The Face of the Future

Sin, its judgment, and its mitigation:

The original sin occurred in the Adam and Eve narrative in the book of Genesis, which led to the downfall of humanity. The book of Genesis teaches that the nature of sin is related to the unbelief in God’s commands and promises, and human pride. It also teaches that sin affects all dimensions of one’s relationship, with oneself, with God, with each other, and with the rest of the creation, and physical death will come as an inevitable consequence to all. Furthermore sin spreads like wildfire and has a tendency to become more severe as it spread from a personal to a community level. God’s acts of judgment were always related to a particular sin, and punishment became increasingly more severe with the increasing spread of sin. The general pattern seemed to be a movement from human sin to divine punishment to divine forgiveness or mitigation of the punishment[1]. On an individual who sin, as in ‘The Fall’ and Cain, God’s dealing could be highly personalised, where they were punished for their sin but were partly relieved of the severity of their punishment, as Adam and Eve did not die immediately and God had put a mark of protection on Cain when driving him out. But where a whole community’s relationship with God was involved, the operation of justice in punishment can sometimes be undifferentiated, as in the ‘Sons of God’ episode, where all humanity’s life-span became shortened because of the sins of the ‘Sons of God’. When the vast majorities sinned and were punished as in the Flood narrative, there was the near annihilation of mankind with mitigation taking effect only for one man and his family. In the Tower of Babel, all of those who have sinned were punished with ‘dissolution of mankind’s unity’ and there was no direct mitigation[2]. For more details about this essay I wrote, please see http://dryvonnewang.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/what-does-book-of-genesis-teach-about.html

Globalisation:

In the patriarchal narratives, we see the theme of a line of seeds arising from Eve that will crush the head of the serpent and become a channel of blessings to all nations on earth. We can also see hope even in the imperfect characters whose lives became greatly transformed and blessed by God when they recognized divine action previously hidden from their eyes, as in the case of Judah. 

The punishment for the Tower of Babel incident was ‘dissolution of mankind’s unity’. Personally, I think the process of globalisation is part of the mitigation for this ‘dissolution of mankind’s unity’. In other words, a reversal of what happened in the Tower of Babel. It is an extremely difficult but inevitable process which produces devastating conflicts. With globalization, the whole world is connected, whether we like it or not...

Morphing - The Face of the Future:

I suddenly remembered an interesting photograph on the cover page of my high school biology textbook. This author used 16 photos of the students from my high school and morphed them together. This face illustrates the likely product of several generations of inter-racial marriages.

https://www.mediaproductions.auckland.ac.nz/index.php?p=digital_manipulation

http://www.donovanimages.co.nz/media/morphs/Morph-face-of-the-future.html

This job was done for the Biology textbook Patterns of Life by Meg Bayley (published by Addison Wesley Longman New Zealand, 1998). The brief was to create a composite portrait. To quote from the text:

The face in the large picture was formed from one-sixteenth of each of the sixteen girls shown at the top. Brian Donovan of the Audio Visual Centre at Auckland University created it for us. We gave him 16 photos of girls at Diocesan School, selected to reflect the ethnic distribution of New Zealand's population today. Brian then paired up the photos and linked each pair together at approximately 100 key points around the face and hairline (a very time-consuming process!). A morphing program then 'mixed' the pairs of photographs together. So, the pictures in the second row are composed of half of each of the two photos above.

'This was then repeated with each new photograph until we got the final face: one-sixteenth of each girl. We added some hair, and there she was.

'This process mimics the mixing of genetic factors down five generations or 150 years ignoring the fact that each photo is of the 'daughter' of two girls! Of course, rather than particular features coming through (as might happen in real life) we have ended up with a girl who is an average of 16, but we hope you get the general idea.'

Note the increasingly smooth complexion in each 'generation'; if minor facial characteristics such as freckles, lines and other marks are regarded as 'noise' and the major features - the shape of the face, eyes, eyebrows, nose, cheek lines, and mouth - are regarded as 'signal' then the signal-to-noise ratio is increased with each successive transformation.

The notion of a composite photographic portrait is not new: in the late nineteenth century in England, the statistician Francis Galton pioneered a technique for making such composites (to illustrate human types among other things) by successively copying registered portrait prints onto a single photographic plate. The exposure for each individual was determined by dividing the total exposure by the number of prints in the sample. Among his experiments were averaged criminals, mixtures of family members, and composites of heads on ancient coins such as Alexander the Great, Nero and Cleopatra. If Galton had expected the composite of Cleopatra to reveal her legendary beauty he was to disappointed; still, he wrote, it was better than any of the individual components, none of which gave any indication of her reputed beauty; in fact, her features are not only plain, but to an ordinary English taste are simply hideous.

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[1] Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 66-67

[2] Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 68-70

Going Global: A Congregation’s Introduction to Mission beyond Our Borders, by Nelson, King, and Smith

For years, the missionary was the axis by which one understood and did global mission. They described and interpreted the country to those of us “at home” through the lens of their own experience. Everything was brokered through them. This has all changed. The missionary has been decentred and is in the process of being dethroned due to a shrinking world and greater global access. We have many angles and perspectives from which to choose. Each of them presents a different view. Media feeds us with daily images of the global world. Travel and immigration brings the world to our door.[1]

Globalisation is experienced on a daily basis. We can no longer assume that “our way” of looking at things is the “only way”. For example, for many Europeans and North Americans, Pearl Harbor and D-Day lie at the centre of that time in history. For the Chinese their stories contain events such as the “Rape of Nanjing.”[2] The experience of Peter in Acts 10 is an example of this shift of paradigm. His worldview and his understanding of God was shaped around cultural and national identity. The invitation to visit and share table fellowship in the home of Cornelius required Peter to examine fundamental issues of his identity. Living in a global world necessitates a constant questioning of our assumptions and our prejudices.[3] The Western churches might need to ask themselves this question: If our methods of ministry and mission are so effective, why are the Western churches in decline and the church in the Global South growing?[4] Christianity is flourishing wonderfully among the poor and persecuted while it atrophies among the rich and secure.[5] This is not to suggest that everything about the church in the South is good, but simply to suggest that they have much to teach to the West about their nominalism and stagnation.[6] The centre of Christianity has moved to the Southern world.[7] The churches in the South read the Bible in ways much different from those that Western missionaries taught as their readings and reflections emerge from their experiences. Jenkins goes on to muse about “who should be missionaries to whom?”[8]

Six basic shifts to understanding are required of missionaries, churches, denominations, and mission agencies that wish to offer faithful service to God at home and in distant lands. 
1) Our basic framework of mission: from an exclusive to an inclusive understanding of God’s mission. In the traditional paradigm, mission is understood as the task of the church to bring God, in Christ, to the “unreached” peoples. This understanding is what is called Noah’s ark model of mission (Genesis 6-8). Like the ark of Noah, the church is composed of people who are plucked out of an evil world that is set for damnation and who need to be safeguarded to enter their heavenly abode. As those who are rescued, it is now their task to prevent people from jumping out of the ark, and to rescue a few others who may be drowning.[9] An inclusive understanding of mission is based on the affirmation that Christians are in mission because God is “already present and active” in the world, bringing it unto himself. God’s mission, which God carries out in many different ways, includes the creative and healing activities happening in the world even though these actions may not always be under the umbrella of the church. Mission takes place through God’s participation in the sufferings of the world. This inclusive understanding of mission therefore places the loving, caring, judging, and compassionate presence and mission of God in the heart of all human affairs, despite all its ambiguities. 
2) Goal of mission: from conversion to transformation. The traditional approach is to set conversion as the ultimate goal of mission. However, aggressive models of evangelism have increased mistrust, animosity, and tension between religious communities. During the rehabilitation and relief work being done to and for the victims and survivors of the December 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, the efforts of some Christian groups were severely criticised. They had intentionally compelled orphaned children of Muslim families to accept the gospel message within the context of Christian orphanages. Mission today challenges the narrow notion of conversion. Conversion is the transformation activity of the Spirit in the lives of individuals and communities, leading them to a life orientated toward God and their neighbours.[10] 
3) Community of faith: from majority to minority. The traditional model of conversion is an imperialist and colonialist aspiration for church growth and development. The resurgence of denominationalism and the emphasis on church planting and church growth reminds us there is still a triumphalist desire to become the Christian majority: as if strength is measured by size or number. But churches need to relearn how to be at home as a minority community whose life is rooted in God, and whose life is lived in, for, and on behalf of the world. God will call us to account, not simply about numbers, but about how faithful we were in working for the transformation of the world to reflect God’s values of justice, love, and mercy. 
4) The content of mission: from doctrinal debates to spiritual concerns. Traditional mission paradigms have often focused on Christian apologetics, trying to convince others that our theological framework is superior to others. The result has been rivalry and animosity both within the Christian traditions and among different believers. Peace, reconciliation, and freedom from violence and oppression are deep spiritual longings. These spiritual concerns that transcend religious or denominational labels should help define the content of our mission today.[11] 
5) The practice of mission: from tokenism to genuine partnership. What is being done today in mission promotes a “recolonization of mission.” Missionaries arrive with money, buy land, and build churches and schools. They declare a desire to cooperate with national partners, but their actions too often create socioeconomic enclaves of independent behaviour. In some countries, missionaries have gone as business people setting up factories, taking advantage of cheap labour and resources. How can there be genuine partnership between people who are unequal right from the start? To be in solidarity is to stand alongside one another. It shares deeply the pain and hurt of the other, and requires sharing the burden of the other as if it were one’s own.[12]
6) Finality of mission: from liberation to reconciliation. Liberation and reconciliation share similarities: both are concerned about overcoming oppression and place the pursuit of justice at the heart of their activity. Both presume God acting in our history here and now and actively seek the opportunity to bring hope for better humanity by reference to the great biblical narratives. They also acknowledge the need to attend to the structural dimensions of oppression and conflict. However, reconciliation emphases on God’s role in healing and restoration and builds a framework for the future.[13]

Good stories entertain and inform. They stick with you for a long time and pop into your consciousness at strange moments. Shared stories play an important role within social movements. They unite people around common values and create a unifying vision of social transformation.[14]

There is a critical need to shift attitudinally form seeing mission as “doing something” to mission as discipleship formation. This discipleship framework considers all involved in the mission activity of God in the world as sisters and brothers in Christ. It demands a willingness to move toward mutual partnership models in which all partners learn from each other. If agencies and organisations working in the same areas simply “do their own thing” without talking to each other, there will be potential for duplication of resources and unhealthy competition for loyalty. When we reduce mission to what we can accomplish, we can miss the call of God on each of our lives, the call to become his disciples.[15] While much has been written about the professionalization of mission, “good” mission emerges out of genuine and authentic living. Better techniques, strategies, and practices will never replace humble human living. The witness of the church is always strongest when authenticity and powerlessness are its characteristics, when people live in the tension of faith and doubt but still act on what they believe. In Matthew 28:18-20, we are told that we will not be alone in our being sent by God, as God will be with and will empower the activity. Missional discipleship is a faith internalised and formed so that, while we fling ourselves into the world to make a difference, the difference is made by the One who sent us.[16] It takes great faith to be a disciple, because it is only the presence of Christ that will make obedience possible. Disciples cross cultural boundaries. We are to make disciples of all “nations”. “Nations” means cultural peoples or ethnic groups that are distinct and different. This means, the good news of the Gospel will transcend ethnic barriers and be translatable in a variety of ways culturally. The Gospel will be able to speak to all cultures because of its unlimited translatability. It will shape the church’s mission within the culture in which it is located.[17]

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[1] Gary V. Nelson, Gordon W. King, and Terry G. Smith, Going Global: A Congregation’s Introduction to Mission beyond Our Borders (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2011), 10.

[2] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 11.

[3] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 12.

[4] Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 56.

[5] Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 96.

[6] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 16.

[7] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 35.

[8] Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 204.

[9] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 53.

[10] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 54.

[11] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 55.

[12] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 56.

[13] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 57.

[14] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 80.

[15] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 142.

[16] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 146.

[17] Nelson, King, and Smith, Going Global, 147.

Music Lessons Were the Best Thing Your Parents Ever Did for You, According to Science

I started learning piano when I was 5y.o. I stopped playing during high school. Lately I had a bit more time so I started playing my piano again quite randomly. Two days ago I suddenly discovered I could sing and play at the same time! I’ve tried doing that quite randomly a few times previously and couldn’t do it, so it’s a new breakthrough! (yeah I know many people can do this type of thing, but it's just unusual for me coz I couldn't do it before).  Learning music is good stuff! Still having new stuff happening past 30y.o.

http://mic.com/articles/110628/13-scientific-studies-prove-music-lessons-were-the-best-thing-your-parents-did-for-you#.Oaxo4rW99

If your parents ever submitted you to regular music lessons as a kid, you probably got in a fight with them once or twice about it. Maybe you didn't want to go; maybe you didn't like practicing. But we have some bad news: They were right. It turns out that all those endless major scale exercises and repetitions of "Chopsticks" had some incredible effects on our minds.

Psychological studies continue to uncover more and more benefits that music lessons provide to developing minds. One incredibly comprehensive longitudinal study, produced by the German Socio-Economic Panel in 2013, stated the power of music lessons as plain as could be: "Music improves cognitive and non-cognitive skills more than twice as much as sports, theater or dance." The study found that kids who take music lessons "have better cognitive skills and school grades and are more conscientious, open and ambitious." And that's just the beginning.

The following list is a sampling of the vast amount of neurological benefits that music lessons can provide. Considering this vast diversity, it's baffling that there are still kids in this country who are not receiving high-quality music education in their schools. Every kid should have this same shot at success.

1. It improved your reading and verbal skills.

Several studies have found strong links between pitch processing and language processing abilities. Researchers out of Northwestern University found that five skills underlie language acquisition: "phonological awareness, speech-in-noise perception, rhythm perception, auditory working memory and the ability to learn sound patterns." Through reviewing a series of longitudinal studies, they discovered that each these skills is exercised and strengthened by music lessons. Children randomly assigned to music training alongside reading training performed much better than those who received other forms of non-musical stimulation, such as painting or other visual arts. You've got to kind of feel bad for those kids randomly assigned into art classes.

2. It improved your mathematical and spatial-temporal reasoning.

Music is deeply mathematical in nature. Mathematical relationships determine intervals in scales, the arrangement of keys and the subdivisions of rhythm. It makes sense then that children who receive high-quality music training also tend to score higher in math. This is because of the improved abstract spatial-temporal skills young musicians gain. According to a feature written for PBS Education, these skills are vital for solving the multistep problems thatoccur in "architecture, engineering, math, art, gaming and especially working with computers." With these gains, and those in verbal and reading abilities, young musicians can pretty much help themselves succeed in any field they decide to pursue.

3. It helped your grades.

In a 2007 study, Christopher Johnson, a professor of music education and music therapy at the University of Kansas, found that "elementary schools with superior music education programs scored around 22% higher in English and 20% higher in math scores on standardized tests compared to schools with low-quality music programs." A 2013 study out of Canada found the same. Every year that scores were measured, the mean grades of the students who chose music were higher than those who chose other extracurriculars. While neither of these studies can necessarily prove causality, both do point out a strong correlative connection.

4. It raised your IQ.

Surprisingly, though music is primarily an emotional art form, music training actually provides bigger gains in academic IQ than emotional IQ. Numerous studies have found that musicians generally boast higher IQs than non-musicians. And while these lessons don't necessarily guarantee you'll be smarter than the schlub who didn't learn music, they definitely made you smarter than you would have been without them.

5. It helped you learn languages more quickly.

Children who start studying music early in life develop stronger linguistic abilities. They develop more complex vocabularies, a more nuanced understanding of grammar and higher verbal IQs. These benefits don't just impact children's learning of their first language, but also their ability to learn every language they attempt to learn in the future. The Guardian reports: "Music training plays a key role in the development of a foreign language in its grammar, colloquialisms and vocabulary." These heightened language acquisition abilities will follow students their whole lives and will aid them when they need to pick up new tongues late in adulthood.

6. It made you a better listener, which will help a lot when you're older.

Musical training makes people far more sensitive listeners, which can help tremendously as people age. Musicians who keep up with their instrument enjoy a much slower decline in "peripheral hearing." They can avoid what scientists refer to as the "cocktail party problem" in which older people have trouble isolating specific voices (or musical tones) from a noisy background.

7. It will slow the effects of aging.

But beyond just auditory processing, musical training can also help delay cognitive decline associated with aging. Some of the most promising research positions music as an effective way to stave off dementia. Studies out of Emory University find that even if musicians stop playing as they age, the neurological restructuring that occurred when they were kids helps them perform better on "object-naming, visuospatial memory and rapid mental processing and flexibility" tests than others who never played. The study authors add, though, that musicians had to play for at least 10 years to enjoy these effects. Hopefully you stuck with it long enough.

8. It strengthened your motor cortex.

All musical instruments require high levels of finger dexterity and accuracy. The training works out the motor cortex to an incredible extent, and the benefits can apply to a wide range of non-musical skills. Research published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2013 found that kids who start learning to play before the age of 7 perform far better on non-musical movement tasks. Exposure at a young age builds connectivity in the corpus callosum, which provides a strong foundation upon which later movement training can build.

9. It improved your working memory.

Playing music puts a high level of demand on one's working memory (or short-term memory). And it seems the more one practices their instrument, the stronger their working memory becomes. A 2013 study found that musical practice has a positive association with participants' working memory capacity, their processing speed and their reasoning abilities. Writing for Psychology Today, William R. Klemm claims that musicians' memory abilities shouldspread into all non-musical verbal realms, helping them remember more content from speeches, lectures or soundtracks.

10. It improved your long-term memory for visual stimuli.

Music training can also affect long-term memory, especially in the visual realm. Scientists at the University of Texas at Arlington reported last year that classically trained musicians who have been playing more than 15 years score higher on pictorial long-term memory tests. This heightened visual sensitivity likely comes from parsing complex musical scores. The study makes no claims for musicians who learn to play without reading music.

11. It made you better at managing anxiety.

Analyzing brain scans of musicians ages 6 through 18, researchers out of the University of Vermont College of Medicine have found tremendous thickening of the cortex in areas responsible for depression, aggression and attention problems. According to the study's authors, musical training "accelerated cortical organization in attention skill, anxiety management and emotional control." That's why you're so emotionally grounded all the time, right? Right.

12. It enhanced your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Several studies have shown how music can enhance children's self-confidence and self-esteem. A 2004 study split a sample of 117 fourth graders from a Montreal public school. One group received weekly piano instruction for three years while the control received no formal instructions. Those who played weekly scored significantly higheron self-esteem tests than those who did not. As most of us know, high levels of self-esteem can help children grow and develop in a vast number of academic and non-academic realms.

13. It made you more creative.

Creativity is notoriously difficult to measure scientifically. All measures generally leave something to be desired. But most sources hold that music training enhances creativity "particularly when the musical activity itself is creative (for instance, improvisation)." According to Education Week, Ana Pinho, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, found that musicians with "longer experience in improvising music had better and more targeted activity in the regions of the brain associated with creativity." Music training also enhances communication between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. And studies show musicians perform far better on divergent thinking tests, coming up with greater numbers of novel, unexpected ways to combine new information.

New Testament ethics

What is the ethic of Paul? (major themes: freedom, ethics, Holy Spirit)

Background

l   Paul was a Pharisee before he became a Christian. He is quite explicit about the value to be attributed to the OT traditions (For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. Romans 15:4), and his practical exhortations reflect this background.

l   Paul saw himself as apostle to the Gentiles, which is why Rabbinic Judaism is not more prominent. Many of the images Paul uses are Hellenistic instead.

Ethics

Faith:

l   This is receptivity to what God has done in Christ (I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20).

l   Good works are not prior but posterior to faith (For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10).

l   Faith realises itself in obedience.

New Covenant:

l   Pauline ethics has to do with life in the Spirit, not life disguised as though it is a continuation of life under the Law.

l   Life in the Spirit means far more than just ethical behaviour. We are an eschatological people, who live the life of the future in the present.

l   The whole of life under the new covenant is now lived in and by the Spirit, including worship, one’s relationship to God, and everyday life itself.

l   As the renewed presence of God, the Spirit, having given life to his people, now leads them in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

l   Paul called upon Christians to exercise a new discernment, not conformed to this age but ‘transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Romans 12:1-2). This discernment invoked some fundamental values, most notably freedom and love, which are intimately associated with the work of the Holy Spirit.

Freedom:

l   Judaizers (Itinerant Jewish Christians) argue that for believers in Christ to be identified with God’s people they must also observe Torah.

l   Paul argues the Spirit, and the Spirit alone, identifies the people of God under the new covenant.

l   Pauline freedom is both freedom from and freedom to.

l   It is freedom from the Law as the means to salvation:

n   Freedom from some of the ceremonial requirements of Jewish Tradition, freedom from bondage to sin. Paul did not require Jewish Christians to act like Gentiles or Gentile Christians to keep the law of Moses, but he did require them to ‘accept one another’ (Romans 15:7).

n   The failure of the covenant of law, was that even though the Torah came by the way of Spirit-inspiration (Romans 7:14), it was not accompanied by the empowering Spirit.

n   It is unable to set people free.

n   The New Covenant, by the means of the life-giving Spirit, is written on “tablets of human hearts” (2Corinthians 3:3).

n   The promised new covenant has replaced the old, and the gift of the Spirit proves it.

n   Truly meaningful righteousness is a righteousness coming from an obedient heart, rather than dutiful observances.

n   God’s intent with the Torah was for his character to be revealed in the way his people worshipped and lived.

n   Paul sometimes speaks of the Law in a negative way, and sometimes affirms Torah as good. The Law of Moses was ‘good’ (Romans 7:16). The Law brings knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).

n   Faith does not nullify the law; rather it establishes or upholds it (Romans 3:31).

n   The Law as a means of achieving right standing with God has had its day, to be replaced by faith in Christ.

l   It is freedom to participate in a relationship with Christ: the freedom to act righteously.

n   Those who are led by the Spirit are not under Torah (Galatians 5:18).

n   The fruit of the Spirit is the Spirit’s producing in our lives the righteousness of God. This is the new form of revelation.

n   The goal of Torah, God’s own righteousness reflected in his people, is precisely what the Spirit can do, which Torah could not.

n   When Paul addressed the Colossian’s heresy (Colossians 1:9-11), rather than giving them Christian rules to live by Paul gives them the Spirit.

l   A responsible freedom, and not licence.

n   Paul usually uses the term “sanctification” to refer to Christian conversion.

n   For Paul, “holiness” is abstaining from some sins absolutely.

Love:

l   Love as a fulfilling of what had been contained in the Law (Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8).

l   Love is the central value of Christian faith and life (1Corinthians 13).

l   The mind renewed by the Spirit leads us to understand that love must rule over all.

Community:

l   Pauline ethic is not focused on the isolated individual, but to indicate that Christian faith is to be lived and expressed in relation to others. It is not an individualistic, one-on-one brand of personal holiness.

l   It is living the life of the Spirit in Christian community and in the world. Paul’s instructions are in second person plural, with the whole church in mind. But the instructions are expressed in such a way that they are experienced and obeyed at the individual level.

l   It is far easier to be a Christian in isolation than it is to live out one’s faith in the context of all those other imperfect people who make up God’s church.

l   To be in isolation makes it too easy because it turns Christians into easily performed codes of conduct having to do not with caring for one another but with stuff like food and drink.

l   To be unified by love for the one Lord. (For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:4-5)

l   There are more extortions in Hebrews 13: brotherly love, hospitality to strangers, sympathetic identification with the imprisoned and oppressed, respect for marriage, and freedom from the love of money.

Humility:

l   Paul was captivated by the person of Christ, therefore the humiliation of Christ became a central motif in his ethical teaching. We are to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2).

l   All status symbols are no better than garbage. He had little time for status and wished to affirm the human dignity of all as there is a new identity in Christ. (There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28). Paul did not lead a slave revolt etc but did not simply accept without qualifications existing social roles and relationships either.

Suffering:

l   The ethic of joy in suffering.

l   Life was not meant to be easy.

l   Those who suffer through faithfulness are following in the footsteps of the Lord (I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:18).

Civil obedience:

l   Pauline ethic has a strong sense of civil obedience (Romans 13).

l   Tension between present and future:

n   The present evil age continued.

n   We are citizens of heaven, whose triumph is awaited.

n   Spirit ethics is neither ethical perfectionism nor triumphalism.

n   Life in the Spirit is ethical realism, life lived in the already/not yet.

The nature of Christian ethics for Paul

l   The purpose: Glory of God (1Corinthians 10:31).

l   The pattern: Son of God (1 Corinthians 4:16-17), into whose likeness we are predestined to be transformed (Romans 8:29).

l   The principle: Love, because that’s the essence of who God is.

l   The power: the Spirit

Was Paul a relativist in his approach to ethics?

You have been asked to address a conference for evangelical graduate students on the subject, “Paul and Ethics”. You are told the majority attending have been taught in their churches that Paul was not “into” ethics.  Therefore he did not emphasise justice and other broad ethical issues.  Rather he focused on personal salvation. Your task is to show Paul had a “heart” for ethics. Outline your address.

There is a New Covenant so there is life in the Spirit, which means far more than just ethical behaviour. It makes us an eschatological people. The Law as a means of achieving right standing with God has had its day, replaced by faith in Christ. Faith does not nullify the law but rather it establishes or upholds it. The Spirit gives a new form of revelation. With the presence of God, the Spirit leads his people in paths of righteousness, and there is a new discernment which involves the renewal of our minds. Freedom and love are intimately associated. There is freedom from the Law as a means of salvation because the New Covenant is written on "tablets of human hearts". The goal of the Torah, God's own righteousness reflected in his people, is precisely what the Spirit can do, which Torah could not. Love is the central value, and a mind renewed by the Spirit leads us to understand that love must rule all and love is a fulfillment of what has been contained in the Law. So when Paul addressed the Colossian's heresy, rather than giving them Christian rules to live by Paul gives them the Spirit.

What is the ethic of Jesus?

Principles of Jesus’ ethical teaching:

Living as Kingdom of God people:

l   The Kingdom of God involves repentance (Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Matthew 3:2).

l   The Kingdom of God is focused on the powerless (Blessed are you who are poor, Luke 6:20-21).

l   Our social responsibility (Sheep and goats…I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Matthew 25:31-36).

l   The Kingdom of God is near (Mark 1:15).

l   Jesus broke through the nationalistic dreams of the seers for Israel’s revenge against ‘the nations’.

l   In the great reversal of God’s good future, the blessings of God would fall first not on Israel but on those in Israel conventionally thought least likely to receive them: the poor, women, children and ‘sinners’.

Radical obedience to and trust in God:

l   Jesus spoke as ‘one who had authority’. Christ is authoritative because he is God incarnate.

l   Allegiance to God was placed above other possible commitments such as family or possessions (If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26).

l   Obedience includes inner attitudes as well as outward acts (Anger and lust in Matthew 5:21-30). God placed a claim on the whole person, not just some limits on their external behaviour.

l   Radical concern for the good of the neighbour. The Golden Rule: love your neighbour as yourself (Mark 12:31).

n   The ethic of Jesus attacked the self-centeredness of the individual but at the same time it did not deny the individual’s immense value.

n   His estimate of God’s concern for a single individual is best expressed in the parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:1-7).

A reward motif:

l   It is most prominent in Matthew, but appears also in other Synoptics.

l   The term ‘reward’ may be a misnomer since it is clear that these come more from the grace of God than from the ‘merit’ of the person involved. We are unworthy servants.

l   A strong eschatological element with respect to reward.

The Sermon on the Mount: Central teaching of Jesus:

l   The single largest block of moral teaching given by Christ.

l   Scholars say the Beatitudes are prescriptions of moral practices appropriate to his disciples as salt and light.

l   6 examples of true righteousness (Matthew 5:21-48)

n   Taken from the traditional teachings from the Ten Commandments in the OT: Jesus prefaces his teaching by affirming the continuing authority of that word.

n   The six examples all deal with relationships. Interestingly there was restriction on revenge in the OT but Jesus takes it further to do not resist.

l   3 Jewish religious practices

n   Alms, prayer and fasting, Matthew 6:1-15.

n   All stressing the inward secret aspect at the expense of the false external action.

l   Other teachings: wealth and security, judgement, the foolishness of giving good things to the unworthy, the goodness of our heavenly Father, the Golden rule, the two ways, and the importance of practicing what has been heard.

l   Important ethical issues:

n   Radical difference between the common human values and those of the Kingdom of God.

n   Motive and intention (in the 6 examples).

n   Matching inward devotional life and outward actions.

n   Trust in God.

n   Practicing what is taught by Christ

l   Bonhoeffer

n   The Sermon on the Mount had converted him from being an ambitious theologian to being an actual Christian.

n   When Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer was beginning to write his book Discipleship. It was while he was focusing on his concrete interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount that he made the crucial decision to oppose Hitler.

n   One only learns to have faith by living in the full this-worldliness of life. This-worldliness referring to: living fully in the midst of life’s tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences, and perplexities. Then one takes seriously no longer one’s own sufferings but rather the suffering of God in the world.

n   Bonhoeffer develops love, not renunciation, as the central theme. Love is “a real belonging-together and being-together of people with other human beings and with the world, based on God’s love that is extended to me and to them.” The Sermon on the Mount calls for self-denial not as a principle of renunciation, but as a call “to love one another, thus to reject everything that hinders fulfilling this task”.

n   Jesus is no Platonic idealist; Jesus is a Jewish realist.

n   Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:21 to 7:12 have been misinterpreted as dyadic antithesis instead of the transforming initiatives. For example, 5:21-26 has been misinterpreted as an antithesis commanding us never to be angry, which would be an impossibly high ideal. These are actually fourteen triads: Beginning with a traditional instruction. Then offers a realistic diagnosis of vicious cycles and power dynamics that cause injustice if we handle them inappropriately. Then concludes with a constructive alternative.

n   Martin Luther’s translation of Matthew 5:38-42 as “do not resist evil” led him to develop his two-realms ethics, limiting the Sermon on the Mount to individual relationships. Such a compartmentalised ethics had disastrous effects in history, causing many Christians to think they should not resist Hitler.

n   Jesus taught in the tradition of Hebrew prophets: he frequently revisited evil, including Pharisees and authorities and Satan.

n   Jesus advocates justice for the poor, inclusion of enemies, and peacemaking rather than violence, and he confronts the domination of the Pharisees.

n   The transforming initiatives point us toward participating in the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst, the breakthrough of the reign of God, the presence of God.

The imitation of Christ:

l   Two fundamental theological difficulties associated with an ethic of the imitation of Christ

l   Exemplarism which shows Christ as one who is outside us and historically distant from us.

l   Christ may indeed be the great moral educator of mankind, but the human capacity for moral education gives every indication of being sadly limited, conditioned and restricted by forces over which we have little control (Romans 7:15-24).

l   Pelagian view: perfectionist illusions, unrealistic and un-Christian view of human nature.

l   The idea of the “imitation of Christ” suggests that we imitate him externally, like a human ability to imitate an external example, of a salvation dependent on our efforts. The idea of “being conformed to Christ” is a better wording because it speaks of an internal process of transformation by which the real presence of Christ within us gradually changes us as we are conformed to him.

l   It’s about being Christlike, not by imitating but by being changed by the grace of God, to achieve something that otherwise lies completely beyond our grasp.

The politics of Jesus

l   No Zealot. Rejected vengeful nationalism.

n   The enemy was to be loved, not destroyed.

n   He entered Jerusalem riding no war horse but a donkey.

l   No Sadducean collaborator.

n   The temple cleansing, a political act in protest against those who used their authority in the temple to make themselves rich as the expense of pious pilgrims and the poor.

l   No political programme in Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom. But there was a political posture:

n   A posture ready to condemn the pride of power of those who ‘lord it over’ their subject (Mark 10:42-44).

n   A posture that seeks peace and turns against the Zealot’s desire for revenge.

n   Seeks justice and turns against Sadducean collaboration in exploitation.

Resources:

Clifford, Ross. Lecture notes on the ethical thought of Paul and the ethical thought of Jesus.

Fee, Gordon D. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. Peabody: Baker Academic, 1996.

Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament. New York: Harper One, 1996.

New Dictionary of Christian Ethics &Pastoral Theology. Editors David J. Atkinson and David H. Field.