Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Simple Advice for Ministry Transitions.

A few years ago I wrote this article hoping that it would be published in Group magazine. I have seen far to many groups and churches torn apart due to the egotism of a single leader. Group rejected the article. They said they wanted to encourage and not discourage longevity in ministry. I think they missed the point. I wish all Christians leaders would take this advice to heart.

In high school I watched four consecutive pastoral transitions tear my youth group apart. Each new leader inevitably changed the way things were run as we, the youth, wanted to remain loyal to the way things were done. Some youth became bitter, dozens more left. You’ve probably seen or experienced it before, the sometimes-certain destruction transitions bring.

Let’s face it you’re going to leave. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow but some day you’ll say goodbye. And chances are at some point you’ll find yourself ministering in the shadow of a former leader. There’s nothing we can do to protect our youth from change, but we can make change less precarious. Your transition as well as your successors can be a positive experience if you follow these six simple rules.

Rule #1 - Remember You’re a Servant.
First and foremost, recognize you’re a servant. The group does not belong to you. Leaders who think they own the group fail to listen. Conscious or unconscious, good intentions or bad, they build the group around themselves. They quickly start new programs, end old ones, and refashion the ministry according to their own vision. In this, the youth are forced to choose between the old and the new.

If Christ is the king of your group, no such choice should exist. Remind yourself as well as your youth, Christ was, is and will be the King; staff changes, not the management. You are a servant, no more and no less.

Rule #2 - Follow Your Predecessor.
Chip failed miserably. He had been a successful youth pastor before with a lot of great ideas. The problem: we already had a great ministry. Every Friday night, a hundred or more teens would come to “CLUB REVELATION,” listen to Christian bands and hear one of a dozen leaders preach the gospel. It wasn’t for Chip. He immediately canceled our Friday nights, changed our name to “Impact,” and became jealous every time we spoke of our former youth pastor. He found new leaders, passing over the ones he already had, and rarely spoke with the youth one on one. Within a year, our leaders were gone, my friends were gone and Chip had gone as well.

As you enter a ministry position, remember the youth as well as their former leader were there before you. No matter how you feel about your predecessor’s programs, it was God who called him to lead for a time. He or she formed relationships and established a foundation. By continuing to build on this foundation you prove your commitment to the group. In return they will willingly follow.

Rule#3 Lead When Their Ready to Follow
The time will come for you to initiate change but wait until the youth are ready to accept the changes you make. Remember just because someone has made you a leader, doesn’t mean the youth have made you theirs.

Becoming a leader takes time and effort. Talk to your kids and get to know them. Take them out to eat. Discover their likes and dislikes. If you truly care about the teens in your group you will grow with them and not against them.

Shawn succeeded where Chip failed. He had never been a full-time youth pastor; in fact, he had never been in a youth group before. However, what Shawn did offer was a willing ear and patience that outlasted all others. Since he didn’t have a lot of ideas, he waited until we were willing to follow, and follow we did.

Rule #4 Remember Your Temporary Position
Your exit plan begins the moment you start. The temporary nature of your position demands it. Remind your students, as well as yourself, your time of ministry will end. If we don’t remind them, they will hang their hopes on us. After you leave feelings of abandonment will naturally occur. However, by reminding them of our impermanence we highlight Christ’s endurance. Therefore remind your students again and again, you will leave but Christ remains forever.

Rule #5 Groom leaders.
Part of building a solid foundation for the next youth pastor is providing a foundation on which he can flourish. That means #1 training leaders in the Christ/servant mentality. However, It also may mean to look for successor among your own church. The best transitions are smooth transitions. Overlapping responsibilities between two leaders is the smoothest transitions of all. Like the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, your attitude should be “he must become greater and I must become less.”

Rule #6 Continue relationships
Just because you leave should never mean you’ve divorced yourself from your kids. Once you’re a youth pastor, you’re a mentor for life. Your still a servant of the same Lord, therefore the youth are, in some way, still your responsibility. From time to time give them a call, ask about them and pray for them. Don’t undermine the new youth pastor but give him your full support.

By following these six simple rules, a youth pastor insures a peaceful and rewarding move.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Two Worlds, One Solution: Why the Logos became Flesh

John's use of Irony, Double Entendre, Symbol and Allusion are not mere artistic ornamentation. John employees these two-storied literary devices to highlight both the problem of and the answer for the world.

The gospel of John continually talks about two worlds. For instance In John 3:12, Christ distinguishes between "earthly things" and "heavenly things" and in 8:23 He separates Himself from His opponents, stating, "You are from below I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world."

In John the division between these two worlds represent the fundamental problem of man. In John 3:6, Jesus states, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." John also tells us that "God is Spirit." and "no one has seen God at any time..." This higher world is beyond the limits of the world of flesh and blood. Flesh cannot see Spirit. Man cannot see God.

The answer to this dilemma is the Word made flesh. God, the very God became man in order that we may interact with God. The two worlds became one in Jesus Christ. This is the miracle of Christmas. The atonement for our sins is not just in Easter (i.e. the crucifixion), it also is in his birth. Christmas reminds us that God bridged the divide between heaven and earth.

The problem of God's intangibility, however, continues to exist even after the incarnation. There are essentially still two ways of seeing Jesus. The Jews of John's gospel look at the outward appearance of Jesus and wrongly saw only a man. However, there are those whom God has granted the gift to see, look at Jesus and see beyond the man to the very image of God. They see the deeper meaning and not simply the surface.

John's use of Irony, Double Entendre, Symbol and Allusion fits like a glove within this two-tiered story. Following the example of the word made flesh, John writes a gospel with surface and subtextual meaning in mind. Jesus himself is the symbol of God the father. He is the tangible representation of the intangible God.

Many will only look at the surface of the Gospel of John and see only matters of historical curiosity. Christians, however, must see in John the meaning behind the physical appearance, they must read between the lines.

I could go on and on about the deeper meaning within John. But in my next post I would like to begin to address how this deeper meaning effects our every day life.

John's Dual Meaning...

In my last post on the Gospel of John, I attempted to show why we must look for a deeper meaning within John's Gospel. In this post I hope to show you how John develops that meaning.

John utilizes a number of literary devices. He uses irony, double entendre, symbols as well as allusions. These devices possess a common thread: they each utilize two levels of meaning.

Irony is a conflict between two levels of meaning. Perhaps the greatest example is in John 11. The leader of the Jews gather to decide what to do with Jesus. Ciaphas stands up and "prophecies" to the group that it is better that one man should die than a nation perish. Ciaphas as an enemy of Jesus clearly means that Jesus is a threat to the stability of the Jewish nation. John, however, sees a deeper ironic meaning. Jesus will indeed die for the nation.

A double entendre is a word or a phrase which possess two meanings. A good example of double entendre within the gospel of John is found in John 3. When Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born "again." Nicodemus takes the word again to mean a second time. This leads him to think that he must enter his mothers womb a second time. But the Greek word which our English bible's translate as again also means "from above." It is this higher meaning which Jesus seems to intend.

Symbols like double entendre also possess two meanings, a lower physical meaning as well as a higher spiritual meaning. The symbol is a tangible representation of an intangible idea. A good example of symbol within John can be found in John 13. When Judas leaves the last supper to betray Jesus, John says, "and it was night." Here John is not merely telling us the time of day, he is hinting at the spiritual blackness which has come with Judas' rejection of the "Light of the World."

An allusion also presupposes two meanings. An Allusion is the implicit referencing of a person or an event, which has occurred in context external to the text. John's gospel is replete with allusions. Among the best known is John's subtle allusions to Genesis 24 in Jesus conversation with the Samaritan woman. John 1-2 is another example. John opens his gospel with a specific timetable of seven days. These seven days correspond to the seven creative days of Genesis. (This is why on the surface John disagrees with the synoptics over Jesus itinerary after His baptism.) We may call these examples of allusion external allusions because they reference information outside of the gospel of John itself.

Allusion may also be internal. Just as John references events outside his gospel, he also echoes event that have occured within his gospel. One of the ways in which he does is through something called a "chiasm." A Chiasm is ancient form of parallelism. Each idea parralels another, converging at a center. 1 John 3:9 is a perfect example of a Chiasm... "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."

A) No one who is born of God
B) practices sin
C) because His seed abides in him
B') he cannot sin
A') Because he is born of God

There are many Chiasm within the gospel of John (For example John 1:1-18; 1:19-28; 1:29-36; 1:32-51). They are not all short. John 2-4 is one long extended Chiasm mirroring content, charachters, events and themes. The first miracle of Cana (2:1-11) is echoed in a second (4:46-54); Jesus' actions in Jerusalem (2:12-25) are recalled by the Galilleans (4:43-45); Jesus Conversation with a ruler of the Jews (3:1- 12) is contrasted in His conversation with a Samaritan woman (4:1-42). Jesus' third person commentary (3:13-21) is mirrored in John the Baptist's third person commentary (3:31-36). The whole Chiasm centers on Jesus superior baptismal ministry and that Jesus is the Bridegroom and John is only the Best Man. (3:22-30)

Examples of Irony, double entendre, symbols, and allusions (including Chiasms) abound. My point is not to overload you with examples. I simply want to show you that this two layered story is an important trend within the gospel of John. It's a trend that is important for understanding John's deeper meaning as well as his worldview. I will address John's worldview in my next post.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

How the Incarnation affirms the Arts.

I just finished reading "Lewis Agonistes*: How C.S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World." This book is a valuable resource for every Christian who wants to engage the World with the truth of the Gospel.

In one particular inciteful jaunt, Markos attempts to spell out how the Incarnation (i.e. the Logos becoming flesh) justifies and affirms the arts.

"As the Catholic doctors of the ancient and medieval church were busy demonstrating the polysemous ("many signs) nature of Scripture, the theologians of Eastern Orthodoxy were equally busy endowing the visual arts with a similar weight of earthly and divine meaning. As anyone who has ever studied the history of Orthodoxy or spent time in an Orthodox Church quickly learns, icons are central to the theology and worship of those who look to Constantinople rather than Rome as the spiritual center of their faith. I suppose the simplest definition of an icon would be "a pictorial representation of Christ, Mary, or one of the saints." However, for Eastern Orthodox Christians (wheater they be Greek or Russian or Armenian), icons have always meant a great deal more.

The iconis a crux, an axis, a nexus at which physical and spiritual, temporal and eternal meet. At the heart of Orthodoxy as at the heart of any true Christian church lies the twin mysteries of Incarnation - the belief that Jesus Christ was fully man and fully God, and the Resurrection - the belief that Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead. The icon testifies to these sublime truths. As man and God meet, historically, in the person of Christ, so do the human and the divine meet, symbolically, in the physical depiction either of Christ himself or of a fallen man made holy (saint in Greek means "holy") through life in Christ. As Jesus effected the redemption and glorifiction of the flesh through his bodily resurrection (indeed, in Orthodox churches Christ still bears the stigmata he won on the cross), so the icon is a mute but powerful witness to the fact that physical matter can bear and contain divinity and that the natural elements of this world, though subject now to futility, will one day be brought to perfection (Romans 8:18-23).

The icon is a way station, a meeting ground where past, present, and future realities converge. The Christian who stands before an icon and notes the elongated fingers, the strange olive sheen of skin, and the oddly shaped features like a face seen through flickering candlelight is reminded that at a percise moment in history God entered our world, and by making the invisible God visible, made possible all symbolic art that attempts to capture phsically a reality that is spiritual...

The icon does not, of course, embody divinity in a full and perfect form - only Christ does that. Rather, it is the very fact that God did take on flesh in the person of Christ that empowers the arts and enables them to strive toward the divine. As intimated above, Christ, by allying himself with our natural, fallen world of signifiers run amok, baptised physical matter as a fit receptiacle for divine meaning and presence. This is why the New Testament, though it continues to forbid idolatry in all forms, does not repeat the specific Mosaic commandment against graven images. If Christ can become flesh without "polluting" his divinity, then it is permissible for human beings to paint and sculpt images of the Incarnate Christ. For the Muslim, of course, the very thought that God would take on flesh is the greatest of heresies: a fact that explains why the Muslims are the most unapologetic of iconoclasts (they do not allow any kind of representation, even of the prophet Muhammad).

Indeed, any Christian defense of the arts must finally rest on the Incarnation, that most slippery of doctrines." (Pgs 126-128)

*Agonistes means "one who wrestles"

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Hope and Redemption in the Beautiful Letdown

I can't tell you how long its been since an album has really reached me. I love music. I love profound words even more. But when great music and profound lyrics mingle at a certian time and place, the heart cannot help but beat in time with both the rythm and the words.

I'm almost positive that you can recognize what I'm saying. Think of album or a song that has really reached you. It more than likely was a combination of these three things: music, lyrics, and occasion. For me Petra's "Beyound Belief" probably would have been just another album if it hadn't been for Anggi Finley (now Wakefield) giving me that tape in the early days of my salvation. The music was good, the message was real but it was the time more than anything that made the album come alive.

Now a new Album has reached me in the same way as Beyound Belief. Switchfoot's Beautiful Letdown is both great music and a great message. But more than anything it has come at the right time and in the right place.

You may not know this but I work as a Custody Officer in Clark County's Jail. It's not your normal place to work. In any given day I see drunks, drug addicts, prostitutes, child molesters, murderes and theives. It's easy to classify these people as something other then oneself, beyound hope. The people I work with do it all the time.

I've recently changed shifts. Now I work in the pods. And I’m sitting here listening to this album surrounded by 185 inmates. I’m engulfed like an island, feeling the crashing waves of there broken lives beating against my isolation. They can’t hear the music pulsing inside my tower. They can barley see me through the glass. But I can see them. Just in front of me, not more than 50 feet, is a man whose failed attempt at suicide killed a Clark County Sheriff’s Officer last year. I see a dentist who after two years of separation from his wife, returned to brutally stab her to death in her home. Behind me there is a woman who is locked up and pregnant with her third child. Hooked on heroine, she’s taking methadone in effort to save her babies life. To me these people have become more than just names in the newspaper. I see them as more than crimes they commit. And as I listen to Beauitiful Letdown, I feel cries for redemption.

In the words of Jon Foreman, the voice and guitar player of Switchfoot, "THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN is about real life: the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s an honest attempt to reflect on the great and terrible aspects of being human, the tension of existence. A lot of people run away from this tension because the problems in our world are too hard to face. But the tension of being human is where we live and think and breathe. In fact, the very lowest moments in our lives are when we stand toe to toe with the truth about ourselves and our world. The way I see it, hope means nothing at all if hope doesn’t reach to the core of our need. THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN is where meaning and hope invade our greatest and worst moments. THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN is where we live, who we are, and where the future begins."

As I sit in my tower I see the tension expressed in stark detail. The beauty of God's redemption is that it was meant for them. The beauty is that it is meant for me.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Prophetic Untimeliness

"To always be relevant you have to say things that are eternal."

Although a very short book, 119 pages, Prophetic Untimeliness packs a very powerful punch. Os Guinness calls the Church to bear the offense of the Gospels and walk out of step with the temporary trends of our times. Although he dosen't name names, Guinness appears to have the seeker sensitive Church in mind. It's one thing to follow the example of the Word who became flesh in order to make known (relevant) the invisible God. Its quite another thing to lose ones distinctivness in order to fill pews. It appears that the later is becoming more and more that state of the Church. I believe it has impart become the mantra of my own. This saying is certainly true, "He who marries the spirit of the age makes himself a widower."

Guinness provides three ways in which we can learn to be untimely (untrendy).

Develop an awareness of the unfashionable.

Its easy to preach the "good news" it quite another to preach the bad. The heart of the Gospel is hostel to our carnal nature. Yes there are doctrines and beliefs that we are comfortable with but there are also doctrines and beliefs which offend us. We must seek balance messages of condemenation/confrontation with comfort/consolation.

Cultivate an appreciation for the historical.

Nothing can confront our modern perspectives like a healthy dose of history. For our American Church living a life of luxuary in this modern age it has become a popular belief that God will not allow the righteous to suffer (i.e. the name-it-claim it crowd). By cultivating an appreciation the historical we are confronted by this mordern distortion. A good way to gain an historical perspective is by reading old books.

Pay constant attention to the eternal.

This may seem as difficult as asking a fish to think of a world outside the water, but its not. We as Christians recognize that God's word is eternal. The same word that spoke the worlds into existance is the same word that sustains the world today. That same Word has been given to us in the Bible. I can hear my audience groaning even now. "The bible is old news, we want something new." But let us remember that today's new is tommorrow's old. Only by enteracting with God's word can we enteract with the eternally relevant.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Does John have a Deeper Meaning?

There are essentially two ways of reading the gospel of John. For the casual observer, John is a mere historical account of Jesus words and deeds. John’s meaning is straightforward and uncomplicated, what the gospel says is what the gospel means. Meaning exists on the surface. But for those who take a second look, John's gospel appears to be more than a literal account of Jesus ministry and message. One begins to get a sense of this through a careful comparison of the gospels.

A cursory glance at Matthew, Mark, Luke and John reveals that they have much in common. Each narrates the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth in apparent biographical detail. Each record his ministry and message, as well as the miracles he performed. Each of them slows down and zooms in on the events of Christ’s crucifixion and above the reports of his resurrection. But a more detailed inspection we find that the four Gospels of the New Testament group themselves into two distinct groups.

Matthew, Mark and Luke possesses an interrelationship that is absent from the gospel of John. It has been estimated that 92% of Mark's gospel, the scenes he uses, the order in which he uses them, as well as his very wording, can be found in Matthew and Luke. Luke and Matthew also share a great deal, possessing some 200 versus in common. For this reason the first three gospels have been dubbed the Synoptic Gospels, meaning "to see with or together." John, on the other hand, does not partake of this interrelationship. As Peter Ellis so eliquently states, "John deals with the same revealed truth as Matthew, Mark (and) Luke... His way of speaking about that truth, however, is different. Like waters from the same source, the Johannine... and synoptic traditions all come from the same historical Jesus but flow through different lands, pick up different textures, and emerge as observably different rivers."

Lets look at some of John's unique features. Matthew, Mark and Luke each tell us that Jesus cleansed the temple one week before his crucifixion. In John, however, Jesus cleanses the temple at the beginning of his ministry. Did it happen at the beginning or the end? Some have tried to reconcile the two accounts by stating that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. However, this appears to be an addition to what the scriptures are saying.

Another example of how the Synoptics and John disagree is in there presentation of the Christ's temptation in the wilderness. The synoptics each state that after his baptism, Jesus went into the desert to be tempted forty days and forty nights. After the temptation he returns to Galilee. John on the other hand never mentions the forty day period. Instead he gives a specific day by day account of Jesus baptism by John and his return to Cana of Galilee. In John there are only three days seperating Jesus' baptism and his return to Galilee. Thus, in John there is no room for the temptation.

The question becomes how are we to deal with these contradictions. If we take the gospels in these instances as straight forward historical/biographical accounts they clearly disagree. Origen, the third centuray Christian teacher, provides us with our options in dealing with this dilemma,

"The student, staggered at the consideration of these things, will either renounce the attempt to find all the Gospels true, and not venturing to conclude that all our information about our Lord is untrustworthy, will choose at random one of them to be his guide; or he will accept the four, and will consider that their truth is not to be sought in the outward and material letter."

Should we abandon the inspiration of scripture? By no means. The answer to this dilemma is in how we interpret these accounts. The truth of John's gospel is not to be sought in the outward and material letter but rather in its deeper meaning. In my next post I will show how John creates a two layered story, possessing both surface and sub textual meaning.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of John.



The Da Vinci Code has struck a nerve. When published in 2003, it appeared at the top of best seller’s lists across the nation. On the competitive New York Time’s List, it remained for an astonishing 136 weeks. Within its first year, it sold more than any other adult novel in the history of publishing, and it continues to sell, boasting in the fall of 2005 34 million books in print worldwide.

The books success has not surprisingly spawned a number of investigations. In the fall of 2003, ABC News produced, Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci, a one-hour special devoted to an exploration of the novel’s central claims. A search of Amazon.com reveals dozens of books with titles such as The Da Vinci Code Decoded, Secrets of the Code, Breaking the Da Vinci Code, and Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code, all devoted to dissecting the contents of this single book. If that wasn’t enough, now a movie, the ultimate proof of a novel’s success, is scheduled for release in May. The combined talents of Director Ron Howard and Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks insure that the popularity of the book has yet to wane.

This phenomenal success cries out for explanation. What is so unique about The Da Vinci Code to cause this pandemic in book sales around the world? Although on the surface the book is merely a novel: a fictional story written for sheer entertainment, its pages contain a very interesting conspiracy.

As the title suggests, the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci occupy a central place within this mystery. According to The Da Vinci Code’s author, Dan Brown, Da Vinci's paintings “seem to overflow with mystifying symbolism, anomalies, and codes… hidden levels of meaning that go well beneath the surface of the text… clues to a powerful secret.” For The Da Vinci Code, Leonardo’s painting of The Last Supper holds the most surprising revelations of all.

At first glance, The Last Supper is a simple depiction of Christ and his disciples. They are seated, facing the audience, behind a long straight table, Jesus separating six disciples on either side of him. Every line of the spacious high-ceilinged room, as well as every gesture, expression or position of the disciples points to Jesus, who looks slightly downward toward his outstretched hand. It does indeed appear as Leonardo claimed that the scene is a representation of the moment at which Christ said to his disciples “…one of you will betray me.” To the right of Jesus, Simon Peter leans past Judas Iscariot to ask, the beloved disciple, who the betrayer might be. To the left of Jesus a disciple asks with inquisitive hands, is it me. Several figures point upwards as if reminding the audience from wince Jesus came and to where he shall return.

According to the Da Vinci Code, the meaning of the Last Supper resides beneath the surface. The book invites us to take a second look, abandoning our preconceived notions about its interpretation or meaning. Is Da Vinci doing more than presenting Christ and his disciples? If this is indeed a representation of the last supper, and the moment at which Christ announces his betrayal then the painting possesses some surprising details. First, the book points out there are thirteen cups littered over the table, not just one, as the gospels appear to indicate. If indeed there was a single distinguishing cup (i.e. the Holy Grail) that Christ passed to his followers, why is it not depicted here? The book answers the Grail is not an object, but rather an individual.

To the right of Jesus sits a person who art historians have long identified as John the beloved. According to John 13, it was John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who reclined next to Jesus during this crucial moment. A second look, however, uncovers a startling paradox. The individual seated to the right of Jesus lacks the masculine qualities associated with a male disciple. This person has flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and possibly the hint of a bosom. The seat of honor appears not be occupied by a man but rather a woman.

The figure not only appears to be a woman, The Da Vinci Code argues the very symbolism within the painting demonstrates she is a woman. The absent space dividing Christ and this feminine looking figure makes an unmistakable “V”. The book claims this “V” along with its opposite the “^” are ancient symbols corresponding to woman and man. The “^” symbolizes the hard edge of a man, his warrior instincts as well as his procreative genitals. The “V” on the other hand, symbolizes the soft nature of the woman as well as her uterus, the place within a woman that carries a child. The book argues, to find this indistinguishable “V” proves that the figure seated next to Jesus is in fact a woman.

The symbolic connection between Jesus and this figure also runs deep. If you trace Jesus from his left hand, over his head, down to his right hand, up the left arm of the female figure and once again down over her head, we find that Jesus and this woman together make an unmistakable “M.” Jesus and this woman also are connected by corresponding colors. Jesus wears a blue robe and red tunic. The woman wears a red robe and blue tunic. Visually the corresponding blue and red suggests a bond between Jesus and this person that does exit between Jesus and the other disciples.

This second look at The Last Supper has had a profound impact on the success of the book. Editor Dan Burstein recalls that as he read the book for the first time, he came to this particular section about the painting around 4:00 in the morning. “I got up out of bed and pulled the art books down from our library shelves. I looked at the Leonardo panting that I had encountered, of course, hundreds of times previously, yes, it really does look like a woman seated next to Jesus! I thought.” The fact that a plausible clue has been hidden in one of the most famous paintings of all time is riveting.

Through the clues within this painting, The Da Vinci Code postulates its central conspiracy. According to the book, Da Vinci was a part of a secret society which existed in one form or another down through the ages, extending from a time before the Church transformed the image of Jesus. The Jesus of history married Mary Magdalene, the closest of his female disciples, and through her bore a child. The Church, however, covered this relationship in an effort to proclaim Jesus divine, believing He could not be God if he had sexual relations with a woman. So the male dominated Church abolished Mary Magdalene and the child she bore, along with all reverence for pagan worship of the female image. For the Da Vinci Code, Reclaiming Jesus’ lost bride is a step towards reclaiming the “sacred feminine” abandoned by the Church so long ago.

The Da Vinci Code’s success is its penchant for finding mystery in the mundane. It’s this hidden level of meaning which has inspired the imagination. To a culture hypnotized by ten-second commercials and bill boards passing at sixty miles an hour, the concept of a deeper meaning appears as something novel. Educated as we are in this warp-speed society we are not accustomed to mediating on anything longer then a few seconds. The Da Vinci Code offers a chance to slow down and find vital messages locked within images we simply don’t take the time to look at. The Da Vinci Code has unlocked an all but forgotten world, a world that is only seen through reflection. We want something deeper, something more than surface to sink our teeth into. And thus, gone are Brown’s former books of far removed symbols of the NSA and NASA. Now Brown has placed his mystery within a framework important to everyone and in a context familiar to all. Instead of focusing on complicated mathematical constructs and theories unintelligible and uninteresting to many, Dan Brown has focused on the hidden meaning of art, and not just any art, but some of the most hallmark images known in western tradition, The Last Supper, The Mona Lisa, the Cathedrals of Europe.

Wheres the connection to the Gospel of John? Brown draws upon several books to support his conclusions. A large portion of the book arises from the best selling claims of Holy Grail, Holy Blood. Which attempt at exposing the history of the Priory of Sion was a best seller in the early 1980's. Dan Brown also utilizes The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and the Goddess in the Gospels written by Margaret Starbird.


Starbird, once a devout Catholic, was trained in divinity school. When she read the claims of Holy Grail, Holy blood she set out to discredit them. But in the process she found new evidence within scripture that these claims were true. Starbird points out that the gospels are replete with calling Jesus the bridegroom. Imagery of a wedding also abound. She states “throughout the Gospels Jesus is presented as bridegroom, but it is now widely claimed that he had no Bride.” Among the most startling is a piece of evidence found in the gospel of John.

Only John among the gospels states that the anointing was performed by Mary of Bethany while Jesus was seated with Lazarus on the eve of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Only John of the gospel writers states that the fragrance of the perfume filled the house where they were seated. This scene seems suprisingly remenesent of Song of Solomon 1:12. “While the king was at his table my perfume gave forth its fragrance.” This reference to one of the most sexually explicit books of the bible raises some interesting questions. Starbird goes on to note that the Church has made another connection between Christ and Mary and the Song of Solomon. Such as reading the Song of Solomon 3:2-4 on Mary Magdalene’s day. A fact that even Hypolutus commented on his commentary on the Song of Solomon.

Though I would disagree with Starbird on many of her conclusions this does not detract from some of the interesting connections she makes. Does John possess hidden clues about Jesus marriage? Is John a riddle on the level of Dan Brown’s interpretation of the Last Supper? Is John like this proposed interpretation of the Da Vinci Painting? Is John a code?

Other than the book of Revelation, no other New Testament book compares with the mystery locked within the gospel of John. John’s gospel says a great deal more than it actually says. Like “body language,” its meaning proceeds through more than just words. What seems clear and simple on the surface is never so simple. John is mystery waiting for the perceptive reader to unlock. If I may appropriate in part the words of Dan Brown, the gospel of John overflows with mystifying symbolism, anomalies, and codes, hidden levels of meaning that go well beneath the surface of the text… clues to a powerful truth. John is mystery greater then paintings of Da Vinci.

How did my facination with John's Gospel begin?

I became interested in the gospel of John in 1999. As a youth pastor working busily preparing activities and messages to deliver on Wednesday Night, I had the additional responsibility of teaching the dozen or so faithful kids who showed up on Sunday Morning. I always needed something to teach and I always seemed to lack the time. Flipping through the Bible, in one particular frantic quest, I came to the gospel of John. John has it all, I thought. It’s a good place to start.

Up till that time in our Sunday School, I utilized a game called “Crack the Case.” Someone would read a case, normally having to do with a murder. They would present the case to the group and the group would have so many minutes to solve the case by asking yes and no questions. The youth really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it too. It was a good way of using up time. At the end of each game, I would tell the class that this is how someone should perform bible study. Ask a question. No question is to dumb. Answers only come with questions and observations. The bible is a mystery, I said, and we who study the bible are the investigators.

Thus without studying the gospel of John or making a lesson plan, I began to read. We read a little each Sunday and then I began by asking some questions. Sometimes the class was better than others. I found quickly that I, the teacher, was becoming the student as I developed a deeper and deeper curiosity for the text.

My initial curiostiy began while exploring Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3. Jesus tells Nicodemus “No one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he is born of water and Spirit” (John 3:5). Though I had read the gospel quit a few times, for the first time the water caught me by surprise. What does water mean? In my personal devotions I had come across 1 John 5:6, “This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only but by water and blood.” The water appeared almost identical. Water and Spirit and Water and blood. I thought, clearly water is short hand for a deeper truth.

I began to read the whole gospel of John, asking questions and looking for clues. I found that water is almost everywhere in the gospel of John. From John the Baptist testimony in chapter one to Christ crucifixion in chapter nineteen. Why did John use water so much and for what purpose? The more I searched the more I learned and gradually a thesis began to develop.

I began to tell everyone about my search. It fascinated me and I loved to see peoples faces as they learned something new. I wanted to write a paper on the subject. I shelved the idea, however, when in 2000 I moved to southern California to continue my education at BIOLA univesity. In the stacks of BIOLA's library I found a whole book on the topic written by Larry Paul Jones.

Two years later I picked up the quest again. In the mist of researching a paper on baptism and the reception of the Spirit in Acts 19, I encountered several articles on water in the gospel of John. I began to read the gospel of John again. I picked up Larry Paul Jones’ book and found that his arguments were incomplete. I found there was need for further research.

In Spring of 2002 I went to BIOLA’s library and began to copy every article of interest that I could find on the water, as well as the meaning and interpretation of John. I encountered ideas that I had only heard about in passing in my studies at Multnomah Bible College. I began to ask new questions about John’s gospel and to formulate new ideas.

The Summer came and with it a chance to devote all my reading to this single subject. Ideas began to pop inside my head like popcorn. By the time the summer ended and my final semester at Biola began, I had read over a hundred articles and books on the subject.

That Fall, I approached biblical studies department about the possibility of doing an independent research class on the subject. I found Wayne Flory an open professor. Over the course of the semester I poured myself into writing on this single subject. My paper "Water in the Writings of John" was now only a small portion of a theory that explained almost every aspect of John's Gospel.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Why is Scripture's Deeper Meaning Important?

Some have expressed to me a concern that if we teach there is a deeper meaning in scripture then some may begin to question their ability to discover scripture's meaning. This thought has certainly crossed my mind. It has also occured to me that a belief in a deeper meaning may smak of liberal eleatism. It could divide the Church into the so-called have and the have nots. People may begin to lord it over others that they are enlightened. "I'm smarter than you are," some may begin to think. I hate snobbering. "knowledge puffs up but love builds up" Paul said. I couldn't agree with him more. So why do I still beleive that we should call attention to this deeper meaning?

The world is only getting faster. With twenty second commericials and bill boards passing at sixty miles an hour, our minds have been trained not to think of anything for more than a few seconds. More and more messages have to be bold, straight forward. We have abandoned subtelty. Sarcasm has replaced irony. Churches, likewise, have kept pace with the increased velocity of the world. Sermons have to be short, whorship has to be catchy, the list could go on and on. Sunday morning has become like a shot in the arm for the weekly rat race, rather than the healing touch of a patient nurse.

The speed has caused the world and the Church to abandon refleciton, to see only the surface. For most the world has no more subtelty then a traffic sign. Truth for them is merely what we can see, taste, touch and feel. When the Church encourages this belief by keeping up with the world rather than slowing it down, it abandons the very message it seeks to convey. Without reflection we cannot see God, for though evidence for him exists in the mateiral world, he cannot be seen in the material world. Only through reflection do we see God and only by reflecting on Jesus do we really know who God is and what is to be Godly in this material world.

I beleive that by showing people that there is a deeper meaning in scripture we challenge them to think deeper about scripture as well as the world around them. We challenge them to slow down, take and a second look, and reflect on the meaning of scripture.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Did John Know That Jesus Was Born in Bethlehem?

I don't know if you happened to catch the CBS special on the birth of Jesus this past December. I didn't watch it myself, but I did read a portion of the transcript. The program looks like it gave equal voice to both doubters and believers. The doubters got the first word and the believers got the last. What I wanted to address in this blog is the questioned that is raised concerning the geographic origins of Jesus in the gospel of John. John Dominic Crossan, a one time Catholic monk turned hostile to the Christian faith, states,

“Born in Bethlehem... nobody else seems to know anything about it in the New Testament…. It doesn't seem, for example, that John, in John's gospel, has any idea that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.”

Crossan is referring to John 7...

John 7:40-44 Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, "This certainly is athe Prophet." 41 Others were saying, "This is 1the Christ." Still others were saying, a"Surely 1the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? 42 "Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from athe offspring of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" 43 So athere arose a division in the multitude because of Him. 44 And some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him.

On the surface, John never says anything more on the subject. Crossan assumes that if John new Jesus had been born in Bethlehem he would have stated it. However, what Crossan fails to recognize is that beneath the text John is in fact doing this very thing. If we continue on with this passage we read...

John 7:45-52 45 The aofficers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, "Why did you not bring Him?" 46 The aofficers answered, b"Never did a man speak the way this man speaks." 47 The Pharisees therefore answered them, a"You have not also been led astray, have you? 48 a"No one of bthe rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? 49 "But this multitude which does not know the Law is accursed." 50 aNicodemus said to them (he who came to Him before, being one of them), 51 a"Our Law does not judge a man, unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?" 52 They answered and said to him, a"You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee."

The issue in John 7:40-52 is not where Jesus was born but rather where he is from. Everyone knows that Jesus is from Galilee and because of this they want to exclude him from being the descendent of David and thus not born in Bethlehem. Notice in this passage how both the Pharisees and the people reject Jesus because he is from Galilee. The Pharisees even challenge Nicodemus to "search" the scriptures to "see that no prophet arises out of Galilee."

It has often been the retort of modern interpreters to state that Jonah was a prophet from Galilee. But so what? The Pharisees are not saying that a prophet couldn't arise from Galilee as much as they are saying that THE PROPHET LIKE MOSES cannot arise from Galilee. But what if we did search the scriptures as the Pharisees challenge? What would we find.

We would find that Galilee is only mentioned six times in the Old Testament. But in one prophetic passage of Isaiah we find...

Isaiah 9:1-7 1But there will be no more agloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He btreated the cland of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the 2Gentiles. 2 1aThe people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. 3 aThou shalt multiply the nation, Thou bshalt 1increase 2their gladness; They will be glad in Thy presence As with the gladness 3of harvest, As 4cmen rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4 For aThou shalt break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their boppressor, as 1at the battle of cMidian. 5 For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. 6 For a achild will be born to us, a bson will be given to us; And the cgovernment will 1rest don His shoulders; And His name will be called eWonderful Counselor, fMighty God, Eternal gFather, Prince of hPeace. 7 There will be ano end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the bthrone of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with cjustice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. dThe zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

Does this verse have any connection with John 7. YES!! The very next verse after John 7:52 is John 8:12; John 7:53-8:11 being a later addition. In John 8:12, Jesus declares,

John 8:12 a"I am the light of the world; bhe who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life."

On the surface John never declares a connection to Isaiah 9. However, if we listen to John's implicit commentary (i.e. his deeper meaning) we will begin to see what John is doing. Is John doubting the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem or is he merely providing biblical evidence for the messiah coming from Galilee as well? Just as the Christ was prophesied to come Bethlehem, he was prophesied to come from Galilee. If Jesus fulfills the Isaiah prophecy the how can we doubt that he fulfills the Micah prophecy as well?

Micah 5:2-5 1But as for ayou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From byou One will go forth for Me to be cruler in Israel. 2His goings forth are dfrom long ago, From the days of eternity." 3 Therefore, He will agive them up until the time When she bwho is in labor has borne a child. Then the cremainder of His brethren Will return to the sons of Israel. 4 And He will arise and ashepherd His flock In the strength of the LORD, In the majesty of the name of the LORD His God. And they will 1remain, Because 2at that time He will be great To the bends of the earth. 5 And this One awill be our peace.

Because Crossan looks at only the surface he fails to recognize the true purpose of John's statement.

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