Elsa Tamez on James and oppression; John 11 sermon on speaking about life in the midst of death; and open access Missiology resources

Welcome to my newsletter, ‘Bible, Mission, and More’, where I share what’s on my mind as I teach, research, and write on the Bible and mission, children-at-risk in the Bible and contemporary society, Psalms and Wisdom Literature, and a range of other topics. I teach at All Nations Christian College in the UK, though views are my own.

Each Tuesday I’ll share something I’ve read, something I’ve written or recorded, something on learning and teaching, and a quote to reflect on.

Something read – Elsa Tamez on the scandalous message of James

Elsa Tamez is a Mexican biblical scholar who has written on both Old and New Testament texts, as well as broader theological and social themes. I’ve just finished her book on the letter of James, The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works is Dead (New York: Crossroad). It was originally published in Spanish in 1985 and translated into English in 1990. The copy I have is a revised version from 2002, which also includes a study guide at the end.

Turning to the book itself, Tamez is a powerful writer who does careful work on the text while also exploring matters of interpretation and the history of interpretation. She approaches the letter, owning its controversial history (e.g., Martin Luther’s negative appraisal), but exploring it as a letter ‘from below’. Her key interest is in the book’s take on poverty and oppression, exploring three main ways of approaching the book: the angle of oppression; the angle of hope; and the angle of praxis.

I was particularly struck by her assessment of some of the ways wealth and poverty in the book are discussed by Western scholars, who assume their audiences (and the church at large) are made up primarily of the wealthy rather than the poor. At one point, after quoting a particular commentator, she declares, ‘Only someone with a job, food, and shelter could affirm such a thing. The hungry, the exploited, the jobless want at least to satisfy their basic necessities, and they turn to God with those hopes.’ (p. 37)

Something written – How do we speak about life in the midst of death? (Sermon on John 11)

A while ago I preached a sermon at our church on the raising of Lazarus in John 11. As a church we were slowly working our way through John’s Gospel and we reached this part of his book in early September 2022. Some of the opening lines go like this:

Our passage today confronts us with something we are all too familiar with: how do we talk about life when we are faced with death? This keeps coming up.

Last year I preached here on grieving with hope and afterwards was embraced by someone who had recently lost his wife; a few months later he was gone, too. Over the last two or three years as a congregation we lost many dear friends. The work of grief keeps going on, being added to layer by layer.

After spending some time on the background to the passage, and especially the way vv. 1-16 prepares us for what follows, I look at the different characters of Martha and Mary, and the different responses they had to Jesus. In seasons of our own grief, how can we see ourselves in their questions and statements? I’m struck, for example, by Martha’s honesty and the way she and her sister say with such sadness ‘if only’ to Jesus.

In the raising of Lazarus we see Jesus pointing to himself as the resurrection and the life. If you like, he moves from ‘if only’ to ‘I am’. Concluding the sermon I suggest that (1) Jesus sees and understands our grief, and we need to keep bringing our sorrow and confusion to him; (2) without dismissing or minimising the sorrow we feel or the questions we carry, Jesus places our grief into a bigger story where he himself is the resurrection and the life; and (3) John leaves us with a choice. In telling us this story John has made us all onlookers and he invites us (confronts us) with a choice. Just as the crowd couldn’t pretend Jesus hadn’t raised Lazarus, John is saying to us, ‘You can’t ignore what has happened… you must decide what to do about Jesus.’

You can watch the full sermon here: John 11 sermon

Learning and teaching – Open access Missiology resources

Missiology.org.uk is an open access directory of books and articles related to the field of Missiology. You will find these under the categories: Hosted Articles; Introductions; Theology of Mission; History of Missions; Countries; World Religions; Missionaries; Mission Skills; Mission Societies; and Conferences.

I find it particularly helpful in collating more historical sources, especially those out of copyright. A number of years ago when Redcliffe College was moving premises we found we had several hundred items that we thought would qualify as out of copyright and so we sent them to Rob Bradshaw who runs the Missiology.org.uk site and he has gradually worked through them, checking their copyright status and, where appropriate, putting them on the site for everyone to have access. You can read a blog post by Rob about this from early in the process: 1,000 Missions Books for Digitisation from Redcliffe College.

NB. Rob also curates sites on several other related disciplines, like Biblical Studies, Theological Studies, and Church History. For links to these see the site: Theology on the Web.

Quote – Elsa Tamez on the Bible as invitation to joy

‘For the entire Bible, in the last analysis, is a proposal for rejoicing. This is not any “vain, ephemeral joy,” but rather a joy whose source is the proclamation of the end of oppression, the end of the corruption of human beings, who are the agents of oppression; in other words, it is the proclamation of the end of sin. The poor and oppressed rejoice because they hear the good news of a promise of liberation. Hope is the core of that experience; we hope with confidence in the promise of liberation and rejoice in anticipation. This is to have faith; this is truly to believe.’ (p. 27)

See above for bibliographic details.

Thanks for joining the journey and see you next week,

Tim