山道期刊

Articulating the Elusive Presence: Testifying for God from the Psalmists

Yew Ming CHAN

Scriptures have recorded the history of ancient Israel, highlighting their blessings from God and struggles as they adapt to the new environment and ever-changing historical, religious and socio-economic conditions. Concomitantly, these records include the testimonies of the people of God articulating their views of God being present with them. In order to ensure their descendants would understand the valuable experiences of God, the Law, the prophets and others, for example, the Psalmists, have preserved these testimonies. However, the ever-changing and challenging conditions have shaped a wide variety of testimonies that cover from praise to lament. Consequently, a fundamental question must be raised on how the people of God understood the divine presence or absence. This paper shall explore, via the function the Psalter, the articulation of this elusive presence. Numerous experiences of adjustment, prosperity, exile and stability change the communion between God and Israel, and the faithful's view of God. From the psalmists' testimonies, our analysis shall show a readjustment from the importance of liturgies to the witness' humanity . In essence, a fresh reckoning emerged; suggesting the people of God understood this elusive presence is beyond the physical boundary of ancient Israel, a refocus on moral ethics is necessary to meet the requirement of God for worship, and finally, their testimonies are endorsement of a faithful God and his wonderful deeds.

The Theme of Witness in the Acts of the Apostles

Jonathan W. LO

The New Testament describes the Christian identity and vocation in many different ways, but in the Acts of the Apostles the dominant focus is the theme of “witness.” In the following essay, the Lukan theme of witness in Acts is explored with the purpose of understanding more fully the early Christians' identity in light of its vocation to be a witness. The discussion begins with a brief introduction to the vocabulary of witness in the first century Greco-Roman and Jewish historical contexts, as well as its usage in Acts. This is followed by an analysis of the theme of witness in the narrative of Acts through the interpretive lens of Acts 1:8, which many consider to be a programmatic text that provides the key to understanding the primary structures and themes of the book. The essay concludes with some implications for understanding the relationship between the contemporary Christian identity and vocation to be a witness for Jesus in the tradition of Acts.

The early Christians are to be eye-witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus and to proclaim the good news that his resurrection entails. The historical fact of Jesus' resurrection means that there is hope for all people, because there is forgiveness of sins through repentance and faith in his name. The powerful and guiding presence of the Holy Spirit means that the eschatological restoration of God's kingdom has begun, and this will be a kingdom that includes everyone: Jew and Gentile, woman and man, rich and poor, slave and free . This is the good news, the “word of God”, that the early Christians both embodied and tirelessly proclaimed. Within the theological framework of Acts, it is difficult to accept any understanding of discipleship that does not have a missional outlook at its core , because mission is at the heart of the Christian identity. For Luke, there is no dichotomy between “being” and “doing”, for the simple fact that Christians are called to “be” a witness” and to “do” the work of a witness.

An Exploration of the Witness of the Pauline Churches to Christ in the World

LEUNG Chun-ho Bernard

This article considers the social boundary of the earliest Pauline churches as sectarian groups, who aim, on the one hand, to maintain their social identity by being differentiated from the outsiders, and on the other, to keep constant contact with the outsiders to make Christ known to them. Meanwhile, we will give nuances to the meaning of “outsiders” so that the subtle tensions between the earliest Pauline churches and the non-believers in different contexts can be explicated. We will also examine the three ways which the earliest Pauline churches employed to make the Christian faith known to different outsiders: (1) “to evangelise”—actively preaching the gospel to non-believers, especially those not being hostile to the Christian community; (2) “to lead an attractive life”— passively witnessing the Christian faith by adopting a respectable lifestyle, not leaving the public (both hostile and sympathetic non-believers) with a negative impression that Christians fail to meet the moral and social expectations; (3) “to do good to all”— contributing to the common good in the civic life, in particular, assuming charitable responsibility towards all kinds of people (believers or non-believers) who are in need. This article will argue that there is no evidence in the Pauline letters that Paul did ever expect his churches to engage in active evangelism, though some Christians might have been preaching the gospel spontaneously to the local people. This article will also propose that “doing good to all” is not equivalent to observing the law of “love your neighbour” ( Lev 19:18). The implication of this proposal is that Paul tends to apply the “language of love” restrictedly to “insiders”, ie fellow Christians. However, regarding the interaction between the Pauline churches and the outsiders, the more inclusive “ language of doing good” is preferred.

An Exposition of the Meanings of Witness and Marks of the Church in John Howard Yoder's View of the Church

Vincent CP LAU

Witness of the church is one of the dominant issues in the view of John Howard Yoder. Yoder argues that one of the Divine purposes of building the church is to offer a paradigm for the life of the larger society. This essay is an attempt to investigate the meaning of witness of the church as put forward by Yoder in his view of the church. Firstly, the concept of church in Yoder's theology will be addressed. Secondly, the distinctiveness of church will be constructed. Thirdly, the meanings and relationship of witness and marks of the church will be analyzed.

Christian Witness: Everyday Politics as a Form of Resistance

Chi W. HUEN

Duke theological ethicist Luke Bretherton, in his award-winning book Christianity and Contemporary Politics, sets out to do a theological politics. This essay follows his lead in discerning the conditions and possibilities of faithful Christian witness, especially in non-democratic situations. While concurring with the “ecclesial turn” in contemporary theology to regard the church as itself a particular polity, Bretherton endeavours to further explore: what does it mean for the church qua church to negotiate a common life with various non-Christian others in relation to the state and the market? Adopting Augustine's notion of saeculum, he regards this in-between “ordinary time” of wheat and tares as the mutual ground for pursuing earthly peace and goods in common. He interprets Jeremiah 29:5-7 as admonishing Christians to invest in the wellbeing of wherever they are sent, without compromising their faithful particularity and obedience to God. Using the method of “ecclesiological ethnography”, he elaborates on the practical possibilities of political witness on the local, national and global level respectively. In Saul Alinsky's “broad-based community organizing”, he discovers the mutually disciplining partnership between grassroots democracy and Christianity. In effect, upholding Hannah Arendt's definition of “the political” as the common world of meaningful shared action, he proposes a kind of “everyday politics” . Thus one possible form of the church's political witness is to participate in the organizing and empowerment of ordinary people in their daily life to regain their civic agency. However, the Jeremianic pattern also challenges us, as resident aliens (whether spiritually or legally), to take risk in bringing justice and making peace. In many less than favourable political conditions, our nonresistance inevitably calls for resistance, and vice versa. In fact, genuine politics requires citizens who are not enthralled by state power, ie for the good of the society, we need dissidents, and Christians are born-again non-conformists and protestants. When Christians are loyal citizens of the “City of God”, they make the best earthly citizens. As it turns out, even though Bretherton finds counter-cultural resistance alone inadequate and not missiological enough, he too has to admit that the church in seeking to be faithful to her own vocation always already inherently seeks the welfare of the “Earthly City”. Our faithful political witness is consequent upon the church acting and living as a church.

Whose Imagination After All?: Revisiting the Bicolon Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry

Samuel TS GOH

This essay examines the relationship between the cola within a bicolon in Hebrew poetry. Robert Lowth's theory of parallelism generated a strong interest in biblical parallelism in the twentieth century. Based on this theory, most scholars had viewed the bicolon as comprising two parallel cola. However , in 1980 James Kugel questioned the idea of parallelism and attempted to offer a more precise description of the relationship between the two cola. He contended that the bicolon is in fact a statement formed by two parts, with the second part normally continues the meaning of the first part. Kugel's criticism raises an issue: are the idea of a bicolon and the so-called “parallelism” the biblical poet's literary creativity, or are they in fact modern scholarly imagination? The studies of the bicolon through the centuries seem to dovetail with Kugel's theory: scholarly discussions have moved from treating the bicolon as two parallel cola to emphasizing the cola's contiguous relationship. By applying Roman Jacobson's linguistic theory to the analysis of the poetic bicolon, this essay will show that Kugel's theory is not completely esoteric, neither is it completely valid.

Post-apocalytic Dissent (I): The Deliverance of God

Curtis FREEMAN

This article challenges the evangelical conversion account of salvation and proposes instead that the deliverance of God in Jesus Christ is an apocalyptic event. It retrieves a biblical understanding of apocalyptic in the incarnate faithfulness of Jesus Christ over against dispensational and liberal versions.

Post-apocalytic Dissent (II): The Rebellious Powers

Curtis FREEMAN

This article examines “the powers” in the New Testament, especially in the letters of the Apostle Paul. It explores how the powers have become rebellious to the reign of God, and describes how Christians are to understand the nature and extent of their social influence . It concludes with an analysis of the temptation of Christ as a model for Christian resistance to economic, political, and religious expressions of evil.

Post-apocalyptic Dissent (III): Resisting the Powers

Curtis FREEMAN

This article provides a theological account for a Christian strategy of resisting the powers. In particular it examines the deficient strategies of engaging the powers by constantinianism, which seeks to convert the powers, and pietism, which surrenders to the powers. It offers a third option of resisting the powers and calls for Christians to embrace a vocation of dissent.