Books

McGraw, Ryan. By Good and Necessary Consequence. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2012.

In some circles the myth has taken root that sola scriptura means that Scripture does not apply to those matters that it does not directly address. In other circles systematic theology has gained a bad name and the doctrines of the Reformation (such as justification by faith alone) or classical theism (such as God’s omniscience and foreknowledge) are dismissed as rationalistic speculations at odds with Scripture.

Ryan McGraw addresses these errors in this brief book. The title of the book is drawn from the Westminster Confession of Faith, and McGraw is concerned to defend this teaching of that confession (the London Baptist Confession of 1689 uses a parallel expression; see pp. 51-52, n. 10). In sum, the Confession teaches all things necessary for salvation and the Christian life are found in Scripture. The phrase "by good and necessary consequence," however affirms that these things may be inferred from Scripture. Not everything necessary is explicitly stated.

The legitimacy of inferring good and necessary consequences from Scripture is grounded in Scripture. McGraw notes that Jesus uses an inferential argument for the resurrection of the body in Matthew 22:29-32. Luke 24:24-27 reveals that by good and necessary consequences the Messiah may be seen throughout the Old Testament. The apostles are dependent on good and necessary consequence in selecting Judas’s replacement (Acts 1:20-21). Paul makes use of this principle in arguing for pastoral remuneration from Deuteronomy 25:4 (1 Cor. 10:9-10). Though some of these passages provide stronger support than others, McGraw is able to demonstrate that good and necessary consequence is a biblical concept.

In his second chapter McGraw examines the historical background for the concept of good and necessary consequence. With the Reformation came the rejection of allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Since allegory was a key method for applying Scripture, this raised a problem. Critics of Scripture were happy to reject allegory and reduce Scripture study to mere historical study, but orthodox Protestants were not willing to travel that road. Good and necessary consequence allows the Bible to be applied to new contexts. McGraw notes, "The principle allows the contemporary interpreter to apply an ancient text to a modern context. When a necessary doctrine or application is legitimately drawn from the text of God’s Word, then that doctrine or application has the very power of the authority of God to enforce it. On the contrary, if good and necessary consequences are denied, then application is impossible" (27-28). McGraw makes two other important points in this chapter. First, the principle of good and necessary consequence is not rationalism. Reason is not the source of authority (Scripture is); reason remains a tool for discerning the divine teaching of Scripture. Second, it is important to distinguish between good and necessary. Some consequences may be good but not necessary while others may be both good and necessary.

In chapter four, McGraw demonstrates the importance of affirming good and necessary consequence by demonstrating that it is necessary for formulating orthodox views regarding the person of Christ and the Trinity. He also argues that it is necessary for establishing biblical worship practices and a Presbyterian understanding of baptism.

Chapter four addresses common objections to the principle, and chapter five reaffirms the importance of the principle for exegesis (understanding how the New Testament interprets the Old), application of Scripture, and doctrine.

Overall, this is an excellent book on a much needed subject. It also has the advantage of being concise and easy to read without sacrificing depth and accuracy. If the book lacks anything it would be a coverage of how to guard against abusing this principle. For instance, a Baptist might well agree with the principle, but he would disagree with the way he applies it to baptism. Are the objective grounds for determining when the principle is misused? This would be a fruitful avenue for further study.

Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.

Chernow does a good job of chronicling Washington’s life in its complexity. At times I found Chernow speculating beyond his cited evidence as to Washington’s motive, but overall it is a solid work. I did not, however, find it as engaging as his biography of Hamilton.

Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.

In this volume Bauckham provides a trenchant critique of form criticism and makes a strong case for the pervasive role of eyewitness testimony in the Gospels. While I was not convinced with his discussion about the authorship of John and still have questions to Bauckham’s suggestion that many of the named individuals in the Gospels are the sources for those accounts, Bauckham nonetheless provides a wealth of information about oral tradition, memory in ancient times, and Jewish names, along with close readings of Papias’s comments about the gospels.

Shippey, T. A. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.

Koyzis, David T. Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003.

Koyzis’s thesis is that politics is dominated by various ideologies. From a Christian perspective, these ideologies are idolatrous. Thus Christians must therefore transcend the ideologies and approach politics with an eye firmly fixed on the biblical themes of creation, fall, and redemption.

Political ideologies are idolatrous because they seize on one aspect of the way God made the world and make it ultimate. If only the ideology could take root, the thinking goes, then the nation or community or world could be saved by the evil which threatens it. The "fundamental evil" identified by the various ideologies is often itself another aspect of God’s creation. As a result of deifying one part of the creation and demonizing others, the ideologies developed warped soteriologies that often lead to more evil and suffering because governing moral principles built by God into his world are subverted by the salvific goal set up by the ideology. This does not mean that the ideologies are all wrong or equally wrong. Because they are deifying parts of creation, they each have grasped fragments of truth, to greater or lesser extents. Thus the ideologies must be examined. Koyzis proposes six evaluative questions:

First, what is their creational basis? Second, what facets of God’s creation have they rightly focused on even as they have effectively deified them? Third, what inconsistencies have led to internal tensions within the ideology itself? Fourth, what do they see as a source of evil? Fifth, where do they locate the source of salvation? Sixth and finally, to what extent are they able to account for the distinct place of politics in God’s world?

In the central section of the book Koyzis surveys and critiques various ideologies. He begins with liberalism. As used here, liberalism embraces both contemporary American conservatives (classical liberalism) and liberals (reformist or revisionist liberalism / social democrats). In Koyzis’s analysis the "sovereignty of the individual" is the cornerstone of the liberal ideology. The classical liberals focused on restricting the state from infringing on personal liberties. At first liberals focused on protecting individuals rights to self and property. The state’s role was to ensure a fair playing field for individuals. But as non-government entities (e.g., business monopolies) gained power reform liberals began to use government power to protect individual freedom from these entities. Others pointed out that poverty limits people’s opportunity, and thus reform liberals seek to use government to level a playing field that is unequal by virtue of the different ways individuals have used their freedoms. Already the tensions within the liberal ideology are apparent. Also in the later stages of liberalism is the concern for laws not to infringe on the moral choices that citizens make; to do so infringes on individual liberty. Yet individual moral choices have social consequences, and the government is often invoked to mitigate those social consequences. Liberalism’s chief evil is authority located outside the human self, and its soteriology is a quest for freedom from external authority. It’s fatal flaw is its refusal to submit to God’s standards of justice, and this leads to the internal contradictions between classical and reformist liberals. On the other hand, liberals have rightly recognized the importance of the individual and the significance of human rights.

From liberalism, Koyzis turns to conservatism. He acknowledges up front that conservatism is not as ideological as the other ideologies covered. Indeed, in some respects it opposes ideologies (it is important to note at this point that Koyzis locates much of American conservatism on the right wing of liberalism; Reagan’s "optimistic view of human nature," "his celebration of limitless material progress," and "his devotion to the free market" are all marks of classical liberalism rather than traditional conservatism). Nonetheless, conservatism can be defined with enough specificity to invite evaluation. In the first place conservatives have a deep sense of the human tendency to evil and thus oppose all utopianism. This means that if a tradition is working adequately, the conservative will oppose a sweeping change to fix an evil because he is sure that the sweeping change will have negative side effects. The conservative must be convinced that the benefits of the change will outweigh the inevitable negative side effects. The conservative is not opposed to any change, but he prefers to see the changes take place on a local level where the negative effects are constrained. If the experiment works it can be implemented more broadly. At its best conservatism remains rooted in traditions that work while making necessary adjustments to fix what is not working. At its worst, conservatism can lapse into a traditionalism in which the traditions cease to carry meaning and a romanticism which projects a utopia into the past. This leads to Koyzis’s first critique: the traditions of any society are "inevitably a ‘mixed bag’ . . . . The wisdom of past generations is intermingled with a large measure of folly." But conservatism lacks "a generally accepted transhistorical criterion by which to distinguish what in a tradition is worthy saving and what ought to be discarded." Koyzis’s second critique centers on the need for genuine progress. He notes that "God’s creation is not static but contains great potential for development and improvement." The Christian ought to support progress, but he should do so cautiously (recognizing with the conservative the potential for evil side-effects) and with a careful evaluation of the direction of the change. Is it directed to greater conformity to God’s norms or away from such conformity. Overall, Koyzis renders a more favorable evaluation of conservatism while still warning about idolizing tradition and locating evil in the kinds of progress that societies should experience.

Koyzis next considers nationalism. On the positive side Koyzis argues that nationalism values the real communities of which people find themselves a part. There is something good in sharing "love for the cultural traditions of one’s own ethnic community" or in sharing a commitment as a citizen to the government of one’s nation. But nationalism becomes an ideology when it is elevated to the place of supreme importance over other loyalties such as family, region, or religion. As with liberalism, autonomy is the ultimate goal (in this case the autonomy of the national community) and rule by the other (whether the racial, cultural, or linguistic other) is the ultimate evil. The falsity of this claim is demonstrated by the great evils done by dictators who liberated their states from colonial powers. This observation in no way justifies colonialism, but it does demonstrate the folly of identifying ultimate evil in being ruled by the other and ultimate redemption in national liberation. Nationalism also becomes dangerous when it takes the place of religion, "complete with its own liturgical ceremonies, Te Deums, sacraments, icons and feast days." This can be especially dangerous for certain American Christians who link Old Testament promises to Israel to the United States.

Democracy, though "merely a form of government" in some ways, becomes ideological when "it embodies a belief in the near infallibility of the vox populi—the voice of the people. A limited democracy can be argued for on Christian principles. Thus because of the fall, power should be diversified instead of centralized. A fallen person with unlimited power is a great danger. But democracy as an ideology is grounded on anti-Christian ideas. As with liberalism, the autonomous self is the great good. The great evil is any authority that rules over the individual without his consent. Thus "the people" become the highest authority by which anything is justified. This stands against the conservative principle that a representative is a trustee who is to use his knowledge and wisdom to act in the best interest of those he represents; he does not necessarily simply do whatever they desire. Without checks such as this, democracy too can become totalitarian. The majority may run roughshod over the minority. Or, democracy may become totalitarian by insisting that all of life, not only the government, must be run on democratic principles. In the end, the Christian must recognize that democracy is not the only, or even always the best, form of government for bringing about justice. And when democracy is the form of government chosen, the people must recognize they still exist under the authority of divine Law.

Socialism is the final ideology that Koyzis covers. He does an excellent job of walking readers through the different varieties of socialism with their different approaches for implementing their program. Socialism sees inequality as the great evil and it promises salvation in the form of radical social change. Koyzis is willing to grant socialism some real insights. In the first place he grants the reality of communal ownership (he gives the family as an example). He also grants that socialists have sometimes highlighted real economic evils. He grants that a nation’s economic system may prevent a good number of people from owning productive property, and may permit the exploitation of labor. These are real evils. But socialism goes further to locate evil in any division of labor and in any inequality. Its salvation is communal ownership of everything. But, Koyzis, notes God designed the world to work with various forms of individual and communal ownership. Thus a totalizing, state-managed communal ownership runs up against creational limits. The communist nations must attempt to force the soteriology to work, and this is leads to the totalitarianism by which such nations are known: "Ideologies are typically motivated to achieve some overarching goal deemed to take precedence over other legitimate human concerns. The ultimate danger, of course, is that followers will come to believe that the end justifies the means and that this goal could demand the sacrifice of millions of human lives."

Koyzis closes the book with two chapters in which he seeks to offer a way to transcend the ideologies. In this section he examines both the Catholic idea of subsidiary and the Kuyperian idea of sphere sovereignty. He finds both useful, but prefers the less hierarchical sphere sovereignty.

Articles

Luther, Martin. "A Sincere Admonition By Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion." In Luther’s Works. Volume 45. Edited by Helmut T. Lehmann and Walther I. Brandt. Translated by W. A. Lambert and Walther I. Brandt. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962.

Luther argues that insurrection is not permitted by God. First, the troubles that they are facing are decreed by God and are part of his wrath. Magistrates have the responsibility to moderate this wrath (Exodus 32:27-28), but the populace does not. Second, insurrection never brings about "the desired improvement" because "insurrection lacks discernment. Thus, "it generally harms the innocent more than the guilty." Third, insurrectionists set themselves up as their own judges and avengers, but this is the prerogative of God only. Fourth, in this particular instance insurrection is a tool of the devil to discredit the Reformation.

Rather that insurrection, Christians should confess their sins, pray against their enemies, and preach the word of Christ.

Luther, Martin. "Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed." In Luther’s Works. Volume 45. Edited by Helmut T. Lehmann and Walther I. Brandt. Translated by W. A. Lambert and Walther I. Brandt. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962.

In the first part of this discourse Luther seeks to reconcile passages which give the sword to the civil government and those which forbid Christians to resist evil or to take vengeance. Luther affirms that the sword was given by God to government and that only when the entire world is converted will it be unnecessary. The passages about not taking vengeance or resisting evil refer to Christian individuals. Christians must individually accept being wronged. But a Christian magistrate acts not for himself but for his neighbor.

In the second part of this discourse Luther affirms that temporal government may rule over property and the external things that people do. But the government may not command that people believe certain things; the government has no authority over the soul.

In the third part of the discourse Luther discusses the manner in which rulers should rule. 1. They should rule for the benefit of the people and not for their own benefit. 2. They should delegate their authority, but they should also responsibly manage those who act in their name (trust but verify). 3. They should administer justice so that evildoers are punished but others are not adversely affected. 4. Most importantly, a ruler must rule in the fear of God an in dependence on him for wisdom.

Books

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Annotated Hobbit. Revised Edition. Annotated by Douglas A. Anderson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

Anderson fills the margins of The Hobbit with commentary and notes detailing revisions to the text. The most interesting revision is the reworking of the "Riddles in the Dark Passage." The book is also filled with artwork by Tolkien himself as well as by artists for the various editions of the book both in English and in translation.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities.

Athenagoras. Embassy for the Christians, The Resurrection of the Dead. Ancient Christian Writers. Translated and edited by Joseph Hugh Crehan. Westminster, MD: Newman, 1956.

In the Embassy Athenagoras address Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus to refute common accusations against Christians: that they were atheists, cannibals, and licentious. In the Resurrection Athenagoras defends the resurrection from the dead. He first answers objections to the idea. He notes that if one believes that God created all things, he should have no difficulty believing that God can resurrect people. He notes the objection that humans who decay are eaten by creatures and therefore cannot be reconstituted. He notes that not all that is eaten becomes part of the creature; some passes through. And even what is eaten does become part of another creature it does not become so permanently. Finally, he argues that it is not unjust for bodies to be raised. It is unclear why he thinks some consider resurrection unjust. Athenagoras then moves to positive arguments for resurrection. First, God’s motive for creating man argues for the resurrection. Athenagoras denies that God made man for his own needs, for he has no needs, nor did he make man for the needs of other creatures, for man stands at the pinnacle of creation. Rather God made man so His goodness and wisdom would :be manifest upon the face of all His handiwork." This purpose argues for an eternal existence for God’s image bearers. Second, man’s nature argues for the resurrection. Man is comprised of both an immortal soul and a body. Since God created man with these two parts, the body must be raised, for it would be inappropriate to man’s nature for the soul to exist alone for eternity. Third, Athenagoras notes that justice is clearly not meted out in this life. Thus, for the whole man, body and soul, to receive justice either in reward or judgment the body must be raised.

Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2011.

This is a witty apologetic that advocates original monotheism, as opposed to an evolutionary account of religion, and the supernatural origins and distinct status of Christianity, as opposed to a higher critical and comparative religions approach. The book is not academic or annotated, and Chesterton grants this weakness. But Chesterton’s mind is sharp and he is quick to point out fallacies and inconsistencies in unbelieving thought. Though Chesterton writes as a committed Roman Catholic,* his critiques of modern thought are incisive and worth reading.

A few examples:

The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. And a particular point of it is that the popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it. They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of the term. They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has taken on a curious tone, as of a random and illiterate heckling. Thus they make current and anticlerical cant as a sort of small talk. They will complain of parsons dressing like parsons, as if we should be any more free if all the police who shadowed or collared us were plainclothes detectives. Or they will complain that a sermon cannot be interrupted, and call a pulpit a coward’s castle, though they do not call an editor’s office a coward’s castle. It would be unjust both to journalists and priests, but it would be much truer of journalists. The clergyman appears in person and could easily be kicked as he came out of church; the journalist conceals even his name so that nobody can kick him. . . . They will suddenly turn round and revile the Church for not having prevented the War, which they themselves did not want to prevent and which nobody had ever professed to be able to prevent, except some of that very school of progressive and cosmopolitan skeptics who are the chief enemies of the Church. It was the anticlerical and agnostic world that was always prophesying the advent of universal peace; it is that world that was, or should have been, abashed and confounded by the advent of universal war. As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War—they might as well say that the Ark was discredited by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right.

. . . . . . . . . .

The more we look at man as an animal, the less he will look like one. . . . What for him would be the simplest lesson of that strange stone story book [that is, the cave man’s cave]? After all, it would come back to this: that he had dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn the picture of a reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man. That sounds like a truism, but in this connection it is really a very tremendous truth.

. . . . . . . . .

The freethinker frequently says that Jesus of Nazareth was a man of his time, even if he was in advance of his time; and that we cannot accept his ethics as final for humanity. The freethinker then goes on to criticize his ethics, saying plausibly enough that men cannot turn the other cheek, or that they must take thought for the morrow, or that the self-denial is too ascetic or the monogamy too severe. But the Zealots and the Legionaries did not turn the other cheek any more than we do, if so much. The Jewish traders and Roman tax gatherers took thought for the morrow as much as we, if not more. We cannot pretend to be abandoning the morality of the past for one more suited to the present. It is certainly not the morality of another age, but it might be of another world.

. . . . . . . . . .

Christ said, ‘Seek first the kingdom, and all these things shall be added unto you.’ Buddha said, ‘Seek first the kingdom, and then you will need none of these things.’

. . . . . . . . . .

"They are always telling us that priests and ceremonies are not religion and that religious organization can be a hollow sham, but they hardly realize how true it is. It is so true that three or four times at least in the history of Christendom the whole soul seemed to have gone out of Christianity; and almost every man in his heart expected its end. This fact is only masked in medieval and other times by that very official religion which such critics pride themselves on seeing through. Christianity remained the official religion of a Renaissance prince or the official religion of an eighteenth-century bishop, just as an ancient mythology remained the official religion of Julius Caesar or the Arian creed long remained the official religion of Julian the Apostate. But there was a difference between the cases of Julius and of Julian, because the Church had begun its strange career. There was no reason why men like Julius should not worship gods like Jupiter forever in public and laugh at them forever in private. But when Julian treated Christianity as dead, he found it had come to life again. He also found, incidentally, that there was not the faintest sign of Jupiter ever coming to life again. This case of Julian and the episode of Arianism is but the first of a series of examples that can only be roughly indicated here. . . . Now if we were to dip below the surface of history, as it is not in the scope of this argument to do, I suspect that we should find several occasions when Christendom was thus to all appearance hollowed out from within by doubt and indifference, so that only the old Christian shell stood as the pagan shell had stood so long. But the difference is that in every such case, the sons were fanatical for the faith where the fathers had been slack about it. . . . The Faith is not a survival. It is not as if the Druids had managed somehow to survive somewhere for two thousand years. That is what might have happened in Asia or ancient Europe, in that indifference or tolerance in which mythologies and philosophies could live forever side by side. It has not survived; it has returned again and again in this Western world of rapid change and institutions perpetually perishing. . . . At least five times, therefore, with the Arian and Albigensian, with the Humanist skeptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.

. . . . . . . . . . .

An old don with D.D. after his name may have become the typical figure of a bore; but that was because he was himself bored with his theology, not because he was excited about it. It was precisely because he was admittedly more interested in the Latin of Plautus than in the Latin of Augustine, in the Greek of Xenophon than in the Greek of Chrysostom. It was precisely because he was more interested in a dead tradition than in a decidedly living tradition. In short, it was precisely because he was himself a type of the time in which Christian faith was weak. It was not because men would not hail, if they could, the wonderful and almost wild vision of a Doctor of Divinity.

*It is probably worth addressing why Chesterton as a Roman Catholic can be so helpful to Christians combatting modernism, since Christians standing in opposition to abortion or contraception mandates (that include abortifacients) or so-called same-sex marriage often find the writing and works of contemporary Roman Catholics helpful. The reason for this is undoubtedly that that Roman Catholics retain a great deal of Christian truth in their thinking. Thus a doctrinally conservative Roman Catholic and an orthodox Protestant both agree against the Unitarian in defense of the Trinity or in favor of the deity of Jesus against the critics. They also agree on a number of moral issues. But it is important to remember that the Reformers were never unaware of the great deal of truth held in common between themselves and the Romanists. The common truths do not negate the differences nor minimize the seriousness of those differences. The differences between Rome and the Reformation center on the gospel, and it would be much better to lose the debate in the public square over same-sex "marriage" than to win that debate and lose the gospel.

Trueman, Carl R. The Creedal Imperative. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

The title of this book reveals its thesis. Healthy churches must have creeds. Trueman realizes that this thesis flies in the face of a culture that has its gaze firmly fixed to the future and back set against the past (a stance strengthened by scientism, consumerism, and technological change). Furthermore, contemporary culture doubts that the capacity of words to stably bear meaning. On top of it all, once it is noted that creeds are enforced by church authorities to exclude some people, the conclusion must be drawn creeds are truly swimming upstream against powerful cultural currents.

Trueman, however, remains undaunted: Creeds remain imperative for healthy churches. He argues that words are adequate to communicate doctrine. Indeed, to concede this point would not only be to concede the value of creeds but would also be to concede the authority of the Bible. He further argues, against the sense of continual cultural transformation, that our shared human nature means that Scripture and creeds alike can speak across time and place. And though our culture rejects authorities, the Scripture establishes a church with authority structures. God charges those who lead churches to hold fast to sound doctrine. To do this, churches must explain what they believe the Bible does and does not teach. Thus creeds. The creed is always subject to Scriptural authority, and thus may be revised. But within a church it bears an authority under Scripture, because it is a statement of what the church believes the Bible to teach.

Trueman takes two chapters to survey creeds and confessions from the early church and from the Reformation era. He makes the important point that creeds develop as doctrinal controversies develop. He also argues that the division between the Lutherans and the Reformed over the Lord’s Supper was not entirely negative. While Christian unity might be preferred, Trueman argues against a unity that minimizes the importance of a right understanding of the Lord’s Supper.

Trueman concludes the work by highlighting the practical benefits of creeds and confessions. He notes in the first place that creeds are not dry and dusty technical documents. They are documents that ought to provoke God’s people to worship and praise God. Also, creeds and confessions succinctly summarize the Christian faith. Creeds actually place a check on arbitrary exercises of authority in a church by outlining ahead of time what beliefs are significant for the assembly.

House, H. Wayne, ed. Israel: Land and the People. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1998.

Books that cover Israel as a theological topic are difficult to find. This volume covers issues such as the land of Israel, Israel in Romans 9-11, Israel’s purpose and mission, Israel and the church, and Israel and the nations. The best essays in this volume are Hoehner’s treatment of Israel in Romans 9-11, Jelinek’s treatment of Israel’s dispersion and restoration, and Robert L. Thomas’s essay on the mission of Israel in God’s plan.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002.

The virtue of Brueggemann’s work is that he takes land seriously as a biblical theme. Unlike W. D. Davies, who wrote the other major theology of land, Brueggemann affirms the remaining relevance of the land theme in the New Testament. Unfortunately, he often adopts ideological readings or counter reads the text. For instance, in this book Brueggemann consistently pits the themes of land and monarchy against each other contrary to the way Scripture develops the messianic theme in connection with the land theme.

Articles

Haas, Guenther. "The Kingdom and Slavery: A Test Case for Social Ethics." Calvin Theological Journal 28 (1993): 74-89.

Haas applies Al Wolters’s concepts of structure/direction and reformation not revolution to the issue of slavery in the New Testament. His dismisses approaches similar to William Webb’s later proposal of a redemptive movement hermeneutic (labeled here as "progressive moral norms"). Haas note that to hold to this position implies biblical toleration of that which is "inherently evil." Second, it leads to the supposition that biblical principles are authoritative for believers but that applications of those principles within the New Testament are not authoritative. Third, Haas, notes a "tendency toward relativism."

Haas sees a way forward in the concepts laid out by Al Wolters in Creation Regained. In this approach, one recognizes that every social structure reflects some elements of good creational norms (structure) and that every structure also has been corrupted and stands in need of redemption (direction). From these facts emerges the idea that reformation is needed but not revolution. More concretely, every social structure has at least some element of God’s good creational norms in it that is worth preserving. Second, redemption must happen internally and not by mere external force. As applied to slavery there is the recognition of legitimate authority structures in work relationships. Due to sin this legitimate authority structure has been perverted. The New Testament reforms this relationship by defining the worth of all people in terms of their relation to God (image-bearers) and relation to Christ (Christian slaves and masters are brothers in Christ). If a master treats his slave with this recognition, then he undermines the Roman view of the relation of slave and master. He in effect treats his slave as one with the rights of a free man. Nevertheless, the New Testament affirms the good authority structure of the work relationship.

Peter Lombard. The Sentences, Book 4: On the Doctrine of Signs. Translated by Giulio Silano. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2010. Pp. 69-135.

Lombard’s Sentences is one of the most influential theology textbooks in church history. It was the text that all medieval theology students studied and wrote commentaries on. The section read this month covered the sacrament of penance. In medieval Catholic theology, the sacrament of baptism cleansed from sin. But sins subsequent to baptism needed further cleansing by the sacrament of penance (Book 4, dist. XIV, c1, n. 1 (4:69)). Unlike baptism penance may be repeated (Book 4, dist. XIV, cc4-5 (4:74-77)). In this way penance seems to be a relaxing of a rigorous view that developed in patristic times that caused many people to delay baptism until just before they died lest they commit sins that later could not be purged. Penance involves three things: heartfelt remorse, verbal confession to a priest, and actions that make satisfaction for the wrong done (Book 4, dist. XVI, c1, n1 (4:88)). Lombard is clear that good works are necessary to escape punishment, and that accruing merits is involved (Book 4, dist. XV, c2 (4:78); Book 4, dist. XV, c7, n2 (4:85)). He addresses why the deeds of satisfaction are necessary beyond mere contrition and confession: the sin may be "blotted out" in contrition, but the punishment must still be born. Confession is necessary so the priest knows what judgment to prescribe (Peter Lombard, Book 4, dist. XVII, c5 (4:85)). Lombard also discusses the power of the keys (cf. Book 4, dist. XVIII, c5-66 (4:110-112)) and purgatory (cf. Book 4, dist. XX, c2 (4:122-23); Book 4, dist. XXI (4:126-32)).

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation. Edited by Timothy McDermott. Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1989. [II-I.1-48]

Questions 1-5 deal with man’s last end, which Aquinas takes to be happiness in God (understanding happiness in its full philosophical sense). This section was reminiscent of the first part of Edwards’s The End for Which God Created the World. Questions 6-1 deal with the will. Questions 22-48 deal with affections and passions. The discussions here were thoughtful and thus helpful, but I was left wishing for Aquinas to do what Edwards did in following the philosophical section with a rich section of exegesis to establish his philosophical meditations.

1. Hill, C. E. Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy. Oxford University Press, 2010.
2. Kruger, Michael J. Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.
3. Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained. Revised edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.
4. Lunde, Jonathan. Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.
5. Athanasius. On the Incarnation. Crestwood, NY: 1944; repr., St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977.
6. Murray, Iain H. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981. Banner of Truth, 1990.
7. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton University Press, 2008.
8. Sandel, Michael J. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.
9. Stapert, Calvin R. A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
10. Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815. The Oxford History of the United States. Edited by David M. Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Books

Black, David Alan. Why Four Gospels? The Historical Origins of the Gospels. 2nd ed. Gonzalez, FL: Energion, 2010.

Black proposes an expansion of the Griesbach or Two-Gospel hypothesis. In framing his position, Black takes patristic testimony about the Gospels seriously. He uses the patristic evidence to develop a plausible back-story that explains how the external and internal evidence favors a Matthew, Luke, Mark order to Gospel composition.

According to Black, the following can be concluded from the Fathers:

1. Matthew wrote his Gospel first in a Hebrew style.

2. John wrote his Gospel last.

3. Differences exist about the placement of Luke and Mark. Both are given the second and third places by different authors.

4. Peter stands behind the creation of Mark. He orally delivered in Rome testimonies of what he saw Jesus do and say and Mark faithfully recorded Peter’s words.

From this evidence Black proposes the following backstory. Matthew wrote his Gospel first for the Jews. Luke then wrote his Gospel as part of Paul’s Gentile mission. Because Luke was not an eyewitness, his Gospel needed validation. Peter validated Luke’s gospel by speaking in Rome about his eyewitness remembrances regarding the material in Matthew and Luke. Mark records Peter’s memoirs. Once Peter validates Luke’s Gospel, it may be released. John later writes his gospel. This account is, of course, speculative—but no more so than Q is speculative.

Black also proposes the following internal evidence:

1. "The pericope order and the zigzag phenomenon"

This can be accounted for by Peter speaking with both Gospels open before him and moving back and forth between the two as he recounts his memoirs. Black accounts for omissions in Mark by saying that Peter is only recounting what he personally witnessed (thus the birth narratives are dropped).

2. "The extra detail of Mark"

The extra detail fits with the scenario of an eyewitness who knows the other Gospels but who adds in vivid details that he recalls.

3. "The minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark"

These agreements "are prima facie evidence for literary contact between Matthew and Luke" (42).

4. Markan conflation of Matthew and Luke

Black says literary signs of conflation have been documented, though he does not detail them.

The strength of Why Four Gospels? is its attempt to account for both patristic and internal evidence is its approach to the Synoptic problem. Its weakness is the dependence Black seems to place on his hypothetical reconstruction.

McKnight, Scot. The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.

McKnight’s basic thesis is that evangelicals are not really evangelicals but soterians. They have lost the fullness of the gospel story by reducing the gospel to a transaction that provides individual salvation from sin. McKnight does make a number of valid critiques. For instance, McKnight criticizes some evangelicals for emphasizing the transaction of getting saved that discipleship in minimized. Other critiques are harder to evaluate. McKnight roundly criticizes what he calls a soterian emphasis in evangelicalism, but at other times he asserts that such an emphasis is important. Similarly, he says that church began to get the gospel wrong with the Reformation’s emphasis on soteriology, but he also says that Reformation brought about much needed reforms to problems in the medieval church. McKnight seems to have an antipathy toward systematic theology and a marked preference toward story (Biblical Theology?). He clearly rejects the idea that having the correct atonement theory is necessary for a right understanding of the gospel.

I would agree with McKnight that the gospel is more than the "getting saved transaction." I further agree that understanding the Bible’s storyline and grasping the significance of Jesus as Messiah are all important for fully understanding the gospel. Thus I am willing to see the gospel as the good news that Jesus is the Davidic King who will fulfill the kingly task that Adam and Eve failed to rightly exercise. But the central problem in Scripture from Genesis 3 onward is sin. All other problems flow from this basic one. And the kingdom Christ is building only has kingdom citizens as they are transferred one by one from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the Son. And this is possible only through the atonement. I thus see no reason to pit story and systematics, individual soteriology and worldwide shalom against each other.

Hoffecker, W. Andrew. Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton. American Reformed Biography. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2011.

Charles Hodge seems to be the favorite whipping boy for how not to do theology, even among evangelical theologians such as John Frame and Kevin Vanhoozer. Common complaints are that Hodge relied overmuch on common sense realism and the scientific method of his day and that Princeton Theology became over intellectualized by reducing theology to propositions based on facts collected from Scripture. While the Princeton method is not above criticism, much of the criticism lodged against it is unfair. Hoffecker, who had already written a book on Princeton’s piety, demonstrates in this biography that genuine Christian piety played a large role in Hodge’s life and ministry.

Hoffecker also ably walks the reader through the various theological controversies in which Hodges engaged, from debates between Old and New School Presbyterians, to his exchanges with Nevin, to the debates surrounding the Civil War to Darwinian Evolution—and more. Hoffecker is an excellent guide to these topics.

In all, this is an excellent biography exposing the thought of a significant, but much maligned, American theologian.

Backus, Isaac. An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty against the Oppressions of the Present Day. Boston: John Boyle, 1773.

Liberty could be called one of the core values of the American people. But do Americans understand what liberty is. Backus begins his Appeal with a discussion of the nature of liberty. He comments that many people believe that liberty is the freedom to act as one pleases, but this is only true when one’s highest pleasure is to love God with all one’s heart and one’s neighbor as one’s self (9). Because of this false conception of liberty Backus comments that many people wrongly believe that submission to government means sacrificing liberty. Backus responds that this false notion first appeared in Eden when Satan tempted Eve to disobey God. The reality is much to the contrary: "It is so far from being necessary for any man to give up any part of his real liberty in order to submit to government, that all nations have found it necessary to submit to some government in order to enjoy any liberty and security at all" (8).

Backus’s appeal for religious liberty therefore is not that Christians should be free from governmental interference in whatever they do, including religion. He argues instead that God has established two kinds of government in the world: civil and ecclesiastical. The one kind of government should not usurp the rights of the other. In support of this view he notes that Solomon follows God’s plans for the temple and does not interfere with worship, that Daniel followed Persian civil laws but not laws about worship, that Romans 13, which speaks of the civil magistrate as a servant of God, only addresses the duties of men toward their neighbors. Though Christians are to render to civil government what is owed to it (Isa 29:13; Matt 15:9), Scripture does not give the civil government the power to tax for the support of ministers of the gospel.

Backus argues that the civil government usurps the headship of Christ when it sets up standards for ministers that go beyond those established by Christ in the New Testament, when they impose on communities worship not found in Scripture (pedobaptism) and when they support by taxes men who should live by preaching the gospel (1 Cor. 9:13; Gal. 6:6-7). This usurpation must have negative consequences. Backus notes two: ministers become the king’s ministers rather than Christ’s because they find themselves under the king’s ecclesiastical laws and supported from his treasury. Second, orthodoxy ends up being determined by the majority population in particular areas rather than by true conformity to Scripture.

The remainder of the work details the sufferings of the Baptists in New England under the standing order. Writing just before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Backus makes good use of drawing a parallel between complaints about taxation without representation and the taxation of the Baptists to support the Congregational standing order.

Blaising, Craig, Alan Hultberg, and Douglas Moo, Three Views on the Rapture: Pretribulation, Prewrath, or Posttribulation. 2nd ed. Counterpoints. Edited by Stanley N. Gundry. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.

This second edition of Three Views on the Rapture is a fine work in the multiple views genre. The quality of argumentation in this book is also high. Moo, who contributed to both the first and second editions, comments several times that he found his opponents’ argumentation superior in this volume in comparison to the arguments found in the first edition.

Summary

Blaising’s case for the pretribulation rapture can be summarized as follows: 1 Thessalonians 4-5 teaches that Christians will be spared from the wrath of God poured out on the earth during the day of the Lord. The rapture is the stated means by which believers are spared. Furthermore, by harmonizing the teaching of Daniel about the end and the Olivet Discourse, it becomes clear that the ultimate day of the Lord equals Daniel’s seventieth week, which equals the period described in the Olivet Discourse. The book of Revelation supports this view by correlating the tribulations it describes with the OT day of the Lord. Revelation 3:10 supports the pretribulation rapture by promising the Philadelphian Christians (as representative of the church) that they will be spared from the hour of trial which shall come on the whole earth. By adopting this view, one is able to explain why some texts present the parousia as unexpected and preceded by no signs while other passages say the parousia is preceded by signs. The pretribulationalist understands the parousia to be a complex event. The rapture will occur first and will not be preceded by sings, but the return of Christ to earth to begin his reign will be preceded by signs. The pretribulationalist is also better able to account for the conversion of a remnant after the rapture and resurrection who will be able to populate the Millennium as mortals.

Hultberg says that "the prewrath position rests on two major theses: that the church will enter the last half of Daniel’s seventieth week and that between the rapture of the church and the return of Christ to earth will be a significant period of extraordinary divine wrath" (109). The following points support the first thesis: (1) the Olivet discourse is addressed to the disciples as representative Christians, who will see the abomination of desolation, (2) Parallel language connects 1 Thessalonians 4:15-16 and Matthew 24:31 together as rapture passages; (3) 2 Thessalonians 2:3 indicates the rapture is preceded by the abomination of desolation; (4) Revelation presents the church entering the tribulation since the letters to the seven churches are both letters to first century churches and eschatological predictions—and letters to Smyrna and Thyatira indicate the church will enter the tribulation; (5) the rapture occurs at Rev. 7:9 and Revelation 14. In support of the second thesis: (1) Paul is clear that Christians will not experience God’s wrath (Rom. 5:9; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9), and in some texts this wrath is clearly connected to the parousia; (2) The parousia must be a complex event rather than an instantaneous event to make sense of all Scripture says about it; (3) Revelation displays rapture, wrath, return sequences.

Moo begins his essay by emphasizing that the church will face tribulation throughout history. Though he does not deny there is a final tribulation, he consistently minimizes it. His main point is that the end time is not something distinctively future. It is a time the church has been living in since its inception. Similarly, Moo understands Daniel’s seventieth week to run through the entire church age. Moo also disassociates the final tribulation from the day of the Lord (a point to which he returns repeatedly throughout his essay). This allows him to minimize the wrath of God during the tribulation and emphasize the persecution of God’s people. Moo does not, however, deny that God pours out his wrath at the very end in a way that affects the whole earth. But he argues that this sword cuts two ways since there are some of God’s people on earth during the tribulation under anyone’s scheme. He resolves this problem by noting that believers in the OT were often affected by judgments directed toward others. Much of the rest of Moo’s article argues that there is no clear evidence for a rapture distinct from Christ’s return to earth. He notes the words used to describe the second coming do not distinguish comings. Nor do the main rapture passages (John 4:3; 1 Cor. 15:51-52; 1 Thess. 4:13-18) indicate the second coming happens in two stages. In fact, a number of passages disassociate the day of the Lord from the tribulation and tie it to the descent of Christ. Thus when 2 Thessalonians 2 places events of the tribulation before the day of the Lord, it is placing the tribulation before the rapture. Moo finds confirmation for his view in the Olivet Discourse (which he thinks refers largely to the church age) and it’s one return of Christ in Matt 24:31, 40-41. Likewise, Revelation (which also largely refers to the entire church age) never refers to a rapture, though it does place the first resurrection in close connection to the return of Christ to set up the millennium. Since there is a resurrection in connection with the rapture, and since this is the first resurrection, the rapture cannot precede this point in time.

Evaluation

Evaluation of this topic is exceedingly complex. Rapture positions are determined by correlating facts from a wide variety of passages. This in itself makes the topic complex, but the complexity is compounded by interpretational difficulties encountered in the key texts. This means that the debate is not merely over how key facts are systematized; the debate extends to the level of what facts can be deduced from a series of debated texts.

Strengths of Moo’s position

1.        Moo has the simplest position. All parousia and rapture texts refer to the same event.

2.        The absence of any clear mention of the Rapture in Revelation favors Moo’s position.

3.        Moo’s rejoinder that all positions have believers on earth when God pours out his wrath, coupled with his observation that the Bible often indicates that believers can be indirectly affected by judgments directed toward others undercuts the primary objection to his view.

Weaknesses of Moo’s position

1.        Moo repeatedly appeals to inaugurated eschatology in support of his position. But inaugurated eschatology would indicate that there are initial fulfillments to be followed by fuller final fulfillments. Moo doesn’t seem to fully reckon with these fuller, final fulfillments. He grants there will be a final tribulation, but he routinely minimizes it to emphasize that the church has always gone through tribulation. This seems to evade the issue under discussion.

2.        In connection with the appeals to inaugurated eschatology, Moo applies Daniel’s seventieth seven, much of the Olivet discourse, and much of Revelation to the church age. Regarding Daniel, since the previous 69 sevens referred to periods of seven years, it would seem that the final seven should be understood as a period of seven years rather than as an undefined period of time. With the Olivet Discourse, even if the abomination of desolation did refer to the destruction of the temple (itself a debated interpretation), it would seem, given the context of the prophecy in Daniel, that that event was typological of a final fulfillment in connection with Antichrist. Overall approaches to Revelation are debated, but I find a generally futurist approach (see Grant Osborne’s BECNT commentary) more compelling than generally idealist approaches (see Greg Beale’s NIGTC commentary); Moo opts for the latter.

3.        Moo’s consistent downplaying of the tribulation as a time of God’s wrath and his relegation of the day of the Lord to Christ’s actual return to earth disregards compelling data to the contrary presented by both Blaising and Hultberg. Moo even grants in his rejoinder that the Old Testament evidence may stand against his position. Replying that the New Testament alone should determine the matter is hardly a sufficient reply.

4.        Moo also has trouble with some particular texts. His attempt to understand Revelation 3:10 in light of John 17:11-12, 15 fails on the grounds that Revelation speaks of being kept from a time period rather than from the evil one. Moo’s understanding of Revelation 20:4 also runs into problems. Moo understands first resurrection in an absolute sense as the first resurrection since the resurrection of Christ. This not only fails to reckon with the resurrection recounted in Matthew 27:52-53 but also requires displacing 20:4 chronologically (since the resurrection mentioned there is post-parousia). This is unlikely since 19:11-20:10 is best understood as a single vision with the subject of ἐκάθισαν being the armies that returned with Christ to earth (see Svigel, TrnJ, 22.1, pp. 51-52).

I find evidence for an extended day of the Lord / parousia persuasive. I also remain convinced that promises that the church (in general) will be spared the wrath of God during this time period, and since I find Moo downplaying events that he concedes will happen (e.g., a final tribulation), I find his view less than persuasive.

Strengths of Hultberg’s position

1.        The discussions of and warnings about tribulation events in the Olivet discourse, Thessalonians, and Revelation could indicate that Christians will experience some tribulation events (though it does not necessitate this).

2.        His arguments for the parousia as a complex event connected with the outpouring of God’s wrath.

Weaknesses of Hultberg’s position

1.        It is difficult to find the Rapture in Revelation 7:9, and Revelation 14:16 seems too ambiguous to bear the weight of the position.

2.        I find it unlikely that the first five seals opened in are not the outpouring of God’s wrath. Hultberg argues that simply because God is the opener of the seals does not mean that the seals are outpourings of God’s wrath because God is in control of all things. But this minimizes the symbolism of the sealed scroll. This was a scroll that only the Lamb who had been slain was worthy to take and open. There is much more going on here than mere sovereign control over the affairs of earth.

3.        Though the exegesis of 1 Thessalonians 2:3 is tricky, I’m convinced that the text is saying that the day of the Lord is not present unless two other things are also present. The first of these is the apostasy and the second is the revelation of the man of lawlessness. I’m not convinced that the verse is saying these two things must precede the day of the Lord.

Hultberg’s arguments for the rapture of the church before the outpouring of God’s wrath mirror Blaising’s own argumentation. His arguments that this wrath occurs during only part of the seventieth week are more inferential and rest on more debatable texts.

Strengths of Blaising’s position

1.        Blaising makes an impressive case for correlating Daniel’s seventieth seven, the tribulation, and the day of the Lord.

2.        Blaising makes a solid case that the church will be spared from God’s wrath in the final day of the Lord. Though some texts are debatable, his argumentation on texts such as Revelation 3:10 and 2 Thessalonians 2 was sound.

Weaknesses of Blaising’s position

1.        Blaising’s interpretation of the Olivet Discourse struck me as unique. It is a complex passage, and Blaising may well be right, but the uniqueness of his approach struck me as a potential weakness.

2.        Blaising does have to deal with the problem of tribulation saints (whom he regards as part of the church, rightly in my estimation) being on earth during the outpouring of God’s wrath during the day of the Lord.

Blaising has constructed the most convincing pretribulation argument that I have encountered. He has abandoned many of the less convincing arguments that are often proposed in support of pretribulationalism. I also found Blaising’s argumentation more convincing than Hultberg’s or Moo’s. He seemed to best understand the significance of the Day of the Lord prophecies and their connection to the parousia as a complex event. He also rightly recognized that God promised the church deliverance from this time period of special judgment. The most damaging objection is the presence of saints in the tribulation period. I think that Moo provides the best theological explanation for the presence of these saints in a period of God’s wrath. But this theological explanation does not counteract God’s promises that he will, in general, remove his people from the day of his wrath. The tribulation saints are an anomaly because they were saved after the rapture of the church (on the pretribulation view), and the presence of an anomaly does not entirely overthrow Blaising’s position.

Overall this second edition has greatly improved upon the first. This may now be the best introductory resource to the topic of the rapture.

Articles

Barrett, Michael. "The King James Version: Its Tradition, Text, and Translation." In The Beauty and Glory of the Holy Spirit. Edited by Joel R. Beeke and Joseph A. Pipa. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2012.

Barrett offers a defense for the continued use of the KJV. He is respectful of those who take positions other than his on the issue of textual basis. In the end, however, I was left wondering why someone who takes his position on textual basis does not opt to use the NKJV. He argues that it is reasonable to expect people to learn the older vocabulary and syntax of the KJV. But why make this artificial obstacle a requirement to reading the Word of God?

Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God. London: SPCK, 1992. [Read Part III: First-Century Judaism within the Greco-Roman World]

Wright provides a helpful outline of Israel’s history from the Babylonian captivity through the beginning of the rabbinic era. He provides sketches of the major Jewish groups of this time period: Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees, and others. He investigates worldview topics such as temple, land, torah, racial identity, festivals, monothiesm, election, covenant, redemption, and eschatology, the kingdom of God, and justification. Wright’s treatment of the first-century Jewish perspective of these topics is often helpful. His footnotes provide an entry into the broader literature. Nonetheless, readers should be aware that the evidence on this time period is fragmentary. Thus Wright is providing a reconstruction beliefs based on materials that are sometimes earlier and sometimes later than the period under consideration. Furthermore, these materials often need interpretation. Thus when Wright says the Jews were not concerned with postmortem salvation but with political deliverance, I wonder if he is drawing too sharp a dichotomy with too little evidence. A couple times Wright says that those who think the Jews were concerned about personal salvation or personal merit know more about the Pelagian controversy than they do about the first century. ‎But I saw nothing in the evidence Wright displayed has so far said ruled out concern with individual salvation or the possibility that, well-intentioned as they might be, the Pharisees did not move toward what might later be called semi-pelagianism. Nor does Wright consider that later Christians may have correlated the semi-pelagianism they knew with the Pharisees based on the Bible’s portrayal of the Pharisees.   The Scriptural portrayal of the Pharisees, even  if not a full-or bed portrayal, is, one must say, accurate in all that is presents. All in all, this is a helpful section when read with discernment.

Carson, D. A. "The Biblical Gospel," in For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future. Edited by Steve Brady and Harold Rowdon. London: Evangelical Alliance, 1996.

In this article Carson reflects on the connection between the kingdom and the gospel. He argues that the kingdom and the cross cannot be separated since both are closely tied to the gospel. He further argues that the gospel must be located in the storyline of Scripture because it makes sense only from within that storyline. When detached from the storyline, statements of the gospel may sound orthodox and yet be another gospel. Carson concludes by warning against simply assuming the gospel while focusing on other issues and against making the gospel the starting point of the Christian life and looking to any number of other things to continue the Christian life.

Carson, D. A. "What Is the Gospel?—Revisited." In For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.

Carson begins his essay with an extensive survey of Gospel words in the LXX and New Testament. He then draws out some conclusions. First, and most mundane, gospel as a genre category post-dates the writing of the New Testament books. Second, Carson suspects that the Old Testament influences the meaning of the gospel word-group more than the imperial cult of the Roman Empire. Third, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish whether the content or the proclamation is being emphasized in gospel contexts. The gospel is tied closely to its proclamation, and words are necessary to do this. Fourth, "Gospel" has "wide and narrow senses." Sometimes the gospel refers broadly to "the whole good news of what God has done in Christ Jesus and in consequence will do" (161). Other times it refers more narrowly to personal salvation. These are not competing gospels, they are different aspects of the same gospel. Carson is especially concerned about the tendency of some to discard the personal aspect of the gospel for a focus on the demands of the kingdom or to what Christ will achieve ultimately. This, in Carson’s view, becomes "only a tiring and tired moralism." Further, Carson argues that announcing what Christ has done carries an intrinsic demand to those who hear the good news. The personal aspect of the gospel cannot be left behind. Fifth, even though the gospel contains words of judgment to those who reject it, it is still the good news. Sixth, the gospel is not just the starting point of the Christian life but undergirds all of the Christian life. Failing to realize this results in trying to accomplish nearness to God through mysticism or other means. Seventh, we must beware of reading connotations that have developed around the English word "evangelist" back into the Greek word. Carson argues that an evangelist is one who preaches the gospel whether it is to Christians or those in need of salvation. Eighth, the historicity of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection are essential to the gospel being truly good news. Ninth, we understand the gospel better when we understand the problems the gospel addresses: the guilt of sin, alienation from God, the wrath of God, estrangement from other people, the cursed creation, spiritual death, idolatrous hearts. Likewise, the gospel points forward to God’s purposes: through the gospel God provides forgiveness, resurrection, justification, transformation, faith, obedience and more.

In this essay Carson addresses the same problems that McKnight addresses in The King Jesus Gospel, but he does so in a way that accounts for all of the biblical and theological data without creating false dichotomies.

Gathercole, Simon. "The Gospel of Paul and the Gospel of the Kingdom." In God’s Power to Save: One Gospel for a Complex World?. Edited by Chris Green. Apollos, 2006.

Gathercole challenges the old position that the gospel of the kingdom (presented in the Gospels as taught by Jesus) and the gospel of Paul are two different gospels. In the past this has led to the charge that Paul, not Jesus, is the founder of Christianity. More recently some have argued that evangelicals need to rid themselves of their fixation on Paul and justification and develop a better appreciation for the Gospels and the kingdom. Gathercole argues that this position presupposes the Gospels and epistles were written "in isolation" from each other. Gathercole finds this an implausible historical reconstruction. He instead proposes a theologically unified New Testament with a unified perspective on the gospel.

Gathercole defines the gospel as "God’s account of his saving activity in Jesus the Messiah, in which, by Jesus’ death and resurrection, he atones for sin and brings new creation" (149). Gathercole demonstrates that all three of these elements are presented both in Paul and in the Gospels.

Merkle, Benjamin L. "Who Will Be Left Behind? Rethinking the Meaning of Matthew 24:40-41 and Luke 17:34-35," Westminster Theological Journal 72, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 169-79.

1. Summary

These two texts, in the context of Christ’s return, refer to two men in a field, two women grinding at a mill, two in one bed, and one of each pair is taken and the other left. Merkle notes an impressive list of commentators who take the view that those who are taken are raptured and those left behind are judged: Hagner, Marshall, Geldenhuys, Nolland, Green, Bock, Morris, France (TNTC, not NICNT), Hendriksen, Bruner, Wilkins, Fitzmyer, and Ellis. Merkle, however, wishes to argue the contrary position. Those taken are judged and those left the righteous.

1.1 Merkle first looks to the Old Testament to demonstrate that throughout the prophets the righteous are left behind as a remnant while those taken into exile are judged. Merkle believes that this language about taking and leaving behind in connection with the OT destruction of Jerusalem would have shaped the people’s understanding as they heard Jesus talk of a future destruction of Jerusalem.

1.2 Merkle then turns to the New Testament. He argues that Matthew 24:40-41 and Luke 17:34-35 should not be read in light of 1 Thessalonians 4:17. First, the nearer contexts within Matthew and Luke should be canvassed before turning to Paul. Second, since the texts from Matthew and Luke are apocalyptic and prophetic, one should look to other prophetic/apocalyptic literature for the key, not to epistolary literature. Third, Paul is giving comfort in 1 Thessalonians while Jesus is speaking of judgment. The contexts are thus different.

1.3 Merkle thus turns to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to see how leaving and taking language is used. He notes that in the parable of the weeds, the weeds are taken and gathered up out of the kingdom. In Matthew 24 itself, the righteous are told to flee to the mountains in those days. Merkle says this is to avoid being taken by the enemy as when Jerusalem fell in Old Testament times. In both Matthew 24 and Luke 17 a comparison is made to the flood in which the wicked are taken away by the flood but Noah and his family remains. Likewise Luke 17 uses Lot as an example. The people of Sodom were taken away, but Lot remained.

1.4 Merkle then evaluates the arguments for the position that those left are the wicked and those taken are the righteous.

1.4.1 Some note that "taken" often refers to taking someone with you. Merkle notes, however, the word can also be used for taking someone as a prisoner.

1.4.2 Others argue that the term for left "is consistently used to refer to something that is abandoned or forsaken" (175). Merkle grants this, and his response is somewhat fuzzy. He seems to think that there is a play on words with Jesus’s saying that "there will to be left here one stone upon another" so that one use of the word reflects judgment and the other mercy.

1.4.3 Some connect Matthew 24:40-41 || Luke 17:34-35 with Matthew 24:31. In that passage Jesus gathers his elect from the four winds. Merkle objects that gathering and taking are not necessarily the same. Furthermore, in the parable of the weeds the word for gathering the elect in Matthew 24:41 occurs in Matthew 13:30 of gathering the wheat into the barn. This gathering takes place after the weeds are gathered to be burned (using a different Greek word for gather). Merkle speculates that when 1 Thessalonians 4:17 refers to those "who are alive, who are left," being raptured, those who are left might be those left after the ungodly have already been taken away.

1.4.4 Some claim that the Noah and Lot parallels favor understanding the righteous as those taken and the wicked as those left behind. Noah and his family enter the ark and leave the others behind to destruction. Lot is taken by the angels from Sodom, which he leaves behind for judgment. Merkle objects that with Noah the text is clear that the Flood took away the unrighteous (Matt. 24:38-39). He finds confirmation of this view in Genesis 7:23.

2. Evaluation

2.1. Regarding the Old Testament background, I was not convinced that the texts Merkle leaned on consistently supported his point. To be sure, being taken into exile was a judgment. But I was not convinced that all the texts about "remaining" were spatial. Some simply seemed to be referring to God leaving a remnant of true worshippers. Some of that remnant was doubtless taken into exile. This seems demonstrated by the passages Merkle appeals to from Ezra, in which the reference is to those who have returned. Furthermore, the book of Daniel would indicate that the remnant may include those taken to exile, and the end of Jeremiah demonstrates that those left behind were not especially righteous. Merkle concedes this in note 6 but does not acknowledge that it weakens his argument.

2.2 Regarding the relevance of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, only Merkle’s first argument is strong. The near context should play a more determinative role than a more distant text. But It is difficult to understand how 1 Thessalonians 4 can be dismissed as epistolary rather than prophetic literature. These are not two mutually exclusive genres, and if texts about the return of Christ are not prophetic, it is hard to know what is. Likewise, only if the broader context of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is ignored can it be said that the passage is about comfort to the exclusion of being about judgment.

2.3 Of his arguments from the nearer contexts in Matthew and Luke, the parallels with Noah and Lot are the strongest. The appeal to fleeing from Jerusalem is the weakest. The parable of the weeds, as Merkle notes, can hardly be determinative.

2.4 Regarding counter-arguments, Merkle is weakest at points 1.4.2 and 1.4.3 above, and strongest at points 1.4.1. and especially 1.4.4.

2.5 Overall, I would say that Merkle’s view is a possibility. The parallel with Noah is the strongest evidence in his favor. Too often, however, he makes his case on the basis of word usage with words that I’m not convinced are technical terms or by drawing parallels with passages that do not seem clearly relevant (the parable of the weeds) while dismissing passages that are relevant (1 Thess. 4:17).

2.6 As a footnote, I found it odd that Merkle opened the article by tarring his opponent with references to Thief in the Night and the Left Behind series. Most of those cited as taking the opposing view were not dispensationalists whereas, as mentioned in note 24, traditional dispensationalists Walvoord, Ryrire, and Geisler all hold to the view Merkle is advocating.

Books

Diprose, Ronald E. Israel and the Church: The Origin and Effects of Replacement Theology. Waynesboro, GA: Authentic, 2004.

Diprose’s book seems to be a light reworking of his dissertation. As such it retains all the weaknesses of published dissertations. An additional weakness was a seeming conflation of replacement theology and anti-Judaism. These are two different things and ought to be kept distinct. Nevertheless, he does present a good deal of helpful material. Chapter 2 helpfully identifies and evaluates passages which seem to support replacement theology and passages which seem to prohibit it. Chapter 3 surveys Christian theologians’ views of Israel (especially in the early church). The fourth and fifth chapters examine how replacement theology affects ecclesiology and eschatology. These latter two chapters are worth a quick skim. I found Diprose’s work helpful, but pride of place on this topic still goes to Michael Vlach’s Has the Church Replaced Israel?

Carroll R, M. Daniel. Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible. Baker Academic, 2008.

After a foreword that explains his own personal background in both the United States and Latin America, Carroll provides a thumbnail sketch of Latin American immigration. He then surveys the concerns that undocumented immigrants (terminology Carroll prefers to illegal aliens) raise among many Americans. He concludes the first chapter with the opportunities the church gains through the shifts of immigration. Chapter 2 looks at the image of God in man and the experiences of Old Testament people as sojourners and exiles. In chapter 3 Carroll examines how the OT law informs the immigration debate. He argues (following Christopher Wright) that Israel’s law serves as a paradigm for the nations. This does not mean that every aspect of legislation should be imitated by them, but that Israel provides a concrete example of God’s moral expectations for the nations. On this basis Carroll believes the OT law mandates Christians to care for and show hospitality to the immigrants among them. The law also expected the immigrants to conform to the law and to assimilate to Israel’s religion. Carroll then turns to the New Testament. Though Jesus never addresses the issue of immigration, his compassion toward outsiders such as the Samaritans provides an example for Christians today. Peter addresses his first epistle to Christians who are spiritually "aliens and strangers." Carroll concludes from this that Christians especially should be sympathetic to the plight of immigrants. He also concludes that Christians should be willing to be out of step with the prevailing culture on this issue. Concluding the chapter on the NT is a brief discussion of Romans 13. Carroll argues that American laws regarding immigration may be unjust and that believers should obey God in these matters rather than man. The correct response of Christians is therefore not simply to submit to the laws but to seek to reform them. Christian undocumented immigrants feel both the problem of violating the law and of feeling its injustices. Carroll holds that they should seek to obey the laws of the land in all other areas and that Christians should be sympathetic to their plight.

Hoffmeier, James K. The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible. Wheaton: Crossway, 2009.

Hoffmeier begins with a preface that details his experience as an immigrant as well as his experiences helping immigrants. In his first chapter he sketches the current American situation and discusses how the Bible applies to current concerns. He adopts a combination of Walter Kaiser’s principlization model and Christopher Wright’s worldview model. Beginning with the second chapter Hoffmeier begins his survey of the biblical data. He notes that ancient nations were concerned about the integrity of their borders and distinguished between legal and illegal immigrants. He is able to establish this from archaeological evidence in Egypt, but he also demonstrates it linguistically by the different words used in the Hebrew Bible to distinguish the various kinds of people moving through or living in the land. Hoffmeier demonstrates that the ger (stranger, sojourner) had the status of a legal immigrant. He also notes details from the narratives of the patriarchs that showed the sojourned within the legal frameworks of the peoples among whom they lived. This involved making treaties and agreements with them. In chapter 3 Hoffmeier investigates the enslavement of Israel by the Egyptians. He presents this as a case of legal immigrants who are at first received and then abused. He suggests that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II provides an analogous situation in American history. Chapter 4 investigates the law’s teaching about the ger under five categories: "1) general ethical considerations, 2) legal protection, 3) treatment of employees, 4) social benefits, 5) religious participation" (72). In this section Hoffmeier treats such things as the equal standing under Israel’s law that the ger was to receive or the fair treatment (including fair pay) of employees. In this section Hoffmeier also looks at the biblical teaching concerning sanctuary cities. He concludes that sanctuary was a mechanism to guarantee a fair trial, not a means for evading the law. In chapter 5 Hoffmeier surveys Israel’s history and demonstrates that the sojourner played an important role throughout Israel’s history. In chapter 6 Hoffmeier looks at the prophets’ call for justice. He notes that justice is to be applied to the ger and to the native-born alike. He especially emphasizes their call for fair pay. Hoffmeier turns toward Israel’s exile in chapter 7, and he emphasizes God’s call for Israel to seek the shalom of the foreign city in which they dwelt. He takes this as paradigmatic for immigrants today. Chapter 8 examines the issue of the immigrant from the New Testament. Hoffmeier opens the chapter by noting the flight of Jesus and his family to Egypt to escape Herod. The emphasis of the chapter, however, rests on the dual citizenship of Christians in the kingdom of heaven as well as in the kingdoms of this world. This means that Christians are bound both to obey God and to obey the governments under which they live. He argues that Romans 13 applies even to laws that are unfair. For Christians to disobey American immigration laws, they must demonstrate that obedience to them violates God’s laws. Hoffmeier argues that Carroll does not do this and is overly dismissive of Romans 13. Hoffmeier also objects to Matthew 25:31-46 as a proof text for receiving illegal immigrants since in context it refers to "the apostles or the disciples whom Christ sent out" and secondarily to Christians generally. He does not believe it refers to all humans (148-49). In conclusion, Hoffmeier believes the Bible gives nations the right to regulate immigration. It does demand however that immigrants be treated equally under the law and be "eligible for social benefits" (though required to work for them) (155). He emphasizes the biblical distinction between foreigners with legal status as immigrants and those without. Given, this he emphasizes that Romans 13 mandates obedience to immigration laws. Hoffmeier then applies Romans 13 to employers, arguing that their exploitation of illegal immigrants violates justice not only toward them but also toward legal immigrants who could fill the job with a fair wage. Churches should not encourage immigrants to break the law, but they can provide financial and legal help to immigrants to enable them to gain or maintain legal standing. Hoffmeier concludes by recognizing that American immigration law may need to be reformed, but he does not go into details about how this should be done.

Hoffmeier does not engage the current political situation as much as Carroll does, but his treatment of the biblical material is more detailed and more careful.

Waters, Guy Prentiss. How Jesus Runs the Church. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2011.

How Jesus Runs the Church is a book about Presbyterian church government. The title may sound a bit cheeky to those, such as myself, who are not Presbyterian. Waters is making a serious point with the title, however. Since Jesus is the Lord of the church, the form of church government is not left to the discretion of the members. Waters therefore seeks to demonstrate how the Presbyterian from of church government is grounded in Scripture. He also acquaints readers with older Presbyterian literature on ecclesiology. Though those with differing denominational convictions will find plenty to disagree with, Waters’s clear writing style and effort to ground his view of church government makes him an ideal conversation partner.

Webb, Barry G. The Message of Isaiah. The Bible Speaks Today. Edited by J. A. Motyer. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996.

For larger books, such as Isaiah, a brief commentary that orients the reader to the big ideas of the book as well as to its basic structure and flow of thought is very helpful. Webb’s commentary is of this sort. He is readable and insightful throughout. My only criticism is his tendency to spiritualize the eternal state. Why must the nations streaming to Zion simply be a picture of people from all nations being added to the church? If redemption truly extends as far as the Fall, the eternal state will be physical and earthly. And if the eternal state is physical and earthly, why may the nations not stream to Jerusalem? This compliant, however, is minor when compared with the great value of Webb’s comments overall.

Bock, Darrell L. and Mitch Glaser. To the Jew First: The Case for Jewish Evangelism in Scripture and History. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2008.

This book is a collection of essays gathered from two conferences on Jewish evangelism. Though published under Kregel’s academic imprint, the essays are accessible rather than technical. I picked up the volume in connection with studies on the relation between the church and Israel. Coming with that aspect of study in mind I found the following essays the most helpful: Walter Kaiser’s essay on Romans 9-11, Craig Blaising’s essay on "The Future of Israel as a Theological Question" (also available in JETS 44.2, pp. 435-50), and Richard Pratt’s article on a Reformed perspective of the relation between Israel and the church. Michael Rydelnik’s essay on messianic prophecy was also informative.

Kaiser provided a helpful overview of Romans 9-11. I especially found his discussion of the olive tree imagery stimulating.

Pratt argued that adherents to Reformed theology are wrongly characterized as supersessionist or replacement theologians. While Reformed theologians object to the older dispensational division of the people of God into an earthly people and a heavenly people, Pratt says they do not claim the church has replaced Israel. Rather, the church and Israel are a unity. Israel is the Old Testament church. Pratt went on to affirm that the land promises would be fulfilled for ethnic Israel on the new earth. He also affirmed the end-time conversion of ethnic Israel. Pratt’s position is an intriguing one, but a few issues should be raised. First, there seems to be greater diversity among Reformed theologians than Pratt concedes. For instance, it seems fair to characterize O. Palmer Robertson as a replacement theologian. Robertson also rejects any fulfillment of the land promises for ethnic Israel and even the future conversion of ethnic Israel. At present, it seems that Robertson is in the minority position on the last point, but it seems that Pratt is probably in the minority position among Reformed theologians on seeing the land promises fulfilled for Israel in the future. Pratt would have been better off arguing that his position is consistent with Reformed theology than that it the Reformed position. More substantively, for Pratt’s position to work he must affirm that the church like Israel is a mixed group in terms of regeneration. This seems to ignore the changes brought about by the New Covenant. The church as a New Covenant institution should be comprised of a regenerated membership insofar as fallible humans are able to determine this.

Rydelink’s essay contained a fascinating survey of the reception history of messianic prophecy from the apostles through to the present.

Beilby, James K. and Paul Rhodes Eddy. Justification: Five Views. Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 2011.

This multi-view book on justification begins with two historical essays followed by two Reformed views, a New Perspective view, a deification view, and a Roman Catholic view. The opening historical essays by Beilby and Eddy do a competent job of providing the historical background and outlining the terms of the debate. In a multiple views book, this introductory material is helpful, especially for those who are using the book as an introduction to this issue.

The essays by Michael Horton, James Dunn, and Oliver Rafferty make this book a worthy read. Rafferty provides a very helpful historical sketch of the doctrine of justification from Augustine through Trent. Though his scope is more limited than the opening historical essay, I found it to be more insightful. A reader would do well to read Rafferty first, though he appears in the final essay in the book. I found his co-author for the Roman Catholic view less satisfying. He gave his own personal journey of understanding justification. His essay would have been stronger if he had dealt biblically with the work of recent Catholic scholars such as Joseph Fitzmeyer and theologically with various ecumenical initiatives that the Roman church has undertaken with the Lutherans and evangelicals regarding justification.

James Dunn is one of the founding and leading proponents of the New Perspective and was therefore a good choice for presenting that view. Furthermore, N. T. Wright seems to get more interaction in the evangelical world, so including Dunn brings in another voice for that perspective.

It is hard to imagine a better representative for the "traditional reformed view" than Michael Horton. He is exegetically, historically, and theologically competent on this issue. His Covenant and Salvation had already provided perhaps the best theological response to the New Perspective yet published, and many of those insights reappeared here (e.g., the similarity of Sanders’s covenantal nomism to the views that Luther and Calvin were combating, the importance of distinguishing between the types of OT covenants, etc.). Horton was also well prepared to respond to Kärkkäinen’s deification view, having also addressed that issue at length in Covenant and Salvation.

Kärkkäinen seemed too motivated by ecumenical issues for me to be truly convinced that his (Finnish school) revisionist reading of Luther even approximated Luther’s actual beliefs. His ecumenical quest also seemed to be something of a fool’s errand. He may have gained something in reaching out the Russian Orthodox, but Rafferty was clear in his response that the deification proposal was not acceptable to Roman Catholics. Nor is Kärkkäinen going to convince the Lutheran orthodox. He may have redrawn the lines regarding who finds his beliefs acceptable, but I’m not convinced any real ecumenical progress was made.

Michael Bird’s essay and responses were similarly unsatisfying. I did not find a clear statement of his position such as could be found in both Horton’s and Dunn’s essays. Furthermore, he seemed to be proclaiming the possibility of rapprochement while the principals of the debate clearly disagreed with one another. Horton, for instance, remained unconvinced that Dunn’s position was in fact compatible with Reformation theology despite Dunn’s recent insistence that the New Perspective stands not in opposition to the Reformation doctrine but as an addition and reorientation. For his part, Dunn seemed positively angry (I believe he used the term "miffed") in his response to Horton. In any event, in reading the positions and responses, I came away convinced of the real differences between the positions.

One last thought. Many of the contributors argued that Paul’s soteriology cannot be reduced to the one metaphor of justification. I’m not convinced that justification is merely one metaphor among many—a metaphor that may be emphasized or de-emphasized as the theological situation demands it. Rather, I think justification is a reality that must be reckoned with as theologians seek to understand God’s work of salvation.

Thiselton, Anthony C. Hermeneutics: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.

Thiselton’s Hermeneutics is not a book of Bible study methodologies. It is largely a survey of hermeneutical approaches from early Judaism through to the present. Throughout Thiselton provides incisive evaluations. Though billed as an introduction, some of the discussions can become fairly deep philosophically. Nonetheless, this may be the most useful book for a quick survey of the history of hermeneutics.

Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2009.

This is an excellent recent survey of the doctrine of Scripture. Ward is concise, readable, careful, and judicious. He does not simply restate that traditional evangelical doctrine but instead seeks to make explicit its biblical foundations. He also interacts with recent challenges to the doctrine. But this is not to say that Ward is innovative. While he does make use of recent theories about how language works, Ward also appreciatively draws on the work of previous theological giants who have formulated this doctrine: Calvin, Turretin, Warfield, and Bavinck.

I have only one major complaint about the book. In his section on sola scriptura, I find Ward overly dependent on Keith Mathison and Heiko Oberman’s inaccurate handling of the various views of tradition held throughout church history. He would have been better served by the categories found in Anthony Lane’s article, “Scripture, Tradition, and Church: An Historical Survey.” Vox Evangelica 9 (1975): 37-55.

This one complaint, however, should not deter readers from reading this excellent study on the doctrine of Scripture. Ward’s work is probably the best recent survey of the doctrine of Scripture.

Edwards, Jonathan. A History of the Work of Redemption. The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Edited by John F. Wilson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. [Read all of Edwards’s text, the back matter and some of the front matter.]

This series of thirty sermons traces God’s work of redemption from eternity past through eternity future. The series is constructed historically, and will therefore remind readers of the kind of biblical theology that traces progressive revelation and the progress of God’s working in the world. But Edwards differs from biblical theology of this sort by being willing to systematically develop doctrines early on in this study. This work also differs from biblical theology by extending beyond the canon. Edwards interprets history from the close of the canon through to his present day by interpreting God’s providential working in the world through the lens of a historicist understanding of the book of Revelation (aided by relevant portions of Daniel). The earlier parts of the series were full of exegetical insights. The later parts, by Edwards’s own admission, were more open to debate, but I found his approach, especially his work with Revelation and Daniel interesting from a historical point of view. Because these were sermons, Edwards also maintains a devotional spirit throughout.

Neusner, Jacob. Judaism: The Basics. New York: Routledge, 2006.

This book provides what the title promises. Neusner defines Judaism through its culture and stories. He explains the basic beliefs of Judaism. Finally, he outlines its history and various subgroups from the Second Temple period through to the present.

Articles

Blaising, Craig A. "The Future Of Israel As A Theological Question," JETS 44, no. 3 (Sep 2001): 435-50.

Blaising begins his discussion with a survey of various types of supersessionism. He then surveys Romans 9-11 briefly as the key problem passage for the supersessionist. He also examines recent scholarship that argues Jesus’s mission involved the restoration of Israel. This point can support Blaising’s non-supersessionist approach, but he should have noted that some of the scholars who make this point are supersessionists. Blaising then turns to "Two-Covenant Theology." Though anti-supersessionist, Blaising rejects two-covenant theology as incompatible with the New Testament’s teaching that salvation involves faith in Jesus, whom God has made both Lord and Christ. Blaising calls on evangelical scholars to develop an approach to Israel that says "yes" to the theological significance of its future while rejecting the errors of two-covenant theology. He concludes by examining the significance of his approach to Israel’s future for theology proper, anthropology, Christology, ecclesiology, and eschatology.

Theology proper: Blaising argues that discussions of God and his attributes should not be abstract but should be rooted in God’s historical dealings with Israel. He argues that Yahweh’s revelation of himself to Moses on Sinai should be the starting point for theology proper.

Anthropology: Blaising believes that his view gives impetus for seeing the significance of ethnic diversity in God’s plan. Furthermore, the bringing in of the Gentiles in the NT should be viewed not as universalizing OT particulars but as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant’s promise the Israel will be a blessing to the nations.

Christology: Blaising believes that Jesus’s Jewishness, his Davidic descent—the fact that he is the Davidic Messiah—should play a larger role in our Christology. Specifically, the Davidic covenant background to the "Son of God" title needs further acknowledgement.

Ecclesiology: Blaising emphases here that the church is not a Gentile entity. It is a Jewish and Gentile entity. Therefore, the church should not insist that Jewish Christians give up their Jewishness. Blaising also argues that rabbinic Torah observance is not the only kind, and that there is a legitimate way for Christian Jews to observe the Torah. Blaising, however, needs to reckon with the movement from the Mosaic to the New Covenant and its implications. This movement happened for Jews and not for Gentiles only.

Eschatology: Blaising argues that a driving force behind supersessionism is a "spiritual-vision" eschatology that emphasizes the beatific vision. In this eschatology there is little place for physicality and as a nation Israel must be reduced to a symbol. Blaising argues to the contrary for a physical new earth, which provides a place for peoples and nations in the eschaton.

Aune, David E. "The Text-Tradition of Luke-Acts," JETS 7, no. 3 (Summer 1964): 69-80.

Contains some useful information about the carious text types in Luke-Acts. Note especially the discussion of the Western text and his account of the various viewpoints regarding it.

Tolkein, J. R. R. "A Secret Vice." In Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. New York: HarperCollins, 1983.

An interesting lecture on inventing languages.

McClymond, Michael J. and Gerald R. McDermott. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. [chapters 1-12]

In part one McClymond and McDermott place Edwards in his context, trace out his life and the development of his thought, and enumerate the themes that will run throughout this study. In part two they begin to look at the major concepts which shape how Edwards approached theology. The authors exhibit good knowledge of Edwards’s corpus and of the vast amount of literature that has been written about Edwards.

Books

Harrison, Frank Mott. John Bunyan. Banner of Truth, 1964.

A biography written somewhat like a novel. It also manages to weave in copious quotations from source material (though at points it would be nice to have clarified what is quoted and what is imagined).

Holwerda, David E. Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Holwerda begins his book by noting the recent change regarding the status of Israel in broadly Christian theology. Supersessionism is on the wane; the new approach suggests that Christians and Israel function under two equal but distinct covenants (thus invalidating the need to seek Jewish converts to Christianity). Within this context, Holwerda seeks to defend supersessionism from Scripture. Holwerda is exegetically and theologically careful. He is also willing to grant what he views as the strong points of an opposing position. At times his argument seems to trend away from supersessionism before returning to it. For instance, he affirms that the land promises are "irrevocable." He denies that the exile or Israel’s unfaithfulness has canceled the promises. But he retains the supersessionist position by arguing that the NT universalizes the land promises (Eph. 6:2-3; Gal 3:16, 29) and moves beyond the particularities. This approach applies to each issue he covers: "The particular promises concerning land and city, temple and people, will find their fulfillment only within the structures of the universal fulfillment inaugurated in history by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ" (181). In response, I fail to see why the particularities must be banished when promises are universalized. To be sure, symbols like the sacrificial system or the temple are replaced by the realty they symbolized. But Holwerda failed to demonstrate that the land, or Jerusalem, or the people of Israel are mere symbols. In fact, some of his discussion pointed the opposite direction (e.g., his argument that Romans 9-11 looks forward to the future salvation of the fullness of ethnic Israel). If the land, city, and people have inherent and not mere symbolic significance, why can the promises given to and about them not be fulfilled both in their particularities as well as in a universalized fashion? Holwerda’s failure to address this question is the primary weakness of his argument.

Articles

McCall, Thomas H. “Religious Epistemology, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, and Critical Biblical Scholarship: A Theologian’s Reflections.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

McCall surveys recent approaches to epistemic justification and then applies the findings to critical biblical scholarship (CBS). He finds that critical biblical scholarship presumes an epistemology that is no longer widely accepted. He therefore doubts the right of CBS to command assent. It is possible to dismiss the findings of CBS and remain epistemically justified in doing so. Indeed, one may reject CBS and stand on much firmer epistemic ground than CBS itself. This is one of the most incisive essays in the book.

Kofoed, Jens Bruun. "The Old Testament as Cultural Memory." In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

This was not the most lucid essay in the book, and it may even run counter to the overall emphasis that the actual historicity of the events recounted in the OT is essential.

Walton, John H.. “Ancient Near Eastern Background Studies.” In Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.

Walton states his view succinctly in the form of an if/then form:

"If:

"(a) comparative studies provide a window to the ancient worldview; and

"(b) Israel in large measure shared that ancient worldview; and

"(c) revelation was communicated through that worldview; and

"(d) that revelation embodies the theological teaching of the text;

"Then: comparative studies become crucial to the theological understanding of the OT" (41).

He unpacks the syllogism in five theses:

"1. God did not reject the entire-world-picture of Israel’s neighbors, but used much of its structure and framework for revelation" (41).

"2. God often used existing institutions and converted them to his theological purposes" (42).

"3. Revelation did not always counter ancient Near Eastern concepts, but often used them in productive ways" (42).

"4. Literary connections do not negate inspiration of Scripture" (43).

"5. Spiritualized explanations must not be chosen when cultural explanations are readily available" (43).

The strength of this article, especially given its location in a dictionary for theological interpretation, is its insistence that history and cultural context do matter for right interpretation of Scripture. Barthian and Childsian interpreters too often minimize or reject this point.

Nevertheless, problems emerge with the application of each of Walton’s theses.

1. Walton argues that Genesis 1 operates within a world-picture that understands the sky as a solid dome that is "holding back the cosmic waters above." To those who wish to interpret raqi’a as something other than a solid dome, Walton says, "Our doctrine of Scripture would be jeopardized if we felt free to conform the meanings of words to make them more comfortable to us" (42). But is not the inerrancy of Scripture (something I’m sure Walton affirms) jeopardized if Scripture affirms false world-pictures of surrounding cultures?

2. The thesis itself is true, and Walton rightly uses circumcision to illustrate it. But I believe he goes astray with a second illustration: "If we ask where the pre-Mosaic practice of sacrifice derived from, we would have to take the silence of the text as suggesting that it was of human invention, guided by Providence" (42). It is more probable that God instructed the first humans to offer sacrifices in worship and that the practice persisted even after the nations had fallen away from God. Scripture is not silent about the emergence of sacrifices. It testifies that they are practiced as early as Genesis 4. This makes the divine institution of sacrifices the more likely option.

3. Walton once again rightly notes that the temple structure used by Israel with its eastern orientation and levels of increasing sacred space was common in the ancient Near East. But he then says, "We would entirely miss the mark to allegorize the architectural features of the temple, trying to give them ‘theological’ meaning rather than finding meaning in the ancient Near Eastern background, as the Israelites would have. That they can be given allegorical meaning is arguably demonstrated in Hebrews. That the theological interpretation of the text is meant to be fond in allegory or that we have the freedom or ability to pursue such an approach with confidence is questionable" (42). Is Walton saying that the author of Hebrews was correct to find theological symbolic significance in the tabernacle’s structure (apart from ANE background), but that we are not? That has troubling implications for our understanding of apostolic hermeneutics. In any event, it is difficult to see why Walton is raising this objection. He has already granted under thesis 2 that ANE institutions can be "converted" to "theological purposes." Why can the Israelite tabernacle not have followed an ANE pattern and yet have its own distinct theological significance?

4. Walton is correct to discount attempts to relativize the Old Testament by claiming its theology is simply derivative of Babylonian or other ancient Near Eastern myths. He is also doubtless correct that many of the similarities between Scripture and ANE literature are due to shared culture rather than borrowing (though again with theological matters we should not discount the possibility that the nations corrupted original true knowledge of God and his ways). But it is quite another thing to assert that if the Bible were revealed in the modern world, the creation account would have been given in terms of "the big bang" or "evolution," whereas it was given in terms of ANE mythology. The OT may be culturally at home in the ancient Near East, but it cannot affirm the erroneous thinking of ANE cultures.

5. Walton’s two examples here are the tower of Babel (the people were building a ziggurat rather than trying to build a tower up to God through the heavens) and the sun stopping in Joshua 10 (an idiom relating to the alignment of the sun and moon and its perception by the Canaanites that it was an evil omen rather than a halting of the earth’s rotation). With the last example Walton neglects the precise wording of the passage. The sun and the moon stood still "until the nation too vengeance on their enemies," a time period specified in the text to have lasted "about a whole day" (10:13).

Walton’s theses are not entirely wrong (thesis one is the most problematic, and thesis five may draw too sharp a dichotomy), but he does seem to overestimate the importance of ANE background for understanding the text, and this over-estimation has caused him to deploy his theses in some uncareful and problematic ways.

Noll, Mark A. “Jonathan Edwards and Nineteenth Century Theology.” In Jonathan Edwards And the American Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

In this essay Mark Noll documents the competing efforts to appropriate Edwards in the 19th century. Finney and the revivalists appealed to Edwards’s role in the First Great Awakening while rejecting his theology. Proponents of New England Theology, such as Edwards Amasa Park, argued that they were the true heirs to Edwards’s theology as opposed to the Old School Princetonians . Noll judged that argument unconvincing even at the time, especially on doctrines such as the freedom of the will and original sin. In those areas, Princetonian theology agreed with Edwards and New England Theology departed from him. The Princetonians, however, found Edwards’s approach to theology too speculative, and they found his Dissertation on the Nature of True Virtue problematic. Noll notes that the New England Theologians better understood the Dissertation and that, whatever the difference in the content of their theology and Edwards’s, they retained his bent for speculative theology. In fact, one of the differences between Princeton’s approach of Common Sense Realism and the New England Theology’s is that Princeton allowed Common Sense Realism to affect only its method for doing theology whereas it affected the content of New England Theology.

As the nineteenth century wore on Edwards’s views, especially on the freedom of the will, were subjected to numerous critiques. He fell out of favor until Perry Miller revived interest in the early twentieth century. Edwards found more favor in nineteenth century Scotland, especially among Thomas Chalmers and John McLeod Campbell (though the latter rejected penal substitutionary atonement).

Noll notes that Edwards remained significant not despite his difference from prevailing nineteenth century thought but because of it. "He was their foil" (280). More than that, however, "The final reason may well be that while others preached self-reliance or sang the song of the self, Edwards drove nearer the truth—that nothing can be saved without confronting its own damnation, that freedom is found within necessity, that the way to gain one’s life is to lose it" (281).

Cohick, Lynn H. "The Pastoral Letters." In The New Testament in Antiquity: A Survey of the New Testament within Its Cultural Context. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.

I confess that I rarely find help in these sorts of books that I don’t already find in commentary introductions or throughout a commentary. Since the commentary always has a fuller treatment, I’d rather read the commentary.

Cole, Graham A. “The Peril of a ‘Historyless’ Systematic Theology.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Cole’s primary thesis in this essay is that Systematic Theology cannot presume to work in abstraction apart from the reality of the history presented in Scripture. The best part of his essay, however, was a discussion of accommodation that distinguishes Calvin’s view from the Socinian view. Sparks, the focus of critique, is closer to the Socinian view than the Calvinian.

Bergen, Robert D. "Word Distribution as an Indicator of Authorial Intention: A Study of Genesis 1:1-2:3." In DDo Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

This was an interesting study in literary analysis of a passage, but it seemed to have little to do with the thesis of the book.

Hilber, John W. “The Culture of Prophecy and Writing in the Ancient Near East.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Written evidence from the ancient Near East demonstrates that oral prophecies were often written down shortly after they were given and that the scribes who recorded them were concerned about accurately recording them (though they could range from paraphrase to actual selections of what the prophet said). Thus the critical assumption that the writings of the Old Testament prophets were written long after they were orally delivered and that scribes altered (and even contradicted) the original message is an assumption at odds with the culture of prophecy in the ancient Near East.

Thompson, Mark D. “The Divine Investment in Truth: Toward a Theological Account of Biblical Inerrancy.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Mark Thompson engages recent critics of inerrancy such as A. T. B. McGowan, Craig Allert, and Kenton Sparks. He argues that their critiques of inerrancy misunderstand classic statements of inerrancy (e.g., those by Warfield, Feinberg, and the Chicago Statement). His main concern, however, is to demonstrate that the doctrine has a broad theological grounding. He roots the doctrine in truthfulness of God. Scripture is both a divine and human-authored book, and Thompson links concursus to the doctrine of providence. He also distinguishes between to understandings of how God accommodates himself to humankind, distinguishing between Calvin’s and Socinius’s views. Nonetheless, it is often claimed that human language is not capable of communicating God’s inerrant intent to humans. Thompson counters that language is a creation of God. Though after the Fall it may be abused, it remains God’s creation and sufficient for his purposes in communicating to mankind. Finally, in light of the character of God just enunciated, Thompson deals with the passages that form Scripture’s own self-testimony to its inspiration.

Walton, John H. “New Observations on the Date of Isaiah.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 28, no. 2 (June 1985): 129-32.

Walton argues in three steps: First, he notes that "the events in Isaiah 36-39 are not in chronological order." The reversal of the chronological order is best explained by the desire to naturally shift the focus of the book from Assyria to Babylon. Thus chapters 40-66 must have been written at the time that chapters 36-39 were moved out of chronological order.

Second, "Kings used Isaiah as a source." Though Kings typically follows a chronological pattern, he breaks that pattern here. The break is best explained in terms of Isaiah’s purposes. There is no clear reason in Kings for moving the account out of chronological order. If Kings used Isaiah as a source, and if Isaiah’s ordering of the material depends on the existence of chapters 40-66, then chapter 40-66 must have been written by the time Kings was written.

Third, "The Hezekiah material in Kings, by almost any standard, is to be dated no later than the time of Josiah and Jeremiah."

Walton, John H. “Creation.” Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch. Edited by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003.

Walton teaches that Creation in the ancient Near East concerned functions rather than material. He argues this holds true for Genesis 1 as well since he finds Israel’s view of God distinct from the surrounding cultures but not their view of the cosmos. In his view, Genesis 1 is about the assigning of temple functions to the cosmos. Foundational to Walton’s view is his conception of the cosmos as a temple. He is able to demonstrate that in the ANE temples are regarded as the cosmos, but it is not clear that the cosmos was viewed as a temple in the ANE. The whole cosmos is the dwelling place of God. Temples are needed after Fall because sin brought about a condition in which man can no longer dwell with God. A temple mediates God’s presence to man. But to conclude that the cosmos is a temple seems to read the symbol back into the reality. Walton’s proposal (made in other works) that the seven day creation week indicates that Genesis 1 is about the inauguration of the cosmic temple (since seven day temple dedications existed in the ANE) also founders upon lack of evidence. As Walton himself notes, temple dedications were not uniformly seven days in length (Lost World, 181-82, n. 1). Perhaps those that are simply reflect the fact that a full week is an appropriate length of time for something as significant as a temple dedication. Walton’s argument would be more impressive if Moses had emphasized a seven day tabernacle dedication in a way that made clear connections to Genesis 1. If Moses intended the readers to understand the creation week as a temple inauguration, it would make sense for him to reinforce this with the tabernacle narrative. Thus its absence there is striking. The best Walton can do here is note that the Bible does not say whether the events in Exodus 40 took place in one day or over multiple days. He tries to bolster his case by noting that it did take place in connection with the new year (Ex. 40:2, 17), and in Babylon the new year was often a time for reenacting the temple inauguration (the Akitu festival). This observation does not help much, however, since there is no evidence that Israel had yearly inauguration reenactments. Thus Walton is forced to speculate: “The Bible contains no clear evidence of such festivals, but some see hints that they think point in that direction. It would be no surprise if they had such a festival and would be theologically and culturally appropriate” (Lost World, 89-91). This seems more like wishful thinking than marshaling convincing argumentation.

Walton, John H. “Inspired Subjectivity and Hermeneutical Objectivity,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 13, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 65-77.

Walton believes the New Testament authors operated (under inspiration) with a subjective hermeneutic that modern interpreters ought not imitate. A better guide to the New Testament’s use of the Old is G. K. Beale, “Positive Answer to the Question: Did Jesus and His Followers Preach the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? An Examination of the Presuppositions of Jesus’ and the Apostles’ Exegetical Method,” in The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?: Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New, ed. G. K. Beale (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 387-404.

Walton, John H. “Isa 7:14: What’s in a Name?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 10, no. 3 (September 1987): 289-306.

Lewis, C. S. "Animal Pain." In The Problem of Pain. New York: HarperCollins, 1940.

Lewis’s essay on animal pain is ultimately unsatisfying in terms of its conclusions, but, as typical with Lewis, it contains helpful insights throughout. He rightly notes that animal pain is a part of the problem of evil that theologians must address. Further, those who grant evolution are forced to abandon the classic solution to the problem of animal pain: that it entered the world upon Adam’s fall (137). In addition, Lewis notes, “The fact that vegetable lives ‘prey upon’ one another and are in a state of ‘ruthless’ competition is of no moral importance at all. ‘Life’ in the biological sense has nothing to do with good and evil until sentience appears” (133). This is an important fact since some theistic evolutionists try to dismiss the argument that death entered the world through Adam by arguing that eating plants or even the existence of skin demands the presence of death before the Fall (Walton, Lost World, 100).

Joad, C. E. M. and C. S. Lewis, “The Pains of Animals: A Problem in Theology.” In The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis. New York: Inspirational Press, 1996.

C.E.M. Joad was willing to grant the free will defense to the problem of evil, nevertheless he raises an additional problem, “But now I come to a difficulty, to which I see no solution; indeed, it is in the hope of learning one that this article is written. This is the difficulty of animal pain, and, more particularly, of the pain of the animal world before man appeared upon the cosmic scene.” In the article he proceeds to outline the deficiencies in Lewis’s chapter on animal pain in The Problem of Pain. Lewis responded by correcting some misapprehensions, but he did not advance his theory further.

Stambaugh, James. “Whence Cometh Death? A Biblical Theology of Physical Death and Natural Evil.” In Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth. Edited by Terry Mortenson and Thane H. Ury. Green Forest, AR: Master, 2008.

An excellent survey of the problems of death preceding the Fall. His study of the relevant biblical words confirms Lewis’s observations death words applied to non-sentient life are used metaphorically and that morally significant pain and death applies only to sentient life.

Nettles, Tom J. Review of The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World, by William A. Dembski. Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 13, no. 4 (Winter 2009): 80-85.

William Dembski is one of the few old earth creationists who take seriously the problem of death and suffering before the Fall. He develops an imaginative solution in which the fall precedes death and suffering in kairos-time but in which the order is reversed in chronos-time. Nettles’s review is an excellent rebuttal of this strange proposal.

Johnston, P. S. “Death and Resurrection.” New Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Edited by T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000.

Murray, John. “The Fall of Man.” In Collected Writings of John Murray. Volume 2. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1977.

Books

Robertson, O. Palmer. The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2000.

I’ve greatly benefited from O. Palmer Robertson’s work in the past, especially his The Christ of the Prophets. I am frequently refreshed by his forthright rejection of critical theories that stand at odds with Scripture’s testimony to itself. I therefore picked up The Israel of God in the hope that it would provide me with the best argumentation for the position that the Israel of God in the New Testament are the elect Jews and Gentiles who have been brought together in the church (with the implication that there is no future role for the people of Israel in God’s redemptive plan). While there are some helpful sections (e.g., a critique of Childs’ canonical criticism; a study of Melchizedek; a study of the wilderness theme), I was disappointed by the level of argumentation for the book’s primary thesis. Sometimes Robertson simply asserts things that he ought to argue for (e.g., that the land of Israel is a type and only a type). Most significantly, his treatment of Galatians 6:16, a foundational text for his thesis, contains little interaction with opposing views, leading to an overconfidence in his position. He states that taking the kai as epexegetical (so that "the Israel of God" is equated with "all those who walk according to this canon") is the "only explanation of Paul’s phrase . . . that satisfies the context as well as the grammar of the passage." But S. Lewis Johnson demonstrated that it is possible for the "Israel of God" to be a subset of "all those who walk according to this canon," a view that Robertson never considers.* As a result of the overconfidence that "Israel of God" must refer to elect Jews and Gentiles alike, much of the rest of the exegesis seems forced. I had the same feeling that I get when I read some dispensationalists who argue that the kingdom is not currently present in any form. They can get the passages to conform to their theology through exegesis that is possible. But it doesn’t seem to be the most probable reading of the texts. This is especially the case for Robertson when seeks to prove that the salvation "all Israel" in Romans 11 refers to the salvation of Jews and Gentiles throughout the present age. He can get the exegesis to work, but his readings are not the most likely.

*S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., "Paul and the "Israel of God: An Exegetical and Eschatological Case-Study," in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 184, n. 22, 187-88. (This essay is also reprinted in The Master’s Seminary Journal [Spring 2009]: 41-55).

Richardson, Peter. Israel in the Apostolic Church. Cambridge: The University Press, 1969.

Richardson’s research led him to conclude that the term "Israel" was not applied to the church until Justin Martyr so applied it in A. D. 160. Though some hints or steps toward this application were made earlier in the fathers, and indeed, in the New Testament, the actual step did not take place until that point. With regard to Galatians 6:16 Richardson concludes: "We suggest it [Ισραήλ του Θεου] is those within Israel to whom God will show mercy—all those Israelites who are going to come to their senses and receive the good news of Christ . . . . This means that Galatians 6:16 does not presuppose that the church has taken over the name Israel for itself." Richardson does think, however, that a process was begun in the early church that culminated in Justin’s conclusion. The church recognized a certain continuity between itself and Israel and would apply mutually descriptive terms such as "elect" or "brothers." It slowly began to adopt more significant terms such as "people." Two things remained before the title "Israel" itself could be adopted. First, the church had to see itself as third entity, neither Jew or Gentile, rather than a group within Israel. Second, Jesus had to be envisioned as the true Israel (via the Son of Man and Servant terminology). Once that step had been taken, his body, the church could be identified as Israel.

At many points Richardson has provided helpful analyses, but his work is hampered by his critical stance. This leads causes him to attribute different theologies to the varying NT authors, and it in other ways adversely affects his exegesis.

Soulen, R. Kendall. The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Fortress Press, 1996.

Christian’s cooperation with Nazi persecution and slaughter of Europe’s Jewish population. Soulen concludes that the problem is deeply rooted in Christianity’s construal of the biblical narrative. A solution to the problem of supersessionism thus involves reimagining the biblical narrative. Soulen rejects placing redemption at the center of the Christian narrative, and he rejects placing Christ as the "unifying center" of the two testaments. Instead each testament is to be allowed to have its own focus. Furthermore, while the church has a mission to make disciples of all nations, it has no mission to convert Jews to the church. Israel and the church have two separate missions in God’s purposes. Soulen’s reimagining theology is creative but exegetically thin. He interacts briefly with Romans 11 but he entirely neglects key passages such as Ephesians 2 and Acts 4.

Bucer, Martin. Concerning The True Care of Souls. Edited by David F. Wright. Translated by Peter Beale. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1538.

Both helpful pastorally and also interesting historically. On the latter score, it was interesting the role that penance still played for Bucer. It was no longer a sacrament, but it was still present. I’ve also been reading some early Luther, and he held on to penance as a sacrament in the early years, though within a few years of his break with Rome concluded that it was not in any way a sacrament.

Kaiser, Walter C. Preaching and Teaching the Last Things: Old Testament Eschatology for the Life of the Church. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.

Kaiser had a great line up of topics mapped out in the table of contents. However, those looking for comprehensive treatment of those topics should look elsewhere since Kaiser primarily takes one passage related to the topic and provides a model exposition. These expositions vary in their value from quite helpful to somewhat idiosyncratic.

Fee, Gordon D. 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus. New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988. [read introduction and 1 Timothy section ]

Excellent defense of Pauline authorship in the introduction; disagreed with his position on women and ministry and did not find the exegesis on that point compelling; found the commentary on 1 Timothy to do a good job of explaining how the letter fits together, how the parts relate to the whole.

Luther, Martin. Word and Sacrament I. Luther’s Works. Volume 35. Edited by Helmut T. Lehmann and E. Theodore Bachmann. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960.

Read the following (did not read materials related translation):

"The Sacrament of Penance" (1519)

"The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism" (1519)

"The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, and the Brotherhoods" (1519)

"A Treatise on the New Testament, that is, the Holy Mass" (1520)

"A Brief Instruction on what to Look for and Expect in the Gospels" (1521)

"Avoiding the Doctrines of Men and a Reply to the Texts Cited in Defense of the Doctrines of Men" (1522)

"How Christians should Regard Moses" (1525)

Luther’s treatments of the sacraments in this volume are early, and the introductions in this edition are very helpful in placing these treatises in the development of Luther’s thought (for instance, at this point Luther had reduced the sacraments from seven to three; later he would reduce them to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper). Luther’s primary goal in the treatises on the sacraments is to respond to abuses in the medieval church.

The title to Luther’s "Brief Instruction" is potentially misleading, for it does not provide a guide to the four gospels. Rather, Luther mounts the argument that the gospel is found throughout the New Testament. He contrasts the promises of the gospel with the works of the Law demanded by Moses.

In "Avoiding the Doctrines of Men" Luther argues against the addition of rules, such as avoiding certain foods on certain days, or the rules of monastic orders, as binding on Christians or certain groups of Christians. He also replies to claims that the Scripture itself supports the creation of these human commandments.

In "How Christians should Regard Moses" Luther argues that the law cannot produce righteousness or good works. The Christian must distinguish the law and the gospel. The law says, "do this." The gospel says, "This is what God has done for you." In addition, the Law was given to Israel, not to the Christian. This does not mean, however, that there is no commonality between what God expected of Israel and what he expects of Christians—what is required by natural law, is required both of Israelite and Christian. Luther warns that obeying one part of the Mosaic law as Mosaic law binds one to the whole, but at the same time he does not dismiss the significance of the law for the Christian. The law contains fine examples of law that could be reused (e.g., some of its concrete implementations of natural law can provide guidance to Gentile nations for their implementation of natural law), the law contains many promises, and the law contains examples both good and bad from which the Christian should learn.

I enjoyed the writings on the law and the gospel the most. I think Luther is in general correct in his assessment of the place of the law, though I also think that greater room for the third use of the law can and should be made within this framework.

Articles

Hoffmeier, James K. “‘These Things Happened’: Why a Historical Exodus Is Essential for Theology.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

In light of Kenton Sparks’s attack on traditional evangelicals as obscurantist for insisting on the historicity of biblical events, such as the exodus, Hoffmeier documents both the problematic methodology of the critics and evidence for a historical exodus. He further maintains that a historical exodus is necessary for sound theology and for the health of the church.

Yarbrough, Robert W. “God’s Words in Human Words: Form-Critical Reflections.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Yarbrough begins his essay with a brief review of "form criticism," a critical approach to Scripture dominant from the 1920s to the 1950s. This critical approach sought to classify the teachings of Christ or Gospel narratives, to determine a life setting in the church that gave rise to the story, and then to reconstruct the history of the units until they reached their final written form. Yarbrough proposes in this essay to analyze Kenton Sparks’s book from a form-critical standpoint.

There is some irony in this approach to evaluation. Sparks is encouraging evangelicals to embrace critical methodology (and castigates those who refuse to do so). By evaluating him in terms of a now-superseded methodology Yarbrough subtly questions the wisdom of Sparks’s fulsome embrace of biblical criticism.

Yarbrough proposes that Sparks’s book falls into the "shift story" form. That is, it tells the story of one who has shifted form one religious position to another. In Sparks’ case he shifted from traditional evangelical beliefs to those of the critics as he studied under John Van Seters. In examining this form Yarbrough documents shift stories of others who moved from critical positions to positions of belief: Heinz Cassirer (1903-1979), Eta Linnemann (d. 2009), and the stories of Victorian skeptics who became Christians documented by Timothy Larsen in Crisis of Doubt. These shift stories that move in the opposite direction from Sparks expose a weakness account. In his telling, evangelicals hold to their position "because of unthinking traditionalism or partisan loyalty" (333, Yarbrough’s words). But what of those whose research moved them toward evangelical beliefs about Scripture?

Yarbrough next turns to the Sitz im Leben of Sparks’s book. Sparks wrote in a context in which a number of scholars’ embrace of critical methodologies and rejection of biblical historical accuracy led to their abandonment of Christianity. Bart Ehrman and William Dever are among the more prominent names discussed. Given this Sitz im Leben Yarbrough notes, "The academic enterprise in its frequent post- if not anti-confessional dress may represent a greater threat to historic Christian faith than Sparks’s book indicates" (336). Thus it should not "be thought innovative, progressive, or attractively risqué that an ‘evangelical’ Bible teacher turns on forebears, peers, and elders in the guild and takes a sizeable step toward the embrace of a contrasting set of authority figures at the point of one of Christianity’s foundational teachings: the doctrine of Scripture" (337).

Yarbrough finally turns to the community out of which shift stories such as Sparks’s come, and he notes that the history of criticism is full of men who have grown up in devout homes, often pastor’s homes, and lost their faith by embracing criticism. Sparks does not wish to travel that road to its destination, but Yarbrough urges caution since the criticism Sparks advocates "has little to no record of fostering or aiding Christian belief" (342).

In the end, Yarbrough finds more promise for the next generation of evangelicalism in the rise of robustly confessional Christians in the global south than in old world criticism.

Blomberg, Craig L. “A Constructive Traditional Response to New Testament Criticism.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Kenton Sparks argues that evangelicals should abandon traditional approaches to the critics and adopt "’constructive’ responses to biblical criticism" (346), by which he seems to mean abandon the historicity of Scripture at disputed points and adopt the critics’ unbelieving posture. Blomberg finds Sparks’s denunciations of traditional harmonizations and defenses of Scripture’s historicity over the top. He responds by demonstrating in a number of test cases (the timing of the Passover in John, the number of temple cleansings, and mention of Abiathar in Mark 2:26) that these represent reasonable exegetical approaches to the text—approaches that are in some cases clearly superior to the critics. On the other hand, Blomberg chastises those on his right for ruling out of bounds critical conclusions (e.g., the pseudonymity of some NT epistles or claims that part of Matthew is midrash rather than history) when these conclusions are reached in a manner that safeguards inerrancy. Blomberg says these conclusions may be challenged by challenging the exegesis or the background assumptions, but they ought not be ruled out of bounds on the basis of being incompatible with inerrancy. No doubt Blomberg is correct that the methodology must be examined, but if it is found to be faulty, there should be no problem in proclaiming the conclusion incompatible with inerrancy. Furthermore, it is not a fault for more conservative theologians and exegetes to be suspicious when evangelicals develop strained methodologies that enable them to embrace critical conclusions and inerrancy at the same time.

Bock, Darrell L. “Precision and Accuracy: Making Distinctions in the Cultural Context That Give Us Pause in Pitting the Gospels Against Each Other.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Bock surveys various alleged discrepancies between the Gospels and seeks to demonstrate that they are not in conflict but simply reflect differing levels of precision. They are all accurate, but not equally precise. He uses the three accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts to demonstrate that such variations can be expected even within the work of a single author. Overall his solutions are helpful, though there is perhaps too much confidence in the two source solution to the synoptic problem. Nor was I convinced that positing an "updated saying" is necessary for reconciling the disciples’ opening question in the Olivet discourse.

Pinson, J. Matthew. “Thomas Grantham’s Theology of Atonement and Justification.” Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry 8, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 7-21.

Pinson compares Thomas Grantham’s theology, especially his soteriology, with that of influential Arminian John Goodwin. According to Pinson, Grantham "differed from the Calvinists in his doctrines of election, the extent of atonement, the resistibility of grace, and the perseverance of the saints. On these subjects he agreed with his fellow Arminians. Yet he differed substantially with his Arminian counterparts on the doctrines of sin and depravity, human inability, the nature of atonement and justification by faith, and what was involved in falling from grace" (10). Pinson focuses this article on Grantham’s defense of penal substitution as contrasted with Goodwin’s moral influence approach.

Davis, Thomas W. “Saint Paul on Cyprus: The Transformation of an Apostle.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Davis provides extensive social and historical information about Cyprus and then draws some sketchy theological conclusions at the end (e.g., it was this encounter that enabled Paul to overcome reticence to actually engage in the mission to the Gentiles).

Haykin, Michael A. G. “Fundamentum Et Colomnam Fidei Nostrae: Irenaeus on the Perfect and Saving Nature of the Scriptures.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Haykin presents a brief biography of Irenaeus followed by an argument that he taught inerrancy against the Gnostics who taught the apostles had erred in their writings.

McCall, Thomas H. “I Believe in Divine Sovereignty.” Trinity Journal 29, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 2050.

Piper, John. “I Believe in God’s Self-Sufficiency: A Response to Thomas McCall.” Trinity Journal 29, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 227-34.

McCall, Thomas H. “We Believe in God’s Sovereign Goodness: A Rejoinder to John Piper.” Trinity Journal 29, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 235-45.

In this trio of articles, McCall argues against deterministic accounts of God’s sovereignty. He argues that non-deterministic alternatives avoid theological problems, though he does not unpack an explanation of the alternative. More particularly he argues that John Piper’s (and before him, Jonathan Edwards’s) account of divine sovereignty undermines the asetiy of God because the essence of God is to be glorified and demonstrating wrath toward unrepentant sinners is a necessary part of his receiving his fully glory. Thus the creation of the world (indeed the creation of world that would fall) is necessary to the being of God.

Piper confesses that some of his statements could be misread this way, but denies the conclusion. He notes the difficulty of affirming both God’s utter self-sufficiency and ascribing purpose to the creation. Nonetheless, he believes Scripture constrains us to do both.

McCall, in his rejoinder, does not think that Piper has escaped the original charge concerning aseity. He also raises the charge that God is a moral monster if he determines all things (including sin and suffering) for his own glory.

McCall’s critiques are highly philosophical in nature. This led me to think as McCall was arguing, "is that a necessary conclusion from what was said?" or "but what if the Bible does teach both this and that?" McCall would have been more convincing if he had expounded an alternative to Piper’s view on firm exegetical grounding.

Averbeck, Richard E. “Pentateuchal Criticism and the Priestly Torah.” In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Averbeck surveys critical approaches to the Pentateuch and then critiques them with a case study on Exodus 19-24. Though he is gentle (perhaps too gentle) in stating his conclusions, he finds that critical methodologies often obscure rather than illumine the text (at one point he says of source critics: "It is as if ancient writers could not hold two related concepts together. The assumption is that such a tension must be explained diachronically." But if the assumption is bad the scholar spends a lot of time chasing the wind instead of examining how the two concepts relate).Averbeck is careful to affirm critical thinking and eschew facile harmonizations, but he denies that one has to adopt the premises of the critics to think critically.

Books

Oswalt, John. The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature?. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.

Oswalt argues that the recent trend toward classifying parts of the Bible as myth is not due to new evidence that has arisen over the past several decades. He further argues that despite surface similarities (e.g., tripartite temples or similar laws) a great difference in worldview separates Israel from the surrounding cultures. Oswalt finds the surface similarities expected. Cultures of particular times and places will share features. He finds the worldview differences striking because Israel’s worldview of transcendence has only appeared in the world in the religions that have some connection to the Bible: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. All other worldviews are worldviews of immanence. Oswalt concludes the book with defenses of the Bible’s historicity (and the importance of its historicity) against critics such as Bultmann and William Dever.

Carson, D. A. The Intolerance of Tolerance. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.

What explains a bank’s unwillingness to retain the bank account of a Christian organization that adheres to traditional Christian views on human sexuality? How do universities justify requiring Christian student organizations to admit officers who hold views contrary to Christian doctrine and practice? Why are doctors in some regions required to perform abortions and pharmacists required to carry and distribute abortion inducing drugs—despite their conscientious objections?

In The Intolerance of Tolerance D. A. Carson argues that these incidents follow from a new definition of tolerance, a tolerance that is remarkably intolerant. The old tolerance permitted a wide variety of views—each strongly held. Diversity existed, and so did debate. The old tolerance also functioned within a moral framework. People might disagree about aspects of the framework, but all believed that the "common good" included moral norms.

The new tolerance rejects all dogmatism as intolerant. According to the new tolerance, all views must be accepted as true (or, at least, potentially true). The moral framework that the old tolerance functioned within is rejected by the new tolerance as intolerant. In the end, significant moral discussion becomes impossible. Instead of discussing the rights and wrongs of various theories of poverty and crime, conceptions of marriage, or the origins, nature, and value of human life, "the public discourse focuses on what sanctions should be imposed on those who do not ‘tolerate’ (definitely the new sense!) the abolition of what were once the moral standards" (133-34).

Intolerance becomes the only vice when the new tolerance is dominant. Yet, ironically, those who function under the old view of tolerance must not be tolerated. This, Carson says, is "worse than inconsistency." The new tolerance views secularism as a neutral arbiter when it fact, as Carson takes the time to demonstrate, it has all the marks of a religious view in its own right. So ironically the free exercise of other religions must give way to the establishment of secularism.

The demand that religion retreat into its own private sphere is bad enough for Christianity and other religions for whom privatization contradicts core beliefs. But worse, even a privatized religion will not suit the secularism of the new tolerance. Even the internal affairs of religious groups are censured under the new tolerance. For instance, the Catholic Church is denounced as intolerant for denying the Eucharist to members who publically oppose its abortion policies, and evangelical Anglicans are castigated for not permitted heretical bishops to preach from their pulpits. Doctors in some areas are told they must perform abortions despite personal religious objections. When a government sanctions those who seek to uphold morality (rather than those who seek to undermine it), not even a privatized religion or a personal conscience offers protection. Democracies too, Carson warns, can be tyrannical.

At this point Carson’s book could grow dark and discouraging or angry and shrill. But Carson avoids this. He concludes with ten "ways ahead." Several of these suggestions center on ways of thinking and speaking which undermine the pretentious but hollow claims of the new tolerance. The last three ways forward deserve special mention: "evangelize," "be prepared to suffer," and "delight in God, and trust him." Though making the United States (or wherever) "a better place" is not the motive for evangelism, Carson notes "when the gospel truly does take hold in any culture, changes in that culture are inevitable" (174). But if suffering and persecution rather than cultural change awaits Western believers, it will be nothing more than the New Testament tells Christians they should expect–and nothing more than what many Christians around the world experience (175). Therefore: "Delight in God, and trust him. God remains sovereign, wise, and good. Our ultimate confidence is not in any government or party, still less in our ability to mold the culture in which we live." Our hope is in God.

This review first appeared on the BJU Campus Store Blog.

Plantinga, Jr., Cornelius. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Plantinga examines sin from a number of different angles and provides helpful categories for understanding sin. He particularly addresses sins that moderns are inclined to dismiss. Negatively, he’s abandoned the concept of original guilt.

McQuilkin, Robertson. A Promise Kept. Tyndale House, 2006.

This book is the personal story of Robertson McQuilkin’s care for his wife as she struggled with Alzheimers. McQuilkin organized the book around key phases in the standard marriage vows, and he speaks candidly about both the struggles and delights of keeping those vows.

Kraynak, Robert P. Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.

In this book Robert Kraynak explores a dilemma brought about by the affirmation of two theses. First, liberal democracy depends upon Christianity to justify its claims. Second, Christianity for most of its history has preferred illiberal forms of government. The dilemma these theses raise is this: are the majority of modern Christians correct in affirming liberal democracy as "the form of government most compatible with the Christian religion" (1).

In establishing the first thesis, Kraynak notes that liberal democracy (in distinction from ancient democracy) is based on a particular notion of human dignity that emphasizes personal autonomy. But none of the liberal philosophical schools, whether those of Hobbes, Kant, Mill, or Rorty, are able to establish a ground for this human dignity. Kraynak demonstrates that various schools of thought have sought to find this basis only to have the next philosophical school reject it as insufficient. In the end, the postmoderns give up and assume human dignity without having a basis for the assumption. Kraynak quotes Richard Rorty:  "it is ‘part of our tradition . . . that [a] stranger from whom all dignity has been stripped [should] be  taken in and re-clothed with dignity. This Jewish and Christian element in our tradition is gratefully  invoked by freeloading atheists like myself’ who think that metaphysical debates are futile" (36, ellipses,  brackets, and emphasis from Kraynak).

Christianity is able to provide a basis for human dignity, but that does not necessarily mean that liberal democracy is the governmental system that best fits Christianity. Kraynak establishes his second thesis by surveying Scripture and church history. He establishes the Old Testament to be patriarchal and monarchical. The New Testament does not endorse any form of government, though it does enjoin submission to the reigning monarch. Furthermore, he argues that the dignity that humans have from the imago Dei is not the dignity of autonomy as in the liberal conception. The case from church history is easy to make: Augustine praised various forms of government including both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire (when governed by Christian emperors); Aquinas and other medieval theologians preferred a monarchy with various checks; Calvin preferred an aristocracy with some democratic elements; Luther and the Anglicans defend monarchy; Wesley clearly opposed republicanism; the Roman Catholic Church has only recently reconciled itself to democracy.

If neither Scripture nor church history predisposes Christians to embrace liberal democracy as the best form of government why do most Christians now hold that view? Kraynak notes six common suggestions:

1. Modern democracy arose from medieval ideas about natural law and from the Conciliar movement (Lord Acton, Brian Tierney, Richard Tuck).
2. Modern democracy is rooted in the Reformation doctrines of justification by faith alone, the priesthood of the believer, and the supremacy of Scripture.
3. Modern democracy emerged from Neo-Scholastic theories of popular sovereignty.
4. Modern democracy arose from Enlightenment ideas.
5. Christian acceptance of modern democracy grew from struggles against colonialism, slavery, and industrial abuses.
6. Christian acceptance of modern democracy grew form the struggle against totalitarianism in the twentieth century.

Kraynak rejects the first three reasons. In other words, he rejects the idea that liberal democracy emerged from the nexus of Christian ideas. He affirms that liberal democracy grew from Enlightenment soil (and especially from Kant), which means that points five and six explain why Christians have embraced a system foreign to its thought for so many years.

Kant’s view of the autonomous man whose dignity is grounded in his own determination of his good is obviously at odds with Christian thought. Christians who embrace liberal democracy therefore modify Kant. But Kraynak doubts that tweaking Kant is enough. Though he grants that liberal democracy has done good by resisting tyranny and mitigating religious warfare (among other goods), Kraynak also highlights the dark side of democracy.

Many of his criticisms focus around the importance of "rights" to liberal democracy. Kraynak believes that the rights talk is subversive to legitimate human authorities such as parents, government, and even Scripture. It undermines Christian charity and fosters an entitlement mentality because rather than loving people and giving out of compassion, people in need now receive that which is their right.

Kraynak also believes that democracy achieves equality by brining people down to the lowest common denominator. He says, "The whole tradition of liberal arts education . . . seem[s] too aristocratic or too  ‘high brow,’ too judgmental and demanding, for most people in a democratic society. Not only do the  masses of people feel justified in ignoring them, but the educated elites themselves lose confidence in  their enduring values and treat them with irony and contempt, becoming corrupt elites with a  mission to subvert or deconstruct high culture. The strongest pressures in a democratic age are always  downward from high culture toward popular entertainment, which originally meant replacing  aristocratic and religious culture with middle-class and working-class culture but now means sinking to the lowest common denominator of the rebellious avant-garde and raucous youth culture, often of the crudest kind. When, for example, Mozart is replaced by the Beatles as the standard for music, or when  Gregorian chant and Bach are replaced by folk music and guitars in Christian liturgy, a dramatic cultural revolution has occurred"(27).

Finally, while liberal democracy does protect religious freedom, it does so at the expense of embracing pluralism. Kraynak grants that one can always ‘tolerate’ error as a matter of prudence, based on the recognition that error and sin are intractable problems of the fallen world. But from the perspective of ultimate truth, diversity is not a right" (179).

Kraynak’s preferred government is a constitutional monarchy that operates within the constraints of Augustine’s Two Cities paradigm. He grants however that in the present age a democracy based on moral law rather than on Kantian liberalism may be the best kind of government presently achievable.

Kraynak’s work suffers from several weaknesses. His categorical rejection of rights language rests on a less than persuasive view of the imago Dei, which he believes is "man’s original immortality" (57). Wolterstorff’s discussion of the imago Dei in Justice: Rights and Wrongs is exegetically more persuasive than Kraynak’s. Also, Kraynak’s Catholicism intrudes when he bases parts of his argument on the hierarchical structure of the Roman Church. Finally, much of Kraynak’s argument depends on the hierarchy of being. While Scripture does indicate some hierarchy exists if only in humanity’s role as image bearers of God over the rest of creation, the medieval hierarchy of being seems to have a number of serious defects. Not only did it over-analyze the hierarchy on slim biblical evidence (note the ascending chain of angels, archangels, virtues, powers, principalities, dominions, thrones, cherubim, seraphim), but it seems to devalue the material world by placing pure spirits above embodied spirits. It also seems to engender a false idea of how a being draws near to God.

Despite these weaknesses, Kraynak has produced a book well worth reading. Christians who today embrace democracy as the best form of government do well to ask themselves why Christians in earlier generations were suspicious of republican and democratic forms of government. Kraynak is wise to critique democracy for its leveling tendencies. When democracy reduces all cultural evaluations to mere personal preference, it impoverishes society. When democratic tendencies undermine the legitimate authority of parents, pastors, teachers, and rulers, it harms society. When religious freedom undermines the exclusive and universal claims of Christianity, at that point it has ceased to be a good.

Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Incorporated Books, 1868.

Horton, Michael. The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.

Michael Horton writes on a variety of levels. This book is pitched as a meaty popular level book. It seems to be the final book in an informal trilogy begun with Christless Christianity and The Gospel-Driven Life. Perhaps most helpful in this volume is the discussion of how the Reformation marks of the church (preaching, sacraments/ordinances, discipline) relate to discipleship. Also helpful were trenchant critiques of the emergent church, of a certain kind of missional conception of the church, and of the discipleship models of Richard Foster and Dallas Willard. Horton also addresses church and culture, Christianity and culture issues. He adopts the exegetically problematic Klinean two-kingdoms view, but his application of this view does not seem as radical as VanDrunen’s.

Articles

Stitzinger, James F. "The Rapture in Twenty Centuries of Biblical Interpretation," Master’s Seminary Journal 13, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 149-171

Stitzinger seeks to demonstrate some historical precedent for a pre-tribulational rapture prior to Darby. He weakens his case by trying too hard to find it implied in the writings of the early fathers. His citations from Ephraem of Nisibis (306–373) and The History of Brother Dolcino (1316) are more convincing. In the post-Reformation period he cites primarily those who teach the imminent return of Christ, but it is not clear that they actually held to a pre-tribulation rapture. In some cases, those he cites held to a pre-Armageddon rapture. His citation of Morgan Edwards (1722-1795) is the most persuasive citation form this period.

Woudstra, Martin H. "Israel and the Church: A Case for Continuity." In Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments. Edited by John S. Feinberg. Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1988.

Gumerlock, Francis. “A Rapture Citation in the Fourteenth Century,” Bibliotheca Sacra 159, no. 635 (July 2002): 349-362.

Gumerlock argues that attempts to discredit the pre-tribulation rapture by linking it to Margaret Macdonald are historically irresponsible. He notes several pre-nineteenth century pretribulationalists, and he focuses on one reference in The History of Brother Dolcino (1316). Brother Dolcino was the leader of a group that broke away from the Roman Church between 1300-1307. A crusade launched against them destroyed the group in 1307. Dolcino and his group believed that they would be preserved from the persecution of the Antichrist by being translated to heaven before the last three and a half years of the Antichrist’s reign. Revelation 11 (especially a figurative understanding of 11:12) as correlated with 1 Thessalonians 4:17 forms the exegetical basis for this belief. Gumerlock notes that more work needs to be done to understand the context in which this thought arose (he does cite Joachim of Fiore as an influence) and to see the extent of its influence. Pre-tribulationalists should be careful in their appeal to this work since Joachim of Fiore held to some heretical ideas (e.g., the end of the church in 1260). A fourteenth-century breakaway group influenced by Joachim is likely to hold doctrines, even eschatological doctrines, with which pre-tribulationalists will not wish to identify. Gumerlock, who is not pre-tribulational, was not seeking to make a historical argument in favor of the pre-tribulational position in this article. His goal was to demonstrate that the doctrine did not originate in the nineteenth century and that more historical work is needed to trace the history of this idea.

Peter Lombard. The Sentences, Book 4: On the Doctrine of Signs. Translated by Giulio Silano. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2010. Pp. vii-lxxv + 1-38.

Peter Lombard’s Sentences is one of the most influential theology textbooks in church history. It was the text that all medieval theology students studied and wrote commentaries on (see Rosemann’s excellent The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s ‘Sentences’). It has finally been translated into English. This month I read Silano’s helpful summary of book 4 and Lombard’s distinctions on baptism. Though Lombard teaches that faith and contrition without baptism brings justification, remission of sins, and removal of eternal punishment, baptism is expected of all who have the opportunity to be baptized (bk. 4, dist. 4, chs. 4-5; cf. ch. 6, n. 1; ch. 7, n. 1-2).What benefit does baptism bring if those with faith and contrition are justified, forgiven, and no longer in danger of eternal punishment? Lombard says that baptism cleanses a person from any sins committed since conversion, absolves from external satisfaction, increases virtue, and reduces temptation (bk. 4, dist. 4, ch. 5; cf. ch. 6, n. 1; ch. 7, n. 1-2). Earlier he stated that baptism removes original sin from infants, and original sin and all subsequent sins (prior to baptism) from adults (bk. 4, dist. 4, ch. 1, n. 2).

Books

Stapert, Calvin R. Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People. ChristianAudio, 2010.

Stapert begins this work by tracing the development of the oratorio and the development of Handel as a musician. He also discusses the changes in the performance of Messiah over the years from the smaller choirs and orchestras to massive settings in the nineteenth century and then back toward more authentic performances. The latter part of the book examines the Messiah itself. Stapert examines the organization of texts in the  libretto, and he discusses how Handel utilized various musical techniques to wed the text to music that enhances its meaning. This is the most fascinating part of the book as it explains how Handel harnessed both Baroque conventions and elements inherent in sound and music to communicate. The audiobook includes selections from the Messiah after some of the discussions. More selections would have been welcome Negatively, the reader of the book has an affected style of speech that made listening less enjoyable than it could have been. Thankfully, this was more pronounced at the beginning and less pronounced as the book went on.

Sandel, Michael J. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

Sandel does an excellent job of making complex philosophical issues clear and relevant through the many concrete examples that fill this book. His skill as an educator makes this book an enjoyable read. The content makes the book a worthwhile read.

Sandel argues that conceptions of justice are oriented "around three ideas: maximizing welfare, respecting freedom, and promoting virtue. Each of these ideas points to a different way of thinking about justice" (6). Among philosophers, the former two perspectives have proved the most popular, since justice that promotes virtue must judge what is virtuous and what is not—a difficult task in a pluralistic society with no agreed upon moral foundation. Sandel thus begins by examining utilitarianism and libertarianism.

Utilitarianism falls by the wayside in short order. It’s critics charge that it does not give adequate weight to human dignity and individual rights, and that it wrongly reduces everything of moral importance to a single scale of pleasure and pain" (49). John Stuart Mill sought to answer these critics, but Sandel demonstrates that in doing so he "appeals to moral ideals beyond utility—ideals of character and human flourishing" (52). Thus Mill’s attempted defense the "maximizing welfare" approach to justice ends up rooted in a "promoting virtue" approach.

Sandel spends a greater part of the book on the "respecting freedom" conception of justice. He does this with good reason, for while many debates about justice are debates about the three orientations (welfare, freedom, virtue), "some of the most hard-fought political arguments of our time take place between two rival camps within [the freedom group]—the laissez-faire camp and the fairness camp" (20). Since "the philosophies of Kant and Rawls represent the fullest and clearest expression of" the "ambition" to "spare politics and law from becoming embroiled in moral and religious controversies" (243), Sandel devotes a chapter to each. He concludes, however, that their "ambition cannot succeed.” He reasons, “Many of the most hotly contested issues of justice and rights can’t be debated without taking up controversial moral and religious questions. In deciding how to define the rights and duties of citizens, it’s not always possible to set aside competing conceptions of the good life. And even when it’s possible, it may not be desirable. Asking democratic citizens to leave their moral and religious convictions behind when they enter the public realm may seem a way of ensuring toleration and mutual respect. In practice, however, the opposite can be true. Deciding important public questions while pretending to a neutrality that cannot be achieved is a recipe for backlash and resentment. A politics emptied of substantive moral engagement makes for an impoverished civic life" (243).

Thus Aristotle and virtue-ethics come under consideration. This is the view that Sandel himself embraces: "Justice is inescapably judgmental" (261). This view is not a panacea to the conflict of values. Sandel supports abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and extending the definition of marriage to include pairings of the same sex. But he does not take these positions on the grounds that women have the right to choose (for they do not have the right to choose to kill their toddlers) or that it violates a homosexual’s freedom and rights to be denied marriage. Instead, he argues that participants in these discussions must determine the moral issues of whether an embryo or fetus are persons and what the telos of marriage is. The hard work of debating justice in particular instances remain, but Sandel has cleared away problematic general approaches and laid a foundation for those particular discussions to take place.

Keller, Timothy. Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just. New York: Dutton, 2010.

I started this book with chapter seven since the discussion of justice and Christian involvement in the public square coincided with a research project I was working on. In my estimation, this was the best chapter of the book. Keller mediates the insights of Sandel’s Justice and Steven Smith’s The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse through his own Christian understanding. In doing so he demonstrates that freedom, and equality, concepts closely related to justice, are "empty concepts." Freedom and equality are not simply good or bad. They are good or bad in relation to something else. In general, freedom to harm others is not good. But what is harm? Moral disagreement over what is or is not harm demonstrates the impossibility of value-neutral justice. To achieve true justice, Christian morality must enter the public square. Keller believes this is possible because secular theories of justice are each partially true due to the natural law that all people know. There is therefore the possibility of Christians and non-Christians working together for justice in the public square. Keller does not, like some natural law theorists, believe that the Bible must be left to one side. He believes that Scripture, including the Old Testament is relevant to current public policy debates (though he also steers clear of theonomy). In my estimation, this is the best chapter of the book.

The remainder of the book is mixed. Positively, Keller demonstrates that poverty is a concern to God. He addressed it in the legislation given to Israel. The prophets addressed injustice directed toward the poor in their denunciation of Israel’s sin, and Jesus maintained the same perspective in his preaching. In his discussions of helping the poor Keller conveys many helpful insights. For instance, he notes that a barrier to the poor receiving the gospel is raised if the poor hear their denounced by preachers but not the sins of those who oppress the poor. He also helpfully distinguishes between three levels of help: relief, development, and social reform. He notes that the church can help in the first and in lower levels of the second, but as development becomes more complex the institutional church should allow other institutions with more expertise to fulfill their roles in addressing those needs (and Christians should work in such institutions for Christian motivations). On the one hand, Keller says churches should "always try to err on the side of being generous" (138) as they consider helping their communities. On the other hand, he rejects the idea that doing justice is doing evangelism: "Evangelism is the most basic and radical ministry possible to a human being. This is true not because the spiritual is more important than the physical, but because the eternal is more important than the temporal" (139).

Negatively, though Keller is right that historically the poor are more often treated unjustly, his exclusive focus on rendering justice to the poor in chapters 1-6 skews the discussion. Keller’s exhortations to generosity are scriptural, but prudential guidelines on how that generosity is practiced is also biblical (1 Tim. 5).

Keller also seems to think that not giving to the poor is an injustice. But the fact that Matt. 6:1-2 teaches that giving to the needy is righteous does not necessarily mean that it is a matter of justice rather than charity. To be a matter of justice means that the individual has a right to my giving to him (based on Wolterstorff’s theory of justice, which Keller builds upon). But in what way does a poor person have a right to my giving to him? Which poor people? How much? Keller would be better off following Wolterstorff on the issue of charity. Charity is not a matter of giving the poor his rights; it is a matter of fulfilling obligations to God.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton University Press, 2008.

Wolterstoff’s premise is that justice is a matter of rendering to people their rights. He defends this thesis against those who argue that the rights focus is the bad fruit of the Enlightenment. To the contrary, says Wolterstorff. In a fascinating historical survey he demonstrates that the theory of rights-grounded justice emerged in the medieval period. He continues to move backward through history to demonstrate that the Bible, though not developing a philosophic theory of justice, implies a rights-based approach.

What do people have rights to? Here Wolterstorff argues against the eudaimonistic approach to ethics (he also rejects the deontological and consequentialist approaches) on the grounds that it is incompatible with a rights-based approach to justice. The Christian, vision, he argues is one not merely a well-lived life but an anticipation of flourishing, or shalom, in all aspects of life. Thus the love command grounds Christian ethics.

What is the grounding for rights? Wolterstorff argues that duties, capacities, and even the image of God in man cannot provide a grounding for natural human rights. He argues that human rights are bestowed by God in that he loves all humans.

In general, I enjoyed following Wolterstoff’s argumentation, and I learned a great deal about philosophy and ethics along the way. I’m open to his thesis about justice being grounded in rights, though I’d like to read some further interaction from scholars who take the other positions. I was not persuaded, however, with his dismissal of the image of God as the basis for natural human rights. His discussion of the image itself was excellent. He seemed to build a fairly good case for the image as the basis of these rights before dismissing the idea with little argumentation. It was a strange turn. Overall, I found the book a very profitable read.

Shaw, Mark. The Kingdom of God in Africa: A Short History of African Christianity. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996.

Shaw provides a good short history of Christianity in Africa from a generally evangelical perspective. He is strongest when simply relating historical events. He is weakest when providing analysis. He is not theologically discriminating enough about the orthodoxy of various forms of Christianity. Nonetheless, this is a recommended read for anyone who wants a basic overview of African Christianity from the first century through the late 1990s.

MacArthur, John. Slave: The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ. Nashville: Nelson, 2010. [skimmed]

The sensationalism on the dust jacket and in opening chapters prevented me form paying this book much attention for some time. As even MacArthur’s own comments demonstrate there has been no "fraud" or "cover-up" or anything "purposely hidden" by Bible translators. MacArthur rightly notes that older English translations used the word "servant" because of its connections to the Latin word for slave "servus" and because "slave" in the early modern era meant something different that slavery at that time. It is for this reason that many modern translations opt for an alternative such as "bond-servant" (17-18). Once the sensationalism was cleared away, my skim showed that MacArthur did produce a helpful treatment of what it means for Christians to be bond servants of Christ. MacArthur drew heavily on Murray Harris’s Slave of Christ in the NSBT series. For those looking for a more in-depth treatment of the topic, Harris’s book is the one to turn to.

Gowan, Donald E. Eschatology in the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986.

Gowan helpfully identifies the big categories of Old Testament eschatology: The transformation of human society, the human person, and nature. He also rightly sees Jerusalem at the center of Old Testament eschatology. His development of these themes was, in my estimation, disappointing. He takes a Childs-type approach to the text. Though this leads him to focus on the final form of the text, he nevertheless does so in terms of what he thinks the religious state of Israel was at the time. So, to give only two examples, he denies that bodily resurrection is significant to OT eschatology and he thinks messianic ideas are of little importance. Nonetheless, his insight that Ezekiel 36 contains all the elements of OT eschatology is worth pondering.

The structure of his work along with the Scripture he references is useful:

Transformation of Human Society

Restoration to the Promised Land: Isa. 27:13; 35:10; 51:11; 60:4; 66:20; Jer 3:14; 32:37; Ezek 20:33-44; 37:26; Joel 3:20; Mic 4:6-7, 10; Zeph. 3:20; Zech. 2:7; 8:7-8.

 

The Righteous King: Isa. 11:9; 44:28; Jer. 33:16; Zech 4:5-10; 6:12-13; 9:9-10.

 

The Nations (victory over): Isa 34:8; Joel 3:1-21; Obadiah 16; Mic. 4:11-13; Zech. 1:14-15; 12:2-9; 14:1-3, 12-19.

 

The Nations (peace with): Isa 2:2-4 = Mic. 4:1-4.

 

The Nations (conversion of): Isa. 66:18-23; Jer. 3:17; Zech. 2:11; 8:20-23.

 

Transformation of the Human Person

Eschatological Forgiveness: Isa. 33:24; 40:2; Ezek. 20:40-44; 43:7-9; Zech. 13:1; cf. repentance in Isa. 59:20; Jer. 39:10-14; Ezek. 16:59-62.

 

The means of Re-Creation: Isa. 30:20-21; 59:21; Jer. 32:39-40 (cf. v. 36—city).

 

The New Person: Isa. 33:24; 35:5-6 (cf. v. 10—Zion); 65:20; Jer. 33:6; 50:5; Ezek. 16:60; Joel 3:17.

 

Transformation of Nature

Abundant Fertility: Isa. 4:2; Joel 2:23; 3:17-18.

 

A New Natural Order: Isa. 11:6-9; 65:25.

 

A New Earth: Isa. 35:1-10; 65:17-18; Ezek. 47:1-12; Zech. 14:4-8, 10.

p. 10

Wright, Nigel G. Free Church, Free State: The Positive Baptist Vision. Paternoster, 2005.

I found Wright most helpful in arguing for believers baptism and a gathered church ecclesiology. I found him less helpful in his section on government. He leans toward an anabaptist view in which the state is defined in terms of having the monopoly on sanctioned violence. Since, in his view, Christians are committed to following Christ in a path of non-violence, Christians who serve in state capacities place themselves in a difficult position. His ecumenical leanings also show through at various places throughout the book, so a section on religious tolerance in society is followed by a section on tolerance within the church.

Johnson, Julian. Who Needs Classical Music? Cultural Choice and Musical Value. Oxford University Press, 2002.

Johnson argues against the currently popular view that cultures and cultural choices are relative. He argues that far from cultural choices being matters of mere preference, some cultural choices are more valuable than others. More specifically, he argues that classical music has more cultural value than pop music. This is in part because it requires a level of thought and a way of thinking not demanded by pop music. To those who charge Johnson with elitism, he replies that the way to counter elitism is not to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. The way to counter elitism is to ensure that education (in this case in classical music) is provided to people of every walk of life.

Veenhof, Jan. Nature and Grace in Herman Bavinck. Translated by Albert M. Wolters. Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press, 2006.

The essence of Bavinck’s view, as explicated by Veenhof is that "Grace does not abolish nature, but affirms and restores it" (17). In expounding this view, Bavinck sets his view apart from both Roman Catholicism and Protestant pietism. According to Bavinck, Roman Catholicism teaches that nature is good, but that it does not reach to the supernatural. Grace is needed to elevate nature to the supernatural. The Protestant conception of grace, Bavinck says, is ethical. The purpose of grace is to remove sin, not to raise man above his nature.

Bavinck’s disagreement with the Pietists rests not on their understanding of the nature of grace but with their understanding of its extent. The danger Bavinck sees in pietism is that the grace, the gospel, and salvation is placed in a personal spiritual sphere and the rest of culture and life is placed an another sphere. But sin has invaded all of life, and man must function in all of life, not just in the spiritual part. The pietist therefore is in danger of aiding and abetting secularism. His critique is not one-sided, however. Bavinck realizes that the pietists have seen the real dangers of "unbridled and unbroken cultural optimism" (29). They also have centered their attention on "the one thing needful"—personal fellowship with God (30). Bavinck appeals to his readers to maintain this as the center of the Christian life while also recognizing that as a human other aspects of life are good, necessary, and in need of grace.

To state Bavinck’s view positively, nature is the good creation of God, but it has been pervasively affected by sin (thus the negative use of "world" in Scripture). This corruption is not something essential to nature, but (in Aristotelian terms), accidental. Thus God’s grace will restore nature (but merely by a return to Eden but in eventually achieving the goal God had for his creation from the beginning).

Jordan, William Chester. Europe in the High Middle Ages. Penguin, 2004.

Jordan’s history of the high middle ages is less detailed than Chris Wickham’s study of the previous era (both are in the Penguin History of Europe). Jordan is much more readable, however. His chapters can be read in a sitting and provide a good overview of the time and place covered. He does a good job of covering both what some historians seem to consider the "core" of Europe: Holy Roman Empire, France, Britain along with what they seem to consider fringes: Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Jordan also covers the Crusader kingdoms in Middle East. Jordan did not cover religion as deeply as Wickham, though he does have brief coverage of both the investiture controversy and the realism/nominalism controversy.

Articles

Harmless, William. "Confessions." In Augustine in His Own Words. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010.

Harmless, William. "Augustine the Philosopher." In Augustine in His Own Words. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010.

Harmless does a good job of selecting significant selections that exemplify key aspects of Augustine’s thought and of selecting important excerpts from his major works. Brief commentary places each selection in context.