Walking in the Light

Below is another installment from our current series at the Robinson Church of Christ based on Darryl Tippens book, Pilgrim Heart.

1 John 1:5 – 2:11

The elder asserts that we cannot walk in darkness and have fellowship with God, who is light.

We’ve discussed the metaphor of light and darkness in a past lesson, what do you think walking in darkness means to this particular author? Committing evil actions? Hiding from God?

The rest of the passage gives us a pretty clear idea of what walking in the light (and conversely walking in darkness) means and what it yields.

What it means: 2:6, 9-10
Obedience in the form of loving one another marks the person who “walks in the light.” Those who “obey his word” and walk as Jesus did stroll in the light (one should hear here echoes of Jesus’ command in John 13:34: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another”), and those who hate one another stumble in the darkness.

What it yields: 1:7, 2:5-6
Those who “walk in the light” live in God (and his love is made complete in him). The blood of Jesus purifies their sin and they enjoy fellowship with one another.

So, how do we go from one camp to the other? How do we cross the threshold from an isolated, stumbling through the dark to a shared fellowship in the light? The central part of our passage (1:8 – 2:2) holds the key: “If we confess our sins . . . .” Don’t deceive yourself and claim to be sinless. Instead, confess and rely your advocate, the same one who has already died for you.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains in Life Together: “In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.” Sin withdraws a person from the community and isolates him, and the isolation only strengthens the destructive power of sin. “Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.”

On the other hand, “in confession the break-through to community takes place.” The sinner can confess and find true fellowship for the first time. “The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham; the sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ.”

Does your church enjoy true fellowship? Why or why not?
What keeps us from confessing to others? To whom should we confess?
What would your church look like if you started being confessional people?

Weekly Challenge:

Since Bonhoeffer warns that confession as a “pious work” or “routine duty” is spiritually harmful, the weekly challenge can’t simply be “Confess to someone.” Forced confession is hardly confession at all. Instead, engage in the following challenge that hopefully leads to healing confession at some point in the future.

This week, find some time to practice “journaling.” Prepare like you are entering into prayer: find a place where you can focus and allow for some time of silence to transition from your daily activities. Take as much time as needed to write your response to or meditation on the following statements:

Everyone who lives is deeply hurt by others.

Everyone who lives has deeply hurt others.
I have wounded and offended my God, the one who loves me and created me.

Respond to only one statement at a time. Feel free to spend multiple “sessions” (be they five or fifty minutes) on one statement.

After completing the journaling activity, ask yourself, “Is there something for which I need to confess? Is there someone to whom I can confess?”

NPR's "All Songs Considered"

I recently discovered a treasure trove of free music, and it's not right that I keep it to myself. NPR's "All Songs Considered" posts complete, live concerts on their website, and you can download them for free. Of course, not all the shows fit my musical interests, but there are some gems. I recommend the Fleet Foxes concert, and I also enjoyed Jim James at the Newport Folk Festival. Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and The White Stripes are next on my list; but even if you don't share my taste in music, I'm sure you can find something to please your ears. And you can't deny that the price is right!

Just the Facts

Our church is preparing to conduct a survey in order to help make decisions about changes in our worship and Bible class format. The goal, it would seem, is to gather objective data ("facts") that will aid the leadership is making an objective decision. As I prepared the survey (yes, I am involved and therefore complicit), I couldn't help think of what G. K. Chesterton might say about such an endeavor.

In The Club of Queer Trades, Chesterton relates the adventures of the mysterious Basil Grant. The tales fit within the detective story genre, but Basil is the anti-Sherlock Holmes. He is a one-time judge who "lost his interest in the law" and started talking "more like a priest or a doctor." He started ignoring the legal crimes of the criminals in his courtroom and instead accused them of things like "monstrous egoism, lack of humor, and morbidity deliberately encouraged." He even tells one defendant, "Get a new soul. That one's not fit for a dog. Get a new soul."

Most people assume Basil has lost his mind, and he retires from public life. The rest of the short book asserts, however, that Basil is afar from insane. With his satirical wit, Chesterton drives home a favorite theme: in this insane world, the most sane people will appear insane. Chesterton playfully explores that theme by tweaking the detective story genre. He replaces the fact-worshipping detective character typical of the genre with a mystic poet who solves impossible mysteries that baffle his companions.

When he makes a snap judgment about a man on the street, for example, his partner complains, "this is very fanciful--perfectly absurd. Look at the mere facts. You have never seen this man before."

"Oh, the mere facts," Basil interrupts. "The mere facts! Do you really admit--are you still so sunk in superstitions, so clinging to dim and prehistoric altars, that you believe in facts? Do you not trust an immediate impression?"

Early in the book, Basil offers a short soliloquy on his unique approach to mystery solving. When Basil concludes that a suspicious letter is not criminal in nature, the following interaction ensues.

"It is. It's a matter of fact," cried the other in an agony of reasonableness.

"Facts," murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, far-off animals, "how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly--in fact, I'm off my head--but I never could believe in that man--what's his name, in the capital stories?--Sherlock Holmes. Every detail points to something, certainly; but generally to the wrong thing. Facts point in all directions, it seems to me, like the thousands of twigs on a tree. It's only the life of the tree that has unity and goes up--only the green blood that springs, like a fountain, at the stars."

The content of this speech indicates what I think Chesterton might say about our church survey. Even if the survey is well written and the sample is large enough and the results clear, what will we do with the "facts" it yields? They'll likely point in all directions, and they might even obscure the truth. At the very least, the results of the survey, those neat little objective facts, should not be given undue authority. Wise leaders will need to interpret the facts and try to access the truth behind them. In order to honor that truth, they may even need to make decisions that seem to contradict the facts. Then, how will those wise leaders be viewed? As despots and tyrants pushing an agenda and ignoring the people? Or as mystics and poets straining for truth?

When we analyze the survey, may we humbly look through the thousands of twigs pointing in different directions to see the life of the tree behind them.

(P.S. I certainly recommend reading The Club of Queer Trades. The puzzling mysteries and Chesterton's satirical wit make it a joy to read.)

A Modest Proposal

Below is the brief proposal which I will submit to the New Testament faculty today. Should it be approved, I will then put together a longer proposal which includes an outline for the dissertation and a lengthy bibliography. It seems some small bit of productivity slipped through a crack in my wall of procrastination.


In 1 Pet 2:21, the author encourages servants to remain faithful through the suffering they endure at the hands of unjust masters, “because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving an example for you, so that you might follow in his footsteps.” The metaphor of “following in his steps” receives a warm welcome in popular Christian thought,[1] but it is often kept at an uncomfortable distance by exegetes and theologians who perceive a dangerous path toward Roman Catholic imitatio piety hiding in the image.[2] Some overcome the discomfort by claiming 1 Pet 2:21 speaks not of “imitation” but of “discipleship.”[3] Thus, they attempt to save 1 Peter from possible accusations of legalism and restore the theological standing of this exegetical step-child.

I do not fault the theological and exegetical inclinations of writers who resist the legalistic connotations of imitation language: neither 1 Pet 2:21 nor the letter as a whole supports a legalistic pattern of religion. Elliott rightly reminds the reader of 1 Peter that “Christ the enabler is Christ the exemplar.”[4] The latter proceeds from the former in 1 Peter, and the two should not be separated. The metaphor of imitation need not be avoided, however, in order to protect 1 Peter from slipping into “works righteousness.” I propose to salvage the metaphor of imitation in 1 Peter by placing it in its proper first-century setting and then hearing the metaphor anew.

In antiquity, pictures of imitation were colored with the language of enablement. Students of a philosopher were enabled to imitate their teacher by being with him.[5] When they gazed upon their deities, devotees of the gods were transformed and empowered to imitate them when they returned to daily activities.[6] Those who studied carefully the lives of great men had implanted in them the desire to copy those worthy patterns in their own lives.[7] The imitation language in 1 Pet 2:21 fits within this milieu.

The metaphor should not be limited to this one unique passage in 1 Peter, however. The whole letter subtly builds a case that the narrative of the believer’s life is a type of the archetypal narrative of Christ’s life. It is a life enabled by the God who calls, and a life sustained by the God who gathers, heals, and shields. The metaphor of imitation in 1 Peter provides both the pattern to be copied and the power by which it can be accomplished.


[1] See as evidence Charles Sheldon’s bestseller In His Steps and the ubiquitous WWJD? paraphernalia based on the central question of his book, “What would Jesus do?”

[2] See John Elliott’s short survey of the reception of 1 Pet 2:21 in “Backward and Forward ‘In His Steps’: Following Jesus from Rome to Raymond and Beyond. The Tradition, Redaction, and Reception of 1 Peter 2:18-25” in Discipleship in the New Testament (ed. Fernando F. Segovia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 200.

[3] For example, Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 199.

[4] “Backward and Forward,” 202.

[5] Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.24-28: “So long as they were with Socrates, they found him an ally who gave them strength to conquer their evil passions.” See Charles Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5-7 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 39.

[6] Seneca (Ep. 94.42) cites Pythagoras: “our souls experience a change when we enter a temple and behold the images of the gods face to face.” See Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 39-40 for other examples of transformation by vision of the gods.

[7] Plutarch writes in the introduction to his life of Pericles that morally good acts are a stimulus to the reader, and the intellectual perception of virtue inspires and impulse to imitate it.

Jack London, meet Iris Murdoch

I'm currently working through an omnibus of Jack London short stories, and I came across the following gem in one of his stories about Hawaii, "The House of Pride." The main character is a self-absorbed, self-righteous, self-assured land baron who has just learned that the free-spirited, ukulele-playing, village playboy is his half-brother. When the image he has constructed of his father crumbles, his own self-image is threatened. London captures the moment of weakness.

"And in that moment, flashing and fleeting, it was given him to see his brother tower above him like a mountain, and to feel himself dwindle and dwarf to microscopic insignificance. But it is not well for one to see himself truly, nor can one so see himself for long and live; and only for that flashing moment did Percival Ford see himself and his brother in true perspective. The next moment he was mastered by his meagre and insatiable ego."[1]

For a brief moment, the light of truth peeked through a crack the fantasy he had constructed about himself and his family, but the power of self-deception is not easily overcome. He quickly spackles the crack and stabilizes his delusion.

The passage from Jack London immediately called to mind another writer who explored the power of the "fat relentless ego."[2] Iris Murdoch was a novelist and philosopher who spent a career writing about the human propensity for self-delusion. Her novels regularly feature protagonists who live contentedly in consoling fantasies. The challenging of these fantasies is the main conflict of the novels, and the shattering of them the climax. For one of the best examples, see her Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sea, the Sea.

What her novels show, her philosophical essays explain. "The chief enemy of excellence in morality," she writes, "is personal fantasy: the tissue of self-aggrandising and consoling wishes and dreams which prevents one from seeing what is there outside one."[3] Self-knowledge isn't necessarily the answer to the problem, as we might think. "Self-knowledge" is itself usually a delusion, and so what one needs is to truly see what there is outside oneself.

For Murdoch, seeing properly is essential to moral action (while fantasy, on the other hand, clouds vision and leads potentially to immoral action). "True vision occasions right conduct," she asserts. And elsewhere: "Freedom is not strictly the exercise of the will, but rather the experience of accurate vision which, when this becomes appropriate, occasions action."[4] When one sees others as they really are, she is free from the shackles of fantasy and thereby free to act rightly.

London and Murdoch agree on the importance of true sight as a ground for right action. And they also agree that such vision is nearly impossible for humans to sustain. I'm not sure about London's religious leanings, but I know that Murdoch remained a (very Platonic) atheist her whole life. They both see clearly the human condition, however, whether they're grappling with the "meagre and insatiable" or "fat relentless" ego.

I might give it a different name--the old self, the flesh, or Adam--but I would affirm the clarity of their vision. And I appreciate their powerful, insightful, and beautiful expressions of that vision.

May we be people who keep our eyes fixed on Jesus (Heb 12:2) and attend to the true and noble things (Phil 4:8) in order to clarify our vision.

[1] Jack London, "House of Pride" in Short Stories of Jack London (eds. Labor, Leitz and Shepherd; New York: Macmillan, 1991), 307.

[2] Iris Murdoch, "On 'God' and 'Good'" in Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (ed. Conradi; New York: Penguin, 1997), 342.

[3] "On 'God' and 'Good,'" 347-8.

[4] "On 'God' and 'Good,'" 353 and 354.

A Free and Friendly Space

Below is the third installment from the current series we are doing at the Robinson Church of Christ. My posts have not followed the order we covered the material at our church, but hopefully, dear reader, you can still glean something from them.

For the following lesson, the focus was on "Welcoming," and our class members were challenged to follow up the lesson by inviting someone into their homes, either someone from the church whom they do not know well or someone from their neighborhood whom they expect could not return the favor.

Luke 14
In the parable in Luke 14:15-24, Jesus uses the biblical imagery of a great banquet to describe how God welcomes us into his presence. A certain man has prepared a great feast, and now that it’s ready he eagerly sends out his servant to call the invited guests. He receives surprising responses, however. It seems the guests are all too busy with fields and family to attend the banquet. They simply can’t squeeze table fellowship with the master into their cluttered calendars.

Maybe you've tried to identify the “fields” and “oxen” and “wives” that press on you with their urgency and pull you away from what’s truly important. Maybe you've tried to reprioritize so that you don’t miss the precious time at the banquet with our Lord. And yet . . .

Can you identify one or two things that consistently distract you from being with God? They don’t have to be meaningless things like TV watching or Internet surfing; they can be important things like managing your livelihood and attending to your family. What in your life continually challenges your commitment to seek first the kingdom of God?

The material that precedes this parable reveals that Jesus is concerned with much more than our coming to the banquet. Those who have been welcomed should themselves be welcomers. As Jesus enjoys a Sabbath meal at a prominent Pharisee’s house, he makes various comments about “feasting.” Along with parable, he also calls his hearers to a radical hospitality: “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” rather than your friends, family, or prestigious neighbors. Offer hospitality that honors the root of the word: philo-zenos, “love of strangers.” Henri Nouwen defines hospitality as the “creation of a free and friendly space where we can reach out to strangers and invite them to become our friends” (Reaching Out, 55).

When we practice “hospitality” is it typically “love of strangers”? Who is the “stranger” to us?

What is our goal for hospitality? To be a good Christian? To minister to someone? Or to open ourselves to the blessings of genuine relationship?

Nouwen also warns, “As long as someone feels that he or she is only an object of someone else’s generosity, no dialogue, no mutuality, and no authentic community can exist” (Gracias, 21).

Have you ever felt that you were the object of someone’s ministry duty? How did that feel?

Now we are getting to the real point in Luke 14. It isn’t just about feasting with God or showing hospitality. It’s about humility: don’t seek the seats of honor (14:7-11); don’t throw a party to enhance your image (12-14); don’t assume your salvation and the other’s damnation (15-24); give up everything and take up the cross (25-33). Humility of this kind is an essential element of hospitality; otherwise, it can slip quickly into condescension and self-aggrandizement. You aren’t opening your home to the stranger because you are in a superior position from which to dole out blessing; you are opening yourself to be blessed because you need the stranger as much or more than he needs you.

Jesus welcomed you just as you are, one of the poor, lame, crippled, and blind, into a place of safety, healing, and genuine relationship. Dare you do the same?

A Pedagogical Trick

I discovered that dry-erase markers will not erase off of Scotch tape, and that discovery led to the following Bible class illustration.

Before the students arrived, I stuck Scotch tape to the white board in the shape of a cross. The tape was not totally invisible on a white board, but it wasn't readily visible either. Nothing a little misdirection couldn't cover, anyway.

Then, during class I drew a big box on the board (around the hidden cross) to signify the amount of time we have in a given week. I then asked the students to brainstorm all the many things they do in a week. I prompted them when necessary by giving them some categories of activities to think about. "What kind of activities go into playing a sport?" (practice, working out, games) or "What kind of activities are connected to school?" (clubs, homework, college applications) or "What do you do when you're just hanging out?" (TV, video games, Internet, texting) or "What kind of activities are connected with church?" (worship, Bible class, devos, retreats).

As they named activities, I would write them inside of the box, taking little care to write them in a neat or orderly way. When we were done, I had a box filled with words that I then scribbled on to indicate how we go from one activity to another to another to another with little time for rest. I made the point that even though many of the things on the board are good activities in which to be involved, we have to beware of over-filling our schedules. We need the rhythm of rest and work in our lives. Sometimes we need to declutter so that we can focus on what's most important. At this point in the lesson, I wiped the eraser through the box on the white board. The words were all wiped away, and the shape of the cross remained.

The trick accomplished its goal. The students were surprised and impacted, and I hope it will be something they remember long after they've forgotten who was even teaching class that morning.