Identity Crisis

For as long as I can remember, I have always been a very intrapersonal person. Being intrApersonal is much different from being intERpersonal. When someone is intERpersonal, they are skillfully capable at conversing and reading other people. When someone is intrApersonal, they are skillfully capable at understanding and sensing their own "self." Out of all of psychology's categories of intelligence, this one has always been my strongest.

Lately, however, I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. I sense that many characteristics about myself have changed. I still think of myself and describe myself in terms of who I used to be, but I can't help but to wonder if that person is still me.

I remember taking the Myers-Brigg test in junior high and coming up with the rare personality combination of INFP (often called the "healer"). I thought that this suited me quite well. Four years later I retook the test and came out with a different combination: INTJ (the "mastermind"). I remember being a bit devastated that my personality had changed. Were the first results the "real me," or were these new results the "real me?"
Looking back, I can see how much life's circumstances had in many ways helped alter my personality. I can't help but to wonder if something similar is happening in me now.

Who is the real me? How can I know? Which scares me more: the fact that my personality has changed again or that it can (and probably will) change again in the future?

And then I can't help but to wonder who "I" am a priori. I frequently think of myself in terms of my personality. But if that can change, what is the true essence of myself? Is there a part of me that is unchanging? What is the part that makes me, well, me?

Do I miss who I used to be?

So many thoughts running through my head, and they all seem to come when I'm lying in bed trying to sleep. No matter how long I analyze and brew over the issue, I don't feel like I'm any closer to understanding the "new me."

Bad Theology

A snippet from a conversation at youth group a few weeks ago:

Middle schooler: "We have to remember that God isn't just love. I've been reading Revelation and it talks about how Jesus is going to, like, kill us."

Her mom: "Oh, no, honey. Jesus isn't going to kill us. He's going to kill everyone else."

I didn't know whether to burst out laughing or cry.

How have misreadings of Revelation (mis)informed our theology? With this as a forefront view regarding Revelation in modern Christian culture (but not in scholarly circles and Church history, mind you), how can we undo the damage?

There's so much work to do...

(W)holy Love

On my right hand I have a ring with "agape," the Greek word for love, inscribed on it. The interior has a a reference to I John 4:16, which reads, "God is love." I can't tell you how many times I have seen this phrase on Christian-ize t-shirts or heard it in discussions. It's become a bumper sticker slogan for Christianity.

While this statement is true, it is also misleading. It leads us to believe that love is God's primary character quality. We equate the two things together.

If God's primary essence was love, then loving sinful human beings is something that just comes natural to him. He would only be doing what is his nature to do. It would not really be a free decision.

Instead of love, holiness is God's primary essence. God is set apart from sin to the point that he cannot have any contact with it, or the creatures that are infected with it. By loving us, God does not do what is his nature to do. He commits a profound act of love by inviting us to have a relationship with him. Loving us was not something that God had to do in accordance with his natural inclination. Loving us is an act of his free volition.
This is exactly what the Greek word "agape" means. Out of all the words for love that John could have chosen (there are several in Greek), John chose the one that signified a deliberate act of affection between unequal social groups. Agape in its truest sense is used when a person belonging to a higher class "stooped" to love someone below their class. Agape destroys social, physical, and spiritual boundaries.

In spite of our sinfulness, God chooses to "agape" us. He reaches down from his state of holiness in order to show his love to those who are unholy.

The simple sentence "God is love" has more theological significance than a bumper sticker can encompass. And yet, I am reminded of it every time I ponder the message on my little ring.

Never underestimate the significance of this three-word sentence.

(Re)Learning to Read

I've spent my first year of seminary learning more things outside of class than in class. There are just some things that textbooks cannot teach.

In my undergraduate work in Biblical studies, I could exegete a passage and explain to you its grammatical construction in Hebrew. I thought that I already knew how to read Scripture... But in many ways I was doing violence to it.
I am still recovering from reading the Bible in this manner. Although exegesis certainly has its place, it can sometimes strip Scripture of its living, breathing qualities and reduce it to a set of impersonal, systematized ideas to be extrapolated.

I am (re)learning to read Scripture.

Here are some important things I've been (re)learning:

1. I am learning to read Scripture while listening to the Holy Spirit, who inspired and continues to inspire it. This involves engaging my intellect/reason, but not completely depending on it.

2. I am learning to read Scripture as God's revelation of His self to me, especially through Jesus Christ. I want to know the mind of Christ, not a collection of stories and principles.

3. I am learning to read Scripture in the hope of seeking my Father's Kingdom and righteousness here on this earth as it is in Heaven. It is not a utilitarian handbook for making my life "work."

4. I am learning to read Scripture with the intent of becoming a trained actor in God's Story. I read to become immersed in the text. Less can be more, slower can be better. Although it is a great practice, I am not trying to "get through" the Bible and finish it in a year.

5. I am learning to read Scripture for obedience, not for mastery and expertise.

6. I am learning to read Scripture as a response to God's grace and the means by which I can nourish a grace-filled community. I do not read so I can create a shame-oriented, legalistic demeanor.

7. I am learning to read Scripture as an act of love for both God and others.

8. I am learning to read Scripture as a text that is as much alive as at it was its time of writing. It is not the dead words of a dead God.

Who you like to join me in this (re)learning process?

"O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not: what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. It is for your life; there is no other way [...] Do justice to your soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer."
-John Wesley, 1760

What's In a Name?

"What's in a name?" Juliet asked in Shakespeare's famous tragedy. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!"

What's in a name? A name is what gives someone an identity. To strip a name away from someone would be to strip them of their personhood. Perhaps this is why we become offended when someone forgets our name, particularly if they have spent a good deal of time conversing with us. Even if we have talked to them about some very personal issues, they surely do not know us because they can't recall our name!
When we think about it philosophically we realize that a name does not primarily exist for our own benefit. I know who I am. My name exists so that you can know me. It creates a relationship between two persons.

We should be amazed, then, when God gave himself a personal name: Yahweh (Hebrew letters - YHWH). Here is this Being who metaphysically can exist by himself but instead chooses to exist as a being-in-relationship. He did not give himself a name for his own benefit. This transcendent Being gave himself an identity so that humanity could know him.

This is a beautiful paradox - the God who cannot be named chooses to be known by a name. He puts himself at the mercy of human language so that we can enter into relationship with him.

What's in a name? Everything.