Happy Birthday Willow

According to IMDB, today marks the birthday of the actress Alyson Hannigan, best known for playing Willow Rosenberg on the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a huge fan of the show.

The following question/comment is something that I didnt want to remain buried in comments when I answered it, it’s an important issue that comes up from time to time, so I am glad that Robert raised it:Mat 12:40 states clearly (in every translation I have looked at) that Yeshua would be in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights. You noted that Messiah Yeshua was crucified on the eve of the Sabbath. The Sabbath as defined on the Tanakh (Old Testament) is from Sunset Friday to Sunset Saturday. Simple math would then put the day of resurrection on Monday.”); ?>
The concept of an exclusive counting system is a relatively new invention - the “simple math” that would place the resurrection on Monday has only been around since about the 19^th century. Since ancient times, and even today in many parts of the world, an inclusive counting system is used particularly when talking about dates/calendars.

The early Roman calendar (that would have been in use in the 1st century) was lunar based, with 8-day divisions much like we have weeks. These 8-day divisions were called “Nones” (from the Latin nonus for ninth) derived from the inclusive counting method of starting on the current day inclusive of the first day of the next division.

Today, in England, it’s common to hear the term “fortnight” (from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning “fourteen nights”) used of a 2-week period. The French would call this same division of time “quinze jours” (fifteen days), and the Spanish “quincena”. This nicely highlights the difference of inclusive verses exclusive counting.

Inclusive counting derives, primarily, from the idea of counting things off on your fingers (”today, tomorrow, the day after” - either 2 or 3 days, depending on the counting system in use). Another way to look at it is to ask “how many gallon buckets would I need, if I have 2.5 gallons of milk to carry?” In computer science the ceil() (”ceiling”) method implements this rounding/counting pattern where any fraction causes the number to be rounded up to the next whole number.

All this is a long preamble to get to the point of saying that ancient Greek, Roman and Hebrew cultures have been shown via archeological evidence to use inclusive counting systems. Within that system the fraction of the day represented by the minutes/hours before sundown on the eve of the Sabbath - when Jesus was crucified - is the 1^st day, until sundown on Sabbath would be the 2^nd, and the 3^rd would be “the first day of the week”:On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

Or, in more modern terms: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Am I saying that Matthew 12:40 is wrong? No, but we have to apply good hermeneutics to how we approach understanding it. At face value we interpret it with a modern-day, exclusive counting, literal meaning approach. What we fail to do, as we apply such a literalist method, is to take into account the possibilities of ancient cultural idiom. I am sure that in many years time people will look back at writings that use the term “quinze jours” and wonder what’s going on, and how it knocks out counting of events that appear to be 14 days apart. I’ve read online (so not going to say it’s entirely authoritative) that the term “3 days and 3 nights” was a cultural turn of phrase just like “fortnight” that had taken on a more general meaning (ie, three days time) as opposed to it’s literal face value. Its also important to note that there are many passages that say “on the third day” to refer to the resurrection. The body of circumstantial evidence points, therefore, to a cultural idiom rather than a literal 72-hour period which (when coupled with the correct counting system) yields a Sunday resurrection.

Thanks for the question though - it made for some fascinating research! Questions relating to this topic, or any other, would be more than welcome - drop me an email or leave me a comment!

Wikipedia has a great article on name suffixes spelling out, for instance, when it’s appropriate to formally use the terms “Senior” and “Junior” with respect to family members who share the same name. A boy who is named after his grandfather, uncle, or cousin should (strictly speaking) gain the suffix “II” (or “III”, etc) whereas a boy named after his father would be “junior”. I never knew that distinction - I thought that “junior” and “II” were synonymous!

I ended up reading a couple of really interesting articles on web design over the last couple of days and thought I would share them. Firstly:

Controlling Your Visitors Eyes
You are being judged. Whether you like it or not, every set of eyes that comes to your website makes a judgment about what you have put up for everyone to see. What is really unfair is that these eyes judge your site on very little information. Quite literally, your site is like that book that everyone is judging by its cover - and if the first impression is not appealing, you will lose your visitor within a few seconds.

(more…)

and the second article:

The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites
Ugliness has never looked better. I have spent the last few days examining a surprising trend in web design that has made ugly websites look absolutely irresistible … I was struck by an example of just how effective ugly websites can be this past week as I was browsing through some web related news…

(more…)

As I was reading the linked “hot/cold” chart of where people’s eyes go on a page I was struck by what the design of my own site emphasises. I aimed to design the site to say “content is king” and reading the articles it seems that my design choises did, in fact, reflect that philosophy totally. Its nice to see that I got something right!

Life has been interesting of late, sorry to miss posting the Armchair Theology post last month. In the meantime I’ve had a few fascinating questions, one of which I will deal with today and I plan on posting again later this month with another one.

This is a thorny issue, not so much in and of itself as it’s a “hot button” issue for a very vocal segment of the church population today. Alongside simple questions like this one are statements that claim that when the emperor Constantine converted and made Christianity the official religion of Rome, that he also mandated a new day of worship also. The Sabbatarians (that is, those who advocate keeping Sabbath today) who make these claims seem to have pure motives - to undo a lot of the perceived “rot” that has crept into the organization of the church over the years and return to something that “the early church did”. However this is based on a false assumption: historical writings going back as far as Justin Martyr (A.D. 140) indicate that the early church met on a Sunday in recognition of the resurrection of Jesus. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 194) wrote that the one who “keeps the Lord’s day” is “glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself”. Eusebius (A.D. 324) wrote that believers should “celebrate the Lord’s days … in commemoration of his resurrection”. Since we know that Jesus was crucified on the eve of the Sabbath, this could only mean that the “the Lord’s day” is not the Sabbath.

So, history and tradition of the church seem to be against it, but what does the bible say? Sabbath was a holy day for the Jewish people and was firmly tied to the covenant that God made with them. The places where the bible is specific about keeping Sabbath it’s linked clearly to the Mosaic Law - to the covenant - about which God Himself said:

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.”

— Jeremiah 31:31

They knew that the clock was ticking and that the Mosaic covenant was only a temporary thing. When the new covenant was inaugurated then the requirements of the old covenant would be done away with. The Apostle Paul (in his own words, “a Pharisee of Pharisees” and therefore someone with a great knowledge of the Law) wrote:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)- remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

— Ephesians 2:11-18

The requirement to keep the Sabbath holy was part of the law, and therefore has been abolished. Those who impose the requirement today would be repeating the same mistake that believers in the 1st century made. Paul wrote to them saying,

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God - or rather are known by God - how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

— Galatians 4:8-11

So Christians today arent “failing” to keep Sabbath, since there’s no requirement to actually “fail” at. Today we worship on a Sunday as believers have done since earliest times - Acts 2:1 says, “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.”. Pentecost is a Jewish festival that comes 50 days after Passover, that is 49+1 (or, 7×7 + 1) - the day after Sabbath. Pentecost falls seven weeks and one day after Passover. Far from being a day of judgement on the early church which would have been meeting “on the wrong day”, God blessed their assembly by sending His Holy Spirit.

Thinking some more on romantic love and our call to love God.

Church weddings in England tend to follow a very similar pattern for the order of service and the vows that are made. Having been to a few weddings here in the USA I’ve noticed a much greater variations in style and content, with people writing their own vows in a number of cases. Quoting from the Anglican church marriage ceremony,

The minister says to the bridegroom

_____, will you take _____ to be your wife?

Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her,and, forsaking all others,be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?

He answers

I will.

The minister says to the bride

_____, will you take _____ to be your husband?

Will you love him, comfort him, honour and protect him, and, forsaking all others,be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?

She answers

I will

We are called to “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) which means something more solid than mere infatuation, mere fiery passion. The passion of first love ought to never wane but this should be the quality - the adjective - applied to the action - the verb - of loving God. I hear mirrored in the wedding vows the same call - love with all your heart, all your soul and with all your strength. We make vows in the wedding that we will “forsake all others” - in other words, to move from giving away 1% here and 7% there and perhaps 92% to our main relationship to the spot of giving 100% of ourselves to one person, in marriage. When people find themselves subsequently giving less, find themselves splitting themselves (by whatever fraction) between spouse and other people, we call it infidelity.

Spiritually we have a spouse who desires 100% of us. God has made promises - in technical terms, has made a covenant with us - and we now have the choise. Will we be faithful and love, or will we cheat? The bible has numerous examples of the people of God straying - for example in the Old Testament we read

When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.”

— Hosea 1:2

While we may not be overtly bowing down to idols as they did, we do have to examine ourselves in the light of Jesus’ own challenge:

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

— Revelation 2:4-5

Are we being faithful to the relationship we have with God? For that matter, have we ever really entered into the relationship in a meaningful way - to borrow the metaphor - are we living together and claiming to be married without ever actually making a formal, lifelong committment? God has called us into a relationship - we can respond to that call by saying an “I will” and God has called us to be faithful to the committment, to stick with the “forsaking all others”.

I spotted this in today’s BBC News:

it says later on, about the puzzles

When I get up in the morning I regularly hear the printer in our office printing today’s Sudoku puzzle. When I have happened to be using my wife’s Apple laptop I’ve noticed that she has the Sudoku Dashboard Widget loaded and ready to go. I wonder if she’s been bitten by the Sudoku bug?

I was thinking this morning about the idea of “Loving God”, especially with respect to loving another human being. All the books I’ve read on relationships, dating and marriage say to expect love to go through phases. The euphoric initial infatuation is like a drug: I remember losing whole chunks of time as I remember a particular moment, a particular hug or kiss, or something that happened. The emotions were like a whirlwind. The fire burned hot and passionate and wild promises can be made at that point. To quote one of my favourite love songs (”I’d die for you” by Bon Jovi):

I’d die for you
I’d cry for you
I’d do anything
I’d lie for you
You know it’s true
Baby I’d die for you

When we come to faith there are moments when our zeal for the Lord mirrors that fierce passion, “I’d die for you / I’d do anything”. Stepping out in faith needs us to take risks - praying for another person can be nice offering them comfort more than asking/expecting God to step in in His soverign power - but if we’re in that early rush of euphoric passion for Christ, would we not be more willing to throw ourselves into risky faith endeavours?

I originally came to faith in May ‘89, fell away for that summer and really came back to grips with the Christian faith in October ‘89 when a good friend of mine (Adam Drury) took a risk. He’d been sitting at the back of the Intervarsity meeting, and I was at the front. At no point had we talked yet at the end he came up and said that a particular verse had been in his head all evening and he wanted to share it:

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

— Revelation 2:4-5

The following summers I went on short term mission trips to the Netherlands and Malta. The passion of the “first love” burns hot and I am so thankful that during those weeks of training, evagelism, prayer, study and worship I was challenged and directed by Godly leaders who wanted to channel that passion. I know that I made big promises mirroring the risky, big promises of Bon Jovi’s song - “I’d die for you / I’d do anything” - promises that turned the course of my life toward where it is today. The internal challenge I am feeling, after theological training and years of “growing up” is the echo of Revelation 2. Where is my passion today? More importantly, what temperature is the passion burning at?

If this post raises questions, please leave me a comment. If it raises concerns, please leave me a comment. Please remember though: more is planned to follow - I feel like there’s more to this threat of thinking than this single post alone. Feel free to leave a comment and be involved in the thought process!