Where do you find the Apostles Creed in the Bible?

The Apostles Creed has been a part of the church in the West for a very long time. It is used in baptisms, prayers, and basic catechesis. However there are some people who argue that the creeds are not found in the Bible, and so they are simply traditions of men that should be condemned. I think that argument is a little silly, but I'm not going to get into all that right now (perhaps I will post something on it soon though).

Today I want to highlight a list of Scriptural references that point to the biblical grounding of all the articles in the Creed. I got this list from Paul McCain, so thanks Paul!

I believe (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 4:5)

In God (Deut. 6:4 1 Cor. 8:6)

The Father (Psalm 89:27; Matthew 7:11)

Almighty (Genesis 7:1; 2 Cor. 6:18)

Maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 33:6; John 5:17)

And in Jesus ( Zech 9:9; Matthew 1:21)

Christ (Daniel 9:24; John 3:34)

His only (Zechariah 13:7; John 1:14)

Son (Psalm 2:7; Matthew 16:16)

Our Lord ( Jeremiah 23:6; John 20:28)

Who was conceived (Jeremiah 31:22; Luke 1:31)

By the Holy Spirit (Daniel 2:45; Matthew 1:20)

Born ( Isaiah 9:6; John 1:14)

Of the Virgin Mary (Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:43)

Suffered (Isaiah 50:6; Luke 23:25)

Under Pontius Pilate (Psalm 2:2; Luke 18:32)

Was crucified (Psalm 22:17; John 3:14)

Died (Daniel 9:26; Rom. 5:8)

And was buried ( Isaiah 53:9; John 12:24)

Descended into hell (Psalm 16:10; Ephesians 4:9)

And on the third day (Hosea 6:2; Matthew 26:32; Acts 10:40-41)

He rose again from the dead (Isaiah 63:1; 2 Timothy 2:8)

Ascended into heaven (Psalm 68:19; Col. 2:15)

And sits at the right hand of the God the Father Almighty (Psalm 110:1; Mark 16:19)

From thence he will come (Isaiah 66:15; Acts 1:11)

To judge (Wisdom of Solomon 6:6; Acts 17:31)

The living and the dead (Daniel 12:2; 1 Cor. 15:51)

I believe in the Holy Spirit (Zechariah 12:10; John 15:26)

The holy (Psalm 45:14; Ephesians 5:26)

Christian Church (Psalm 22:26; Matthew 16:18)

The communion of saints (Exodus 19:5; Ephesians 4:3)

The forgiveness of sins (Psalm 32:1; Acts 10:43)

The resurrection of the body (Isaiah 66:14; John 5:28)

And the life everlasting (Psalm 16:11; 1 Peter 1:4)

Amen! (Psalm 72:19; 2 Cor. 1:20)

10 Reasons I Pray the Rosary

Here is a video I made in response to a question from my friend Ryan Mahoney.

Book Review: Holy Listening

Have you ever felt isolated from your own story? Do you go through days without a sense of the continuity between your habits and action and who you are and what you want to live for? The noisiness of life has a tendency to mute our identity and stifle any sense of progression and conversation that we might be having within ourselves and with God.

My own experience with the isolation of noisiness is one of the reasons I started learning about spiritual direction. Spiritual direction confronts the deafening noise of the world with a space to hear in silence. Spiritual direction gives me a time to hear myself. Spiritual direction provides a path to God. It’s a powerful practice that has been formative in my own life.

One of the texts that has helped me understand what spiritual direction is and is not is Holy Listening by Margaret Guenther. This book helps readers enter into the world of spiritual direction. In spiritual direction the director helps reconnect the directee through embodying the roles of a host, teacher, and midwife.

As host the spiritual director creates a space that is safe and welcoming. This is not the space where the noise of daily tasks and a busy schedule take place, this is a sacred space. It can look any number of ways, but it is created with care for the individuals experiencing direction in mind. In my own direction experience this is a little library in a Jesuit house in Chicago.

As a teacher the spiritual director is not telling the person under their care what to do, rather they are helping to engaging the questions that are central to helping the directee recognize their place and struggle. They help the directee identify questions at times more than provide answers. Having questions can often be a sign of spiritual health; unfortunately people are often uncomfortable having questions. People want to deal with the questions and move on. A good teacher helps a student really live in the question more than just providing a solution. Nowhere is this more important than in spiritual direction. Questions themselves are a form of silence that can be a place where we can hear God away from the noise of the world. They offer paradigms where new insights can emerge. Spiritual direction is, in part, being the kind of teacher that invites questions.

The spiritual director as midwife is another powerful analogy. Most people are wounded in some way. Life is challenging and often times there are hurts and struggles that people are always working through. There is a natural tendency for people to bury pain and hurt and try to move on, however this is not always a healthy solution. Sometimes out of the midst of the brokenness that one experiences there is a new life that can emerge. Fostering and birthing this new life is one of the primary roles that any spiritual director can engage in. Many people come to spiritual direction because they recognize that there is something in them that needs to come out, and they are frightened and confused by the process. Spiritual directors can help transform times of fear and confusion into growth and celebration. I know this is something that I have experienced myself as a directee.

These three vocational lenses presented in Holy Listening have been personally helpful to me. I would recommend the book to anyone who is interested in perusing spiritual direction as a director or as a directee. It has helped me clarify how this spiritual practice can have power in my own life, and has given me a few paradigms out of which I have been able to be a better minister to others.

Why were Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes put in the Bible?

 

Some people ask why the compilers of the biblical canon were right in including Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs in it. This concern stems from the fact that both of these books are pretty unique in the Biblical cannon and were considered somewhat controversial at times.

For Christians the concern about these books has never really been a huge issue. They were included in the Septuagint, and that pretty much settled the question for many years.

Then came Martin Luther. Luther and those who followed him in the reformation were part of a quest to get back to the early sources of the Bible. This led to some re-evaluation of what was in and what was out, and they decided that some of the Old Testament that had always been accepted was now out.

What got thrown out were the books that Jewish leaders were said to have eliminated at the hypothetical council of Jamnia (Where the Pharasees differentiated themselves from the Christians in light of a post-temple reality and became the only sect of Judaism other then Christianity to survive).

Rabbis had decided books like Tobit, and Sirach were not canonical however they did included Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, but just barely. Because of this these books have remained in all Bibles, but never comfortably.

Many people believe that Song of Songs only got in by people interpreting this very beautiful erotic poetry as an allegory for God's love of Israel. (This is the interpretation of it that is found in the Midrash and in the Targums).

Christians Generally have followed suit and have looked at the book as speaking about God's love for his people. However this is not the only view. The Catholic church has defined the book in many instances as reflecting both a literal interpretation (where the lovers are seen as two people, having real sex) and the allegorical sense (where the women is the people of God and God is the man).

Some feminists have approached it differently. They argue that it isn't about God as much as it is about reinforcing patriarchal structures. The book Song of Songs is a text that they believe can lead to to the oppression of women. Even if it's allegorical some people have difficulty connecting with God presented as a patriarchal figure that objectifies "his" beloved.

Ecclesiastes is quite different than Song of Songs in it's content, but still presents God in a way that is difficult. Ecclesiastes talks of God in a non-personal, yet definite way. God is spoken of as הָאֱלֹהִ֛ים (THE GOD) rather then common tetragrammaton, God's proper name. In fact the use of הָאֱלֹהִ֛ים is unique to Ecclesiastes within the canon of scripture.

The name of God is not the only thing that is controversial in Ecclesiastes. The content is also very unique. In it God is presented with a tinge of doubt, and life is presented as a vapor. The author presents the whole of human actions in a light were we see them as fleeting, evanescent, and absurd. The reader is told to fear God (3:14, 5:6-7, 7:18, 8:12), but even that is done out of a sense of duty rather then out of love.

Reading the book, you sometimes get the impression that the author ought to have gotten psychiatric help rather then have been included in the Bible. The whole thing just doesn't seem to fit at all. In fact the House of Hillel (an ancient school of Jewish law) was opposed to it's inclusion in the 1st century for just this reason

However I am glad these books are in the Bible.
In fact I count them among my most cherished members of the canon.

Without them I don't think there is enough space for God to roam around. Although these books are certainly unique in their presentation of God, they are unique in a Good way that opens our imaginations to new ways to encounter the divine. They open up mystical playgrounds, and theological escape hatches. I love it.

I need to be able to love God deeply, madly, passionately, and with abandon; like in the Song of Songs. I also need a place where my own sexuality is affirmed and even used by God to communicate beauty and poetry. Our culture is awash in cheap sex. I need a place where it is rich. Song of Songs can provide that place.

I also need to be reminded of a God that can meet me in the midst of my duty. Sometimes the feeling of passion for God are gone. My fear of the LORD is tainted with doubt and God does not seem personal at all. The world can seem empty at times, and even the good things I have can appear fleeting, evanescent, and absurd. Ecclesiastes gives me a sacred space in those times. It helps lead me into the desert where God can work something new in me. Ecclesiastes guides me to under the wings of the monastic traditions of my faith and through the dark night of the soul. It demonstrates that even in austerity there is richness in God.

I love that.

Perplexing Proverbs

The book of proverbs is a deeply loved, and also deeply complicated book of the Bible.

In popular culture most people seem to think that Solomon composed the book with wisdom that was given to him by God. The reason that he is credited with the book is because there is a note that the proverbs come from him in the first verse of chapter one (and also at the beginning of chapters 10 and 25).

If you actually read the book, however, you will notice that there are other authors who seem to creep in:

1. Generic "wise men" show up as authors (22:17; 24:23)
2. Agur son of Jakeh is listed as the author of chapter 30 
3. Lemuel (or his mother) is credited for 31

The multiplicity of authors within the book points to the nature of it's redaction.

Proverbs is not a single collection written by a single author. It is a collection of collections that was certainly not completed until long after the time of Solomon (this explains fun textual things like the use of the Aramaic word for son "ber" rather then the Hebrew word "ben")

Not only are there multiple authors to the book, but there are also multiple sources of inspiration.

• It seems to draw from the Egyptian wisdom genre of sebayt as found in "the Instructions of Amenemopet." This genre seeks to give instruction in a royal context and presents formally written ethical teachings focused on the "way of living truly".
• Proverbs also seems to demonstrate an interaction with the middle-eastern genre of "sage sayings." Precursors to this can be seen in the "Words of Ahikar" as well as the deuterocanonical "Wisdom of Sirach."

The subjects covered in the book also frame the way the work is presented. The book seems to deal with the following subjects in unique ways:

• How to learn
• How to rule
• How to live in a family

 In spite of all the diversity included in the book of Proverbs, there is still a beautiful simplicity to it. The writing is poetic, and can be easily memorised. There is a beauty in the simple sayings and a common sense virtue to it all.

If you haven't read Proverbs recently, pick it up and give it a spin!