The (Lieben)GOOD LIFE

Most Christians who consider the Bible to be their authoritative source for governing belief and practice recognize the need to learn skills that will better enable us to interpret the Holy Scriptures. Whether it is participating in a small group  inductive Bible study , taking a course in Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament), or attending a Sunday school class on “ How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth ”, we want to learn the proper techniques that will enable us to master the text, to cut through the clutter and get to that theological treasure waiting to transform our lives. In our world of technological domination, it is easy to conceptualize the Bible as a kind of storehouse of truths that are waiting to be discovered and applied once we learn the proper techniques or download the proper technology; it is an object that we study, containing truths, which if we can only unlock them, will richly bless. I think this is a half-truth at best. The Bible, as...

As I am working through Lee Camp's Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World , I noticed some convergence with my earlier post on exploitation versus nurture . Lee has a unique way of framing prayer. He underscores that our culture conditions us to make choices that are based on efficiency, effectiveness (primary values of exploitation). We discern what is "right" by calculating the greatest happiness or the greatest good for the greatest number of people. To borrow from Wendell Berry's world, we ask what will give us the greatest yield. In short, Lee seems to frame prayer within the cultural context of exploitation, in which effectiveness is the final arbiter of truth. Within this framework, Lee reminds his readers that "the gospel calls us to the primacy of faithfulness" (165). Our primary call is not to use our cleverness and ingenuity in order to calculate what would likely be best, or to determine what might be most effective. I...

One of Wendell Berry's most influential articles is "The Unsettling of America", in which he (1) shows how the mentality of exploitation in deeply rooted in the American ethos, (2) how fundamentally revolutionary this way of thinking is, and (3) how this has effected the way we relate to our land, and how it has destroyed community and character. Although Berry is writing as a farmer, his insights are profoundly instructive for all spheres of culture (a term which derives from agriculture!). In this essay, Berry argues that "we are divided between exploitation and nurture". In outlining the difference between the two, Berry writes: "The exploiter is a specialist, and expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health...The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, ...

This post is more for me than anyone else. People blog for all sorts of reasons. I have blogged (or attempted to blog) with a variety of motivations. Recently, I started a new blog, with a new name (Amans Bonum) because I have a new reason for blogging. In a word, it's all about stewardship ! I am grateful for an opportunity to work full-time as a professor of biblical studies. I view this job as a vocation. Since it is my vocation,  I sense that I have the responsibility to order my thoughts, to cultivate the things that I am learning, and to share the fruits with others. Recently, I have become keenly aware of the fact that my job affords me the privilege of reading, thinking, reflecting, and learning from and interacting with others who have the same calling. This blog is a place for me to process my interactions, and a place to share this with others who might be interested in similar things. In an effort to bring order to my blogging/thinking, I have created six foundat...