week 4

SOAP COLLECTION HERE

TIMELINES CONTINUED

he Holy Kiss for today..on a bridge and in a bucket

"There is the kiss and the counterkiss, and if one wins, we both lose." -Walter Brueggemann -
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We covered the biblical tradition of the "holy kiss" in our gathering last Sunday.
It was a lot of fun. We started with a game of Hangman;
We had "Holy _ _ _ _" on the whiteboard when folks came in!

They has to guess what four letter word filled in the blank to make this a phrase that appears in Scripture. When i said "yes" to the first guess of "S," you should have heard the comments!

That the Bible explicitly mentions this practice five times:

• Romans 16.16a — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• I Corinthians 16.20b — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• II Corinthians 13.12a — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν ἁγίῳ φιλήματι).
• I Thessalonians 5.26 — "Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πάντας ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• I Peter 5.14a — "Greet one another with a kiss of love" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἀγάπης).

...makes it a classic case study in how to apply
any scriptures that we assume need a cultural equivalent to out taking them literally.
(Though some of our folks took the "holy kiss" literally Sunday..no, not on the lips....I wish I had video..someone post the stories!(:...)

On this issue of interpretation:

• Brian Dodd's discussion of the "interpretive bridge" is helpful (p. 19 here)

as is

• Ron Martoia's posts on the "two buckets" (see "The Two Bucket Theory Examined" here).

I really recommend you read both above links, then get back to us.
They helped us when we tackled women in leadership, and homosexuality.

We learned that, counterintuitively to our guesses from this end of the cultural bridge, it seems the early church's holy kissing was almost always... on the lips!
The reason is powerful: that form on kiss implied equality...a kiss on the cheeks implied one person was inferior. Nothing like a Kingdom Kiss as an acted parable and reminder that in Christ we are equal! Of course, today, when we look at cultural equivalents like the "holy hug", "holy handshake," we might not realize that that, too, began as a Kingdom equalizer:

In fact, handshaking, which can seem quite prosaic today, was popularised by Quakersas a sign of equality under God, rather than stratified system of etiquette of seventeenth century England
-link

Ironically, the kiss of inclusion became a kiss of exclusion (from centered to bounded set):

Just as kissing had many different meanings in the wider ancient world, so too early Christians interpreted the kiss in various ways. Because ancient kissing was often seen as a familiar gesture, many early Christians kissed each other to help construct themselves as a new sort of family, a family of Christ. Similarly, in the Greco-Roman world, kissing often was seen as involving a transfer of spirit; when you kissed someone else you literally gave them part of your soul. The early church expanded on this and claimed that, when Christians kissed, they exchanged the Holy Spirit with one another. Christians also emphasized the kiss as an indication of mutual forgiveness (it’s from here that we get the term “kiss of peace”). These different meanings influenced and were influenced by the sorts of rituals kissing became associated with. For example, because the kiss helped exchange spirit, it made perfect sense for it to become part of baptism and ordination, rituals in which you wanted the Holy Spirit to descend and enter the initiate. The flip side of the coin is that before someone was baptized you wouldn’t want to kiss them. Early Christians often believed that previous to exorcism and baptism people were inevitably demon possessed. Given that they also thought that kissing resulted in spiritual exchange, it’s pretty clear why you wouldn’t want to kiss non-Christians. I sometimes think of this as an ancient form of “cooties.” It resulted in early Christian debates over whether one could kiss a pagan relative, if one should kiss a potential heretic, or if Jews even had a kiss.
-Penn, link

We incorporated insights from these and other articles linked below, and quoted the only book on the topic, "Kissing Christians" by Michael Penn. You'll note some of the articles below include interview with him. We particularly enjoyed some of the early fathers and teachers' comments and guidelines on the practice.

One early guideline, for real (wonder if this was in the weekly "bulletin"):

1)No French Kissing!
2)If you come back for seconds, because you liked the first kiss too much, you may be going to hell!!

Clement of Alexandra (c.150 - c. 215):

"There are those who do nothing but make the church resound with the kiss."

Chrysostom (4th C):

“We are the temple of Christ, and when we kiss each other
we are kissing the porch and entrance of the temple.”

Augustine (4th C):

"when your lips draw close to the lips of your brother, let your heart not draw away."

One interview with Michael Penn:

By Rich Barlow

Whoever said ''a kiss is just a kiss" didn't know their theological history. During Christianity's first five centuries, ritual kissing -- on the lips -- was a vital part of worship, says Michael P. Penn, who teaches religion at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley. In that context, kissing helped Christians define themselves as a family of faith, he writes in his new book, ''Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church" (University of Pennsylvania Press). Excerpts from a recent interview follow.

Q: Let me start with the basic question: Who kissed whom?

A: In the first two centuries [AD], men may kissmen, women women, but also you would have men and women kissing one another. In future centuries, there continued to be a debate over who should kiss whom. In later years, Christians will no longer have men and women kissing each other, but only men men, women women. [Christians had] debates on whether or not priests could kiss the laity, on whether you should kiss a non-Christian relative in the normal, everyday situation, even debates over whether Jews have a kiss or not.

Q: When in the service was the kiss performed?

A: Our earliest references would be a kiss that would follow a communal prayer. Later on, it gets increasingly associated with the Eucharist and also occurs in part of the rites of baptism and in ordination rites. You have Christians kissing each other as an everyday greeting or also martyrs, before they're killed, kissing one another.

Q: What was the theological significance?

A: In antiquity, a kiss on the lips was seen as transferring a little bit of one's spirit to the other person. You have a lot of early -- I kind of think of them almost as Greco-Roman Harlequin -- novels that speak of the kiss as this transfer of spirit. Christians modify it a bit, to suggest that when Christians kiss each other, they don't just exchange their own spirit, but also share a part of the Holy Spirit with one another. So the kiss is seen as a way to bind the community together.

There's another side, though. There was a concern that kissing an individual who has promised to join the Christian community but isn't yet baptized should be avoided, because the spirit that would be transferred wouldn't be a holy spirit but a demonic spirit. So you have the kiss working as this ritual of exclusion.

Q: Did Christian leaders worry about the erotic overtones?

A: We have only two explicit references to this concern. One says, essentially, to kiss with a closed and chaste mouth, which suggests that a few of these kisses may have been too erotic. The other one warns against those who kiss a second time because they liked the first one so much.

Judas kissing Jesus [to betray him] terrifies them a lot more than eroticism. There's this evil intention behind it. Early Christian writers use the kiss of Judas to warn that it's not just how you practice the kiss, but what you're thinking. If you kiss another Christian while keeping evil in your heart against them, you are repeating Judas' betrayal.

Q: When did kissing fall out of favor?

A: In the third century, men and women are no longer to kiss one another. Early Christians met in what we think of as a house church -- you meet in someone's living room, essentially. Starting in the third century, when Christians [worship] in a public forum, this familial kiss is less appropriate. It's also a time where Christianity becomes concerned with making sure women and men are categorically separated. In the fourth century, that clergy and laity become increasingly distant. You start having prohibitions against clergy and laity kissing one another.

The ritual kiss never entirely died out. We still have it as an exchange of peace [in Christian services]. We see it in the kissing of the pope's ring. In Catholicism, a priest may kiss a ritual object.

Q: What would Christianity have been without the kiss?

A: What I find exciting is to see how what we think of as trivial is so central to early Christian self-understanding. Our earliest Christian writing, Paul's letter to the First Thessalonians, talks about the ritual kiss, albeit briefly. We have hundreds of early Christian references to this ritual. For these authors, it was anything but trivial.

-LINK
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ARTICLES:

• -Ritual kissing key for early Christians

Wikipedia article on Holy Kiss

Kiss and Tell the Gospel

Michael Penn explains what the early church meant by the "holy kiss."

On Kissing: A Q&A with Michael Penn

-PUCKER UP by Martin Marty

GREET ONE ANOTHER WITH A HOLY KISS (PDF)

The Holy Kiss of Love: Are We Keeping This Command?

I Corinthians 16-II Corinthians 1: Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss

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-OH, here's the live webcam on the Western Wall ("Wailing Wall") of the temple.  Why are people praying and LAMENTing there right now?

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Watch for the word LAMENT in your Fee and Stuart reading this week .
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We did all three PHILEMON worksheets IN CLASS

We didn't watch these:
Erie Chapman, author of one of your textbooks  ("Radical Loving Care") was interviewed here below about the book, and his Baptist Healing Trust foundation:

s

This week you get a chance to re-do this survey.

Take a look at the number of essential E items you and others listed.

Homework
Gospel and Culture

By Paul Hiebert, from “Anthropological Insights for Missionaries”

This exercise is intended to help you test your own theological consistency on a number of issues that Protestants in various denominations have felt important. As a Christian in a cross-cultural setting, you will need to learn the differences between

those elements essential to the church in every culture, and those elements which are not.

Part One

Separate all the items that follow into two categories, based on these definitions:

Essential: These items (commands, practices, customs) are essential to the church in

every age and place. [Mark these. “E” on the list.]

Negotiable. These items (commands, practices, customs) may or may not be valid

for the church in any given place or time. [Mark these “N” on the list.]

1. Greet each other with a holy kiss.

2. Do not go to court to settle issues between Christians.

3. Do not eat meat used in pagan ceremonies.

4. Women in the assembly should be veiled when praying or speaking.

5. Wash feet at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist).

6. Lay on hands for ordination.

7. Sing without musical accompaniment.

8. Abstain from eating blood.

9. Abstain from fornication.

10. Share the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist).

11. Use only real wine and unleavened bread for your Eucharist meals.

12. Use only grape juice for Eucharist meals.

13. Anoint with oil for healing.

14. Women are not to teach men.

15. Women are not to wear braided hair, gold, or pearls.

16. Men are not to have long hair.

17. Do not drink wine at all.

18. Slavery is permissible if you treat slaves well.

19. Remain single.

20. Seek the gift of tongues.

21. Seek the gift of healing.

22. Lift your hands when you pray.

23. People who don’t work don’t eat.

24. Have a private “devotional time” every day.

25. Say Amen at the end of prayers.

26. Appoint elders and deacons in every congregation.

27. Elect the leaders.

28. Confess sins one to another.

29. Confess sins privately to God.

30. Give at least ten percent of your income/goods/crops to God.

31. Construct a building for worship.

32. Confess Christ publicly by means of baptism.

33. Be baptized by immersion.

34. Be baptized as an adult.

35. Be baptized as a child/infant.

36. Do not be a polygamist.

37. Do not divorce your spouse for any reason.

38. Do not divorce your spouse except for adultery.

Part Two

Reflect on the process by which you distinguished the “essential” from the

“negotiable” items. What principle or principles governed your decision? Write out the

method you used, in a simple, concise statement. Be completely honest with yourself

and accurately describe how you arrived at your decisions. Your principle(s) should

account for every decision.

Part Three
Review your decisions again, and answer the following questions:
Are your “essential” items so important to you that you could not associate with a
group that did not practice all of them?
Are there some “essential” items that are a little more “essential” than others?
Are there any items that have nothing explicitly to do with Scripture at all?

-By Paul Hiebert, from “Anthropological Insights for Missionaries”

• Anyone forget this mug in class?
• I stuck it in our cabinet
  
  

Be thinking of how the temple tantrum was about RACISM more than overcharging/selling.
Most people think the "traditional interpretation" is that it was about selling.  But note Kraybill is in tune with the fact that Three Worlds readers of the Bible see clearly that it's about prejuidice.  So obvious that he calls THAT the traditional intepretation.  So "obvious" it's a footnote:

 

These were to remind us of how shocking, sSUBversive, surprisingJesus' temple tantrum was.

Here's BSN 12 getting pranked.  Click here 

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the money changers  were in the Gentile courts of the temple..Jesus' action opened up the plazaso that Gentiles could pray."  -Kraybill, Upside Down Kingdom, p. 151.
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SOREQ

Read this 

Temple Warning Inscription:

 

What did Jesus think when he saw this stone?

An inscription was discovered on a Greek tablet, attached to the Soreg, forbidding Gentiles to pass beyond that point. [Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums]

When king Herod had rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem between 19 and 9 B.C. he enclosed the outer court with colonnades. The large separated area was referred to as the Court of the Gentiles because the "gentiles" (non-Jews from any race or religion) were permitted to enter this great open courtyard of the Temple area. They could walk within in it but they were forbidden to go any further than the outer court. They were excluded from entering into any of the inner courts, and warning signs in Greek and Latin were placed giving strict warning that the penalty for such trespass was death. The Romans permitted the Jewish authorities to carry out the death penalty for this offence, even if the offender were a Roman citizen. The engraved block of limestone was discovered in Jerusalem in 1871. It's dimensions are about 22 inches high by 33 inches long. Each letter was nearly 1 1/2 inches high and originally painted with red ink against the white limestone. Part of another sign was unearthed in 1936. It's current location is in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul, Turkey. Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey when the stone was found.

Josephus the Jewish historian of the first century A.D. wrote about the warning signs in Greek and Latin that were placed on the barrier wall that separated the court of the gentiles from the other courts in the Temple. Not until 1871 did archaeologists actually discover one written in Greek. Its seven line inscription reads as follows:

NO FOREIGNER
IS TO GO BEYOND THE BALUSTRADE
AND THE PLAZA OF THE TEMPLE ZONE
WHOEVER IS CAUGHT DOING SO
WILL HAVE HIMSELF TO BLAME
FOR HIS DEATH
WHICH WILL FOLLOW

The Temple Warning Inscription is important in the study of Biblical Archaeology and confirms events outlined in Scripture. When Jesus saw this inscription he knew that his own life would be the cost for the gentiles to go past this barrier.  Link

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The Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was surrounded by a fence (balustrade) with a sign (soreq)  that was about 5 ft. [1.5 m.] high.  On this fence were mounted inscriptions in Latin and Greek forbidding Gentiles from entering the temple area proper.

One complete inscription was found in Jerusalem and is now on display on the second floor of the “Archaeological Museum” in Istanbul.

The Greek text has been translated:  “Foreigners must not enter inside the balustrade or into the forecourt around the sanctuary.  Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.”  Compare the accusation against Paul found in Acts 21:28 and Paul’s comments in Ephesians 2:14—“the dividing wall.”

Translation from Elwell, Walter A., and Yarbrough, Robert W., eds.  Readings from the First–Century World: Primary Sources for New Testament Study.  Encountering Biblical Studies, general editor and New Testament editor Walter A. Elwell.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998, p. 83. Click Here

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Three thought experiments.

• -Think if I offered you a drivers license, claiming  i had authority to issue it
• -Think if someone destroyed all bank records and evidence of any debt you have owe
• -Think  what would happen if you pointed at something, hoping your dog would look at it.

Now watch this short  and important video for explanations...Temple as SIGN-post.