What to do? The gag about how you’d welcome a little Global Warming just about now has been done to death, but honestly, remind me again why marginally warmer winters would be a bad thing?
We had global warming back during the Viking Age, and that worked out pretty well, you know. If it hadn’t been for Global Warming, Erik the Red and his son Leif would have frozen to death on a glacier in Greenland, and then Leif would never have gone on to discover America, and we wouldn’t be speaking Norwegian today.
I had a thought while reading my Bible today. I’m not sure whether it’s a good one or not. Let me run it by you.
In Philippians 1:12-18, the Apostle Paul tells his readers that they shouldn’t be troubled by the fact that he’s been imprisoned by the Romans. “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel,” he says (NIV). Then he explains that some people are preaching Christ out of goodwill, but others are preaching Christ out of “envy and rivalry… supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.” But, he says, “the important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.”
I’ve never been sure who these people were who were preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry toward Paul, and what sort of preaching they must have been doing. As best I can understand, scholars aren’t entirely sure whom he was talking about either.
But this seems like a likely scenario to me—I’d guess there’s a good chance the rival preachers were members of the Circumcision party, people who preached salvation through Christ plus the law. We know they were constant opponents of Paul’s everywhere else he went.
Paul opposed their legalism, and could be pretty cutting in talking about them in his letters. Yet his attitude here seems (to me) to be, “Even if their preaching is in error, the very fact that they’re talking about Jesus is a good thing in itself.” Maybe he’s saying, “I don’t really care what anyone says about Jesus, as long as they talk about Him. Because just talking and thinking about Him gives an opening to the Holy Spirit.”
And that leads me to the idea that maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to get upset over things like “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “The Da Vinci Code.” Maybe (I could be wrong) the proper attitude is that we should just be glad that people are thinking about Jesus at all, and trust to the power of His name to turn their hearts the right way.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Let me know what you think.
There’s much evidence the world once had a very different climate. As an example, forests have been found under the ice near the North pole, and fossils of palm tree leaves at the north end of Vancouver Island.
– as I see it there are 3 questions; is the climate getting warmer? if the climate is warming, is this a normal variation? is this a humanly caused event? The first question is difficult, the next two seem almost impossible to answer.
– marginally warmer winters? I guess it depends on what you mean by marginal.
As far as DaVinci code etc. goes. Should Luther have just been happy to have christ preached? Maybe he wasted his time and caused a lot of trouble protesting against false ideas? If you’re right Lars, maybe he shouldn’t have stirred things up.
– there is a command to refute error is there not? (I don’t know the bible as well as I’d like… so I can’t reference this.)
Well, that’s a point. You’re helping me think this through.
I haven’t researched this either, but I think your point about the two books and movies is fine because we should understand that Jesus will be reviled no matter what political action group we put together. But I also think your point about Paul’s condemnation of Judaisers or legalists, those who taught the gospel plus the law, contradicts your idea that Paul was just happy people were talking about Jesus. He defended the gospel tooth and nail, even saying that to add to it or take from it even slightly was to teach something that was not the gospel. So I think Paul is referring to teachers of the gospel who are proud or somehow hoping to become big-time apostles like Paul.
Satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
Just remembering who is in charge shifts the perspective of so many things.
I don’t think we need ever call evil good, but God is certainly able to bring good out of evil.
I think there’s a different between preaching Christ (plus other stuff) and using Christ’s name to preach a message of nothingness.
In The Last Temptation, there’s a lot of very bad theology and error being “preached,” but there also seems to be a bit of wrestling with actual things about Christ–what does it mean for Christ to be tempted and sin not, etc.
A film that does this far better, btw, is the mostly-French-language film “Jesus of Montreal,” a highly personal film by an atheistic director who nevertheless considers Jesus’ words “the only irreplaceable voice” in the history of humanity.
In The DaVinci Code, Christ’s name is used a lot, but I find it hard to see any real contemplation as to what the words of Christ really meant, except a lukewarm plattitude of “would the descendent of Jesus Christ foster faith, or destroy it?” (Personally I think that faith as so defined would be something Jesus actually would like to destroy, calling rather for righteousness and trust in the living God.)
But really, as far as what Paul is actually saying, I think he’s talking specifically about overt preachers of Christianity who are preaching the true gospel as they had heard it. So I guess I agree with Phil.
Oh, and the real problem with global warming is the amount of suffering it would potentially cause for the poor, who often live in hot or costal areas and lack the financial ability to significantly change their conditions.
And if it hadn’t been our current temperature, no one wouldn’t be willing to sail on the hot ship with Columbus, and we wouldn’t be speaking Spanish right now.
This is all very helpful. Thanks.
CR, I know I’m not a scientist, climatologist, or educated fruitcake, so I can’t make authoritative claims about our environment, but I am watching for reports that the tropical area are actually moderating in temperature, not warming with the rest of the planet. All of the talk on GW that I hear is about polar ice caps and hurricanes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we learned that the tropics were cooling a bit while the ice caps were warming a bit.
I am not following why Leif and Erik determine whether Norwegian is spoken or not.
Lars, I enjoy this blog very much.
I’m not sure I can agree that Paul has in mind the circumcision party in Philippians, given his objections to their teaching in his letter to the Galatians.
Paul, it appears, always denounced the preaching of Christ + something else. My guess is that those who were preaching Christ out of rivalry were preaching the gospel reasonably correctly (Christ + nothing), but were denigrating Paul while doing so, perhaps hoping to gather an audience for themselves at his expense.
This corresponds to what was going on in Corinth, i.e, some of Paul, some of Apollos, etc. In other words, sects were forming around various leaders, though the leaders themselves were not necessarily preaching bad doctrine.
Anyway, as you note, what Paul means here is not entirely clear. I, however, never been able to see how he could have been complimenting here those who he so vehemently denounces elsewhere.
That’s my two cents.
Keep warm.
Dan: Leif Eriksson discovered America, thus making America a predominately Scandinavian culture (at least in my little world).
J Bass: Good point. I am drifting to that view now.
Calvin Beisner has a good lecture on global warming. It was online (free) at one time. I think I got it at wordmp3.com. Recommended.