Happy St. Patrick's Day! If you want to learn more about this Christian pastor and missionary, check out this biography of Patrick by Acts 29 pastor Reid Monaghan.
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Valentine’s Day is often loved by women and loathed by men, who drop their cash on flowers, jewelry, candy, and cards. Perhaps comic Jay Leno expressed the male dilemma about Valentine’s Day best in one of his monologues: “Today is Valentine's Day—or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day!” Conversely, the hopelessly romantic at heart enjoy the opportunity that Valentine’s Day affords for thoughtful romance and unbridled passion.
Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, the fact is that it has evolved into an enormous holiday. The question remains, however, who is Valentine and how did he come to be associated with everything from the color red to some secret known only by a woman named Victoria?
While the details of his life are sketchy at best, Valentine was allegedly a Christian who was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint. His name was common and is derived from the Latin word valens, meaning strong and powerful.
One legend claims that Emperor Claudius II (or Claudius the Goth) outlawed marriage because he decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families and he wanted to bolster the strength of his military. But a priest named Valentine secretly performed marriages, thereby defending romance and love.
Another legend claims that just prior to being beheaded, Valentine prayed over the daughter of his jailer. This led to the curing of her blindness and the conversion of her entire family, including her father, though he still put Valentine to death toward the end of the third century.
Further contributing to all of the confusion is the fact that there may have been as many as three Christians named Valentine who were all martyred, thereby making it seemingly impossible to know which stories are true and to which men they apply.
Although the celebration of the life of Saint Valentine was not initially met with much fanfare, he eventually grew in popularity for a very practical reason. Around AD 498, Pope Gelasius chose February 14 as the day for commemorating Valentine’s life because that was the day he reportedly died as a Christian martyr around AD 270. That day proved to be serendipitous, as the medieval legend emerged that birds select their mates on February 14, thereby associating the day with romance and love. Also, Saint Valentine’s Day fell the day before the Hefner-esque Roman fertility feast of Lupercalia on February 15. Lupercalia was a drunken, naked crazy-fest not unlike modern-day Mardi Gras celebrations. Lupercalia was dedicated to the god of partying, Faunus, and was marked by the usual frat-boy nonsense of naked guys running through the streets while crowds danced and drank heavily, and young singles enjoyed “hooking up.”
Once Saint Valentine became connected with the debauchery of Lupercalia, his Christian influence on the holiday quickly waned; the two holidays essentially merged and the spirit of Lupercalia remained but was renamed Valentine’s Day. At this point, Valentine’s Day quickly grew in popularity. Its association with the color red may stem from the fact that the color red was chosen to commemorate the death of Valentine who died the bloody death of a martyr. Also, the association with the chubby, winged pseudo-angel Cupid, who is the mythical son of the Roman goddess of love, Venus, is a Lupercalia leftover from pagan mythology.
Perhaps the most common present-day tradition associated with Valentine’s Day is the giving of valentine cards. No one is certain how this tradition began. One legend reports that Valentine actually sent the first valentine. The story goes that while in prison awaiting his execution, he wrote a love letter to a woman and signed it, “From your Valentine.” Apparently the expression stuck and remains perennially popular.
By the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day was widely celebrated. The first Valentine’s Day card was reportedly a poem sent by Charles, the Duke of Orleans, to his wife in 1415 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. That card remains on display at the British Museum in London to this day. By 1450, to be someone’s valentine was synonymous with being his or her sweetheart. By 1533, a valentine was synonymous with a piece of paper folded as a romantic card. By 1610, valentine gifts were also commonly given to sweethearts.
By the mid-1700s, Valentine’s Day grew in popularity throughout Great Britain, and around that time Americans also began exchanging handmade valentine cards. By the 1840s, the commercial greeting card companies began mass-producing valentines marked by such girlie adornments as lace and ribbon. Today, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, following Christmas.
Sadly, the holiday in his name completely ignores our Christian brother Valentine. As a pastor, he likely would have been mortified at much of what is done in the name of love to commemorate the day his head was chopped off because of his love for Jesus.
There is simply no clarity regarding the timing of Jesus’ birth.
The Scriptures do not speak directly to the issue, but the presence of flocks in the field has caused many to question the traditional December date of Christmas. This is because grazing in the field seemingly indicates a milder climate than that of winter, although there are reports of occasional breaks, for upwards of a few weeks, in the rainy winter season.
Commentator William Hendriksen raises an interesting point as well: “At this season of the year many roads in that region are impassable. No government would have forced people to travel then to the places where they must be registered" (New Testament Commentary: Luke, vol. 11, 150).
On the other hand, New Testament scholar Darrell Bock shows that while “some Jewish traditions argue for grazing in the period from April to November,” others note “that these restrictions are limited to sheep ‘in the wilderness’” (Luke 1:1-9:50, 226-227). Furthermore, a section of Talmudic literature (M. Šeqal. 7.4) “implies year-round grazing, because the Passover lambs graze in February, which has the harshest weather of the year. Thus, this reason for rejecting the tradition is not definitive" (Ibid., 227).
The traditional December 25 date of Jesus’ birth originated during the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine (A.D. 306–337). As Bock describes, the December 25 date
Without a clear date for Jesus’ birth, it seems the early church simply seized the opportunity that the pagan feast of Saturnalia provided. The feast celebrated the return of the sun after weeks of ever-increasing darkness, which parallels the biblical metaphor of Jesus illuminating our dark world. Furthermore, Saturnalia included the sharing of gifts, which corresponds to the gifts given to Jesus by the Magi and the gift of salvation Jesus gives.
In the West, the date of December 25 was established by the time of Augustine. Unlike the Western Church, the Eastern Church observes Christmas on January 6, as the day that both Jesus was born and the Magi visited him.
Additionally, determining the year of Jesus’ birth with exact precision is incredibly complex. The two gospels that speak in greatest detail about Jesus’ birth (Matthew and Luke) are unclear on this point. Therefore, it seems most wise to say that it was 5 or 4 B.C., as those are the years nearly every evangelical scholar accepts after looking at all of the evidence.
In the end, the year and date of Jesus’ birth are apparently not a significant issue because God did not find them valued enough to clarify in Scripture, which simply says it happened “in the fullness of time.”
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What Is Scripture series: Click | View Series
Caught up in the heat of controversy, Martin Luther reached the revolutionary conclusion that when the conflicting pronouncements of popes and councils threaten to leave the believer uncertain, the Scriptures alone speak with certainty and bind the consciences of the faithful in obedience to the Word of God.
This certainty is grounded in the Scripture’s testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Luther understood it, the Bible as a whole is about Christ. Its purpose is to impart the knowledge of the triune God that has been given in the reality of Christ.
Luther had found the Word of God’s grace in the promises of Christ given in the gospel. The Word of God promises us Christ as a sheer unmerited gift. Therefore, faith in the Word of God’s promise unites believers with Christ and affects a “wondrous exchange,” in which what belongs to Christ is made the possession of every believer and what belongs to each of us as members of the fallen human race is imposed on Christ, made his, and judged in his death on the cross.
On this central theme in Scripture, Luther wrote:
For Luther, Scripture was a source not only of theological truth, but also of practical wisdom for facing all the challenges of life. The reality of the Christian experience of testing leads full circle, pointing the believer back to the biblical text where one prays again for the illumination of the Spirit, and attempts to understand the text anew.
The purpose of the Scriptures as a whole is to witness to Christ, who is apprehended in faith. What counts in biblical interpretation, the substance of the matter for which the best expositors must always seek, is nothing less than Christ. “Whatever promotes Christ,” Luther insists, is the Word of God to be sought and found in Holy Scripture. For Luther, Christ is the essential content of Scripture, that to which the Scriptures as a whole direct our attention for the purpose of salvation. “Take Christ from the Scriptures,” he demands rhetorically, “and what else will you find in them?”
To be continued.
For a more in-depth treatment of what the theological giants in the Christian tradition have taught about Scripture, check out Christian Theologies of Scripture. You can also read the introduction online.
What Is Scripture series: Click | View Series
Although often overlooked by Protestants because of his place as the theologian of the Roman Catholic Church, Thomas Aquinas has much to teach us about Scripture. He followed the “four-fold sense” understanding of Scripture, as developed by Origen, but his emphasis was on the literal sense of Scripture.
Through his account of the literal sense, Aquinas continually uses Scripture to indicate the abundance of what we are allowed to and called to believe. Scripture is not just something that is “handed over” by tradition, but Scripture itself “hands over” divine revelation to us. Scripture is not just a static repository of propositional truth, but Scripture does something: it reveals truth and it testifies to Christ. In fact, for Aquinas, one cannot discuss Scripture without speaking of Christ, for Scripture is necessarily derived from the revelation of the Incarnate Word. To read Scripture is therefore to witness the revelation of the Word.
However, it is not simply from Aquinas’ literal readings of Scripture that we can learn. Lest we dismiss all of his “non-literal” readings as medieval superstitions, observe how Aquinas explains the spiritual sense of how the Old Testament Law is to be read in light of Christ: “The reasons for the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law can be taken in two ways. First, in respect of the Divine worship which was to be observed for that particular time: and these reasons are literal… Secondly, their reasons can be gathered from the point of view of their being ordained to foreshadow Christ: and thus their reasons are figurative and mystical” (Summa Theologica). According to Aquinas, the key point is that Christ is the key to reading Scripture properly.
Scripture is living and active for Aquinas—it “passes on” that knowledge of God that is true wisdom, and in doing so “hands over” the reader of Scripture to the instruction of the Holy Spirit. To follow Aquinas as a reader of Scripture is to confess that we are not the masters of truth, and that we must give ourselves over to the revelation of God in Jesus and God’s knowledge in Scripture.
To be continued.
For a more in-depth treatment of what the theological giants in the Christian tradition have taught about Scripture, check out Christian Theologies of Scripture. You can also read the introduction online.
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What Is Scripture series: Click | View Series
For Augustine, the words of Scripture have a divine authority, integrally linked with the authority of the eternal Word of God. God has revealed himself to us in the words of Scripture which are the God-inspired words of mortal beings: “All those matters could have been done by angels, but the human condition would have been degraded if God would not seem to want to minister his own words to human beings through human beings” (On Christian Doctrine).
The center of Augustine’s doctrine of Scripture is the incarnate Word. Augustine sets his theology of Scripture within the broader spectrum of the theology of salvation: “To enlighten us and enable us, the whole temporal dispensation was set up for our salvation.”
Augustine had insisted that the ministry of Scripture is adjusted to the human condition: “Notice how although the Truth itself and the Word by which all things were made became flesh so that it could live among us, the apostle says: ‘And if we knew Christ according to the flesh, we do not know him in the same way now.’”
Augustine’s doctrine of Scripture is determined by his decades-long contemplation of the eternal Word of God, incarnate in human history, assuming the lowliness of the human condition, at once our Way, our Truth and our Life.
The Word Incarnate and the words of Scripture are properly conditioned to our human time-bound existence and thus bind together the ministry of the Incarnate Word and the ministry of the words of Scripture. Thus the authority of Scripture is integrally linked with the ministry of Scripture, which in turn is linked with the ministry of the Word Incarnate. In his reflection on Psalm 99, Augustine writes: “Our whole purpose when we hear the Psalms, the Prophets, and the Law is to see Christ there, to understand Christ there.”
In his study of Augustine as a biblical interpreter, Charles Kannengiesser notes: “In analyzing Augustine’s place in the long line of biblical interpreters, it must be noted that the Bible helped Augustine to interpret himself as much as he became an interpreter of the Bible” (Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters).
To be continued.
For a more in-depth treatment of what the theological giants in the Christian tradition have taught about Scripture, check out Christian Theologies of Scripture. You can also read the introduction online.
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Why did Martin Luther nail his famous 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door on October 31, 1517?
He was confronting two religious observances that promoted false saintliness and exploited people’s fear of judgment and purgatory. There’s a curious connection between Halloween and Reformation Day, and it’s more than just proximity on the calendar.
Halloween (October 31) is celebrated by millions each year with costumes and candy. Halloween's deepest roots are decidedly pagan, despite its Christianized name. Its origin is Celtic and has to do with summer sacrifices to appease Samhain, the lord of death, and evil spirits. Those doing the pagan rituals believed that Samhain sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking like evil spirits themselves.
Christians tried to confront these pagan rites by offering a Christian alternative (All Hallows’ Day) that celebrated the lives of faithful Christian saints on November 1. In medieval England the festival was known as All Hallows, hence the name Halloween (All Hallows' eve) for the preceding evening.
All Hallows' Day or All Saints' Day (November 1) was first celebrated on May 13, 609, when Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to the Virgin Mary. The date was later changed to November 1 by Pope Gregory III, who dedicated a chapel in honor of all saints in the Vatican Basilica. In 837, Pope Gregory IV (827-844) ordered its church-wide observance. Its origin lies earlier in the common commemorations of Christian martyrs. Over time these celebrations came to include not only the martyrs, but all saints. During the Reformation the Protestant churches came to understand “saints” in its New Testament usage as including all believers and reinterpreted the feast of All Saints as a celebration of the unity of the entire Church.
All Souls' Day or the Day of the Dead is normally celebrated, primarily by Roman Catholics, on November 2. This is a day dedicated to prayer and almsgiving in memory of ancestors who have died. People pray for the souls of the dead, in an effort to hasten their transition from purgatory to heaven by being purged and cleansed from their sins.
Reformation Day (October 31) commemorates Luther's posting of his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. This act triggered the Reformation, as they were immediately translated and distributed across Germany in a matter of weeks. The Protestant Reformation was the rediscovery of the doctrine of justification—salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone—and the protest against the corruption within the Roman Catholic Church.
The century before the Reformation was marked by widespread dismay with the venality of the leaders in the Roman Catholic Church and with its false doctrines, biblical illiteracy, superstition, and corruption. Monks, priests, bishops, and popes in Rome taught unbiblical doctrines like the selling of indulgences, the treasury of merit, purgatory, and salvation through good works.
Spiritually earnest people were told to justify themselves by charitable works, pilgrimages, and all kinds of religious performances and devotions. They were encouraged to acquire this “merit,” which was at the disposal of the church, by purchasing certificates of indulgence. This left them wondering if they had done or paid enough to appease God's righteous anger and escape his judgment.
This was the context that prompted Luther’s desire to refocus the church on salvation by grace through faith on account of Christ by imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. To those spiritually oppressed by indulgences and not given assurance of God’s grace, Luther proclaimed free grace to God’s true saints:
Instead of the treasury of merit that was for sale, Luther protested, “The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God” (Thesis 62).
In celebration of Reformation Day, you should seriously read all 95 Theses—they're really good.
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What Is Scripture series: Click | View Series
What is Scripture? The good news is that we are not the first to try to answer this question. In fact, 2,000 years of Christian history provide us a tradition of helpful answers.
The Bible is inspired by God, is without error, and does not misrepresent the facts. It is entirely trustworthy and is the final authority in everything it teaches. The Bible records the drama of redemption in both the history of Israel and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As Christians we acknowledge both Jesus (John 1:1-4) and Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17) as the “Word of God.” Christians should not focus solely on Christ and treat Scripture just like any other “classic text.” Nor should we focus so much on the Bible as God’s divine inerrant word and treat Jesus as simply a character in a small part of the texts.
Jesus is the message—God participating in human life, coming near to us, bringing his good news, expressing God’s love for us, dying as our substitute, rising as the victor over death, and building his church as a community of grace. Jesus is not just the main person in one of many events in the story of God’s people. Jesus is the final revelation of God’s drama of redemption. Humanity sees God in full light in Jesus. Jesus is God’s ultimate word about human life and the Bible is God’s word about God’s self-revelation through human life. This is what Christian theologians have been saying in various ways for 2,000 years (Christian Theologies of Scripture).
In answering the question—“What is Scripture?”—Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, and Edwards have given us categories to use, concepts to ponder, and doctrines of Scripture that we should continue.
As we survey some of the major theologians in Christian history in the next series of posts, notice how much they refer to Jesus when explaining their theology of Scripture. Their doctrines of Scripture are surprisingly Christ-centered.
For more study about Scripture—what is it and how we got it—check out these books:
To be continued.
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Who comes to mind if I ask you to list major theologians of the Protestant Reformation? You probably thought of Martin Luther, John Calvin, or Ulrich Zwingli. What about Thomas Cranmer?
Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) was an important leader of the English Reformation. He served as the archbishop of Canterbury and wrote a Reformed confession of faith, a Reformed prayer book, and a Reformed book of discipleship for the Church of England.
In his recorded prayers, Cranmer articulated a robust, biblical view of God's gracious salvation and the tragedy of the human condition (The Collects of Thomas Cranmer). He believed that the commands of God are the perfect and true expression of the will of God. However, they do not have the power to generate what they command because the will of humans is bound because of sin: "Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves."
Because of this, Cranmer preached and taught salvation by grace through faith in Christ. He defined faith as "nothing else but assured hope and confidence in Christ's mercy." Without grace and left on our own, we are hopeless. We are completely dependent on the redemption accomplished for us by Christ as our substitute, and the redemption applied to us by the Holy Spirit (Thomas Cranmer's Doctrine of Repentance: Renewing the Power to Love).
Our only hope is for God to take the initiative in our justification and sanctification: "Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise."
In an interview about Cranmer, Ashley Null summarizes powerfully humanity's problem:
The miracle of salvation results in the reorienting of our will by transforming our hearts. If our hearts change, then so will our actions and attitudes: "Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works."
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Grace and I have personally benefitted from the following books; they are easy to read and are among the best in their areas of instruction. We have recommended these books many times over the years and have purchased many copies for our friends.
For those of you wanting to dig deeper and find books in particular areas of study, especially biblical study, you would benefit from bookmarking www.bestcommentaries.com/. For those looking to purchase a Bible, the ESV Study Bible is the new standard for study Bibles. Also great for personal reading and note-taking is the ESV Journaling Bible, patterned after the Moleskine.
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