Invitation to learn together...

If you happen across this blog I would like to invite you to visit www.boothbaybaptist.blogspot.com for the text of my current preaching series. I'd love to have some interaction of the blog as I view it as a forum where we can learn together. Drop by, and let me know what you think!
Pastor Steve Nash

God's Story and You!

Well, our semester has ended, and grades will be posted soon. This "blog" was not a roaring success. I do think it could be a good idea, especially for off campus students and adjunct professors! Perhaps we should have "required" interaction, at least at the beginning of the semester, to get things going. I enjoyed our class times and the opportunity to get to know you all. In our section we had a great bunch of students with great potential for a life that will impact other lives for eternity. God has a plan for you, a good plan. You can look ahead with excitement and anticipation as "his story" unfolds and your part in that story is revealed. Keep looking up!
Vão com Deus!
Dr. Nash

Four Gospels, One Jesus

This week we talked about the challenges of reading the Gospels. Why did God give us four parallel, complementary accounts of Jesus' life, ministry, and teachings, and not a single, more comprehensive volume presenting his complete biography? We need to remember that these too are occasional documents, written to specific audiences with definite pastoral concerns and theological interests. We have talked about the importance of context in interpretation, and the Gospels are certainly no exception. We need to look at the historical situation of Jesus, and appreciate what his actions and teachings revealed to his disciples and to the multitudes. We also need to think about the historical context of the writer, years after the cross and resurrection. The writers used selectivity in bringing together and arranging their accounts of the teachings and works of Jesus in order to teach and minister to the needs of their audiences. The Gospels are reliable accounts of what Jesus did and said, but they are not exhaustive biographies. They have a message. They teach theology. We need to read each of the four as complete narratives, and study them carefully to understand what the writer was teaching his original readers. Having done that, we can ask how the principles taught relate to us in our 21st century context.

Reading Biblical Narratives

The title of this blog, "What's the Story?", relates directly to our current topic: reading Biblical Narratives. Narrative is the most common literary genre in the Bible. We must read these texts remembering that they present a trustworthy account of what was said and what happened as redemptive history unfolded. I am convinced however that none of these documents were written merely to preserve an account of "what happened back then." They were written for the "here and now" of the author, with a purpose of speaking to the community of faith, and encouraging them to know God better and to walk more closely with him. All this means that as we read these books we need to ask what God was doing in and through the people in the story, and also what the writer was trying to teach his readers about knowing God and living faithfully. Once we understand what the writer was saying to his readers, we can ask what God is saying to us through these stories. Keep reading, and have a great weekend!
Dr. Nash

How to read a letter

"Read a letter, I thought this course was about the Bible?" The New Testament epistles are, for the most part, letters written by an apostle to a church or individual. They are what we call "occasional documents" in that they were written at a particular time to particular people to meet specific needs in the community. It is a bit like playing "Jeopardy!" from our perspective in that the letter is the answer, and as we read it carefully, in order to understand it properly, we need to discern the question (s) that occasioned its writing. We are at a distinct disadvantage from the original readers: they understood their own historical situation, the relationship they had with the writer, and the challenges and struggles of the community. They also did not have the same cultural distance that we have with the writer. As 21st century readers we face some challenges in understanding the first century letters, but they are not insurmountable. We need to read the epistles as letters and ask questions about what is being said and what is being presupposed. We need to be students of the historical context and culture. Once we understand what the writer said to his readers (and why he said it) we can better ask what God is saying to us in these writings. As you read Romans this week, and Philemon for the final project, remember you are reading a letter, and see what windows of understanding that opens for you.

Who needs interpretation?

Since the last part of our course is about interpreting the Bible, you might anticipate my answer to the title for this post: we all do! The thing is, we are all interpreting all the time, whether or not we are conscious of the fact. We hear what someone says, or we read what they have written, and based on our common experience and understanding of language we determine what they "mean" by the symbols they have used. Most of the time we do a pretty good job of understanding what we are saying to each other. But what happens when we speak to someone from a radically different culture, say a foreign student from a central asian country about which we know little? The cultural, geographical, and linguistic distance between us can sometimes make understanding one another challenging, especially when we try to communicate abstract concepts. Think about reading the Bible as a cross-cultural experience. Most of the biblical documents were written over a 1500 year period, by writers coming from a very different historical and cultural setting. Things that would have been self evident to the writer, and to his readers, may be harder to discern for us. What was his purpose in writing? What were the needs of his community that prompted the communication? What could he presuppose about their understanding of the images and language he used? We need to be students of the biblical world, trying to understand as much as we can about the writers and their audiences, in order to "hear" more fully and correctly what the biblical documents have to say to us! Fee and Stuart will be a guide to get us started on a lifetime of learning and deepening our understanding of "How to read the Bible for all its worth"!
Dr. Nash

The Fullness of Time had come!

This week we saw how God was in control, preparing the stage for the arrival of Messiah Jesus at just the right time. The messianic expectation in all of its diversity was in full bloom, and few were ready for the coming of the Son of God when he burst on the scene as the son of the carpenter (or so it was assumed!). But why do we have four accounts of the story of Jesus? Would it not have been better for God to inspire someone to write an inclusive and exhaustive biography? As we continue discussing his life and then the birth of the NT church, we'll see that each writer, from his own perspective, complements the others, and wrote with the needs of his readers in mind. What do you think?