HEARING THE WORD Te nature of time


There are important differences in the two Greek words for ‘time’ used in the New Testament Patrick Henry Reardon, senior editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity


O


ur English word ‘time’ bears a double burden, which in more sensible languages (like Italian)


is carried by two different nouns. Tus, our ‘time’ can mean a point in time: an instance or event (Italian volta). Or something fluid: a passage of time, or time in sequence (Italian tempo). In biblical Greek (another sensible


language), time as an event is designated as a kairos. ‘Time’ in this sense is a happening, a thing indivisible. When, however, Greek wants to say ‘time’ in the sense of sequence, the proper word is chronos. Tis obvious root of our English ‘chronology’ indicates time as something measurable, and therefore divisible. Both these Greek words for ‘time’ are important in Holy Scripture.


An indivisible event With resect to the Lord’s


Resurrection, of course, kairos is the sort of time that comes first to


mind, because this was certainly an indivisible event. If, however, we were to think of the Lord’s Resurrection solely as an individual happening, we would run the risk of separating it from biblical chronology. In fact, a certain disposition


to neglect chronology remains a persistent temptation for some Christians. In the second century there was Marcion, who radically separated the kairos of Christ from the narrative chronos of the Old Testament. Another example, in the twentieth century, was Rudolph Bultmann, who divorced the kairos of the act of faith from the chronos of the historical Jesus. In view of this persistent heretical


disposition, it is significant that our Lord, promptly aſter the singular event of the Resurrection, made certain that that kairos was not separated from the chronos of biblical history. He singled out two disciples and walked along with them, explaining the relationship of the ‘event’ of himself to the burden


of biblical prophecy: ‘And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.’


Founding principle of theology Tat is to say, the saving events


of the Christian faith could not be theologically divorced from the full sequence of biblical history. It may be said, moreover, that the conversation of the risen Christ, as he walked with Cleopas and his unnamed companion, opening the Bible for them, was the Church’s first formal course in theology. Tat discourse took place within


hours of the Lord’s rising from the dead; on that day ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David’ demonstrated that he ‘was worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals.’ He was worthy to do this because he was slain and had redeemed us to God by his blood [Rev. 5.5, 9]. Jesus interpreted Holy Scripture, because he ‘fulfilled’ it through the historical and theological events of his death and Resurrection. From time to time, as we know, Jesus had interpreted individual passages of Moses, Isaiah, David, and other Old Testament writers, normally in reference to himself. In that discourse on the road to Emmaus, however, Our Lord devoted the entire effort and time to this single theme, laying the foundation for the proper Christian understanding of the Bible. It may be said that all orthodox


Christian exegesis goes back to that conversation, and we correctly approach the writers of the New Testament as


illustrating the


interpretive paterns put forward in that conversation. Tus, every line of the Bible, every


symbol and every story, every prophecy, proverb, and prayer bears its deeper and proper significance in Christ. Its meaning is conveyed in the catechesis and sacraments of the Church.


ND July 2010 ■ newdirections ■ 9


Independence Day


B


P’s Louisiana oil spill re-awakened the old American anti-Brit tradition, so stand by for an anti-Yank rant, which has an equally venerable history. We’ve been enduring an American


religious oil spill for years – women priests and bishops, gay and (soon to come) divorced bishops. Also hymnology which puts Mrs Alexander’s ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ in the same league as Aquinas for profundity. However, what can you expect from a


nation which got shot of the Arminian, claret drinking, anti-slavery Wesleys but welcomed the Calvinist, Coca Cola drinking, pro-slavery Whitefield? If you doubt Whitefield’s fondness for ‘Coke’, I’ve been convinced that the evidence for it adopts the same rigorous historiography that enabled American scholars to prove that Junia was a proto-bishop. American religious unsoundness


began early – at the first Thanksgiving. Is pumpkin pie anything to be thankful for? Compared with it sprouts have nothing to fear, but eating pumpkin pie shows the same lack of taste that has produced tele-evangelists. Heresy and American behavior (spelling part of the heresy) spreads wider than religion. Take the Boston Tea Party. Who but the Yanks would be proud of people who put the tea in the water rather than introducing the water to the tea? When the Anglican Church in America became independent, they first decided to use the unadopted English Book of 1689, until it was pointed out to them that this book hadn’t been adopted in England because it was a potentially heretical compilation. It’s not only feminist theology


that America has shipped to us but also Worship Songs – the musical equivalent of Starbucks coffee. To be fair to the Yanks, the correct title for these dirges is ‘Washed Up Songs’, but Kendrick & Co. didn’t quite catch the American accent.


Alan Edwards


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40