We’ve been finding it helpful to think about what I call ‘the four points of intersection’ between people’s stories and the gospel story. Everyone has their own version of creation, fall, redeption and restoration. Listening out for these enables us to find points of connection in ordinary conversation with the gospel story.

Now Jeff Vanderstelt from Soma has created a great summary and exercise that explains the framework so much more concisely and helpfully than I’ve been doing!

Here’s the video of Jonathan Dodson’s session at Lead09 arguing we need three conversions – to Jesus as Lord, to the church and to mission plus the audio of his breakout sessions on leading missional communities and ‘fight clubs’.

Leading Missional Communities

Fight Clubs: Gospel-Centred Leadership

I’m currently in the Balkans with Brian Jose of Radstock. I’m here with three of our younger leaders, learning from Albanian church planters.

It’s a strange experience to stand outside a mosque, praying for a city with a population of over 80,000 people with no Christians and no missionaries.

Today we’re with a church planting team in another city with no Christians.

This is Macedonia where there are 650,000 ethnic Albanians among whom there are only five Christians.

Please pray for the Balkans. Twice yesterday two seperate Albanian church planters cited Matthew 9:36 as a key verse in their decision to leave their nation to reach the lost: “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

If you know of anyone who would be interested in working with local Christians to reach the Balkans then please get in touch with Brian Jose. His email address is brian@radstock.org.

I’ll perhaps share more reflections and lessons in future posts.

Here’s the video of my talk at Lead09 on ‘mission as lifestyle’.

All the video and audio from Lead09 is available online here.

Here’s the video of my talk at Lead09 on ‘mission as identity’.

The final session of Lead09 was an open session and so less suited to interaction. As I wanted to allow plenty of interaction during my session on ‘mission as lifestyle’, I spoke on ‘mission as identity’ in my fourth session even though logically it provides the foundation for my third talk on ‘mission as lifestyle’. I’ve reverted to the logically order in posting these videos. All the video and audio from Lead09 is available online here.

Tremper Longman III, Proverbs, Baker Commentary on the OT Wisdom and Psalms, Baker, 2006.

Tremper Longman is Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies at Westmont College, USA and a prolific author including commentaries on Ecclesiastes (NICOT, Eerdmans, 1998) and Song of Songs (NICOT, Eerdmans, 2001).

After a translation of the text by the author, the commentary divides into two sections: a section on ‘interpretation’ which looks at the text in its original historical setting and a section on ‘theological implications’ which connects the text with the wider canon. The theological section, however, is only employed for chapters 1-9. Instead we have an appendix in which he looks at various themes: alcohol, anger, appropriate expressions of emotions, appropriate and so on (strangely excluding justice). Each of these lists all the relevant proverbs and then provides an overview of what the book has to say on the topic.

Longman rejects recent complex (fanciful?) constructions of structure in chapters 10 onwards, preferring to see these as ‘relatively randomly organized’ (16). He concludes that the book of Proverbs was compiled over a long period of time, but that we can recognize Solomon’s hand in its composition.

Proverbs, says Longman, ‘do not teach a universally valid truth. On the contrary, proverbs are true only if stated at the right time and in the right circumstance.’ (31) This explains the apparently contradictory proverbs in 26:4-5. They describe what is generally true rather than what is always true. This leads Longman to suggest – and I think this is a very helpful insight – that Ecclesiastes and Job should be read alongside Proverbs ‘as part of a canonical corrective to an over-reading of the book of Proverbs’ (62, 85)

Many themes of Old Testament theology are all but absent in the book of Proverbs (the patriarchs, the monarchy, covenant). But Longman refutes the idea that it contains merely ‘secular advice’. ‘The book is thoroughly and pervasively theological.’ Central to this is the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. Longman acknowledges the parallels in Near Eastern traditions. 1 Kings 4:29-30 says Solomon’s wisdom surpassed rather than supplanted the wisdom of other nations. Pagans may stumble on helpful truths and formulate it in creative ways. ‘However, based on 1:7, [the Israelite sages] still would not judge pagan wisdom teachers as truly and authentically wise, because they lack fear of Yahweh. The bottom line is that there is no wisdom apart from a relationship with Yahweh.’ (58) ‘The best way to know how to get on in the world is to become acquainted with the One so intimately involvement in its creation.’ (79)

Longman suggest what he calls ‘Woman Wisdom’ represents not only the wisdom of Yahweh, but Yahweh himself. This is because she resides on the highest point of the city – the location of the temple. Folly, too, lives at the highest point of the city (9:14) which leads Longman to suggest she represents false gods. Chapter 9 ends with a decision: will you dine with Women wisdom or with Woman Folly? ‘I have argued that chapters 1-9 serve as an introduction, even a kind of hermeneutical prism, through which we should read the rest of the book. The first part of the book requires a decision of the young men, who represents the reader. With whom will one dine, with Wisdom or with Folly? This is a call for a religious decision, a decision between the true God and false gods.’ (61) This is so suggestive, but disappointingly rarely gets referred to in the discussion of chapters 10-31 so we do not get to see how this is played out in day to day choices.

The introduction to the commentary is great. I whole-heartedly recommend it. But this beginning then made me somewhat disappointed with the commentary proper because some of the key discussions in the introduction are not reflected in the comments on individual proverbs which is precisely where you want it!

Application
According to the Series Preface (written by Tremper Longman himself since he is the series editor) the series ‘has a definite audience in mind’, defining the primary users as ‘scholars, ministers, seminary students and Bible study leaders’. If this is a definite audience, I have no idea what an vague audience might include or who Longman has in mind as secondary users! To be fair, he clarifies this by saying ‘we have most in mind’ (the primary primary audience?!) ‘clergy and future clergy, namely, seminary students’. And certainly the style is very accessible. This is a great feature of the commentary. The more technical discussions are relegated to footnotes.

But there is not much to help with application. The two sections of the commentary (‘interpretation’ and ‘theological implications’) are somewhat like the first and second sections of the NIV Application Commentaries. But the third section on contemporary application is missing. The ‘theological implications’ section is supposed to make connections with the contemporary world, but these are few and far between. The commentary provides the groundwork in the ancient world and presents this in a non-technical way. But the reader will have to do the work of application.

In this the themes in the appendix are a great help. These are worth the price of the book alone, not only as a way of preaching through Proverbs, but also in their own write as wise teaching on these topics.

This, though, does raise the issue of how Proverbs should be taught or more broadly how one should engage with the book of the Proverbs. I’m a great believer in letting the genre of Scripture shape how we teach it. Nowhere is this more challenging than with the book of Proverbs. The Proverbs collected in chapters 10 onwards are simply not designed for three-point, 30-minute sermons. They seem far more suited to a ‘proverbs of the day’ approach – a thought to ponder through the day. So let me make a suggestion. Take a proverb, read Longman’s comments on it, write it out on a piece of paper and shove it your pocket. Then meditate on at odd moments during the day. Or even better, memorize it ready to share it at apposite moments.

Christology
Longman suggests some may find his christological reading controversial (16). But my main complaint is not that he employs a christological reading, but that he is does not! He strongly argues in the introduction that we should see the book of Proverbs fulfilled in Christ, seeing Christ as the epitome of wisdom. The problem is that Christ is all but absent in the rest of the commentary. The only exceptions are his comments on Proverbs 8 which he persuasively argues is fulfilled in Christ (though here he simply repeats a section of material from the introduction) and the occasional observation that a Proverb may have lain behind a saying of Jesus.

Longman says Jesus fulfils Proverbs because he is the epitome of wisdom. True. But there is more to it than that. There is a redemptive quality to Jesus the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1). Proverbs provide wisdom because they show consequences and contrasts in an ordered world. They work because God created a world with a created order and a moral order. But the world is now also a messed up world. That is why Proverbs do not always work. That is why, as Longman puts it, we need to beware an ‘over-reading’ of Proverbs. But Jesus is our Wisdom because he is the one who makes wisdom work again by restoring the created and moral order of the universe. (For more on this, see my article on reading Proverbs at beginningwithmoses.org.)

I think an engagement with the heart-centred focus of biblical counselling found in the writings of the faculty of CCEF would have greatly enriched both the redemptive dimension and the practical application.

Conclusion
This is a helpful, thorough and accessible look at the meaning of Proverbs in its historical context. But you will have to work out how to read proverbs christologically and apply them today.

Here’s the video of my talk at Lead09 on ‘community as lifestyle’.

All the video and audio from Lead09 is available online here.

Some time ago I posted on fasting. Here are some more thoughts …

1. Fasting better enables to enjoy food with gratitude

Fasting reminds us we are creatures. We are not self-existent. As the hunger pains bite, we recognise with gratitude and prayer:

• Our dependance on creation for existence. We are intimately bound together with the rest of creation. We depend on seasons, rainfall and harvests – something those of us in cities whose food comes from supermarkets are prone to forget.
• Our dependence on community for existence. We are intimately bound together with other people. We depend on countless people across the world who produce, gather, process, transport and sell our food. We learn again to value then and give thanks to God for them.
• Our dependence on God for existence. He provides our daily bread and our every breathe. And so we pray again, ‘Give us today our daily bread.’

One of the dangers of fasting is that we despise food and think of it as unspiritual when food is God’s good gift to be received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4-5). But I suggest that many of us have lost much of our ability to appreciate food because we over-consume. We miss the joy of satisfaction because we are perpetually satisfied. We are still full from one meal when we tuck into the next. Fasting is any opportunity to rediscover the joy of simple food received as a gift from God.

2. Medicating on sugar, salt and fat – or the living God

When we in the western world have emotional needs many of us turn to food for refuge. We self-medicate with food. The result is ill-health and weight gain. The result is an over-consumption of the world’s resources that contributes to the hunger of other people. And every time we miss the opportunity to turn to God. We don’t live by bread alone. We need God in our lives so that life without God is an empty life. And we cannot fill that emptiness with food. Fasting helps re-oriente us away from self-medication through food towards finding refuge in God. We particularly we turn to foods high in sugar, salt and fat. These consitute our comfort foods. We find comfort in sugar, salt and fat. Sugar, salt and fat instead of the living God. We must be mad! Fasting helps restore our sanity.

Here’s the video of my first talk at Lead09 on ‘community as identity’.

All the video and audio from Lead09 is available online here including the Q&A of the session including decision-making, sharing life, culture creation, the good news of community, the ‘Cheers’ bar, ‘Cold Mountain’ and ‘man hugs’.

Thanks to everyone who left comments on the post asking for help with the title for my forthcoming book on pom. We’re going to go with:

Captured By A Better Vision: Living Pom-Free