From Rags to (Metaphorical) Riches

At different times throughout the day yesterday I thought it was Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. 

It was only Wednesday. 

Perhaps that is the best indication of my mental state these days, or what it has been anyway for the last several weeks.  Since returning from Germany and starting the new semester three days later, the days and weeks have all become one big blur, and if it wasn’t for my calendar, I would have no idea what has transpired throughout them. 

What has transpired throughout them? 

The typical events… in excess of the typical amount:  meetings, illness, early morning runs, hours upon hours of research and writing, hours upon hours upon hours of tutoring (19 hours last week alone!), presentation preparations, and a few hours here and there with friends. 

One of the most nerve-racking experiences of the last three weeks took place this past Tuesday, but consumed what felt like every spare moment from Friday afternoon through the weekend. 

What was this nerve-racking experience? 

Presenting an academic response to a section of N.T. Wright’s soon-to-be-published new book, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, in our weekly New Testament Seminar.  The topic was Paul’s revised understanding of ‘The Problem of Evil’ after his conversion, with the imbedded question of ‘Plight and Solution’.  If you have no idea what that means, I don’t blame you.  I barely know.

The last time I presented anything of an academic nature in a properly academic environment was my senior year of college.  Eight years ago.  Then, it was to my undergraduate peers who knew nothing about what I was presenting.  On Tuesday, it was in front of Professor Wright—a former Bishop and current world-class New Testament scholar, a handful of other faculty, and about 30 postgraduate students—only one of whom was female.  Such is life in this field. 

I’d suggest that I’ve gone from rags to riches in the last eight years, but I’m currently

more poor than I’ve ever been.    

I love public speaking, so it was a great experience.  And I’m thankful for the metaphorical riches, even if the literal riches are yet to come. 

Right.    

Here’s a glimpse into the experience.  The majority of the people are behind the round table, with about ten seated at it.  I like the picture below because the chap in the chair in the background looks like he’s sleeping.  Upon inspection, his eyes are open, but he looks rather comatose.  I blame the room temperature.

Here I’m sure Professor Wright is checking what I’m saying against his Greek New Testament in order to refute my ideas in his response.  Or perhaps he’s simply memorizing the last 5% of the Greek New Testament as he patiently waits for me to finish my drone.  

Notice the date engraved into the fireplace behind us: 1537!

And now I need to write a sermon for Sunday; it will be my first time preaching anywhere outside of Cooke City.  Unlike academic presentations, the gap between preaching then and now is only 1.5 years.  Has it really only been that long? 

Galatians and Theology Conference

Ten years ago I took an undergraduate class at Crown College entirely focused on studying Paul’s letter to the Galatians.  It would not be an understatement to say that that class changed my life.  Previous to taking it, I had anticipated pursuing a career in pediatrics.  And then one day—a day I recall as if it was yesterday—we looked at Paul’s mention of Abraham in the letter.  That day, as if I was experiencing my own revelation (Gal. 1:12), I realized for the first time that the covenant instituted by Christ was in one way entirely new, but was, at the same time, a fulfillment of the original promises given to Abraham back in Genesis 12.  The bible was transformed for me that day from a book of books into one continuous book.  My excitement over this very basic yet fundamental biblical truth led me to change my major to biblical studies and, at least for a while, to put a career in medicine on the back burner. 

The University of St Andrews hosted a Galatians and Theology Conference this past week, of which I was a part of the student organizational team.  It has been nearly ten years since I changed my major to biblical studies, and this week as I sat in sessions with my Greek New Testament open, all I could think was, ‘ten years later and look where I am now’.  No, it’s not an understatement to say that that undergraduate Galatians class changed my life. 

Professors, pastors and students of varying levels traveled from around the world to participate in the conference.  With their Greek New Testaments and prepared papers in hand, each participant was ready to dig in to the ancient text that has had such a strong influence in forming our Protestant and Catholic conceptions of faith, law, justification, ethics and more.  N.T. Wright, John Barclay, Richard Bauckham, Richard Hays, Bruce McCormick, and many other highly influential Protestant and Catholic biblical scholars and theologians engaged the text with fresh insight and renewed emphases.  As my friend John said, ‘Our bibliography is walking around us’!  

For three days, 9am-9pm, the delegates sat together in large and small groups discussing the relatively short letter of Paul to the church in Galatia.  Two questions may come to your mind at this point: (1) How is there anything new to say about a short letter that has been discussed by Christians for nearly 2000 years? and (2) Who would want to sit around and talk about this short letter for three whole days?  You would think that after this long the Church would have come to a conclusion regarding the meaning of the words of Paul in the Letter to the Galatians.  You would think.  Alas, it’s exactly because the church continues to find new things to say about the letter and because people are willing to sit around and talk about it for that long that people like me can still hope to one day find a job doing just that.  Except that, hopefully, one day I will get paid for it, rather than paying for it!

As part of the organizational team, it was a very physically draining week, but as a participant in the conference it was also a very intellectually stimulating week.  The Academy may be filled with a bunch of nerds and odd balls, but they are nerds and odd balls that love God and the Church, and care deeply about helping the Church to understand God’s love more accurately by dedicating their life to studying the nitty gritty details of Scripture that not everyone has time or desire to study.  I was honoured to be part of the conversations, and though I feel like I know just as much about Galatians as I did ten years ago, I am equally as excited about the significance of that revelation now as I was ten years ago.  I look forward to learning more for many years to come.   

And now it’s back to my own work that I’ve neglected for the last two weeks…

Surprised by Hope

What does Belinda Carlisle (lead singer for the 80’s band, “the Go-Go’s”) have to do with N. T. Wright?  Hard to imagine anything, I know. 

Oddly enough, both are great theologians.  Wright may have, in fact, gained some of his theology from Carlisle.  Okay, that’s terribly unlikely, but her solo hit “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” did hit the top of the charts in England just about twenty years before his book, Surprised by Hope, hit the book stands. 

Let me remind you of her hit song, “Heaven Is a Place on Earth.”

“Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth?
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.
They say in heaven love comes first.
We'll make heaven a place on earth.
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth….

“In this world we're just beginning
To understand the miracle of living….

“Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth?
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.
They say in heaven love comes first.
We'll make heaven a place on earth.
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.”

In all seriousness, I want to recommend to you N. T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope, published in 2007 while he was still the Bishop of Durham.  The book is about heaven, and how it’s a place on earth.  No, really.  And if you haven’t already done so, you need to read this book.

Now, I know who reads this blog.  I can name nearly all of you in a matter of seconds.  And so I know what you are instantly thinking. 

                                               “I don’t know how to read.”                                                                  (Hey, this is the response you’d give me if I were standing in front of you!”)

“I don’t read.”

                                       “I don’t have time to read.”                                           Translated: “I don’t read.”

“I don’t read anything except the newspaper, Outdoor Life, and the Cabela’s Christmas Catalog… and maybe an instruction manual here and there.”

“I don’t read anything about the Bible because I don’t understand the Bible.”

“I don’t read books about theology because it’s all over my head.”

“I don’t read books about theology because I don’t get in to that stuff.”

“I read about one book a year – a page-a-day on the porcelain throne.” 

Let me reiterate, you need to read this book.  It’s written for people such as yourself—people with a basic understanding of the bible, of church culture, of American culture, and people who think about what life after death is all about or what heaven will look like.

Let’s put it this way:  Are you someone who…

• wonders what heaven will look like?
• wonders what life in heaven will look like?
• wonders what happens to a person when they die?
• wonders if a person “goes to heaven” immediately or if we all someone “go” together in the end?
• has a picture of heaven as angels and babies with wings playing harps on clouds?
• has a picture of heaven as pearly gates and golden  streets surrounding a big mansion in the middle?
• thinks that God will one day destroy this corrupted earth and take our souls to his perfect heaven where we will float around like angels and sing hymns to God on His throne all day, every day, for eternity?
• thinks that what we do on this earth does matter (of course – we have to say that it does somehow), but that it doesn’t matter too much because what “saves” us is our faith?
• thinks that what we do to our bodies on this earth doesn’t matter, because they will just “return to the dust” and our soul will “go to heaven?”

and most importantly…  Are you an American evangelical Christian who…

• thinks that Jesus died for our sins so that we can pray a “prayer of salvation” and be forgiven of our sins, i.e. “get saved,” so that we can “go to heaven” when we die?

If any of these characterize you or the questions you ask, then this book has been written with you in mind.  It will challenge you on a number of levels, primarily your understanding of the resurrection of Jesus, the nature of heaven, and what “life after death” means for the Christian NOW.

If you have ever heard me preach (you know who you are), I recommend this book to you.

If you have never heard me preach, but have asked these questions, I recommend this book to you. 

I’ll be happy to walk through it with anyone willing to read it!  Let me know if you are!

A second recommendation is to read it between now and Easter of this year.  I guarantee you, if you do so, you will enter your church on Easter morning with a whole new appreciation for every moment of that day. 

N.T. Wright’s Inaugural Address

The primary reason I am pursuing my PhD in New Testament here at the University of St Andrews is because of the supervisor assigned to me.  Depending on who you ask within evangelicalism, he is considered to be anything from the single greatest New Testament scholar in the world today to a heretical academic with the capacity to lead the Church theologically astray.  Whatever one thinks about him, no one denies his brilliance, his capacity to communicate to the masses on all levels, or his mastery of the New Testament and it’s first-century world.  Personally, I highly recommend anything ever written by the man, if for no other reason than to experience the cadence of his writing style and the sheer enjoyment that comes with reading the work of a truly gifted scholarly writer.   

In coming days I hope to get more recommendations of his work up here for you to utilize.  For now though, I want to share a link to his recent Inaugural Address as Research Professor of New Testament at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.  It was a fabulous lecture delivered to a crowd of people in an auditorium packed so full there was little room even for standing.  And for good reason.

The lecture is titled:  “Imagining the Kingdom: Mission and Theology in Early Christianity.”  I won’t summarize it for you here, but will simply admonish you to spend a few minutes of your day reading it.  If you are at all interested in the Bible, how the church historically has approached the Bible or how our culture affects how we interpret the Bible today, particularly the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus, in this case the kingdom of God, then I recommend this lecture to you. 

Click here for the lecture.

Faint

St. Andrews, Scotland

Dear Haley,

The School's Postgraduate Committee met last week and will be proposing to the University's Admissions Office that you be offered a place on the PhD programme, commencing September 2011, with Professor NT Wright as your supervisor. Further details will be sent to you in due course, but I thought you would like to know the good news as soon as possible.

Kind regards,

"Postgraduate Admissions Secretary"