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The Human Context of the Preached Word, circa 1982

"It is difficult to imagine the world in the year A.D. 2000, by which time versatile micro-processors are likely to be as common as simple calculators are today.  We should certainly welcome the fact that the silicon chip will transcend human brain-power, as the machine has transcended human muscle-power.  Much less welcome will be the probably reduction of human contact as the new electronic network renders personal relationships ever less necessary.  In such a dehumanized society the fellowship of the local church will become increasingly important, whose members meet one another, and talk and listened to one another in person rather than on screen.  In this human context of mutual love the speaking and hearing of the Word of God is also likely to become more necessary for the preservation of our humanness, not less"

-John Stott, Between Two Worlds, written in 1982.

Also, this is why I won't ever preach via video or recommend a church where a member only sees his pastor on a giant TV screen.

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" - John 1:14

Reading Jesus by Mary Gordon

Reading Jesus is not all I was hoping it could be.  Mary Gordon is an excellent crafter of phrases, and has written both fiction and non-fiction.  She goes back to read the Gospels after she realizes that she considers herself Catholic but has never actually read the Gospels.

In all fairness, I read the first 1/3 of the book, and then browsed and flipped through.  It didn't end up being worth my time.

She approaches each chapter in a cut-and-paste method: all the miracles of Jesus, all the hard sayings, etc.

I am impressed with her commitment to reading and analyzing the Gospels, multiple times, and in different versions, too.  I like that.

This would be a good book for an evangelist in a literary world - it reveals the questions and discomfort that skeptics, particularly well-educated and well-read skeptics - might ask about the Gospels.

However, in the end, Mary Gordon writes without faith.  She can read about Jesus but in her skepticism, she can't know Jesus.  The book reads like an Emergent Church Pastor's sermon - lots of questions, lots of discomfort, but not much real insight into her subject.  No one can know the Jesus of the Gospels apart from faith, so a complete non-mastery of the Gospels by an intelligent and talented writer makes for interesting, but not worthwhile reading.

Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,  yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." (John 5:38-39).  Mary Gordon, lifelong Roman Catholic, is here confronted with her fatal flaw.  Were she to abandon the idols she holds to and embrace the risen Christ as Savior and Lord, and allow Him alone to dictate her values, the book she would then write would, I'm convinced, light the world on fire.

See the booklist

The most interesting part of this blog is the booklist page, to your upper left.

The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome

I finished this a while ago but haven't had the chance to write about it.

St. Hippolytus was bishop of Rome, and wrote the treatise in 217AD.  I read the Dix and Chadwick edition, if there are others, I don't know of them.

This edition is particularly technical, dealing with various version of ancient manuscripts; it would add a great deal for a true scholar, and doesn't take away from those just interested in the early church.

It offers one of the few insights of the early church practices still available.  Some interesting points for modern readers:

1.  A distinction between Bishops and Presbyters is already firmly established.
2.  Worship was liturgical and prayers were read as well as spontaneous.  Anglicans and Catholics will certainly recognize elements of their liturgies.
3.  Oil, cheese and olives were used in worship; milk an honey were used at the time of the eucharist as well as the obvious bread and wine.
4.  The Lord's Supper was central to worship.
5.  Deacons seem to have been essentially servants of the bishop.  There is no sense of autonomy of a deacon board.
6.  Ordination was the bishop laying on his hands, and no others.
7.  Widows seem to have been like an early female deaconate, but "she shall not be ordained, becasuse she does not offer the oblation nor has she a <liturgical> ministry [sic]"
8.  A virginal office was a personal choice and not ordained.  This is voluntary chastity and obviously an order of early nuns.
9.  "Subdeacons" served the deacons, but were not ordained.
10.  "If any one among the laity appear to have received a gift of healing by a revelation, hands shall not be laid upon him, because the matter is manifest."  So healing was  a gift, and was present in the early church (or permitted, at least) but not ordained, because if you had the gift, it was obvious.  Lots of questions here for me.
11.  Certain professions and activities were barred from the church: if you wanted to join as one, you had to either "desist" or "be rejected" as a candidate for instruction and baptism.  They were:

• A  "john" to prostitutes or a prostitute.
• An idol-maker, either in sculpture or image.
• An actor (I think this was different than today?  Not sure.)
• A charioteer, gladiator, animal hunter, or anyone, even a public official, involved with the gladiatorial games or the circus.
• A priest of idols.
• A soldier in the pagan state.  You can't take a military oath.
• A whore or sodomite.
• A magician "Shall not even be brought for consideration"
• Charmers, astrologers, interpreters of dreams or mountebanks.

12.  Certain professions or activities were permitted in a limited way:
Schoolmasters should desist unless they have no other way of making a living.  Then, they receive forgiveness.
A man with a concubine was to marry.  I don't know if that meant to enter into a second marriage.
13.  The renunciation was a part of baptism: "I renounce thee, Satan, and all they service and all thy works" was said by the candidate.
14.  Catechumens did not sit at the agape meal with the baptized.
15.  Deacons and presbyters met daily for prayer.  (!!!)
16.  Prayer was made at set times.  The modern Christian seems to have continued this tradition with either Bible reading, "devotions", or most frequently nothing at all.  And certainly not at fixed times.
The Times of prayer:

• Morning prayers: at dawn, rise, wash, and pray, then go about work.
• Spiritual reading of a holy book was read if there was no instruction that day.
• Prayer was offered at the third hour (9am), 
• the sixth hour (noon) 
• and protracted prayer and praise in singing offered at the ninth hour (3pm).  
• Prayer was also offered before going to sleep at night (the modern "compline") 
• and at midnight - if you can believe that!  (You actually woke up to pray, then went back to sleep).

Tertullian later wrote, ""As regards the time, there should be no lax observation of certain hours—I mean of those common hours which have long marked the divisions of the day, the third, the sixth, and the ninth, and which we may observe in Scripture to be more solemn than the rest" ("De Oratione", xxiii, xxv, in P.L., I, 1191-3)."


17.  When tempted with sin, make the sign of the cross on your forehead.