformers. Chester notes that the most helpful contribution of Vainio was providing a way forward through Christology for the Finnish school who has been accused in the past of collapsing Creator and creaturely categories, divine and human.
     The link to the video of the 3rd session of the Symposium is below: 


    The 4th session that afternoon was from Julie Canlis, Lecturer at Regent College and author of the book Theology of the Ordinary, who read a paper entitled: "The Geography of Participation: In Christ Is Location, Location, Location." 

Julie Canlis giving the 4th paper of the Symposium

Her paper focused on the theology of John Calvin, where she pointed out that location is very important for Calvin who had a particular trinitarian Christology where Christ sits at the right hand of the throne of the Father with the Holy Spirit sent from the throne to the ends of the earth. Calvin uses the metaphor of "upward" or "heavenly-ward" to describe how the Ascension of Christ provides a framework for participation. Our participation is oriented to, and our future is tied to, Christ's resurrrected body. At the same time, Christ has descended to meet humanity in the ordinary. Our human bodies, especially the collective Body of Christ, becomes the locus or place for participation with God. 
    If all of this sounds a little abstract, Julie and her husband, a pastor, have put together an adult curriculum with accompanying video that offers Bible study, commentary, and best spiritual practices for participation in the life of God through the daily details of the ordinary. 
     The paper response was given by Mary Patton Baker, Lecturer at North Park University and Pastor of Community Formation at All Soul's Anglican Church. The link to the video of the 4th session of the Symposium can be found below: 


      Coming soon: Part 2 of the 2017 Symposium on Participation in/Union with Christ with links to video and remarks on Sessions 5-8. MJL

The OT Lund Lectures 2017: Brent Strawn on the Bible as Poetry, Not Narrative

Prof. Brent Strawn, the OT Lund Lecturer for 2017

This week we're right in the middle of North Park Theological Seminary's annual Lund Lectureship and Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture. Each year, for the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, the seminary invites one Old Testament scholar and one New Testament scholar to speak on cutting edge issues in biblical studies but to present their work in a way that theologically informs the mission and ministry of the church. The audience to which they present are ordained pastors, church leaders, seminary graduate students, undergrads, and the wider church body. Nevertheless, as a scholar, I myself always learn and benefit from our lecturers.
     Yesterday (Sept 27, 2017), we had the privilege of hearing from our OT Lund Lecturer Dr. Brent A. Strawn, Professor of Old Testament and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at the Candler School of Theology in Emory University. His OT series was on the theme: The Difference between the Right Word and the Almost Right Word (of God): On the Nature of Holy Scripture. It was a very provocative series.
    In his 1st lecture, entitled: "The Greatest 'Story' Never Told: Rethinking the Bible's Macrogenre," Strawn argues against seeing the Bible as story. The Bible is not a narrative, and if it is presented as such, it is because the interpreter has constructed its contents in story form. The dangers of presenting the Bible as story is reductionism. Narrative is an imposition on Scripture. It imposes an orderliness and sequencing to Scripture leaving out, at times, important themes, messages, and experiences. The cost is too high. 
    As an alternative maco-genre, Stawn suggests that the Bible ought to be construed and read as poetry. One pastoral note worth making is the difference reading the Bible as story vs. reading the Bible as poetry makes. With the former, a person races through the narrative to get a sense of its plot and with much of Scripture's content slipping through the cracks in the reading experience. But with the Bible as poetry, the reader wrestles with every word, thinking about its meaning, slowing down to see the connections of the word with the rest of the sentence and with the entire poem as a whole. 
   The link to the 1st Lecture video is below: 


Note: the video of the lecture is done through Facebook. The tech crew is experimenting with FB's chat function for online participation


     In the 2nd lecture, entitled: "'I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes': The Poetics of Scriptural Contradiction," Strawn describes several reasons why the Bible's macro-genre as Poetry is a better way to understand the nature of Scripture and how to interpret it. One of the most striking observations he made was what he called the Bible's "re-utterability." Often when we think of the Bible as a story "back then" or as history, this model of reading creates significance distance between the text and the reader. The reader is tempted to dismiss the content of Scripture as something for the people of that time not ours. But poetry is re-utterable. It closes the gap between the text and interpreter. We are invited to experience poetry, and Scripture does the same. The rawness, candor, and perspective of the text is something the reader enters into; it is a sacred space from which we experience the text as God's word. It changes the reader. It transforms. To this, I say: "Amen!" 
     The link to the 2nd Lecture video is here: 


I hope you are challenged and blessed as much as I was by the series. Next up: the NT Lund Lectures by Prof. Grant Makaskill which was today. I'll post on this soon. MJL

2015 Lund Lectures at North Park Theological Seminary

Professor Nils W. Lund
Dean and Biblical Scholar at North Park (1922-54)

For many such as myself, the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship held annually at North Park Theological Seminary here in Chicago is a real treat. It provides an opportunity for faculty, students, and friends of the seminary to hear first-class scholars speak on the salient cultural issues of our day and offer a theological response from, and for, the Christian church. This year, following the theme of the Symposium for the Theological Interpretation of Scripture on Race and Racism, North Park Theological Seminary has invited Associate Professor of Old Testament Bo Lim from Seattle Pacific University, and Professor of Biblical Studies Emerson Powry to be our plenary speakers. 

   CovTV, the media division of the Evangelical Covenant Church, kindly live-streamed and recorded the lectures, which are posted below. The first lecture (Wed Nov 3) by Dr. Lim is entitled: "A Tale of Romance or Spousal Abuse?: Love and Violence in the Book of Hosea" where he works through the violent sexual metaphors used by prophets to describe God's judgment on Israel and the nations.

There is a problem with the audio, so scroll for ward to 1:37

The 2nd Lecture is entitled: "Prophetic Ministry Among Exiles: The Contribution of Asian and Latino/a American Biblical Interpretation."  Concerning the latter, Bo does an excellent job surveying the history of interpretation on the problem of exile, frames exilic discourse in the Old Testament with sociological models that help us recognize different types of emmigration/exile patterns (some forced by conquest; others voluntary), and then carefully argues how modern immigration movements by Asian and Latino/a Americans parallel ancient exile patterns, when the analogues fall apart, and why exilic texts speak powerfully to immigrant communities. 

    The following day (Thu Nov 4), Dr. Powry gave his first lecture covering the New Testament canon on the topic: "The Pastor's Counsel to Enslaved Christians." Emerson focuses not only on the interpretation of biblical texts concerning ancient slavery at the advent of early Christianity but provides insights on the history of the texts' reception, especially among African American congregations, and the latter's own painful history of slavery in the United States. 

The 1st lecture begins at 14:57

Both the 1st and 2nd lectures are in the same video clip, but jump to 14:57 for the 1st lecture without the introduction, and for the 2nd lecture, scroll to 1:52:11.

This is the same video but the 2nd lecture begins at 1:52:11

Concerning the 2nd lecture entitled "'Slaves of God': Another Look at Paul's (Ironic) Identity Marker," Emerson investigates Paul's use of the self-designation "slave of [Jesus] Christ" (δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ; Rom 1:1; also Gal 1:10; Phil 1:1) and challenges the idea that Paul somehow tries to redeem the metaphorical use of the term δοῦλος by adding a measure of dignity to it since the worth of the slave is attached to the (high/glorious) stature of the Master himself (contra the classic thesis of Dale Martin's Slavery as Salvation - 1990). Provocatively, Dr. Powry argues that Paul did not remove the shame component intrinsic to ancient forms of slavery. Theologically, Paul was challenging his congregation that the cost of following Christ and declaring Christ as Lord meant, in fact, that the Christian will experience shame, suffering, and indignation. The faithful Christian is not spared from the shame associated with being a slave (of Christ) or the cross-bearing life. That was a stunning challenge!
    I hope the links above make these four lectures readily accessible to you. Enjoy and be blessed! MJL

Video Interview with Klyne Snodgrass

Today I had the privilege to interview Klyne Snodgrass, the Paul W. Brandel Professor of New Testament Studies, on the 3rd floor of Nyvall Hall, in an office he has occupied for four decades, where many a conversation has taken place. It was truly a joy to do this and to celebrate with a mentor, colleague, and dear friend a lifetime of faithful service to North Park Theological Seminary and the Evangelical Covenant Church. 

Nyvall Hall with its steeple in the background
from the Johnson Center on the North Park University campus

The questions I asked of Klyne were as follows (with the time stamp): 

1. How did you feel to have received a Festschrift in your honor? (0:33)
2. How does a scholar and pastor "do theology for the church"? (2:14)
3. What kind of scholar and teacher have you tried to be? (3:34)
4. What legacy and challenge do you leave with us (= the seminary and the church)? (5:17)
5. What has been the greatest joy and greatest struggle of your vocation? (6:48)
6. What are your immediate and long-term plans, vocationally and personally? (8:51)
7. Any last words you would like to share with us, and especially to your family? (10:49)

The entire interview is a lean 13:20 minutes long. Feel free to watch the video below or click the youtube link where it is posted. 

   I hope you will all be blessed as much as I was from hearing Klyne's testimony and words of exhortation. 

Post-script: I have to confess it was more work than than I thought to pull off the video interview, especially with the media equipment at hand (= Logitech HD 615 videocam; lapel mic, laptop). Many thanks to Zach Martinez, my teaching assistant, for his help in doing the camera work. He did a fantastic job. Production was all done by myself using Audicity software to improve the audio, and Microsoft Movie Maker to edit the video, add music and captions, and the like. Fun to do, but I'm not sure if I can make a career from this. MJL

A Festschrift for Klyne Snodgrass Honoring 40 Years of 'Doing Theology for the Church'

It's been a while since my last post (and many apologies for the delay!) but as soon as I got back from SBL-San Diego, I ran into the notorious 100-yard dash to final exams: wrapping up lectures, grading last-minute papers and assignments, writing the final exams, giving the final exams, and now... sigh... grading the final exams. But I hope to get back to my weekly posting once I turn in the grades (and then Christmas... but wait a minute! what happened to Advent? I missed it?)
   But for this post, I wanted to give a shout-out to the recently published Festschrift dedicated to a colleague (and in many ways also a mentor) at North Park Theological Seminary: Dr. Klyne Snodgrass, the Paul W. Brandel Professor of New Testament Studies. The collection of essays celebrates Klyne's 70th birthday. 

   The book was announced first as a genuine surprise back in May 2014 at North Park's graduation ceremony. NPU wrote a nice article celebrating Klyne's 40-year ministry of teaching, scholarship, and discipleship of the next generation of Christian leaders for the church, and Klyne's family flew in from different parts of the U.S.A. to surprise him when a framed photo of the Festschrift cover was presented to him. 
   At the Friday night session of IBR (= the Institute of Biblical Research) in San Diego, we handed Klyne the first printed copy of the Festschrift hot off the press from Covenant Publications and Wipf & Stock. Here is a photo of Klyne at IBR surrounded by colleagues and friends, including myself: 

Presentation of a Festschrift to Dr. Klyne Snodgrass on the occasion of
his 70th Birthday at IBR in San Diego (Nov. 21, 2014)

Now for the details about the book, entitled: Doing Theology for the Church: Essays in Honor of Klyne Snodgrass (2014). The book is divided into 5 sections (17 essays total), all featuring the varied interests and areas of research of Klyne: I. Gospel and Parables, II. Paul, III. OT in the New (= Inner-Biblical Intepretation), IV. Women and Ministry, and V. Identity. The list of contributors include colleagues at North Park, former students now either in doctoral programs or teaching as professors themselves, and an international array of friends who have interacted with Klyne's work and known him personally for years, including: N.T. Wright, Darrell Bock, Richard Longenecker, Jan du Rand, John Painter, Scot McKnight, Robert Hubbard, Jr., Robert Johnston, James Bruckner, Paul Koptak, Stephen Chester, Jay Phelan, Max Lee, Rebekah Eklund, Jo Ann Deasy, Hauna Ondrey, and Ekaterina Kozlova, with a comprehensive bibliography compiled by Stephen Spencer. Here is a preview of the table of contents (below): 

Table of Contents (click photo to zoom)

   It was edited by a former student of Klyne and NP alumnus, Dr. Rebekah Eklund, currently an Assistant Professor of New Testament at Loyola University Maryland, and Dr. Jay Phelan, Senior Professor of Theological Studies at North Park Theological Seminary. Dr. Paul Koptak, the Paul and Bernice Brandel Professor of Communication and Biblical Interpretation at North Park, also did much editing work for the volume with the fantastic staff and team at Covenant Publications led by managing editor Jane Swanson-Nystrom. The book is co-published by Covenant Publications and Wipf & Stock. You can purchase a copy at the W&S website or on amazon. 
   I will be doing something adventurous next week: I will be video-interviewing Klyne (disclaimer: using very modest equipment with the help of my TA) and posting that interview here on this blog. I will ask him for his response about receiving the Festschrift as well as to reflect on his past 40 years of scholarship, teaching, and ministry for the church. So more to come and stay tuned! 

The Apocalyptic Paul and Divine Initiative

This past Thursday Sept. 25th, on the 2nd day of the 2014 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, Dr. Beverly Gaventa, Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Baylor University,  gave two lectures on Paul's letter to the church at Rome. 
   In the first lecture, entitled "What Part of the Word "All" Don't We Understand?" Gaventa gives an apocalyptic reading of Romans, from beginning to end, highlighting points in the text where transformations (in life and the human condition) take place. Much in the spirit and exegetical legacy of Karl Barth, Ernst Κäsemann, and J. Louis Martyn (her doctoral supervisor), Gaventa emphasizes the essentiality of divine initiative, because the anti-God powers of Sin and Death have so thoroughly enslaved humanity that no amount of repentance will change the human condition. 
   Focusing on Romans 3, and seeing in Rom 5-8 a recapitulation of the same themes in Rom 1-3 but at a larger cosmic scale, in her own words, Gaventa offered this challenge: "The human problem is larger than that which can be handled by repentance and forgiveness. Slaves cannot repent their way out of slavery. They can only be liberated. Salvation is not about being forgiven but being delivered by God." 
   Gaventa then gives a really poignant illustration by comparing the sociological and psychological slavery of the child-soldier as an analogue to the kind of slavery experienced under the rule of Sin and Death. There is more to share, but I'll let you hear from Gaventa herself via the video link (below). 

Professor Beverly Gaventa delivering the first of two Lund Lectures
in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary

In the 2nd lecture, entitled "Free and Costly Grace," Gaventa caught me by surprise (in a good way!). Focusing on Rom 12, Gaventa argued that grace is free because Christ died for all (5:18; 8:32), but it is costly because having been liberated, the Christian worships God by becoming a "living sacrifice" (12:1). There is nothing easy or trite about worship. Genuine worship is returning to God what is God's. There is no limit to God’s claim on us. Worship leads to ethical living. 

   I thought this was a very powerful challenge to the church, and I deeply appreciated the prophetic call back to true worship that honors God where I don't throw my money into the coffers but instead "throw my whole body into the offering plate" (her words, not mine). 

   I did walk away with some questions, however, namely what role does human response to divine initiative have in Paul's soteriological scheme. In Gaventa's explanation, faith as trust does not appear to be a response that gets one into salvation. Faith is not an entry point. God saves all, but people have not heard about this good news yet. When they hear, and believe what they hear, they worship God for what he has done. And even here faith is a gift, not a human work. So the element of volition or choice plays a minimum role in this reading of an apocalyptic Paul. It's hard for me to think about faith as trust without including an element of volition or choice, though I would not reduce faith to just choice or cognitive assent. Faith is much more. 

   In any case, all I can say is: wow! Fantastic lecture and pastoral challenge! So grateful that Dr. Gaventa was here at North Park to share her work and words with us. To listen to her 2nd lecture yourself, again, see the video links below. Blessings!

Lecture 1: Jump to 3:55 to skip the introductions: 

Lecture 2: Video begins immediately with the lecture: 

The 2014 Lund Lecture Kicks Off with the Song of Songs and Human Intimacy

On Wednesday Sept. 24, the 2014 Nils W. Lund Lectureship launched with an excellent set of lectures from Dr. Tremper Longman III, the Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif. 
   The first lecture, entitled: "Celebration and Warning: Sexual Intimacy in the Song of Songs," was a brilliant summary on the history of interpretation on the Song of Songs, where he demonstrated that the allegorical interpretation of the Song was quite late, beginning with Jewish interpreters like Rabbi Akiba (c.a. AD 100), continued through the Targum traditions (Song of Songs 1:2-4), and was popularized in Christian discourse by Hippolytus, Origen, Jerome, Bernard of Clairvaux and medieval interpreters.  He gave some hilarious examples of Christian allegorical readings: e.g., Hippolytus (AD 200) read the verse "My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh lodging between my breasts" (1:13) as meaning the beloved is the Bride of Christ, the church, and each breast represents the Old Testament on one side, and the New Testament on the other. 
    Some warnings from both Jewish and Christian traditions were poignant. Rabbi Akiba, for instance, stated that anyone who treats the Song of Songs, not as an allegory of God's love for Israel, but as a cheap love ballad to be sung in banquet halls "has no share in the world to come!" A literal reading damns the reader to hell! But read as an allegory, the Song of Songs becomes "the Holy of Holies." 
    The Westminster Assembly apparently warned that a literal reading likens the Song of Songs to "a hot carnal pamphlet formed by some loose Apollo or Cupid" rather than the beautiful story of the Bridegroom's (Christ's) unrelenting love for the Bride (the church). 
    Longman takes to task the allegorical reading and argues that the Song of Songs is not a plot-driven story but a collection of love songs, an anthology, which nevertheless has a collective literary and theological coherence. The Song is about human intimacy and sensuality, and more importantly how they might reflect the image of God. Longman ends the first lecture with some, in his words, "R-rated" translations of the Song (vs. his older, collaborative PG-13 translation with the New Living Translation committee), including Song of Songs 4:1-5:1. I'll let you hear him give the R-rated version via video link (below). As one audience member said: "The man did not blush!" when translating the Hebrew, all of which can also be found in his Song of Solomon commentary with NICOT. 

The 2nd lecture was entitled: "God Loves Sex: A Theological Reading of the Song of Songs." Again, you can listen to his lecture directly (link below) but by way of summary Longman talked about relational brokenness, healthy sexual expressions in a marriage context as well as deviant ones, and attempts to outline a biblical theology of human sexuality in dialogue with the rest of the Christian canon. It was a great way to kick-off the Lund lectureship and the Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture.

Prof. Longman chatting with North Park seminarians
at the end of the Lund Lectureship

For links to video recordings of the lectures, please see the following: 

Lecture 1: Jump to 6:09 to skip the introductions:
    

Lecture 2: Jump to 1:17 to skip the introductions: 

Ancient Traveling or the War Machine: Vote!

Bronze Corinthian helmet (ca. 5th cent. BC)
Photo taken by Max Lee © 2014 Museum of Corinth

Here are a couple of announcements for this blog:

1. Throughout the week, I'll be posting on the Lund Lectureship and the North Park Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture (click for details). Especially if there are papers and lectures on the topic of Paul, his gospel, and theology, I will definitely make comments and provide links to video for anyone who wishes to hear the lectures themselves. The papers for the symposium will not be recorded (correction! there might be live-streaming for the papers and responses: here) but they will be published in the next issue of Ex Auditu and you can get a summary and review of some papers from my posts throughout this week. 
2. Want to have a say on the next set of topics I pursue on this blog? I'll be taking a vote throughout the week of the Symposium. I was thinking of starting a series of blog posts on either the topic of ancient traveling (by foot, sea, etc.) or military warfare or it can be something else if anyone has a good suggestion. Which topic are you interested in? To vote, become a subscriber to this blog. Look to the left of this page and click the button "Join this site" under the heading "Followers." You can sign up using a google, yahoo, twitter, and other accounts. Then reply to this post indicating what topic you would like this blog to pursue. Vote: ancient traveling, military warfare, or other (name the topic). Also, it would be great if you gave a quick intro and let me know who you are and your own interests in the ancient world or anything Apostle Paul (but this is optional). That's it! I'll let people know of the results next week. 

Hope to hear from the many anonymous readers of this blog out there in the world-wide web! Blessings!

The Antikythera Mechanism used to navigate sea-waters
Photo taken by Max Lee© 2014 Athens Museum

The 2014 Convocation Address on "Truth and the Hermeneutics of Identity" by Klyne Snodgrass

It's been a whirlwind of running around, grabbing coffee on the go, cutting through the humidity across campus to get to classes... yes, the Fall 2014 semester has begun! 
   Among the highlights this week has been the convocation address by North Park Theological Seminary's own Paul W. Brandel Professor of New Testament Studies, Dr. Klyne Snodgrass. Wow! His address was part seminar, part sermon, and 100% inspiration. For those who are not aware, Klyne is going to retire officially from full-time teaching at North Park in Spring 2015. This is his last academic year, and so he was asked to address the incoming seminary class of 2014. His address was on "Truth and the Hermeneutics of Identity." You can watch his message here in the window below: 


If you fast forward to the 22:12 mark, you'll find Klyne moving from 1st gear to 5th and firing on all six pistons in a tremendous challenge to live according to the truth of God in a world of so many competing epistemologies. I think one of his most powerful statements is how our mental health is dependent on truth. Nothing will warp a person more than living according to a lie. 
   It saddens me to think that this is my last year with Klyne on faculty. He has been a mentor, colleague, and friend for the past 8 years (going on 9) since I first arrived at the seminary in 2006. I am grateful that I could share some of my best years of teaching at North Park with a person who not only speaks the truth with grace, but lives by it.

Nyvall Hall of North Park Theological Seminary
Photo taken by Max lee from the 2nd floor of
the new Johnson Center on the NPU campus