One of the major requirements for this blog for dealing with the definition of holy is to make sure it sheds light rather than blocks light. When something blocks light, then it quite obviously stands in the way of light. That is a great way to discern the value of anything a person reads on the definition of holy. We always need to ask, "Did this source shed light on what I am trying to find or did they shed darkness on what I am trying to find?" In the end: "Did I find what I was looking for?" or are we like U2 saying: "Still haven't found what I'm looking for".
A major drive in people is to find what is lost, until it is found. You likely arrived as this sight as a result of a search engine looking for the definition or meaning of holy.
A coin has value while it is in our pocket, but when it is lost, its value grows just like an item's value increases from scarcity. A lot of times over the years, to find something, I just needed to turn on the lights or grab a flashlight. The light functioned like a search engine. It showed me what I was looking for. Make sure that what you read on the definition of holy sheds light!
The purpose of my blog is to shed light on the meaning of holy. I bring things out into the light that have been blocked from people's view. It is not that the definition of holy was not previously well-known. It is that its meaning got lost somewhere along the way, resulting in many differing definitions.
For me, one of the primary things that was blocked from my view, when I read my Bible before the last 10 years, was the definition of the biblical word that we translate as "holy" as "moral wholeness". When I first saw "wholly" listed as a definition for the Hebrew word qadosh alongside "holy" as a translation in a Bible dictionary, then I knew that I had not seen or heard of that definition ever before. None of my teachers, who had often helped me perceive things anew, had brought this to light for me before this time (that I could recall). I was at the time searching to find a word in the Bible that united a set of different kinds of major moral values like love and truth together.
An important tool for teaching is what I call the 5 C's Cascade. It is a great tool for classroom enlightenment or persuasion. The fundamental rule of it is that you must complete the full cascade for persuasion to really happen.
The cascade looks like a series of water falls. You could also use the analogy of a set of 5 dominos that if one falls the others must fall with it. The analogies are manifold. Let's stick to the water falls in this case, since cascade language fits best with that analogy.
Here are the 5 steps of teaching for persuasion or shedding light at the barest bone level:
1) challenge
2) connection
3) celebration
4) chance
5) choice
You could also word them this way with a bit more explanation:
1) challenge (to see)
2) connection (to see)
3) celebration (to see)
4) chance (to see)
5) choice (to see)
or you could amplify it even more this way:
1) challenge (to see an amount)
2) connection (to see a relationship)
3) celebrate (to see whole)
4) chance (to see action)
5) choice (to see a thing)
I have become convinced from my time as a teacher and as a coach or my other time as a teacher and a pastor that the problem with most teaching is that it does not challenge. It just floats along with the tide of darkness rather than reaching for the lights. Good teaching is supposed to enlighten or bring to light things otherwise previously not seen. School is supposed to function as a corrective to nonsense and darkness. But does it do so, when it settles for darkness? How is it that we don't challenge the darkness instead?
If there is no light in the classroom, then how can we say that there is a teacher in the room? One of the great things about Jesus was that he was a teacher (otherwise known as a rabbi). He challenged the status quo, if you haven't noticed. He also shed light while other teachers loved the darkness instead. His teaching skills might have been one of his biggest reasons for his opposition to oppose him.
Challenge
My greatest teachers all challenged me to see things that I previously wasn't seeing. I can remember many examples, but let me mention one that I remember extremely well when it comes to challenging me.
James Johnson, a professor of mine at Bethel College (now University) in St. Paul, MN called me in to explain what I needed to do with a paper that I had written. I had written a paper for his history class on the First Great Awakening that I thought was going to get a good grade. I didn't get even a good grade, but also instead of stopping there he challenged me to re-write the paper to see the history of not just Jonathan Edwards and his camp, but also see that of others in opposition to him. I realized then that I was to bring both sides to light, not just one side to light and to accurately represent history through a vivid comparison of both sides in full view. Only then was my paper shedding light on history rather than a mixture of darkness and light according to my own choosing. I needed to shed light and give people a legitimate choice of options. I learned a great deal that opened my eyes to see things that I had not previously seen.
Photo of Bethel History Faculty in '80s
James Johnson (far left)
Connection
But it was not just Dr. James Johnson's challenge to see a greater amount than just one side, it was also Dr. John S. Piper's and Tom Stellar's (Dr. Piper's right hand man, if any) teaching me to see connections. Dr. Piper introduced me to a method of arcing that his teacher, Dr. Daniel P. Fuller, had taught him at Fuller Theological Seminary. This method opened my eyes so many times to see things that I had not seen before that I decided later to study myself under Fuller. I still like to call Dr. Fuller every so often and thank him, when I see a new relationship in the text that I never saw before through my revised arcing method.
Dr. John S. Piper in 1979
Dr. Daniel Payton Fuller
Celebration
But it was not just Piper and Fuller, who were teachers who opened my eyes. While I had gone to Fuller to learn about church planting in the School of World Mission (now the School of Intercultural Studies) and exegesis (the scholarly name for reading the Bible itself) under Dr. Fuller, I also discovered two unexpected sightings while I was there. I saw a leadership program that tied into my training under Tentmaker's, Inc. and my own self-study of Dr. Peter F. Drucker (then at Claremont Graduate School) that would challenge me as a leader more than I would be challenged as a student of church planting. So I changed my concentration from church planting to leadership. I also found an opportunity to learn more about translation and language studies as a whole and to take my learning to a higher level than I had achieved at Bethel College (now University) under Dr. William A. Smalley, Dr. Don N. Larson, and Lois Malcolm (now a professor at Luther Northwestern in St. Paul, MN). I found Dr. Betty Sue Brewster,. Dr. P. Daniel Shaw and Catherine Rountree, who all helped me see the bigger picture of language and communication at its broadest level. It was then that I began to see and know that it was only a matter of time before a reason for celebration could happen. I just had to remind myself not to count all my chicks till all my chicks were hatched. That is the time to celebrate, but in the middle of progressing, it is good to be reminded to wait. This sense of celebration mainly came from learning the TEAR method of language study that helped me see best the larger picture of language and communication. To the best of my ability, it appears that the TEAR view of language came primarily from Eugene A. Nida.
Eugene Albert Nida
Chance
But there is something more about the TEAR view of language than meets the eye. It is also that it shows that there is a chance to make a difference in the area of method or technology. Dr. P. Daniel Shaw was my first teacher that taught me how to use the TEAR approach to language. I was finally made able to use it effectively when I read a Bible text or anything else for that matter. So what Dr. Shaw gave me that the others previously had not was to see the chance of getting things accomplished that previously had seemed impossible. I remember very well that once I grasped the action words in a passage that suddenly I also saw better the relationships in a passage and it solved a problem in Piper's and Fuller's method that they had not solved for me. I will always have to acknowledge Dr. Shaw for first letting me see in ready the Bible new chances and new possibilities.
Choices
So what teachers taught me to see other choices? Who opened my eyes to be smarter? Often the difference between a smart person and a person who is not as smart is knowing that the choices are more diversified than the less intelligent person realizes. Who most opened my eyes to this?
Ironically, John S. Piper needs a lot of credit here though he would not be on the same page as my philosophy professors and anthropology professors on a number of topics. His list of choices would be shorter than theirs. He is the one who told me to study philosophy. Another theologian here who deserves some credit before I talk more about philosophers and anthropologists is Dr. Robert H. Stein. He taught me how to find new choices among the German scholars that others ranked as of no value. In the end, one of his ideas in A Basic Guide to Reading the Bible, may end up to have given me a choice in understanding the words of Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew that no one else even suggests. So he cannot be underrated, that is for sure.
There is a long list of those who taught me to see choices that others never have gotten the option to even see, let alone have the option to make those choices. I've got to acknowledge my philosophy professors from college, who helped me see when theologians made a choice based on a philosophical school rather than a biblical text. That opened up things to see other choices. Their names include Dr. Don Postema, Dr. Melville Stewart, Dr. Stanley Anderson, Dr. Paul Reasoner, and Dr. Niel Nielson. In anthropology, both Dr. Thomas Correll and Dr. Sperry (sp?). Alongside of them I was also introduced to Dr. Michael Rynewich (from Macalester) and Dr. David Rausch from the history department. All of them opened my eyes to seeing the many choices that others did not see.
This largely culminated in three major papers I wrote while at Fuller Theological Seminary. One was a paper where I summarized all the possible views on baptism looking at all the choices from a broad cultural view. Then I did later another paper that involved a ton of research where I suggested other choices for interpreting Paul's comments on singleness. I tried to turn over every rock of choices and then tried to discern which were good choices and which were not. But my advantage was that I had a lot of choices before deciding. This also led me to the Center for the Study of Biblical Research in Pasadena, CA where I learned more about Jewish culture or philosophy.
The big benefit from all of these choices is having more choices from which to choose, because I can see them while before I could not.
In all of this discussion, I have left out other names that also could be mentioned. I hope I have another time to give them their due. Already, my mind is beginning to catalog those who I have missed. The trade off in not mentioning them here is that my writing does not grow even longer. That is a good choice. Thank you.
[I will re-visit this and other writing as possible. thank you for your patience.]
In Christ,
Jon
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