Tim’s Blog | The personal journal of Tim Gallant. - EU-Vietnam Business Network (EVBN)

April 15, 2022

No, not that capital, silly. We’re talking about real insurrectionists here. It is Good Friday, after all.

So first things first.

Insurrectionists, Not Thieves

Jesus did not die between two thieves.

“What??” you exclaim. “My Bible tells me he did just that, in both Matthew and Mark” (Matthew 27:38, 44; Mark 15:27).

The Greek word used, however, is lestai (singular lestes). While this term apparently can refer to violent bandits (and thus “robbers”), it is not a term associated with what we generally think when we hear the word thief (pickpockets, burglars, larcenists etc). Such thieves would almost certainly never have been crucified.

February 27, 2022

Yesterday, it occurred to me that in Hebrews 1, the author quotes, “He makes his angels winds/spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire,” and it suddenly occurred to me that those are two of the four classical elements. A neat connection to the stoicheia kosmou (“elements of the world”) passages in Galatians and Colossians, I thought, particularly since both Galatians 3 and Stephen in Acts 7 (as well as quite probably Colossians 2:18 in context) connect angels to Torah. And of course, like Galatians, Hebrews has a very strong focus upon the ending of the old covenant administration (although Galatians focuses more primarily upon circumcision and calendrical observance, whereas Hebrews is more focused upon the temple service).

Well, today I looked up the passage that Hebrews 1 is quoting, and whoah! — all the classical elements are there: “He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on wings of the wind; he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. He set the earth on its foundations….” (Psalm 104:3–5).

Water, wind, fire, earth.

So without outright saying so, it appears that Hebrews is using the same concept of stoicheia kosmou as Paul is in Galatians 4 and Colossians 2. Moreover, this provides further support that the phrase does not mean “elemental spirits” or “elemental/rudimentary teachings,” but rather refers to the consitutive elements of the old creation.

February 26, 2022

This week, a dedicated but controversial servant of God went to be with Jesus.

https://www.garynorth.com/public/23334.cfm

When I was in my early twenties and an indie Pentecostal with Arminian tendencies, I became aware of Christian Reconstructionism through friends, and for a while I read Gary North (and other authors he published) ravenously. Over a period of a couple years, I probably read most of his then-completed books, including one session where I read his massive Tools of Dominion (nearly 1300 pages) in about three days.

While I ultimately exited the Reconstructionist orbit, largely because I couldn’t make sense of it when I read “with the grain” of numerous biblical texts (not least Galatians), the influence did lead me squarely into a Reformed direction — especially the recurring use of Cornelius Van Til and his emphasis on Romans 1. In particular, I became convinced that the natural man suppresses the truth of God. If that is so, how does he stop? Inexorably, I had to come to the conclusion that such suppression is ultimately only overcome by the sovereign working of God’s Holy Spirit. That is, what the Reformed call “irresistible grace.”

North was controversial not only for his theonomic/Reconstructionist perspective, but also due to his heavy investment (literally and figuratively) in the fiasco of Y2K alarmism, an investment that unquestionably harmed his credibility for some time.

Nonetheless, I thank God for his work, and for the peculiar way God used his influence in my own life.

See you in the resurrection, Gary.

March 6, 2020

Thirty years ago today, my Dad went to meet his Lord. He was just 59
years old.

Paul was born
January 4, 1931 in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. His full name was Paul
Innis Gallant; by those initials, you will quickly discern that his
mother was illiterate.

Paul was raised by
his grandfather, who in the classic terminology was a “tough old
S.O.B.” You know the type: When Dad came home crying after being
beaten up on his first day of school, the old man let him know he had
better learn to take care of himself, or he’d get it worse at home.
Or there was the time that grandpa Cormier, who was legally blind,
was attacked by a bunch of twelve year old boys. What they didn’t
know was that he could see shadows, and he laid a good licking on
them with his cane.

The family was a
familiar sort of devout-not-devout Roman Catholic one where nobody
goes to church except on Christmas and Easter, but God forbid you go
a different religious direction (when my Dad converted, his aunt told
him to get out of her house).

Growing up, my Dad
was not exactly the studious type. The teachers used to get him out
of their hair by sending him out to get them cigarettes (these were
the 1930s and 1940s, okay?). Eventually, he ran away at 14, having
achieved a grade three education. He was functionally illiterate in
those years; he used to say that he “had a hard time with a Donald
Duck book.”

After a rough and
tumble life as pretty much a hobo, in 1958, Dad was in the southern
U.S. It was winter, and from what I recall of the story, he went in
to sort sort of church service to warm up. I’m sure he heard
something of the gospel there, but he didn’t really indicate so.

It was the next day
on the highway (Dad was an inveterate hitchhiker) that it all went
down.

September 28, 2019

Reflections on the Man-made Climate Change Discussion

I do not frequently write about the perceived climate crisis.

There are numerous reasons for that. I am not a science buff, much less a scientist.

Moreover, I don’t have time to write all the things I really want to write. There are books in biblical studies and novels residing in my head, along with numerous shorter pieces, and they await me impatiently: I frankly have little time to write at this stage of my life.

Aside from that, the climate issue is a polarizing debate, and it’s not necessarily the discussion I want to serve as the cause of alienation.

Nonetheless, I am writing now in spite of it all. I am not presenting myself as an expert in climate science, nor am I primarily interested in putting forward expert expositions of others defending competing scientific viewpoints. My curation would surely be inadequate for such a task.

My aim here is to approach things from another angle. (Although I do want to come back — and who would not? — to the wonderfully scientific subject of cow farts, attributed with being responsible for more greenhouse gas [!] emissions than “cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.”) The reason I am willing to risk such a polarizing discussion is that biblical reflection is at the heart of my calling, and the crisis of the times virtually demands at least a bit of such reflection. So here it is, very briefly.

November 9, 2017

In Romans, Paul has an extended development of the idea of slavery and liberation—fundamentally, an exodus theme. In the midst of that development, he writes in Romans 8:12 that we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

That cryptic statement in context raises questions. Is this is a simple negation (“we are not debtors to the flesh”), a denial with an unspoken corresponding affirmation of where our debt genuinely rests (“we are not debtors to the flesh, but to the Spirit”), or perhaps an emphatic statement about a new situation that was previously not the case (“we are no longer debtors to the flesh”)?

Perhaps Paul doesn’t want us to answer the implicit question in just one of these ways; perhaps he wants us to acknowledge the truth of some or all of these ways of reading his statement.

It is interesting, though, to trace the idea of debtorship in connection with Paul’s theme of slavery. Under the social and de facto legal conditions of Paul’s world and Israel’s history, one could be sold into slavery for one’s debts, and was therefore bound to serve the creditor. That seems to shed some light on Paul’s argument in much of Romans 5–8, not least 6–7.read more »

October 27, 2017

Wright suggests that in Romans 6, “righteousness” (dikaiosune) is a virtual proxy for God himself. In extensive use in chapter 3, “the righteousness of God” (dikaiosone theou) refers to God’s covenant faithfulness, and much of Romans 3–8 has an underlying narrative substructure of exodus—a transition from slavery to freedom. But then, 6:18 speaks of “slaves of righteousness.” Here’s Wright:read more »

October 25, 2017

In his article, “Romans and the Theology of Paul” (reprinted most recently in Pauline Perspectives), N. T. Wright emphasizes that the narrative of Paul’s letter to the Romans is keyed to the story of Israel, seen within the light of Jesus as the Messiah. This is a crucial point that is often overlooked, but in a number of places, I think he takes wrong turns or doesn’t quite get the grasp of the handle in the right place.

For example, in regard to Israel’s “fall” of which Paul speaks, Wright frequently notes that Israel was called to be a light to the nations and she failed, largely because of pride in covenantal position.

July 9, 2017

It has been quite popular for some time now for people to engage in moral/ethical argument on the basis of what year it is (“It’s 2017.…”) or its sister argument (“the flow of history/right side of history”).

I haven’t decided whether such people really don’t realize how stupid the form of argument is, or whether they actually do, but are so cynical they use it anyway. It doesn’t seem nice to impute that level of obtuseness, but on the other hand, it’s not exactly complementary to impute that level of cynicism either.

If you want to see how frivolous the form of argument is, simply use it with reference to mindsets and attitudes in the past which we now denigrate. For example, the early twentieth century had an extraordinarily high regard for race-based eugenics, not only in Germany, but (sad to say) in much of the West, including the “free democracies,” especially among the intelligentsia. (Of course, this is now largely swept under the carpet.) read more »

July 3, 2017

As I’ve planned for quite a while, I have finally made my Tim Gallant Anthology songs available for free download on this site.

These are collections that I recorded back in the mid-2000s, but were written much earlier. I used to (try to) sell them, but ultimately decided that music was never going to be an income stream, and I would much rather have the occasional person enjoy some of it than to have the songs collecting dust.

The present anthologies available are Vol 1: 1980–1983 (The Early Years); Vol 2 (1984); and Vol 3 (1985). I was born at the end of 1965, so you can do the math regarding my age when the songs were written. 🙂