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The Early Christians and the Mission of God: The Michael Green Memorial Lecture
The Early Christians and the Mission of God
The Michael Green Memorial Lecture
St Aldate's Church, Oxford
By the Right Reverend Professor N T Wright, DD FRSE
St Mary's College, St Andrews, and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford
I am honoured by the invitation to give this lecture in grateful and happy memory of a friend and colleague to whom all of us owe a very great deal. I wish I had known Michael better, but on the many occasions when our paths did cross, from the late 1960s in my undergraduate days to not long before he died, he was unfailingly encouraging and supportive.
When Michael read Greats at Exeter College, his tutor was the great ancient historian Dacre Balsdon. Twenty years later I, also reading Greats at Exeter, was Dacre Balsdon's very last pupil. I told Dacre I was going to see Michael about something, and he gave a little smile and said 'Oh, so that's the sort of man you are!', which I took as an oblique compliment to Michael and perhaps to me as well. But I had first met Michael when he gave a 'long weekend' of evangelistic addresses for the OICCU, in the Union building. It was exhilarating: Michael would do a sparkling address and then invite tricky questions from the packed and sometimes sceptical audience. Michael relished the challenge, leaving the podium and walking down to respond with a smile and an easy grasp of matters historical, philosophical, cultural and of course biblical and theological. It was obvious that he'd done his homework and was able to give clear, crisp and friendly answers. I had never seen anything like it.
I was reminded of that twenty years later when Michael came to preach for me at Evensong in Worcester College. We stood outside the chapel at five to six, with devout students making their way into chapel while twenty yards away a large gaggle of undergraduates was piling in to the early informal dinner. Michael gestured towards the latter group and commented, 'I'd much rather preach to that lot'. I wish I could have engineered it.
I had one other strange link to Michael, in that my own mentor in my teens was a quiet, unsung hero called Richard Gorrie, who ran the Scottish Scripture Union camps. Michael told me more than once that it was Richard who had led him to Jesus – in the back room of the cricket pavilion at Clifton College, where they were both pupils. Michael once came to address our Scottish annual conference, and he did his stunning exposition of the Letters to the Seven Churches from Revelation, complete with in situ photographs, and ending, of course, with the powerful appeal of the Letter to Laodicea.
Michael stands in my mind alongside John Stott and Jim Packer – I visited Jim Packer in Vancouver on his 93rd birthday this last July – as those who bravely stood up for a biblical and evangelical position in the Church of England when it was neither socially nor intellectually respectable to do so. They carved out a space which my generation has been able to inhabit in new ways, even when, as in my own case, my vocation has been that of a teacher rather than specifically an evangelist. For this brave leadership I, like thousands of others, am grateful to God – and to those, from Rosemary through the rest of the family, who supported Michael through so many years of apparently tireless service.
I have chosen as tonight's theme a subject dear to my own heart, on which my first instruction came with reading Michael's 1970 book Evangelism in the Early Church. Re-reading it in preparation for this lecture, I have again been impressed not only with the energetic central ideas but with Michael's robust and thorough research into the second and third centuries, pulling out all kinds of good things from sources which he knew very well but which many Christians today simply ignore. Michael was of course rooted in scripture, but as a classicist he loved the twists and turns of the real Christian life of the early Roman empire; and it is that real life, that boots-on-the-ground existence, that I want to explore further tonight. Accepting the normal if somewhat misleading distinction between the wider term 'mission' and the more focused term 'evangelism', I want to look again at the way in which early Christian evangelism was nested within the early Christian mission – which Jesus' first followers understood as the mission of God himself; and I hope to draw out from that some lessons for our own day. I suspect I am diverging here and there from the way Michael might have put things. But I am confident that he would have beamed with delight and told me to go for it.
The Scriptural Portrait of the Mission of God
One of the Church of England's slogans over the last generation has been 'mission-shaped church'. This has been a way of saying that 'mission' isn't just an 'add-on' to 'ordinary church life', an extra hobby for those who like that kind of thing. That implies that the church is an inward-looking, self-serving institution whose 'mission' might be an occasional foray into the dangerous world outside the church door. No: 'mission' is to be the priority, and the church needs to be shaped accordingly. We're still working on that, I think; but, as some of us have been arguing for a while, there are other questions hiding in the wings. 'Mission' means different things to different people, and if we're to be true to the gospel and to scripture mission itself must be shaped biblically; which means eschatologically. If we're going to have a Mission-shaped church, we need an Eschatology-shaped Mission.
'Eschatology' has been one of those muddling words: when my older daughter saw the title of my latest book, History and Eschatology, she said 'Oh, it's that 'E' word again and I always forget what it means!' The short answer to that is, Read chapter 4 and you'll find out; but the slightly longer answer goes like this. What does God intend to do in the end? What is the goal, the telos, the eschaton? Where is the great story of God and the world – the story with Jesus and the Spirit at the centre – where is this great story heading? Only when we grasp that in fully biblical terms can we grasp the role of the church's mission as central to what theologians are increasingly calling 'the mission of God'. God's mission, with the church's vocation caught up within it, is aimed at God's intended ultimate future. That's the point.
At the risk of caricature, we might sketch the two polar opposite answers. For some, the eschaton, God's eventual aim, is that the world would steadily progress towards a glorious and gospel-shaped future. Many in the late nineteenth century assumed all too readily that the onward progress of western culture was, more or less, the slow and steady arrival of the kingdom of God. All one had to do was to get on board and help the process on its way. Voices of protest were course raised, by such diverse figures as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and in the Edwardian period many people were starting to realise that a steady Hegelian progress was not after all producing the goods. The appalling twentieth century, when secular modernist ambition and secular modernist technology have produced unprecedented horrors, has not prevented the recurring secular gospel which says 'now that we live in the modern world' and assumes that this justifies any and every social or cultural move in a supposedly 'progressive' direction. And there are still some Christians who seem eager to go along for that ride, sometimes referring to this as 'mission'. I suspect few of us here tonight are likely to follow down that path.
For others, God's eventual aim, the ultimate eschaton, is to rescue souls from the wreck of the world; to take people after their death to be with him in 'heaven', eventually completing the number of the 'saved' who will enjoy the vision of God, safe from the corrupt and distorting world of space, time and matter. This essentially Platonic vision began to creep into the church quite early, becoming mainstream in the western church during the Middle Ages. And this, indeed, has been the standard modern Christian answer to the standard modern sceptical challenge: we belong to the 'kingdom of heaven', and our souls, presently exiled from that happy home, will one day return whence we came. Since this is what many modern Christians continue to believe, people often look shocked when I point out that in the first century this was the view, not of Paul or the early Christians, but of the pagan priest and philosopher Plutarch. It is straight Middle Platonism.
The biblical view, over against these two popular distortions, is for new heavens and new earth, joined together in a single whole. This is what the early Christians meant by 'new creation'. To begin at the end: the final scene in the Bible is not one of saved souls going up to heaven, but of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, so that 'the dwelling of God is with humans'. That was always the point: from Genesis 1 and 2 onwards, the purpose of creation was not to provide a moral training-ground or examination-centre from which humans could, if they made the grade, ascend to a non-material heaven, but to create a heaven-plus-earth bipartite reality into which the creator would himself come and be at home together with his human family. That is why Paul says in Ephesians 1.10 that God's purpose was always 'to sum up the whole cosmos in the Messiah – yes, everything in heaven and on earth, in him.' And that is why resurrection matters: renewed bodies in and for God's renewed world. This is what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 15.28 when his sketch of the ultimate future ends with God being 'all in all'. And in Romans 8 he explains how it will be done: in a great act of cosmic rescue and renewal, for which the Exodus provides the backcloth and Jesus' own resurrection the model: God will do for the whole creation at the last what he did for Jesus at Easter.
No surprises there for those who follow the scriptural story. The first great narrative arc in the Bible runs from Adam and Eve to Abraham and Sarah. Adam and Eve are the image-bearers, called to reflect the powerful love of the creator into the world and to reflect the praises of the world back to God. After the disaster, climaxing with Babel, Abraham is called to get the original project back on track. Abraham's family, sharing Adam's disease, have to learn that they are God's people only through an act of dramatic rescue, brought through the waters to new creation; and only then, having escaped from the power of the Egyptian idols, can they become what they're meant to become, the Tabernacle-bearing people. The larger narrative arc then runs from Genesis 1 and 2 to Exodus 40, where – as Revelation 21 surely echoes – the dwelling of God is with humans, or at least, because of their continuing idolatry, just outside the camp. And the Tabernacle is constructed carefully and deliberately as a heaven-and-earth structure, with a God-reflecting human (in this case, Aaron) at its heart. It is, in fact, a small working model of new creation.
The Tabernacle – and, later, Solomon's Temple – is thus the sign of the mission of God. It is the microcosmos: the little 'new world' which signals the great new creation to come. Humans, and thus the whole creation, are to be rescued from slavery to idolatry and corruption so that they can be the God-bearing people, the new Temple. This is what John means when he says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. It's what Paul is talking about when he insists that in the Messiah all the divine fullness was pleased to dwell. In Messiah Jesus the narrative arc has reached its primary goal. Jesus himself is the ultimate Temple, the place where and the means by which the creator God has come to dwell not only among his human creatures but as one of us.
Once we see things in this light we realise what's going on in those famous promises in Numbers 14, Psalm 72, Isaiah 11, Habakkuk 2 and elsewhere – promises that 'the earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord', or 'the knowledge of the Lord' as the waters cover the sea. God fills the Tabernacle, and then the Temple, with his glorious presence, as the sign of a much greater filling, the flooding of the whole creation with that same presence. Creation was not made as a disposable laboratory for testing and preparing humans for life elsewhere. It was designed to be the heaven-and-earth receptacle for divine glory; for God to be 'all in all', even though this will now require, as with Jesus himself, an act of astonishing and costly rescue, and the even more astonishing new creation.
This is the eschatological vision which forms the ultimate biblical horizon for the mission of God. That then gives us the horizon for the church's own mission, by which the church's life must be shaped; and, within that again, we find the specific work of the gospel, the evangel, the good news which in the power of the Spirit addresses, challenges, rescues and transforms humans. My case to you tonight is that all these belong closely together, more closely than much evangelical theology has traditionally realised; that recognising this enables us to understand the inner dynamic of multi-dimensional early church life; and that glimpsing that vision might help us towards fresh integration and articulation of God's mission and the task of evangelism in our increasingly muddled and misguided world.
If the larger parameters of God's mission are thus, one might say, Temple-shaped, the specific markers of that mission have to do with resurrection. We live between 'resurrection' Mark One, the resurrection of Jesus himself, and 'resurrection' Mark Two, the final consummation at Jesus' return: that is, between the inauguration of the new heaven-and-earth reality, in Jesus' own body, and its final consummation, the ultimate result of the work of the Spirit. The church's mission is framed by these two: the God who created humans so that he could accomplish his purposes in creation through their reflecting his image now calls the Spirit-filled followers of Jesus to be his renewed image-bearers in reflecting his new-creation purposes into the world. Thus, though God no doubt does a myriad other things without any human being involved, yet he characteristically delights to take us humans into his counsels: 'I've called you friends,' said Jesus in John 15, as he shared with them the secrets of the Father's purposes.
This perspective offers a view of the church's mission which is neither the shallow optimism of a nineteenth-century or social-gospel 'progress' nor the escapist dualism which says 'this world is not my home' because I'm 'just passing through'. Evangelicals have been making great strides in the last generation to articulate a richer and fuller vision of Christian life and calling, not least through the various branches of the charismatic movement in which our dear friend Michael was so cheerfully involved. Once you recognise that God really is interested in bodies as well as souls, it's a short and biblical route to recognising that God likes beauty and justice as much as we do and in fact a whole lot more. But I have a sense that some of the movements that were learning to recognise all this a generation ago, with Michael and others leading the way, have got stuck in a kind of half-way house which can easily fall back again into a shallow pietism, losing its grip on the great scriptural narratives of creation, Israel, Exodus, Temple and new creation within which the charismatic vision is properly framed. But of that, more anon.
The mission of the church, then, is to be the Spirit-filled agency through which genuine advance signs of new creation are brought to birth. What God accomplished in Jesus' resurrection is to be actualised again and again in acts of justice and mercy; in the sacramental life which mysteriously takes up water, bread and wine into God's purposes; in the marriage of man and woman which, from Genesis to Revelation, acts as a potent symbol of the fruitful joining of heaven and earth; in the creation and celebration of art, music, literature and a thousand other vehicles of beauty. The reason why all these can become contested and controversial is precisely because the dark enemy, though basically defeated on the cross, is still determined to thwart, delay or distort the ultimate transforming reunion of heaven and earth as much as possible. And one of those thwarting tactics is to persuade parts of the church that all these are in fact secondary concerns, since God is only interested in getting souls into heaven. Dualism, which breeds types of Gnosticism, was one of the earliest temptations of the church, since it neatly avoids a clash with the powers that be. That's what's happened in America the last two hundred years, which is the reason for the multiple confusions there at the moment. (We British, of course, are always confused, and I think at many other levels as well.) And the heart of what I want to say tonight is that if this is the multi-dimensional mission of the church then the task of evangelism proper lies exactly at the heart of this mission.
Many of us, as you will know, grew up with a great divide between what we called 'evangelism' and what we called 'social action' or some other arm-waving name. I am trying – albeit briefly! – to sketch a biblical view of the church's mission in which all the tasks to which God calls people are tightly integrated within the Spirit-given vocation of new creation. And I hope that this might not only help nervous evangelicals to embrace the larger mission agenda, but also help those who have in the past resisted the word 'evangelism' because of its apparently dualistic or even elitist overtones to see the glorious appropriateness of the evangelistic vocation, task, process and result.
Here's how it works. The church, according to the New Testament, is itself the new Temple, the place where God now dwells by his Spirit. If that sounds impossibly grandiose for the actual ecclesial communities we know, we should remind ourselves that the first people Paul says this to are the Corinthians, and we know what a mess they were in. But this reality about the church is, I think, what Paul is referring to in a famous line in Colossians where he speaks of 'the Messiah in you, the hope of glory' (1.27). In Jewish thought 'the hope of glory' – as in well-known passages like Isaiah 40 – is the hope that the divine glory will return at last. Paul believes that this has happened in Jesus, that it is happening by the Spirit, and that it will happen when Jesus returns and God is 'all in all'; so that, in the present time, the fact that there is a Spirit-filled community in Colossae, worshipping the One God through his son Jesus, is the mystery which anticipates the final state when the whole creation will likewise be filled with God's glory. The church – and this is the point of a good deal of New Testament teaching – is to be in the new creation what the Tabernacle and the Temple were before: small working models of new creation. Again, many of us are all too aware of the church's failings and deficiencies; but God is not mocked or thwarted, and away from the headlines and the scandals the church is still doing and being what it has always done and been, a sign to the world that God is God and Jesus is Lord.
And this ecclesial reality, at last, is the frame within which we can understand the specific task and vocation of evangelism – of so presenting the gospel that men, women and children will be drawn to repentance, to explicit faith, and to baptised membership in that family. 'If anyone is in the Messiah', declares Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, 'there is a new creation'. Actually he doesn't say 'there is'; the Greek is simply ei tis en Christo, kaine ktisis, 'if anyone in Messiah, new creation!'. In other words, what I just said about the church is also true, close up and personal, of every single baptised believer. When Paul declares, of individual Christians, that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, he is writing as a Jew for whom the Temple itself was, as I've stressed, a small advance working model of new creation. When you preach the gospel to a group of people; when you prayerfully invite a friend to open her or his heart to the love of God revealed in the cross; when you challenge an unbeliever with the remarkable and coherent truth of Jesus – then you are calling them not just to be rescued from the consequences of idolatry, not simply to be assured of post mortem salvation, not only to find a new peace and purpose in their present life – though all of those are of course true as well – but to become part of a larger project, to become – to say it again – small working models of that larger project.
You see, 'justification' and 'justice' go hand in hand. You could put it like this, in an aphorism which I've been working out over recent years. God's settled purpose is to put the whole world right in the end. In the present time, by the power of the gospel, he puts human beings right with himself, in order that they can at once become part of his putting-right project for the world. And the putting-right project includes everything from evangelism to justice, from marriage to beauty. New creation is what matters, and all individual Christians, being themselves new creation in the Messiah, are by definition image-bearers, 'the royal priesthood'. When John hears the heavenly host praising the slaughtered Lamb, they do not say that by his blood he has ransomed people for God so that they could go to heaven and gaze at God for ever and ever, but so that, as the royal priesthood, they will reign on the earth. And their present reign, like that of Jesus himself, will be marked by suffering, powerful witness, apparent failure, and final victory. Evangelism is the royal summons to anybody and everybody to take up that strange and glorious vocation.
The Historical Practice of the Mission of God
The incentive to say 'yes' to that summons comes from many directions. We are all far more aware these days of the wide divergence in personality types, whichever tools we may use to label them. As I move now from my longer first half, on the biblical basis of the mission of God to the historical outworkings of that mission in the early church – the field which Michael Green made his own in that seminal 1970 book – it is vital to say that the wide range of conversion-types in the New Testament is exactly what we should expect both from our own pastoral and evangelistic practice and from what we know of human beings.
But before we can address that there is a serious problem of language and understanding. Many still talk as if following Jesus is basically what we today call a 'religious' experience. That is deeply misleading – as it would have been in the ancient world. The word 'religion' has had several quite different meanings over the years, and it has only ever partially fitted what genuine Christianity was all about. In the ancient world, 'religion' was the civic and social reality that held together every aspect of life in a household, a city or a region: you honoured the gods, with prayers, incense, sacrifice, processions and festivals, so that they would look after you. Failure to do that was deeply anti-social; if there was an earthquake or famine, they'd know who to blame. The Christians didn't join in. Most onlookers wouldn't have thought of them as a 'religion' at all, except for their baptism and their shared meal. They looked more like a cross between a synagogue and a philosophical society, learning about God and the world in a whole new way. What's more, ancient religions didn't tell you how to behave. It was the philosophers who tried to do that.
But if the early Christians weren't like ancient 'religion', they were certainly not like what the modern western world has called 'religion'. Since the eighteenth century the increasingly secular world has labelled as 'religion' anything to do with any transcendent reality, with the assumption that such realities, if they exist, have nothing whatever to do with the world of space, time and matter. Christian faith is then seen as one example among many of such a detached phenomenon. But this is to impose a worldview alien to the first century. It separates out explicitly what we now call the 'natural' from what we now call the 'supernatural', words that have been twisted to fit eighteenth-century modernism. And part of the tragedy of that is that the church has, by and large, gone along for the ride. Modern secularism has said 'we will run the world and work towards our secular utopia, and you religious people can teach people how to say their prayers and go to heaven'. This was always a power-grab: from the very beginning the church had cared for the poor, had taught people how to read, had sought to bring healing through prayer and medicine, had worked with orphans and prisoners, had confronted rulers to remind them of their God-given duties. Now the secular world – including the secular media – has thought it could do it better. Hence the desire first to create a new category called 'religion', deemed to be irrelevant to everyday life, and second to declare that Christianity was one of these 'religions'. And many Christians agreed – drawing, once more, on Plato to say that the real point was 'going to heaven' so why worry about the present world? And the calling to evangelise has been caught in this pinch.
The early Christians would have been horrified. For them, the mission of God – within which 'evangelism' took place in many different ways – was all-embracing, precisely because it was about new creation, the renewal of the whole created order and its wonderfully interlocking unity. For the Jew or the Christian, heaven and earth were not far from one another; they were meant to overlap and interlock. For the Christian, this had happened supremely in Jesus and was happening in all kinds of ways through the Spirit. To ignore the plight of the poor would not only be forgetting Jesus' own teaching and example; it would be to forget the entire Messianic agenda of seminal passages like Isaiah 11 or Psalm 72. Just as in Israel's theology the king builds the Temple so that the divine glory can dwell there, so in those passages the king does justice and mercy so that the divine glory can dwell in all the world. That was the agenda Jesus had followed, and his Spirit-anointed followers did the same. What has tragically happened in the modern church is that the proper Reformation emphasis on 'faith not works' as the marker of justification has been taken over within post-Enlightenment Protestantism and turned into 'sacred not secular', which then means 'religious not political', or perhaps 'spiritual not worldly'.
All this helps to explain, to return to the point I began earlier, why different people respond to different aspects of the gospel. An older evangelism tended to concentrate on two things: the heart and the mind. The heart could be moved to tears by the thought of Jesus standing knocking on the door, kept outside by the hard-hearted sinner. The mind could be argued into acquiescence by the clever apologist, able to marshall arguments for faith from a standing start. But the heart can be strangely warmed by many things that are neither true nor wholesome. The Romantic movement substituted 'the sublime' for the sacred, and Christian romanticism is always in danger of going that route. The rationalists tried to prove everything by self-standing reason alone; but the mind can be bamboozled by clever but specious arguments. Jesus taught us to love God with heart, mind, soul and strength; and the church at its best has always tried to hold all four together, with the 'strength' – the energy that goes into works of justice and mercy – and the 'soul' – the personality that glimpses beauty and truth and works to re-express it – to the fore, giving context and body to the heart and the mind. We need all four.
And my point now is that in the first three or four centuries of the church we can see the church doing just that – all four. People have sometimes been puzzled that the early church didn't seem to emphasize justification by faith and the kind of conversion-theology we associate with it. Others have been eager to criticize the early church as colluding with oppressive social and cultural structures and so on. Michael Green's own work on the church of that period, and the work of other more recent writers, will help us get back on track. The early Christians were determinedly living out the Mission of God, within which the specific evangelistic message of Jesus was being articulated loud and clear. But, as Michael underlined in his book, that message was set in a context in which people could see for themselves that the power and presence of Jesus really did free people from demonic bondage – a major preoccupation in much of the ancient world – and really did generate and sustain quite new patterns of life and community, ways of behaviour which put into practice things that some philosophers had aimed at but none had really achieved. This is how Michael put it, on p. 120 of his book Evangelism in the Early Church:
If the ethics of the Christians were not in theory greatly different from the best of Stoic and Jewish teaching, in practice they were, and they were inspired and ennobled by a new motivating force , which the Christians claimed was none other than the Spirit of this gracious God active within their lives. They made the grace of God credible by a society of love and mutual care which astonished the pagans and was recognised as something entirely new. It lent persuasiveness to their claim that the New Age had dawned in Christ.
(italics added)
Other more recent studies have emphasized the same point from different angles. Let me just mention four. Twenty years ago the American sociologist Rodney Stark wrote his now famous book The Rise of Christianity, detailing several areas of life in which the early Christians lived in such a way that people were drawn to investigate, and then often to adopt, the faith, despite sceptical sneers on the one hand and sporadic persecution on the other. Ten years ago John Ortberg in California wrote a book called Who Is This Man?, working through church history, showing how the most astonishing turn-around happened in education, medicine, care of the poor and social egalitarianism – all because of 'this man', the Jesus who the early Christians were following. Three years ago Larry Hurtado, New Testament professor in Edinburgh who sadly died just two weeks ago, published his book Destroyer of the Gods, detailing the many ways in which the early Christians stood out as radically distinctive in the Roman world. Now, even more recently, the historian Tom Holland has just published his book Dominion, demonstrating at point after point how many things we take for granted in modern Western culture can be traced directly back to the revolutionary lifestyle of the early Christians. It is vital that we get to know these lines of thought, because as our world becomes more and more culturally confused there are other voices, like those of the atheist philosopher A. C. Grayling and the Harvard Psychologist Stephen Pinker, who want to say that the real advances have come through the western Enlightenment and that Christianity is a corrupt and debilitating habit we need to kick. I suggest that Stark, Ortberg, Hurtado and Holland – a very diverse reading list, that – ought to be studied carefully if we are to glimpse how the church really got under way and what we can learn from it.
This is the point at which we need to grasp the regular theological nettle of nature and grace. It has sometimes been easy for historians of the early movement to 'explain' the rise and development of Christianity by suggesting that people were tired of the old gods, bored with the old philosophies, and ready to embrace this new and exciting alternative. Take that with a very large pinch of salt: people are not likely to sign on for something which may involve losing your job, your friends and before too long perhaps your life, just because you're bored with traditional customs. Likewise, it wasn't just that the Roman roads and postal service provided a framework within which people could travel widely, letters could be sent to and fro, and networks of communities could stay in touch and support one another. All that is important. But it still doesn't explain what happened – that, within a century of Jesus' boyhood, the Roman emperor was getting letters from northern Turkey about these wretched Christians, and that within two more centuries, despite sometimes horrendous persecution and social obloquy, so many people had given allegiance to Jesus that the emperor saw which was the wind was blowing and made it legal.
It would be easy, of course, to forget arguments like this entirely and to suggest that the gospel made its way by pure supernatural power, with the Spirit active through evangelistic preaching in the hearts and minds of people. This is where the nature/grace dialectic kicks in: what sort of an explanation can we give? And this is where I and others have determinedly resisted the false either/or. God's grace rescues, transforms and reshapes nature – but the nature that results is nature as it was always intended to be. In this case, the early work of the gospel itself generated and shaped communities in which believing the ridiculous and scandalous message of the gospel – that a crucified Jew could be the Lord of the world! – became first thinkable and then doable.
This is where, once again, our notions of 'religion', and the unholy alliance between the 'religion/reality' antithesis of the eighteenth century and the 'faith/works' antithesis of the Protestant Reformers, have really let us down. The formation of Jesus-believing communities in which radical new lifestyles were attempted and celebrated has nothing to do with people trying to save themselves by their good works, and nothing to do with a kind of ecclesiastical triumphalism. It has everything to do with the sense, from Jesus onwards, that through his kingdom-work, and especially through his death, resurrection and ascension, the creator God was establishing the church to be – as Paul puts it in Ephesians 3.10 – a sign to the principalities and powers, a sign that God is God and Jesus is Lord.
So what was distinctive about this new community? A very great deal. Let's just enumerate the most obvious features. For a start, the Christians thought of themselves as a family, what the sociologists call a 'fictive kinship group' – despite the fact that they were from many different nations and ethnicities, that they included slaves and free together as brothers and sisters, that they were translocal as well as transethnic. In fact the only other even vaguely similar organisations in their world were the Synagogue communities on the one hand and the Roman army and imperial administration on the other – but the former was of course for Jews (and proselytes) only, and the latter was a strict male hierarchy under Caesar's orders. Second, the Christians were an astonishing learning community, in a world where education was for the elite. They taught people to read, to read the Bible, to catch up on the back history of the Messiah whose family they had joined. Third, they were cheerfully egalitarian in a world of rigid class and gender division. Fourth, they were outward-facing and philanthropic, known for helping not only fellow Christians members but the poor at large. Indeed, at one point the Roman authorities didn't know much about who these Christians were but they knew that they had people called Bishops who were always banging on about the plight of the poor. Fifth, they were ethically rigorous in a world where moral standards were mostly very lax: the pagan medical doctor Galen, at the end of the second century, didn't know much about Christians but he knew that they believed in resurrection and that they didn't sleep around – both, of course, reflecting the high value the Christians put on the body. Galen thought they were mad on both counts, but he respected them for their tenacious holding to their way of life. Sixth, like the Jews in general the early Christians didn't do abortion an infanticide – both widespread practices, especially getting rid of unwanted baby girls. (That is why there were more Christian women than pagan women in the third century, resulting in many mixed marriages and many children being brought up Christian.) Seventh, they were non-retaliatory: their rule of life, just as you see in the persecuted Coptic church today, was to follow Jesus' rule in praying for their persecutors and not seeking to hit back. And, in and through it all, the early Christians were radically counter-cultural in the deepest way, because they didn't worship the gods that were on every corner and in every hearth and home. They didn't worship Mars or Mammon or Aphrodite – or Caesar; and that made them instantly suspect. They worshipped the One God of Creation, the God of Abraham, the God who had become human in and as Jesus. This gave them a new-creational identity which quickly spilled over into new art forms, new poems, new songs, and before too long new iconography. For all this, they were therefore regarded as dangerous subversives, letting the side down socially, culturally and politically.
This movement, then, which as Michael said lent persuasiveness to the belief that the New Age had dawned with Jesus, wasn't a 'religion' in either the ancient or modern sense. It was a monotheistic, worship-based, scripture-shaped, philosophically acute, new-creational, egalitarian, multi-ethnic, philanthropic, outward-facing, ethically rigorous, politically subversive fictive kinship group. Unless you have all that present to your mind when you say the phrase 'the early church', you are selling them short. But if you can hold it all for a moment, and then ask yourself the question, Now if someone in that group says that a crucified Jew has been raised from the dead and is the true Lord of the world, you might just swallow your scepticism and hold on to the proposal long enough to sense the warmth of the Creator's love seeping through into your heart, mind, soul and strength.
And when we contemplate this community — very ordinary people, often very poor, in the first three centuries, living like this – then for us comfortable western theologians to tell them off because they didn't talk about justification by faith in the way we have often done seems, to put it mildly, to be missing the point.
This doesn't mean, of course, that the gospel works partly by its own power and partly by human effort in creating and sustaining this community of belief. Because of course that community was itself conscious of being created and sustained precisely by the gospel and the Spirit in the first place. But once this has begun – from the day of Pentecost onwards, in other words – this is how it happened. Of course there are the exceptions – the isolated conversions like the Ethiopian Eunuch (though there Philip represents the whole church). But most people in the first few centuries who heard about Jesus heard about him in a context where there was a group of Jesus-followers living their dangerous, joyful, subversive life of praise, prayer and community support. This is the historical practice of the Mission of God.
The Contemporary Challenge
Michael Green, in many of his works, was adept at taking this kind of historical analysis and ramming home the contemporary challenge. I haven't left myself with much time to do that, and I hope the practical application will be fairly obvious. But let me just say one thing by way of conclusion.
It is time to name and shame the way the western church has colluded with the split world of the Enlightenment – often justifying this through the false analogy with the reformational faith/works divide. The Enlightenment has said 'OK, we'll run the world now – you just save souls for heaven'. The conservative churches have often – not always – said 'all right, that's fine by us'. The liberal churches have tended to say 'All right, we'll help a bit with your social project, and we won't worry about that escapist 'heaven' stuff.' I know that's an oversimplification but we live in a world of slogans and sound-bites and actually this isn't just a caricature. Of course, the charismatics – thank you, Michael – have tried to hold together things which other traditions had forced apart. Thank God for that. But even so you can see how we've got into such a muddle on both sides of the Atlantic at the interface of faith and public life. We need to recover the holistic sense of genuine monotheistic and new-creational worship and life, embracing all of human existence within the love of God. This is where the notion of God's mission is I think so helpful: once we realise that God the creator is committed to bringing heaven and earth together in Christ, and that our own mission and evangelism is at the sharp edge of that project rather than instantiating a dualist escapism, we can support and encourage a wide range of tasks within the body of Christ, knowing that they contextualise the evangelistic message rather than distracting from it.
You see, when it all comes down to it, the gospel message is very simple – and I think if Michael was here he'd want to say, Spell it out, Tom, don't let them go home without hearing it! So, yes, of course, in the famous words: the creator God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that all who believe wouldn't perish but would share the life of God's new age! The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me! If those sentences don't strike a chord for you, there might be many reasons, but one could be that it's time for you at last, in a phrase I once heard Michael use, to get down on your benders and say, Yes, Lord, thank you: rescue me, remake me, fill me, make me a new creation and set me to work within your world-redeeming project. God is the God of surprises and new starts, of new covenant and new creation. The early church lived, and thank God many parts of the church today live, as a community in which it makes sense to say that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord of the world, and to summon people of all sorts and all places to give him their believing allegiance. May God give us grace and energy, not least with the example of Michael Green before us, to live and preach and pray this gospel to his glory. Amen.
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Declaration of accessibility of Invest in Podlaskie
Podlaskie Voivodeship Marshal's Office undertakes to ensure the accessibility of its website in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 4 April 2019 on the digital accessibility of public entities' websites and mobile applications. The accessibility statement applies to the website Invest in Podlaskie.
Date of website publication: 2020-09-18
Date of last major update: 2022-03-31
Status in terms of compliance with the Act
The website is partially compliant with the Digital Accessibility of Public Entities' Websites and Mobile Applications Act due to the incompatibilities or exemptions listed below.
Unavailable content
The website is partially compliant with the Act on the digital accessibility of public entities' websites and mobile applications due to the incompatibilities or exemptions listed below:
-videos do not have a non-visual, properly prepared audio description,
-videos with a soundtrack do not have subtitles for the deaf.
Accessibility declarations
Declaration made on: 2020-09-18
The declaration was last reviewed and updated on: 2022-03-31
The declaration is based on a self-assessment.
Feedback and contact information
Person responsible for handling of notifications and requests: Jakub Gąsowski.
E-mail: info@investinpodlaskie.pl
Everyone has the right to:
make comments on the accessibility of a digital page or element of a page,
make a request for the digital accessibility of the site or its components,
request that the unavailable information be made available in an alternative form.
The request must include:
contact details of the reporting person,
an indication of the page or page component to which the request relates,
an indication of the convenient form in which the information can be made available if the request is for an alternative form of otherwise unavailable information.
The application should be processed as soon as possible, no later than within 7 days. If it is not possible to provide access within the specified timeframe or to provide access in an alternative form, access should be provided at the latest within 2 months of the date of notification.
Complaints about the failure to meet the specified timeframes or the refusal to comply with a request may be submitted to the supervisory authority by post or by e-mail to the following address:
Supervisory authority: Marshal, Deputy Marshals, and Board of Podlaskie Voivodeship
Address: Podlaskie Voivodeship Marshal's Office in Białystok, Address: Białystok, 15-888; ul. Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego 1, ground floor – (Customer Service Office), room 22,
E-mail: kancelaria@wrotapodlasia.pl
Complaints can also be made to the Commissioner for Human Rights.
Building address: ul. J. Kilińskiego 16, 15-089 Białystok
Next to the building, there are the following parking spaces for a disabled people (marked in blue):
one place in front of the main entrance to the building from Kościelna Street on the other side of the street,
two places at J. Kilińskiego Street – also on the other side of the street, around the corner/bend in relation to the main entrance to the building,
one parking space in the internal parking lot of the office, behind the iron gate, to the left of the main entrance.
The building can be accessed by four flights of stairs with handrails. On the ground floor, next to the security desk at the main entrance, there is a contact point also for people with disabilities.
The elevator in the building is wheelchair accessible. The floor selection keys are labeled in Braille. The elevator serves the following floors – basement (-1), ground floor (0), first floor (1), attic is not accessible by the elevator, but by means of a "stair climber".
The entrance for people with physical disabilities is located behind the gate leading to the internal parking lot (information on the pictogram on the main door). The bell opening the gate for people with disabilities, was marked with a pictogram.
The building can be accessed from the internal parking lot through the back door using the driveway. On the ground floor there is another driveway equipped with side rails, which also leads to the elevator and a bathroom adapted to the needs of people with disabilities (the bathroom on the ground floor by the driveway is marked with a pictogram). You can enter the building with an assistance dog and a guide dog.
ul. Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego 1
Biuro Obsługi Inwestorów i Promocji Gospodarczej
ul. Jana Kilińskiego 16
info@investinpodlaskie.pl
© 2020 Podlaskie Voivodeship Marshal's Office | Privacy Policy | Cookie policy | Declaration of accessibility

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The 32.5 gallon Fluval Flex Freshwater Kit — Black provides an exceptionally artistic sophistication to any room it stands in. The aquarium itself features a curved front face for unique, unobstructed viewing possibilities. In addition to the stylish aquarium, which has ample room for your fish friends, the kit also comes with an Aquasky LED lighting system that can be fully controlled through a mobile device for optimal freedom of use. The lighting system contains high power RGBW LED's and provides multiple dynamic effects such as multiple weather effects such as rain and thunderstorms and utilizes a 24-hour light timer so that aquarists can accurately replicate the natural cycle of the sun and moon for your tank inhabitants. As well, the Fluval Flex Freshwater Kit offers a powerful 3 stage filtration system, using mechanical, biological and chemical filtration, with 2 independent multi-stage media chambers for the most effective cleaning possible. Additional features include a flip up door for feeding and an easily removable cover for quick access for maintenance. Wattage for the lighting system is 21 watts.
32.5" x 15.35" x 15.75"


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Home India Military News US officials confirm Israeli strike in Iraq
US officials confirm Israeli strike in Iraq
US officials confirm Israeli strike in IraqJERUSALEM: U.S. officials have confirmed that Israel was responsible for the bombing of an Iranian weapons depot in Iraq last month, an attack that would mark a significant escalation in Israel's years-long campaign against Iranian military entrenchment across the region.
The confirmation comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is strongly hinting that his country is behind recent airstrikes in Iraq.
Two American officials said Israel carried out an attack on an Iranian weapons depot that killed two Iranian military commanders. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
There have been weeks of speculation in Israel that the army is attacking targets in Iraq.
In an interview with a Russian-language TV station on Thursday, Netanyahu indicated the speculation is true.
"I don't give Iran immunity anywhere,'' he said, accusing the Iranians of trying to establish bases "against us everywhere,'' including Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
Asked whether that means Israel is operating in Iraq, Netanyahu said: "We act in many arenas against a country that desires to annihilate us. Of course I gave the security forces a free hand and the instruction to do what is needed to thwart these plans of Iran.''
Early Friday, the New York Times, citing Israeli and U.S. officials, reported that Israel bombed an Iranian weapons depot in Iraq last month.
It would be the first known Israeli airstrike in Iraq since 1980, when Israeli warplanes destroyed a nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein. It also steps up Israel's campaign against Iranian military involvement across the region.
Israel has previously acknowledged hundreds of airstrikes on Iranian targets in neighboring Syria, primarily arms shipments believed to be destined for Iran's Hezbollah allies.
Israel considers Iran to be its greatest enemy and has repeatedly vowed that it will not allow the Iranians, who are supporting the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, to establish a permanent military presence in Syria.
Striking Iraq would be far more complicated than reaching neighboring Syria.
The Israeli warplanes would likely have to travel through Turkey, a former ally that now has cool relations with Israel, or through Saudi Arabia, to carry out the strikes on Iraq.
Israel and the Saudis do not have formal diplomatic relations, but are believed to have established a behind-the-scenes alliance based on their shared hostility toward Iran.
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Home The Strip All That Glitters Turns to Gold at Mandalay Bay's "Paint the Town...
All That Glitters Turns to Gold at Mandalay Bay's "Paint the Town Gold" New Year's Eve Celebration
Mandalay Bay Paint the Town Gold
Purchase tickets for shows at House Of Blues Las Vegas via Stubhub here Note: we get a small referral fee if you make a purchase.
Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino's annual "Paint the Town Gold" celebration promises an unforgettable start to 2020 with A-list entertainers, VIP nightlife offerings, decadent prix fixe menus and the perfect view of the midnight fireworks.
The party begins on December 31 when the entire resort transforms into a glimmering fusion of golden moments, including:
Decadent Dining & Cocktail Celebrations
A New Year that begins in the sky is available at Rivea, located on the 64th floor of Delano Las Vegas, with 180-degree views of the Las Vegas Strip. Early seating starts at 6:30 p.m. at $125 per person for a three-course menu, which includes Hudson Valley Foie Gras Torchon and Bison Tenderloin. The second seating is a five-course menu that starts at 9 p.m. at $295 per person and features Chestnut and Lobster Ravioli with black truffle and Bison Tenderloin. To make a reservation, call 877-632-5400 or visit New Year's Eve 2020 at Rivea.
Skyfall Lounge, also located on the 64th floor of Delano Las Vegas, will begin the festivities at
9 p.m. with open bar packages and table reservations. Floor to ceiling windows make this lounge a prime location to watch the fireworks and ring in 2020. To make a reservation, visit Skyfall Lounge NYE 2020.
Aureole will feature a six-course wine pairing dinner with items such as Scallop Carpaccio, Seared Foie Gras, Wild Striped Bass, Angus Beef Tenderloin and a Candy Bar with fresh coconut and lime sorbet. To make a reservation or for more information, call 702-632-7401.
Libertine Social will add decadence to its New Year's Eve menu with Caviar French Toast with truffle maple syrup and whipped crème fraiche, a Wagyu Porterhouse for two and Truffle Butter Twice Baked Potato. To make a reservation, call 702-632-7200.
STRIPSTEAK will offer the option of a three-course or five-course menu featuring items such as Yellowtail Sashimi, Shellfish Platters, Striped Bass and Sinful Chocolate Cake starting at $135 per person. For more information, call 702-632-7200.
Kumi Japanese Restaurant + Bar is hosting a four-course prix fixe dinner from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. at $95 per person and a five-course prix fixe menu from 7:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. at $125 per person. For more information, visit sbe.com/kumi-japanese.
Eyecandy Sound Lounge will offer "A Toast to the World," every hour starting at 2 p.m., where guests can toast with a shot to celebrate the New Year from each time zone. An open bar experience is also available from 9 p.m. to midnight. The cost is $100 per person and tickets are available at eyecandylv.com.
Foundation Room will host a VIP Open Bar from 9 p.m. to close. Executive Chef Corey Miller also will prepare a five-course prix fixe menu for guests as they count down to 2020. Located 63 floors above The Strip, Foundation Room is the perfect location to ring in the new year. For reservations and general admission, please email reservations@foundationroomlv.com or call 702-632-7631.
Four Seasons Hotel is where revelers can celebrate like high rollers with an "Oysters and Veuve" event starting at 5 p.m. For more info, visit fourseasons.com/lasvegas.
Entertainment Offerings to Ring in the New Year
Mandalay Bay Events Center will once again deliver the ultimate night out with Maroon 5 on Monday, Dec. 30, and Tuesday, Dec. 31 at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $79.50 and are available at axs.com.
House of Blues will host rockers Third Eye Blind on Dec. 31. Tickets start at $55 and are available at livenation.com.
LIGHT Nightclub will ring in the New Year with Grammy Award-winning artist and winner of "The Masked Singer" season one, T-Pain, on Tuesday, Dec. 31 starting at 9 p.m. General admission tickets include open bar from 9 p.m. – 11 p.m. Tickets and VIP bottle service packages are available at tixr.com.
For more information on New Year's Eve festivities at MGM Resorts, please visit MGMResorts.com.
Eyecandy Sound Lounge
Four Seasons Las Vegas
Kumi Japanese Restaurant
Libertine Social
Rivea
Skyfall Lounge
STRIPSTEAK
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Celebrate the New Year with Safe, Socially-Distanced Options in Summerlin and on the Strip


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Mechanics Liens: Mechanics Liens and … Criminal Law?
Last Updated on Jul 05, 2019 | Reading Time: 3 minutes
While browsing recent news stories involving mechanics liens, a very interesting headline popped up in my search results: "Sixteen People Arrested on Federal Indictment Involving Multi-State Car Theft Conspiracy." At first, I was surprised that such a story opened up after a search for "mechanics liens," but after reading a little more about the case, the article explained:
On many occasions, the defendants falsely claimed to have done repair work which wasn't actually performed on vehicles submitted to their businesses, inducing lien holders to pay the defendants money to avoid the issuance of a mechanics lien. Over 100 vehicles have been fully identified as being involved in the criminal activity, although investigators believe many more were actually involved.
That Missouri case clearly involved vehicular liens, not construction liens, but reading about it piqued my interest: Could criminal liability arise in the construction mechanics liens arena — an arena most often considered to be civil, not criminal? To briefly explore this question, I looked at the lien law in a handful of different states.
Colorado's General Mechanics' Lien statutes contain the following provisions:
(1) All funds disbursed to any contractor … shall be held in trust for the payment of parties that furnished labor or materials who have a lien, or may have a lien against the property
(5) Any person who violates … subsection (1) … commits theft
The State of Colorado has used these two provisions as a basis for criminal liability in many instances. For example, in People v. Mendro, the Supreme Court of Colorado held that so long as the state was able to prove that the elements of theft were met, it did not have to prove any additional "intent" to misappropriate funds on the contractor's part. In that case, the defendant, a Colorado Springs-based remodeling contractor used funds advanced to him by clients to pay "ongoing operating expenses and bank loans." After being held not guilty at the trial court, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's finding and essentially found that he was guilty of felony theft.
U.S. ex. rel Roberts v. Ternullo is an example in which falsely filing a mechanics lien — in this example, many mechanics liens — led to criminal charges and even jail time.
David Roberts for many years operated a retail fence business under several corporate names. As the State of New York alleged, Roberts:
"would frequently fail to deliver fencing contracted for by customers or deliver less than called for in the contract, and when full payment was not forthcoming, would file mechanics liens with the County Clerk …"
As a result, Roberts was charged with multiple counts of forgery and the making of an apparently sworn false statement, amongst other charges. Interestingly, it was only after more than 200 unhappy customers complained about Roberts that the county District Attorney got involved. As a result of the charges lodged against him, the defendant was charged with between one and four years in prison. His conviction, after being reversed and remanded on the first appeal, was affirmed at the appellate level the second time around.
As the federal court that heard Roberts' writ of habeas corpus held, the false mechanics liens the defendant filed were admissible because they were available to the public and, of course, filed by the defendant himself. As the court noted, it would be completely illogical to bar the state from presenting evidence such as a mechanics lien that was already in its public record.
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In a case from many years ago, State v. Tabasso Homes, we see another example of how mechanics liens and criminal law can surprisingly intersect sometimes. Delaware's statute at issue in this case is strikingly similar to the one in the Colorado case discussed above. In that statute, which is contained under the Mechanics Lien Statute of Delaware:
All moneys or funds whatsoever received by an architect, engineer, contractor or sub—contractor … Shall be placed in trust and … It shall be unlawful … to pay out, use or appropriate any of said moneys or funds until the same have first been applied to the payment of the full amount of all claims due.
The statute goes on to state that the penalty for violating this requirement is not only to complete restitution for any misappropriate amounts but also a criminal misdemeanor charge, which could lead to a fine or even three years in prison.
The facts in this case are, again, exceedingly simple. A home construction firm, Tabasso, received thousands of dollars from several different parties to build a private residence, but ended up owing several parties who worked on the residence more than $12,000. (This amount is nearly $170,000 in 2012 dollars).
After being indicted, Tabasso moved to quash its indictment. The court indeed granted Tabasso's motion. Although the court noted that it was entirely possible that Tabasso owed the parties money, Tabasso was the property owner, and not a "contractor," to whom the statute applied. Apparently, at least at the time the case was decided, a party could not be an owner/contractor and had to be only one or the other.
As we can see, violating a state's mechanics lien law can have major consequences in terms of criminal charges and jail time, not just civil lawsuits and penalties. While a state's law usually makes it quite clear when violating a mechanics lien statute can lead to criminal liability, state courts can impose criminal liability in surprising ways, so be sure to follow each state's mechanics lien law closely.
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Micro Machines: World Series is a racing video game published by Codemasters for Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows that was released on June 30 2017.
Featuring the iconic kitchen and pool table tracks amongst others, plus all-new locations and arenas such as the garden and workshop, Micro Machines World Series features 10 Race Tracks and 15 Battle Arenas!
An array of amazing miniature vehicles, each with its own unique load-out of weapons and abilities plus a massive range of customization options!
Micro Machines racing for the purists, including Elimination mode! Huge variety of weapons, interactive tracks, unique skins, and gravestamps to earn!
Up to 12 players in huge arenas, multiple modes that proves that a single takedown is just as satisfying as winning a race!
Game-changing synergies as you join together to take on the rest!


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describe 'session communication package' do

  it 'allows receiving a message sent within a session' do
    a_message = { p_number: 1, p_text: 'a message', p_date: Time.today } #GIVEN
    plsql.message_api.send_msg( a_message )                              #WHEN
    expect( plsql.message_api.receive_msg ).to eq( a_message )           #THEN
  end

end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Whether you like the new Facebook Home or not, HTC is pretty much sold on the concept. The new First smartphone by the company is the first phone with the service built right onto the phone.
The star of the show is Facebook's own 'Home' though. The new launcher will be built-in onto the phone right from the start. And in case you can't care less about the phone, the Home is also coming to other Android phones on April 12. Only the flagships will be served at first, namely the Samsung Galaxy S IV, S3, Note 2 and HTC's One and One X+ but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced his plans to bring Facebook Home to 'as many people as possible'.
However it must be kept in mind that the HTC First isn't the first phone targeted towards Facebook users. Some years back, it was again HTC which was the first company to roll out 2 phones, the ChaCha and Salsa with dedicated Facebook buttons which could share anything being displayed on the screen upon pressing. It remains to be seen though whether the HTC First will perform better than the 2 earlier phones which are already history now.
The phone will be released later this month. Pricing is unknown at the moment.


STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Keone Kela was supposed be the gravy, the icing on the cake, the cherry on top of the sundae or any other cliche you might like to insert here. The Chris Archer acquisition took the headlines, leaving the club's swipe of Kela as window dressing. But those that saw him pitch before his arrival at Federal Street knew what the team was getting.
And here's a hint: it wasn't this. Kela has given up three home runs to date. This, after surrendering five dingers in total over all of 2018. At his current rate, Kela is on a theoretical pace to blow by his previous career high in round trippers when he gave up six in 2016. I'm out of synonyms for a home run so let's move on.
Kela's sudden fondness for giving up runs with one simple swing only tells half the story of his current foibles. The real answer, as it often is with relievers, is much more complex.
I chose these peripherals not at random, but to paint a picture of how small year-over-year fluctuations can carry an influence of larger scope.
First, Kela's best weapon -- his curveball -- is virtually unchanged from 2018 in terms of where it matters most: spin. Even so, hitters seem to feel much more confident in offering at it early (1st pitch swing percentage), which could mean trouble if Kela continues to feature it at first pitch to the tune of 38.5 percent of his 0-0 pitches. This is a drastic increase in 2018's 26.2 percent rate.
Kela still comes into the zone just as much as he did last season, yet again hitters feel a deeper level of comfort putting a swing on his in-zone offerings. This is seen both by frequency (zone swing) and zone contact. As things stand, Kela is allowing a .367 xwOBA figure on contact among in-zone pitches, another startling increase from his 2018 .284.
Let's leave the land of common sense for a brief sojourn to the other side of Kela's coin. All of the above comes despite Kela carrying fantastic first-strike and chase figures, which normally serve as foundational pillars of reliever effectiveness.
And it is because of that inherent contradiction that I, and many, are not prepared to cede Kela's high-leverage innings to, oh I don't know, Nick Burdi. As well as Burdi has pitched, Kela carries the pedigree of having done the job so well for the four years previous.
That's not as easily qualified, but should still count for something.
A semi-regular feature here on Mound Visit will be a deeper look into noteworthy starts by Pirates hurlers. These breakdowns could come from inspiration found in a particularly sparkling -- or equally horrid -- outing. If it warrants further breakdown, we'll talk about it here. Today we are going to take a deeper look at Jordan Lyles' start from April 10th.
How encouraged were you by Jordan Lyles' start last night?
Yes, that's 13 swinging strikes along with 17 called strikes in six innings of work. Much has been made of the adjustments that Lyles made last year that unlocked a greater degree of effectiveness, albeit in the bullpen, and it just might be possible that those changes might present themselves with an increased ability to fool hitters. Only twice in his 36 appearances last season -- both as a starter and reliever -- did he induce 10 whiffs or more.
Though Bryant gifted Lyles with a called strike on a very attractive four-seam fastball at first pitch, Lyles surprised us all by dropping in a slider. The right-hander dropped his slider usage last year to 9.64 percent, pretty much leaving the pitch on the side of the road. However, it can be useful in micro-doses such as here. Bryant historically has trouble with the pitch, with a 42.39 percent whiff per swing and a 36.5 percent whiff rate on the pitch overall over the last two seasons.
Spotting a slider here is a good gamble that got Lyles to 0-2 against a dangerous hitter. Doing so allowed him to play things a little closer to the vest. Bryant rightly laid off an easily avoided curve, and Lyles followed up with a fastball that seemed to sail on him a bit.
But the lesson that Lyles can teach all of us is that even wasted pitch is not fated to be a waste. Now at an even count, Lyles pulled the string, dropping an 85.3 mph changeup that was 14.4 inches lower than the previous pitch. At a fastball count, Bryant was fooled and swung late. Would that changeup had been as effective if that previous fastball was wide or down and in? We'll never know of course, but it would be foolish to think that the drop in location and speed from pitch to pitch did not hurt Lyles' cause.
The very next batter shows us the kind of "common-man wizardry" that Lyles can provide when all of his best pitches are working. No one will ever confuse Lyles' curveball -- as good as it is -- with Lance McCuller's, nor will his changeup get mixed up with Mike Minor's. That won't stop him from liberally featuring both.
Sometimes, that approach means the fastball gets put away for awhile.
When those pitches are working, Lyles can be afforded the ability to be careful with hitters that can clobber his fastball. This brings a different dimension that his other rotation-mates might not feature as often.
Where Lyles can get in trouble, however, is with his four-seamer.
In the sixth inning, Lyles got into a bit of hot water with Bryant, who eventually walked. After getting to 3-1, an obvious fastball count, Lyles tried to get a call on the edge with a fastball to get back in, but was denied a call.
Of the 434 qualified pitchers that threw at least 250 fastballs on the edges of the strike zone last season, Lyles was decidedly average in getting strike calls. He fared a bit better in contact quality, but the point remains: When Lyles has to work to be too fine, bad things are afoot.
Lyles won't have an opportunity to prove himself again until later this week at the earliest. Such is life among MLB's cabal of fifth starters at this early juncture of the season. Should he continue to trust his pitches while utilizing every bit of data available to him, Lyles has more than a puncher's chance at building upon his early success.


text:
Q: Another question about Shankar's notation I have another question on the notation in Shankar.  I think it's sloppy, but I also may just be misunderstanding it.  Again, this is at the very beginning of the math intro.
He has:

$$a\left| V \right\rangle  \to \left[ {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}}
 {a{v_1}}\\ {a{v_2}}\\  \vdots \\ {a{v_n}} \end{array}} \right] \to
 \left[ {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {{a^*}v_1^*,}&{{a^*}v_2^*,}& \cdots,
 &{{a^*}v_n^*} \end{array}} \right] \to \left\langle V \right|{a^*}$$
  It is customary to write $aV\rangle $ as $a\left| V
> \right\rangle$ and the corresponding bra as $\left\langle aV \right|$.
   What we have found is that $\left\langle aV \right|=\left\langle V
 \right|{a^*}$.

The * means conjugate.  This doesn't look correct to me unless I'm missing something.  First it would seem that the LHS of the final equation should be a ket not a bra.  Then it also seems that it's not really "equals".  From what I've seen if it is a bra on the LHS, commuting the scalar shouldn't cause it to result in taking its conjugate.  Is the text correct or am I not understanding something?

A: It just means that $\langle aV |$ is the conjugate of $| aV \rangle$.  The latter equals $a|V\rangle$ and so has conjugate $\langle V| a^\ast$.  Hence,
$$
\langle aV | = \langle V| a^\ast\,.
$$
I think that's all there is to it.

A: This is OK. We define the scalar multiplication in the Ket vector space to be complex linear, $a\left|V\right>=\left|aV\right>$. The inner product $\left<W|V\right>$ is complex linear on the Ket vector space, but complex anti-linear on the Bra space,
$$a\left<W|V\right>=\left<W|aV\right>=\left<a^*W|V\right>.$$
That's almost a matter of definition for the inner product of a complex Hilbert space, where in an alternative notation we would write $(a^*W,V)=(W,aV)=a(W,V)$.
In particular, this means that $\left<aW|aV\right>$ is a positive multiple of $\left<W|V\right>$, $\left<aW|aV\right>=|a|^2\left<W|V\right>$.
Perhaps the notation would be slightly less worrying if we wrote $\left<aV\right|=a^*\left<V\right|$?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The JDRF Fort Worth Chapter is pleased to announce that we will be led by a new Executive Director, Chris LaTurno. Our regional and local teams are thrilled about this announcement and can't wait to see how our chapter grows under his leadership.
Chris is currently the Executive Director for the JDRF Chapter in Raleigh, NC, but will be assuming his role in the Greater Fort Worth/Arlington Chapter in May of 2019. During his four years in Raleigh, the chapter there has seen revenue growth of 15% and experienced its first $1 million dollar Gala! He is an engaging and passionate individual who believes in encouraging others and stewarding donors and volunteers in a first class way in order to find the cure for T1D sooner than later. Chris' first exposure to JDRF came when he attended a JDRF Walk Kick-Off and met a mother whose five year old son was diagnosed with T1D. Chris, whose son was also five at the time, knew that he had to do something. Prior to joining JDRF, Chris worked in the commercial banking industry. He currently lives in Clayton, North Carolina with his wife, Lisa, their two children, Jackson and Eden, mother in law Jan, and world's greatest beagle, Lucy.


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