Climate Change

Urban Conservative has a post on their blog entitled, "Global Warming Ate My Homework: 100 Things Blamed on Global Warming." I think my favorites are #39 and #62. I’m now on board–something must be done!

Answer: Ecclesiotelic Hermeneutics

This week I asked a question about the meaning of the song, “You Said,” by Hillsong, particularly the chorus:

You said, “Ask, and I’ll give the nations to you.”
Oh Lord, that’s the cry of my heart.

I think that it’s from Psalm 2:7-8:

I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me,
"You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession."

It’s a promise made to David, but the NT authors take it christologically as referring to Jesus (Rom 1:4; Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5). Since the inheritance given to Christ is given to the church in him, Psalm 2:7 can be understood as a promise given to the church (cf. Gal. 3:29, 2 Cor 1:20). It’s an example of what Richard Hays calls an ecclesiotelic hermeneutic, reading the church as the end (goal) of OT text and story. David didn’t understand fully—he thought that the promise was to him and his physical descendants, and that YHWH would give him political/military victory over the nations. But in Christ the nations have been reconciled as part of New Israel. The prophets often spoke more than they knew.

I’m not sure that Darlene Zschech and company consciously thought through all the NT passages, but they clearly read the OT ecclesiotelically—and I think it’s pretty cool.

CTS

Carpool Tunnel Syndrome:

When you are carpooling and you enter a dark tunnel and get that "uneasy feeling" as you sitting next to someone you don’t "Really" know.

Example:

On the way out of Boston, Sally got Carpool Tunnel Syndrome from the new guy John.

Question

Question: have you ever thought about the song, “You Said,” by Hillsong, specifically, where the chorus comes from?

You said, “Ask, and I’ll give the nations to you.”
Oh Lord, that’s the cry of my heart.

Arbitrary Rules, Lady Catherine

I’m still quite sore from a Saturday morning game of touch football played with some friends and coworkers. I’m not the most limber person in the world, and when I’m out of shape and do a lot of running my hamstrings become tighter than the discourse of the Joseph Novella.

Nevertheless, I enjoy football. I think I have the body for it–6’3", about 225 lbs., not as much muscle as there could be, though. As a homeschool student, I never got the change to play high-school sports like Tim Tebow did. Sometimes I feel about sports the way Lady Catherine de Bourgh felt about music:

"There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient."

I was thinking about the various aspects of athletic competitions and games that make them fun. Some sports are contests in a single area of strength (track and field). Others are individual games (tennis, golf, racing). Within the genre of team sports, some are relatively simple and elegant with few "arbitrary" rules, such as soccer and hockey. These games are relatively simple: get the ball/puck in the net, and don’t hurt each other (too badly).

Football and baseball have so many rules. I like these sports most because they require learning context and history to understand. Why does an incomplete pass or a run out of bounds stop the clock, but a tackle in bounds does not? Because in the early days of football they may have only had one or two game balls, and countless minutes of game time was wasted trying to find errant passes that went into the crowd. Who thought up the infield fly rule? Why does the second baseman not have to touch second base when turning a double play? Rules have stories, and stories are fun.