The Month in Reviews: September 2015

October 2, 2015October 1, 2015 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

This month’s list of books reviewed clearly is a reflection of my (odd, eclectic?) reading tastes. A good dose of biblical studies and theology with books on Mark 13 and Ephesians, universalism and substitution. Books on restoration and renaissance–topics of interest for one who hasn’t given up on the possibility of Christians having a truly redemptive influence in society. There’s historical fiction, a book by an environmental writer and the late Oliver Sacks on music and sci-fi based on Mars. In case you missed any reviews in September, they are all here, with links to the full review and publication information in the book title:

Agincourt, Bernard Cornwell. Through the eyes of Nicholas Hook, we see the massacre of Soissons, and the English invasion of France under Henry V including the frustrating seige of Harfleur, and the miraculous victory at Agincourt.

The Evangelical Universalist, Gregory MacDonald. This book provides the biblical, philosophical and theological arguments for why the view that all will finally be saved is consistent with evangelical theology and also includes additional appendices responding to issues raised since the book’s first edition.

Wild Idea: Buffalo & Family in a Difficult Land. Dan O’Brien. Dan O’Brien continues the story begun in Buffalo for the Broken Heart, describing the growth of the Wild Idea Buffalo Company, the move to a new ranch, and the challenges of a maturing daughter, an aging friend, and the struggle to build an ethical and ecologically sound business on the ever-challenging Great Plains.

Jesus, The Temple, and the Coming Son of Man, Robert H. Stein. This commentary on Mark 13 sorts through the complex interpretive issues concerning the fall of the temple, apocalyptic events, and the return of the Son of Man.

Restoring All Things, Warren Cole Smith and John Stonestreet. This book narrates the impact of mediating institutions and efforts by Christians in bringing restoration into some of the most challenging situations faced by our society today.

The Drama of Ephesians, Timothy G. Gombis. This book approaches Ephesians as a drama of the victory of God over cosmic powers in opposition to Him through Christ and through a redeemed and transformed church that acts as Divine Warrior. I also posted an interview with the author here.

Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks. Renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks chronicles the neuroscience of music–the various ways music affects the brain, and the unusual effects of various neurological conditions on our perception, performance, and experience of music.

Renaissance, Os Guinness. Against the doomsayers speaking of the darkness of the times, Guinness remains hopeful for a spiritual and cultural renaissance in the west, rooted in the power of the Christian message; and he charts the tasks of faithful witness that precede this and the contours of such a renaissance.

Reading C.S. Lewis: A Commentary, Wesley Cort. This book provides an undogmatic look at C.S. Lewis, considering the influences upon his life and writing, and a commentary on Lewis’s major Christian works.

Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul, Simon Gathercole. Gathercole defends the oft-maligned doctrine of substitutionary atonement, responding to the criticisms and challenges raised and demonstrating from key biblical texts that it can be argued from scripture that “Christ died in our place.”

The Martian. Andy Weir. Mark Watney, left by his crew for dead on Mars, survived a potentially fatal incident and must find a way to survive on Mars alone until he can be rescued.

Beyond Awkward: When Talking About Jesus is Outside Your Comfort Zone, Beau Crosetto. Talking about faith with others often feels awkward and is why most of us don’t do it. This book explores how to press through that awkwardness to important and life-changing conversations.

Best Book of the Month: I rarely choose a religious book as my best book of the month but I found The Drama of Ephesians by Timothy Gombis particularly compelling for its fresh perspective on Ephesians that highlights the spiritual warfare aspect of the book. I also appreciated that Gombis combined good scholarship with clear writing that could be grasped by any thoughtful student of the Bible and applications set in the life of real congregations.

Best Quote of the Month: This is from The Drama of Ephesians:

“In the logic of Ephesians, the two groups are not the saved and the damned, the in and the out. The two groups are those whom God is transforming by his love and those to whom the first group is sent in order to embody God’s love” (p. 77).

Among the things I’m currently reading are a couple books on environmentally sustainable agriculture by an early exponent, Ohio novelist Louis Bromfield, a book seeking to reconcile the philosophy of Ayn Rand and Christianity, a thoughtful work on ways we abuse scripture, and an account of Robert Kennedy’s last campaign by David Halberstam. Last month,I mentioned the Zaleskis’ book on the Inklings. I hope to start it before the month is out. Whether I do or not, isn’t part of the fun of reading the anticipation? At any rate, happy reading!

An Interview with Timothy G. Gombis

September 15, 2015September 13, 2015 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Yesterday, I reviewed The Drama of Ephesians by Timothy G. Gombis. He is an associate professor of New Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and has a Ph.D from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Dr. Gombis agreed to respond to questions I submitted to him via email about his book and his academic work. I appreciated his willingness (and promptness) in sending responses to these questions, both of which appear unedited below:

1. How would you distinguish The Drama of Ephesians from other commentaries and books on Ephesians? Why drama?

The book is not really a commentary, but something more like a biblical-theological-cultural reading of Ephesians. A few things distinguish it from a traditional commentary. First, the book doesn’t merely situate the letter within a first century cultural context, examining its meaning within that setting. Many commentaries do this, and that’s an essential part of interpretation. The book situates Ephesians within the overall thrust of the Scriptural story of God’s redemption of humanity, so in that sense it might be a “canonical” reading of Ephesians. But it also recognizes that “meaning” happens when we read the biblical text within concrete communities of disciples seeking the heart and mind of God for his people and his world. So in that sense, perhaps it’s also an “ecclesial” reading. But I attempted to situate the letter within a contemporary cultural setting, letting the world of Ephesians interpret our cultural situation in order to determine how we might faithfully hear it as God’s word to our communities.

Second, I treat larger discrete sections of Ephesians rather than taking each verse or each phrase or clause. In a sense, it’s more thematic, but I tried to capture the overall thrust of the letter, knowing that detailed treatments of the text can be found in many other excellent commentaries.

I thought that “drama” was helpful when I began thinking of the sort of letter Ephesians is. It’s almost certainly a circular letter that Paul intended to circulate to a range of churches in Asia Minor (and beyond). And it was supposed to shape the life of each community that heard it and studied it and discussed it. So, the letter wasn’t supposed to be a reservoir of doctrine but a script for how gospel players were to go about living out (and living into) the fullness of the gospel. I thought that this whole framework was a helpful device to frame what Ephesians was supposed to do. When I began to explore the metaphor more fully, it opened up more possibilities than I had first imagined and I really found it useful.

2. You write about the heavenly warfare and the powers in Ephesians? How important do you believe this is for understanding Ephesians, and for the church in its life today?

Because the powers and authorities play such a major role in the argument of the letter (and in Paul’s thought, generally), it’s important to understand the role these figures played in the Jewish worldview shaped by Scripture. Now, because of how easily these figures can be sensationalized in our current American fantasy-oriented culture, we need to proceed with caution. We should not be looking for cosmic figures behind every car crash or power-outage!

In the ancient Jewish worldview, cultural corruptions, perverted ideologies, and idolatrous systems that enslaved nations were all thought to have their origins in cosmic figures that had rebelled against God. The crucial function of these figures is that in Scripture, systemic evils have intention behind them. There are large-scale corruptions in culture and in human relations and these evils and their attendant destructions all have a perverse enslaving logic behind them.

It’s not so important for us to talk about cosmic figures in our world today so long as we realize that even today we have enslaving systemic evils and corruptions that the church must discern, identify, and resist. We need to recognize the subtle ways that the church is tempted to compromise its identity and calling by God. The alternative is that the church naively assumes that culture is neutral.

A perfect example is contemporary American Christian participation in the national party political system. The system and its associated behaviors is perverted and corrupted. Christians need to realize that participation in the system draws one into the rhetoric of anger, demonization, and quests for power. If one is involved in such a system, one simply cannot practice love for one’s neighbor.

3. Can you say more about your scholarly interests and current projects on which you are working?

I am currently working on a commentary on Mark’s Gospel in the Story of God Commentary series (Zondervan). Most of my research is in Paul, so this is a bit of a departure for me, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I hope to be finished next August and it may be available sometime in 2017. I’m also exploring some more of the themes from Drama of Ephesians in a new book on Paul’s pastoral method (Eerdmans). I’m taking a look at how Paul pastored his churches given his acknowledgment of cosmic realities and given his dramatic conversion and the revolution in his thinking after seeing Jesus Christ raised and exalted by God.

4. In your book, you reference work with a congregation in Springfield, Ohio. How do you think your participation in the life of a local congregation contributes to your theological scholarship and academic teaching?

I think it’s crucial for professors and biblical scholars to be involved in the life of the church. And I don’t mean involved in speaking to varieties of churches or running big “ministry” organizations. Local congregational and parish ministry isn’t very interesting or sexy. The practices of peacemaking, reconciliation, and those associated with negotiating community life over a long period of time require that one develop wisdom and learn the ways Scripture orients and renews the life-patterns of a community. Sustained participation in a community helps one read Scripture with attention to this pursuit, and it helps biblical scholars remember that we’re most blessed when we’re involved in relationships of mutuality.

In the classroom, we’re used to speaking about Christian realities in the abstract. Living in actual community helps us remember that Christian realities simply aren’t abstract, and simplistic principles aren’t helpful for ministry practitioners who truly want to see God honored in their churches. My ministry experience has been immensely helpful in that way. It has freed me from the illusion that church life is easy and that ministry is straightforward.

5. If there is anything else you would like to say about The Drama of Ephesians or your scholarship and ministry that I’ve overlooked, that you think is important to know about you, I’d love to hear it!

Well, just the basics — I currently teach New Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and I’m beginning my fifth year here. My wife, Sarah, and I have three kids. Two are in college and one is a junior in high school. We are currently involved in a ministry at our church that partners with other churches to help homeless families get into sustainable housing.

Review: The Drama of Ephesians

September 14, 2015September 13, 2015 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

The Drama of Ephesians, Timothy G. Gombis. Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2010.

Summary: This book approaches Ephesians as a drama of the victory of God over cosmic powers in opposition to Him through Christ and through a redeemed and transformed church that acts as Divine Warrior.

That summary might have caught your attention. I’ve always loved the letter to the Ephesians and read numerous commentaries. Most, in some form or another will divide the book in half, with chapters 1-3 comprising the indicative of what God has done in Christ, and chapters 4-6 the resulting imperative of how the church should live as Christ’s redeemed. I was expecting another treatment of this sort when Timothy Gombis caught my attention by talking about drama and reminded me of Dorothy L. Sayers, who wrote an essay asserting that the dogma of the church is the drama–this great, amazing and surprising story that changes everything.

What Gombis gives us here is not another commentary of Ephesians but a perspective on the letter as a whole that ultimately enlists us as players in God’s story. First he gives us the backdrop in explaining the “heavenly” language of Ephesians and the understanding in Paul’s time of the principalities and powers and how some of these function in resistance to God’s purposes in creation. I appreciated his measured approach that takes these realities seriously without becoming obsessed with identification of territorial spirits. There is in fact a cosmic conflict taking place and Ephesians is the drama of how God has achieved a stunning and subversive triumph over these powers and how the church participates in their ultimate defeat. It begins in Ephesians 1:3-19 with a cast of characters incorporated into Christ for the praise of his glory to the rest of the creation. This is a new people with a new identity. Gombis argues that this is not about a “who’s in and who’s out” but rather:

He goes on in Ephesians 1:20-2:22 to talk about how God in Christ achieved the victory that formed this transformed and transforming group. It begins with the assertion of Christ’s kingship and his conflict with the powers in which he subverts their deathly control over humans, and the power of sin, and their divisions against each other. Through the cross, people are brought from death to life, and from hostile divisions to one new humanity that embodies God’s presence on earth, the temple.

In chapter 3, Paul embodies in his own ministry as an apostle, including his humiliations and imprisonment, the cruciform life and victory of Christ. Paul’s prayer at the end of chapter 3 speaks of the ways God empowers subversive actors like Paul, and the church in the fulfillment of their role in this cosmic war. Chapters 4:1-6:18 then call the Ephesian church into this warfare, where they act as the Divine Warrior. Gombis emphasizes that this is not culture warfare against people and not warfare carried out in arrogance, but rather a church in its unity, and purity, and sacrificial service, and humility that embodies the cross-shaped life.

I not only appreciated the overarching dramatic perspective Gombis gives us of this letter but his willingness to share his own participation in efforts to embody these truths in a church in urban Springfield, Ohio where he was involved at the time this book was written (he has since taken an academic post in Grand Rapids, Michigan). The book reflects extensive research on the cosmic warfare elements in Ephesians and Jewish thought of the time, a vision of Ephesians that is both faithful to the text and captures our imaginations in a fresh way, and is good scholarship that is written to serve the very church he sees as a central actor in this drama of God’s triumph.

Tomorrow’s post will feature an interview with Timothy Gombis.