The Travels of Marco Polo

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marco poloI just finished reading The Travels of Marco Polo with my older sons for school. The historical value of the breadth of information it contains about the eastern lands where Polo travelled is undeniable, but the telling itself is not very compelling. I expected a bit more narrative. While some stories are told, it is largely a catalogue, region by region, of various facts including religion, monetary practice, flora, fauna, and particular practices of the people. These facts are often related in a formulaic way so that it sounds like you are reading the same section over several times. You could get most of the value of the book by reading the prologue.

While not very exciting, there are interesting bits of information if you are looking. I was intrigued to hear how far Christianity had spread into the east with Christians being reported in many of the regions described, sometimes just a few, sometimes a significant group. The main religions were idolatry, Islam (he calls them Saracens) and Christianity. Polo described one group who had somewhere in the past lost much of their religion but continued to cling to what was remembered from their fathers. When Polo investigated he saw the “holy book” they were using was the Psalter and he recognized them as Christians.

The peoples described varied in many ways. The most striking thing to me about the habits of the people across this wide area was the rampant sexual immorality. The immorality took various forms but in most places it was an accepted way of life.

The saddest story concerns Kubilai Khan’s request for Christian missionaries to come and teach the gospel to him and his people. The Khan was interested in becoming a Christian but required people to come to teach the truths of this religion so his people could understand and so he could make a reasonable decision to accept it. As the prologue relates:

He [Kubilai Khan] sent word to the Pope that he should send up to a hundred men learned in the Christian religion … and skilled to argue and demonstrate plainly to idolaters and those of other persuasions that their religion is utterly mistaken and that all the idols which they keep in their houses and worship are things of the Devil- men able to show by clear reasoning that the Christian religion is better than theirs. (36)

However, when Polo’s father and uncle returned to Italy they found the Pope had died, and they waited for two years with no Pope being elected due to conflicting interests in the church. The decided to return anyway (this time taking young Marco with them), and just in time were finally sent two friars to take on the missionary work. However, before they had gotten past modern day Turkey they came into difficulty so that the friars “were scared at the prospect of going farther” (39). The Polos went on, but the missionaries did not.

So, the ruler of much of the Far East requests missionaries but fulfillment of the request is delayed due to division within the church. Then, finally two missionaries are sent (although up to 100 were requested), only to turn back early on due to fear of personal safety. The explorers/businessmen continued, but the missionaries did not. What a rebuke.

Though this is not a thrilling read, there is much to be pondered here concerning missions and Christian involvement in non-Christian societies.

[We read the Penguin Classics edition, and page numbers refer to this edition. Other editions may vary since there is an interesting textual history to this book. The Penguin edition does text critical work to draw from the differing manuscripts]

“Come, Sinners, to the Gospel Feast”, Wesley

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This Charles Wesley hymn is a powerful presentation of the gospel call, pleading for people to come to Christ.

Come, sinners, to the Gospel feast;
Let every soul be Jesus’ guest.
Ye need not one be left behind,
For God hath bid all mankind.

Sent by my Lord, on you I call;
The invitation is to all.
Come, all the world! Come, sinner, thou!
All things in Christ are ready now.

Come, all ye souls by sin oppressed,
Ye restless wanderers after rest;
Ye poor, and maimed, and sick, and blind,
In Christ a hearty welcome find.

Come, and partake the Gospel feast;
Be saved from sin; in Jesus rest;
O taste the goodness of your God,
And eat His flesh, and drink His blood!

You vagrant souls, on you I call;
(O that my voice could reach you all!)
You all may now be justified,
You all may live, for Christ hath died.

His love is mighty to compel;
His conquering love consent to feel,
Yield to His love’s resistless power,
And fight against your God no more.

See Him set forth before your eyes,
That precious, bleeding Sacrifice!
His offered benefits embrace,
And freely now be saved by grace.

This is the time, no more delay!
This is the Lord’s accepted day.
Come thou, this moment, at His call,
And live for Him Who died for all.

– Charles Wes­ley, Hymns for Those That Seek and Those That Have Re­demp­tion in the Blood of Je­sus Christ, 1747.

 

Psalm-singing & Beheadings

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Last night after getting home from church, as I was about to gather the things for the Psalm my family would sing this week, I saw the news of the Egyptian Christians beheaded by ISIS. I pointed the story out to my older sons. We have talked much over the last year about the call in Revelation 2:10, “Be faithful unto death.”

Then I returned to the Psalm work. I remembered a Psalm we had sung in church recently that I thought worked well (tune & words), and I thought we could sing it at home. When I pulled out the worship guide I saw that it was Psalm 31, the metrical version of Tate & Brady, with some adjustments by Chris Mathews. We sang it to the tune, “St. Thomas,” which my family associates most readily with “Rise Up O Men of God.” The closing verse seemed particularly appropriate in light of the news.

(v24) Ye that on God rely, courageously proceed:

For He will still your hearts supply with strength in time of need.

I was glad to be able to sing this Psalm with my children this morning, God-inspired words to a noble tune reinforcing in our souls the call to carry on courageously in the face of opposition (context of the rest of the Psalm) trusting that God will supply the strength we need.

When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir, Bob Kerrey

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when i was a young manWhen I Was a Young Man: A Memoir, Bob Kerrey
(Audio version, Audible Studios, 2014)

I was offered a free review copy of this audio book and accepted knowing I had the semester break to listen. I recognized the author as a politician, decorated war veteran, whom I thought had run for but not received the presidential nomination of the Democrat party. That was as far as my knowledge went, and it was enough to stir my curiosity.
I liked Kerrey’s writing style as well as his reading. It was straightforward and compelling. I particularly liked hearing his description of his childhood. His struggle with asthma while wanting to play football made a compelling story of perseverance. I was intrigued to hear of his church experience as well. Particularly interesting was his discussion of how the stories he heard shaped his world and where the stories came from. Kerrey stated, “My heroes came from stories I heard on Sunday. … I also learned heroic stories downtown at the Stuart Theater” where he watched the serials of Tarzan, Zorro and various cowboy movies. One of the stabilizing effects in his childhood was feeling “drawn to the great stories of the church and the parallel stores I saw on the Stuart Theater screen.” This was a reminder of the powerful impact of stories on our formation, and it made me wistful for a setting in which stories “on the screen” typically ran parallel to and supported the stories of the church.

I was also struck by his account of how a New Testament class impacted him. Since I teach such a NT survey class this was of particular interest. It was interesting that he seriously considered pursuing a ministerial vocation as a result of this class. It seemed that the Viet Nam war sidetracked this potential interest. It was sad that his reading for the NT class was Bultmann and Tillich. I wondered what might have happened if he had been introduced to more orthodox writers.
His experience in Viet Nam was clearly the central place where his story was going. I was intrigued by his first person account of training in one of the earliest SEAL teams and of what it was like to enter Viet Nam not knowing what to expect. Eventually he was seriously wounded, losing his leg, and was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. His angst about the event for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor was clear but the reasons for it were not. Only after doing some web searching did I discover that there was controversy surrounding the event with contradicting stories and charges of killing civilians. I have no insight into sorting out those debates, but this account did demonstrate the terrible realities of war and the lingering effects on those involved.
The book closed in an odd way by returning to the story of his uncle who died in World War II. This left me uncertain as to what the author was trying to accomplish in the book as a whole. However, even with that oddity, the basic stories of a man’s life growing up from the 1940’s to the 1960’s was intriguing.

Resources for Preaching/Teaching Psalm 91

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As mentioned in the last post, I intend to comment on the resources I use each time I prepare to teach or preach a Psalm. Recently I taught Psalm 91 in an adult Sunday School class.

Eric Lane’s Psalms 90-150: The Lord Reigns (Christian Focus, 2006) was a bit new to me so I tried it out. Sadly it was not helpful, being thin in discussion and idiosyncratic. I had also recently received a copy of the new NICOT volume on the Psalms written by deClaissé, Jacobson, and Tanner. This volume, also, was disappointing. The exposition covered only two pages (disappointing in such a series) and in that space dealt too much with little details. If that is all the space you have you need to have a narrow focus and nail that well. Not so here. In the closing section the author stated: “It is up to the one hearing these words to decide how these words can serve as a bridge from what came before, to decide what and how things have changed” (701). I may have misunderstood, but this sounded like saying that it is up to the reader to figure out the meaning in the end.

I have previously expressed disappointment with the Hermeneia commentary on the Psalms written by Hossfeld and Zenger (2 volumes so far with the third expected). It is very technical and critical, but the more I’ve used it I have changed my opinion. This is often the first place I go now when needing information on background or on a specific word. Also, perhaps its chief value, is the separate section in the commentary on each psalm for how it is used in the New Testament. I have seen nothing else like this for its comprehensiveness and detail. Theologically we are quite different but just having the info on NT usage, including allusion, is so helpful.

James Mays’ Interpretation volume is brief, but as usual it got to the heart of the issue, profound theological truth from a pastoral angle in pithy expression. He helpfully mentioned the commendation Athanasius gave of this Psalm in his letter to Marcellinus. This was a reminder of why I regularly turn to this volume.

An Indictment on Evangelical Worship

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At the start of a new semester, I have chosen for my poem of the week a stirring critique of all too common experiences in our evangelical worship services by Justin Wainscott. We have probably all seen the things skewered here. Let us labor for better.

 An Indictment on Evangelical Worship

Set the stage and dim the lights,
Create my mood; abuse my rights.
Out-do all you did last week,
And never let the silence speak.
Entertain me, at all costs,
Blur the lines ‘tween true and false.
Smile and tell me all’s okay,
I’ll believe whate’er you say.
Give me mirrors; give me smoke,
Fill me with clichés and jokes.
Like an orphan with no story,
Cut me off from all before me.
Hide the pain and fake the smile,
Lamentation’s out of style.
Give me milk and warm the bottle,
Make sure it is the latest model.
Numb my mind with borrowed tricks,
Feed my soul with Pixi-stix.
Don’t confront what lurks within,
Or else I’ll never come again.

– M. Justin Wainscott, © 2007

What Resources are Good for Help Preaching the Psalms?

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Along the way I have lamented the lack of great resources for help in preaching the Psalms. There is a general problem of Bible commentaries getting bogged down in details and seeming to forget this is the word of God to the people of God. But this is particularly aggravated with the Psalms. At least two things contribute to this. One, the sheer length of the Psalms often limits or prohibits the type of depth of reflection given them. Just look at the number of pages given to commentaries on various NT books and then look at the commentaries on the Psalms. In the NICNT series the volume on the Pastoral Epistles (letters which often get less attention) has 934 pages whereas the NICOT on the Psalms has 1050 pages.

Secondly, with restricted space the academic pressures (or interests) typically push commentators to give their space to critical details. These details can be helpful, but the absence of further reflection is especially painful and problematic on the portion of Scripture which is designed to teach us to pray and to praise. Of all places, here we need the reflection of believing churchmen who from years of experience in laboring with the church and their own souls (in addition to academic work) can give us guidance on why God gave us these specific texts (I am deeply grateful for Ray Ortlund’s regular question to those of us in his Hebrew exegesis class, “Why did God give us this text?).

Good resources do exist (I think of Kidner’s 2 volume gem), but we need more. Often the liveliest books on the Psalms are books which approach them generally or collectively. These are wonderful, but in the work of preaching we need some that examine each Psalm individually. So, I have decided along the way as I teach or preach on certain Psalms to record here what I found in the various resources I used. I can’t use every source each time, but my plan is to vary my usage in order to find which ones are most useful in the actual work of preaching the Psalms. I have previously written a post like this on Psalm 128 and have more planned for the future.

Accountability, from Thomas Becket

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The scripture is clear on our need for faithful friends who will tell us our faults with a desire to help us. One who has such friends is blessed and the one who does not is in danger.

I was quite intrigued to see this point affirmed as my sons and I read The Lives of Thomas Becket. Shortly after being elevated to the position of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Becket said to a friend:

“’This I desire, this I instruct you, that whatever men say about me, you tell me boldly and in private. And if I fail in any of my work, as I say, I enjoin you to tell me freely and confidently, but secretly. For many things may be said about me from now on which are not said of me, which to a great extent is also true of others, especially the rich – many here and there speak about them in public, but few or none to them. Likewise, also point out any transgressions that you see and judge to be so.’ And at the end of his talk he added, ‘Certainly four eyes see more circumspectly and clearly than two’ ” (Lives of Thomas Becket, 65)

Wise words.

Chrysostom on the Necessity of Scripture Reading

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john_chrysostom1“Countless evils have arisen from ignorance of the Scriptures. From this the plague of heresies has broken out. From this there are neglectful lives. From this there are labors without benefit. For just as men deprived of daylight of this world do not walk rightly, so those who do not look to the gleaming of the Holy Scriptures must be frequently and constantly sinning, in that they are walking in the worst darkness.

John Chrysostom (from his Homilies on Romans, ca. 390 A.D.)

[Here is a similar quote from Chrysostom which I posted previously]

Singing Psalm 131

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The psalm my family sang together last week was Psalm 131, using this metrical version to the tune usually associated with “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” It works very well, is quite singable and is faithful to the text. We have really enjoyed it.

O Lord, My Heart’s Not Lifted Up (Psalm 131)

O Lord, my heart’s not lifted up;
My eyes aren’t raised too high;
With things too great and marvelous,
I am not occupied.
I’ve learned to calm my fretful soul,
And hush my clam’ring fears;
My soul is like a weaned, young child,
Content his mother’s near.
So in the Lord let all the hope
Of God’s redeemed now be,
From this time forth and evermore,
Through all eternity.

Only this morning did I discover that this metrical version was prepared by Justin Wainscott! I had picked it up from Chris Matthews but just assumed it came from a standard Psalter. Well done, Justin!

Give it a try. This is another good metrical psalm version for singing at home and at church.