opening "devotional video" today. Same question as always:
----
MYSTERY TO SOLVE FOR NEXT CLASS: Which list of the Ten Commandments is the "real" list??
We joked you could win $100 by saying, :Let me read you a list of the Ten Commandments, the only list the Bible explicity calls the Ten Commandments. Tell if this is the list. A hundred bucks says I'm right. Then read them the Ten Commandments from Exodus 34!!:
Exodus 20 Exodus 34: Note: this list, NOT THE OTHER, is the one that says "THESE ARE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS"
1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
1. Thou shalt worship no idol. (For the Lord is a jealous god). Smash all idols,
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
6. You shall not kill.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
8. You shall not steal.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. You shall not covet.
10. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
These look only loosely related to the list we've all heard from Exodust2O
..
Here's Colbert (interviewing a congressman about the Ten Commandments), which
turns out to have several helpful serious points about the "literary world" of the topic Here it is:
You all were very insightful in your comments today. We studied Exodus 3 together, and talked about "three worlds" observations on it. (For help on how to study a passage through the Three Worlds, click the tab at top of page by that name)
-We noted that in the list of nations, one was missing, and conspicuous by its absence (compare the list in Deuteronomy 7:1). This would seem to be intentional, perhaps suggesting that the Israelites/Moses are becoming one of the nations of the Promised Land..
-Why barefoot (sign of priests and slaves)?
-Moses is a prophet (classic pattern,,compare Isaiah, Jeremiah)
-Moses was just minding his own business when God called him
-The last paragraph, "plundering the Egyptians' connected to Deuteronomy 15's rules for how to release slaves and handle their manumission see also Genesis 15:14 and Psalm 105:37
We then moved to s study of the New Testament book of Philemon (click to read this very short book) and did some Three Worlds work on it, and drew some connections to themes in Moses/Exodus. Very fruitful conversation..
-both are about freedom of slaves
-we noted the family language, suggesting tabernacle/church are meant to be familial
-manumission of slaves/plundering of Egyptions
-A classic pun on Onesimus' name.
-A chiasm in verse 5, helping us get to the theme that "love for Christ leads to love for all the saints, especially slaves (and others with no status) . See CHIASM IN PHILEMON 5 andPHILEMON 5 CHIASM
-Paul, like Jesus, is a New Moses: leads slaves to freedom
--
More info if interested:
>>>N.T. Wright's short PHILEMON sermon (video excerpt and complete audio here) will be helpful, as are his comments about the letter here, and his study questions on pages 55-57 here)
Kurt Willems (FPU Seminary student ) has posted a helpful series on Philemon that challenges us to apply the Three Worlds theory.
Great job drawing the Statue of Liberty on Scriblink, our online whiteboard!
How many knew that the statue was (in part) based on Moses?
We introduced Bruce Feiler's concept/book: Moses: America's Prophet.
This would be a great assignement to pursue for your "Adventure."
These videos, and more, as well as excerpts from the book are all on the
--
W
--
Today's video on The Exodus and the "Dance Party on the Beach" is not online in any form (though you can buy it as episode 5 onthis DVD). The points to remember are how this was the seminal/foundational/formative microcosmic event of (perhaps all) Scripture, in that: 1)It presents a pattern and prototype of any deliverance from bondage/slavery; and every "way out" (Ex-Odus) from an old way/world to a new way/world. We had some good discussion about "in-between times" in our lives that we recognized (maybe only in retrospect) as pivotal and formative. Crossing the sea is often meant to call to mind crossing a barrier (remember the Jordan River video from Week One) into a while new world, creation or order; from allegiance to forbidden gods to The One God. Jesus is seen in Matthew as the New Moses in that just as Moses led God's people out of bondage to an oppressive ruler/"king" (Pharoah) and an empire that infected them (Egypt), so Jesus leads God;s people out of spiritual bondage to an oppressive ruler/"king" (Herod) and an empire that infected them (Rome). This is a classic intertexting/hyperlinking/parallelism. 2)It is really the first time God's people are formed/forged into a community; they have "been through stuff together" and are inevitably bonded and changed through a corporate experience. Thus: 3)Also, remember (for the test) the Jewish tradition that the Kingdom of God functionally, and for all practical purposes began (or landed in a foundational way on earth) when God's people there on the beach danced and sang, "The Lord is reigning" ( Exodus 15:18 )...remembering that "reigning" could be translated "King" or "Reigner". Thus, God's Kingship "began" when God's people publicly recognized it after seeing God in action in dramatic way as King. Vander Laan: "The Kingdom begins when God acts" ...Exodus 15:18: DROP-DOWN BOX:
"The Lord is reigning from this point onward."
"The Lord is Kingfrom this point onward."
We expanded our definition of "communitas" from last class via this short clip from Alan Hirsch:
For more on Alan Hirsch see several excerpts of his I added to Tuesday's blog post here.
His website is HERE
We summarized several possible adventure projects so far:
Source Criticism/ JEDP, your own observatiuons on different literary styles, sources, terms in Exodus or Deuteronomy
-"Justifying God": reckoning honestly with how to understand God doing apparently "unGodlike" things in Exodus ( allowing enslavement, killing, advocating killing, judgement on Egyptians, intending to kill Moses, etc.)
-Janzen's thesis that Exodus is fundamentally about ":a change of masters" (see p. for starters
Case study/analysis of Moses: as a leader, or as a person; perhaps as a case study as a leader in communitas (definition here, see also "Moses aqnd communitas articles here and liminality (see definition here, also see "40 years of liminality") More on those terns next week. Though: Why is Moses (unexpectedly) not mentioned as often as one would think in the text?
A book report/review/critique of Bruce Feiler's "America's Prophet: How the Story of Moses Shaped America." Lots of starter info on the "Moses and America" tab above, a
-The "life-saving role of women" (pp. 39-40)
-Kinship societies (Israel) vs. Power-based societies (Egypt) (p. 36)
For anyone who has ever/even wondered why churches call the music part of a worship gathering the "worship time": Read and interact with this.
A strange shift began about fifteen years ago,
Ask most evangelical or charismatic Christians in USAmerica about the place of "worship"
in a gathering. For some strange reason, the word has come to be synonymous with "the songs sung early in the meeting."
"Good morning! After the worship, the children will be dismissed, and Pastor Steve will share from God's word"
We even call the person leading the singing the "worship leader."
Whazzup with that?
Of course, this definition is foreign to Scripture, and to the church in all history and places..until our lifetime in the West.
Why do we also thing a "worship" gathering (after the music, or "worship set")is for teaching?:
In the early church the public worship of the church was a prayer of praise and thanksgiving directed not to the people but to God. Seeing worship as prayer is a paradigm shift from the current presentational notion of worship. Today worship is frequently seen as a presentation made to the people to get them to believe in the first place, to enrich and edify their faith, and to bring healing into their lives. But the ancient church did not design (a contemporary word) worship to reach people, to educate people, or to heal people. Yet in their worship, which was a prayer of praise and thanksgiving offered to God, people were indeed nourished by offering God’s mighty acts of salvation as a prayer to God for the life of the world. The point is, of course, that worship as prayer shapes who we are. But how so?... -Robert Webber, Continued here, ht; Len
Not long ago, our church had some documents to fill out for the IRS (Why in the world is church connecting with IRS?.. But that's another post and topic for another day). So I said to one of our leadership team, "can we have you sign a form after worship?"
Later, as we were signing, she said "I wondered wbat happened. You said we should sign after worship, so when we didn't sign after worship, I figured you forgot."
I had ansolutely no idea what she meant.
Then it hit me. In many circles (and in her previous chiurch, the songs that are sung early in the gatherings are called "worship" or the "worship time" or "worship songs." So she thought i meant "after the music," and I meant "after the gathering (Of course, my definition was ecen more problematic)..
It is unbelievable that so few ever even notice, let alone challenge, this common practice in contemporary church. As I blogged a few years ago:
A strange shift began about fifteen years ago,
Ask most evangelical or charismatic Christians in USAmerica about the place of "worship"
in a gathering. For some strange reason, the word has come to be synonymous with "the songs sung early in the meeting."
"Good morning! After the worship, the children will be dismissed, and Pastor Steve will share from God's word"
We even call the person leading the singing the "worship leader."
Whazzup with that?
Of course, this definition is foreign to Scripture, and to the church in all history and places..until our lifetime in the ... continued
So I was thrilled to catch Dan Kimball's post below (the "worship=music" reference is so accepted and entrenched that in spite of this post below, Kimball has another post called new worship music "Radiant")
I would love to get this topic on the table. It's not just semantics. Well, actually it IS..but semantics matters.
The title of this blog post and question that I ask is not one I am totally serious about - and not really suggesting we actually do call the accountant the worship pastor. But I do have the question of how we have overwhelmingly defined "worship" to primarily be music and singing. I have become very aware of the power of words—and the power of defining words. In the Christian culture we have created I don't believe we can ever assume anymore when we say the terms "gospel", "Jesus", "salvation", "inspired", "evangelical", "evangelism", "missional" etc. we all mean the same thing. I have learned (and sometimes the hard way) that you need to be asking definitions of terms with specific meaning to understand how someone else uses a term that may differ from your definition.
One of these terms is "worship".
If you were to ask most teenagers and young adults what comes to their minds when they hear the word "worship" it will likely be singing. I understand why they do, as we have pretty much defined worship to them over the past 20 years or more as worship = singing. Now it is totally true that we worship as we sing. But that is only one aspect of worship. We have subtly taught (in my opinion) a reductionist view of worship limiting it primarily to music and singing as what defines the word and practice.
I try to pay attention to reasons why we define worship mainly as music these days. And it is not too difficult to discover. What do we call the person in a church who leads the band or singing? It is normally the "worship pastor" or "worship leader". When our music leaders say, "Let's now worship," that is when the singing begins. When a sermon begins or when the offering is received we often don't say ""Let's now worship" like we do when the singing starts. When we think of Sunday gatherings of the church and when does worship happen, we generally think of the singing - not the teaching or the sacrifice of people who are worshiping by volunteering time in the children's ministry or other things happening. You look the Christian albums and as we call them "Best of Worship" or "Worship Greatest Hits" that reinforce the idea that music is the primary—or even only—form of worship. I just read on a Facebook post how a group was bringing in a guest person to "lead worship" and of course this guest person was a musician.We constantly, constantly reinforce by how we use that word casually all the time that it primarily means music and singing.
I teach a lot of younger people about worship and what it means. I usually start in the Old Testament and end somewhere in Revelation (chapter 4 or 5) are great examples of crazy and wild "throne room" worship. One thing that I always stress is that worship is not exclusively music. That worship can happen anywhere and not just the first 20-40 minutes of a Sunday/Saturday/Wednesday church service. In fact, there is no such thing as a "worship song"! A song is simply a song, a tool. One must be in the attitude and in the Spirit for the song to be even used in worship. Otherwise it's nothing different than what we might hear on our top 40 radio stations on any given Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday. Does anyone still listen to FM radio? Worship (and revelation) happens when we're in a place of incomprehension, bedazzlement, and transformation. It has to. What do you expect after meeting God face to face and giving Him all the glory? -Mark Thomas ---
--- In addition to your fist Three Worlds Project due next class..
I will check on your journals next week.
Do your vest to be up to date on Exodus chapters 1-15, and reading Janzen Parts 1-3
Following up our notes (see 9/8) on Genesis 1 and 2/Exodus parallels, and our discussion (9/12) of the plagues as "Counter-Creation" or destruction...
Nahum Sarna:
"Biblical religion revolves around two themes: Creation and Exodus, The former asserts God;s undivided sovereignty over nature; the latter His absolute hegemony over history" (p,1)
Read Sarn on Genesis/Exodus conenction:
Check out the waya a literary chart of chapters 25-39. offeres teh inevitable connection: Creation of Tabernacle=A new Genesis/Creation (Sabbath as 7th day, Moses as "God" etc...)
The obvious next question:
If Exodus is so steeped in Genesis...is it (and Genesis with it) also anyhow tethered to....
....... Revelation? (Explore! Maybe here, here and here...and See page 493 of your Janzen book..... Hmmmm)
If so, is the Exodus event/motif (or the Genesis>Exodus, Creation>Liberation theme) in one sense the central narrative ("pivotal event...dominant motif" -Sarna, p.1; "seminal event," -VanDer Laan video) of Scripture/history?
What then of Jesus, the New Moses, New Creation, New Liberator From Bondage, New Overseer of Tabernacle, etc)?
-------------------------------
"WATCH WITH ME": TODAY'S VIDEO
"time began with the exodus" (Today's VanDer Laan video notes.
"the religious calendar and all its rituals and practices are all reinterpreted in light of the Exodus. The New Year is changed to the spring; the weekly sabbath is rationalized as being grounded in the liberation from Egypt rather than Creation" (Sarna, p. 3) Liberation from Egypt/Exodus =Creation
--
The whole Passover/Watch Night (topic of today's video; the say after Passover/Rosh Hashanna serves as a kind of New Years/Start of the calendar, new beginnings atmosphere...see:
What does this "Council of Elrond" scene from "Lord of the Rings" have to do with the our theme?
Well, for one, "you need people of intelligence on this sort ofmission....quest....thing.":
That's communitas..
Alan Hirsch discussed fear of failure at Catalyst’s second lab. Here is what he said: Victor Turner is a cultural anthropologist that studied the rituals and rites of passage for young African boys into manhood. The ordeal the boys would endure through their rite of passage created a bond deeper that community. It created communitas (takes community to the next level and allows the whole of the community to share a common experience, usually through a rite of passage).
Journeys of adventure can change you significantly.
One of the most profound sense of communitas in the US was 9/11.
In the Bible, when David was in the cave with his band of warriors, communitas was created. When Moses and the Israelites wandered the wilderness for 40 years, communitas was created. The exile formed communitas. Jesus and the 12 disciples were a journey of communitas, so was the group of 70.
The Church in the west is in big, big trouble. The Church is fine in the east. The early church and the Chinese church grew exponentially (BOOM!) despite their persecution. Mission is risky. If you create a community that avoids all risk, the people are stifled.
In trying to reach men particularly, we can learn from this. We can journey together. C.S. Lewis says, “Women are face-to-face creatures, and men are side-by-side creatures.” There is something about a bonding experience that we can learn from, experiences like Habitat for Humanity.
Creating artificial environments at church do not prepare people to cope with the rest of the week. Middle class has an obsession with safety and security. The problem is that we undermine our ability to engage the real world. No wonder we form religious enclaves. We easily forget the good things that God has done for us when we are in a safe zone.
Take some journeys. You can change the world. LINK
Also:
The terminology comes from Victor Turner’s study of rites of passage - the process by which members of a group make the transition from one social status to another. ‘Liminality’, as Hirsch explains it, refers to periods of seclusion from the group and ordeal - for example, the trial by nature that young boys must go through out in the bush before re-entering the village as men. ‘Communitas’ is the intensified, unstructured and egalitarian form of community that develops in liminal situations. It is found in the early church and in churches that are suffering persecution. The Hirschian argument is that this condition should be normative for the missionary people of God.
The question, of course, is whether it is possible to live in a perpetual state of liminality. The exodus and the exile were unsettling and formative experiences, but they were spasms in the history of the people of God, thresholds, transitions in and out of a state of being settled - and ideallysecure and prosperous - in the land. LINK
We practiced and previewed a bit on how to do our first "Three Worlds" Assignment. Remember for this first one, the assigned passage is Exodus 10:1-20 (next time you can pick your passage); due Tues 9/27 Syllabus instructions:
Each student will briefly researchthe a) historical world b) literary world (See Hauler & Young chapters 1-2 for explanation of the three worlds) for the assigned section of Exodus/Deuteronomy, and suggest application for c) our contemporary world . Student will submit notes summarizing their findings. Definitely include any structural literary clues from the surrounding context (the sections before and after the assigned text) that help you. Use any relevant sections of your textbook(s) and class notes for your research, and also use at least two additional sources such as Study Bible notes, commentaries, journalarticles, etc. Several such resources are linked on the top of website,under "online resources." For online resources, it would be best to stick to these resources, as opposed toGoogling online.
---
It's okay if you have more questions than answers. Write down your questions!
Treat this first one like your Impressions/Outline of Exodus assignment, but on a smaller scale, and just adding some research
for the assigned section
Here is some help: Click the tab at top of blog page entitled :
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.”
3 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 4 If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. 5They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. 6 They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians—something neither your parents nor your ancestors have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.’” Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh.
7 Pharaoh’s officials said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?”
8 Then Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. “Go, worship the LORD your God,” he said. “But tell me who will be going.”
9 Moses answered, “We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, and with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the LORD.”
10 Pharaoh said, “The LORD be with you—if I let you go, along with your women and children! Clearly you are bent on evil.[u]11 No! Have only the men go and worship the LORD, since that’s what you have been asking for.” Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh’s presence.
12 And the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail.”
13 So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the LORD made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; 14 they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. 15 They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail—everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.
16 Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. 17 Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the LORD your God to take this deadly plague away from me.”
18 Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD. 19 And the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea.[v] Not a locust was left anywhere in Egypt. 20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.
