Jared is offering copies of Christian George’s Godology and a copy of his own “Your Jesus Ain’t Too Shabby” (or something like that) for commenters willing to offer up a fun story about theology, like this one from Clinton:
My Son was working with the kids program at a local church and the youth pastor had an off-site bible study for the teens the same night. The youth pastor decided it would be fun to scare my son and had hid in the church. He had my wife phone my son and tell him there was an alert because an escaped murderer had been seen in the area. She told him to lock the doors and check to make sure no one was in the church. During the search, the youth pastor jumped out at my son and another leader, Matt, doing the search. Matt clocked the youth pastor in the head with the 2 by 4 he was carrying…twice.
OUCH
Twice! Very nice…
Great story, but where’s the theological connection?
Something about the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice, as compared to the sufficiency of a whack on the head with a 2×4, maybe?
Jared said he would accept fun stories very loosely connected to theology, so this fits.
I have another story too, but not quite as fun. When my good wife was a high-schooler, her Sunday School teacher (a seminarian) taught that a verse in Romans was a real problem for everyone. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). The teacher said the verse appears to mean everyone is dead in sin through Adam but also everyone is saved through Christ. Of course, he said, we know everyone isn’t saved, so this verse is a real problem.
My wife told the teacher that the verse means all who are in Adam and all who are in Christ experience those conditions, so everyone is naturally in Adam and they are dead in sin, and all who are in Christ, not everyone, only those in Christ, are made alive. The teacher said that’s not what the verse means, that it’s a problem verse that contradicts the rest of the Bible.
Later that morning, the pastor preached on that verse, validating my wife’s interpretation.
When she told me that story, I had to shake my head. I assume the seminarian was comfortable enough with idea of an incoherent scripture. Not that there aren’t verses we don’t understand, but that there are verses which clearly contradict other verses. Now, I’m shaking my head.