Dear church, hold on like never before in 2024

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

I did something in 2023 that I’ve not done before: followed a 365 chronological Bible reading plan. Honestly, in all of my years of Bible reading I’ve never been successful following a plan (well except in seminary where I pretty much had to). When I started in January, I had already read the first few chapters so I got a good start. I was motivated to keep at it. There were days I fell behind but then was able to catch up. I enjoyed it so much, I’m doing it again in 2024.

Needless to say, Revelation is the last book to be tackled. Because of dispensationalism’s vast influence on American evangelicalism, like many Christians, I believed the book should be read as chronological and as literal as possible. Woven into this interpretation was a pretribulational rapture and 7-year tribulation period.

Some years ago, I began to see that perhaps that was not the best interpretive approach for this book considering its apocalyptic genre and rich symbolism. It does speak to literal events, but not in the manner that has been made popular such as in the Left Behind series. I explain more about that here and here, if you’re interested. Greg Beale’s commentary was a game changer!

Update: it was suggested to me that the reference to the Left Behind series was a bit uncharitable and lends to a belief that Left Behind is a portrait of what all dispensationalists believe about the end times. Having studied at DTS, I recognize that this is not the case and there are definitely areas where some dispensationalists would disagree about how end times are portrayed in that series. Though at a minimum, all dispensationalists adhere to a futurist framework that interprets events in a chronological order and sees a 7 year tribulation period. At best, the Left Behind series is a pop-level rendering of what dispensationalists interpretations yielded even though they don’t fall into the sensational category. My point is that I’ve come to see things differently than the futurist, literal method that has a framework of a chronological order, rapture and 7 year tribulation period. 

Someone recently recommended to me Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation by Dennis Johnson, professor emeritus of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California. It’s very clear in the opening pages, that Johnson’s approach is very much like Beale, and in line with my shift. I was gripped from the beginning as he explains in a very user friendly way what this book is about. Continue reading →

We are all human afterall

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Well it’s been several months since I’ve written but nothing like a controversial movie to draw me back to the keyboard. I initially had no interest in seeing it, Barbie the Movie. The thought of it just struck me as lame and trite. And seeing ladies going out in droves decked out in pick was even more of a turnoff, to be honest.

Then the negative reviews came: it was a feminist screed that made men look like morons. Ok, I definitely don’t want to see that. It’s not that I don’t have any interest related to feminism (or rather women given full validity for who they are and what they bring to the table). That certainly shouldn’t come at the expense of bashing or belittling males.  No thanks.

But then I saw something interesting, from pastors I respect, none the less–commentary that suggested maybe something was missed in the easy target of pro-feminism. But it was reading this review from Amy Peeler, aptly named, Neither Ken nor Barbie, that piqued my interest. Now that I’ve actually seen the movie, I don’t think I could write a better review or rather a better interpretation of it. Because really, every review and commentary can get the facts about a movie right, but not necessarily interpret it’s meaning according to what it was intended to convey.

Now in full disclosure, I have not read any interview with Greta Gerwig  and what she intended. But Peeler does note that there is an explicit nod to the Genesis narrative, but reversed to make a point about men and women’s interdependence on one another.  Let me expound on this a bit to convey an important message I believe the movie was making. Continue reading →

Freedom that’s really free

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

There has been a lot of mention of freedom in recent years. There are those who tout the concept in relation to liberation of black people as if the shackles of slavery and Jim Crow still pull weight on the flourishing of black and brown people. They’ll speak of the persistent oppression that must be exorcised and prescribe remedies for this to happen: equitable policies, reparations, just policing, etc. They will conclude this is a freedom worth fighting for.

Then there is the freedom granted to us Americans in our Constitution, particular the freedom of Christian expression and to live in a pluralistic society without encumbrances  to Christianity.  Some will even argue that this freedom was packaged in our Christian founding as a nation and we shouldn’t relent to preserve it under the rubric of promoting a moral and just society. They will conclude this a freedom worth fighting for.

And while there can be merit (not to mention some challenges) in each of these “freedom” fights, I am struck by the freedom spoken of in Scripture, particularly in the book of Galatians.

It is for freedom that Christ set you free…(Gal. 5:1)

We would do a disservice to this simple passage by imposing the above categories as if Paul is making room for our contemporary concerns. Rather, his statement must be considered in the context of what he is addressing in this book. And I think it’s pretty important in light of these temporal areas that seem to get so much attention today. Because, if we’re not careful, we’ll allow the  the freedom that referenced here rises far above. Continue reading →

By grace into 2023

Lisa Spencer2 Comments

I haven’t written an end of year reflection in a couple of years. But was we approach the new year in just a matter of hours, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts and also some personal updates.

The last time I wrote a reflection was the end of 2020, months into a pandemic and increasing divisive heat. At that time, here was an observation;

If there is one thing I can say about this year, it’s been one of exposure of hearts and where our loyalties really lie. I say this primarily of the Christian whose first loyalty should be to Christ and his kingdom with loose commitments to the social and political factions of this age. But this year with all that’s happened–from COVID, more police shootings of unarmed black people, lockdowns, and a bizarre election cycle–has pulled back whatever veneer resided over socio-political orientations we tried to mask with our Christian presentation. Not to mention the tensions that have ramped up in the church over the issue of Critical Race Theory that has created more divisions. That’s why I say it’s the year that got us. It exposed us. It showed what we truly valued. We can no longer hide.

Since this time, I have observed that exposure has provoked more of a camp settling and less persuasion efforts on why so and so or such a such position is wrong. What do I mean by that? It seems that people, professing Christians in particular, have resigned to their perspective camps. There is less persuasion with an interest towards Christian unity and more of a huddling together around respective socio-political agendas. And that goes for issues on the left AND the right. And while that may make for some superficial peace, I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Continue reading →

True privilege is our need

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

I’ve been slowly reading this wonderful book, Cultural Identity and the Purposes of God: A Biblical Theology of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race. As the subtitle denotes, it’s a biblical theology which means the author, Steven M. Bryan, is considering his thesis from a perspective of what the whole counsel of Scripture communicates with emphasis on God’s plan for redemption. I recently read through the chapter on Matthew where he explains how Jesus’ first advent demonstrates that identity of Israel as a holy nation has shifted, pointing to the encompassing of the previously excluded. I was struck by these few paragraphs on his exegesis of Matthew 8-9 and thought it to be a timely read as the Advent season draws to a close;

The point of Psalm 107 is that Israel restored by God is not Israel in its experience of ethnic identity, whether inside or outside its own land. Rather, it is Israel in its experience of distress, desperation, and forced dispersion–circumstances brought about by God to turn them from their sin. This is Israel with no place to lay its head; Israel at the point of death; Israel imperiled on the sea; Israel harassed by Satan; Israel dispossessed and despairing because of its rebellion.

This is a new way of thinking about Israel and its privilege. Jesus privileges the unprivileged, to be sure, but the unprivileged are all those whom he saves when they cry out to him. Those who will sit down at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and not the putative heirs, the privileged sons of the kingdom, but the outsiders, the marginal, those considered excluded from Israel. The phrase ‘many [who] will come from east and west’ is, thus, neither a designation of Gentiles, as such, nor of Diaspora Jews, Rather, it designates those whose desperation and affliction under the hand of God mirror the conditions of Israel in its distress–they are the meek, the poor in spirit, and those who mourn (Matt. 5:3-5), and therefore stand over against the privileged ‘sons of the kingdom.’

If in Matthew 8, Jesus speaks of sitting at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Matthew 9, he enacts this meal by eating the tax collectors and sinners. The eschatological scandal of the many who come from east and west to sit down at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob parallels the scandal caused when tax collectors and sinners sit down at table with Jesus. Commentators regularly overlook the parallel, but it goes to the heart of Matthew’s central point in these chapters. They don’t so much tell us as show us what it means to be Israel. The table of the patriarchs–Israel’s table–is a table for the underprivileged, the unincluded, the undeserving. Israel’s table is open to those whose faith and righteousness mirror that of Abraham. The excluded ‘sons of the kingdom’ are identified in Matthew 9 as the scribe and the Pharisees, who object to Jesus’ practice of gathering tax collectors and sinners over a meal. They object because they know what it means. It is the symbolic enactment of Jesus’ vision of restored Israel–an Israel based not on ethnic descent but on a kinship formed through faith and the righteousness it generates. However, unexpected, Israel’s privileges belong to such as these.

Amen. This new identity of Israel is not based on earthly ethnicity but a heavenly need. We have no privilege to exert, only what has been afforded to us through Jesus’ fulfillment of promises based on HIS person and work. I hope that sense remains with us long past the Advent season and Christmas.