I will be teaching an intensive course on the
Letter to the Ephesians in Iloilo, Philippines for two weeks in May, 2014. I’ve
assigned two books for this class: Frank Thielman, Ephesians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010) and Eugene H. Peterson, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing up in Christ
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). The choice of Thielman’s commentary is to help
the class understand Ephesians exegetically and theologically. Such an
exegetical and theological work is the foundation of any ecclesial applications
in the world. Peterson’s work is to look at Ephesians from a pastoral
perspective.
Practice
Resurrection is a
pastoral exposition of Ephesians from a standpoint of spiritual formation. By
using the Ephesians text, Peterson is mainly concerned about God’s people
growing up in Christ. The text is not meant to inform, but to form. The primary
purpose of the Scriptures is not to give us more information, but to show us
the way of spiritual formation. The Scriptures must be read formatively. We are
in-formed by the Word. Information, indeed, is in-formation.
In seminary or church, we often miss the point of
reading and studying the Scriptures: being formed. We often technologize Scripture in the sense that
we want to get more out of it in an efficient way. Give me more information and
let me decide what I am going to do with it. Being informed indicates that the
growing-up business is human-oriented: it is up to an individual to pick and
choose and decide whether such information is useful or not. Nevertheless,
being formed signifies that growing up in Christ is to let God be the center
and we are on the periphery: we are dethroned and God is enthroned.
Peterson’s Practice
Resurrection is to help seminarians or future pastors to learn to read the
Ephesians text in order to be formed, not to be informed, so that they can form
others in the Spirit. As pastors, we must be formed first, then to form others.
It is oxymoron to talk about spiritual growth or formation without entering
into it. We don’t talk about relationship; we enter into it. The reason why I
chose Peterson’s text is to let the class know that reading the text is to
allow the text itself reading us in the Spirit. It is a spiritual reading. But
such spiritual reading is not subjective, for it is governed by exegetical
methods, as demonstrated by Thielman in his commentary.
In his exposition of the Greek verb “destine” or “predestine”
(proori,zw) in Eph. 1:5, Peterson writes:
The verb “destine” (prooridzo) derives from the noun “boundary” (oros). Literally, it means to set a limit, to mark a boundary. A
fence line on the prairie sets a boundary, determines where the land that a
farmer has been appointed to work begins and ends. Without that fence line, the
farmer would be paralyzed by the ocean of prairie, the endless possibilities
stretched out before him—“Where do I start? Is there any end to it?” When God
destines, he marks out the boundaries in which we live the purposed life to
which he appoints us. We aren’t set loose in the cosmos to find our place and
way in it as best we can. There are lines of God’s purposing appointments that
intersect our chosenness. Being chosen is not an abstract category; it develops
into a relationship that is mutual and reciprocal.
In commenting on the same verb, Thielman writes:
Paul next uses the aorist participle proori,saj (proorisas, having
predestined) to describe God’s
choice more fully. Just as the preposition pro (pro, before) in 1:4 placed God’s choice of his people before
his creation of the world, so Paul prefixed this preposition to the verb ori,zw (horizo, determine) to
place God’s decision to mark off a people for himself chronologically before
the world began…Perhaps proori,saj states the cause of God’s choice: he chose his people
because he determined beforehand that they would be his people.
Paul’s focus, however, is not on the logic of election but on its occurrence
and the need to praise God because his choice of a people for himself is such a
clear demonstration of his grace. Pau’s use of language in Ephesians generally,
and in this benediction particularly, moreover, is as lavish in its own way as
the grace of God, which he praises…God determined that they would be his
people, therefore, came as an utterly free gift, irrespective of anything they
could possibly have done to merit it.
