For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (the first week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.
We continue our look at the Top 12 Blog Posts at Covered in His Dust by introducing the seventh most viewed post in the history of the blog. This is the first post I ever wrote for this more-than-four-years journey; it was written all the way back in February of 2013 and served as the launching point for my entire body of work. It is titled “SABBATH: A Trust Story” — and you can find it here.
In this series, as we look at each post, I want to ask three questions: why, what, and what else? Why do I think this post got so many views; why were others drawn to it? What do I hope people found when they got here; what do I hope they heard? Finally, what else have I learned about this; what else would I say about these ideas?
WHY THIS POST?
First of all, I’m super happy to see that this post made it onto the “top 12” list. This is the foundation of my entire body of work. The first time this idea was presented to me, it changed everything. I began to orient my entire theology around this idea. It was the approach that I believed (and still do) maintains the most hermeneutical integrity, logical consistency, and compelling potency.
There are a lot of reasons people might have found this post. They may have been researching Genesis 1 and the creation narrative. They might have been trying to study Sabbath. I know this particular post has been shared by many, many students and people connected to my ministry. People who know me well know this lesson is where it all begins and where it all keeps circling back to.
For me, this is it. It doesn’t matter so much to me why they got here — but I’m thrilled they did.
WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?
This concept is the result of me piecing together two separate teachings that impacted me and changed my theology forever. The many questions and observations I had compiled over years of study and Bible college education finally found expression, and over the course of a few years I was able to package them in a way that finally “clicked.”
To give appropriate credit, the first teaching was one I heard in person at the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs. It was the Everything Is Spiritual tour by Rob Bell, and I got to see an earlier version with additional material that never made it into the recording. This was before Bell’s more provocative days when he became such a controversial figure. I also listened to a sermon from Mars Hill Bible Church on August 16, 2009, that finally dropped the last few pieces into place for me intellectually.
What had bothered me for years was the fact that almost all schools of Protestant theology I had been exposed to had made the story of Christian theology about the entrance and removal of sin. As I studied the Text, though, the story seemed to be about something much wider, deeper, and comprehensive than that. Sin was certainly a part of the story, but it seemed not to be taking its proper place in a larger theological narrative — it had become the narrative.
To hear a teaching that spoke of the importance of beginning where God started His story and ending where God ended His story was like throwing the lights on in a dark room. I realized the theology I had been handed started a tad late in the biblical story. Even if Genesis 3 was only a couple chapters later, skipping the first story (or rendering it irrelevant because of the second) was a major theological faux pas.
Obviously, I want to keep writing about this, but that is what my four-and-a-half-year blog series was for. Suffice it to say that I hope people found a refreshing way to reframe the biblical narrative, and perhaps a different way to begin to understand God.
WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?
I’m not sure there is much I would add to this post. It’s relatively thorough. Over the years, I have continued to learn, shape, and adapt this teaching in different ways. There might be nuances I would approach differently, but I would be nitpicking. There is a lot of material here to get introduced to beyond just the theological shift. This whole teaching is bathed in a combination of historical-contextual and literary hermeneutics. There are conversations about chiasms and other Hebraic literary devices. There is a lot in this post!
I can also appreciate the way Rabbi David Fohrman’s teachings have shaped the material in this post (and even more so over the following years). I would certainly recommend his online academy (Aleph Beta) for those looking to learn more from an orthodox Jewish perspective. While Fohrman is not a follower of Jesus at all, his approach will help one become familiar with how Jews interact with the Text, and his conservative perspective will temper the progressive overtones of a voice like Bell for those who struggle to accept that.
Overall, I’m thrilled to have this make the list. Here’s to trusting the story!
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