Hermeneutics of the Open Ear

I read a good blog yesterday from a link on the gospel coalitions website (http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/09/a-hermeneutics-of-the-open-ear)

I really enjoyed the below quoted lines and I feel like they capture what I want my students in our Bible School to come away with:

"We shouldn’t idealize premodern interpretation of Scripture. We’ve learned a lot about ancient languages, history, and culture over the past few centuries, and that new information has immeasurably deepened our understanding of the Bible. Yet, as more and more theologians have discovered, patristic and medieval commentators knew things that we have forgotten, much to our detriment. 

They knew that biblical hermeneutics was a hermeneutics of the open ear. They trained themselves to be attuned to every inflection of God’s voice, to ponder the slightest twist of phrase, to hear every reverberation and overtone of Scripture’s music. A single verse of the Psalms could lead Augustine through the prophets to the gospels and epistles, with a side tour of the Song of Songs along the way."

Weekly Talk- how to make stress your friend

For the weekly talk this week, I chose a small 16 min video from Ted. It is short but packed full of two important points backed with scientific and psychological research:

1. We need to rethink our views on stress
2. Stress should lead us to interaction with others (community)

Prediction of What Education Will Look Like in 50 Years

Here is a prediction about what education will look like in 50 years by Sal Khan, the founder of khanacademy. His predictions are bold, but I think they are not too far off from what it could look like in reality. And honestly as he describes the classroom of 2060, I wish I could go to school there! I hope to implement some of those future elements of education into the bible school I teach in and the inductive bible study course I am working on developing.

The Facebook Philosophy

I enjoyed reading this article written by Mark Zuckerberg, before his startup social media group became a public company to be invested in about a year ago. It is really insightful and revealing to what are the actually motives and hopes behind facebook, as well as there innovate "hacker way" that helps run the company. Here are some highlights from the article, but I personally think the whole thing is worth a read- it is good insight into what the inventors of todays technology are actually hoping to accomplish, and it is also a contrasting way of working compared to past "prussian models" of industrial labor. Industrial workers have now turned into computer programmers following the "hacker way".


Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.

 We’re inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television — by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer together.

Today, our society has reached another tipping point. We live at a moment when the majority of people in the world have access to the internet or mobile phones — the raw tools necessary to start sharing what they’re thinking, feeling and doing with whomever they want. Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries.

we hope to rewire the way people spread and consume information. We think the world’s information infrastructure should resemble the social graph — a network built from the bottom up or peer-to-peer, rather than the monolithic, top-down structure that has existed to date. We also believe that giving people control over what they share is a fundamental principle of this rewiring.

We think a more open and connected world will help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services.

The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.

Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they’re more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: “Move fast and break things.” The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough.

We believe that a more open world is a better world because people with more information can make better decisions and have a greater impact



HIgh Hopes and interesting way of doing business, I hope facebook actually accomplishes what it wants to do and not just provide another avenue for people to waste time and feed fake fish!

Weekly Talk: Nietzsche VS Jesus

I really enjoyed this talk by Dallas Willard titled "Nietzsche VS Jesus: Who Holds the True Path". Dallas's talk is only for about 50 minutes and then students ask questions after that...so it is not as long as it looks. He talks for the majority of time about Nietzsche and other modern philosophers, and then spends the last 10 or 15 minutes contrasting Jesus and the Judeo-Christian worldview with that of the current view of modernism. It is a great introduction into modern thought and how Jesus relates to it.

Reflections on Genesis

Just got done with teaching Genesis in our SBS here in Taiwan.
After several months of study, reading through about 6 different books and over 100 pages of notes (thanks Mccall for the hook-up!)....here are a few of the major things I personally have taken away from this amazing book, in no particular order....

1. God's desire to bless those who follow him
The noun and verb for "bless" shows up 88 times throughout Genesis. And it is safe to say that one of the things that connects every story, genealogy and section of Genesis is the theme of God sovereignly bringing about his promise to bless a nation that blesses all nations. Embedded into his covenant with Abraham is a desire to restore the "goodness" he saw in creation and in man. What God commanded Adam to do he now promises to do himself through Abraham's nation. Fruitfulness, blessing, abundance, goodness...delight...these are things God longs to restore to this fallen creation. The lesson of Abraham waiting 20 some years to have Isaac is proof that God's blessing often comes in different ways then we imagine...and the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah gives a balance to God's desire for goodness enter the world, showing that sometimes the means of doing that is judging total corruption.

2. God's Providence
Genesis offers up many stories of God sovereignly intervening in history to bring about his promise. Whether it is through judging the earth but saving noah, saving Abraham's wife from foreign kings, protecting Hagar and Ishmael or bringing about the promise he gave to Jacob in unusual circumstances (through the trickery and deceitfulness of Jacob). The story of Joseph captures God's providential actions perfectly. In one part of Genesis it is very clear that Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery (37:27-28), however when Joseph looks back on this story he makes a crazy statement: "I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivers. So it was not you who sent me here, but God" (45:4-8). Joseph summarizes this in the last chapter of the book and states to his brothers "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive" (50:20). This amazes me...God is sovereignly working, even through the malicious wills of Joseph's brothers, to bring about a plan that will save many. This summarizes the story of Joseph but it also summarizes all the stories of the Bible. The Bible is the history of God's plan to bring life to many; and he sovereignly does this through both the wicked and the righteous.

A simple example of what the bible teaches about God's providence is found in the Lord's prayer, when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray "Give us our daily bread". Jesus is not ignorant that patterns of nature (rain, seed, harvest..) and plans of man (the farmer, the baker and the person who buys the bread) are involved in the simple action of "getting daily bread"...but the reality is God is behind and over both the patterns of nature and the plans of man. That God sovereignly uses the rain, seed, harvest, farmer, baker and buyer to bring bread. God is providentially involved in the affairs of everyday life! His sovereignty and providence ranges from the redemptive plan to bring life to many and to the daily task of putting bread on the table.

3. God's sovereignty and resolve to bring blessing to the nations should create bold believers
Looking at the above truths from the book of Genesis, God's promises/blessings and God's sovereignty, the natural reaction to me is to want to live boldly for God. If I really believe that the God of all the universe has promised blessing to all the nations and is sovereignly working to bring about a plan that will create life for many...then I should be boldly walking in participation with God to bring about this plan. I want to be a part of God's plan to bring life to many, and if God can uses Joseph's greedy and murderous brothers to accomplish this plan...this surely he is able to use a disciple of Christ! Knowing God's sovereignty does not excuse Man's responsibility, it should ignite us to join our wills to God's will. To give our life, time, money, dreams, family, ministries... to be consumed and wrapped up in God's will and plan to bring life to many.

Another part of Genesis which enforces this challenge to live as bold believers is the creation story of Man. God creates man in his image to be fruitful and to have dominion over the earth. God created man to have influence, a good influence. The truth of the Gospel is not just about "learning to do a few good things"- it is about learning to be human. The image of the invisible God, Jesus, teaches us cracked images how to live as we are meant to live. And now we who are in christ, the new humanity-the new adam-the new creations- should be living as Adam was meant to live...people who are bearing fruit and bringing good to the places they live in. Whether this is through preaching the gospel and seeing salvations of souls and regeneration of life or its through spending time with an old widow and clothing the naked....I really believe we would be missing out on life as it was meant to be live if we did not boldly walk with God in his plan to bring life to many!

James. K.A. Smith on Debates

James K.A. Smith: Process as Important as Product from The Colossian Forum on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed these short clips by J.K. Smith from the Collossian Forum on how to have a good discussion about issues of science and faith. It is especially relevant as I am in the midst of teaching Genesis. I hope I can exhibit this same love and patience he talks about to both sides of the discussion.

"To disagree and not hate each other!"