Psalms: Understanding the Book's Structure

I created a 7 Minute Seminary video for Seedbed. In this video, I describe the structure of the book of Psalms.

Interview with William Guerrant Author of Organic Wesley (Seedbed, 2015)

I am happy to welcome William Guerrant to my blog. He agreed to answer some questions about his new book Organic Wesley: A Christian Perspective on Food, Farming, and Faith. I read it and am excited to get the word out to my readers. John Wesley was committed to holistic health and was ahead of his 18th century context in terms of understanding the importance of eating properly as a means of maximizing one's missional impact. Bill Guerrant's work based on his thesis research at Asbury Seminary enlarges our knowledge of the topic and informs us on how to live more consciously as God's people.

Bill, what were your goals in writing Organic Wesley?

I hope the book helps introduce a Wesleyan food ethic into the vibrant and ongoing cultural conversation we are having about food these days. I am convinced that there is a food ethic within our Christian tradition, and specifically within our Wesleyan heritage, that speaks powerfully into the broken food culture of our time. My modest goal is to contribute to making the world a better place.


Who is the audience that you hope to reach?

Whatever its shortcomings, I am reasonably confident that those who are interested in both Wesleyan teaching and food ethics will find the book interesting. My hope is that it will be interesting to people who have an interest in either of those subjects.

How did you become interested in organic food?

I became aware of the phenomenon I call the "food movement" first through the influence of my wife. She began studying our industrial food system after contracting a food-borne illness and she passed along to me what she was discovering. I soon joined her in the journey that led ultimately to our relocating from Florida to our farm in Virginia, where we are now full-time farmers, devoted to being a part of improving our food system.

What do you wish that every person knew about the intersection of Wesleyan theology and food/health?

The principal themes that motivate those in today's food movement--a preference for nutritious whole foods, ethically-produced and eaten in moderation--were once central to Wesleyan thought and teaching. You might say that for Wesleyans, today's "food movement" is part of our ecclesiological DNA. When we make our food choices consistently with the Wesleyan ethic, we are contributing to God's restoration and redemption of all of creation.

How do you hope to contribute to the ongoing mission of God through your work?

I would love to see Wesleyans at the forefront of today's food movement, advocating for a just, humane and benevolent food system. I believe, with Wesley, that good food is one of God's greatest gifts to humanity and that every time we make a choice of what to eat we have the opportunity to further God's Kingdom or to impede it.

Maybe the best answer I can give to this question is just to quote the last few paragraphs of the book:

"For most of us it will be easy to imagine the benefits that will come from eating better. We may imagine losing weight and feeling better, we may imagine becoming healthy enough to no longer need as many medications, and we may imagine longer, more fulfilling lives for ourselves and our families.  Of course these are all excellent reasons for choosing to eat a healthier diet. But the Wesleyan vision is grander than that.

Imagine a world in which all of humanity eats only ethically-produced nutritious food, in moderation. In such a world there would be less sickness, less disease, no gluttony, and a population living long, healthy lives. Farm animals would be raised naturally and compassionately, being afforded the respect they deserve as beloved creatures of God. There would be no exploitation of farm workers and farmers. The land would be treated gently and respectfully, with farming practices that ensure a sustainable, resilient, regenerative future. There would be robust and vibrant community-based food economies.

In such a world, the food system would be a part of God’s renewal and restoration of creation, rather than an impediment to it.

May it be so.

Let our next meal, and all those that follow it, be a part of bringing that vision to reality."

Tell us about study that accompanies Organic Wesley? What does the DVD content add to the book?

We filmed one video lesson for each of the ten chapters in the book. The videos summarize the content in each chapter and I hope folks will find them engaging. They will be great for group studies, preferably in conjunction with the book, but capable of standing alone without it. Most of the videos were filmed on our farm and the Seedbed team has done an excellent job of production.

What is the best way for people to get in touch with you or learn more about Organic Wesley?

Seedbed has a webpage devoted to the book and that's the best place to start. There is a good synopsis of the book there, as well as some of the endorsements the book has received. Seedbed offers a free download of Chapter One as well as a free viewing of the first video lesson, and they can be accessed on that page as well. Check it out! 

Prophetic Call to Denounce Idolatry and Injustice

All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns. They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the Lord had driven out before them had done.

They did wicked things that aroused the Lord’s anger. They worshiped idols, though the Lord had said, “You shall not do this.” The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.” (2 Kings 17:7–13)

Core truth: God sent prophets to call God’s people to realign with their vocation of serving as God’s missional community for the nations.

God’s prophets are diverse in origin. Among the writing prophets, Ezekiel is a priest, Isaiah is a political insider, and Amos is a shepherd. While most are men, when we include the narratives about prophets in Joshua–Kings, we will discover that there is a female prophet named Huldah (2 Kings 22:14–20) during the days of Josiah.

God’s prophets also deploy both words and physical acts to proclaim God’s will for his people. The actual words of the prophets dominate their books, but the prophets use other methods as well. Here are some examples: the book of Jonah speaks God’s Word through a narrative about Jonah’s mission to the Assyrian city Nineveh. Hosea marries an unfaithful woman for the purposes of illustrating Israel’s unfaithfulness to God and his persistent love to woo Israel back to faithfulness.

Read the rest.

The Old Testament and Missional Hermeneutics

In an article titled “Missional Pastors in Maintenance Churches," Darrell Guder writes this about missional hermeneutics:

"Missional hermeneutics” is a way of interpreting Scripture that starts from the assumption that the NT communities were all founded in order to continue the apostolic witness that brought them into being. Every NT congregation understood itself under the mandate of our Lord at his ascension: “You shall be my witnesses.” The work of apostolic witness was not only to proclaim the gospel of salvation and to establish congregations of believers. Their work was not done when there was a community of Christians now growing in their faith and moving towards its promised outcome, “the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:9). Their mandate was to found congregations where their shared experience of God’s saving love equipped them to become witnesses. They were empowered by the Holy Spirit to spread the word and the evidence of the gospel of new life and hope, and they did it! To that end, the NT documents were all, in some way, written to continue the process of formation for that kind of witness. They intended the continuing conversion of these communities to their calling—and that is how the Spirit used (and still uses!) these written testimonies.

While this quotation resonates with me in many ways, I wish that Gruder would have included more on the contribution of the entire Bible for the articulation of a missional hermeneutics. I think that we can apply Gruder’s thoughts to the totality of Scripture. The Bible is the story of God’s mission. God created humanity to serve as a missional community that reflected his character to and for all Creation (Genesis 1:26-31). The infestation of sin into every human individual and institution (Genesis 3-11) changed the scope of God’s mission. The Bible tells the story of God’s work to reclaim and renew Creation from the results of sin. Humanity, however, continues to serve a key role. God calls Abraham to begin the renewal of humanity (12:1-3). The story of Abraham culminates more than a millennium later in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The Old Testament serves several key roles in the formation of a missional hermeneutic:

1) Establishes the parameters of the story: God and Creation;

2) Describes the fundamental problem: humanity and Creation have been corrupted by sin;

3) Describes the dignity and vocation of humanity: to serve as a missional community to reflect God’s character to and for Creation.

4) After the entrance of sin, God works to establish a new humanity—Israel to serve as a missional community to reflect God’s character to and for the nations. In other words, mission takes a anthrocentric turn. Creation is still within the scope of mission, but the burning issue becomes the restoration of humanity.

5) The Old Testament points to the fulfillment of God’s mission through Messiah including death and resurrection.

6) Establishes an ethos for God’s people around the holiness of God by clearly articulating holiness in terms of love for God and neighbor;

7) Provides resources to engaging the surrounding cultures without succumbing to syncretism.

What do you think? What am I missing?

If you are interested in a small group resource that introduces the entire Bible with a missional perspective, check out my recent book Invitation.

© 2015 Brian D. Russell

Welcome and Introduction to Invitation

Here is a video that I filmed to serve as an introduction for individuals or groups reading my new book Invitation published by Seedbed.

Let me know if you have questions about the contents of the study or would like a sample. You can order Invitation here.

Privilege, Power, and the Mission of God

Take some time to read Genesis 21:1–21 and Psalm 113. Here’s an excerpt:

Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”—Genesis 21:1–7

Core Truth: The advance of God’s mission does not depend on traditional human power structures or practices.

God consistently, relentlessly, and faithfully keeps his promises to his people in Genesis 12–50. These chapters use the themes of childlessness and the reversal of the firstborn’s privilege to teach us key truths about God and God’s mission.

Read the rest on Seedbed.com.

Missional Hermeneutics Video: (re)alignment for Mission

Here is my second video for Asbury Seminary's Seedbed series "Seven Minute Seminary":

Video on Missional Hermeneutics: Bible As Mission Document

Here is a video for Asbury Seminary's "Seven Minute Seminary" series for Seedbed. I usually use this sort of talk to introduce a missional approach to reading the Bible.