Posted on by Dustin Ellington

The Apostle Paul and the Promise of the Land

(I gave the following lecture at the Middle East Consultation of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Mansourieh, Lebanon, Sept 21, 2026. Almost the same material appeared on the ABTS faculty blog: https://abtslebanon.org/2026/09/17/the-apostle-paul-and-the-promised-land/)

As many of us know, it can be stressful and confusing to live in Lebanon with the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The situation is full of many complex realities which I will not pretend to address today. Instead, I want to deal, hopefully in a responsible way, with one issue that lies underneath a lot of what’s happening in Lebanon and the region: How should believers interpret the Bible with respect to the promised land?

First, a little background: The promise and gift of the land are central in the Old Testament. It was not simply territory but the place where the people Israel would live as God’s covenant people in his presence. God rescued Israel out of slavery and into the land so that they might live under his rule, worship him, and be a blessing and light among the nations.

But how should believers interpret the promise of the land after Jesus’ death and resurrection, once the church expands to include the gentiles, and the New Testament has been written?

Let me admit that such questions of interpretation are complicated, and at the risk of oversimplification, I’ll describe the issue in terms of two main options:

First option: Should we take Old Testament promises regarding the land as they are, reading them in a literal, plain-sense way, as many believers do? And many who have this perspective also tend to move directly from the Old Testament to territorial claims for the modern state of Israel.

Or, the second option, as we will explore in this session: Should we interpret the promise of the land christologically, through Christ, and as being fulfilled in Christ? This approach is different and leads to different results and priorities. And I want to propose that the writers of the New Testament seem to think in this second way. And they set an example for us to interpret the promise of the land like this.

To be clear, these options are not about taking Jesus Christ seriously or not; believers with very different perspectives on this issue are serious Christians. I’m asking: Should we as believers accept the Old Testament’s promises about the land at face value — in a literal way — or do we take them in the way that the New Testament seems to take them?

Let’s begin by recognizing that almost all Christians today are not of Jewish background and therefore would not be naturally reading what we call the Old Testament apart from faith in Jesus Christ. We receive the Old Testament as God’s word to us because of our faith in Jesus Christ. He is our connection to the Old Testament.

For those who wrote the New Testament to teach early Christians, the reality that gentile believers’ connection with the Old Testament is only through Jesus Christ has profound effects when it comes to interpreting the Old Testament’s promises.

In this session, instead of presenting a survey of evidence from the New Testament as whole, I will focus on Paul the apostle. This will allow us to be brief while still going deep in the thought of a key New Testament writer. And it will help us avoid merely quoting Bible verses here and there as superficial proof texts.

Paul claimed, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:20 NIV). This statement sums up Paul’s approach: he understood that God’s promises in the Old Testament get faithfully fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

What could Paul have meant by this statement in 2 Corinthians? He gives us clues. Though Jesus and his first disciples were Jews, Paul was mainly writing to gentile believers living in ancient Corinth when he wrote those words. He says later in 2 Corinthians 7:1 that “we” (gentile Christians like the Corinthians) now “have these promises”. There, Paul is identifying these believers in Jesus Christ as the (new) temple of God (2 Cor 6:16; see Zech 2:10-11 and Is 56:3-8 for Paul’s possible basis). But the claim is broader than that. In 1 Cor 10:1 he also calls the ancestors in the Old Testament “our fathers”. So, Paul teaches gentile believers that, through Christ, they have become heirs of Israel’s scriptures and God’s promises.

But it’s not as though Paul concludes that the land of promise belongs to Christians.

In fact, despite the presence of 13 letters in the New Testament bearing Paul’s name, we find him making no mention of the promise of the land. This silence is very loud.

And it’s important to ask why is Paul so quiet about the land of promise?

Some say Paul doesn’t mention the promised land because he assumes the Old Testament already says what needs to be said. That’s highly unlikely, because Paul gives us clues that he re-interprets the plain-sense meaning of the Old Testament’s promise of the land.

Paul says in Romans 4:13 that God promised “Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world (kosmos)”.

The Old Testament teaches that God gave Abraham the land of Israel and that his descendants would inherit that land. But Paul inserts “kosmos” where we would expect “land”! (See Ex 32:13)

This signals why Paul demonstrates little concern for the land of Israel. (SLIDE) Paul’s belief about the promise has turned from a particular piece of land to the whole world, in line with the part of the promise saying that God would bless the nations (gentiles) through Abraham (Gen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18).

Thus, we find evidence in Paul’s letters that he’s trying to make his way to Rome, the center of the known world at that time, for the sake of spreading the gospel from there. Paul’s letters, and the New Testament as a whole, tend to decenter the land of Israel, even while affirming that the Christian faith is rooted in ancient Israel and the Old Testament.

And in Romans 15:5-12, Paul grounds his call to take the gospel to the gentiles in a wide variety of Israel’s scriptures – Deuteronomy, the Psalms, and Isaiah. The universal mission to the gentiles arises from the Old Testament. So we see Paul’s reading of Israel’s scriptures through Christ is layered, multidimensional; he takes some elements rather straightforwardly, such as prophecies about the gentiles, though other aspects he interprets in a more spiritual or figurative way.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians affirms God’s promise to Abraham but features Paul re-interpreting the promise to Abraham’s “offspring” as singular, identifying the one offspring as Christ in Gal 3:16. Paul makes no mention of the land, but instead “the promise of the Spirit” (3:14 NIV). We who put faith in Jesus receive the Holy Spirit and “sonship”; we become God’s children and heirs (3:26). So, Paul uses inheritance language for his gentile Christian readers, telling them they are children of Abraham, children and heirs of the promise through faith in Jesus Christ (3:29).

Paul affirms something similar in Romans 8 when he states that believers are joint heirs with Christ (verse 17). And instead of mentioning the land, he maintains that all of creation will be liberated (8:19-23). Again, we see Paul’s move from the Old Testament’s promise of a particular piece of land to a vision for the whole world (see Is 65:17 for Paul’s possible basis).

Yet Paul also shows deep concern for his fellow Jews. Romans 9 to 11 is a famously complex passage where Paul affirms God’s faithfulness to the Jews. Paul even says God’s calling and gifts to them are irrevocable (11:29). That’s probably the saying which Christian Zionists rely on the most in Paul’s letters, though the land itself is notably not mentioned in Romans 9 to 11. This long passage helps us realize that it is not that Paul believes the increasingly gentile church of his time has displaced the people of Israel. He says it is not that God’s promises to Israel have failed or been voided.

The reality is not displacement but continuity of the promise and exponential enlargement into one people (in Christ). Paul sees Jew and gentile worshiping God together as one Israel throughout the world (Rom 10:18), like one great olive tree into which new branches (gentile believers) have been grafted (11:12, 15; 11:17-23). Paul also leaves us with a mystery because he says, “all Israel will be saved” (11:26). There’s debate about whether this verse (11:26) means the whole community of Jews and Gentiles together who have faith in Jesus, or solely ethnic Israel as an entity. Paul does not provide the details for how or when this salvation will happen, but he recognizes this event as part of God’s faithfulness to the Jews. Paul also maintains in the larger context that it is all who call upon the Lord Jesus who will be saved (10:9, 13; 11:23).

Let me acknowledge that Paul also honors the impoverished Jewish Christians of Jerusalem as he seeks in multiple letters to raise money toward their relief and welfare (1 Cor 16:1-4; 2 Cor 8-9; Rom 15:25-27; Gal 2:10). This is a curious reality, because there was poverty among believers in other places, as Paul testifies for instance in Macedonia 2 Cor 8:2-4, where the donors themselves were impoverished. Why does Paul give a preference to the saints of Jerusalem? While Paul’s theology does not prioritize the land of Israel or Jerusalem, the Jewish followers of Jesus who are part of the mother church in Jerusalem still occupy his heart. This gift for the saints in Jerusalem is a way for Paul to work at unity between the mostly Gentile churches elsewhere and the Jewish followers of Jesus in Jerusalem. For Paul it may also symbolize fulfillment of the prophecies about the wealth of the gentiles coming to Zion, but here it is all happening for the church and within the church.

Now, if we had time to explain Paul’s position on the promised land further, we would explore the church as the body of Christ and the location of God’s presence on earth, apparently in place of the temple and the land (Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 3:16; 12:27; Eph 3:6; 4:12). Paul identifies the bodies of believers (mostly gentile in Paul’s context) as the new place of God’s dwelling through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:15, 19). It is a similar way of thinking that leads Jesus in John’s Gospel to say to a Samaritan woman, “The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (John 4:21). Why is that? Because the coming of Jesus and his death and resurrection relativize and greatly decrease the importance of Jerusalem and Israel’s land. We find no evidence in Paul’s letters that these physical spaces are still the location of God’s presence.

The New Testament, while rooting its teaching in the Old Testament, gives little (or no) long-term priority to a particular piece of land for God’s people. Instead, the New Testament directs believers’ eyes toward the whole world. The promise of the land is not denied; it is expanded to include the rest of the world, where the gospel message and Christ’s presence must go (Rom 15:19-23; 2 Cor 5:19; Gal 3:8).

My goal here was not to pretend to address all that might shape Christians’ different views of supporting the modern state of Israel. And many other issues are relevant when interpreting the promised land, including: What does accountability mean in relation to the land? What are the biblical boundaries of the land? Who is Israel? And, How does the rest of the New Testament, beyond Paul’s letters, handle the promise of the land?

My goal has been smaller. I’ve tried to raise questions and plant seeds so that believers will pause and realize the evidence from Paul directs us toward a different understanding of the promise than that promoted by those who take the approach of a literal fulfilment of the promise of the land. The writers of the New Testament read the Old Testament’s promise about the land through their experience of the risen Christ. This leads them to teach a different way of receiving the Old Testament’s promise. We see a move from the land to the whole world. And the place of God’s presence becomes the believers themselves.

As we interpret the promises about the land found in the Old Testament, I invite fellow believers to consider guidance from Paul and other writers of the New Testament. In the least, perhaps the line of thought shared today can help believers who take the promises of the land literally to understand one important reason why many brothers and sisters don’t hold the same view or have the same priority.

A responsible Christian approach to the modern state of Israel needs to consider how the New Testament interprets the promises about the land which appear in the Old Testament. Doing so may help us avoid transferring biblical promises automatically and uncritically into political claims about the modern state of Israel. Avoiding this can ultimately lead to policies and a region that’s more just, and may even make the gospel message more credible.

Thank you for the chance to share with you.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

AI in Theological Education: Saving Time but Stifling Growth?

“This is the moment to reevaluate what you do and how you do it,” wrote a dean at Princeton University to its faculty this past summer about artificial intelligence. Though he was addressing a secular university, not a seminary, his words resonate deeply with me. Something very big is happening, like I’ve never seen in 20 years of teaching as a New Testament professor. Much student writing has suddenly become near professional quality, yet more and more students’ assignments sound similar in both style and content. It is becoming difficult to hear students’ distinct voices or to see what they themselves can do in interpretation. Genuine assessment has become almost impossible. I wonder if AI, instead of only being a powerful tool, is taking over.

While I recognize that other aspects of my work, such as mentoring and encouraging students, remain stable, I suspect that the academic training which I’ve been doing with students is now threatened.

At ABTS and other seminaries, we are finding our way in this new world – between AI’s efficient access to vast amounts of information and the slow, sometimes messy, formation of people’s character and skills for ministry.

This blog is not about policy but a reflection on what AI means for our work of teaching students in a formative way, a way that shapes them holistically – who they become as believers and as ministers. I am not a technology expert. I speak from my experience of teaching students toward becoming mature interpreters of the Bible. How do we help them practice and build interpretive skills instead of letting AI offer shortcuts which compromise growth and learning? How do we guide students toward maturity as interpreters of the Bible when they already use AI?

Many assume that AI simply makes learning more efficient. Let me share why it is not so simple. Seminary is not about speedy access to a wealth of information. When I first began teaching, I filled lectures with information. But over time I realized that while students could repeat facts, it did not mean they were growing as interpreters of the Bible. I saw that students need the experience of discovering for themselves what is present in Scripture; and they need to describe what they see with their own voices. I had to shift my approach. So I learned to ask open questions with students, opening the text of Scripture with them, and sending them to the text, where they could see things for themselves.

There’s a world of difference between reading about the Bible and encountering the Bible itself. When we meet God in Scripture, and are confronted with truth from the Bible about ourselves, the content sticks with us. When we read the Bible for ourselves, and struggle to understand and apply what’s there on the page, the biblical text becomes our own. It is more convicting and more inspiring when we discover truth for ourselves in Scripture itself. Second-hand interpretation, whether from a commentary, a professor, or AI, lacks the same transformative power.

I once asked a class why we spend so much time learning to interpret different kinds of books in the Bible. A student replied, “Because once you get the skills, you’ve been empowered.” Exactly. Our goal is not to prepare students to depend on experts but to form them with skills to interpret the Bible faithfully. The interpretive instincts they develop will stay with them, shaping their relationship with God and positioning them to share truth with others in a way that draws them also into a deep relationship with God through Scripture. What’s at stake is genuine preparation for ministry.

So theological education is not mainly about transmitting lots of correct information but forming and shaping believers with certain skills and relationships, including a vital relationship with the Bible.

Now, however, the world of technology has given a research assistant to our students without regard for where they are on their journey toward becoming mature interpreters of the Bible. In my courses, I tend to assign open-ended questions: What does Mark teach about the kingdom of God and its relationship to Jesus? How does Acts connect the Holy Spirit and the spread of the gospel? What does 2 Corinthians reveal about suffering and authentic ministry? Answering such questions has required careful reading, reflection, and struggle. Now, AI can answer such questions quickly and rather accurately. But when students rely on it without wrestling with Scripture itself to develop their answers, they bypass what could have been a powerfully formative encounter with God’s written word. Students save time, and they find information, but they miss a transformative experience.

I too use AI tools in my study, and I’m excited by how helpful and efficient they are. Yet they work best when used by someone already shaped by years of training, when one’s skills and relationship with the Bible are essentially in place.

Today, if our students wish, they can delegate close reading of the Bible to an AI assistant. Students win time but they lose a chance to grow toward becoming someone with a first-hand relationship with the Bible and instincts for interpreting it with discernment and wisdom. I’m left wondering how this might affect their ministry and their relationship with God.

So I’m asking anew: what exactly am I doing as a teacher, and how should I be doing it now?  What do students need in order to use AI wisely? How can we help students supervise this powerful assistant so it plays a productive role in their growth instead of allowing it to take over and do more than it should?

To use AI responsibly, students need a deep familiarity with Scripture, a love for it, a sense of how to interpret the texture and flow of its various forms of literature, and even a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and their own contexts as they interpret. They need the ability to describe what they find in their own words. If they rely too heavily on AI, they hand over more and more interpretive agency to it and thus miss the genuine education that could shape them into mature interpreters. Then, ultimately, they don’t get the skills, they lack self-confidence that they can understand the Bible, and they don’t quite feel at home with the Bible. A great loss.

When I shared such thoughts with ABTS faculty colleagues, one responded: “An additional long-term question I’ve been wrestling with is not just how will this impact our students’ personal growth and relationship with God through his word, but what will be the impact on the next generation if they are trained by people who didn’t adequately form these skills and relationships?” Yes, indeed.

Perhaps, with time, we can train AI tools to assist in student formation – to behave like patient teaching assistants prompting students to observe the goals of a given course, prodding them to observe Scripture directly and reflect personally, rather than doing the work for them.

For now, though, I am exploring how to reshape assignments. Instead of writing polished essays, students might narrate their interpretive process with passages of Scripture. Like when math teachers require students to “show your work”. This puts students in more touch with their thinking processes, and slowing down like this can also help them make additional connections along the way. What they write might look like a lab report or journal: what they noticed, what questions arose, how their understanding developed as they studied the passage. That shift could preserve the struggle and discovery that foster genuine growth.

I recently read that a Cornell University professor said that he has a hard time prioritizing his long-term interests over his short-term interests, so he doesn’t blame students for using AI. Yet he also said: “I do think that over time, people are going to have to figure out that it’s actually better for them not to use AI in ways that replace practicing hard skills, because that’s the only way you build them.” I agree.

How do we help students value long-term growth over short-term efficiency, even though it involves much more struggle? How do we help them care more about stewarding their skills, and developing such character qualities as patience and perseverance, than about saving time? How do we help students see that the trade-off of saving time ultimately undermines the very goal they’re striving for – to serve God and others well?

Interpreting the Bible and learning to think theologically has little relationship to efficiency. These have to do with our relationship with Scripture and with God. Trying to save time tends not to be what most helps our relationships with other people; why would it be any different with God and the Bible?

Paul told the Galatians he was in the anguish of childbirth until Christ would be formed in them (Gal 4:19). For all of us who train others for Christian ministry, may we not lose heart but keep striving to learn together what genuinely formative theological education should look like in the current era.

I have shared where I am in my process of dealing with AI as a teacher. What has this brought to your mind? 

The blog above was first shared on the faculty blog of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. https://abtslebanon.org/2025/11/20/ai-in-theological-education-saving-time-but-stifling-growth/

For the quotations above from the Princeton dean and the Cornell professor, see:

https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025/10/princeton-news-broadfocus-artificial-intelligence-humanities-professors. Accessed Oct 6, 2025. 

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/10/ai-won-t-replace-the-university-what-cornell-professors-have-to-say-about-artificial-intelligence-on-campus. Accessed October 28, 2025.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

Invitation to Hope: De-Mystifying Eschatology in the New Testament

I’ve always been a future-oriented person. I had thought it was a strength to be able to look ahead, articulate long-term goals, and connect those with my present steps: That is, until I moved to Lebanon. For many living in Lebanon and several other countries in this region, it’s easy to get shaken off balance and frustrated because the future seems so unpredictable and outside our control. It can seem like setting goals involves too many variables. One can get discouraged and wonder if a good future is even possible.

When my wife suggested that, instead of giving up my “future-orientation” in frustration, I apply it to an even longer-term view—such as eternity—it got my attention.

In fact, a light went on for me, as I recalled noticing in the past, and even teaching about, how central eschatology (beliefs about “the last things”) is for the apostle Paul. He returns to it so often that he doesn’t seem to have been able to think about other topics without doing so. Much of this was because, for Paul, Christ’s death and resurrection signaled the end of the old age and the beginning of the new. So, eschatology includes and impacts our present life, in addition to the future.

I have sometimes encountered fellow believers who see Christian teaching about the future as mainly speculative or arcane—mysterious and perhaps understood by only a few. Many see eschatology as something believers easily disagree about, and thus not something that deserves much attention. I have been one of those Christians as well, but I see it rather differently now.

I’ve come to realize that I need to digest a larger measure of biblical affirmations about the future; maybe other believers living in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond do also. The Bible points to a path that can transform our orientation toward what is ahead. Throughout Scripture, we find a truly hopeful and practical theology of the future, which is what I wish to explore in this blog post.

I won’t deal with the whole New Testament in this one post; I’m going to focus on the letters of the New Testament. (Sherri Ellington deals more with sayings from the gospels in a recent blog post about awaiting Christ’s return.) It’s generally acknowledged that the opening section of each New Testament letter, from Romans through Revelation, introduces that letter’s particular vantage point. (I consider Revelation to be one long letter; see Rev 1:4-5; 1:9-11; and 22:21.) Each biblical writer’s introduction gives insight and something of a basis for interpreting the rest of the letter that follows.

So, as an experiment, and to write this blog, I closely read the opening section of each of the New Testament’s 22 letters, to see what they say about the future. I found that the introductory sections of all these letters, except tiny Philemon and 3 John, include an eschatological aspect. (And, though not in his introduction, Paul does eventually offer an eternal perspective in Philemon, as well, in verse 22). I also found that these statements about the future are normally linked with implications for the practical Christian life.

Indeed, much of what strikes me when I come across statements about the future in the New Testament is the great extent to which they are part of the foundation and framework for how we are to understand our lives as Christians. Our present is intertwined with our future.

Paul affirms: “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6; see also 1 Cor 1:7-8).

Christ’s death and resurrection begin “the end of the ages” (Heb 9:26) and give us hope for today and tomorrow: “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” (1 Peter 1:3b).

The New Testament also presents the giving of the Holy Spirit as a present eschatological reality, and thus a source of hope: “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13-14).

As we read the openings of the New Testament’s letters, we find a sense of security and safety as we face the future. We have an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for us (1 Peter 1:4; also 2 Tim 1:12). And we ourselves are being “kept for Jesus Christ” (Jude 1; and see verse 24).

These and other statements we find about the future in the New Testament’s letters tend to be general, not highly detailed or difficult to understand, and not particularly controversial. Too often, we believers have been mystified about eschatology, as though it’s a historical blueprint written far in advance, or an enormous, esoteric, and detailed system which only a few can figure out by comparing various biblical passages.

Certainly, we find some statements that are debatable and difficult to understand. Revelation 1:1-3 for instance, says the content of this book of prophecy will happen “soon,” and “the time is near.” And some of Revelation’s images are tough to decipher (though it sometimes interprets its own images, as in 1:20; 12:9; and 17:15, 18).

In contrast, the apostle Paul doesn’t typically use much detail when speaking of end-time events, confessing, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12). Admittedly, he does go into detail when he responds to concerns and false statements about Christ’s return (1 Thess 3:13-5:2; 2 Thess 2:1-16), and when he responds to those who deny the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12-28).

We also find complexity when Paul deals with the future of his fellow Jews in Romans 11. Despite the unbelief of most, Paul states: “all Israel will be saved” (11:26), and “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (11:29). However, Paul, like the rest of those who wrote the New Testament’s letters, never shows concern for or makes a clear statement about the future of the land of Israel.

Eschatology’s complicated aspects are more the exception than the norm. Controversy is mostly absent as we study what the New Testament’s letters say about the future. New Testament writers desired believers like us to be at home with eschatology, owning it for our lives, so that it doesn’t feel strange or scary.

Thus, the biblical writers tend to stick with a few key convictions that they repeat over and over in various ways:

  • We believers await the future coming of Jesus Christ, which gives us a measure of accountability (there will be a judgment) but also genuine hope.
  • God will make all things new.
  • We will be with him forever.
  • In the meantime, we also have hope for this present life because we get a taste of the future now, through the power of the resurrection and the Holy Spirit renewing and transforming us in the image of Jesus (Rom 6:4; 2 Cor 3:18).

The New Testament’s statements about the future give us a narrative to live by. We come to own these words when we learn to understand the story of our lives as taking place between Jesus’ resurrection and his coming again. Wherever we are, this gives us an orientation of trust and resilience as we face the future.

From the perspective of the New Testament’s letters, it’s difficult to imagine the Christian life apart from integrating it with convictions and hopes about the future. The future is always in view. By choosing to study passages on the New Testament’s eschatology, and reflecting on them with other believers, we can practice paying attention to them and can digest their affirmations for our lives. Thus, we can learn to be at home with the Bible’s statements about the future, and shift from fear and frustration to confidence and hope.

This blog post originally appeared on the faculty blog of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary: https://abtslebanon.org/2025/01/30/invitation-to-hope-de-mystifying-eschatology-in-the-new-testament/

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

Stepping toward Galilee

“But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. – Mark 16:7-8 (ESV)   

Mark 16:8 is a surprising way to end a Gospel, with the women fleeing in fear after seeing the empty tomb and hearing the angel announce that Jesus has risen. Most evidence from ancient manuscripts points to this as the real ending of Mark’s Gospel, not 16:9-20. It’s worth reflecting on why Mark most likely ended not with an appearance of Jesus but with a promise that his disciples will see him, and not with a response of belief but with fleeing and fear.

Jesus had risen. That means that everything had changed for these women who went early Sunday to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. Yet Mark says they met what they saw and heard with trembling, fear, and silence. Mark often speaks of the Twelve not understanding Jesus. The women tend to do better. This time, even their response proves inadequate.

Sometimes we as Jesus followers respond weakly. We fail to take in the good news, as though it doesn’t quite register with our expectations. We don’t absorb it. Sometimes our fears speak louder than the good news of resurrection and a hope-filled promise. Let’s be aware that, even at Easter, some believers may barely hold on to hope.  

Yet the words of promise remain: “He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him…” No matter what we feel, we’re called to step toward Galilee – where Jesus taught discipleship. As we respond, stepping toward discipleship, we will see the resurrected Jesus. It’s a promise.[1]

This was originally an addition to the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary blog post for Easter 2023. See https://abtslebanon.org/nondegree-programs/blog/

[1] Regarding Galilee and discipleship, see M.D. Hooker, The Gospel According to St. Mark, 393-394.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

New Testament Letters as a Testimony about Theological Education from a Distance

I contributed this week’s edition of the ABTS blog here in Lebanon. It begins: I recently joined the faculty of ABTS and, given ABTS’s new hybrid format, I’ve been asked several times how I feel about beginning to teach from a distance…

https://abtslebanon.org/2022/12/08/new-testament-letters-as-a-testimony-about-distance-education/?fbclid=IwAR3iaoYEqHCAAUHGB3cQdO4Vcnz2STX2MFscM673sbvWKPZWqRZSiFmLDCY
Posted on by Dustin Ellington

The Unexpected Path

(Sermon for a chapel communion service)

It’s an honor to get to stand here and share God’s word with you before moving from Zambia and Justo Mwale University later this month. Our passage is Rev 5:1-14.

I’ve appreciated the sermons I’ve heard this term on inviting God’s kingdom to be present in the church. Our passage today also contributes, where Jesus is told, “You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth”.

I’ve not heard many sermons on the book of Revelation in this chapel. It’s a difficult book to interpret because it’s so different from the rest of the books of the New Testament. We’re not used to interpreting a book like this, a book that is three kinds of literature all at once. John tells us at the beginning of this book that what he’s written is an apocalypse (a revelation, an unveiling), but also a book of prophecy, and also a letter to seven churches, one big letter to seven churches during a period of the Roman Empire when it was very difficult to be Christian.[1] And as a letter, it needs to be interpreted in a way that would have been meaningful to those first people who received it, and then as meaningful to us.

Seeing  

Our passage begins with the words… “I saw”. Our passage has three sections, each beginning with, “I saw…” It’s one of the most common phrases in Revelation. John sees visions. An apocalypse includes symbolic visions which reveal things otherwise hidden and unknown.

In chapters 4-5, John is taken up to see the heavenly throne room. And a big part of what he sees is: Who’s in charge. And it’s not Caesar, it’s not the Roman emperor who’s on the throne. Revelation tells us, despite appearances on earth, who’s really in charge. As an apocalypse, Revelation deals with the question: Who’s really on the throne? Who’s really in charge. And it Affirms: It’s God… No matter how bad things may look right now on earth, God reigns.God’s in charge.

Maybe that’s important for us, right here and right now, at Justo Mwale. No matter what challenges we face, God is sitting on the throne. God is still in charge.

Revelation is about learning to see from the perspective of heaven, and learning to see from the perspective of the final judgment, and the final victory. And learning to see what and who are truly worthy of worship. And by seeing differently, we’re empowered to be faithful, to give all our worship where it truly belongs, and so we’re able to overcome. 

In the beginning and end of Revelation, the author John calls it a book of prophecy. It’s true that prophecy has something to say about the future. But prophecy especially invites us to see our current situations in a new light. Revelation as a book of prophecy is about discernment. Prophecy gives discernment; it helps us see better.  

And maybe that’s what we need now, at this time in our lives, and in the life of  JMU – prophetic discernment. Seeing and discerning from God’s perspective – How should we see our present challenges? How should we see ourselves? And our Christian institutions?

The unexpected, surprising path   

Let’s now see what John sees in those first several verses.  In the beginning of chapter 5, we find there’s a problem that needs to be resolved. A scroll needs to be opened. But no one is worthy to break its seals, open it, and look inside.  The scroll is crucial to open because it will announce God’s response to evil in the world. It will reveal God’s justice and get it started. 

And John mourns and weeps because no one is worthy.There’s a buildup of suspense: What can be done? Is no one worthy?

And then, there’s a solution. “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” That’s Jesus the Messiah, through the symbol of a conquering lion.

So as this first section ends, we’re prepared and expecting to see Jesus as the great lion.

The next section (v. 6) begins: And I saw… a lamb. The lion … is a lamb. We were led to expect a conquering lion, and instead we see a lamb which has been slain.

Can you imagine, expecting a lion and seeing instead a lamb?

It’s not your average lamb. It’s got seven horns. And a horn is a symbol of power. But it’s not a lion. It’s a powerful lamb standing yet having been slain.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear, he who has eyes to see let him see… this unexpected picture. This surprising path to victory. Jesus, the Lion of Judah, did not conquer as a lion, but as a lamb.

This surprising pathway goes right to the very center of our Christian faith. An unexpected path, and it cuts right through to the center of this table.

The surprising path is heavenly logic: Power through weakness, victory through humility and self-sacrifice.  

And when the lamb takes the scroll from the one who sits on the throne, the four creatures and the twenty-four elders fall down not before a lion. They fall down before the Lamb. Jesus conquered as a lamb.

What’s our image of a winner? What’s our symbol of success? Maybe a lion. Maybe a lion who takes what belongs to him. Probably not a lamb who gets slain.

And our image of success may not be of people who fall down and worship a lamb.

But Jesus conquered as a lamb. And this is more than an accidental image. It’s reality.

Our passage even tells us that Jesus being a lamb is the key to our future, and the key to our long-term calling.

The elders and four living creatures proclaim: “Worthy are you… For you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them (US!) a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

Jesus the Lion of Judah became a Lamb who was slain… That’s the key not only to his identity but also to our identity and future.

He has made us a kingdom – The kingdom is something he accomplishes, something he has accomplished for us.

Sometimes we get the idea that a life of ministry is about positioning ourselves, building a name for ourselves, building our own kingdom. But the scripture says: Jesus has made us a kingdom.

Notice the order: You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” We shall reign on the earth BECAUSE Jesus made us a kingdom and priests to our God.

Jesus accomplished this, because he was slain, because he ransomed people for God by his own blood – that’s how he bought people for God. By his being humble and obedient to the point of death.

LET’S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT OUR IDENTITY AND FUTURE

Jesus has made us a kingdom and priests. This image is rooted back in Exodus 19, in God’s plan for the nation Israel. They were to be a kingdom and people special to God, with God as their true king. And in Revelation, the early Christians are a new Israel, a kingdom and priests.

And we, like Israel of old, are a kingdom, people who recognize that no matter how things look on earth, God and the lamb are on the throne as king. We believers are their kingdom.

And: We shall reign on the earth (cf 22:5).  Revelation reveals a future when heaven and earth will be joined together, and God’s servants shall reign forever and ever. We will reign, because Jesus has made us a kingdom. We do not position ourselves for this honored position. Jesus has done that for us.

Our passage also calls us “priests to our God”. Priests are special people to God, people who serve in God’s presence, with access to God, and people who stand between God and the rest of the world, serving God and benefitting the world. Let’s notice it does NOT say those who are ordained do this. It’s the whole people of God who have this dignity.

Now, if Jesus is the one who makes us to be a kingdom, if what he has done is to make us to be a kingdom, what’s our response? What’s our role now?

We see our proper response in what the 24 elders do: They fall down before the Lamb.

In light of his worthiness, our response is worship. Our role is to see how worthy Jesus is, and worship accordingly. He has given us our positions as a kingdom and as priests. This life is not about what we make of ourselves. He has made us what we really are.

And so what we see in the last section, vv. 11-15, is worship.

John says, “And I saw, and I heard…” thousands upon thousands saying, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” We join the elders and the thousands upon thousands of angels. Our role, our response, is seeing the worth of Jesus, falling down before him, and giving him all of our worship and praise.  

Our role is to recognize how awesome, how wonderful, how worthy Jesus is, and then we live and speak and work accordingly. We get occupied, not with positioning ourselves, but with rightly positioning Jesus.

We and our churches and institutions are not about us. We make Jesus Christ the center.

Sure, we have an institution here. We have this big chapel building. But the truth is that Jesus is so big, he’s towering above this chapel… He’s towering above Justo Mwale and every one of us.

And we become content not to be lions, not to be kings, but to be lambs like Jesus, obedient unto death.

We become God centered. Jesus centered. As priests we get to serve in the presence of the king. And what we want on this earth is to praise Jesus with our lives and with our words.

I wonder if JMU can help the church see this great Jesus…Jesus who is worthy of all that we are, all our worship… I wonder if we can help preachers, and thereby the church, to recognize the bigger, greater Jesus. We lift Jesus higher. We fulfill our role to help the world to see the greatness of the Lamb.

Our being a kingdom comes from Jesus our king. We recognize the one who reigns. Recognizing more of Jesus here and now, and embodying more of Jesus the lamb. That’s what it looks like for the kingdom to be more present. More centered in Jesus, lifting up Jesus, here and now.

 “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

 “The elders fell down and worshiped.” And our lives begin to look like these elders. They see that their position, their status, is not about them. It’s all about Jesus the Lamb, about God who is on the throne.

From the perspective of heaven, we succeed when we see our lives are not about us. And our institutions succeed when it’s not about the name and greatness of our institution, like JMU.

Our position, our status, is not about us. It’s all about Jesus the Lamb, and about God who is on the throne.

Let’s look and see, and help others see, this truly great Jesus. This big Jesus, towering above us here at JMU, towering above this chapel. JMU is not about JMU; it’s about Jesus. We are not about us; we’re priests of God. Our lives are about Jesus. We recognize how truly great Jesus is, and we live accordingly.

Our work is not about us. Our preparation for ministry is not about us. It’s about the one who sits on the throne. It’s about the Lamb. It’s all about this truly wonderful Jesus Christ.

How wonderful is Jesus Christ. How wonderful is his death for us. Our life, our ministry, our institutions are all about Jesus Christ. Not us. He alone is worthy of all blessing, all honor, all glory. His being who he is and doing what he has done is what elevates us to be a kingdom.

We’re here for him. We live for him. Our whole lives are about falling down to worship him.

And so we, too, become like lambs. Lambs live not themselves. They live for another. For the true Lion. For the true and great King, for Jesus, for God who is on the throne.

May all we do here at Justo Mwale and all we are on this earth be about the great King, the one who reigns forever and ever. “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.” Amen.

[1] See Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, pages 1-22. I rely heavily on Bauckham for my approach to Revelation.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

Interpretation: Sensitive to the biblical text and the cultural context of readers

A way I sought to serve future scholars for the church in Africa and beyond during my recent study leave was through writing. One project was a paper based on what I’ve learned from the past ten years of teaching the Bible in Zambia. It first describes how, in Africa’s theological schools, there’s a longing for biblical interpretation that’s truly African, that allows the Scripture to mean what it means to African communities. This is important for the post-colonial situation and for developing a theology that speaks to the African setting.

When someone says, “The Bible means what it means to our community,” we do need to proceed with care. Our Justo Mwale University Prof. D.T. Banda has spoken of the problem of “taming” interpretation “within the culture of the interpreter”. Banda claims that one can be a “prisoner” of how one’s own culture sees. He affirms that “culture must itself be converted” as it learns the gospel and appropriates its truth in a particular setting.

Also, if the Bible means whatever it means to our community, Rev. Muwowo of Chasefu Theological College says that “it would lead to the temptation of using scriptures for self-gain and putting the reader to be in control of the meaning of the text.” He has also warned that the experience of poverty can not only inform but also take control of how we understand the Bible, leading people to think the “prosperity gospel” is biblical.

So the question becomes: How do we encourage interpretations which are truly African, truly contextual, while also allowing Scripture to have its own voice and speak words which surprise and challenge us instead of only saying what our communities want to hear? We need interpretation to be truly contextual and truly biblical, so that what is taught and preached is not only relevant but also true to Scripture and transformational.

My recent paper is about a model for approaching the Bible and teaching interpretation that helps students use the literary context of Scripture so we’re not just hearing our own thoughts and desires when we interpret the Bible. The approach helps students take in more evidence from the text of Scripture, seeing relationships between parts and wholes within passages and books of the Bible. It’s also about empowering students to ask open and in-depth questions both of passages from the Bible and of their own ministry contexts, and then holding the text and their contexts in deeper conversation with one another. The result is students identifying more deeply with the Bible, so they see themselves and their community in and through Scripture.

During my sabbatical in Pasadena, when Fuller Seminary’s New Testament faculty learned about my writing projects, they asked me to share this paper with them and have a discussion. In response, they said that, though it’s written for Africa, it deals with analogous issues which they, too, are facing: How can a diverse student body interpret the Bible in a way that’s sensitive to diversity while also wrestling with what’s actually written in Scripture?  

In a following discussion with other faculty members, they said the paper describes the sort of experiences students everywhere need: opportunities to see what’s really there in the Bible, to really observe how it witnesses to Jesus Christ and the gospel, and to make space for honest and deep conversation between Scripture and their diverse and particular backgrounds. These experiences help believers to weave an identity that is genuinely Christian while also being true to their specific background and community. The process seems crucial for thinking through what it means to live life with Scripture and preach the gospel faithfully in diverse contexts.

My hope is that the essay can serve future teachers in Africa and beyond who will, in turn, guide how future students handle the Bible. It will appear later this year in a book called Transforming Theology and Religion, as Supplement 32 of Acta Theologica, a journal of the Faculty of Theology of the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

Grace during this difficult period (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

2 Corinthians gives insight into keeping vitality and flourishing in times of difficulty, when there’s much that’s not going the way we want. I know many people are going through such difficult times, certainly in Zambia, but also in America and beyond – from the pandemic and the various kinds of fallout from that, including its effects on our families. Many are also deeply concerned about the racial pain and divisiveness in the USA and beyond. Of course, you may have other factors causing concern.

2 Cor 12:7-10.  … So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations,a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, formy power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:7-10 ESV)

Paul says he experiences a thorn in his flesh. Whatever it was, it was painful, it was humbling, and it was persistent. He says he prayed three times – which could be symbolic for praying a long period of time. And instead of removing the thorn, Christ spoke to Paul with the thorn still there, and said, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Christ gave him what he needed not by taking away the festering pain but by strengthening him on the inside through grace. And I think Paul tells about the experience and does not say what the thorn was, because it wasn’t true just for him; it’s one of the ways God tends to work in our lives, no matter what the given thorn may be.

Difficulty, weakness, vulnerability, and wounds drive us to speak to our Father, the one 2 Corinthians calls the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Wounds and difficulties become signposts pointing us to prayer that takes us to Jesus. And when we come to God, he releases grace to us. And so the weakness and difficulty we go through, and the wounds we receive that we naturally pray for God to remove, these things become open doors to his grace and power.

We Christians are not immune to really difficult things happening to us. Paul’s prayer that the thorn be removed helps us to know it’s okay to pray for a change in circumstances. We pray for change and rescue. And sometimes God’s answer is YES.

Yet Paul is also saying, the answer may be: God’s grace is sufficient for you. And that becomes our chance to we meet Jesus Christ in a deeper way in the midst of hardship, so that his power rests upon us. Because of our deep need, prayer takes us to God with open hands and open hearts, and we find the grace that’s sufficient, the power that becomes true vitality, perfected and completed not in the absence of weakness or problems, but in the midst of them.

It’s interesting to think about Paul’s thorn from God’s perspective: God may be more interested in filling our lives with grace, in having Christ’s power rest upon us, than in taking away our pain and difficulties. At least in the short run, filling us with grace may be more important than removing the obstacles that cause frustration or disappointment. Certainly, people who are filled with grace have deeper, better things to share with others.

I think the reason Paul says, “when I am weak, then I am strong” is that in situations of weakness and difficulty, he taps into God’s grace that brings true strength, true completeness, true vitality from the presence of Christ himself. And that’s why Paul says he can be content in the midst of really hard things. He can be content because of Jesus Christ. His vitality comes from grace, from Christ’s own presence in his life. Not from having a thorn removed.

So, during this difficult period of life, let’s remember that Jesus gave Paul what he needed for his life of ministry not by taking away the festering pain but by empowering him through grace.

Let’s not give up. Let’s keep going to God with open hands and hearts. Let’s see if we can allow God to give us grace that does its work of renewing us on the inside.  Let’s allow the difficulties to take us deeper with Jesus Christ, so his power rests upon us. So we’re able to walk through difficult things, and keep on walking, let’s hear him saying, “My grace is sufficient for you.” 

Note: This is a somewhat similar but much shorter post than the audio I shared on April 27, 2020.