Week 3: Texts: Greatness, Leadership, Power

After St Patrick's dinner and devotions, we'll play/pray
St. Patrick's Breastplate , a classic prayer, which works on so many levels..

Here is the audio of David Ruis 's musical/spoken word version of it.
For more on Christian Celtic music, meet my friend Keltic Ken's 24/7 online radio website (you'll meet Ken a bit later tonight) ..
--------------

Then a quick quiz.  Fill in the blank with your first, quick gut instinct:

• 1)"In England, they drive on the ___________ side of the road"
• 2)"Boy, you can sure tell that_______________ is at work in the secular world nowadays!  All you have to do is look around!"
• 3)"Israel is on the continent of __________."

We'll pick that up later...

TONIGHT'S OUTLINE:

• Finish up last week's discussion  (Intercalation, Cohort Letters, Sermon on the Mount: Beatides and Fences, Hospitalization as Rite of Passage) See last post.
• Extra Credit Quiz Terms
• Tonight's Topic: Greatness, Leadership, Power:
• "One Great Person" results
•  Matthew 18
• So What?: Contemporary World of Nursing
• Introducing Philemon

---
Remember the 10 Commandments as a wedding?

Watch this:

Bonus: the processional:


Here is a longer version with yet some more classic moments.



Here below is the backstory:

EXTRA CREDIT QUIZ TERMS.  Click a term for definition (If it doesn;t click, it will be defined later in class):

1. FUZZY SETS
2. BUILDING A FENCE AROUND THE LAW/THE TORAH (see last week, and Hauer/Young)
3. KINGDOM OF GOD/HEAVEN
4. COMMUNITAS
5. INTERTEXTUALITY (see last week)
6. KENOSIS
7. TEXT
8. TANAKH        (see
    also Hauer/Young index)
9. SPLAGHNIZOMAI
10. INTERCALATION (See last week)

-------------------------------------
TEXT: definition: "A text is a coherent set of symbols that transmits some kind of informative message"


...

 Recently, the Fresno Bee ran a story about a pastor friend of mine who takes text messages in church.  Click: "Churches embrace texting technology".




On a lighter note, here is one church's video that they show in services to enforce their "no cell phone use" policy:   

We'll continue talking about texts out of contexts.

All "texts" are text messages which must be figured out.

grasped in context to apply them in my 'contemporary world."




 Here are some "out of context" texts I'll use tonight.  They are "literally true" of  my "historical world," but they can be misleading unless we have context and genre:

• "I once went shopping with Paul Newman." (context here)
• 'I once prayed with Ray Bradbury" (context here)
•  "Bono took me to church in Sacramento" (context: next to last paragraph here). 

And even though this third celebrity isn't nearly as famous as the other two, I used it
as an illustration of tonight's topic.
(My Dack Rambo story?  Click here  to read all about it, and for the sequel click:
" I Deny the Resurrection and I am not straight."
(uh, better click that title and get the context!)

How about this text message?:
"I deny the resurrection"


------------------


I can't wait to see your "One Great Person" worksheets and videos.
Two of my greats are Wayne and Dack !
Tonight's topic is "Greatness, Leadership, Power."

The symbol for tonight suggests that a biblical model/worldview often looks like the CEO/top-down model turned downside up..

Jesus came to serve.
             The last shall be first.
                         That's who is great in the Kingdom  economy:
                                    The one who serves
                                               The one who has splangizomai..







;;;;;;;;;;;;
Tonight we meet a couple of great contemporary servant-leaders:

like the little sphepherdette/llamaherder I filmed in Peru.  She was leading a huge flock...just one tiny girl, with a sheepdog...and amazingly, leading effectively from _________________!" (See  from 1:30 to the end,   and freeze frame 2:05-2:09 if you didn't spot her).   If you didn't fill in the blank, see  Isaiah 30:21.  What a great leader!)

(rest of that story here)
 

and like this guy with "splangizomai" glasses:




-----------
Then of course, we'll look at = Jesus' approach to greatness, leadership,  and power .


We'll suggest he was

• CULTURAL
• CROSS-CULTURAL
• COUNTER-CULTURAL

1)CULTURAL:


"All divine revelation
 is culturally mediated."
-Leonard Sweet, "Aqua Church 2.0," p.. 67...context

"Culture/matrix is with you...even when you go to church"

What is culture?
What isn’t culture?
Paul Hiebert explains that culture is the “learned patterns of behavior, ideas and products characteristic of a [group of people]."

Culture is "a way of thinking, feeling and actiing by on or more people."

Damen, L. (1987). Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

"Culture: learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day living patterns. these patterns and models pervade all aspects of human social interaction. Culture is mankind's primary adaptive mechanism" (p. 367).

Hofstede, G. (1984). National cultures and corporate cultures. In L.A. Samovar & R.E. Porter (Eds.), Communication Between Cultures. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

"Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another." (p. 51).

Kluckhohn, C., & Kelly, W.H. (1945). The concept of culture. In R. Linton (Ed.). The Science of Man in the World Culture. New York. (pp. 78-105).
"By culture we mean all those historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and nonrational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men.
How many of you raised your hands for being in a cross-cultural marriage (Hopefully, all married people...I didn't say 'cross-racial')

2)CROSS-CULTURAL:

DanNainan

BUT before we go any further:



Those three questions from the top of the page/evening?

 Click here to see my suggested "right answers." to the first two
questions , and the  first 24 seconds of the video below for answer to the 3rd:

Did you get it right?

Discuss how your answers to the 3 questions get you thinking about cross-cultural sensitivity and ethnocentrism..




-Remember our discussion of the temple tantrum and why it was so cross-cultural?  Here's a brief article.

More info:

• Temple tantum/torn curtain
• Breaking Down Walls: Temple Courts
• Cleansing The Temple: How Many Times And What Does It Mean?

-------------------

Paul G. Hiebert Cultural Differences and the Communication of the Gospel

• Note the cross-cultural implications of Jesus' two feedings of  the multitude:

• see:

  • The Other Side-Decapolis 
  • Feeding of 5000 and 4000 
  • "Box Lunch"

  (diagram below by John Stevenson, see 2nd link above)

  Feeding of the 5,000	Feeding of the 4,000
  Mark 6:34-44	Mark 8:1-9
  Took place after the multitude had been with Jesus for one day.	Took place after the multitude had been with Jesus for three days.
  The multitude was mostly Jewish.	The multitude would have been mostly Gentile.
  Took place near Bethsaida  on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee.	Took place in the Decapolis on the southeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
  Jesus used 5 loaves and 2 fish.	Jesus used 7 loaves and a few small fish.
  There were 12 small baskets of leftovers.	There were 7 large baskets of leftovers.

  
  
  
   see:
  Piercing The Darkness (Decapolis on the Other Side of the Lake"
• see slideshows of the Van Der Laan videos:

>>"When Storms Come (Sea of Galilee)"

 and

>>"Piercing The Darkness (Decapolis on the Other Side of the Lake"

Here's some of my video from both sides of the Sea of Galilee:


This map will also mean a lot to you after tonight's class:

  What's so "great" about taking the "cross-cultural" walk through Samaria?

What cross cultural lessons have you elkarbned i n hosepola  Maoiined es white blanketss.
------------


3)COUNTER-CULTURAL:
 see John 5:19, 30, Philippians 2:5-11....also Acts 10:38


So the last will be first,
and the first will be last

map credit kingPin68

More versions here.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then we apply some "Three Worlds" theory to Matthew 18 and the topic of "Who is great?"
A video on that chapter featuring Keltic Ken:

Page 22 of Syllabus,Matthew 18 Outline

(by Greg Camp/Laura Roberts):

1 Question #1: Who is Greatest?

2-17 Responses (each are counter proposals)

2-10 Response #1: Children

2-4 Counter Proposal: Accept children

5-9 Threat: If cause scandal

10 Show of force: Angels protect

12-14 Response #2: Sheep

12-14 Counter Proposal: Search for the 1 of 100 who is lost

15-17 Response #3: Brother who sins (counter proposal)

15a Hypothetical situation: If sin

15-17 Answer: Attempt to get brother to be reconciled

17b If fail: Put him out and start over

18-20 Statement: What you bind or loose

21-22 Question #2: How far do we go in forgiveness?

23-35 Response #1: Parable of the forgiving king/unforgiving servant

Read verse , and then ask yourself:
"How did Jesus treat "tax collectors and sinners?"
Tony Jones writes:

but because anyone, including Trucker Frank, can speak freely in this  church, my seminary-trained eyes were opened to find a truth in the Bible that had previously eluded me.”...That truth emerged in a discussion of Matthew 18's "treat the unrepentant brother like a tax collector or sinner.":
"And how did Jesus treat tax collectors and pagans?" Frank asked aloud, pausing, "as of for a punchline he'd been waiting all his life to deliver,"....., "He welcomed them!""

-Tony Jones, The New Christians, p.92

More on Trucker Frank here; he can interrupt my sermons anytime..

Hmmmm...In a "Centered Set" kind of way?
----------------------------------------------------------------

Click links on "literary world" discussion of the passage:

• MATTHEW 17:24-18:35
• “WHERE TWO OR THREE ARE GATHERED TOGETHER”:LITERARY STRUCTURE AS A KEY TO MEANING IN MATT 17:22–20:19 BY DAVID M C CLISTER
• EXAMINING THE CHIASM OF MATTHEW 17-2

-------------------

We might see the whole unit as a chiasm with inclusio.  See below (copied from here):

Jesus foretells His death: Matthew 17:22-23

A. Jesus speaks of giving freely/sacrificing self: Matthew 17:24-27

B. Little children are the essence of the kingdom: Matthew 18:1-7

C. Sacrifice the body for the sake of the kingdom: Matthew 18:8-9

D. Do not despise what God values: Matthew 18:10-14

E. Entreating a brother about sin or offense: Matthew 18:15-17

F.Agreement between Heaven and Earth: Matthew 18:18-20

E. Entreating a brother about sin or offense: Matthew 18:21-35

D. Do not despise what God values: Matthew 19:1-9

C. Sacrifice the body for the sake of the kingdom: Matthew 19:10-12

B. Little children are the essence of the kingdom: Matthew 19:13-15

A. Jesus speaks of giving freely/sacrificing self: Matthew 19:16-20:16

Jesus foretells His death: Matthew 20:17-19

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




We'll spend a few minutes acculturating ourselves to Philemon, prepping for our final paper.  Video:

--