Haven't the "cool kids" always been there?

I noticed an article over at the Gospel Coalition, called "Canceled: How the Eastern Honor-Shame Mentality Traveled West". It is an interesting article about honour-shame culture, and East Vs West. I agree the West is more individualistic, but I'm not so sure that shame is such a new thing, though perhaps it is getting more accent at the moment.After all, hasn't shame has always been a powerful weapon in the arsenal of the socially powerful, and social majorities, and especially of abusers who manipulate by shame? 

For example, have we ever been strangers to using weaponized mockery and ridicule to oppress by shame? Perhaps it starts with the "cool kids" at school who shame the minorities, and those who don't fit. Hasn't shame always been currency for racism and sexism in the West? Shame has always been a good sickle for cutting down tall poppies. It has always been readily at hand, whatever size the community, whether it is "big" culture or sub-culture. Sadly, shame has too often been badly used within church sub-cultures as well. There are "cool kids" there too, even amongst the "grown ups". And now, as Christians have moved more into the minority in Western "big" culture, we are also feeling more what it is like to be the easy targets of abusive shame.

But I do love the article's ending, pointing us to John 9. Jesus has also always been the answer to those cancelled by shame! Jesus seeks out those battered and squashed by abusive and oppressive shaming, and lifts them up, showering them with the purest and truest love.

Calvin on the God-Man, and Matthew 28:18

In the person of Jesus we are often confronted with the two great mysteries of the Christian Faith, both the Trinity and the Incarnation. How do we have three persons in the one God, what are the distinctions, and what is the same for each person? And how can one person be both truly God and truly man, what are the distinctions, and what is the same within this one person?

Recently I was in a situation where a question was raised about the words in Matthew 28:18, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me". The question was along the lines of this: "If Jesus is God, didn't he always have all authority? How can it then be given to him?" Or to put it more technically: "Since Jesus is one of the persons of the Trinity, and equally God, didn't he always have all authority, and so how can it be given to him? Or is he somehow inferior to the Father?" But perhaps sometimes our trouble is that we jump to one mystery--the Trinity--while forgetting the other one--the Incarnation. In Jesus both these mysteries intersect, and we have to be very careful about jumping to conclusions as we try to navigate doubly difficult terrain. There is a danger sometimes of downplaying the actual text of Scripture (and perhaps we can add in another mystery, that of Divine Inspiration), and instead resorting to our doctrinal assumptions of what the sacred text may be speaking about. And sometimes the answers may be found in remembering all the mysteries of the faith.

In the case of Matthew 28:18, I think John Calvin helpfully upholds the plain meaning of the text by rightly resorting to the mystery of the Incarnation rather than being overwhelmed by the Trinity. Listen to his comments, where he interprets Jesus' words as speaking about his authority in the Incarnation rather than his authority as God:

Yet let us remember that what Christ possessed in his own right was given to him by the Father in our flesh, or—to express it more clearly—in the person of the Mediator; for he does not lay claim to the eternal power with which he was endued before the creation of the world, but to that which he has now received, by being appointed to be Judge of the world. Nay, more, it ought to be remarked, that this authority was not fully known until he rose from the dead; for then only did he come forth adorned with the emblems of supreme King.

It was night (John 13:30)

In John 13:30, we have this little statement, seemingly a little bit of trivia, "It was night". Jesus had just announced his betrayal, and Judas had "immediately went out". Prior to that Jesus had washed the disciples' feet, a pointer to the way he would love "them to the end" (13:1), after saying he will be "lifted up from the earth" (12:32) and that he came "to save the world" (12:47). As with many details John gives us, I think his choice of words are very intentional and meaningful. He makes use of facts and details to craft a story of divine realities.

The phrase, "It was night", seems to introduce us to the darkest--and actually also brightest--parts of John's Gospel. These are the last days and hours up to and including Jesus' crucifixion. One disciple betrays Jesus, and another disowns him. The Jews and the Gentiles join together to crush Jesus. And they seem to succeed. Arresting him. Falsely accusing him. Unjustly condemning him. Beating him. Mocking him. Killing him. These are the darkest of times.

Interestingly when Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb, John describes it as "while it was still dark". He could have used the language of "dawn" (Matthew 28:1, Luke 24:1; although actually two different Greek words) or "when the sun had risen" (Mark 16:2), emphasising the beginning of light of a new day, like the writers of the other Gospels. But instead he chooses to speak of darkness. John also doesn't tell us about the supernatural darkness that came during the crucifixion (cf Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33 and Luke 23:44). Perhaps John wants us to think of that whole period from "It was night" until "while it was still dark" as a time of great darkness, and not be distracted by the peculiar darkness just at the crucifixion (although one might expect him to highlight that).

Yet at the same time, I think John wants to see this time as the time when Jesus shone the brightest, because the "light shines in the darkness" (1:5). After John told us "It was night", he also records Jesus as saying, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (13:31). Ultimately in Jesus' death, as God-become-flesh dies, to demonstrate the greatest love and "lay down his life for his friends" (15:13), it is then that we most brightly see "his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (1:14), and it is at that moment, more than any other in all of time, that "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (1:17).

Jesus is "the light of the world" (8:12), and "the darkness has not overcome" (1:5) his light, not ever. And our amazing privilege is that anyone who trusts in Jesus "may not remain in darkness" (12:46), and in following him we "will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (8:12). And as the Father sent Jesus into the world, so now Jesus sends us. (17:18, 20:21).

J C Ryle on what Jesus says about the Bible

What did Jesus think about the Bible? In John 10:35 Jesus says, "Scripture cannot be broken".

I like these comments by J C Ryle (1816-1900) about this verse...

We should observe.. in these verses, the high honor that Jesus Christ puts on the Holy Scriptures. We find Him using a text out of the Psalms as an argument against His enemies, in which the whole point lies in the single word "gods." And then having quoted the text, He lays down the great principle, "the Scripture cannot be broken." It is as though He said, "Wherever the Scripture speaks plainly on any subject, there can be no more question about it. The cause is settled and decided. Every jot and tittle of Scripture is true, and must be received as conclusive."

The principle here laid down by our Lord is one of vast importance. Let us grasp it firmly, and never let it go. Let us maintain boldly the complete inspiration of every word of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Let us believe that not only every book of the Bible, but every chapter--and not only every chapter, but every verse, and not only every verse, but every word, was originally given by inspiration of God. Inspiration, we must never shrink from asserting, extends not only to the thoughts and ideas of Scripture, but to the least words.

The principle before us, no doubt, is rudely assaulted in the present day. Let no Christian's heart fail because of these assaults. Let us stand our ground manfully, and defend the principle of plenary inspiration as we would the pupil of our eye. There are difficulties in Scripture, we need not shrink from conceding, things hard to explain, hard to reconcile, and hard to understand. But in almost all these difficulties, the fault, we may justly suspect, is not so much in Scripture as in our own weak minds. In all cases we may well be content to wait for more light, and to believe that all shall be made clear at last. One thing we may rest assured is very certain--if the difficulties of plenary inspiration are to be numbered by thousands, the difficulties of any other view of inspiration are to be numbered by tens of thousands. The wisest course is to walk in the old path--the path of faith and humility; and say, "I cannot give up a single word of my Bible. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. The Scripture cannot be broken.""

Calvin's summary of the meaning of the sacraments

I was reading from Calvin's Institutes again, and came across this neat sound bite where he effectively summarises the meaning of baptism and the Lord's Supper:

"who by baptism are initiated into the faith; by partaking of the Lord’s Supper profess unity in true doctrine and charity"

Notice these things which immediately come to my mind:

• Baptism is initiation into Christianity, and thereby the community of the church
• The Lord's Supper is not individualistic, but proclaims the unity of the church