Sunday 19 December 2010

Reading the Bible 3 (John Piper)

This is the third part of the article “Reading the Bible” taken from the ESV Study Bible. This was written by John Piper.

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Reading the Bible in Prayer and Communion With God
Communion with God is a staggering thought. God created billions of galaxies and calls every star by name (Isa. 40:26; 42:5). He never had a beginning and will never end (Ps. 90:2). His ways are inscrutable and his judgments unsearchable (Rom. 11:33). His thoughts are as different from ours as the heavens are high above the earth (Isa. 55:8). “The nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales” (Isa. 40:15).

If that were not enough to make communion with God unthinkable, consider that all of us are naturally rebellious against him. Therefore, his omnipotent wrath rests on us. We are by nature hostile to God and do not submit to his law (Rom. 8:7). Therefore, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against us (Rom. 1:18). We are “by nature children of wrath,” “sons of disobedience,” and “dead in . . . trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1–5). How then can there be any thought of communion with God?

For Our Joy
Before we see the Bible’s answer, let’s clarify what we mean by “communion.” Communion refers to God’s communication and presentation of himself to us, together with our proper response to him with joy. We say “with joy” because it would not be communion if God revealed himself in total wrath and we were simply terrified. That would be true revelation and a proper response, but it would not be communion.

Communion assumes that God comes to us in love and that we respond joyfully to the beauty of his perfections and the offer of his fellowship. He may sometimes come with a rod of discipline. But even in our tears, we can rejoice in our Father’s loving discipline (Heb. 12:6–11). Communion with God may lay us in ashes or make us leap. But it never destroys our joy. It is our joy (Ps. 43:4).

To God’s Glory
Communion with God is the end for which we were created. The Bible says that we were created for the glory of God (Isa. 43:7). Yet glorifying God is not something we do after communing with him, but by communing with him. Many human deeds magnify the glory of God’s goodness, but only if they flow from our contentment in communion with him. This is why we pray, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love” (Ps. 90:14). The joy of this communion in the love of God confirms God’s worth and shows his glory.

Because of the Gospel
But how is this unthinkable privilege of communion with God possible for sinners like us? The answer of the Bible is that God himself took the initiative to be reconciled to his enemies. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place and bear the curse that we deserved from God. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). So the wrath of God that we deserved fell on Christ (Isa. 53:4–6, 10).

Because God gave Christ as our substitute, we can be reconciled to God and enjoy peaceful communion with him. “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:10). “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). This peace leads to the unparalleled joy of communion with God (Rom. 5:11).

The Gospel: The Bible’s Central Message
Therefore, the first thing to say about the Bible in relation to communion with God is that the message of how to be reconciled to God for the glory of God is the central message of the Bible. There is no communion with God without salvation from our sin and God’s wrath. The Bible is the only book with final authority that tells us what God did through Christ and how we must respond through faith to be saved and to enjoy communion with God (2 Tim. 3:15).

But the Bible is more. The Bible tells the story of creation, of the fall of humanity into sin, and of the history of God’s chosen people Israel leading up to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus. Then it recounts the life of Christ and his teachings, his mighty works, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension. Finally, it tells the story of the early church after Jesus had returned to heaven, and how we are to live until Jesus comes again.

The Bible Reveals God
The God-inspired record of this history (the Bible) is the only infallible and authoritative book communicating and presenting God himself (2 Tim. 3:16–17; 2 Pet. 1:21). To be sure, God is active everywhere in the world today, and we experience his precious power wherever we trust him and do his will. But we will go astray if we make this daily experience of God the basis of our communion with him. We know God for who he is, and meet him as he is, when we meet him through his Word—the Bible. We see this principle at work, for example, in 1 Samuel 3:21: “The Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.” The Lord himself is revealed by his word, that is, by what he says to us, whether audibly or in written form.

Therefore, when we seek to enjoy communion with the Lord—and not to be led astray by the ambiguities of religious experience—we read the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, God’s words and God’s deeds reveal God himself for our knowledge and our enjoyment. Of course, it is possible to read the Bible without enjoying communion with God. We must seek to understand the Bible’s meaning, and we must pause to contemplate what we understand and, by the Spirit, to feel and express the appropriate response of the heart.

God communicates with us in many ways through the Bible and seeks the response of our communion with him. If God indicts us (2 Cor. 7:8–10), we respond to him with sorrow and repentance. If he commends us (Ps. 18:19–20), we respond to him with humble gratitude and joy. If he commands us to do something (Matt. 28:19–20), we look to him for strength and resolve to obey with his help. If he makes a promise (Heb. 13:5–6), we marvel at his grace and trust him to do what he says. If he warns us of some danger (Luke 21:34), we take him seriously and watch with a thankful sense of his presence and protection. If he describes something about himself (Isa. 46:9–11), his Son (Mark 1:11), or his Holy Spirit (John 16:13–14), we affirm it and admire it and pray for clearer eyes to see and enjoy his greatness and beauty.

Fellowship with the Triune God
In all these communications, it is God himself that we most want to see. Communion with God is not merely learning about God but enjoying fellowship with God in the truth he reveals about himself. The apostle John, who enjoyed unusually close communion with Jesus while he was on the earth, said that he wrote his letters so that we might enjoy this fellowship: “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). In other words, the Bible records the words and deeds of God so that by means of these we have fellowship—that is, communion—with God.

This fellowship is with each person in the Trinity: with the Father (1 John 1:3), with the Son (1 Cor. 1:9), and with the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14). This is possible because each person of the Godhead communicates with us in a way that corresponds to his unique role in creation, providence, and salvation. As the great Puritan John Owen wrote in his classic Communion with God, the Father communicates him¬self to us by the way of “original authority,” the Son from a “purchased treasury,” and the Spirit by an “immediate efficacy.” Each person, as Owen says, communicates with us “distinctly” in the sense that we may discern from which person particular realizations of the grace of God come to us. But “distinctly” does not mean “separately”: particular fellowship with each person of the Trinity is always one facet of ongoing communion with all three.

Humble, Bold Prayer
Finally, from this Father-initiated, Son-purchased, Spirit-effected communion with God, we pray with humble boldness (Heb. 4:16). That is, we speak to God the Father, on the basis of Christ’s work, by the help of the Spirit. This speaking is called prayer. It includes our confessions of sin (1 John 1:9), our praises of God’s perfections (Ps. 96:4), our thanks for God’s gifts (Ps. 118:21), and our requests that he would help us (Ps. 38:22) and others (Rom. 15:30–31)—all to the glory of God (Ps. 50:15), for the hallowing of his name, which must ever be our goal.

Prayer is the verbal aspect of our response to God in communion with him. The Bible does speak of “groanings too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26), but ordinarily prayer is the response of our heart to God in words. It may be in private (Matt. 6:6) or in public (1 Cor. 14:16). It may last all night (Luke 6:12) or be summed up in a moment’s cry (Matt. 14:30). It may be desperate (Jonah 2:2) or joyful (Ps. 119:162). It may be full of faith (Mark 11:24) or wavering with uncertainty (Mark 9:24).

But it is not optional. It is commanded—which is good news, because it means that God loves being the giver of omnipotent help (Ps. 50:15). The Bible reminds us that ordinary people can accomplish great things by prayer (James 5:17–18). It tells us about great answers to prayer (Isa. 37:21, 36). It gives us great examples of how to pray (Matt. 6:9–13; Eph. 3:14–19). And it offers amazing encouragements to pray (Matt. 7:7–11).

God Gets the Glory; We Get the Joy
The Bible shows that prayer is near the heart of why God created the world. When we pray for God to do what only he can do, he alone gets the glory while we get the joy. We see this when Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13), and then later says, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). In prayer, God gets the glory and we get the joy. God is the overflow¬ing fountain; we are satisfied with the living water. He is infinitely rich; we are the happy heirs.

Central to all our praying, as we have seen, must be our longing that God’s name be hallowed in the world—known and honored and loved (Matt. 6:9). To that end, we pray (1) for his church to be “filled with the fruit of righteousness . . . to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11); (2) that the gospel would spread and awaken faith in Jesus among all the nations (2 Thess. 3:1); and (3) that many who do not believe would be saved (Rom. 10:1). In this way, the aim of God’s Word and the aim of prayer become the same: the glory of God and the salvation of the nations through Jesus Christ.


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This selection is from the ESV Study Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV ®) Copyright © 2008 by Crossway Bibles a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois 60187, U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Sunday 28 November 2010

Reading the Bible 2 (Leland Ryken)

This is the second part of the article, Reading the Bible” taken from the ESV Study Bible. It was written by Leland Ryken.

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Reading the Bible as Literature
Three primary modes of writing converge in the Bible: theological, historical, and literary. Overwhelmingly, theology and history are embodied in literary form.

A crucial principle of interpretation thus needs to be established at the outset: meaning is communicated through form, starting with the very words of a text but reaching beyond that to considerations of literary genre and style. We cannot properly speak about the theological or moral content of a story or poem (for example) without first interacting with the story or poem.

Literary form exists prior to content; no content exists apart from the form in which it is embodied. As a result, the first responsibility of a reader or interpreter is to understand the form of a discourse. It is a common misconception to think that the literary dimension of the Bible is only the form in which the message is presented. Actually, without some kind of literary form, the content would not even exist. The concept of literary form needs to be construed very broadly here. Anything having to do with how a biblical author has expressed his message constitutes literary form. We tend to think (erroneously) that authors tell us about characters, actions, and situations, whereas actually they speak with or by means of these things—about God, people, and the world.

The Bible as Literature
The idea of the Bible as literature began with the Bible itself. The writers refer to a whole range of literary genres in which they write: proverb, saying, chronicle, complaint (lament psalm), oracle, apocalypse, parable, song, epistle, and many others. Secondly, some of these forms correspond to the literary forms current in the authors’ surrounding cultures. For example, the Ten Commandments are cast in the form of the suzerainty treaties that ancient Near Eastern kings imposed on their subjects, and the NT epistles show many affinities to the structure of Greek and Roman letters of the same era.

Mainly, though, we can look to the Bible itself to see the extent to which it is a literary book. Virtually every page of the Bible is replete with literary technique, and to possess the individual texts fully, we need to read the Bible as literature, just as we need to read it theologically and (in the narrative parts) historically.

Literary Genres
The most customary way to define literature is by the external genres (types or kinds of writing) in which its content is expressed. The two main genres in the Bible are narrative and poetry. Numerous categories cluster under each of these. Narrative subtypes, e.g., include hero story, gospel, epic, tragedy, comedy (a U-shaped plot with a happy ending), and parable. Specific poetic genres keep multiplying as well: lyric, lament psalm, praise psalm, love poem, nature poem, epithalamion (wedding poem), and many others.

But those are only the tip of the iceberg. In addition to narrative and poetry, we find prophecy, visionary writing, apocalypse, pastoral, encomium, oratory, drama (the book of Job), satire, and epistle. Then if we add more specific forms like travel story, dramatic monologue, doom song, and Christ hymn, the number of literary genres in the Bible readily exceeds a hundred.

The importance of genre to biblical interpretation is that genres have their own methods of procedure and rules of interpretation. An awareness of genre should alert us to what we can expect to find in a text. Additionally, considerations of genre should govern the terms in which we interact with a text. With narrative, e.g., we are on the right track if we pay attention to plot, setting, and character. If the text before us is a satire, we need to think in terms of object of attack, the satiric vehicle in which the attack is couched, and satiric norm (stated or implied standard by which the criticism is being conducted).

In view of how many literary genres are present in the Bible, it is obvious that the overall literary form of the Bible is the anthology, as even the word Bible (Gk. biblia, “books”) hints. As an anthology, the Bible possesses the same kinds of unity that other anthologies exhibit: multiple authorship (approximately three dozen authors), diverse genres, a rationale for collecting these particular materials (a unifying religious viewpoint and story of salvation history), comprehensiveness, and an identifiable strategy of organization (a combination of historical chronology and groupings by genre).

Literary Subject Matter
Literature is also identifiable by its subject matter. It is differentiated from expository (informational) writing by the way in which it presents concrete human experience instead of stating abstract propositions, logical arguments, or bare facts. We can profitably think of biblical writing as existing on a continuum, with abstract propositional discourse on one end and concrete presentation of human experience on the other. The more thoroughly a piece of writing falls on the experiential end of the spectrum, the more “literary” it is.


To illustrate, the command “you shall not murder” is an example of expository discourse. The story of Cain and Abel embodies the same truth in the form of characters in concrete settings performing physical and mental actions. Expository writing gives us the precept; literature gives us the example. “God’s provision extends to all aspects of our lives” is a thematic summary of Psalm 23; rather than such abstraction, however, the psalm incarnates the truth about providence through the poetic image of a shepherd’s daily routine with his sheep.

The subject of literature is human experience rendered as concretely as possible. The result is that it possesses a universal quality. Whereas history and the daily news tell us what happened, literature tells us what happens—what is true for all people in all places and times. A text can be both informational and literary, but its literary dimension resides in its embodiment of recognizable human experience.

The goal of literature is to prompt a reader vicariously to share or relive an experience. The truth that literature imparts is not simply ideas that are true but truthfulness to human experience. The implication for interpreting the Bible as literature is that readers and expositors need to actively recreate experiences in their imaginations, identify the recognizable human experiences in a text (thereby building bridges to life in the modern world), and resist the impulse immediately to reduce every biblical passage to a set of theological ideas.

Archetypes and Motifs
An archetype is a plot motif (such as initiation or quest), character type (such as the villain or trickster), or image (such as light or water) that recurs throughout literature and life. The presence of archetypes signals a text’s literary quality. When we read literature, we are continuously aware of such archetypes as the temptation motif, the dangerous valley, and the hero, whereas with other types of writing we are rarely aware of archetypes.

Archetypes are the building blocks of literature. The Bible is the most complete repository of archetypes in the Western world, something that makes the Bible universal, reaching down to bedrock human experience. Awareness of archetypes helps us see the unity of the Bible (since we keep relating one instance of an archetype to other instances), and also the connections between the Bible and other literature.

Stylistics and Rhetoric
Literature also uses distinctive resources of language that set it apart from ordinary expository discourse. The most obvious example is poetry. Poets speak a language all their own, consisting of images and figures of speech. Other important examples include: imagery, metaphor, simile, symbol, allusion, irony, wordplay, hyperbole, apostrophe (direct address to someone or something absent as though present), personification, paradox, and pun. The presence of these elements push a text into the category of literature.

The most concentrated repository of such language in the Bible is the books that are poetic in their basic format—the Prophetic Books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (a book of prose poems), Song of Solomon, and Revelation. But literary resources of language also appear on virtually every page of the Bible beyond the poetic books—most obviously in the discourses of Jesus and in the Epistles, but less pervasively in the narratives as well.

A related literary phenomenon is rhetoric—arrangement of content in patterns and use of conventional literary techniques or formulas. Parallelism of sentence elements, e.g., is an instance of stylized rhetoric. Patterns of repetition—of words, phrases, or content units—are a distinguishing feature of the Bible. So is aphoristic conciseness that continuously raises the Bible to a literary realm of eloquence far above everyday discourse. A page from a NT epistle might include rhetorical questions, question-and-answer constructions, direct addresses to real or imaginary respondents, or repeated words or phrases.

Artistry
Literature is an art form in which beauty of expression, craftsmanship, and verbal virtuosity are valued as self-rewarding and as an enhancement of effective communication. The writer of Ecclesiastes states his philosophy of composition, portraying himself as a self-conscious stylist and wordsmith who arranged his material “with great care” and who “sought to find words of delight” (Eccles. 12:9–10). Surely other biblical writers did the same.

The standard elements of artistic form include unity, theme-and-variation, pattern, design, progression, contrast, balance, recurrence, coherence, and symmetry. Authors cultivate artistry because it is important to their effect and intention. The Bible is an aesthetic as well as utilitarian book, and we need to experience it as such.

Reading and Interpreting the Bible as Literature
Any piece of writing needs to be interpreted in terms of the kind of writing that it is. The Bible is a literary book in which theology and history are usually embodied in literary forms. Those forms include genres, the incarnation of human experience in concrete form, stylistic and rhetorical techniques, and artistry.

These literary features are not extraneous aspects of the text. Instead, they are the forms through which the content is mediated. If the writing of the Bible is the product of divine inspiration—if it represents what the Holy Spirit prompted the authors to write as they were “carried along” (2 Pet. 1:21)—then the literary forms of the Bible have also been inspired by God and need to be granted an importance congruent with that inspiration.


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This selection is from the ESV Study Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV ®) Copyright © 2008 by Crossway Bibles a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois 60187, U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Sunday 14 November 2010

Reading the Bible 1 (J I Packer)

A recent comment by a friend about how he has found reading the Bible “theologically” so very helpful to his personal devotion has prompted the inclusion of this rather lengthy article on “Reading the Bible” taken from the ESV Study Bible. Some of you probably already own this Bible but I think I would be right to say that most of us don't. I cannot comment on the quality or readability of the translation as I have yet to read it through, but I was impressed with the list of contributors to 50 or so main articles in the Bible covering a whole range of subjects related to the Bible, including this one which is being posted here. In fact, this lengthy article was written by no less than five different contributors! I will include their names accordingly with each post.

The first part of this article was written by J I Packer.



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Reading the Bible Theologically
To read the Bible “theologically” means to read the Bible “with a focus on God”: his being, his character, his words and works, his purpose, presence, power, promises, and precepts. The Bible can be read from different standpoints and with different centers of interest, but this article seeks to explain how to read it theologically.

The Bible: The Church’s Instruction Book
All 66 books of the Bible constitute the book of the Christian church. And the church, both as a whole and in the life of its members, must always be seen to be the people of the book. This glorifies God, its primary author.

God has chosen to restore his sin-spoiled world through a long and varied historical process, central to which is the creating—by redemptive and sanctifying grace—of what is literally a new human race. This unfinished process has so far extended over four millennia. It began with Abraham; it centers on the first coming of the incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ; and it is not due for completion till he comes again. Viewed as a whole, from the vantage point of God’s people within it, the process always was and still is covenantal and educative. Covenantal indicates that God says to his gathered community, “I am your God; you shall be my people,” and with his call for loyalty he promises them greater future good than any they have yet known. Educative indicates that, within the covenant, God works to change each person’s flawed and degenerate nature into a new, holy selfhood that expresses in responsive terms God’s own moral likeness. The model is Jesus Christ, the only perfect being that the world has ever seen. For God’s people to sustain covenantal hopes and personal moral ideals as ages pass and cultures change and decay, they must have constant, accessible, and authoritative instruction from God. And that is what the Bible essentially is.

This is why, as well as equipping everywhere a class of teachers who will give their lives to inculcating Bible truth, the church now seeks to translate the Bible into each person’s primary language and to spread universal literacy, so that all may read and understand it.

The Bible Is Canonical
God’s plan is that through his teaching embodied in the Bible, plus knowledge and experience of how he rewards obedience and punishes disobedience in a disciplinary way, his people should learn love, worship, and service of God himself, and love, care, and service of others, as exemplified by Jesus Christ. To this end each generation needs a written “textbook” that sets forth for all time God’s unchanging standards of truth, right, love and goodness, wisdom and worship, doctrine and devotion. This resource will enable people to see what they should think and do, what ideals they should form, what goals they should set, what limits they should observe, and what life strategies they should follow. These are the functions that are being claimed for the Bible when it is called “canonical.” A “canon” is a rule or a standard. The Bible is to be read as a God-given rule of belief and behavior—that is, of faith and life.

The Bible Is Inspired
Basic to the Bible’s canonical status is its “inspiration.” This word indicates a divinely effected uniqueness comparable to the uniqueness of the person of the incarnate Lord. As Jesus Christ was totally human and totally divine, so is the Bible. All Scripture is witness to God, given by divinely illuminated human writers, and all Scripture is God witnessing to himself in and through their words. The way into the mind of God is through the expressed mind of these human writers, so the reader of the Bible looks for that characteristic first. But the text must be read, or reread, as God’s own self-revelatory instruction, given in the form of this human testimony. In this way God tells the reader the truth about himself; his work past, present, and future; and his will for people’s lives.

The Bible Is Unified
Basic also to the Bible’s canonical status is the demonstrable unity of its contents. Scripture is no ragbag of religious bits and pieces, unrelated to each other; rather, it is a tapestry in which all the complexities of the weave display a single pattern of judgment and mercy, promise and fulfillment. The Bible consists of two separate collections: the OT, written over a period of about 1,000 years, and the NT, written within a generation several centuries after the OT was completed. Within such a composite array one would expect to find some crossed wires or incoherence, but none are found here. While there are parallel narratives, repetitions, and some borrowings from book to book, the Bible as a whole tells a single, straightforward story. God the Creator is at the center throughout; his people, his covenant, his kingdom, and its coming king are the themes unfolded by the historical narratives, while the realities of redemption from sin and of godly living (faith, repentance, obedience, prayer, adoration, hope, joy, and love) become steadily clearer. Jesus Christ, as fulfiller of OT prophecies, hopes, promises, and dreams, links the two Testaments together in an unbreakable bond. Aware that at the deepest level the whole Bible is the product of a single mind, the mind of God, believers reading it theologically always look for the inner links that bind the books together. And they are there to be found.

Theological Reading of the Bible: A Quest for God
Reading Scripture theologically starts from the truths reviewed above: (1) that the Bible is a God-given guide to sinners for their salvation, and for the life of grateful godliness to which salvation calls them; (2) that the Bible is equally the church’s handbook for worship and service; (3) that it is a divinely inspired unity of narrative and associated admonition, a kind of running commentary on the progress of God’s kingdom plan up to the establishing of a world-embracing, witnessing, suffering church in the decades following Christ’s ascension and the Pentecost outpouring of the Spirit; and (4) that the incarnate Son of God himself, Jesus the Christ, crucified, risen, glorified, ministering, and coming again, is the Bible’s central focus, while the activities of God’s covenant people both before and after Christ’s appearing make up its ongoing story. Theological reading follows these leads and is pursued theocentrically, looking and listening for God throughout, with the controlling purpose of discerning him with maximum clarity, through his own testimony to his will, works, and ways. Such reading is pursued prayerfully, according to Martin Luther’s observation that the first thing one needs to become a theologian through Bible reading is prayer for the illumination and help of the Holy Spirit. And prayerful theological Bible reading will be pursued in light of three further guiding principles, as follows.

First, revelation was progressive. Its progress, in its written form, was not (as has sometimes been thought) from fuzzy and sometimes false (OT) to totally true and clear (NT), but from partial to full and complete. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days [the concluding era of this world’s life] he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). In the Gospels, the Epistles, and the books of Acts and Revelation, readers are now faced with God’s final word to the world before Christ comes again. Theological Bible reading maintains this perspective, traversing the OT by the light of the NT.

Second, the Bible’s God-language is analogical. Today’s fashion is to call it “metaphorical,” which is not wrong, but “analogical” is the term that makes clearest the key point: the difference involved when everyday words—nouns, verbs, adjectives—are used of God. Language is God’s gift for personal communication between humans and between God and humans. But when God speaks of himself—or when people speak to him or about him—the definitions, connotations, implications, valuations, and range of meaning in each case must be adjusted in light of the differences between him and his creation. God is infinite and flawless; people are both finite and flawed. So when everyday words are used of God, all thought of finiteness and imperfection must be removed, and the overall notion of unlimited, self-sustaining existence in perfect loving holiness must be added in. For instance, when God calls himself “Father,” or his people in response call him their “Father,” the thought will be of authoritative, protecting, guiding, and enriching love, free from any lack of wisdom that appears in earthly fathers. And when one speaks of God’s “anger” or “wrath” in retribution for sin that he as the world’s royal Judge displays, the thought will be as free from the fitful inconsistency, irrationality, bad temper, and loss of self-control that regularly mars human anger.

These mental adjustments underlie the biblical insistence that all God’s doings, even those that involve human distress, are glorious and praiseworthy. This doxological, God-glorifying tone and thrust marks even books such as Job and Lamentations, and the many complaint prayers in the Psalter. The Bible writers practice analogical adjust¬ment so smoothly, unobtrusively, and unselfconsciously that it is easy to overlook what they are doing. But the theological reader of the Bible will not miss this point.

Third, the one God of the Bible is Trinitarian and triune. God is three persons in an eternal fellowship of love and cooperation within the one divine Being. Each person is involved in all that God does. God is a team no less than he is a complex entity. In the NT this concept is apparent, but in the OT, where the constant emphasis is on the truth that Yahweh is the one and only God, the truth of the Trinity hardly breaks the surface. God’s triunity is, however, an eternal fact, though it has been clearly revealed only through Christ’s coming. Theological Bible readers are right to read this fact back into the OT, following the example of NT writers in their citing of many OT passages.

Theology is for doxology, that is, glorifying God by praise and thanks, by obedient holiness, and by laboring to extend God’s kingdom, church, and cultural influence. The goal of theological Bible reading is not just to know truth about God (though one’s quest for godliness must start there) but to know God personally in a relationship that honors him—which means serving Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, the world’s real though unrecognized Lord, who came to earth, died, rose, and ascended for his people, and has given them the Holy Spirit. To have him fill believers’ horizons and rule their lives in his Father’s name is the authentic form—the foundation, blueprint, scaffolding, and construction—of Christian godliness, to which theological Bible reading is a God-intended means. So, three questions must govern readers of the inspired Word:

First, in the passage being read, what is shown about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? What does it say about what the holy Three are doing, have done, and will do in God’s world, in his church, and in lives committed to him? What does it reveal about God’s attributes, that is, God’s power and character, how he exists and how he behaves? One reason, no doubt, for God’s panoramic, multigenred layout of the Bible—with history, homily, biography, liturgy, practical philosophy, laws, lists, genealogies, visions, and so on, all rubbing shoulders—is that this variety provides so many angles of illumination on these questions for theological Bible readers’ instruction.

Second, in the passage being read, what is shown about the bewildering, benighted world with all its beautiful and beneficial aspects alongside those that are corrupt and corrrupting? Discerning the world’s good and evil for what they are, so as to embrace the world’s good and evade its temptations, is integral to the godliness that theological Bible reading should promote.

Third, in the passage being read, what is shown to guide one’s living, this day and every day? The theological logic of this question, through which the reader must work each time, is this: since God, by his own testimony, said that to those people in their situation, what does it follow that he says to readers today in their own situation? The Holy Spiriit answers prayer by giving discernment to apply Scripture in this way. Those who seek will indeed find.

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This selection is from the ESV Study Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV ®) Copyright © 2008 by Crossway Bibles a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois 60187, U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Saturday 18 September 2010

D Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Billy Graham's "Altar Call"

I recently posted F F Bruce's positive comments about the evnagelistic ministry of Billy Graham. However, not everyone way back in the 1950s agreed with Bruce. Some, like the late Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, were more critical of Billy Graham - not of his message, but of his practice of the "altar call". This is a well-known fact for those who know Lloyd-Jones. However, for the benefit of those who do not, I thought it worthwhile to post these excerpts from two interviews conducted at different times by different people so that you get a different perspective from that of Bruce. For a more detailed treatment of Lloyd-Jones' understanding of the "altar call", see his booklet, The Invitation System, published by Banner of Truth.

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Early in the 1970s Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones was the speaker at a ministers’ conference in the USA and at a question session was asked the following question:


Q. During recent years, especially in England, among evangelicals of the Reformed faith, there has been a rising criticism of the invitation system as used by Billy Graham and others. Does Scripture justify the use of such public invitations or not?

A. Well, it is difficult to answer this in a brief compass without being misunderstood. Let me answer it like this: The history of this invitation system is one with which you people ought to be more familiar than anyone else, because it began in America. It began in the 1820s; the real originator of it was Charles G. Finney. It led to a great controversy. Asahel Nettleton, a great Calvinist and successful evangelist, never issued an “altar call” nor asked people to come to the “anxious seat.” These new methods in the 1820s were condemned for many reasons by all who took the Reformed position.

One reason is that there is no evidence that this was done in New Testament times, because then they trusted to the power of the Spirit. Peter preaching on the Day of Pentecost under the power of the Spirit, for instance, had no need to call people forward in decision because, as you remember, the people were so moved and affected by the power of the Word and Spirit that they actually interrupted the preacher, crying out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” That has been the traditional Reformed attitude towards this particular matter. The moment you begin to introduce this other element, you are bringing a psychological element. The invitation should be in the message. We believe the Spirit applies the message, so we trust in the power of the Spirit. I personally agree with what has been said in the question. I have never called people forward at the end for this reason; there is a grave danger of people coming forward before they are ready to come forward. We do believe in the work of the Spirit, that He convicts and converts, and He will do His work. There is a danger in bringing people to a “birth,” as it were, before they are ready for it.

The Puritans in particular were afraid of what they would call “a temporary faith” or “a false profession.” There was a great Puritan, Thomas Shepard, who published a famous series of sermons on The Ten Virgins. The great point of that book was to deal with this problem of a false profession. The foolish virgins thought they were all right. This is a very great danger.

I can sum it up by putting it like this: I feel that this pressure which is put upon people to come forward in decision ultimately is due to a lack of faith in the work and operation of the Holy Spirit. We are to preach the Word, and if we do it properly, there will be a call to a decision that comes in the message, and then we leave it to the Spirit to act upon people. And of course He does. Some may come immediately at the close of the service to see the minister. I think there should always be an indication that the minister will be glad to see anybody who wants to put questions to him or wants further help. But that is a very different thing from putting pressure upon people to come forward. I feel it is wrong to put pressure directly on the will. The order in Scripture seems to be this - the truth is presented to the mind, which moves the heart, and that in turn moves the will.

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Carl F. H. Henry Interviews Dr. Lloyd-Jones
An excerpt from an interview in "Christianity Today" that appeared in 1980.


Q. You and I met in 1966, I believe, to discuss the projected Berlin World Congress on Evangelism. You declined to be either a participant or observer. You were also, I think, the only minister of a major church in London that did not cooperate in the Graham Crusades? What kept you on the sidelines?

A. This is a very vital and difficult matter. I have always believed that nothing but a revival –
a visitation of the Holy Spirit, in distinction from an evangelistic campaign – can deal with the situation of the church and of the world. The Welsh Presbyterian church had roots in the great 18th-century evangelical revival, when the power of the Spirit of God came upon preachers and churches, and large numbers were converted. I have never been happy about organized campaigns. In the 1820s a very subtle and unfortunate change took place, especially in the United States, from Azahel Nettleton’s emphasis on revival to Charles G. Finney’s on evangelism. There are two positions. When things were not going well, the old approach was for ministers and deacons to call a day of fasting and prayer and to plead with God to visit them with power. Today’s alternative is an evangelistic campaign: ministers ask, "whom shall we get as evangelist?" Then they organize and ask God’s blessing on this. I belong to the old school.

Q. What specific reservations do you have about modern evangelism as such?

A. I am unhappy about organized campaigns and even more about the invitation system of calling people forward. Mark you, I consider Billy Graham an utterly honest, sincere, and genuine man. He, in fact, asked me in 1963 to be chairman of the first Congress on Evangelism, then projected for Rome, not Berlin. I said I’d make a bargain: if he would stop the general sponsorship of his campaigns – stop having liberals and Roman Catholics on the platform and drop the invitation system (altar calls), I would whole-heartedly support him and chair the congress. We talked for three hours, but he didn’t accept these conditions.

I just can’t subscribe to the idea that either congresses or campaigns really deal with the situation. The facts, I feel, substantiate my point of view: in spite of all that has been done in the last 20 or 25 years, the spiritual situation has deteriorated rather than improved. I am convinced that nothing can avail but churches and ministers on their knees in total dependence on God. As long as you go on organizing, people will not fall on their knees and implore God to come and heal them. It seems to me that the campaign approach trusts ultimately in techniques rather in the power of the Spirit. Graham certainly preaches the Gospel. I would never criticize him on that score. What I have criticized, for example, is that in the Glasgow campaign he had John Sutherland Bonnell address the ministers’ meets. I challenged that. Graham replied, "You know, I have more fellowship with John Sutherland Bonnell than with many evangelical ministers." I replied, "Now it may be that Bonnell is a nicer chap than Lloyd-Jones – I’ll not argue that. But real fellowship is something else: I can genuinely fellowship only with someone who holds the same basic truths that I do."

Saturday 11 September 2010

Our Seminary Curriculum (B B Warfield)

Of late, because of my involvement as a lecturer in a seminary, my thoughts have drifted to the whole question of a suitable seminary curriculum time and again. I was first trained in a seminary which was evangelical and Reformed and had a singular goal and objective – the training of pastors and preachers. The reason for such a singular objective was clear-cut to the original founders of that seminary: the greatest need of the church was for Spirit-filled and Word-centred pastors and preachers. My only other theological training was courtesy of a secular university where the objective was clearly less singular and, understandably so. Now that I am teaching in a seminary (and not a secular university), I have been asking myself if modern seminaries have perhaps forgotten why they are here in the first place. And as I scoured my memory for some direction on this subject, I suddenly recalled a piece written by B B Warfield years ago on what should constitute a seminary curriculum. Back in September 2009, I also posted a piece by him on “The Purpose of the Seminary.” This piece should be read together with that because for Warfield, the purpose of the seminary and her curriculum are ultimately defined by our perception of the function(s) of the Christian ministry.

It should be kept in mind that Warfield was addressing a particular situation, namely, that of the Presbyterian Church in America in his day, and thus, the kind of curriculum needed to address the needs in that Church then. But that much of what he has to say still applies to our situation today is clear to me as I re-read his piece here.

I will not comment on his essay, as it is self-explanatory. However, I would like to share a brief reflection by J Gresham Machen (founder of Westminster Theological Seminary) on Warfield. Machen had been a student of Warfield in Princeton, and this is what he recalled of Warfield as a teacher:

When I returned from Germany in 1906, I entered, as instructor in the New Testament department, into the teaching staff of Princeton Theological Seminary....Warfield was Professor of Systematic Theology (or “Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology,” as the chair was then more sonorously and vigorously called). And what a wonderful man he was! His learning was prodigious. No adequate notion of its breadth can be obtained even from his voluminous collected works. Consult him on the most out-of-the-way subjects, and you would find him with the “literature” of each subject at his tongue’s end and able to give you just the guidance of which you had need. Now and then, in wonderfully generous fashion, he would go out of his way to give a word of encouragement to a younger man. The old Princeton was an environment in which a man felt encouraged to do his very best.

The following essay appears in The Collected Shorter Writings of B B Warfield, Volume One, published by Presbyterian & Reformed (Phillipsburg, NJ). This article first appeared in The Presbyterian, Sept 15, 1909, pp. 7-8.

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Much of the confusion into which opinion as to the proper curriculum of a theological seminary is apparently drifting, seems to arise from altering, or perhaps we would better say varying, conceptions of the functions of the ministry for which the theological seminary is intended to provide a training. A low view of the functions of the ministry will naturally carry with it a low conception of the training necessary for it. A rationalistic view of the functions of the ministry entails a corresponding conception of the training which fits for it. An evangelical view of the functions of the ministry demands a consonant training for that ministry. And a high view of the functions of the ministry on evangelical lines inevitably produces a high conception of the training which is needed to prepare men for the exercise of these high functions.

Our Episcopalian brethren are complaining bitterly of the difficulties they are experiencing in obtaining candidates for orders with anything like adequate equipment. They may enact canons galore requiring real and precise tests to be applied. What they find impossible is to convince either examiners or examined that these tests should be seriously applied. They do not see the use of it, when all that is required of the clergy is Ut pueris placeant et declamationes fiant. Pretty nearly anybody seems to them “to know enough to get along in a parish.” Similar difficulties are not unknown to Presbyterians. All the requirements which can be stuffed into a Form of Government will not secure that a high standard of training will be maintained, if a suspicion forms itself in the minds of the administrators of this Form of Government that a minister does not need such learning. And this suspicion will inevitably form itself - and harden into a conviction - if the functions of the minister come to be conceived lowly: if the minister comes to be thought of, for example, fundamentally as merely the head of a social organization from whom may be demanded pleasant manners and executive ability; or as little more than a zealous “promoter” who knows how to seek out and attach to his enterprise a multitude of men; or as merely an entertaining lecturer who can be counted upon to charm away an hour or two of dull Sabbaths; or even - for here we have, of course, an infinitely higher conception - as merely an enthusiastic Christian eager to do work for Christ. If a minister’s whole function is summed up in these or such things - we might as well close our theological seminaries, withdraw our candidates from the colleges and schools, and seek recruits for the ministry among the capable young fellows about town. The “three R’s” will constitute all the literary equipment they require; their English Bible their whole theological outfit; and zeal their highest spiritual attainment.

It has not been characteristic of the rationalistic bodies to think meanly of the functions of the minister or of the equipment requisite to fit him to perform them. Their tendency has been to treat the minister rather as an intellectual than as a religious guide; and they have rather secularized than vulgarized his training. For a hundred years, now, our Unitarian friends have been urging upon us this secularized conception of the ministerial functions and of the minister’s training. Ex-president Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard, for example, winningly commended it to us a quarter of a century ago in a much-talked of article in The Princeton Review, but was happily set right by Dr. F. L. Patton in the next number. What now attracts attention is that this secularized conception has begun to wander away from home in these last days, and to invade evangelical circles. It is a highly honored Presbyterian elder whose voice carries far over the land, who has lately told us that the proper function of the ministry is to mediate modern advances in knowledge to the people, through the churches. Were that true, the ministry would no longer be a spiritual office, but only an educational agency; and training for it should be sought not in theological seminaries, but in the universities.

He would be the best-equipped minister who had obtained the most thorough knowledge, not of the ways of God with men and the purposes of God’s grace for men, but of the most recent currents of thought and fancy which flow up and down in the restless hearts of men. Extremes meet. Pietist and Rationalist have ever hunted in couples and dragged down their quarry together. They may differ as to why they deem theology mere lumber, and would not have the prospective minister waste his time in acquiring it. The one loves God so much, the other loves him so little, that he does not care to know him. But they agree that it is not worth while to learn to know him. The simple English Bible seems to the one sufficient equipment for the minister, because, in the fervor of his religious enthusiasm, it seems to him enough for the renovating of the world, just to lisp its precious words to man. It seems to the other all the theological equipment a minister needs, because in his view the less theology a minister has the better. He considers him ill employed in poring over Hebrew and Greek pages, endeavoring to extract their real meaning - for what does it matter what their real meaning is? The prospective minister would, in his opinion, be better occupied in expanding his mind by contemplation of the great attainments of the human spirit, and in learning to know that social animal Man, by tracing out the workings of his social aptitudes and probing the secrets of his social movements. If the minister is simply an advance agent of modern culture, a kind of University-Extension lecturer, whose whole function it is to “elevate the masses” and “improve the social organism” -- why, of course, art and literature should take the place of Greek and Hebrew, and “sociology” the place of Theology in our seminary curriculum. If the whole function of the minister is “inspirational” rather than “instructional,” and his work is finished when the religious nature of man is roused to action, and the religious emotions are set surging, with only a very vague notion of the objects to which the awakened religious affections should turn, or the ends to which the religious activities, once set in motion, should be directed - why, then, no doubt we may dispense with all serious study of Scripture, and content ourselves with the employment of its grand music merely to excite religious susceptibilities.

But, if the minister is the mouth-piece of the Most High, charged with a message to deliver, to expound and enforce; standing in the name of God before men, to make known to them who and what this God is, and what his purposes of grace are, and what his will for his people - then, the whole aspect of things is changed. Then, it is the prime duty of the minister to know his message; to know the instructions which have been committed to him for the people, and to know them thoroughly; to be prepared to declare them with confidence and with exactness, to commend them with wisdom, and to urge them with force and defend them with skill, and to build men up by means of them into a true knowledge of God and of his will, which will be unassailable in the face of the fiercest assault. No second-hand knowledge of the revelation of God for the salvation of a ruined world can suffice the needs of a ministry whose function it is to convey this revelation to men, commend it to their acceptance and apply it in detail to their needs -to all their needs, from the moment that they are called into participation in the grace of God, until the moment when they stand perfect in God’s sight, built up by his Spirit into new men. For such a ministry as this the most complete knowledge of the wisdom of the world supplies no equipment; the most fervid enthusiasm of service leaves without furnishing. Nothing will suffice for it but to know; to know the Book; to know it at first hand; and to know it through and through. And what is required first of all for training men for such a ministry is that the Book should be given them in its very words as it has come from God’s hand and in the fulness of its meaning, as that meaning has been ascertained by the labors of generations of men of God who have brought to bear upon it all the resources of sanctified scholarship and consecrated thought.

How worthily our fathers thought of the ministry! And what wise provision they made for training men for it, when they set out the curriculum of their first theological seminary! This curriculum was framed with the express design that those who pursued it should come forth from it these five things: “a sound Biblical critic”; “a defender of the Christian faith”; “an able and sound divine”; “a useful preacher and faithful pastor”; and a man “qualified to exercise discipline and to take part in the government of the Church in all its judicatories.” A well-rounded minister this, one equal to the functions which belong to a minister of the New Testament order. But that we may have such ministers, we must provide such a training for the ministry as will produce such ministers. And that means nothing less than that our theological curriculum should provide for the serious mastery of the several branches of theological science. A comprehensive and thorough theological training is the condition of a really qualified ministry. When we satisfy ourselves with a less comprehensive and thorough theological training, we are only condemning ourselves to a less qualified ministry.

Sunday 4 July 2010

The Bible and Evangelism 3: Faith and Repentance (F F Bruce)

This the third and final article by F.F. Bruce on "The Bible and Evangelism". This articles was first published as “The Bible and Evangelism. 3: Faith and Repentance,” The Methodist Recorder (14 April 1955):9.

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We have seen how the apostles and other early Christian preachers made Jesus Christ central to their message, bore testimony to His saving work as they had come to know it in their personal experience, and adapted their presentation of the gospel to the varying character, background, and understanding of their hearers. They laid equal stress on the objective truth of what God had done for men in Christ, and on the necessity that His saving work should become effective in them by the power of the Holy Spirit. And they emphasised the challenge to their hearers to make a positive response to the message which they proclaimed.

This response (if we use the simple phraseology of the apostolic preaching) took the twofold form of repentance and faith. But the very simplicity of these familiar words may tempt us to use then without properly understanding them ourselves – not to speak of making sure that our hearers understand them.

Repentance involved a complete change of attitude to God – a turning back toward Him instead of keeping one’s face averted from Him. Just what that might mean in practice depended on the people concerned. When the Jerusalem crowd that heard Peter on the day of Pentecost were convicted of the guilt of Messiah’s rejection and death, and cried out in deep alarm, “What must we do?” the first thing they were told to do was to repent (Acts 2.38). For them that meant first and foremost a complete change of mind about Jesus of Nazareth.

Hitherto they had refused to believe that He was the promised Deliverer, and had at least acquiesced in His death, if some of them had not actually clamoured for His crucifixion. But now His claims had been vindicated; God had exalted Him as Lord and Messiah. It was for them now to accept God’s verdict on Jesus, instead of the verdict of Caiaphas and his colleagues; and that change of attitude naturally carried with it a genuine sorrow of heart for their former error and blindness which had led them into such a crime.

When the Athenian Areopagus was told by Paul that God, having hitherto overlooked men’s failure to know Him aright, was now calling on all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17.30), the particular form which their change of attitude was expected to take was the abandonment of the mistaken outlook which pictured the divine nature in such a variety of material guises, together with the abandonment of their acknowledged ignorance of the true God, and the acceptance of the new and full revelation which God had now given of Himself. All turning to God in Christ involves a measure of repentance, though the actual manner of the repentance will vary in accordance with the convert’s previous belief and practice.

Faith, the regular accompaniment of repentance, naturally involved primarily the assent of the mind to the message that was proclaimed. But it involved more than that. There is a form of gospel preaching that has been called “only-believism” – not because the expression “Only believe” is not Scriptural (it is, of course), but because it is used in a loose way which suggests that an assent of the mind to certain facts about God and Christ is all that is called for. The faith for which the apostles called involved not simply belief in the factual truth of the story of Jesus as they proclaimed it, but an unconditional self-commitment to the Jesus of whom the story told. This meant that they relied upon Him there and then for the remission of sins that was offered in His name. But it meant more: it meant that they relied upon Him henceforth for victory over the power of sin. It meant – and the lesson was vividly driven home by the outward and visible sign of their baptism –that they were now Jesus’ men and women, set apart to he like Him and to carry on His work in the world through the energy supplied by His Spirit within them. There is, to be sure, an initial act of faith in the sincere response to the gospel, but that act of faith, if it is genuine, is but the beginning of a continuous life of faith – a life in which the believer (to use Professor Butterfield’s language) “holds to Christ, and for the rest is totally uncommitted.”

The apostles called for repentance, but they also called for works worthy of repentance (Acts 26.20) – a following course of life and action which showed that the repentance had been teal. They called for faith, but expected to see the genuineness of their converts’ faith demonstrated by its radical expression. The apostle who assists most uncompromisingly that we right with God by faith alone, apart from the works of the law, goes on to show how “the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us, who walk of after the flesh, but after the spirit” (Romans 8.4). The life which is lived by faith in the Son of God is nothing less than Christ Himself living out His life in the believer (Galatians 2.20); and the faith which saves is the faith which works through love (Galatians 5.6). Good works can never procure for us the favour and salvation of God; but the man who is justified by faith will practise those “good works which God has prepared in advance for us to walk in” (Ephesians 2.10).

Again: there comes a point where a man must have solitary dealings with God. But once that point is passed and he has entered into faith in Christ, his union with Christ unites him with all the other people of Christ; he is a member of the community which exists on earth to continue the ministry of the Servant of the Lord. He shares a common life with others; he neither lives nor dies to himself. The apostolic gospel, like the rest of the Bible, knows nothing of a solitary believer.

Biblical evangelism, therefore, will have room for all these emphases. And Dr. Billy Graham’s ministry, to the best of my knowledge, is not found wanting when it is tested by these apostolic criteria. When he preaches as he does on the Ten Commandments we are confronted by a standard of righteousness which will show us firstly how far we fall short of God’s glory and how much we need His pardoning grace, and which will remind us secondly that the righteous requirements of the divine law may justly be looked for in the lives of Christians. (If it be suggested that the Sermon on the Mount would serve this purpose better, we may remember that its requirements are far higher than those of the Ten Commandments, and that if we come short even of the minimum standard of the latter we need not expect to find the law of Christ easier to fulfil.)

Biblical preachers, before and after the coming of Christ, took men and women where they found them, and preached to their condition. So when Dr. Graham, knowing his fellow countrymen and their need as he does, tackles the question “Will God spare America?” there is something in his preaching uncomfortably reminiscent of the prophet. Amos. (But would he be so welcome a visitor to this country if, like the prophet Amos, he dealt in equally forthright terms with the condition of the sister-nation?)

Finally, he avoids the mistake of so many popular evangelists who have been content to win converts and have made little or no provision for their future care. Some of his keenest critics have paid tribute to his “correctness” in this regard. But it is more than “correctness”; it is sound apostolic procedure. If God “sets the solitary in families,” as Psalm 68.6 tells us, His servants are but following His example when they see to it that new converts are welcomed into the fellowship of Christ’s Church, where they may receive all the encouragement and help they need in understanding the Christian faith and living the Christian life.



© 1955 The Methodist Recorder

The Bible and Evangelism 2: Lessons in Witness-Bearing (F F Bruce)

This is the second of three articles by F F Bruce on "The Bible and Evangelism." This article was first published as F.F. Bruce, “The Bible and Evangelism. 2: Lessons in Witness-Bearing,” The Methodist Recorder (7 April 1955):9.

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In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we are told how the apostles received their evangelistic commission their risen Master in the words: “shall be my witnesses.” (This wording, incidentally, illustrates was said about the unity of the Bible in our preceding article, for it was in these terms, according to Isaiah 12, that the restored community of Israel was commissioned to spread the knowledge of the true God and His saving acts among the nations.) In the remaining chapters of Acts, and indeed we may say in the rest of the New Testament, we are told how the apostles discharged their witnessing commission.

Although so many centuries separate apostles’ time from ours, there are still practical lessons of great value to learned from the narrative of their evangelistic activity. In the Book of Acts, particularly in the earlier half of book, we have several summaries addresses delivered to various audiences by the apostles and their colleagues. Without entering here into the critical questions raised by a study of these addresses, we may confidently take them as genuine outlines of first-century Christian preaching. And we may recognise in them several features of evangelistic substance and method which the lapse of time has made obsolete.

Jesus Christ was central to their message. The apostles never forgot that their primary business was to witnesses to Christ, ambassadors of Christ. So, in all their preaching, they put Him in the foreground. His appearance on earth, they affirmed, marked the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose, whether that purpose had been explicitly revealed through the prophets of Israel or dimly at guessed by poets and sages of other races. By His life and death and resurrection God had brought His long-promised salvation near, not for Israel only but other nations, too; not for that one generation only but for their children as well.

God had reversed the sentence of death passed against Him by an earthly court by raising Him from the dead and exalting Him to a position of universal supremacy. (The “right hand of God” was as much a figure of speech to first-century Christians as it is to us.) It was therefore right and wise that men should acknowledge as Lord the one to whom God had thus committed all sovereignty, the more so as God had declared Him to be judge of the living and the dead. (And these words are not to be confined to Jesus’ role at the Last Assize; they also mean that here and now men and nations are judged by their submission to Christ and His teaching, and will stand or fall accordingly. The Last Assize is but the eschatological promulgation of a judgment already decided; as St. John insists, it is by our attitude to the light here and now that we are “justified already” or “condemned already.”)

The note of personal experience was struck. The apostles were sure of the truth of their message because it had verified itself in their own lives. Theirs was no hearsay gospel. “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard,” they said (Acts 4.20). If they proclaimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, they also proclaimed that they themselves were witnesses of His resurrection. This meant that they had not only seen Him with their eyes, but had also experienced the power of His risen life in their own lives.

But here we encounter a difficulty. In the early apostolic age the historic events which formed the basis of the preaching were very recent; the first witnesses were those who had been companions and disciples of Jesus of Nazareth during His Galilean ministry. The objective facts and the inward experience which together constituted the subject-matter of their witness were practically simultaneous. With us it is different. The historic events took place over nineteen centuries ago; how can we demonstrate their saving relevance to our contemporaries? How else than by demonstrating the difference they have made to us in such a convincing manner that our witness cannot be contradicted?

We cannot dispense with the historical foundation of our faith – the appearance of Christ in the fullness of time and His death for our sins “under Pontius Pilate.” If necessary, we must be prepared to defend the historical character of these saving events. But it is equally true that we cannot dispense with the emphasis on personal experience. It is difficult to shake the testimony of a man who says “I know this is true, because it has happened to me” – provided that his life tells the same story as his tongue! And the testimony to the power of the gospel in personal and community life must be singularly compelling if modern man is to be convinced that the events the life and death of Christ are something more than “old, unhappy, far- off things.”

If every Christian church was marked by such an infectious spirit of joy and love and fellowship and witness that those outside could not resist the invitation to come in and share it – well, the situation which faces us would be different from what it is. But why is every Christian church not marked by such an infectious spirit? Perhaps it is due in part to our failure to give the Holy Spirit the place which was His in the Church of apostolic days. And that same failure may explain much of our evangelistic ineffectiveness. For it is the Holy Spirit who can bridge the gulf of centuries that separates New Testament times from our own; it is He who can make the redeeming work of Christ real and live and relevant to men and women today.

The effectiveness of the early Christians’ witness was not due simply to the recency of the events to whose, saving significance they testified; it was due even more to the fact that in and through their testimony the Holy Spirit Himself was bearing witness to Christ and convincing those who heard of sin and righteousness and judgment. “We are witnesses to these things; and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5.32).

The method of presentation was adapted to the audience. The apostles were strategists; they went with their message to the great centres of communication from which it could most easily be disseminated. And in those centres they sought out the groups whose previous preparation had made them ready to listen to the gospel with understanding and to accept it with eagerness. In many cities such people were found among the Gentile God-fearers who had already some loose attachment to the Jewish faith and way of life, and some acquaintance with the Old Testament writings. When once a group of such people could be formed into a community of witnessing believers in Christ, they could be left to carry on their witness in the place where they lived. Thus the Church grew by what has been called “spontaneous expansion.”

But those early preachers knew the importance of finding an initial point of contact with their hearers. Their basic message was one and unchangeable; their ways of getting it across differed with the type of audience. When they spoke to a company of Jews, whether inside a synagogue or outside, they knew that they could presuppose considerable familiarity with the history of Israel and with the Old Testament literature in which that history was recorded. How simple, then, it was to proclaim Jesus as the one to whom Israel’s foregoing history led up, as the one in whom the promises made by God to Israelites of earlier days had been fulfilled! As descendants of those to whom the promises were made, the apostles’ Jewish hearers were the primary heirs of the promises. “God, having raised up His Servant, sent Him to you first” (Acts 3.26).

Again, when a God-fearing Gentile like the Ethiopian chamberlain asked Philip to help him understand the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, how easy it was for Philip to begin with that scripture and tell him the good news of Jesus!

But the great majority of Gentiles had no such background. The Hebrew scriptures and history provided no point of contact for presenting the gospel to them. But even so, God had not left them without a gospel preparation; in creation and providence and conscience He had provided means of knowing Him to which the apostles could appeal, and from which they could lead them up to the perfect revelation of Himself and His will which He had now given in Christ. If the writings of the prophets were unknown to them, certain of their own poets had given voice to sentiments which lent themselves to an evangelical sense. How this line of approach could be followed may be seen in the brief speech to the unsophisticated pagans of Lystra in Acts 14.15-17 or in the longer speech to the cultured pagans of Athens in Acts 17.22-31.

Here, then, is a good example for every evangelist to follow. Find a point of contact with your hearers; make use of the background which is already theirs, but don’t speak as if they knew things which in fact they don’t know – whether Biblical allusion, or theological terminology, or ecclesiastical practice, or anything else.



© 1955 The Methodist Recorder

Sunday 13 June 2010

The Bible and Evangelism 1: The Prime Purpose of Revelation (F F Bruce)

For all his celebrity status, Billy Graham was and remains a controversial figure. This is especially so in the United Kingdom. When Graham conducted his first crusade in the UK in 1954, he had to apologise to the House of Commons for branding the UK “socialist". While accepted by some in the UK as a gospel-centred evangelist, others (especially those of the Reformed persuasion) were uncomfortable with some of his practices, not least, the “altar call”. F F Bruce is one of the former. D Martyn Lloyd-Jones is one of the latter. In this post and the next two posts, Bruce explains why he supports the ministry of Billy Graham (with particular reference to the named crusade in 1954). It not only makes interesting reading. It reveals what so many of us often forget what lies at the heart of Bruce’s commitment to Scripture and to biblical scholarship. For Bruce, there is no dichotomy between Scripture and evangelism, for that matter, biblical scholarship and evangelism. The Bible witnesses to Christ and, therefore, any preaching that is worthy of its name must be a proclamation of Christ. I felt both a gentle rebuke and an exhortation to imitate not Billy Graham, so much as the biblical writers who so faithfully witnessed to Christ. This article first appeared in the Methodist Recorder (31March 1955): 11.
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To write something on the Bible and Evangelism, as the Editor has invited me to do, is not such an easy task after the appearance of Dr. A. M. Chirgwin's book, The Bible in World Evangelism. Is it possible to say anything that Dr. Chirgwin has not said already? Perhaps not, and yet one can make the attempt. For if our evangelism is not rooted in the Bible it will remain fruitless; and if one takes the evangelistic element out of the Bible there will not be much left. The Bible and evangelism are so vitally bound up with each other that in thinking of the one we cannot help thinking of the other.

If the constant repetition of "The Bible says...!" makes a preacher a biblical evangelist, there can be no doubt of Dr. Billy Graham's title to the description. And yet, the fact that a preacher fills his address with quotations from the Bible is not enough to make him a Biblical evangelist. We have it on higher authority than Shakespeare's that "the devil can cite scripture for his purpose." It is evident that, by a judicious placing together of isolated Bible quotations severed from their contexts, a man could appear to show that the Bible supported anything he wished. In The Pilgrim's Progress we hear of a character named Self-Will who could justify any action he chose to take by an appeal to Scriptural precedent. The Pauline letters are not the only parts of the Bible which some readers "wrest... unto their own destruction."

But misquotation or misapplication, Scripture need not be insincere. It was not so long ago in this country since the injunction in the Book of the Covenant against allowing a witch to live was thought to demand the execution of unhappy women reputed to be in league with the powers of darkness; and one can think of similar misunderstandings which are still quite prevalent. Or, in the realm of doctrine, one meets good people who will quote text (say) from the Book of Ecclesiastes as if it were the last word for Christians on the state of the dead. When we are told that "the Bible says, 'Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life'," or "the Bible says, 'This might have been sold much and given to the poor'," Let us remember that the latter quotation comes from Judas Iscariot and the former one from Satan himself. Their words are recorded in the Bible, no doubt, but we should not make the Bible responsible for their sentiments!

What then shall we say of Dr. Graham and his reiterated affirmation, "The Bible says...."? Just this, that when Dr. Graham says "The Bible says..." he quotes texts which make their contribution to what the Bible really does say. For the Bible, amid all its infinite variety, has one central message. If that were not so, the Bible would be a mere anthology of unrelated works instead of being, as it is, the record of God's saving purpose for mankind which has come to fruition in our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is no accident that a fresh interest in Christian evangelism should coincide with the rediscovery by many of our leading theologians of the unity of the Bible. This point need not be laboured here so soon after the series of articles on "The Rediscovery of the Bible" which appeared in November and December last. We have only to think of the titles of some recent books to realise the trend of much contemporary Biblical study, such as The Unity of the New Testament, by Professor A. M. Hunter, or The Unity of the Bible, by Professor H. H. Rowley. But readers of this paper may more readily recall Dr. Norman Snaith's Fernley-Hartley Lecture for 1944, The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament. In the closing part of this work Dr. Smith argued that the distinctive ideas of the Old Testament – God's salvation-procuring righteousness, His love for man, man's responsive love to God, and the Spirit of God as His enabling power in human life – are the basis of the New Testament also.

There was nothing fanciful in Paul's claim that the righteousness of God which the Gospel unfolds was attested in advance by the law and the prophets. The proclamation in which the whole Bible finds its unity is one of salvation by faith alone – by faith in Christ alone. "The true development from the Pauline theology is to be found in Luther and in John Wesley." Yes, indeed, and it is to be found in Billy Graham as well, and in many another evangelist who has not been consciously influenced by current theological trends but knows what he says and whereof he affirms because the Spirit of God has brought this saving message to birth in his own life. Whether it be by careful study or by a sound spiritual instinct, such a preacher will support his testimony to the power of the Gospel by Biblical quotations and allusions which sum up various essential aspects of the central Biblical message.

There are several statements in the New Testament which seem to sum up the prime purpose of the Biblical revelation. "The holy scriptures," we read in 2 Timothy 3.15, "are able to make thee wise unto salvation though faith which is in Christ Jesus." Peter, proclaiming the Gospel of Christ in the house of Cornelius, rounded off his preaching with the affirmation: "To him bear all the prophets witness, that through his name every one that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10.43). And we hear our Lord Himself say of the Scriptures in John 5.39, "These are they which bear witness of me."

These and similar passages refer, of course, to the Old Testament. No Christian seriously disputes that the New Testament bears witness to Christ. But part of the New Testament witness to Christ is to assure us that the Old Testament bears witness to Him as well, that He is the fulfilment and the answer to all that God promised to the fathers through the prophets. For the Christian, therefore, Christ is the key to the understanding of the Old Testament revelation: So the apostles and other members of the primitive Church discovered, and their discovery made the Old Testament a new and intelligible book to them. The prophets themselves might have searched and inquired diligently to discover what person or what time was pointed to by "the Spirit of the Messiah” within them (1 Peter 1.11); but the apostles spent no long time in such inquiry after the saving events had been fulfilled in their midst: "This is that," they said, "which was spoken by the prophet" (Acts 2.16).

They did not need to adopt elaborate allegorising or typological methods of interpretation in order to discern this witness to Christ in the Old Testament; and neither do we, in spite of a recrudescence of this fashion in some theological circles today. Professor C. H. Dodd has recently shown us (in According to the Scriptures) that the New Testament writers' use of the Old Testament exhibits "the rudiments of an original, coherent and flexible method of exegesis" which has regard to the primary context and involves a distinctive interpretation of history as subject to the sovereignty of God. And it is difficult to escape his conclusion that the mind which gave birth to this "most original and fruitful process of rethinking the Old Testament" was no other than the mind of Christ.

St. John tells his readers that the purpose which governed the selection and presentation of material in his Gospel was that they might believe Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they might have life in His name (John 20.31). One might very well argue that the same purpose underlies the other Gospels too, and the whole New Testament, and indeed all the Biblical writings inasmuch as they bear witness to Christ. But is not this the very essence of Christian evangelism – to bear witness to Christ in order that others may believe in him? Was not this the very commission with which the risen Christ charged His disciples? If, then, the purpose of the Bible and the essence of evangelism are so completely involved in one another, how can true and effective evangelism be other than thoroughly Biblical?

So, when I find a man in whose own experience the message of the Bible has come to life, a man who knows Jesus Christ and is eager to introduce Him to others, I am not greatly concerned whether his theology or his Biblical exegesis tallies in all respects with mine. He commends the crucified and exalted Jesus as an all-sufficient Saviour, his theology is sound; if he knows that the dominant note throughout the Bible is one of witness to this Saviour, and keeps on sounding that note, his exegesis is not likely to go hopelessly astray. That man is my Christian brother; God bless him and his ministry.

© 1955 The Methodist Recorder

Sunday 9 May 2010

Beware of Philosophy: A Warning To Biblical Scholars (Norman L Geisler)

I was encouraged by several friends who found my most recent posts (E J Young on “Some Thoughts on Old Testament Scholarship”) helpful to them. In line with these recent posts, I now include an extract of this article, “Beware of Philosophy: A Warning to Biblical Scholars” by Norman L Geisler. Geisler is no stranger to many of my age. At a time when evangelicalism was wading through uncertain waters, Geisler wrote profusely on apologetics, the inspiration of Scripture, and even made a rare foray into the Old Testament. Way before Josh McDowell popularised apologetics, Geisler was already a stalwart in defending the historicity of Scripture. I remember reading his books and finding a firm foundation for my faith in the trustworthiness of Scripture. He has continued to write and sometimes stingingly only because (as this article shows) he is genuinely concerned about the way in which many younger evangelical scholars are going about their “business”. In the first part of this article, published with the same title in the Journal of Evangelical Theological Society 42/1 (March 1999): 3-19, Geisler warned of the different kinds of philosophy which modern evangelical scholars are besotted (infatuated) with: naturalism, agnosticism, evolutionism, progressivism, existentialism, phenomenology, conventionalism, processism, Platonic allegorism, Ockhamistic nominalism, Aristotelianism, anthropological monism, and historical criticism. Having duly warned us (and I have no doubt he knows what he is talking about, having taught at two distinguished seminaries and now is Distinguished Professor of Apologetics at Veritas Evangelical Seminary, USA), he then informs us as to how we ought to beware of philosophy which is what I have posted here.

I find his warning and exhortation both timely and necessary, especially for me as I soon embark on the “business” of teaching full-time in a theological seminary. I share this in the same hope as my recent posts on Old Testament scholarship, that those of us who are preparing for the ministry – in our churches or seminaries or the mission field – will take to heart what Geisler has to say here.


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II. HOW TO BEWARE OF PHILOSOPHY: INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL ADVICE

I turn now to the final section of this discussion: “How to Beware of Philosophy.” My advice here is divided into two parts: intellectual and spiritual. First, some intellectual cautions to evangelical exegetes.

1 Avoid the Desire to Become a Famous Scholar. There seems to be an almost irresistible temptation among many scholars, particularly younger ones, to “make a name for themselves.” In biblical terms this is the sin of pride of which Holy Scripture warns us. Pride distorts our vision of the truth because it is the presumption to knowledge born of ignorance. It is humbling to remind ourselves that the apostle Paul explicitly exhorts us that though “I understand all mysteries and all knowledge... but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:2). Scholarship should be used to build Christ’s spiritual kingdom, not to build an academic kingdom for one’s self.

St. Augustine surely identified the root problem when he wrote: “And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For pride is the beginning of sin.”(53) St. Paul agreed when he warned against putting novices in positions of leadership (1 Tim 3:6). And the apostle John warned against the “pride of life” as one of our three basic sins (1 John 2:16).

2 Avoid the Temptation to Be Unique. My second piece of advice is closely associated with the first. It is this: Avoid the desire to be unique. The temptation to this form of pride seems to be endemic to the higher academic process. For by its very nature a doctoral dissertation is usually supposed to be an original contribution to knowledge. But if the scholar is to make a discovery that no one else has ever made, then it is an almost irresistible temptation to congratulate oneself for being the originator of this new truth. Little wonder the apostle warned us that “knowledge puffs up” but “love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). The Scripture alerts us to the fact that the occupation of intellectuals on the modern academy is little different than that of those on the ancient Mars Hill who “spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21, emphasis added).

3 Do Not Dance on the Edges. My next bit of advice for evangelical exegetes is to avoid dancing on the edges. Do not see how far the borders of evangelicalism can be stretched to accommodate the latest scholarly fad. Do not flirt with the latest critical methodology. Some of our own ETS members have been caught in this trap. It would appear that Grant Osborne temporarily fell prey to this temptation when he claimed that Matthew expanded on Jesus’ supposedly original statement to baptize in his (Jesus’) name, turning it into the Trinitarian formula recorded in Matt 28:18–20.(54) Other biblical scholars, like J. Ramsey Michaels, went over the line of orthodoxy and declared that in some cases the Gospel writers created, not merely reported, the sayings of Jesus.(55)

The story is told of a king who lived on a narrow, winding mountain road edged by a steep cliff. When interviewing potential chauffeurs he was careful to ask how close they could get to the edge without falling over. The first driver claimed he could get within a foot with no problem. The second driver boasted of having the ability to drive within a few inches without endangering the king’s life. The last candidate said he would drive as far away from the edge as he possibly could. Which one do you think the king hired? The last one, of course. And his royal choice is good advice for biblical exegetes who seem to relish dancing on the edge of evangelical scholarship.

My next suggestion is this:

4 Steer Right to Go Straight. According to aeronautic experts, when a propeller-driven airplane takes off it naturally veers left unless it is steered right. Based on my observations of evangelical institutions and leaders over the past half century, it appears to me that the same principle applies. The only way to keep on the straight orthodox path is to keep turning to the right. Churches, schools, and even evangelical scholarship will naturally go left, unless they are deliberately turned to the right. The prevailing winds of doctrine blow against us. And if we are to resist them we must have a firm grip on the wheel of the Good Ship Evangelicalism and steer it to the right.

5 Do Not Trade Orthodoxy for Academic Respectability. One of the top leaders of a large Protestant denomination was once asked how his denomination drifted to the left. His analysis of the situation was brief but penetrating. He noted that they wanted accreditation for their schools. In order to attain this they needed academic respectability for their teachers. Thus, they sent them to some of the best graduate schools in the world. When they returned from these unorthodox institutions they brought with them academic respectability. Sadly, he added: "We achieved scholarly recognition. But we sacrificed our orthodoxy for academic respectability." But this is a trade that no evangelical should ever make. As evangelical scholars we must learn to bear, if necessary, the offense of being called "fundamentalists," "obscurantists," and theologically "dinosauric," along with the offense of the Gospel. In this regard, one cannot help but admire our colleague and brother Thomas Oden who proudly calls himself a "paleo-orthodox." Or the conviction and courage of Eta Linnemann who literally trashed her own works upon being converted to Christ and urged her students to do the same.

We must reject the temptation to believe "New is true." It is far more likely that "Old is gold." For truth stands the test of time, while recent error has not been around long enough to be tried in the balance and be found wanting.

6 Reject any Methodology Inconsistent with the Bible or Good Reason. Unfortunately, most evangelical biblical exegetes have not digested Etienne Gilson’s insightful volume, The Unity of Philosophical Experience. In it he demonstrates how one philosophy after another led those who embrace the wrong method into undesirable and even disastrous cul-de-sacs. The lesson for biblical exegetes is the same: Adopt a false methodology and it will lead logically to a wrong theology. How we do our exegesis will lead to what results we obtain from it. Exegetical methods are to their results what meat grinders are to meat: Bologna in, bologna out – no matter how finely it is ground. Biblical and theological methods are not metaphysically neutral. To believe so is to be a candidate for the Colossian warning: “Beware of philosophy.”

I turn now to some spiritual advice for biblical exegetes. First and foremost,

1 Always Choose Lordship Over Scholarship. One of our society’s noted members, the late Professor J. Barton Payne, told of a conversation he had with a negative Bible critic who denies the creation of Adam and Eve, the Noahic Flood, Jonah in the Great Fish, one Isaiah, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and other orthodox beliefs. When Professor Payne pointed out that Jesus had personally affirmed all of these in the Gospels, his liberal friend shockingly replied: “Well, I know more about the Bible than Jesus did”! This is a clear example of putting scholarship over Lordship. If Jesus was the Son of God (which the New Testament confirms he was), then whatever he affirmed about the Old Testament is absolutely true. Indeed, Jesus claimed divine authority for his teaching (Matt 28:18–20). Since every true evangelical believes this, there should be no hesitation whenever there is a conflict to choose ancient Lordship over modern scholarship.

Several years ago, I wrote the author of a commentary on Jonah from a good evangelical school who had declared in it that it was not necessary to take Jonah literally. After pointing out that Jesus took it literally in Matt 12:40–42, I asked him if it was necessary for us as believers in Christ to believe what Jesus taught. Surprisingly, he had apparently not considered this, and the statement was subsequently retracted.

2 Do Not Allow Morality to Determine Methodology. One of our respected members, Henry Krabbendam, said it boldly and bluntly when he pointed out that when one departs from the faith by adopting a wrong methodology it is usually one of two reasons: “First, it is possible that an apostate methodology arises from an apostate heart. Second, it is possible that an apostate methodology to a greater or lesser extent has slipped into the thinking of a man who is otherwise committed to Christ.”(56) Whatever the case, in the words of the apostle Paul, those who fall prey have failed to “destroy arguments and every proud obstacle against the knowledge of God and bring every thought captive to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). Herein stands the great challenge of the Christian scholar: not only to live Christocentrically but to think Christocentrically – a task that is forcefully set forth in the excellent work by J. P. Moreland titled Love Your God with All Your Mind.

3 Do Not Allow Sincerity to be a Test of Orthodoxy. In spite of this radical departure from orthodoxy noted earlier, Benedict Spinoza, the grandfather of modern negative biblical criticism, insisted on his biblical fidelity, declaring, “I am certified of this much: I have said nothing unworthy of Scripture or God’s Word, and I have made no assertions which I could not prove by the most plain arguments to be true. I can, therefore, rest assured that I have advanced nothing which is impious or even savours of impiety.”(57) This reminds one of Fuller Seminary’s defense for keeping Paul Jewett on their faculty after he denied the inerrancy of the Bible by claiming that the apostle Paul was wrong in what he affirmed in 1 Cor 11:3. After examining Jewett’s views carefully for an extended period of time, they decided to retain him on the faculty because he sincerely believed his view was orthodox and because he had faithfully taught at Fuller for many years.(58) Since when did sincerity and longevity become the test for orthodoxy!

III. CONCLUSION

In the final analysis, preserving orthodoxy is not a purely intellectual matter. It is spiritual warfare. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12). The enemy of our soul wants also to deceive our minds. He desires to destroy good teaching which leads to good living. By undermining our orthodoxy he can weaken our “orthopraxy.” So we need to take on the whole armor of God in order to withstand the wiles of the Wicked One. It is noteworthy that this armor includes among other things the wide belt of truth which holds the rest of the armor together (Eph 6:10–18).

In brief, my conclusion is this: We cannot properly beware of philosophy unless we be aware of philosophy. To use a medical analogy, the person most likely to catch a disease is the one who does not understand it and thus takes no precautions against it. After all, doctors do not wear gloves and masks to hide warts and moles. One of the most serious problems for evangelical exegetes is that many are not philosophically sophisticated. They are not trained to snoop out alien presuppositions lurking beneath the surface of their discipline. In short, many evangelical exegetes have not taken time to be aware of philosophy and, hence, do not known how to fulfill Paul’s admonition to “beware of philosophy.”

It is of more than passing interest to note the conservative influence of philosophically trained, committed evangelical schools. In addition to names already mentioned, I list among them the members of our own Evangelical Philosophical Society, including David Beck, Frank Beckwith, David Clark, Winfried Corduan, Douglas Geivett, and Gary Habermas. William Craig deserves special mention, since he did master’s and doctoral work not only in philosophy but also in New Testament and theological studies. Younger scholars like these, with their orthodox theological commitment and philosophical sophistication, are in a position to avoid the theological errors into which philosophically untrained biblical scholars too often fall. Error, even serious error, is a very subtle thing. The reason for this was fingered by Irenaeus when he noted that “Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced... more true than truth itself.”(59) Thus we need to be alert both spiritually and philosophically to avoid it.

Speaking of being philosophically informed, the immortal words of Plato are applicable to biblical exegetes as well. In Book V of the Republic Plato wrote, “Unless... either philosophers become kings in our state or those who we now call our kings and rulers take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction of these two things, political power and philosophical intelligence,... there can be no cessation of troubles... for our states, nor I fancy for the human race either.”(60) Applying this thought to the topic at hand, I would urge that: Unless either philosophers become biblical exegetes in our schools or those who we now call biblical exegetes take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction of these two things, biblical exegesis and philosophical intelligence, there can be no cessation of theological troubles for our schools, nor I fancy for the Christian church either.

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(53) St. Augustine, The City of God, 14.13, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (ed. Philip Schaff, 14 vols., 1st series, 1886–94; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952).

(54) Grant Osborne’s first article where he claimed Matthew expanded Jesus’ original monadic baptismal formula (in Matt. 28:18–20) into a triadic Trinitarian one is in JETS 19/2 (1976): 73– 85 titled “Redaction Criticism and the Great Commission: A Case Study Toward a Biblical Understanding of Inerrancy.” Osborne’s redaction of his view is found in JETS 21/2 (June 1978): 117–130.

(55) See J. Ramsey Michaels, Servant and Son: Jesus in Parable and Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981).

(56) Norman L. Geisler, Inerrancy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980) 445.

(57) Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise 166.

(58) In the exact words of the Committee, “The Committee, while maintaining its disagreements with and regret of some portions of Man as Male and Female, which appear to question the authority of the Apostle Paul, recommends that the Seminary take no other action in the light of Dr. Jewett’s proven integrity, his long-standing contribution to the upholding and teaching of the biblical faith at Fuller, and his reassurance of loyalty to the Fuller doctrinal standards.” “Ad Hoc Committee Charities Relationship Between Paul K. Jewett’s Man as Male and Female and the Seminary Statement of Faith,” Theology News and Notes, published for the Fuller Theological Seminary Alumni (Special Issue, 1976) 21.

(59) Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.2, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ed. Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989) Vol. 1.

(60) Plato, Republic 5.473d, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato (ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns; Pantheon Books, 1964).