“But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.” – Luke 11:20-22

Jesus had an awesome amount of power available to him. He once replied to his disciples, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? ¹A Roman legion was a unit of about 6,000 soldiers. That means that Jesus could have called more than 72,000 angels if he wanted to. The single Angel of the LORD struck down 185,000 men in 1 Kings 19:35 so imagine what 72,000 are capable of!” (Matt26:53). I think we tend to forget he has that kind of power at his disposal because he was mostly meek and humble. The text above is another example of the power at Jesus disposal during his earthly work. When it came to casting out demons, Jesus never had any trouble. They feared him (Luke 8:28 & 31) and they always obeyed him.

The way Jesus explains it, he overcame a strong man who was fully guarded and in armor when he went about casting out demons. His opposition put up the best fight they could. They were as prepared as they were going to get. And how much force did Jesus employ to meet this resistance? The finger of God. That’s it. Jesus cast out demons not by the fully armed and armored power of Beelzebul, but by the power of God’s finger.

It is possible to get hung up on who Beelzebul was or what ‘casting out demons’ really meant in the first century and to miss what Jesus is claiming here. If we do that, we miss the great hope we have in Jesus Christ. That kind of power is on our side. When we face fear of the future or fear of evangelism or doubt about our lives, we need to picture Satan in his armor, bearing the best swords and spears there are and the see Jesus knock him out with the flick of God’s finger. If God is for us, who or what can be against us? (Rom 8:31)

And yes, I recognize that this is easy to write in a blog entry but difficult to live when you’re facing all the ugliness that sin and Satan and the world can muster against us. But this is an important truth that we need to hear and meditate on to support us when everything seems to want to wear us down. I don’t mean this as a trite answer to pain, but as a truth to strengthen us when we face that pain.

All righty! I’m back from my whirlwind tour. The trip was a lot of fun and we laughed most of the time. Except, or especially rather, when I twisted my ankle and the recovered and got my fingers slammed in the door of the car. I ate out every night at some wonderful restaurants in various cities and made new friends in my (near) future office. A very good week.

The highlight for me was St. Louis. I got to catch up with my very good friends Carteé and Colleen Bales. He was just back from Kenya and kind of faded around 9:30 or so but I totally understood. It was a great time to compare notes and see what God has been doing in each other’s lives since seminary.

The next day, after we finished our presentation at the store, I got to have lunch with an internet buddy, Zack Becker aka Doc Misterio. Unfortunately, Zack and I didn’t get much time together. We grabbed lunch and talked about Mark Driscoll and about personal matters and about generosity and graciousness in doing theology. Neat young man and I hope to run into him again and have more time.

The best part is that I’m home now.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! – Luke 11:13

It is possible to focus on a small part and miss the bigger issue. When I first embraced Reformed theology, I was so psyched to find Calvinism actually in the Bible!! I wondered how I’d missed it all those years. So when I read a verse like this I read the first half and said, “Ah ha! See? Total depravity!” Indeed, there it is. However, why did I stop at the first half of the verse? Was Jesus teaching on total depravity or something else?

Clearly, if you read the rest of the verse Jesus point is not total depravity (though he does teach that) but even greater than that, he’s teaching on God’s grace. Yes, we are evil, but God is greater than that and gives us evil people an even greater gift: His Spirit. The focus isn’t depravity but grace.

I wonder how often I missed that? We can focus on one doctrine so much that we miss the bigger picture. I remember someone saying that once a person becomes a Calvinist, they shouldn’t be allowed to talk about it for a year. Not because they’ll find out it is wrong, but because it will give them time to chill out. I think that is wise advice.

I wonder how many truly incredible doctrines I’m missing right now because I’m overly focused on some pet doctrine? God, give me the gift of your Spirit so that I might be able to see through the theology to glimpse your beauty. Amen.

So I’m traveling this week. My first helpdesk job is to travel with the Regional President and do the audio/visual set up for him. Not a bad first job! Whole Foods recently bought Wild Oats and so we’re visiting some of the new stores our region acquired. Patrick (our pres) is welcoming them to Whole Foods and telling them their fate. Will we close, rebrand or keep those Wild Oats? Don’t ask, I don’t know yet.

So here I am in Omaha. Not a bad place. Hopefully I’ll get to go out with Patrick and some of the VPs for steaks tonight. :) Hey, I’m in Omaha. I’ve gotta have a steak! We do our first presentation tomorrow morning and then in the afternoon fly off to St. Louis for our next gig. I haven’t been able to travel much over the past five years because school had me pretty firmly rooted at home. It is good to get out.

Forgot to mention this yesterday, but I got a new job. I got hired by our Regional office to work on the helpdesk. Pretty exciting stuff! I will now be working downtown Chicago which means commuting and stuff, but I think the new job is going to be exciting and challenging and I know it is going to pay better.

“So, did you try turning the computer on before trying to check your e-mail?”

Colin Hansen is an editor at Christianity Today and recently began his M.Div. at TEDS. He has started some web-only content at CT which is trying to summarize some of the big theological discussions and debates so that non-seminarians can understand and digest them. Wow. That is a huge but necessary task! I only hope that Colin is a good enough student to continue that work and keep up with Greek, Hebrew and the avalanche of reading he faces at TEDS.

His first installment is on the New Perspective on Paul. Seven or so years ago when I first heard of it, it was pretty much stranded in the halls of academia and didn’t look like it was going to make it mainstream yet. Recently N. T. Wright has become a bit of a rock star amongst younger evangelicals. From what I can tell (and I could be wrong) this was in part because of the Emergent Church being fascinated with all things new and traditional. Wright, the Anglican Bishop of Durham, fits that bill on both counts. His New Perspective is, well, new and his title as ‘bishop’ and membership in the Anglican communion has that traditional all over it. Some Emergent Church people began reading and loving Wright and I think that is how he got introduced to many American evangelicals. The other thing about Wright is that he is an excellent writer and is orthodox on about 90% of what he says. It is that last 10% that is troubling.

Till recently, the response to the New Perspective has been mostly in academic circles. D. A. Carson edited a massive, two part work addressing the New Perspective entitled Varigated Nomism. It is not for consumption by normal humans as the title indicates. Carson recommends Stephen Westerholm’s book Perspectives Old and New on Paul as an introduction to the subject. If you’re still wondering what the New Perspective is, here’s a quote from Colin:

New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole introduced and critiqued the new perspective in a recent cover story for Christianity Today. He offers this brief definition: “In particular, the new perspective investigates the problem Paul has with ‘works’ or ‘works of the law.'” If by “works” the apostle Paul meant something other than moral behavior, then have Protestants promoted a false dichotomy between faith and works? Could Martin Luther’s critique of the Roman Catholic Church have clouded and confused how Protestants read the New Testament?

See, the problem is that if Paul was not combating legalism, the idea that we’re accepted by God for obeying his laws, then it seems Luther and the other Reformers were reading the Roman Catholicism of their day back in to Paul and fighting a different battle. Wright and others maintain that the Reformers got it wrong as did the Roman Church at the time. We’re saved by faith, the New Perspective says, but we remain saved by obeying the covenant law. That is, we remain saved by works. So much for having Jesus’ righteousness imputed to us. Now he just gets us in the covenant after that it is up to us.

The reason Colin brings all this up is because with Wright, the New Perspective has found its way out of the schools and into the pews. The Presbyterian Church in America recently passed a resolution stating that the New Perspective is out of step with their confession and catechisms. John Piper has written a book that will be published soon that engages Wright on the doctrine of justification. The reason the PCA and Piper have taken up this question is because they’ve had to. Ten years ago no on in the pew had heard of this. Now it is catching on.

I remember about 7 or 8 years ago attending a regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society at Talbot Seminary and listening to someone lecture on the New Perspective. I’d never heard of it before that moment and thought it made some sense. Some time later I learned more about it and became concerned but felt reasonably safe because it was only an academic issue at the time. I could see, though, how the idea could spread into evangelicalism once it found its way out. It is an answer on how faith and works fit together that might make sense to some folks. Thank God we have pastors like Piper and theologians like Carson to address it. And I really hope that Colin can find the time to continue to bridge the space between seminary and the pew.

I had a meeting with my professor today and completed the reading program I had taken this summer. That means that I am now done with the academic portion of my degree. All I have let is a part-time internship and I will have completed my M.Div. I can’t believe I made it!