LEGAL MODELS FOR THE OLD TESTAMENT COVENANTS: An Issue of Contract or Real Property Law?

 Introduction

The covenants set forth in the Old Testament express God’s relationship with his people. A proper apprehension of the formulation of these covenants is, therefore, critical to a thorough understanding of that relationship. Old Testament scholars have focused upon the Hittite suzerain-vassal treaty and the Babylonian royal land grant as cultural contexts in which God expressed his covenants with his people.1

While such scholars as Mendenhall, McCarthy and Weinfeld have analyzed examples of these two legal models in the ancient texts and have applied their respective component parts to explain features of the Old Testament covenants, some have confused the concepts of contract and real property law in the process of their analysis and application. In this paper I contend that applications of both the suzerain-vassal treaty and the royal land grant as models for the Old Testament covenants are better understood in the light of principles of real property law rather than the law of contracts.

Principles of Contract and Real Property Law

Before undertaking an analysis of the treaty and grant models, a brief explanation of the fundamental concepts of and distinctions between contract and real property law will prove helpful. Both contract and property have been foundational virtually to all ordered societies throughout recorded history. While refined over the centuries, the essential rules of both contract and property law have remained for the most part constant. Therefore, even contemporary articulations of these legal themes provide a valid definitional basis for consideration of ancient judicial formulae.

A succinct description of the fundamental elements of contract is set forth in the American Law Institute’s

Restatement (Second) of Contracts

"A contract is a promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes a duty."2

The essence of contract is promise. A legally enforceable contract requires (1) an agreement (i.e. "offer and acceptance" or "a meeting of the minds"), (2) consideration (i.e. something of legal value given in exchange for the promise expressed in the agreement), (3) capacity (i.e. the legal and factual ability of the parties to understand and enter into the agreement), and (4) a legal purpose. Hence, contract presupposes a bargained-for exchange between parties possessing the ability to perform the promise or promises made.

While contract is founded upon promise, property law is based upon right, or more accurately, a bundle of rights. Modern notions of real property law developed from feudal enfeoffment. Blackstone, in his

Commentaries on the Laws of England,

has stated: "[I]t became a fundamental maxim and necessary principle . . . of our English tenures, ‘that the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom; and that no man doth or can possess any part of it, but what has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift from him, to be held upon feodal [sic] services.’"3

The grant of rights in the land derived from the sovereignty of the king. The rights granted included title (i.e. ownership), possession, use and alienation (i.e. the ability of the grantee to transfer his rights to others).

Having now a conceptual understanding of the principles of contract and real property law, we may progress to an evaluation of the legal models for covenants in the Old Testament. Since the expressions of covenant are frequently articulated in terms of promise, a tendency to confuse the covenantal relationship with a contractual one can often occur.

When, however, both the suzerain-vassal treaty and the royal grant models are viewed in the light of the distinguishing aspects of contract vis-a-vis property, there emerges a pattern demonstrating that the covenantal formulations are more closely akin to concepts of real property than to contract law.

Suzerain-Vassal Treaty

The comparison of the Old Testament covenants to ancient treaty formulations is a relatively recent development in Biblical scholarship. In 1954, G.E. Mendenhall was one of the first scholars to analogize the structure of the Sinai covenant with the suzerain-vassal treaties of the Hittites from the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C.

Mendenhall delineated striking similarities between the six-part treaty formula and both Exodus 19-24 and the entire book of Deuteronomy. While this analogy between the treaty model and the Sinai covenant was indeed valid, subsequent scholarship, as represented by the work of D.J. McCarthy, has erroneously extended the treaty model to encompass contract law concepts.

In response to McCarthy, G.M. Tucker, however, argues that "the OT covenant did not arise in the sphere of Israelite life which required and produced contracts."

Instead of a contractual agreement, both the OT covenants and the suzerain-vassal treaty are formulated upon the essential element of oath. "The covenant between Yahweh and Israel . . . is described as an oath, and the conclusion of that covenant as swearing."

The parallel between covenant and oath is expressly set forth in Deuteronomy 29:12, ". . . a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath." Likewise, the suzerain-vassal treaty included an oath section calling upon the gods as witnesses. For example, "Let these [gods] be witnesses to this treaty and to the oaths."

In contrast to this covenant-oath formulation, contract is not premised upon oath, but merely upon mutual assent to a promise – a meeting of the minds supported by consideration. For example, Genesis 18 reflects the contract concepts of promise of performance or promise of conveyance in Abraham’s purchase of the field of Ephron the Hittite.

Although the subject matter of this contractual transaction is real property, the structure and form of the agreement recorded in Genesis 18 parallels the pattern of typical Akkadian and Old-Babylonian sale contracts.  Both the Biblical example and the contract formulations of these ancient cultures demonstrate that the activating principle of contract was mutual agreement rather than oath.

In light of the distinction between covenant-oath and contract-agreement, we may conclude that the suzerain-vassal treaty model for the covenants is not founded upon concepts of contract law. As Tucker further observed, "The covenant, solemnized by a conditional self-curse, did not require witnesses or the apparatus of the court. The contract, on the other hand, was not a sworn statement, but a document – or an oral agreement – witnessed by outside parties."

Instead of an agreement imposing duties of future performance, both the Old Testament covenants and the treaty model constitute a pledge by the greater to the lesser granting the lesser rights. Thus, having distinguished treaty model for covenant from contract principles, we must look to real property law in order to find a more consistent legal framework in which to understand the Old Testament covenants. The application of property law concepts becomes even more evident as we turn our consideration from the suzerain-vassal treaty to the royal land grant model.

Royal Land Grant

The royal land grant model is principally based upon the Babylonian kudurru documents. Weinfeld noted the contrasts between the grant and treaty models, stating: While the "treaty" constitutes an obligation of the vassal to his master, the suzerain, the "grant" constitutes an obligation of the master to his servant. In the "grant" the curse is directed towards the one who will violate the rights of the king’s vassal, while in the treaty the curse is directed towards the vassal who will violate the rights of the king. In other words, the "grant" serves mainly to protect the rights of the servant while the treaty comes to protect the rights of the master. What is more, while the grant is a reward for loyalty and good deeds already performed, the treaty is an inducement for future loyalty.

With this distinction in mind, both McCarthy and Weinfeld concluded that the Sinai covenant is modeled upon the treaty and that both the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 15 and the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 are formulated according to the grant model.

But, just as McCarthy had failed to distinguish between treaty and contract, Weinfeld fails to distinguish between "grant" and "promise" when he asserts that "In a . . . grant we find a similarity even in formulating the commitment to keep the promise to the descendants of the loyal servants." (emphasis in the original). Rather, the commitment in the grant formulation is better expressed as a commitment to observe faithfully and honor the rights conveyed by the grantor to the grantee and his descendants. Hence, the Prophet Micah proclaimed, "You will be true (`emeth) to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged an oath to our fathers in days long ago."

In spite of his technical, legal imprecision, as noted above, Weinfeld correctly states that "the legal formulae expressing the gift of land to Abraham are identical with the legal formulae of conveyance of property in the ancient Near East. Especially instructive in this case are the formulations of conveyance in perpetuity." Some scholars have suggested that the royal land grant "may be conceived as reflecting a feudal privilege, much like enfeoffment. . . or else it presupposes a system in which the entire land is considered the king’s property."

While evidence for both conceptions of grant is present in the ancient legal documents, the ambiguity may have been intended in order to accommodate "both early feudal notions of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel and parallels to notions of ancient Near Eastern property law that had taken hold in Judah."

Following the model of the kudurru documents and the principles of Babylonian law, the royal grant provides the basis upon which the grantee, Israel, is authorized to take possession of the "given" territory once title (i.e. the right of ownership) has been conveyed by Yahweh as king.

Unlike a contract for the sale and purchase of real property, as illustrated by Abraham’s transaction with Ephron the Hittite in Genesis 18 and discussed above, "the kudurru was a legal document recording the exchange of property. A duplicate tablet was usually made that also registered the legal change of ownership. "This tablet was the official title-deed for the new property owner . . . . [T]he kudurru could have been used as legal evidence proving ownership if the tablet was lost or broken. The kudurru-stone also served to place the newly acquired property and attendant rights (e.g. tax or corvee exemptions) under divine sanction and protection by means of the concluding curse formulae in the inscription. So the kudurru confirmed the recipient’s legal title to the land and protected it from encroachment by calling upon the gods as witnesses and invoking their powers of judgment against any transgressor of the grant."

Applying these concepts of ancient property law to the OT covenants of God with Abraham and David, we may conclude that these covenants conveyed title, possessory and use rights to the grantees and their descendants in perpetuity. These rights were not conditioned upon future performance by the grantees or their descendants. Rather, the entitlement to the benefits was dependent upon the intention and capacity of the grantor. Had contract notions underpinned these covenants then enjoyment of the promised benefits may have been limited to either fulfillment of conditions precedent or avoidance of conditions subsequent by the promisees. A condition precedent is an action that must be undertaken by the promisee before the obligation of the promisor to perform arises. On the other hand, a condition subsequent is the occurrence of a proscribed action by the promisee that releases the obligation of the promisor to perform. Such conditions are not present in property conveyances of title, possessory and use rights in perpetuity.

Finally, although reference to promise in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants may suggest contract law principles, both of these Old Testament covenants are better understood by analogy to the kudurru grants of property rights. The distinct formulation of these covenants in contrast to the Sinai covenant demonstrates that the royal land grant is the more appropriate model. Unlike the treaty, the royal grant is principally a transfer of real property. Therefore, there is little support for construing either the covenant of Genesis 15 or the covenant of 2 Samuel 7 in terms of contractual obligations arising out of promises and conditions upon performance of those promises. Rather both of these Old Testament covenants are expressed in terms of a conveyance of rights that are granted to the recipients as a consequence of the intention and capacity of the grantor.

Conclusion

The significance of understanding the Old Testament covenants in terms of real property law concepts should not be lightly regarded. Whether modeled after the suzerain-vassal treaty or the royal land grant, the covenants do not merely express promises of future performance. Instead, the covenants are grants by God to his people of rights that provide a basis for both their relationship with God and their fellowman. Rights are not, in the first place, intrinsic. Rather, they are an endowment by the greater to the lesser. Conveyances of property rights, in particular, depend wholly upon the validity and enforceability of the interests of the grantor. The intention and capacity of the grantor determines the transfer of rights to the grantee. In the case of the Old Testament covenants, God is the grantor. His sovereign purpose is the intention that activates the covenant grant. His sovereign reign over all creation constitutes the capacity that enables the covenant grant. Therefore, the rights conveyed by the covenant grant are indefeasible.

Endnotes

1. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 2, pp. 266-269, 270-271.

2. Restatement (Second) of Contracts, Section 1.

3. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Oxford, 1698, Book II, Chapter 4, p. 57.

4. G.M. Tucker, "Covenant Forms and Contract Forms," VT 15 (1965), 487.

5. G.E. Mendenhall, "Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition," BA 17 (1954), 50-76.

6. K.A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament, Inter-Varsity, 1966, p. 91.

7. Tucker, VT 15 (1965), 487, (citing D.J. McCarthy, "Treaty and Covenant," AB 21 (1963), 4).

8. Tucker, p. 488.

9. Tucker, pp. 487-490.

10. Tucker, p. 488.

11. Tucker, p. 490 (citing Goetze, ANET, p. 205).

12. Tucker, p. 500.

13. Tucker, pp. 487-499.

14. Tucker, pp. 500-501.

15. Weinfeld, "The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and Ancient Near East," JAOS 90.2 (1970), 185.

16. Weinfeld, JAOS 90.2 (1970), 199; D.J. McCarthy, "Covenant in the Old Testament," CBQ 27 (1965), 237-238.

17. Weinfeld, "Covenant Terminology," JAOS 93.2 (1973), 194.

18. Micah 7:20 (NIV)

19. Weinfeld, JAOS 90.2 (1970), 199.

20. TDOT, vol. 6, p. 385.

21. TDOT, vol. 6, p. 385.

22. A.E. Hill, "The Ebal Ceremony as Hebrew Land Grant?" JETS 31 (1988), 402.

23. Hill, JETS 31 (1988), 402.

24. Hill, JETS 31 (1988), 402.

25. Hill, JETS 31 (1988), 402.

Works Cited

W. Blackstone. Commentaries on the Laws of England, Oxford, 1698.

A.E. Hill. "The Ebal Ceremony as Hebrew Land Grant?" JETS 31:4 (1988), 399-406.

K.A. Kitchen. Ancient Orient and Old Testament, Inter-Varsity, 1966.

D.J. McCarthy. "Covenant in the Old Testament,"bCBQb27 (1965), 217-240.

G.E. Mendenhall. "Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition," BA 17 (1956), 50-76.

Restatement (Second) of Contracts. American Law Institutes.

Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament.

G.M. Tucker. "Covenant Forms and Contract Forms," VT 15 (1965), 487-503.

M. Weinfeld, "The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East," JAOS 90.2 (1970), 184-203.

M. Weinfeld, "Covenant Terminology," JAOS 93.2 (1973), 182-196.

[This paper was written during my studies at Covenant Seminary for a Covenant Theology class]

When Confucius Greets Socrates: Teaching American Law in an Asian University

Last week, I presented this paper at the East Asia Law & Society Conference in Shanghai.

With grateful appreciation to Park Dam, LLB, summa cum laude, Handong University, 2013, for her excellent research and editorial assistance.

Introduction

            Nearly ten years ago I was presenting a paper in the United States at an academic symposium much like the one at which we are gathered today.  I was addressing a group of legal scholars on the subject of recent US Supreme Court decisions in cases involving capital punishment. I was not aware, however, that in my audience were two professors from the faculty of Handong University located in Korea.  After my talk, those Korean professors introduced themselves and invited me to their university’s recently established graduate law school to serve as a visiting professor for a short term teaching U.S. Antitrust law the following summer.  I accepted their invitation and traveled to East Asia for the first time in July, 2004.  That experience led to my subsequent return to Handong in the fall of 2009 and my eventual appointment to the university’s faculty of law where I have since then been teaching in their U.S. and International Law program of study.  This spring term marks my seventh semester teaching American law in an Asian university.

            Through my teaching experiences over this period of time, I have encountered much of what Professor Jasper Kim of Ehwa University described in his article entitled: “Socrates vs. Confucius: An Analysis of South Korea’s Implementation of the American Law School Model” published in the Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal in 2009.  There, Professor Kim addressed the question:  “Socrates vs. Confucius: clash or co-existence?” (323).  His inquiry was focused upon South Korea’s Graduate Law School Act of 2007 by which Korea has transitioned from an undergraduate legal education system to a program of study modeled along the lines of the three-year graduate, professional law school program in the United States (323).

            Professor Kim identified both cultural constraints and language barriers to the successful co-existence of a Socratic-styled Western legal educational approach within the Confucian context in which Korean legal education, both substantively and methodologically, is located.  With respect to cultural constraints, Prof. Kim observed:

Korean culture is predominantly predicated on social inequality while American culture is predicated on equality, and accordingly the American law school system is largely predicated on the use of the Socratic method [sic] rather than the South Korean Confucian-based top-down lecture method. Thus, a fundamental mismatch may exist in the short-run when applying the American law school model to the Korean case (349).

Second, with regard to language barriers, Prof. Kim noted that the English language embodies the fundamental notion of equality and thus it is “relatively non-hierarchical and flat” when contrasted with the Korean language (349).  As a result, he predicted that there would be more clash and less peaceful co-existence between Socrates and Confucius at least in the first stages of Korea’s implementation of American model of legal education.

            While readily acknowledging the accuracy of most of Prof. Kim’s analysis as well as the validity of nearly all his conclusions, I come today to the question of Confucius’ encounter with Socrates in the arena of legal education both from a different perspective and with a distinct task.  Rather than expand upon an evaluation of attempts to teach Asian Law through a Western educational model, I will attempt instead to assess the experiences of a Westerner teaching American law in an Asian university.  Based upon my analysis, I will suggest in this paper that Socrates may indeed not only co-exist with Confucius, but also, that their relationship has the potential to produce a mutually thriving learning environment.  This may occur when Confucius greets Socrates and together they learn from one another how better to relate to their students, to improve their pedagogy and to envision and achieve their learning objectives.

Professor – Student Relationship

            The first way in which Confucius may greet Socrates is in the understanding of the relationship between professor and students.  For the purposes of this paper, I will focus upon just two aspects: attitude and engagement. Both the Confucian hierarchical and the Socratic equalitarian character of this relationship are founded upon and fostered by an attitude of respect.   In the Asian context, it is an immediate, one might say innate, respect owed to the professor by the students due to the professor’s status as a teacher.  In contrast, respect in a Western law school setting is initiated by the professor’s addressing his or her students by their surnames.  This is exemplified in the popular film “The Paper Chase.”  The opening scene depicts the first day of class for first year students at Harvard Law School.  Professor Kingsfield calls upon Mr. Hart, not James or even James Hart, but Mr. Hart, to recite the facts of the first case.        American law students have entered the professional arena by earning admission to law school and professional courtesy is practiced by the law professor’s attitude of respect for his students.  I have found that addressing my law students at Handong by their family names – Ms. Park, Mr. Han – fosters an authenticity of respect that is sometimes lacking when the respect is merely culturally conditioned.

            Furthermore, mutuality of respect between professor and students engenders a greater openness to engagement by the students in the subject matter of the day’s class.  Student engagement emerges beyond respectful, passive listening and vigorous note-taking, characteristic of the Confucian learning tradition, to a more active willingness to pose questions, not only privately to the professor after the class, but even publicly during the class itself. In order to draw students into this more active engagement, I have found that it was necessary for me to reiterate regularly both my willingness to be interrupted by questions and my approval of students who ask questions during class as those who are indeed listening carefully and wanting to know and understand the subject matter more thoroughly.

Teaching Methodology

            An integrated Confucian-Socratesian attitude of respect in the relationship between professor and students flows naturally into the forming of an integrated pedagogy.  Both Confucian and Socratesian teaching methodologies are in their essential form founded upon the pondering of a text through the aid of guided inquiry.  The Socratic Method, that is virtually synonymous with Western legal education, however, turns the approach away from the professor’s thoughts on the case under consideration, to the students’ thinking about the facts, issues, rules and rationales of the case.  Their thinking is guided by the law professor’s queries.  A student’s response to the professor’s opening question will lead to another question from the professor, the reply to which will provide the basis for yet another question, and so goes the interaction within the Socratic classroom.  For a further elucidation of this correspondence, I recommend Warwick University Professor Abdul Paliwala’s article, Socrates and Confucius: A Long History of Information Technology in Legal Education published in 2010.

The professor seeks to hone the students’ thinking skills more than he or she attempts to convey substantive knowledge.  Once the students’ initial hesitancy to respond is overcome by the professor’s openness to their efforts and once the students’ reluctance to speak up due to a lack of confidence in his or her language skills is relieved by the professor’s acceptance of their attempts, the Socratic Method may be effectively used to heighten the Asian law students’ active engagement in the learning endeavor. Indeed, the Confucian methodology that seeks to evoke reflection upon the text may be enhanced as the professor incorporates the Socratesian pedagogy by framing inquiries with a more artful aim and in more inviting tones.  In this way, Confucius greets and invites Socrates into the seowon, thus moving toward a merger of the Eastern and Western legal academy.

Learning Outcomes

            An integrated Confucian-Socratesian characterization of the professor-student relationship founded upon respect, along with a similarly integrated pedagogy encouraging thoughtful engagement of the legal text through guided inquiry, culminates in more holistic learning outcomes.  The transformation of legal educational objectives that was engendered by the adoption of the Socratic-case study approach at the “high citadel” of Harvard Law School at the turn of the Twentieth Century marked the move from merely “learning the law” to the ultimate goal of producing graduates who are “thinking like a lawyer.”  This momentous shift in American legal education was thoroughly analyzed by Michigan Law Professor Joel Seligman in his 1978 book, The High Citadel. 

Sharpening legal practitioners’ critical thinking skills and argumentative tactics did not, however, fully form a professional with developed sense of responsibility and ethics.  As a result, most law schools in America included in their curriculum required courses in professional responsibility and humanities.  During my law school days at Saint Louis University, I met the humanities requirement by taking a seminar examining the inter-relationship of law and religion.  Some law schools in the States, most notably Yale Law School, went so far as to develop an entire course on the “formation of the lawyer” and also offered a dual-degree program in cooperation with the university’s Divinity School that enabled the student to earn both a Juris Doctorate and a Masters of Divinity degree during five years of study.

What Western, Socratic legal education realized as a need was, in fact, an outcome that the Confucian educational tradition always embodied – the formation of a whole person.  These “learning virtues” of the East were recently emphasized in the February 28, 2013 New York Times article by David Brooks.  There he reviewed the work of Professor Jin Li in her book Cultural Foundations of Education: East and West.   Prof. Li’s study concluded, among other things, that:

Westerners tend to define learning cognitively while Asians tend to define it morally.  Westerners tend to see learning as something people do in order to understand and master the external world.  Asians tend to see learning as an arduous process they undertake in order to cultivate virtues inside the self.

Here again, the integration achieved by Confucius welcoming Socrates, and Socrates, in turn, appreciating and learning from Confucius yields both a fuller and deeper commitment to educational outcomes that aim, not only, at finely-honed analytical skills and argumentative strategies, but also a developed sense of professional responsibility and ethical alertness that enables the law school graduate both to think like a lawyer and to act like attorney.  The outcomes of individual courses of study as well as the entire legal education endeavor will be envisioned in terms of forming a whole person capable of ably engaging the external demands and challenges of the legal profession with ethical integrity.

 Conclusion

When Confucius greets Socrates and both value and learn from one another, then they may grow into better relationships with their students based upon mutual respect.  They may improve their pedagogy by engaging their students in reflection upon the legal text through open, guided inquiries that shape the students’ approach to thinking about the law and finally, Confucius and Socrates may help to envision and achieve learning outcomes that more fully form competent and responsible legal professionals.  This integration of the Confucian and Socratesian approaches has the potential to foster a thriving legal-learning environment. I have found this to be the case in my experience of teaching American law in an Asian university.

Wholly Following ~ Living a Singular Life (Part 3)

We have discovered in previous posts in this series that a life devoted to following Christ wholly may be envisioned and experienced as a pursuit of the three-fold path of living a submitted, singular and sacrificed life.  In the most recent posts, we began to ponder the meaning of living a singular life.  How are we to go about living this kind of life?  The answer will always be found in Christ himself.  He forms singularity in our life in much the same way as we are formed into followers who live submitted lives – through the shaping of an attitude of heart, the enhancement of an awareness of soul and the development of a practice of life.

As an integral part of the continuing work of formation, God cultivates love as the attitude of heart within each of his followers that motivates the singular life.  When Jesus was asked which of the commandments was the greatest, he replied, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).  Every aspect of our being is captivated and wholly devoted to God through love.

The greatest commandment, the most important one for Christ’s followers to obey every day in each step along our way is: love God with all that you are, through all that you have, by all that you do, in all that you say, with every thought that you think!  But, how do we experience this all-encompassing and unifying love of God?  How do I know whether I truly love God with my entire being?  John Maxwell, the author of numerous books on leadership, has said that in every 24-hour period of time, we demonstrate whom or what we truly love. The answer begins to emerge as we honestly examine ourselves by asking three questions.  In the past 24-hours, whom or what did I think about? Whom or what did I listen to? And, whom or what did you spend time with?  The person or thing you think about, listen to and spend time with most in each 24-hours of your life is the one you truly love.

As God forms love within us, we will begin to think about Him more and more.  Throughout the day as we encounter people, we will be prompted to think about how God loves them and how Christ gave his life to forgive them. We will begin to listen more and more to God speak to us through his Word as we hear it mentioned, taught or preached.  Thoughts of God’s Word will come to our mind through conversations with others and through both challenging and uplifting life experiences.  Our spiritual ears will become more and more attentive to God.  We will have a greater sense of living in his presence, of being with him always.  We will begin to see our relationships with other as existing in and through Christ.

In these ways we experience, by God’s grace, his work in shaping the disposition of love within our heart so that love for God pervades every dimension of our life.  By faith we pray each day for God to continue this work within us.  As he does, we are enabled to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind.  Our love for Christ begins to be the singular thread that runs throughout each thought, word and activity of our day.  We begin to sense a connectedness throughout every facet of our life.  God’s love becomes the motivating force for each moment.

In addition to shaping love as the attitude motivating our living a singular life, God is also at work enhancing within our souls an awareness of the presence of Christ in every moment of our life experiences.  When Jesus was just about to return to his Father, he issued the Great Commission to his disciples (Matthew 28:19-20).  His words are often recalled to challenge believers with the responsibility to evangelize the whole world, and this is indeed both the purpose and scope of Christ’s commission.  But there is one part of the Great Commission that is frequently overlooked.  It is found in the last phrase.  There Jesus promises us that his presence will be with us now and throughout the end of this present age.

Wholly Following – Living a Singular Life (part 2)

A life that is devoted to following Christ wholly may be envisioned and experienced as a pursuit of the three-fold path of living a submitted, singular and sacrificed life.  A singular life is the second of these three dimensions of a disciple of Jesus. 

How are we to go about living this kind of life?  The answer will always be found in Christ himself.  He forms singularity in our life in much the same way as we are formed into followers who live submitted lives – through the shaping of an attitude of heart, the enhancement of an awareness of soul and the development of a practice of life.

In the first part of this series of articles, we reflected upon God’s work in shaping the disposition of love within our heart so that love for God that pervades every dimension of our life.  By faith we pray each day for God to continue this work within us.  As he does, we begin to experience what it means to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind.  Our love for Christ begins to be the thread that runs throughout each thought, word and activity of our day.  We begin to sense a connectedness throughout every facet of our life.  God’s love becomes the motivating force for each moment.

In addition to shaping love as the attitude motivating our living a singular life, God is also at work enhancing within our souls an awareness of the presence of Christ in every moment of our life experiences.  When Jesus was just about to return to his Father, he issued the Great Commission to his disciples (Matthew 28:19-20).  His words are often recalled to challenge believers with the responsibility to evangelize the whole world, and this is indeed both the purpose and scope of Christ’s commission.  But there is one part of the Great Commission that is frequently overlooked.  It is found in the last phrase.  There Jesus promises us that his presence will be with us now and throughout the end of this present age.

The follower of Christ is empowered to live a singular life – a life fully integrated into the life of Christ – a life of oneness and wholeness.  This empowerment arises out of a growing conscious awareness of the presence of Christ in us and with us.  Because of his presence, “we too can ‘walk even as he walked’ (1 John 2:6), ‘do as he has done’ (John 13:15), ‘love as he has loved’ (Eph. 5:2; John 13:34; 15:12), ‘forgive as he forgave’ (Col. 3:13), ‘have this mind, which was also in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 2:5), and therefore we are able to follow the example he left us (1 Pet. 2:21), lay down our lives for the brethren as he did. (1 John 3:16) (Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, 304).

An alertness of our soul to the presence of Christ with us will prompt us to recognize Christ in others.  We will begin to see and hear Christ more and more in the act of service and the words of encouragement that his followers express to us and to others.  We will begin to see Christ in “the least of these” – the marginalized people that we cross paths with in our day, and we will be prompted by his Spirit to reach out a offer of help and encouragement to them – a cup of cold water to a thirsty soul, a warm coat to a chilled body, an encouraging word to a heart heavy with burdens.

The believer who desires to live a singular life that follows Christ wholly will depend moment-by-moment upon the reality of Christ’s present presence within her, around her, and beside her.  The follower’s prayer will ever be “set me in your presence forever.”  (Psalm 41:12 ESV)

Wholly Following – Living a Singular Life (part 1)

We are pondering together what it means to live a life that is devoted to following Christ wholly.   A life so devoted is experienced as we pursue the three-fold path of living a submitted, singular and sacrificed life.  In previous posts, we have considered the call to live a submitted life.  The submitted life is a life that is formed by God with faith as its central attitude of heart.  It creates within us an awareness of soul to promptings of the Hold Spirit, and it is cultivated by the practice of meditation upon Scripture.

Living a singular life is the second of the three dimensions of wholly following Christ.   The call to follow Jesus presents us with a single, integrated, life-defining purpose.  But, in our busy lives, we are so often pulled in many directions.   Our days become fragmented, disjointed and even segregated into various spheres.  We have a “school life” and a “work life” and a “family life” or a “social life” and maybe a “spiritual life” or a “church life.”  These different “parts” of our experience, though, are disconnected.  We lack a unifying flow in our daily walk.

Instead of living our lives in “parts” or “fragments,” Christ calls his followers to wholeness – to oneness.  He calls us to live a singular life. This kind of living is expressed by the words of King David when he wrote:  “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:  that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple (Psalm 27:4 ESV).   The Apostle Paul also spoke of a similar desire as the central focus of his life’s direction.   “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14 ESV).

So, how are we to go about living this kind of life?  The answer lies in Christ himself.  He forms a singularity in our life in much the same way as we are formed into followers who live submitted lives.  This formation first shapes an attitude within our heart.  It is an attitude of love for God that pervades every dimension of our life.  By his gracious work within us, we begin to experience what it means to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind.  Our love for Christ begins to be the thread that runs throughout each thought, word and activity of our day.  We begin to sense a connectedness within our life.  God’s love becomes the motivating force for each moment.

There is a wonderful example of the singular life that can be seen in a familiar story from the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus comes to dinner at the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary.   Martha was an excellent host and was very busy preparing and serving a meal to Jesus and his disciples.  She was quite disturbed, however, when her sister (most likely younger than her, though we are not told) Mary was just sitting with Jesus listening to him.  Quite indigent, Martha confronts Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”  By his reply, Jesus exposes Martha as one living a fragmented life, while Mary embodies the life of singularity.   “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”  (Luke 10:38-42)

We are all too often like Martha living lives full of anxiety and troubled about many things. Our eyes, like Martha’s, are fixed on others and their failures to meet our expectations and desires. Christ, though, commends Mary and calls us to follow her by focusing our attention, our love, our desire upon him. Far from leading us to inactivity, such a singular attitude of heart will motivate us to live more purposefully for him in every dimension of our day.

Wholly Following – Living a Submitted Life (part 4)

We have been considering together what it means to live a life submitted to Christ and his will.   In our previous meditation, we stressed our need for God’s grace to keep us ever alert to the Spirit’s promptings in our daily walk through life.  “As the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.’” (Hebrews 3:7-8).  Our prayer should be, “Lord, grant me ears to hear your words and a will to obey your commands.”  In answer to that prayer, God continues his work in us enabling us to be living, more and more, a submitted life.    

                            

There is a practice of life that God commands us to engage in order to cultivate both an attitude of our heart to believe his Word and an awareness of our soul to perceive the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  This practice of life is meditation upon the Scriptures.  “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:8-9 ESV).   Meditation upon God’s Word is more than merely reading or even studying the Bible.  Reading the Bible on a daily basis, as well as careful study of the Bible, are both excellent ways to encounter God’s Word, but through meditation upon the Scriptures  we submit our lives personally to what God has to say specifically to me right now in his Word.

Meditation may be understood through the imagery of a seed sown in good ground.  The seed is the Word of God.  The good ground is our heart and mind.  Silently, God works to cultivate the seed, watering it with his Spirit and warming it with his grace until it produces fruit.  God’s particular Word spoken into our lives is then embodied in our thoughts, our attitudes, and ultimately into our actions.  Our lives come to reflect, more and more, the image of Christ as we practice meditation upon the Scripture.  Through the practice of meditation we deny our own individualistic, selfish thoughts and ambitions.  Instead, we begin to yield ourselves to the will of God and, by the strength he gives us, we obey those specific words that he is speaking into our lives.

One of the best explanations of meditation upon Scripture is given by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, Life Together.  Bonhoeffer writes, “In our meditation we ponder the chosen text on the strength of the promise that it has something utterly personal to say to us for this day and for our Christian life, that it is not only God’s Word for the Church, but also God’s Word for us individually.  We expose ourselves to the specific word until it addresses us personally.  And when we do this, we are doing no more than the simplest, untutored Christian does every day; we read God’s Word as God’s Word for us” (Life Together, 82).  So meditation upon Scripture consists in saturating our minds, our thinking with God’s Word as he speaks those particular passages upon which we meditate into our own lives.

Here’s an illustration of how meditation upon Scripture works.  This story comes from the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Bonhoeffer had been encouraged to travel to America in order to avoid being drafted into the German army.  When he arrived in New York in the summer of 1939, however, Bonhoeffer was very troubled in his spirit because he was thinking of his family members and friends back in Germany who were struggling to keep their fellow Christians loyal to Christ rather than following the ways of the Nazi Government led by Adolph Hitler.  

As Bonhoeffer was praying and meditating upon Scripture, God impressed his mind a verse from 2 Timothy 4, “Do your best to come before winter.”  He did not randomly find this verse.  Instead, the verse was a part of his regularly Bible readings for that day.  He pondered the passage as it stayed in his thoughts throughout the day.  Ultimately, this verse, along with other circumstances and concerns, prompted Bonhoeffer to return to Germany on the last ship that departed New York harbor before the beginning of the war.

God’s Word can speak into our lives in the same way.  Meditation upon Scripture is the habit of life that we must practice in order to submit our lives daily to the will of God.  It is the practice that is essential to denying ourselves if we truly desire to be Christ faithful disciples who are wholly following him.

L'Abri Retreat: Bonhoeffer on Formation

My students and I recently enjoyed a weekend retreat at L'Abri Fellowship in Yang Yang.  I was asked by L'Abri's director Inkyung Sung to give a talk on Bonhoeffer.
We explored Bonhoeffer's ideas on God's work of forming the follower of Jesus into the image of Christ.  We examined the goal, path and pattern of the journey through which the follower becomes the imitator of Christ.