Absolute and Intimate Contingency | SL 2.2 (November 2020)
In this newsletter
- Zoom Me to Colorado: Teaching the Torah at William Tennent
- Work & Ministry Update
- Something Beautiful: Blake Mills’s “Mutable Set”
- A Moment of Exegetical Euphoria: Genesis 1, Creation, and Our Relationship to God
- Pray With Us
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Teaching in Colorado in England (crazy how fast this Star Trek stuff becomes “normal”)
Zoom Me to Colorado: Teaching the Torah at William Tennent
I never went to Colorado. At least not in the flesh, I was, however, there in Spirit. I started to say “literally,” by which I mean on Zoom. Meghan and I endured a couple of (overly?) agonized days trying to decide whether to go or not. Ten or twelve weeks back we were really excited about it—I’d been working toward this for a year and a half. But as the date approached, Corona spiked globally and particularly in NE England, the UK government reimposed a strict lockdown, and it seemed like the better part of wisdom to teach online.
And so, by the magic of the internet, I spent 15 hours “in a room” with eight of the most wonderful and engaged ministry leaders I’ve ever met. Our students are engaged in many strategic ministries from Boston to Boise. All of them are looking for rigorous theological education that connects to the heart and empowers them in their local contexts. Some of these guys have attended—and left disillusioned by—established seminaries (which I won’t name!). But they described the two weeks of class at Tennet in CO as “the highlight of my year” and “the best two weeks of my life!”
One student, Caleb, was effusive after we studied of Genesis 22, the near sacrifice of Isaac. If you read it right, this is a profoundly troubling but theologically momentous text. Caleb said that he didn’t think of the text as being all that significant before our class. But afterwards he felt like chapter 22 was the high point of Genesis, because of the way it plumbs the depths of faith and the character of God in establishing the pattern of redemption.
As a teacher this is the most gratifying thing—when students say they experience the depth and profound theology of Scripture in a fresh way. I structured the class time as a series of what one student called “deep dives” into specific texts—we looked at Genesis 1, 3, and 22, Exodus 3 and 20, Leviticus 19; and Numbers 22–24. Time after time, we were amazed at the portrait of God that emerges from careful study of his word. One theme stood out again and again: God is revealing himself in redemption for relationship. This was the most profound take-away for me. God is powerfully present to his people. And this is the goal of Scripture and indeed history—to live with God.
Not only was this the theme of the class but as you, readers of this newsletter, will know, it is a truth that the LORD has been teaching me all year. Despite our best-laid plans, we live in “absolute and intimate contingency” on God (see below on Genesis 1) and he weaves the realities of our lives and our years and our nations and the world into a rich tapestry of history over which he is constantly hovering (Gen 1:2). Each one of us experiences all of these great swerves of fate on a personal level and they are opportunities to draw near to the LORD in our own times and places and hearts.
For the students, this is just the first of four courses that will shape the way they think about and approach the Old Testament in their ministries. I’m praying that they are riveted and warmed by the theological vision the Old Testament offers.
Caleb taking notes during class at William Tennent
You are Training Pastors to be Faithful to Scripture & Strengthening the Global Church
- Oct 26–30 I taught the inaugural Old Testament course on the Torah. It went amazing—it was a real joy. Our students are doing great work, pastoring in Cambridge, MA and Albuquerque, NM and leading Cru in major urban areas. They said the course deepened their understanding of the Old Testament because it was both intellectually stimulating and devotionally rich. I am gratified.
- In my last newsletter, I reported that I was “delighted” to be going to Serbia to teach in December, however, not long after that my Airbnb in Novi Sad canceled on me—a bad sign—then a week later our partner school in Novi Sad, Baptistička Teološka Škola, canceled my December course entirely. They’ll be spacing out their teaching and using old lecture videos until the pandemic is over.
- In the meantime, I’m making a major push on my dissertation/academic work. I’m presenting a paper at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting (Dec 7, now online), finishing the draft of my “history of reading Proverbs 30” for my supervisor (by the end of the month!), revising another paper to submit for publication (before Christmas!), and then starting work on my next chapter, “Voice, Tone, and Humor in Proverbs 30” (before the baby comes in early Feb!).
Thank you. Your prayers and support empower everything we do.
Pike’s Peak out the window “over my shoulder” while I was teaching “in Colorado”
Blake Mills’s “Mutable Set”
It’s been a thin few weeks on the ground for inspiring reading, watching, and listening, but in these darkening days I’ve had Blake Mills’s album “Mutable Set” on repeat. This album dropped back in May, but I only just realized it in the last month or so. At the age of 33, Mills has already established himself as one of the most acclaimed studio guitarists and producers working. His solo work is musically profound. These songs are exquisite, eclectic audio wells. It just feels right for this season.
Here’s his deconstructed video for “Vanishing Twin:”
But my favorite track by far is the pessimistically hopeful “My Dear One.” A ballad for the times?
This might be the best new album I have heard in a few years.
The ugly England end of my Zoom setup for teaching in CO—but this is where the magic happens!
Absolute and Intimate Contingency: Genesis 1, Creation, and Our Relationship to God
(Part II in The Theology of the Pentateuch)
Absolute and Intimate Contingency
What does Creation mean? In other words, what difference to your view of yourself and the world in relationship to God does the doctrine of creation make?
Late theologian, Nicholas Lash, wrote, “… for the scientist, [the concept of creation] seems primarily to refer to the establishment of the initial conditions of the world, whereas, for the Christian theologian, it simply acknowledges all things’ absolute and intimate contingency.”
Reading Genesis 1
If you read through Genesis 1 slowly and contemplatively, the most striking and important observation is that God initiates and accomplishes all the action. God narrates creation. The only thing he does everyday is speak. But God does not only speak, he also divides, makes, sets, and creates. The refrain “and it was so” echoes through the cosmos as it takes shape connecting every new element back to God’s word. The only other subject of any action verb in the whole chapter is the earth when it brings forth vegetation at God’s command. There are—for all intents and purposes—no other actors. The account is measured, steady, stately, grand, even, designed, unfolding, expanding, magnificent.
God’s initiative and design conceive of the cosmos and God’s word and action accomplish the cosmos. The created order that we live in is God all the way down. And God is describing himself as a master craftsman in total control of his process, shaping his material into something that is good and that brings him great pleasure.
Day by day the creative process turns the formless and void chaos into a cosmos where humanity can dwell. First light, then land, then air are fashioned, creating a bubble where man can see and walk and breathe. Then plants and animals are created to build out an environment that supports his life and work and flourishing. When God creates humanity the narrative slows way down and God delivers an unprecedented blessing (1:26–28). Everything else is made according to its kind, but humanity is made in God’s image. Did you ever notice that God names things on days 1–3, but on days 4–6 God doesn’t name anything? This is the realm over which Adam will exercise his image bearing—that’s why God leaves it to him to name the animals. We are the climax of creation.
The Enuma Elish as a Theological Mirror
We can use the ancient Babylonian creation myth known as The Enuma Elish as a theological mirror to see ourselves and God in Genesis 1 more clearly.
One way to get at this is to ask who is the hero of the story, what problem is he facing, and how does he overcome it? In Enuma Elish, Marduk, the chief god of the city of Babylon, is the hero. The problem he faces is that the generations of the gods who were born out of the primordial matter of the earth are at war with one another. The elder goddess, Tiamat, is on a rampage to destroy her descendants (because they already destroyed their ancestor and her partner). A war ranges across the unformed universe and Marduk is the only god powerful enough to defeat Tiamat. Marduk graphically kills her in single combat and then he forms the universe out of her corpse. This is all before humanity. This is the basic nature of things. The plot of the Enuma Elish is reactionary: problem, response, problem, response. Marduk’s kingship is based on brutal power, clearly contingent on no other more powerful force arising to take him out.
Both Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 illustrate the superiority of one deity over all other forces in the world, but there is no war or struggle in Genesis 1. The universe is not made from god bodies. There is no precursor or rival to God at all. There isn’t even a problem, just pure initiative and design emanating from God. Marduk triumphs in battle, but God’s power is more complete. His control and power is like a craftsman with clay. God is not a warrior in Genesis 1, he is an artist.
After Marduk’s victory the gods build the city of Babylon to honor him. Any victorious military campaign in the ancient world won slaves for the victors and creation is no different. Marduk caps his achievement with the brilliant idea that the gods fashion a race of slaves to maintain their temples, bring offerings, and burn candles to make it smell nice. Like everything else in Enuma Elish, humanity is made from the remains of a dead god, born of the blood of an upstart executed for the purpose. The created order is not designed for them, they are trapped within it.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Enuma Elish describes the birth of humanity as the result of a competitive and self-destructive lifestyle that finally culminates in an ill-conceived pregnancy in the back room of a nightclub while high on conquest. These divine parents are co-dependent and the children will learn to manipulate and fend for themselves.
Both Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 crown the created order with humanity, but Genesis 1 drives toward humanity as the climax. The days of creation represent the deliberate fashioning of a garden home for humanity. Man and woman are not made from the blood of a failed rebel, but in the image of God to reflect his glory by ruling under him. The role of humanity in the world is not to wait on God—as if he needed us!—but to reflect his glory and sovereignty by ruling under him. Rather than humanity blessing God, God blesses them.
Learning to Say “God Made the World”
Counter-intuitively, we can see the cosmic import of creation if we make it intensely personal. Picture a five-year-old little girl asking her mother, “Where do babies come from?” Now, her mother could give an exhaustive account of the biological process by which each of us came to be—sperm and ovum and the stuff parents have to do to put them together—followed nine months later by our emergence from amniotic fluid, that primordial sea of the womb. Although true, that narrative is decidedly not the important thing that we want our children to know. It wouldn’t make sense to the little girl because it isn’t answering the deeper question she is asking.
So the mother could respond by telling the little girl the old legend about how the stork brings the baby and lays it in the cradle. But that narrative is equally unsatisfying, and worse, it simply isn’t true at all and therefore erodes trust. The little girl—if she believes it at the time—will need to unlearn it later.
But what if the mother responded like this? When a mother and father love each other, sometimes God chooses to give them a gift. God takes that gift and places it inside the mother right below her heart. Then God and the mommy and daddy watch over that gift and it grows and grows. When it is finally ready to come out, then God takes the baby out of the mommy and lays it in her arms.
Now, not only will that story make sense to the little girl, it will answer the question that she is really asking her mother, “Where do I come from?” “What is my relationship to you?” But more than that, the story is true. Genesis 1 teaches us to say “God made the world” in the same way that we teach our little children to say “God made me.” This is a way of affirming the absolute and intimate contingency of humanity within creation both individually and corporately on God (cf. Ps 139:1, 13–14, 16).
John Calvin wrote this beautiful application:
>And hence we infer what was the end for which all things were created; namely, that none of the conveniences and necessaries of life might be wanting to men. In the very order of the creation the paternal solicitude of God for man is conspicuous, because he furnished the world with all things needful, and even with an immense profusion of wealth, before he formed man. Thus man was rich before he was born. … Thus we are instructed to seek from God alone whatever is necessary for us, and in the very use of his gifts, we are to exercise ourselves in meditating on his goodness and paternal care.
LORD, teach us to confess that this is your world, that you made it and you made us in it. You know us, you care for us and we live in your presence. Teach us to lean into your goodness and paternal care—to seek from you alone what we need. May we see ourselves only in light of you.
A cold and windy day at the muddiest pumpkin patch
Pray With Us
- Praise God for his faithfulness to William Tennent School of Theology and our first residency. For all involved it was deeply encouraging and affirming.
- As we fixate on Corona and turmoil of various kinds in the USA, remember the rest of the world as well. Ethiopia is spiraling into civil war just one year after their president won the Nobel peace prize—destabilizing the whole of East Africa. In the wake of government collapse, Haiti is a lawless state controlled by warlords to the point where my friends are afraid to leave their homes and churches feel that they cannot worship for fear of violent attacks. Pray for true peace and justice.
- For continued progress on my dissertation before the baby comes (see “Work & Ministry Update” above). I’m excited to make some serious progress, but with that comes its fair share of anxiety and pre-exhaustion.
- For Meghan and our new baby to be healthy and strong. For our little family to be strong and connected and lean into grace.
Durham Light Infantry memorial and display in Durham’s city center.
November 8 was Remembrance Day in the UK, the national holiday commemorating those lost in WWI and II. The symbol is the Poppy from “In Flanders Fields.” Although these wars shaped America in the deepest ways, the existential threat they posed to England was far greater and the per capita loss of life incomparable. They remember well.
Notes:
- Many thanks to Abigail Morgan for the great photos of the William Tennent residency in Colorado.
- Nicholas Lash, “On What Kinds of Things There Are,” pages 93–111 in The Beginning and End of ‘Religion,’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Quote on page 100.
- John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, vol. 1, trans. John King (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948). Quote on pages 96 and 99.
- Many of my thoughts on Genesis 1 were inspired by Walter’s essay “Genesis 1: Picturing the World,” pages 42–69 in The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
- The closing illustration of the mother and the little girl comes from German theologian Helmut Thielicke by way of my dad. We’re not sure where exactly Thielicke wrote this up.