Last Week on Tov Unleashed
Last week in my Newsletter, Tov Unleashed, was a tov week, beginning with Mike Bird’s new book:
Ah, then inerrancy (see my link above). Bird’s said many times that this is a distinctively American thing. It’s tribal, he says. It often involves one’s interpretation.
He opts for truthfulness “in all that it affirms” and God accommodates to human conditions and authors … and he’s got some ringers in saying if you’re not careful you establish false choices: either what I interpret or the whole thing collapses. A good view of the Bible recognizes the phenomena of Scripture, “divine and human elements,” progressive revelation, and God’s accommodates.
It’s all about the outworking of God’s faithfulness to his promise.
On Tuesday I wrote up some ideas about the Persona on the Platform vs. the real person:
Let’s call all this self-presentation the platform. On the platform we create a persona, and the persona is what we want others to think of us, whether we are curating that image or not. Others generate impressions of who we are on the basis of our public presentation.
Untangling persona and platform from person, personality and character require discerning eyes, wisdom, and discernment.
Especially when you are hiring someone, marrying someone, engaging in a business partnership with someone, learning from someone, and working with and for someone.
The “best” platformers are also the best at curating a persona. Discerning people know this, and learn to look behind the persona to the personality and character.
On Wednesday we looked at pastor’s stories about preaching the Book of Revelation:
As some of you have surmised, I am working on a project on reading the Book of Revelation well. I have recently taught two courses on it at Northern Seminary and have a long manuscript I’m knocking into shape. I have surmised that many pastors/preachers/teachers simply don’t talk about Revelation, many of them having been turned off to speculation by the premillennial dispensationalists who have grabbed the attention of the media. I’m thinking here of the kind of eschatology one finds in the Left Behind series and its forerunners.
One person after another has told me they grew up in that stuff, were turned off by it, and have put the Book of Revelation on the shelf. Most seem not to be aware that there are other readings. So, a couple weeks back I wrote to some friends to ask them about their preaching of Revelation and some passed my note on to others … and, well, I got about 30 responses and I want to begin this week a series on preaching Revelation (according to the preachers). What are they doing?
For some, the subordination of women is gospel truth:
It was disseminated through The Gospel Coalition, and Piper insisted on a statement about subordination of women (I don’t know what he thinks about ESS) before he committed to leadership with TGC. Barr appeals here to Kevin Giles, who has a long history of fighting ESS.
One point could be added: the biblicism of these evangelicals without adequate grounding in the history of theology helped to spawn ESS and a sub-orthodox view of the Trinity. They need to be reading Lewis Ayres.
Barr quotes Keller connecting subordination of women to the gospel. “It indirectly affects the way we understand the Scripture which affects the way we understand the gospel.” Which is a slippery slope-ish argument but he is not the only one who makes that connection.
And Friday we announced our new book club study:
What happens when the pastor’s teacher about pastoring is black? You will never get the same lessons from a black pastor-teacher you will get from a white pastor-teacher. In Jared Alcántara’s book, Learning from a Legend, we are treated to six teachings about pastoring and preaching by Gardner C. Taylor.
This will be our next book club study, and we will begin July 9. The book is short, the chapters are short, so order it and you will be able to read a chapter a week along with us.
Liberation theology’s motto is “preferential option for the poor” and it has taught us that theology from the margins is not the same as theology done in the center of power.
What happens when the one who teaches us to preach and to pastor is on the margins?
What have you learned about pastoring from someone who lives on the margins?
If you have learned nothing because you’ve not “learned” from a pastor in the margins, say so (at least to yourself). And also commit to learning from those who have pastored from the margins.