Preview of class December 20, 2009

Our text in Hebrews presents the somewhat surprising admonition to make every effort to enter God's rest.  Now, this statement would raise no eyebrows were it not that certain theological systems want to preempt it to mean something its author never intended.  You would understand perfectly well if I said to you "Try to get a good night's sleep."  You might take a relaxing bath or drink milk before bedtime, avoid eating spicy foods, and probably keep the lights down low, all as necessary preparation for the desired end of sweet repose.

Of course the Christian life involves striving to enter in at the narrow gate.  It has from the very beginning:

Jacob found this out quite early, and was never quite the same afterward.  Many Biblical texts instruct us to strive, seek, work out, make every effort, and so forth, and none of them contradict the idea of justification by faith, or the fact of the absolute sovereignty of God in the matter of man's salvation or damnation.  If some people handled tax forms as loosely as they do Biblical texts, the IRS would be all over them.

We hope to move on this week to discuss the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12).  I have a nice graphic organizer ready for you to help you understand the interconnections of the material here.

Well, OK, maybe it is not that complicated.  However, I will strive to introduce at least one surprising twist for everyone.  My home and mind are full of treasures and curiosities some of you do not even suspect.

Preview of class December 6, 2009

TIME

The author of Hebrews sweeps across a remarkable span of time in the fourth chapter.  We will start our class this week reviewing the chronology that serves as a backdrop for the exhortation (urgent pleading) in the passage.  Along the way, we will step back to consider the subjects of time and history from a distinctly Christian point of view.  Of course, every good session needs some personal application.  Prepare for a bit of surprise when I apply this subject to you.

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Sometimes popular culture can help us appreciate Biblical truth all the more.  Are any of us surprised to learn that a prominent "role-model" athlete has been accused of multiple adulteries?  I won't name names.  The vultures are circling.  Apparently, in the minds of some, the apparent hypocrisy is the real sin, while the adultery is simply an accepted fact of life and manhood.  What evolving man would pass up the Darwinian opportunity to spread his genetic material a bit more widely, thereby increasing his reproductive fitness?

When I see this sort of thing (whatever the real truth might turn out to be), my mind reverts to an underlying Biblical reality that we need to hear over and over again, and that is sorely neglected today.  Do not envy those who are rich!  Very few of the wealthy in this world will inherit eternal life (Luke 18:24)!  Thank God that you are not rich, and be certain that you do not want to be so!  Possession of riches, with all the attendant temptations, may be an indication that God has marked out a person for damnation.

"The Rich Young Ruler"

Artist: Heinrich Hoffman

Thanksgiving Day and Preview of class November 29, 2009

Dear Friends -
    How much thankfulness ought we to express to our great God and Savior, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Jesus Christ!  This time has been an especially poignant Thanksgiving season for me because of the events with my son following on his medical emergency, and his return to my home.
     One of the many spiritual blessings we share together is the fellowship of the saints at Clarkson Community Church, as we devote ourselves to the Apostle's teaching, breaking of bread, and prayer.  As we learn together in God's word, we are reminded that we are a group of pilgrims travelling together to a celestial city from God, where we will dwell together in perfect harmony, love, and joy, and will glory in the unsearchable riches of Christ.
     This week, in our Sunday School class, we will dive back into our current Bible passage in Hebrews 4:1-13 and continue wrestling with this rather difficult text.  Some of our small groups will need a bit more time to finish their presentations from this text, so the rest of us will begin immersing ourselves in it.  Our goal will be to try to enter the author's mind and to think his thoughts after him.  After all, they are the thoughts placed there by the inspiring Spirit of God, and we are seeking to understand them.
     Immersing oneself into a text can become a messy endeavor.  We might end up with unexpected results.

This fellow was certainly immersed in his work!

As we study the text carefully, we will see that it contains a most remarkable chronology as well as some very sobering statements.  I am looking forward to digging in with you.

Open Discussion Forum - The Flow of Logic in Hebrews Chapter Four

Dear Friends -
            The homework assignment this week is that we all read Hebrews 4:1-13 daily in an all-out attempt to understand the flow of logic and what the writer was trying to communicate in this text.  The writer speaks of various ideas: rest, the Sabbath, a new day ("Today"), the failure of Joshua to give rest, and paradoxical striving after rest.  I admit freely to being rather befuddled trying to pick out the logical flow of thought, and badly need help.  The individual sentences and thoughts are simple enough, but how do they hang together?  What reasoning animated the writer?  For example, what does the seventh-day rest of God have to do with anything here?  Left to my own devices, you all may not like what you get.
           As you (hopefully) grow in your understanding as the week progresses, post comments on this blog entry to share with our learning community.  Feel free to respectfully interact with each others' thoughts.

           Now it is well known that some of you do not exactly relish the thought of homework.

YOU

Well, then I have the opportunity to be Mr. Bad Guy and expect you to do it anyway.

ME

Preview of class November 1, 2009

Here is this week's "anticipation question", as we hope (and expect) to break into chapter FOUR of the Epistle to the Hebrews:

What does this solar system body tell us about how we must relate to God?

In this chapter, the writer seeks to improve upon his warning exhortations to his readers, and to draw the example of the Exodus generation close to their present-day consciousnesses.  After all, essentially the same invitation into the life of faith had been given to his audience as that with which the Exodusi (the members of the Exodus generation -- I invented this term) had been graced.

What went wrong was their lack of faith - the writer has been saying the same thing over and over again.  The author provides an important weapon against encroaching unbelief at the beginning of chapter four.  However, this weapon has fallen upon unpopular times these days.  We will try to diagnose the situation.

Also this week, I plan to assign homework that will involve reading and blog-work.  Gird up your loins, folks, things are going to heat up in our class this week, and we need to do a good job.  It will take effort to enter into God's rest!

Partakers of Christ - Preview of class October 25, 2009

[My home remodeling project continues apace, leading to abbreviated blog entries.  Kindly bear with me.]


Brethren - We are partakers of Christ - we share in all that is his and all that he is - if we hold our confidence firm to the end.  We have been speaking of the need for perseverance for many weeks, but what about the rewards of perseverance?  They are nothing less than the unsearchable riches of who Christ is and what he provides for us.  In light of all this treasure, perhaps the struggle of faith will not seem quite so laborious or daunting.  To what lengths will men go to receive treasures that will soon fade away or even prove to cause their own destruction?

No - our treasure is not that kind of treasure.

For one activity this week, we will step back and remind ourselves exactly what riches of grace belong to us in Christ, as we persevere in him.


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Our discussion last week about exhorting one another (Heb. 3:13) brought up a good bit of smoke and friction (kind of like my coal fires so far) but not as much light as I had hoped.  I want to start this Sunday with a brief encore on the subject, employing a little metacognition (which is a fancy educational term meaning 'thinking about thinking').  Our discussion last week might help us to gain a bit of unexpected insight into ourselves.

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Last week I posted two paintings of noted apostates and asked for you to identify them.  Here are the answers.  You can easily look up the two persons on Wikipedia.

Answer: Julian the Apostate

Answer: Robert the Pious.  This painting truly captured my imagination at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris.

Preview of class October 18, 2009

The main focus of our class this week will be our responsibility to exhort one another so that one of us may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Have you ever been grieved by the large numbers of people you have known who had once professed the Christian faith, and are now apostate?  People seem to blow in the door of the church only to blow back out after a while.  Many are perhaps rotating through different churches, but not a few fall away from the faith.

Can anyone identify this famous apostate?

How about this one?

Our text in Hebrews gives us some insight into why this might be so.  Our security and continuance in the faith very much depends on the help of the brethren in our committed relationship to our local church.  Hillary Clinton famously wrote that it takes a village to raise a child; might we not say that it takes a church to keep a Christian safe?  The writer to the Hebrews seemed to think so.

I apologize for having missed a post last week.  I have been furiously working on some home renovations that are needed before my son can return home.  Add in pressures in the M. Education program, and time in schools, and I have more than I can easily handle.  However, I have been better about posting than you have been faithful to participate in our discussion forum.  We will work at these tasks together!

An evil, unbelieving heart: Discussion Forum

Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart...  Heb. 3:12

Exactly this kind of heart has been the possession of sinners of all ages and places.  Surely, it will display itself in outworkings in all facets of life.  However, it could be considered that different people groups, at different times, tend to display their sin-darkened hearts in accordance with certain societal or cultural themes.  For example, a western visitor to India is often shocked to see the open display of Hindu Gods and Godesses virtually everywhere in public and private.  (One might say such displays are ubiquitous.)

While Scripture teaches us that all men have suppressed the truth and forsaken the worship of the one true God, instead substituting even images of beasts and creeping things, one would not typically see this sort of imagery on the streets of Rochester, NY, for example.

Sometimes the imagery is hidden deep within men's hearts and souls, where few can ever visualize it.

We are much too sophisticated to worship in Pagan Temples here in America!  Plus, we cannot match the tasteful color schemes of the examples from India.

This week's discussion topic concerns the evil, unbelieving hearts of people in our own culture.  In your opinion, how do such hearts most frequently put themselves on display in our own time and place?  Proceed to the comments and start blogging.

Preview of class October 4, 2009

"Some say John the Baptist and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

"But who do you say that I am?"

Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."

The revelation to Peter of the unique person and role of Jesus Christ included the knowledge that Jesus belonged to a unique category, and was not merely another in the line of prophets that had been sent to Israel since ancient times.  He was the promised, divine Messiah.  The masses of the people knew that Jesus was a notable religious  personality, but failed to realize that he did not belong to the same category as the historical figures of their scriptures.

Warning: This image reflects doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and not the opinions of this blog writer!  It is a great piece of art, however.  I really love the halo.

Category errors can be fundamental and lead thinking down incorrect channels, bringing in a host of falsely connected knowledge and leading to wrong conclusions.  When considering some subjects, the first task is to decide exactly how to think about it, before the thinking can be productive.  Otherwise, one ends up spinning their wheels at best, or more likely spinning out all sorts of mischief.

This week in the Sunday School class at Clarkson Community Church, we will take up formally the question of the destiny of the Exodus generation (the focus of an extended warning passage in the book of Hebrews) and try to avoid making a category error that would throw our minds into a muddle of confusion.  To understand the warning, we must reach some conclusions about its object.  If the foundation is bad, the superstructure of logic probably won't be any better.

Fortunately, this house was built on a good foundation.  

As always, I will not be afraid to put my neck on the block by taking a strong position on this important subject.  There will, however, be metal detectors at the door, so don't bring any knives.

Wrap-up from Sept. 27, 2009

One goal toward which I wish to strive this year in our class is to be less predictable.  To this end, expect the unexpected.  No - not in the matters of our non-negotiable commitment to Scripture and to Christ and his kingdom.  However, the means we use to learn about them can be varied and creative, even as the Scripture itself demonstrates.

Rather then post a discussion question for our forum, I want us to take up again the issue of the authority of the Scripture.  One of our small groups spent some time thinking about the attacks on the reliability of the New Testament documents by certain unnamed prominent persons (see a prior post), and thankfully seemed quite unshaken by the wag-tongues.  Let us spin the positive direction now.

Few people of history have championed the authority of Scripture more forcefully and influentially than John Calvin, whose birth occurred a half-century ago this year.  Here is an excellent presentation of the crux of Calvin's high view of Scripture.  The speaker is Doug Wilson, a person you should know as one of the leading thinkers of the church (those words do fit in the same sentence).  If you listen to this challenging address, you can forego any blogging this week.  (You have proven that you can forego blogging without any excuse, as well.)

What was the destiny of the Exodus generation?

Into what eternal destiny did the millions of people of the Exodus generation pass?  We know explicitly that God condemned them all to die in the wilderness prior to entering the promised land, due to their unbelief.  Can we be as confident about their eternal destiny?  Does the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews want these considerations to be brought before our eyes, and into our thoughts, as he bases an extended hortatorical (that is, exhorting) section on exactly their example?  Does the impact of the example depend upon the answers we give to the questions we have asked?

It is easy to multiply questions, as well as shallow answers.  Let us together think deeply about this topic, since the author of scripture, and by implication the divine inspiring Spirit, considered it to be so important that they dwelt on it in an extended passage.  What we must not do is to pass by without letting the impact of the section work its intended fruit in our lives.

I'm really not all that into this Exodus stuff.

One of our small groups will present their researches into this subject.  We will specifically see what the group has to say before your more-or-less esteemed moderator interjects his two cents into the discussion.  (Well, actually, it may be more like two quarters or even dollars.)

It is so valuable to develop the habit of posing questions to the Biblical text.  There is so much depth there, just waiting to be plumbed (plummed? meringued?).  If we just float around on the surface of scripture, we will never sample the riches and nutrition in the ecosystem down below.  (This last sentence serves as an example of a seriously mixed metaphor for you home-schooling mothers.)

We pride ourselves on not going too deep in this church!

Just to whet your appetite, here is a link to an excellent sermon on this generation by none other than the redoubtable Spurgeon ["The Census of Israel"].  This sermon represents a fine example of creativity, motivated by a census of Britain then underway.  As always, you can pick up any ten of Spurgeon's sermons, and you will conclude that nine of them are better than any others you have ever read.

Fool's Gold - preview of class on September 20, 2009

All that glisters is not gold;

Often have you heard that told.

Many a man his life hath sold

But my outside to behold.

Gilded tombs do worms enfold.

Thus did the great bard emphasize the deceptive appearance of so many of the treasures to which people of the world aspire. Pyrite ("Fool's Gold") looks like the real thing but lacks the value of genuine gold. Apparently some people have been fooled into thinking it was actually gold. (Can anyone explain why gold is considered to have such value?)

Our text in Hebrews 3:13 compares the allurement of sin to that of pyrite - it deceives its victim by an appearance of value that it does not truly possess. When all is said and done, the brief excitement or pleasure of the sin evaporates, leaving the sinner with only the inevitable consequences: "the wages of sin is death".

Things are not always as they seem to be.

One of our small groups will be considering the deceitfulness of sin.  It is crucial that we - as a committed group of Christian believers - learn to fight against this deceitfulness, and that we help each other in this fight (Heb 3:13).  One means of overcoming deceit is, of course, to expose its real truth.

Nice people do not try to fool others!

How do we help each other in this life-long battle?  Perhaps if it were easy, we would all be doing it more consistently.  Somehow, we must overcome the cultural inertia of individualism and apathy and consider ourselves to be seriously engaged in a real battle, with real winners and losers.  Another of our small groups will be glad to help us in this matter.

 Don't take the battle seriously - we'll just clean things up afterwards.

Summary of our class of September 13, 2009 - Heb 3:7-14

Question for discussion

There are always doubters, but we can all agree that more attacks, more venom, and more of the world's hatred is directed against Jesus Christ, his gospel, and the Bible than any other potential religious target.

Our discussion topic this week consists of two related issues: (1) Do you agree with the statement above? (2) If so, why might it be true? Does scripture itself give an answer to this question?

Let the comments fly.

Work groups from our class on September 13, 2009

We have been divided into four groups that will explore topics related to the apostacy example of the Exodus generation, and its relevance to us today. The groups will work on these topics next week and present the results of their investigations in the following week.

Group 1. Psalm 95 exercise. (1) Find differences between Ps 95 as in the Hebrew Old Testament and as quoted in Hebrews 3:7ff from the Septuagint version. (2) Does the fact that these differences exist interact with the doctrine of the inspiration of scripture? (3) How is the attitude of the New Testament writers toward prior scripture different from the attitude of Bart Ehrman? (Hint: Did they possess the original manuscripts? How did they view differences between manuscripts/translations?)

Group 2. How can professing Christian believers demonstrate an evil, unbelieving heart today? Brainstorm some specific signals. How can we obey Heb 3:13 in such cases? How might the person react?

Group 3. Discuss the "deceitfulness" of sin. What does this mean? How can we counteract it? From our lesson text, find two characteristics of the hardening of heart displayed by the Exodus generation. Do we perhaps do the same?

Group 4. Investigate the important question: Were the individuals in the Exodus generation eternally lost, or merely a typical example? What evidence exists in scripture?

Preview of class September 13, 2009

In this week's class, we will re-orient ourselves to our position in the text of Hebrews 3:7-14 using the first word therefore to summon up the context, and then begin to examine the quotation from Psalm 95. This quotation is taken from the Septuagint (Greek translation) version of the Old Testament, and displays some differences from the Hebrew version. We will use this fact to bring up the significant doctrine of the inspiration of the Holy Scripture, and discuss at least one current attack against this doctrine.

Bart Ehrman, a leading textual critic scholar, has publically questioned the reliability of the New Testament manuscript tradition. Many of us in the church watched his recent debate with James White. While we cannot address the issues in complete depth in Sunday School - and frankly we are not fully qualified to interact with the scholarly issues involved - we will see an enlightening contrast between Ehrman's view of the trustworthiness of prior scripture and the view of the authors of the New Testament. We will also highlight Ehrman's fatal inference that leads from his historical knowledge to his stated position of unbelief.

We are told in the text that we are to exhort each other daily to avoid the hardening of sin. Last year we admitted that we do not obey this text very well. Practice makes perfect! Prepare yourselves for some creative role playing.

All this and more. Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday...

Welcome to CCC Sunday School, 2009-2010

Friends -

Let me welcome back both returning and new participants to the adult/family Sunday school class at Clarkson Community Church! We are now entering into the fourth year of our study of the book of Hebrews under the theme "The Supremacy of Christ". We will pick up the study with the passage in Hebrews 3:7-3:14 whose content focuses on our absolute requirement to remain stedfast and faithful to our trust and commitment to Christ and his gospel so that we do not fall into the fatal error of an evil and unbelieving heart.

The Christian Church has always held to the necessity of perseverance in the faith as a distinguishing characteristic of genuine - that is, saving - faith. Certainly the author of our text held to that view! Unfortunately, there are today some schools of theology that downplay the importance of perseverance. The biblical text will guard us from embracing this error provided that we let it speak to us powerfully and authoritatively. It forces us to consider the apostacy of an entire generation of people who had experienced the signal deliverances and power of God in an undeniable manner, and yet still fell away from God due to unbelief.

I expect that we will experience some new and engaging aspects of learning and growing together during the 2009-2010 year, of which this blog and online forum will be one. All members and visitors of our class and church can posts comments, questions, and other discussion here. I will of course monitor things and ensure civility, politeness, and other requisite virtues. I invite all persons who participate at CCC to join us on this in-depth journey through the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is universally regarded as one of the grandest and most important portions of the entire New Testament.