Exodus 30:22-38

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Wyman

Exodus 30

²² The Lord said to Moses, ²³ “Take the finest spices: of liquid myrrh 500 shekels, and of sweet-smelling cinnamon half as much, that is, 250, and 250 of aromatic cane, ²⁴ and 500 of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. ²⁵ And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. ²⁶ With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, ²⁷ and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, ²⁸ and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the basin and its stand. ²⁹ You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy. ³⁰ You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. ³¹ And you shall say to the people of Israel, ‘This shall be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations. ³² It shall not be poured on the body of an ordinary person, and you shall make no other like it in composition. It is holy, and it shall be holy to you. ³³ Whoever compounds any like it or whoever puts any of it on an outsider shall be cut off from his people.’” ³⁴ The Lord said to Moses, “Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), ³⁵ and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy. ³⁶ You shall beat some of it very small, and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you. It shall be most holy for you. ³⁷ And the incense that you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves. It shall be for you holy to the Lord. ³⁸ Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people.”

I associate one of the most special churches in the world with the smell of skunks. That is a shocking thing to say, I know, but it is true. The first church I ever pastored was a small church in Jimtown, Oklahoma. I loved that church and love it still. I loved those people and love them still! Even so, when I picture that church mentally I immediately smell skunk.

Why? Because there were many, many Sundays when the sanctuary of that church smelled like skunk. A skunk would either get up under the sanctuary or had recently been around it. I do not know. Maybe it was a Baptist skunk. But the evidence of his presence was unmistakable.

Even so, and paradoxically, that church remains one of the sweetest “smelling” churches I have ever known, in a deeper sense. I am referring here to the faith, love, joy, and Christian witness of the people of Jimtown Baptist Church. Skunk or no skunk, the only aroma that really mattered was sweet and beautiful to be sure!

I have been in a few other churches, on the other hand, that smelled just fine…but did not smell right, if you know what I mean. I have been in churches that had beautiful facilities and if there were any skunks around them you sure could not tell. Even so, they did not “smell” right in the only sense that mattered. Something felt wrong. And, oftentimes, I would later discover that there were real problems in the church: infighting, conflict, etc.

In other words, when it comes to church there are things that smell worse than skunks.

Exodus 30 concludes with a fascinating section on the smells of worship. Specifically, the Lord gives instructions for sacred anointing oil and for sacred incense. But are described as having pleasing smells. Yet even here, the issue has less to do with the physical smell than the spiritual.

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UPDATED Sermon Outline for the Arkansas Baptist State Convention 2017 Dixie Jackson Offering Emphasis

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Wyman

UPDATE: The state convention website has now linked to the much fuller outline here.

I was grateful to be asked to write a sermon outline for the Arkansas Baptist State Convention 2017 Dixie Jackson Offering emphasis. Dixie Jackson is the yearly offering that helps to fund Arkansas ministry and missions efforts. An abbreviated outline appears in the ABSC planning guide in their “Additional Resources” packet and the fuller version that I initially submitted will apparently be linked at the ABSC website. Here are screenshots of the abbreviated outline:

Mark 11:22-25

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Wyman

Mark 11

²² And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. ²³ Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵ And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel, Catch-22, is a fascinating, hilarious, and troubling account of a fictional group of American Army bombardiers stationed in Italy in WWII. In one scene, Colonel Cathcart calls the chaplain in to discuss with him the possibility of having prayers before bombing missions. Their discussion reveals the dilemmas we get ourselves into when we don’t think rightly about prayer:

“Now, I want you to give a lot of thought to the kind of prayers we’re going to say. I don’t want anything heavy or sad. I’d like you to keep it light and snappy, something that will send the boys out feeling pretty good. Do you know what I mean? I don’t want any of this Kingdom of God or Valley of Death stuff. That’s all too negative. What are you making such a sour face for?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the chaplain stammered. “I happened to be thinking of the Twenty-third Psalm just as you said that.”

“How does that one go?”

“That’s the one you were just referring to, sir. ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I –‘”

“That’s the one I was just referring to. It’s out. What else have you got?”

“Save me, O God; for the waters are coming in unto – “

“No waters,” the colonel decided, blowing ruggedly into his cigarette holder after flipping the butt down into his combed-brass ash tray. “Why don’t we try something musical? How about the harps on the willows?”

“That has the rivers of Babylon in it, sir,” the chaplain replied, “…there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.”

“Zion? Let’s forget about that one right now. I’d like to know how that one even got in there. Haven’t you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys and God? I’d like to keep away from the subject of religion altogether if we can.”

The chaplain was apologetic. “I’m sorry, sir, but just about all the prayers I know are rather somber in tone and make at least some passing reference to God.”

“Then let’s get some new ones. The men are already doing enough [complaining] about the missions I send them on without our rubbing it in with any sermons about God or death or Paradise. Why can’t we take a more positive approach? Why can’t we all pray for something too, like a tighter bomb pattern, for example? Couldn’t we pray for a tighter bomb pattern?”

“Well, yes, sir, I suppose so,” the chaplain answered hesitantly. “You wouldn’t even need me if that’s all you wanted to do. You could do that yourself.”

“I know I could,” the colonel responded tartly. “But what do you think you’re here for? I could shop for my own food, too, but that’s Milo’s job…Your job is to lead us in prayers, and from now on you’re going to lead us in a prayer for a tighter bomb pattern before every mission. Is that clear? I think a tighter bomb pattern is something really worth praying for.”[1]

It is a hysterical passage because of the colonel’s obliviousness concerning prayer. It is a chilling passage because we can see in the colonel’s exaggerated misunderstanding a reflection of our own self-centered approach to prayer. We may not be as brazen as the colonel but in essence we do the exact same thing: we too can make prayer all about our own desires and our own agendas.

In the aftermath of the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple Jesus speaks about faith and prayer. What He says serves as a much needed tonic to a great deal of our narcissistic prayer tendencies. We will approach this issue from the perspective of certain common “prayer mistakes” to which many of us are likely prone.

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An Uncanny Development in the James Leo Garrett, Jr. Project

Posted on August 5, 2017 by Wyman

265104 Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary started posting old chapel audio earlier this week. Fascinatingly, they posted an October 11, 1957 chapel sermon from James Leo Garrett, Jr. that just so happens to be chapter 2 of the forthcoming Collected Writings of James Leo Garrett, Jr., 1950-2015. Here is the audio.

1 John 5:16-21

Posted on December 24, 2016 by Wyman

1 John 5

¹⁶ If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. ¹⁷ All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. ¹⁸ We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. ¹⁹ We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. ²⁰ And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. ²¹ Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Are all sins equal? Some say they are. Others say they are not. Perhaps, for instance, you have heard of the Roman Catholic idea of “mortal” and “venial” sins. Here is how The Catechism of the Catholic Church delineates these two concepts of sin:

THE GRAVITY OF SIN: MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN

1854 Sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity. The distinction between mortal and venial sin, already evident in Scripture, became part of the tradition of the Church. It is corroborated by human experience.

1855 Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.

Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.

1856 Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us – that is, charity – necessitates a new initiative of God’s mercy and a conversion of heart which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation:

When the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object . . . whether it contradicts the love of God, such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbor, such as homicide or adultery. . . . But when the sinner’s will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the love of God and neighbor, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial.

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”…

1862 One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.

1863 Venial sin weakens charity; it manifests a disordered affection for created goods; it impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However venial sin does not break the covenant with God. With God’s grace it is humanly reparable. “Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness.”

While he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins. But do not despise these sins which we call “light”: if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass; a number of drops fills a river; a number of grains makes a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession.[1]

Many Protestants have tended to reject such notions and to suggest that all sins are equal in the eyes of God. But is this so? And if it is not so, must we hold to some idea of mortal/venial sins? Or is possible to reject both the Roman Catholic concept of mortal/venial sin on the one hand and the idea that all sins are equal on the other?

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This Week

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Wyman

img_0807_8_9_first-baptist-church-newport-ps-2-signed-xl Just a little note to say that I am preaching revival services at First Baptist Church, Newport, Arkansas, this week so there will be no sermon audio or manuscripts posted until next week. It has been an honor to be able to spend time in worship this week with this wonderful church, with Greg Dills, their pastor, and with Billy Davis, the Central Baptist Church Minister of Music who is leading the worship team in revival this week. Please pray for tonight’s concluding meeting. We’ve seen the Lord do amazing things!

Job 40-42

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Wyman

Job 40

¹ And the Lord said to Job: ² “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” ³ Then Job answered the Lord and said: ⁴ “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. ⁵ I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.” ⁶ Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ⁷ “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. ⁸ Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? ⁹ Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? ¹⁰ “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. ¹¹ Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. ¹² Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. ¹³ Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. ¹⁴ Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you. ¹⁵ “Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. ¹⁶ Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. ¹⁷ He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. ¹⁸ His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. ¹⁹ “He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! ²⁰ For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. ²¹ Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. ²² For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. ²³ Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. ²⁴ Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare?

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Mark 3:7-19

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Wyman

Mark 3

⁷ Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea ⁸ and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. ⁹ And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, ¹⁰ for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. ¹¹ And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” ¹² And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. ¹³ And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. ¹⁴ And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach ¹⁵ and have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶ He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); ¹⁷ James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸ Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

An interesting article appeared online recently. It was entitled, “Atheist author explains how Christianity conquered Europe like Starbucks monopolized coffee.” It was a talk given at the Chalke Valley History Festival by author Matt Ridley, a science writer who also is a member of the House of Lords. The talk was entitled, “The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge.”

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John H. Walton’s The Lost World of Adam and Eve

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Wyman

9780830824618 This work constitutes a continuation of Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One, that I reviewed earlier. The basic thesis of The Lost World of Genesis One is repeated here and that line of thought is thereafter applied to Genesis 2 and 3. This work is more detailed and also, I would say, more difficult than the first book. Allow me to say up front that this is one of those works that I’m going to need to tackle a second time, so my comments here need to be seen as first-pass reflections.

Walton continues here is thesis that Genesis is talking more about function than material origins and that Genesis 1 is using temple inauguration language and not propounding empirical science. We find here the same heavy reliance on parallel ancient creation accounts as a hermeneutical key and the same application of Walton’s conclusions to the modern controversies surrounding biblical creationism and evolution. Concerning this last aspect, I would say that Walton offers a more passionate and, it seemed to me, more personal plea for Christians not to create conflicts where they don’t actually exist.

Walton argues that Adam and Eve serve a priestly function in Eden which, when compared to other ancient understandings of temple, should be seen as a sacred grove. Priests in the ancient world often tended to sacred groves and served the deity within temples. Among other interesting proposals, Walton suggests that Genesis does not necessarily suggest that Adam and Eve lived in Eden (priests in the ancient world did not live in the sacred groves – they simple entered them to tend and maintain them), that the serpent should be seen as a “creature of chaos” that came to threaten order with disorder, that Genesis does not necessarily say that Eve and the serpent had their conversation in the garden (it could have been in the disordered world outside of the garden), that since Genesis is not discussing science and material origins it is not necessary to read it as saying that Adam and Eve were actually the first people created, that nothing in the Bible suggests that death itself was part of the Fall, that there was a historical Adam but that Genesis’ description of Adam is primarily archetypal (which is not unusual, Walton argues, since there are other figures in the Bible, like Melchizedek and, indeed, like Jesus, who appear to be historical and archetypal), that Adam’s “rib” is more accurately translated as Adam’s “side” and that this may mean that Adam was cut in two, as it were, and Eve made from the other side, and that Adam and Eve should be seen not as the first two humans but as the first two humans that God chose to call to be His image bearers and to call humanity from disorder to order.

It should be said that Walton consistently argues that he believes what the Bible says and has a high view of scripture. He is not arguing that the Bible is wrong. He is arguing that our interpretations of Genesis have been wrong. He does point to a few historical cautions concerning hermeneutics that might help his cause, primarily from the Reformation era, but it again must be noted that if what Walton is proposing here is correct then two millennia of interpretation concerning Genesis 1-3 are false. The fact that there are wide divergences of opinion about Genesis 1-3 throughout these two millennia actually strengthens my point, for even with this lack of a monolithic hermeneutic and the presence of a wide range of interpretations on these issues over the last two-thousand years, nobody, to my knowledge, has ever proposed what Walton is proposing here in the way that he is proposing it. Walton appears to understand this and to admit as such, but he then appeals to Reformation hermeneutical principles contra simply allowing tradition to eclipse current study and findings in his defense.

I suppose my interest after this first journey through the book is more philosophical than anything. Again, one does not gather that Walton is trying to retreat from science (he actually seems to be as skeptical of modern naive scientism as he is of naive modern a-contextual hermeneutics) in his proposals but rather than he genuinely feels that the ancient context of these creation accounts leads naturally to these interpretations. I will say – and I speak as one who is instinctively extremely cautious about these kinds of paradigm shattering proposals (thank you Vincent of Lerins) – that Walton certainly does not deserve to be dismissed as a mere contrarian or as some kind of heresy peddler. His proposal – right or wrong – seems sincerely to want to honor the scriptures as God’s word to humanity and to take into account how ancient people thought and spoke of these matters.

I feel that a great deal hinges on Walton’s hermeneutical apriori concerning what role ancient cosmologies should have in our interpretations of Genesis. His arguments have weight to the extent that his premises are true, the primary premise being this: when ancient people did cosmology they did not have material origins in mind but rather function. One wonders if it really is quite that simple, though the evidence Walton marshall’s cannot responsibly be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. One wonders further, if that premise is true, if that necessarily means that Genesis 1-3 is speaking of creation in that way or, if it is, if it is speaking of it in that way with such rigid categorization and hermeneutical myopia. It seems to me that Walton is trying to argue on the one hand that the entire enterprise of the first few chapters of Genesis are strongly beholden to the framework of ancient cosmologies but that this enterprise was simultaneously unique and paradigm shifting in certain crucial ways as well. Not, I should add, that this is inherently problematic, for we find this phenomenon throughout the Bible: the appropriation of ancient structures of thought and then their reappropriation in unique and surprising ways. But one cannot help but wonder if the material origins vs. function argument quite so easily closes the door to the concept of creation traditionally understood…or does it simply nuance and qualify it?

Walton has offered a fascinating set of proposals. He discussion of sin and Adam’s role in it (a discussion that he first says should be carried out by theologians but that he then dives into with real fervor) seemed less clear to me than his arguments concerning Genesis 1-3.

These, again, are some initial reactions to the book. I intend to work more on understanding what is being said here and the set of issues Walton raises. For that I do indeed thank him. It has certainly stretched and challenged me.

Entire Cross Examination Sermon Series

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Wyman

I have removed these sermons from the sidebar “Current Series” menu and they are now embedded in the sermon audio archives under their respective books, but I wanted to preserve them here together as a series as well.

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