markhbahr.com | Sermons and Thoughts from Mark H. Bahr

An Open Letter to the DART Board of Directors

// April 16th, 2012 // No Comments » // Life Stuff

I have recently read of the proposed fare increases proposed by the board. While it would increase revenue, it would no doubt be a damaging long term decision unless other factors are considered. While train ridership is projected to be up by around 4,200,000, overall ridership is projected to be down by nearly 17,000,000 in 2013 compared to 2008.

What you are proposing is a resistance to the law of supply and demand. History has shown that such resistance, while having the appearance of short term benefit, is devastating in the long term. Your best solution is to find ways to increase demand or reduce supply (i.e. cut out some routes). You can increase demand by lowering fares or by improving the current supply to a place where the market is willing to pay the price you are asking. Smart cards and more credit card kiosks will go a long way toward that, in my book. Fewer, yet more frequent bus routes, would aid in this as well.

In addition, I very rarely get asked for proof of payment whenever I ride a train. Consistent and frequent fare enforcement is something that is sorely lacking in DART. I would suggest having enough fare enforcers to man every train on every schedule. Doing such will bring about a much needed increase in revenue while making your best effort to avoid resisting fundamental economic law. It’s time that DART start using economists instead of actuaries to make their business decisions.

Until DART learns that it is not exempt from basic economic law, I cannot in good conscience ride DART any longer and will encourage and publicly urge others to do the same. I cannot support a business whose model is driven by short term gains and concerns. While DART is indeed a publicly supported venture, it is ultimately a business and should be run as such.

The Teaching of the Apostles

// August 4th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2:42

The above reference demonstrates the mindset of the most primitive expression of the Christian church in the book of Acts. They were devoted to a number of things: the apostles teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers (grouped in this way in Greek text). These are all activities that, based on the plural, the church was devoted to as a corporate entity as well as in their gatherings. The flavor of their worship was that it reflected a devotion to those two sets of things.

We might say today, that what we include in our worship is beneficial inasmuch as it reflects devotion to such things. Of course, by worship, I mean the entire gathering (not just the music). Music is beneficial to worship inasmuch as it is devoted to the above.

In light of Acts 2:42, I commend The Village Church for changing the words of one of their songs to reflect their understanding of the type of righteousness that Christ accomplished for us at the Cross. I admire their commitment to “the teaching of the apostles” in all facets of their gatherings–including the music.

Kudos to The Village Church!!!!

Some Memorial Day Thoughts

// May 30th, 2011 // No Comments » // Life Stuff

I recently received an e-mail with a series of editorial cartoons (likely without permission) exhorting us to do what Memorial Day is intended to bring us to do: remember the fallen veterans. Many were quite moving and very heartfelt. I had intentions of doing a post and write-up about it, but decided that it would be best to allow some of those cartoons to speak for themselves. I am posting those for which I have received permission to post. You can click on the image to see a bigger version in a new window:

Book Review Coming

// April 10th, 2011 // No Comments » // Book Reviews

No, it’s not a review of Love Wins by Rob Bell. Plenty of people are reviewing that one right now. I have begun reading More Than Just a Name: Preserving our Baptist Identity by R. Stanton Norman. As soon as I’m done and write the review, I’ll be posting it.

Why I Chose the University of South Africa

// April 9th, 2011 // No Comments » // Life Stuff

I frequently get asked why I am studying through the University of South Africa (UNISA) for my doctoral studies. Some wonder about the quality of the program, other wonder about the practicality of Open Distance Learning for a doctorate, and others wonder why I chose UNISA when there are a number of local programs under which I could study. So I thought I would make this post as a way of answering the question.

1. The quality of the program. The first thing that pops into peoples heads when they hear the University of South Africa is “Africa.” They hear third world and a lesser quality of education. I say, rubbish. An institution is to be gauged on the quality of its faculty, their publications, and its graduates. At the doctoral level, one needs to dig even deeper and gauge those factors in specific programs and departments. My interests are in specific types of exegetical and critical studies in the New Testament. In fact, the South Africans (not UNISA, but they quickly followed suit), pioneered my area of study! That immediately ruled out a number of high quality NT departments as they don’t have a track record in my areas of interest. UNISA, on the other hand, has a number of faculty that are well published in my area of NT interest. When looking for a doctoral program, one needs to look for those under whom they wish to study. I tailored my discussion of a topic to the interest of one specific faculty member I wished to study under. As for UNISA in general, John Sanders, Bruce Carlton, Keith Eitel, Desmond Tutu, and a number of other academics in the US have their qualifications from UNISA. Trust me, this, so far, has been no cakewalk!!!

2. The practicality of Open Distance Learning (ODL). In particular, the question has to do with the “distance” aspect. UNISA follows the British system of doctoral studies, in which one applies by writing a proposal of sorts. I had to write a mini-proposal in the form of a brief discussion of my topic of interest (in addition to a number of other original writings). People apply into many British programs by sending a research proposal along with various forms. The British system assumes that your Masters study was worth something and that you are now a master of your field and ready to become an expert in a sub-field. A student is typically assigned (or he/she chooses) a supervisor/mentor/promotor under whom he/she will study. This person guides the student through their research and thesis writing. The supervisor may stipulate some extra “reading” (coursework) based on where the student is. The end result is a very long doctoral dissertation.

Many British schools are realizing that, with modern technologies (such as video conferencing, e-mail, etc.), residency in such a program can be kept minimal. University of Wales (Trinity-St. David), University of Manchester, University of Nottingham, have adopted limited to no residency requirements. Oxford and Cambridge are piloting some similar programs. UNISA follows this same model. Now, depending on my prospectus (for which I have completed a first draft), I may have to choose a co-promoter: a stateside person who will work alongside my promoter in SA. The final product will be read by both internal faculty and by external academics and I may need to defend.

As far as the Open element, UNISA is a subscriber to the principle of Open Distance Learning. The idea is that education should be available to people regardless of location, income level, etc., and that scholarship should be freely (not necessarily without cost) available to researchers. As a result, my dissertation (if passed) will be placed in the UNISA institutional repository for the whole world to be able to download it free of charge.

3. Why I chose UNISA over some local programs. The answer to this is closely related to issues 1 and 2. First, as a clarification, I excluded a number of high quality stateside programs due to my desire to stay in Texas, for the time being.

There are a number of high quality and well respected seminaries in my locality. There are a number of public and private university options as well. Why did I not choose one of them? Other than a bit of work done by a faculty member at one of the local state universities, I did not see someone whose work I wanted to study under. This is not to say that they are not good scholars, this is only to say that their areas of expertise are not such that would foster growth and expertise in my specialty.

The second factor is cost. If I had attended one of the state schools in the area (or one of the private options), I likely would have received a tuition waiver and an assistantship to pay my living expenses. However, many of the programs did not fit the above mentioned interests of mine. The local seminaries are very, very costly and generally do not have the funding to offer tuition waivers and assistantships. While I probably could have put together a study program and found someone to study under, it would be a far better use of God’s money to study under someone who is a recognized expert in my area of interest. UNISA is very affordable and my supervisor is well published in my area of interest.

The third factor, is again, the question in doctoral studies is not where one studies but under whom one studies. I find many people who simply are looking to get a terminal doctorate just to get the qualification. They are not concerned with specialties or who they wish to study under. That, in my opinion, is a sure way to burn out in a doctoral program or to end up with a bit of bad taste.

There you have it, my not so brief reasoning for studying through UNISA.

How to Write a Thesis in OpenOffice

// February 14th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

The high cost of MS-Office (it’s gone down recently) has often been an obstacle for graduate students needing to write theses and dissertations. Pages for Mac, while powerful, is missing some features necessary to graduate writing (such as footnoting within tables). Mellel for Mac is great but it is limited to Mac users and not an option for Windows or Linux users.

This makes OpenOffice, a free and open-source software suite that is designed as rival to office, an attractive option. It is available freely for Windows, Linux, OSX and others and is compatible with MS-Office. The word processor is roughly equivalent to MS Word. Numerous open source derivatives such as NeoOffice, AbiWord, Bean, LibreOffice, and Lotus Symphony are available. You can search any of these and download them. However, there is a learning curve as it is a change in software.

In researching for a research methodology class I teach, I ran across this file, I thought I might share this to help all paper writers. It is attached. It is entitled How to Write a Thesis in OpenOffice.org. You can download it by clicking here.

13 Things Your Greek Teacher Won’t Tell You

// October 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Greek

Rodney Decker reposted some thoughts from David Alan Black’s blog yesterday on 13 things your Greek teacher doesn’t want you to know. They are reposted here below. These are David Alan Black’s words, not mine

The latest issue of The Reader’s Digest has an interesting article entitled “13 Things Used Car Salesmen Won’t Tell You.” Here are “13 Things Your Greek Teachers Won’t Tell You”:

1. Greek is not the only tool you need to interpret your New Testament. In fact, it’s only one component in a panoply of a myriad of tools. Get Greek, but don’t stop there. (You’ll need, for example, a Hebrew New Testament as well.)

2. Greek is not the Open Sesame of biblical interpretation. All it does is limit your options. It tells you what’s possible, then the context and other factors kick in to disambiguate the text.

3. Greek is not superior to other languages in the world. Don’t believe it when you are told that Greek is more logical than, say, Hebrew. Not true.

4. Greek had to be the language in which God inscripturated New Testament truth because of its complicated syntax. Truth be told, there’s only one reason why the New Testament was written in Greek and not in another language (say, Latin), and that is a man named Alexander the Great, whose vision was to conquer the inhabited world and then unite it through a process known as Hellenization. To a large degree he succeeded, and therefore the use of Greek as the common lingua franca throughout the Mediterranean world in the first century AD should come as no surprise to us today. I emphasize this point only because there are some today who would seek to resurrect the notion of “Holy Ghost” Greek. Their view is, in my view, a demonstrable cul-de-sac.

5. Greek words do not have one meaning. Yet how many times do we hear in a sermon, “The word in the Greek means…”? Most Greek words are polysemous, that is, they have many possible meanings, only one of which is its semantic contribution to any passage in which it occurs. (In case you were wondering: Reading all of the meanings of a Greek word into any particular passage in which it occurs is called “illegitimate totality transfer” by linguists.)

6. Greek is not difficult to learn. I’ll say it again: Greek is not difficult to learn. I like to tell my students, “Greek is an easy language; it’s us Greek teachers who get in the way.” The point is that anyone can learn Greek, even a poorly-educated surfer from Hawaii. If I can master Greek, anyone can!

7. Greek can be acquired through any number of means, including most beginning textbooks. Yes, I prefer to use my own Learn to Read New Testament Greek in my classes, but mine is not the only good textbook out there. When I was in California I taught in an institution that required all of its Greek teachers to use the same textbook for beginning Greek. I adamantly opposed that policy. I feel very strongly that teachers should have the right to use whichever textbook they prefer. Thankfully, the year I left California to move to North Carolina that policy was reversed, and now teachers can select their own beginning grammars. (By the way, the textbook that had been required was mine!)

8. Greek students think they can get away with falling behind in their studies. Folks, you can’t. I tell my students that it’s almost impossible to catch up if you get behind even one chapter in our textbook. Language study requires discipline and time management skills perhaps more than any other course of study in school.

9. Greek is fun! At least when it’s taught in a fun way.

10. Greek is good for more than word studies. In fact, in the past few years I’ve embarked on a crusade to get my students to move away from word-bound exegesis. When I was in seminary I was taught little more than how to do word studies from the Greek. Hence, I thought I had “used Greek in ministry” if I had consulted my Wuest, Robertson, Kittle, Brown, Vincent, or Vines. Since then I’ve discovered that lexical analysis is the handmaiden and not the queen of New Testament exegesis. Greek enables us to see how a text is structured, how it includes rhetorical devices, how syntactical constructions are often hermeneutical keys, etc.

11. Greek can cause you to lose your faith. It happened to one famous New Testament professor in the US when he discovered that there were textual variants in his Greek New Testament, and it can happen to you. When the text of Scripture becomes nothing more than “another analyzable datum of linguistic interpretation” then it loses its power as the Word of God. That’s why I’m so excited about my Greek students at the seminary, most of whom are eager to place their considerable learning at the feet of Jesus in humble service to His upside-down kingdom.

12. Greek can be learned in an informal setting. The truth is that you do not need to take a formal class in this subject or in any subject for that matter. I know gobs of homeschoolers who are using my grammar in self-study, many of whom are also using my Greek DVDs in the process. If anyone wants to join the club, let me know and I will send you, gratis, a pronunciation CD and a handout called “Additional Exercises.”

13. Greek is not Greek. In other words, Modern Greek and Koine Greek are two quite different languages. So don’t expect to be able to order a burrito in Athens just because you’ve had me for first year Greek. On the other hand, once you have mastered Koine Greek it is fairly easy to work backwards (and learn Classical Greek) and forwards (and learn Modern Greek).

Okay, I’m done. And yes, I’m exaggerating. Many Greek teachers do in fact tell their students these things. May their tribe increase!

Now who wants to tackle “13 Things Your Hebrew Teachers Won’t Tell You”?

Sola Gratia

// August 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Theology

Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV)

“1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

In the above passage, from Ephesians 2:1-10, a word and the idea behind that word are repeated a number of times. That word is grace. One of the issues raised during the Reformation was how one comes about to be acceptable to God. The reigning understanding of the day involved something called the “via moderna” (the modern way). What this was that God had grace to give to people, however, they had to merit that grace. Sure, there was initial grace that gave the ability in one to cooperate with God so as to merit the further graces necessary to become acceptable to God. It ultimately meant that one had to merit God’s favor to be assured of eternal bliss. In this understanding, grace makes possible our salvation. In order for one to receive grace, he or she had to take the first step on their own, regardless of how big or small. Once that step is taken, God will grant grace.

However, the scripture above paints a different picture. It paints the human condition as one that is dead and under God’s wrath. It paints a picture of humankind as those who being dead, need someone outside of themselves to bring them life, to bring us out of a state of being “dead in sin” and “being under God’s wrath”. The first few verses paint a rather bleak picture. However, in verse 5, we see the answer, “But God”. Because of His great mercy, he made us alive together in Christ Jesus. It also says that “by grace you have been saved”. Notice the language of the the text. It says that by grace, the Ephesians had entered into a state of possessing salvation from God. It was not merely made possible, but granted freely because of his mercy. Take note of the one doing the working in the passage: it is God in his mercy found in Christ Jesus. Our working is not found until verse 10, and then as a response to the salvation we possess.

Again, in v. 8-9 we have an oft quoted passage of scripture. “By grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God, and not by works so that no one can boast”. This passage leaves no room for a person to boast in his cooperation with God, in their merit or in anything they have done. The only boast is in the grace of God. All of salvation, the grace behind it and the faith by which we believe, is all a gift of God. And a gift, to be a gift, must be unmerited. If it is merited, it is no longer a gift but a reward. By grace, one is granted new life, receives justification (right standing with God), the gift of the Holy Spirit, and assurance of eternal life. This gift is dispensed by God Himself through the person of the Holy Spirit and is in connection with the the Gospel being spoken to the one being saved.

What about merit, what about good works, you may ask? Isaiah says that our deeds are as filthy rags. Why would this be? It is because they are tainted with sin. The Psalmist says in Psalm 51 that “in sin I was conceived” and can be applied universally, and therefore we are filthy and unfit regardless of how many good works we might do or how good we might try to live to stand in God’s presence in heaven. Someone else needs to merit it for us. That person was Christ Jesus: son of God and God the Son. He lived the perfect life demanded by the Law, and died a death reserved for criminals and rose from the dead. He absorbed God’s wrath against the sin of His people thereby, by His life and death, merited salvation for all who would look to Him. I won’t go any further into this so as not to steal my own thunder for when I get to Solus Christus. As for good works, God has given good works for His people to do, but not to merit his salvation, but to bring Him honor and to express our thankfulness for His great gift. Because of our sinfulness, someone else has to save us.

As for the current milieu of things, there are many lessons to be learned from this historical outlook. First, it is a reminder that it is only by the grace of God that anyone can be accepted by God. You have no boast, and if you think you do, I urge you to turn to God.

Many american Protestant Evangelicals, with regards to this, have lost our way. We give lip service to grace alone, but will not often be consistent with it. We will often hear of people exalting how creative someone is in winning people to Christ. We will often start trusting our creativity more than we do the mighty grace of God. Our methods often become the perceived means by which someone comes to Christ and often all sorts of things are done that contradict the scriptures. I will leave with the following thoughts from the Cambridge Declaration:

Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.

God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.

We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

Sola Gratia,

Mark Bahr

Application Accepted

// July 18th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Greek, Life Stuff, Pastoral, Theology

For the last 7 months I have been in the process of applying into the D.Th. program in the department of New Testament and Early Christian Studies at the University of South Africa.

After applying and submitting my application materials, I was asked by the department chair, Dr. Pieter Craffert, to submit a collection of original writings ranging from personal essays to book reviews. This was submitted in total on July 2, 2010.

On the AM of July 14, 2010, Prof. Craffert sent me an email letting me know that my application, which involved a collection of original writings, had been accepted and I could contact my supervisor, Dr. Dirk van der Merwe, to begin work. While the College of Human Sciences and the Deptartment of Postgraduate Studies still have to approve the departmental recommendation, Dr. Craffert said those should be no problem.

This is an exciting and monumental beginning of a new chapter. May God use it for his glory and honour!