Over and Done With

I am convinced that the concept of covenant has been misunderstood by Christians, at least by many of the people in the circles in which I run. I have heard people variously say things like, "God made the covenant with Israel and God wont break his oath even if we break ours." Such statements have been used to justify a great deal of things regarding national Israel, their continued chosen status, their right to various promises which have not been literally fulfilled and how it all relates to the church. The problem is that we believe, or at least should believe, that God made a NEW covenant, meaning, among other things, that the old one is over.

We, as Christians, need to stop thinking either that we are God's JV squad that got put on the field while He teaches his starters a lesson; or that Israel is defined in any other way than as those people who follow God through His chosen Messiah.

For those who disagree, I give two pieces of information:

First: the words of Jeremiah from Chapter 32 showing the Israel BROKE the old covenant:

³¹"Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, ³²not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. ³³"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD,

Second: a blog by a NT scholar talking about covenants, how they operate in the OT, and the nature of the covenant the God made with Israel.

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The Living Word

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Parchman Endowed Lecture Series at Truett Seminary at Baylor University. The speaker was Ben Witherington III. I had been trying to find a way to condense my notes on his lectures for inclusion here. Turns out, I don't have to. Ben has felt moved to post the text of at least one of the lectures on his website. Warning: It's long. After all, it was a lecture (which you find here).

One of his main arguments is that given the literacy rates in antiquity, written documents were composed primarily to be read out loud to groups and not privately. Paul's epistles should be considered surrogate sermons, the words the apostle would have preached where he present.

I wonder what the implications are for us today. I wonder if it suggests that God's Word was meant to be communicated primarily as Living (spoken) words. (How shall they hear without a preacher?) If this is the case, I think pastors and teachers should take more seriously the art of preaching and learn not just what to say but how to say it clearly and convincingly.

What say you? Is this off base? Are there other implications of this suggestion?

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