Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Thomas Watson’s Body of Divinity

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Watson, Thomas. A body of Divinity. 1692; Reprinted, Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1965.

This book is the first part of Thomas Watson’s A Practical Body of Divinity, reprinted in three volumes by Banner of Truth. Watson takes questions and answers from the Westminster Shorter Catechism and expounds them. The sermonic and exhortatory nature of this book makes it useful for personal or family worship, but the content is profound enough to be referenced along with other systematic theologies. For instance, I find Watson’s discussion of what it means to glorify God unrivaled.

Annas on Ancient Philosophy

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Annas, Julia. Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

This is another superb entry in the Very Short Introduction series. It is not a historical survey of ancient philosophy, moving from one philosopher to another. Rather, each chapter is an essay on a topic related to ancient philosophy. For instance, there are chapters on the difference between humans and animals, why people study philosophy, or ancient views of happiness. Each of these chapters is well-served by being read slowly and pondered.

A brief look at her chapter on happiness may help show the value of the book. Annas helps modern readers enter this ancient world by looking at a story told by fifth century BC philosopher Prodicus in which a man named Heracles is met by two women, one representing Pleasure and the other representing Virtue. Heracles is seeking for happiness, and the two paths for achieving it are pleasure and virtue. According to Annas “Prodicus was one of the first philosophers to make explicit something important; we are all, in our lives, aiming at happiness” (40). Yet this ancient framing of the problem raises a problem for moderns:

Our modern conception of happiness is frequently understood in terms of pleasure and desire-satisfaction (something aided by the wide and confused way we use ‘happy’), and this can make it hard at first to see the appeal of ancient theories of happiness. If happiness is just getting what you want, then the ideas in the Choice of Heracles make no sense. [47]

By contrast, “Happiness in ancient ethical thought is not a matter of feeling good or being pleased; it is not a feeling or emotion at all, it is your life as a whole which is said to be happy or not” (42). So in contrast with a modern understanding in which moments of pleasure are happiness, in the ancient understanding moments of pleasure are often major obstacles to happiness with reference to life as a whole.

Annas defends the ancient idea that happiness is everyone’s last end: “The overall end which unifies all your concerns has to be complete: everything you do or go for is sought for the sake of it, while it is not sought for the sake of anything further. It also has to be self-sufficient: it does not leave out any element in your life that has value as part of living well. . . . And on the level of common sense or intuition, happiness is the only aim, plausible as an aim in your life as a whole, which is complete and self-sufficient” (43). Annas also seems to agree with the ancients in distinguishing happiness from hedonism. Annas observes that “hedonism, the view that pleasure is our ethical end, is always on the defensive in ancient ethics.” There are only two Greek philosophies which make pleasure man’s chief end, the Cyrenaics and Epicureans. The former had trouble defending the idea that always seeking immediate pleasure would bring happiness. The latter so redefined pleasure as seeking the tranquil life in the long term that it seems to no longer be maintaining a hedonistic position (44, 46-47).

Ryan McGraw Reviews Systematic Theologies by Michael Horton and John Frame

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McGraw, Ryan M. “Shifting Paradigms in Reformed Systematic Theology: A Review Article of Michael Horton’s The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way,” Puritan Reformed Journal 5, no. 2 (July 2013): 245-59.

McGraw praises Horton for writing an orthodox, well-organized, systematic theology that addresses contemporary challenges. However, McGraw critiques Horton for adopting new paradigms in three areas.

First, Horton weaves speech-act theory throughout his treatment of theology, connecting the Father with locution, the Son with illocution, and the Spirit with perlocution. McGraw observes, “The advantage to this theory is that it involves all three persons of the Godhead simultaneously and distinctly; the disadvantage is that it makes everything that God does a speech-act or declaration” (248). One infelicitous effect noted by McGraw is the tendency to subsume all of soteriology under the forensic declaration of justification. He is also concerned that it “adopts too many aspects of a post-modern metaphysic and epistemology” (249).

Second, Horton also makes use of the essence/energies distinction common in Eastern Orthodox Trinitarian theology. While Horton sees a convergence with Reformed theology and Eastern Orthodox theology at this point, McGraw does not. He argues that this distinction leads to viewing God as “unknowable” rather than “incomprehensible.” He also thinks that “this distinction threatens to shift soteriology from solving an ethical problem to addressing an ontological one.” Horton clearly does not want to embrace the latter and probably would not want to embrace the former, but McGraw thinks the essence/energies distinction pushes him in those directions.

Third, McGraw critiques Horton for viewing the entire ordo salutis through the lens of justification. By making justification, rather than union with Christ, the central reality of soteriology from which the other benefits flow, all of soteriology, even regeneration, become forensic. This approach also leads Horton to minimize the accomplished/application distinction and opens the door (though Horton does not proceed through it) to antinomianism.

I found McGraw’s review helpful to keep in mind as I use Horton’s The Christian Faith and as I work through his more detailed four book set theology.

McGraw, Ryan. “Toward a Biblical, Catholic, and Reformed Theology: An Assessment of John Frame’s Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief.” Puritan Reformed Journal 8, no. 2 (2016): 197-240.

McGraw’s assessment of Frame’s Systematic Theology can be summarized in a paragraph at the beginning of his review:

“His theology is simultaneously brilliant, innovative, and eccentric. Its primary strengths are the clarity of his arguments, his extensive use of Scripture, and his ability to interact critically with unbelief. The primary weakness of his theology lies in its lack of connection to historic Reformed theology. This is a problem because the absence of historical theology will almost always result in detachment from the confession of the church and an interpretation of the Bible that detracts from rather than promotes church unity. [198]

Despite general positive comments here and at the end of the review, McGraw’s treatment is otherwise entirely negative. He first faults Frame for focusing on the doctrines of God, the knowledge of God, and Scripture to the comparative neglect of Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. This is true enough, but as it reflects the emphasis in Frame’s teaching and writing ministry, it seems hard to fault him on this point. I don’t have the impression that Frame was attempting to write a standard classroom textbook.

McGraw also critiques Frame for building his theology around the concept of Lordship. He thinks that organizing theology around the attributes of Lordship, defined as authority, control, and presence, undermines the doctrine of simplicity by singling out some attributes at the expense of others. He also observes that in the Bible Yhwh refers to God in his totality rather than just to his lordship. Finally, Lordship is a relative attribute, one that has to do with God’s relationship to his people rather than to God himself. Regarding the first of these critiques, while I’ve not found the control, authority, presence triad as useful as some of Frame’s other triads, I don’t think Frame’s point is ontological. It is a heuristic device. The third point may have some merit, but as the Bible itself focuses on revealing God in relation to his people, I wouldn’t make too much of this point. The second point is valid. I have long thought that Frame’s move from Yhwh to the title of “Lord” was exegetically untenable and theologically thin.

Related to this critique is a critique of Frame’s multiperspectivalism. McGraw seems to think that Frame’s normative, situational, and existential perspectives remove Scripture from its place of ultimate authority, but this is clearly a misreading of Frame which he addresses in his Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (I don’t know if he addresses it in his ST as I’ve not read Frame’s ST).

McGraw also dings Frame for defining theology as “the application of Scripture, by persons, to every area of life.” McGraw says that historically the Reformed affirmed “that theology was both theoretical and practical.” He does not think Frame’s definition captures this. But Frame’s definition is not much different from Ames who, according to McGraw, “famously defined theology as the doctrine of living to God.” McGraw could also have mentioned William Perkins’s definition: “the science of living blessedly forever.” Frame is not substantially different from these historic definitions, and he does not deny the theoretical side of theology. So it is difficult to see the nit that is being picked here.

McGraw next faults Frame for holding to a covenant of creation district from the covenant of works and for over-reliance on studies of ANE covenants in framing his doctrine of the covenants. I’m with McGraw on these criticisms.

Finally, McGraw critiques Frame for a methodology that is “something close to biblicism.” The value of these critiques vary. The knock against triperspectivalism because “this construction does not arise from simple and straightforward exegesis” misses Frame’s own point about his methodology. It seeks to hold Frame to a standard he hasn’t set for himself. As the standard is neither Frame’s nor McGraw’s own, the critique seems unnecessary. The critique that Frame fails to engage with historical theology is valid. I’ve long thought that this is Frame’s greatest weakness. The objection that Frame does not hold strictly to creeds or confessions is more difficult. Creeds and confessions are important but they are not infallible. If I am disturbed by Frame’s lack of engagement with historical theology (and I am), I am also concerned about those who want to settle theological debates by appealing to creeds or historical theology without also making the exegetical case for their position.

In general this was a helpful review, but I think McGraw would have enhanced the force of his best critiques if he had replaced his weakest critiques with measured praise of specific aspects of Frame’s work.

 

Review of Biblical Authority after Babel by Kevin Vanhoozer

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Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Biblical Authority After Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2016.

Kevin Vanhoozer’s Biblical Authority after Babel was written on the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in defense of the Reformation. Vanhoozer takes seriously critiques of the Reformation made popular by Christian Smith and Brad Gregory, namely, that the Reformation led to interpretive chaos (and thus to an increasingly splintered Christianity) and secularism.

Vanhoozer rejects these claims. For instance, he observes that secularization is not a result of the Reformation. It is the result of reading the Bible in an academic, critical way rather than as Scripture. In other words, secularism is directly contrary to the Reformation approach to Scripture. Furthermore, Vanhoozer demonstrates that neo-scholastic Thomism was more amenable to secularism than the theology of the Reformation (this is a point also made by Roman Catholic Ressourcement theologians in the mid-twentieth century; see Rowland, Ratzinger’s Faith [Oxford University Press, 2008], kindle loc., 486-603).

Perhaps more plausible is the claim that Protestants cannot agree on their interpretations of Scripture, which is a problem that leads to fragmentation. However, Vanhoozer argues that “Mere Protestant Christians” actually agree on the fundamentals of the gospel story. This does not make disagreement unimportant, but it does reveal a fundamental unity that lies back of that disagreement.

Nevertheless, Vanhoozer does not leave the matter there. He engages with the issue of epistemology. He rejects an epistemology based on the church’s magisterial authority. He also rejects epistemologies based on the authority of the scholar or the autonomous individual. Instead, he argues for an epistemology based on the testimony of Scripture as self-authenticating through the work of the Spirit. As already noted, Vanhoozer by this is not advocating a raw individualism. Like the Reformers, tradition plays an important role in his theological and exegetical method. Tradition does not exercise magisterial authority, but it does serve the interpreter. The Bible alone is the final authority, but tradition gives important testimony regarding right interpretation.

So how does the preceding impact church polity and unity? Vanhoozer argues that local churches are given authority to make judgments regarding right belief and practice. They have the responsibility to rule on what Scripture teaches in these matters for the sake of “the integrity of the gospel.” (Churches typically exercise this responsibility by adopting confessions of faith and catechisms.) Vanhoozer further argues that these “local churches have an obligation to read in communion with other local churches.” (This can be seen by the way different local churches adopt the same confessions as other churches or adapt the confessions of other churches.)

Vanhoozer grants that there is a tension sometimes between unity and the purity of the gospel. As a result, he rejects ecumenism and sectarianism. He affirms denominations that hold strongly to their beliefs and that also can cooperate with denominations that differ with them.

In the end, I think that Vanhoozer successfully defends the Reformation from recent critiques. I also think his model for church unity and diversity in the present age is correct. However, based on what I know of Vanhoozer’s ecclesial situation, our judgments about implementation differ. I think this demonstrates that models can only take us so far. Spiritual wisdom is always needed to apply the model.

Review of Bock, Jesus According to Scripture

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Bock, Darrell L. Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002.

One of the challenges in writing a study of the Gospels is how to arrange one’s approach. On the one hand, maintaining the narrative integrity of each Gospel is important for understanding that Gospel. On the other hand, understanding the parallels among the Gospels is also important. Bock addresses this issue by designing the core of this book as a unique harmony of the Gospels. Unlike a traditional harmony that seeks to arrange the Gospels in some sort of chronological order with the parallels displayed, Bock tries to keep “the basic narrative lines [of each Gospel] intact” in the way he moves through the material. This means that some parallels are covered more than once as they occur in different contexts in different Gospels.

I used this book as a guide for reading through the Gospels. At the head of each section, Bock lists the references of Gospel passage(s) being considered. I would read these and then read Bock’s summary of the passage.

The final part of this book is a well-written theology of the Four Gospels.

I worked through this book slowly over the course of several years, and in that time a second edition came out. In addition, the theology in the back of the first edition was expanded into a separate book.

Sermon on the Mount Resources

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I just completed teaching a Sunday School cycle on the Beatitudes. These were the resources that I used week-by-week.

Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord’s Prayer, The Beatitudes. Ancient Christian Writers. Edited by Johannes Quasten and Jospeh C. Plumpe. Translated by Hilda C. Graef. New York: Paulist, 1954.

Gregory of Nyssa, along with Irenaeus, has become one of my favorite church fathers to read. While he has the typical weaknesses of patristic interpreters, he also is an insightful and practical reader of Scripture. Even at points where I didn’t follow his exegesis, I was often stimulated to work through the passage from an angle I hadn’t thought of before. On a previous occasion I’d worked through the section on the Lord’s Prayer. It too is well worth reading.

Augustine of Hippo. Commentary on the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount with Seventeen Related Sermons. The Fathers of the Church. Edited by Hermigild Dressler. Translated by Denis J. Kavanagh. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1951.

This is an early commentary by Augustine, and it is very brief. It could be skipped.

John Chrysostom. “Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople on the Gospel according to St. Matthew.” In Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series. Edited by Philip Schaff. Translated by George Prevost and M. B. Riddle. New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888.

Brief comments, moderately helpful. I’d still make Gregory of Nyssa my go-to patristic commentator.

Simonetti, Manlio, ed. Matthew 1–13. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

I typically don’t use this series because I’d rather have a full patristic commentary with all of the context rather than snippets chosen by an editor. However, I had this at hand, and I did find selections form an anonymous unfinished commentary on Matthew to be valuable at certain points.

Luther, Martin. The Sermon on the Mount and the Magnificat. Luther’s Works. Edited by Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999.

Luther’s comments were usually helpful. He works through difficult problems carefully, and even when I came out at a different point, I found his perspective worth considering.

Calvin, John. Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Translated by William Pringle. 1845; Reprinted, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996.

Calvin’s comments on the beatitudes are brief. They are fine, but I found more help from the Puritan authors.

Perkins, William. “A Godly and Learned Exposition of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount [1608].” In The Works of Willima Perkins. Volume 1. Edited by Joel R. Beeke, Derek W. H. Thomas, and J. Stephen Yuille. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2014.

This is a phenomenal exposition. It lives up to its title. It is a learned exposition. There were points were its definition of key terms in the Beatitudes could not be bettered. And it is a godly exposition. Perkins provides not only exegesis but application, and his application is helpful even at the present. I wouldn’t want to teach the Sermon on the Mount without this volume.

Watson, Thomas. The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-10. 1660; Reprinted, Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2014.

If Thomas Watson has written it, read it. This may have been the most helpful of all the resources that I drew on for this study. I didn’t always agree with Watson’s exegesis, but I often did. Watson also exemplifies the Puritan familiarity with the entire Bible and the Puritan method of categorizing. For instance, on “Blessed are they who mourn,” Watson ransacks the entire Bible for references to mourning and categorizes various kinds of sinful mourning and various kinds of righteous morning. He also gives searching applications of the passages.

Broadus, John A. Matthew. American Commentary. Edited by Alvah Hovey. 1886; Reprinted, Valley Forge: Judson Press, n.d.

I like Broadus, but I didn’t find him especially helpful for this particular study.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. 1937; Reprinted, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

I looked at this resource more to familiarize myself with Bonhoeffer and less as a resource for this study. I didn’t find him especially helpful.

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 1960.

These are printed sermons, so the coverage is a bit uneven. Often the description of the blessed people receives more coverage than the blessings. But this is a helpful resource worth consulting.

Carson, D. A. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World: An Exposition of Matthew 5-10. 1978, 1987; Reprinted, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999.

I find this a helpful resource to read alongside Carson’s Matthew commentary. Since he’s focused on a section of Matthew and since these are published sermons there is a helpful expansion beyond what is given in the commentary.

Guelich, Robert A. The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding. Waco: Word, 1982.

Guelich has a host of critical assumptions that I don’t share. And the format of this commentary is akin to that of the Word Biblical Commentary, so that one has to flip to various sections to find all of his comments on a particular verse. Nonetheless, I found his lexical discussions and his treatment of parallel passages in both the OT and NT helpful.

Carson, D. A. “Matthew.” in Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Volume 8. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.

This study confirmed my previous impressions that Carson’s commentary on Matthew is among the very best Matthew commentaries. He is concise, but he was again and again the most helpful recent commentator on each beatitude. He also makes connections with OT passages that Jesus was alluding to. If I were to use only one modern commentary on Matthew for this study, this would be it.

Stott, John R. W. The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture. The Bible Speaks Today. Edited by John R. W. Stott. Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985.

Stott’s exposition is on point and helpful. If I hadn’t been drawing on Perkins and Watson as much, I probably would have drawn on Stott more. This would be a good commentary to recommend if someone was wanting to read a brief commentary along with Sermon.

Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. New American Commentary. Edited by David S. Dockery. Nashville: Broadman, 1992. 

I’ve regularly found Blomberg to have unique and valuable insights in this commentary despite its brevity. However, though I often agreed with his interpretations of the Beatitudes, he was so brief that he wasn’t giving me anything that I hadn’t already picked up from other sources.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel according to Matthew. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Edited by D. A. Carson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.

Morris’s commentary is fine. But I typically find that though he is more verbose than Carson, he ends up saying less.

Allison, Dale C. The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination. New York: Herder & Herder, 1999.

I couldn’t afford the three volume ICC set by Davies and Allison this time around, so I picked up this slim volume by Allison instead. Allison writes from a critical perspective, but he is also interested in the history of interpretation. I found him helpful at several points.

Nolland, John. The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Edited by I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

I’ve had a poor opinion of this commentary based on brief encounters flipping through it in bookstores. But in this study of the Beatitudes, I’d rank him right up with Carson as one of the most helpful modern commentators. I thought his interpretations were typically on point, and his connections with OT material that lay behind Jesus’s sermon were helpful.

France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Edited by Gordon D. Fee. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.

I was expecting France to be among the most helpful recent commentators. He did have a superb discussion of what “blessed” means. But his discussions of the individual beatitudes were not as helpful as Carson, Nolland, or Luz.

Luz, Ulrich. Matthew 1–7. Revised edition. Hermeneia. Edited by Helmut Koester. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007.

Though not conservative, Luz is helpful in providing cross references and surveys of the history of how the verses have been interpreted.

Turner, David L. Matthew. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Edited by Robert W. Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.

I’m routinely disappointed by this commentary. For its size it doesn’t say much.

Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.

Keener’s treatment of the beatitudes is fairly brief. I expect he’ll be more helpful on other passages in Matthew.

Jason DeRouchie on OT Promises and the Christian

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DeRouchie, Jason S. “Is Every Promise ‘Yes’? Old Testament Promises and the Christian,” Themelios 42.1 (2017): 16-45.

This is a helpful article that discusses the application of Old Testament promises to the Christian. He helpfully provides numbers of examples where Old Testament promises are repeated in the New Testament. He situates these promises in their Old Testament context and then looks at their use in the New Testament.

The examples prepare the reader to ask how Old Covenant promises relate to those in the New Covenant. DeRouchie presents “Five Foundational Principles” to answer this question.

  1. “Christians Benefit from OT Promises Only through Christ.” Here he rests emphasis on Christ as the ultimate Seed to whom the Old Covenant promises were made.”
  2. “All Old Covenant Curses Become New Covenant Curses.” Here the key text is Deuteronomy 30:6-7, an anticipation of the New Covenant, which states the God place the covenant curses on Israel’s enemies. The New Testament broadens the application to all of God’s people.
  3. As Part of the New Covenant, Christians Inherit the Old Covenant’s Original and Restoration Blessings.” Here his key text in 2 Corinthians 7:1 in which Paul applies Old Covenant promises regarding life and God’s presence from Ezekiel 37:27 and Leviticus 26:11-12 to Christians.
  4. “Through the Spirit, Some Blessings of the Christian Inheritance Are Already Enjoyed, Whereas Others Are Not Yet.”
  5. “All True Christians Will Persevere and Thus Receive Their Full Inheritance.” Here he contrasts the Old Covenant’s “do this and live” requirement with the New Covenant’s promises that the true saints will persevere.

This section is helpful, but I did find myself desiring greater clarity on what DeRouchie considered to be the Old Covenant. Is it the Mosaic Covenant, the Mosaic and Abrahamic Covenants, all the covenants prior to the New Covenant? It seems that he is using an expansive definition, but at least a footnote of justification for the choice would have been helpful.

The article closes with an unpacking of principle 1: “Christians Benefit from OT Promises Only through Christ.” Here DeRoucie presents four different ways in which OT promises are fulfilled through Christ.

  1. “OT Promises Maintained (No Extension).” He gives as examples promises of “global salvation after Israel’s exile” (Daniel 12:2) or of Isaiah 53’s promise of “the royal servant’s victory over death.”
  2. “OT Promises Maintained (with Extension).” He gives the following as an example “God promises that his servant would be a light to the nations. → Christ is this servant-light. → Faith unites us to Christ. → Union with Christ makes us servants with hm. → We join Christ as lights to the nations.” Another examples is God’s promise to walk among his people in connection with the tabernacle extended to the church which is the temple of the Spirit. “
  3. “OT Promises Completed.” The promise that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem is one example. DeRouchie also places in this category promises given to specific individuals, such as the promise to Solomon that he would receive “both wisdom and riches and honor (1 Kings 3:11-13).” He connects this to Christ by observing that all of God’s good gifts, even common grace ones, were purchased on the cross.
  4. “OT Promises Transformed.” DeRouchie explains, “By this I mean that both the promise’s makeup and audience get developed.” His primary example is the land promise to Abraham and his offspring which gets transformed from a particular land for Abraham’s physical seed to the entire new creation for all saints.

This last category, however, is problematic if “developed” means that the makeup or content of the promise and the audience or recipients change to be something other than originally promised. This kind of development would actually result in God breaking his word to the original audience to whom he made the promise. If, however, “developed” means that what was originally promised is fulfilled as promised for the original recipients while the content and recipients are expanded beyond the original promise, then it would seem that this category would revert to category 2. With regard to the specific example of land, I have a hard time know whether it fits into category 1 or 2. The land promise is extended to cover the entire world and the nations, which seem to fit category 2. But the extension begins to be spelled out in the Old Testament itself.

I think a great deal of the impasse between dispensationalists, progressive covenantalists, and covenant theologians could be broken if category 2 were recognized by more dispensationalists and if category 4 were eliminated by covenant theologians and progressive covenantalists.

Naselli: How to Understand and Apply the New Testament

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41tivm3bsFL._SX348_BO1204203200_Andy Naselli has just had published a book on interpreting the New Testament: How to Understand and Apply the New Testament. For table of contents, sample chapters, and more see Andy’s post at his own website.

I’ve not yet read more than a few chapters of the book, but in an interview Andy described as the gist of his book the conclusion I argued for in my dissertation. Andy said:

The gist is that you can’t do exegesis without doing theology, and you can’t do theology without doing exegesis. They are interconnected—interrelated. So we’re just trying to make the readers aware that when you study one aspect of exegesis or theology, it’s impossible to do just that, apart from the other aspects; they are so interconnected. So if you sit down and look at a text, all of your understanding of how the whole Bible fits together is influencing how you read that text. And if you’re trying to put the whole Bible together, the ways you understand individual texts are influencing how you do that broader, macro-reading.

We both borrowed a diagram from D. A. Carson that shows the how exegesis and the theological disciplines relate.

So far I’ve just dipped into the chapters on historical-cultural context and historical theology. The chapter on historical theology provides some excellent reasons for including historical theology in the process of interpretation. Andy follows this with an example of a historical work that he’s done related to Keswick theology. One thing that I didn’t see in the chapter was a discussion of how a text’s reception history should function in the interpretive process.

The role of historical-cultural context in interpretation has been an interest of mine recently. See Is it True that Bible Background Context “Changes Everything”?. Though we frame the question somewhat differently, I think Andy’s discussion is on target. Andy thesis is that “background information is sometimes necessary for understanding the Bible accurately.” He calls his position “a cautious yes” to the necessity of background information.

The discussion of four dangers if one answers “yes” along with the affirmation of the Scripture’s sufficient clarity are excellent. In addition, I appreciate Andy’s sympathetic critique of Wayne Grudem’s “no.” Grudem wants to say that extra-biblical lexical study can be necessary but that historical background information is not necessary. Andy responds:

Here’s my pushback: How can you logically grant language this degree of independence from the historical-cultural context? It doesn’t seem possible because the authors use some words to refer to things outside the text (i.e., the words have extratextual referents) that the first readers would have immediately grasped but that we might not. How can we determine the meanings of words apart from a historical-cultural setting? [p. 164]

I think this is correct. However, I would note that even the lack of extrabiblical lexical information has not prevented the Bible from being sufficiently clear throughout church history. In fact, I would argue that the Bible is sufficiently clear even in translation “for us to base our saving knowledge of [God] and of ourselves, and our beliefs and our actions, on the content of Scripture alone, without ultimately validating our understanding of these things or our confidence in them by appeal to any individual or institution” (Timothy Ward, Words of Life, 127).

Andy also includes several example passages. Though it is far beyond his intent and purpose for this book, I would be interested in fairly exhaustive survey of passages to see just how necessary historical-cultural context is for rightly understanding passages.

For instance, Andy points to Matthew 19:24 as a passage in which background material can debunk bad interpretations. This is certainly the case. But is background material necessary to do this? Probably not. In fact, it seems that a poor use of background material led to the common misinterpretation of this passage. A theologically sensitive reading of the text would flag and reject this misuse of background material.

Another example given is 1 Corinthians 11. Andy argues that background material is necessary to understand this passage and that Bruce Winter provides the best survey of the material. However, I’ve found Noel Weeks to give a telling criticism of Winter’s argument (and frankly have found Winter’s deployment of background material unconvincing in other passages in 1 Corinthians). Weeks says:

I must comment on what seems an obvious flaw in the argument. Winter sees the material in 1 Cor 11 on head covering for women as directly dependent upon imperial pressure for modest female attire (ibid., 73–91). Yet the existence of statues and images of bare-headed women, even imperial women, is a fact of the period. He postpones that information until he deals with hair styles for women, where once more the concerns of 1 Tim 2:8 are seen as responding to external influence. In that context he rather lamely suggests that the images of bare-headed imperial women are an attempt by the imperial household to display the hair treatment that was appropriate for women (104). Surely a requirement for covered female heads makes hair styles irrelevant. [“The Ambiguity of Biblical Background,” Westminster Theological Journal 72, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 233, n. 54.]

Further, Paul’s argument is not from culture but from creation in 1 Corinthians 11.

The third major example of the necessity of background information is from Revelation 3:15-16. I think this is a good example, but it’s not a slam dunk.

Greg Beale outlines the traditional interpretation and the problem he sees with it:

The image of the Laodiceans being “neither cold nor hot” but “lukewarm” has traditionally been understood to be metaphorical of lack of spiritual fervor and half-hearted commitment to Christ. One problem with this is that Christ’s desire that they be either “cold or hot” implies that both extremes are positive. The traditional view, however, has seen ‘cold’ negatively. [The Book of Revelation, NIGTC, 303]

Beale opts for the view the background to this phrase contrasts the hot, healing waters of Hierapolis and the pure, cold water of Colossae with the warm nauseating water of Laodicea (Ibid.).

Interestingly, Gordon Fee combines the two views in his Revelation commentary:

Christ reveals their actual condition from the divine perspective: you are neither cold nor hot, which is probably a reflection on the fact that they are across the river from the actual hot springs, so that by the time the hot water reaches them across stream it has cooled enough to be insipid, useful for neither medicinal nor drinking purposes. The more remarkable moment of judgment comes next: Christ would rather have them either one or the other! In actuality, of course, he would prefer them to be “hot”; but if they were “cold” then they could more easily recognize their situation and be helped. Rather, his judgment is that because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. [Revelation, NCCS, 58.]

Further Beale concedes that 2 Peter 2:21 is a cross-reference that could support the traditional view.

None of the above is meant to detract from Andy’s fine work. These are the natural passages that I would expect to find in this discussion. It does show, however, there is room for a detailed study to investigate in which passages  background material is truly necessary to understand the meaning of the passage. My hunch is that the number of passages in which historical-cultural context is helpful are numerous but that the number in which it is necessary might be fewer than many suppose.

In sum, if the other chapters of this book are as good as this one (and I would expect some, particularly those dealing with original languages, to be better), then this is a book to get and use.

Review of Gonzalez, Story of Christianity, Volume 2

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s-l1000-1Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity: The Reformation to the Present Day. Revised edition. New York: HarperOne, 2010.

The coverage of the Reformation in this volume is good, but many other areas suffer from serious defects. For instances, the coverage of Protestant Orthodoxy still follows the older neo-orthodox historiography and fails to reckon with the scholarship of Richard Muller and others. The coverage of fundamentalism does not take into account the work of George Marsden. With regard to recent church history, evangelical history is given minimal attention while a great deal of attention is given to the ecumenism and liberation theology. I found the coverage of Vatican II and the World Council of Churches helpful, but as the book moves toward the end Gonzalez’s own theological predilections become clearer in ways not entirely fitting for a broad-scale historical survey of church history.

The Sermon on the Mount in James

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Porter, Virgil V. “The Sermon on the Mount in the Book of James, Part 1,” BibSac 162, no. 647 (July-Sept. 2005): 344-60.

This article contains a helpful chart of all the verbal parallels between the Sermon on the Mount and the Book of James. It also highlights shared topics: law, wealth and poverty, speech, prayer, trials, temptation, perfection, wisdom and folly, judgment, righteousness, people (this list is drawn from the article’s section headings). Part 2, which I did not read, covers parallels organized by the categories of systematic theology.