The Puritan, [Lloyd-Jones] argued, is not ‘the strong man’. He is ‘a very weak man who has been given strength to realise that he is weak. I would say of all men and women that we are all weak, very weak, e difference being that sinners do not appreciate the fact that they are weak, whereas Christians do.’ it was this knowledge of their own frailty, he believed, which made the Puritans careful how they lived and led them to avoid all that is doubtful. ‘sober mess and restraint are the key-notes of the character of the Puritans. Have you any objection to them? If you have, you cannot regard yourself as a Christian because these are two essentially Christian virtues.'”
Iain Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 98.
Youth and Wisdom
While young men become geometricians and mathematicians and wise in matters like these, it is thought that a young man of practical wisdom cannot be found. The cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with universals but with particulars, which become familiar from experience, but a young man has no experience, for it is length of time that gives experience.
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1142a11-15.
Van Til on Sola Scriptura
Certainly, Van Til believed in sola Scriptura in the traditional Protestant sense: that only Scripture serves as the supreme authority for human thought and life. . . . Nevertheless, Van Til did not hold a mechanical view of sola Scriptura, as if we could develop our knowledge from Scripture alone, without any use of our own reason or senses. He understood that in any instance of knowledge, there is simultaneous knowledge of God, the world, and the self. We cannot know one thing without relating it to other things and to ourselves. We cannot know God rightly unless we know him as Creator of the world and as our own Creator-Redeemer. We cannot know Scripture without relating it to ourselves and to the world of our experience. General and special revelation always work together, though certainly the latter must provide the ultimate criteria for understanding the former.
John M. Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought
Books and Articles Finished in September
Books
DeYoung, Kevin. Why Our Church Switched to the ESV
. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
A helpful, non-technical comparison between the ESV and NIV that shows the benefits of a translation that seeks to remain transparent to the form and metaphors of the original languages when possible.
DeYoung, Kevin and Greg Gilbert, What Is the Mission of the Church?
Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
See previous post.
Webb, William J. Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2011.
William Webb applies his problematic Redemptive-Movement hermeneutic to corporal punishment. The central problem with his approach is that it seems difficult to avoid a Whiggish view of history (or in this case, ethics) with this kind of hermeneutic. He seems to imply that the judicial use of corporal punishment on criminal adults is ruled out with the redemptive-movement at its present stage. But why should an increasingly secularized 21st century West determine this. Why not a more Christianized 19th century? Or why the West; what of the East? Corporal punishment is still practiced in Singapore. Which is more humane, locking up people up in prisons for extended periods of time or instituting corporal punishment for certain crimes? These are questions that Webb fails to wrestle with. He also unhelpfully mixes discussions of child-rearing with passages that seem to deal with criminal punishments. He furthermore gives his readers false options by implying that either one adopt his redemptive-movement hermeneutic or accept as still valid various provisions of the OT Law.
Fitzpatrick, Elyse M. and Jessica Thompson. Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus
. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011
The discussions of the law and the gospel could have benefited from some recognition of the third use of the law. Nonetheless, as the practical discussions unfolded, it seemed that this category was implicit. Readers would also benefit from reading and keeping in mind John Frame’s cautions on redemptive-historical preaching as they read this book. As with redemptive-historical preaching, the emphasis here is on the indicative, and there should be some cautions about not avoiding the imperatives for fear of moralism. Those caveats given, this is a good book. The overall thrust of the book is that parents should not try simply to produce good children. They should instead seek for gospel opportunities in discipline situations. This does not mean that discipline disappears but rather that it is contextualized with the gospel. The book also stresses that following the right formulas will not necessarily produce good children but that God’s grace is necessary to transform children’s hearts. Thus parents must consistently pray for God’s work of grace in the hearts of their children.
Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical & Global Perspectives
. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2002.
Good overview of various ecclesiological proposals and the state of the discipline. Negatively, it is slanted toward unorthodox views.
Ryle, J. C. Expository Thoughts on Matthew
. 1856; repr., Banner of Truth Trust, 1986.
Ryle designed this work for family devotions and it is worthy of continued use for that purpose over 150 years from its original publication.
Hannah, John D. An Uncommon Union: Dallas Theological Seminary and American Evangelicalism
. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.
Hannah provides an interesting institutional history. It doesn’t have the same narrative quality as George Marsden’s history of Fuller Seminary or Gregory Wills’ history of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Hannah goes into more detail about curricular changes and other details which break up the narrative. But the discussion of how Dallas emerged from the Bible Conference movement and developed in relation to fundamentalism and evangelicalism was interesting. Hannah placed Dallas somewhat between fundamentalism and the neo-evangelicalism spearheaded at Fuller Seminary.
Goheen, Michael W. A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story
. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.
I think this has been the most disappointing and most profitable book that I’ve read recently. Disappointing because I came to the book with high hopes and found that I disagreed with his basic thesis. Profitable because it is not only full of wise thoughts but because even when I disagreed I found my thinking helpfully provoked. Goheen did not convince me that the church is defined by its mission. It seems that the church most be more than a “come and join us people.” Its definition must include the what for which people join. Nonetheless, missions is vital to the church, and Goheen’s discussion of mission and missions remain helpful. I also disagree with Goheen’s relation of the church to Israel. This ended up being a major theme of the book. Nonetheless, Goheen has sparked an interest into researching further OT prophecies about the role of Israel in spreading the gospel to the Gentiles.
Wilson, Douglas. What I Learned in Narnia
. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2010.
One of the reasons Lewis’s books are so enjoyable for Christians is that they help them see with fresh eyes the foolishness of evil and the wisdom of a God-oriented life. These lessons are not sermonizing within the stories. They are baked into the narratives themselves. And they are the kind of things that stick in the mind and are recalled unbidden when similar circumstances or ideas arise in real life. Wilson highlights these lessons in this book. An enjoyable read.
Articles
Schreiner, Thomas R. “A Biblical Theology of the Glory of God.” In For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper
. Edited by Sam Storms and Justin Taylor. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.
A helpful overview of the centrality of the glory of God in every part of the biblical storyline/canon.
Dever, Mark. “The Church.” In Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday
. Edited by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert W. Yarbrough. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
A basic unpacking of the doctrine of the church in terms of its four ancient attributes and two/three Reformation marks. Includes helpful thoughts on church membership
Kidd, Reggie M. “What John Frame Taught Me about Worship.” Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame
. Edited by John J. Hughes. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2009.
He likes Frame, Clowney, Old, and Webber. But the essay is pretty thin on content.
Wolters, Al. “Reflection by Al Wolters.” in Four Views on Moving beyond the Bible to Theology (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)
. Edited by Gary T. Meadors. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.
When I referenced this book for my dissertation, I found that Wolters had the most perceptive reflection on the four views presented. In the dissertation, I drew on him for his critique of Vanhoozer’s theodramatic view. This time I read him to refresh my mind on his critique of Webb. Here too he was perceptive. He notes several problems with a redemptive-movement hermeneutic: (1) It treats ANE ethics monolithically. There were multiple ethics in multiple cultures. Further, some may have been more advanced that Israel if one assumes the “ultimate ethic” that Web lays. (2) His approach depends on the Bible reader having access to ANE background information that many ordinary readers don’t have access to and that even scholars did not have access to before the nineteenth century. Even today scholarly knowledge of the ANE is patchy. (Wolters is clear that he is not against making use of ANE background materials.) (3) “There appears to be no standard by which to measure what an ‘ultimate ethic’ might be. A clue to what is in fact the implicit and unacknowledged standard for Webb is provided by the proximity in the diagram of ‘Ultimate Ethic’ to ‘Our Culture.’ To be sure, the latter is qualified by the words in parentheses: ‘where it happens to reflect a better ethic than Y,’ but no criterion is provided by which we can judge that ‘our culture’ on this or that point reflects a better ethic than Y. This is a remarkable statement when we recall that Y represents ‘the concrete words of the text,’ that is, the biblical text. For all practical purposes it seems that Webb’s ‘Ultimate Ethic’ is pretty well equated with ‘Our Culture,’ at least insofar as the latter is the bearer of human and liberal values. It looks for all the world as though the values ‘we’ hold trump the explicit ethical instruction of Scripture” (p. 306).
McDaniel, Stefan. “Flogging: The Best Hope for Our Broken Prison System?” The Public Discourse (2011).
It was interesting to happen across this article shortly after having finished Webb’s book on corporal punishment. It comments on Peter Moskos’s work, In Defense of Flogging, which raises the issue of whether flogging might be more humane than locking people up in prison. He tentatively proposes the flogging be an option that those convicts who are not a danger to society may choose instead of a prison term. This is interesting because Webb rhetorically reacts in horror at the idea of corporal punishment as a punishment for adult criminals. But what if Webb’s trajectory toward from Scripture toward our culture isn’t a trajectory to that which is more humane after all? This article at the very least raises that question.
Campbell, Donald K. “The Church in God’s Prophetic Program.” In Essays in honor of J. Dwight Pentecost,
. Chicago: Moody, 1986.
Lewis, C. S. “The Inner Ring.” In The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
. HarperCollins, 2001.
An excellent application of the tenth commandment to friendship. The best fictional correspondence to this address in Lewis’s writing is the character of Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength.
Osborne, Grant. “Hermeneutics and Theological Interpretation.” In Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Edited by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert W. Yarbrough. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
When I was writing my dissertation on theological interpretation of Scripture, I found the literature so voluminous and diverse that I struggled in finding a structure for my analysis. In the end I focused on the role of tradition, the place of pre-critical interpretation as it relates to authorial intent, and how theological interpretation relates to biblical and systematic theology. I was therefore pleased to see that Grant Osborne’s survey of the same material covers these same key areas. Furthermore, I think he points his readers in the right direction on every point. He sees tradition as valuable but supplementary to Scripture, which retains its primacy. He argues that seeking authorial intention is correct and viable. One difference is that he seems to see Childs as a move forward after the collapse of the Biblical Theology Movement. I think that Childs carries many of the same weaknesses. That criticism aside, Osborne’s introduction to theological interpretation is a fine one.
Strange, Dan. “Not Ashamed! The Sufficiency of Scripture for Public Theology.” Themelios 36, no. 2 (2011): 238-60.
Strange provides a description of both Common-Kingdom (emphasis on natural law as the authority for the common kingdom) and Confessional-Kingdom (emphasis on the authority of Scripture for all of life) models of engagement with public life. He sides with the Confessional-Kingdom approach. His survey is helpful and his application to the UK is useful even for those in the USA.
Bookman, Douglas. “The Scriptures and Biblical Counseling.” In Introduction to Biblical Counseling
. Edited by John F. MacArthur, Jr. and Wayne A. Mack. Dallas: Word, 1994.
Bookman’s concerns are entirely valid. But in making his case, Bookman seems overly reliant on arguing the definition of terms (while granting what many would identify as general revelation and its application in four affirmations), and even these definitions receive only the most cursory support from Scripture. Bookman’s discussion of general revelation would have been stronger if it had focused on the key general revelation texts, and his case against integrationist counseling would have been stronger if it focused on the substantive issue of psychological theories being equivalent to a theology rather than being revelation itself.
Mayhue, Richard L. “Is Nature the 67th Book of the Bible.” In Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth
. Master Books, 2008.
Mayhue provides an able refutation of Hugh Ross’s claim that nature is the 67th book of the Bible. But he seems to overly limit general revelation in a few places. First, when he says that the breadth of content for general revelation is limited to knowledge of God alone, this seems to rule out natural law (though he grants Romans 2 deals with both general revelation and moral standards). When he says that the corpus of general revelation does not grow over time, Mayhue excludes history from general revelation. He says he does so on the basis that history does not show up in Ps. 19:1-6; Acts 14:17; 17:23-31; Rom. 1:18-25; 10:18, but I would have benefited from some further discussion on why many theologians include history. Does Mayhue think they wrongly see it in the texts he examines; does he think they wrongly see it in other texts that do not teach general revelation? Mayhue then says to expand general revelation beyond special revelation adds to Scripture. But this is not clear. Scripture is special revelation and general revelation is not. These reservations and questions do not affect Mayhue’s case against Ross; Mayhue successfully refutes Ross’s claims.
Contextualization must Reckon with Antithesis
“The first generation of Doleantie pastors were retiring and making way for the next generation, who thought differently and had only heard about the Herculean struggles and high price that was paid for Doleantie pastors to extricate themselves from the grip of the rampant liberalism in the Old State Church (HK). Bavinck’s students from the Free University were now occupying pulpits, and some were not as adept as their teaching in dealing with the problems of modern society. Whereas the older generation had emphasized the idea of the antithesis vis-à-vis culture, the younger generation was more in tune with the concepts of what today is called contextualization and accommodation in spite of what Bavinck and others had taught them.”
The younger generation argued that “in order for the Reformed church to remain relevant in Holland, it had to busy itself with seeking and finding ‘new paths’ for both church and society. Interestingly, the astute student of church history can find this pattern and these sentiments repeated throughout the ages. Equally interesting are the statistics that point inexorably to the truth that when a church starts down such a path, the results are often disastrous. Those desiring to be creative or innovative in the church usually compromise the gospel somewhere along the line, and the same holds true for those who are intent on ‘engaging the culture.’ They fail to realize that the culture will engage you back, and you had better be more than prepared to deal with both the blatant aspects as well as the subtleties of unbelief. Bavinck, Kuyper, Rutgers, Noordtzij, and other had developed an excellent way of working out a biblical life and worldview. . . . These youngish theologians were neither Kuyper nor Bavinck. They were lacking the requsite intellectual tools and life experience to analyze and to correct culture in the manner in which Bavinck had learned to do. Wanting to be Kuyper and Bavinck ‘clones,’ these young men fell short of the mark. Even though their intentions were honorable, without the requisite intellectual prowess and wherewithal their embrace of the new questions raised by culture carried the seeds of destruction for the Reformed church, as the history of the Dutch church would manifest.”
Ron Gleason, Herman Bavinck: Pastor, Churchman, Statesman, and Theologian
Suffering: The Price to Be Paid for Living Distinctively
Pluralism is the accepted relationship between church and state in the contemporary West. Such an approach has been manageable while the competing religions have shared ethical norms. But what happens when perceptions of right and wrong sharply diverge.
Howard Chua-Eoan wites on Time.com in qualified praise of the legalization of homosexual “marriages” in New York:
But in one very important way, gay marriage will not quite be marriage even in New York, even 30 days from now when the law goes into effect. . . . Marriage without a church or temple wedding isn’t the real thing. Why can some people have all the bells and whistles in the church of their choice but not me? Of course, there have been and will be congregations and churches that allow gay men and lesbians to be married in their midst and to bless those unions, recognizing that God loves them just as much as Governor Andrew Cuomo does. But some rich and influential religious institutions are not only free to continue to reject gay men and women as equal beneficiaries of all aspects of faith but will now also rally their congregants to reject politicians who are willing to abide with this extension of secular civil rights — no matter how much acceptance there is of same-sex marriage elsewhere, no matter how many wedding announcements appear in the New York Times.
https://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2079861,00.html
In Chua-Eoan’s system of ethics rejection of homosexuality is a sin. Thus the offenders’ liberty must be curtailed so the righteous can freely enjoy theirs. Is pluralism workable in such a situation?
Michael Goheen, drawing on Newbigin, notes:
“No human societies cohere except on the basis of some kind of common beliefs and customs. No society can permit these beliefs and practices to be threatened beyond a certain point without reacting in self-defense.” . . . When ultimate believes clash, the dominant worldview strives to become the exclusive worldview, exerting tremendous pressure on dissenting communities to abandon their uniqueness and conform to the dominant community. Dissenters must opt either for accommodation or to live out the comprehensive call of the gospel faithfully and pay the price for their dissent with suffering.
Micahel Goheen, A Light to the Nations
Church Conformed to Culture
Michael Goheen lists and describes a variety of images of the church that are shaped more by the current culture than by Scripture:
- Church as mall or food court: Malls offer a variety of consumer goods, and similarly food courts offer a number of choices. Likewise the church provides a variety of programs to meet the religious needs of the congregation.
- Church as community center: Various institutions . . . exist to meet social needs and organize themselves around the hobbies and special interests of their members. In this model the church becomes a hub for its members to meet social needs as the organize around a shared set of beliefs and a shared religious interest. Various programs are conceived for youth, singles, young married couples, and other groups to meet their various social needs.
- Church as a corporation: Corporations are rationally organized for growth, profit, and the efficient marketing of their product. Often church leadership and organization are oriented toward efficiency rather than pastoral care and missional leadership. They are organized to market the religious goods they can offer.
- Church as theater: Theaters are places where people are invited to sit back and passively enjoy various kinds of entertainment. Often the way we structure our worship spaces and liturgies makes our ‘worship’ look more like occasions for entertainment.
- Church as classroom: Educational institutions continue to dominate Western culture. Within a consumer framework, they offer teaching and insight for living. This may well reflect one of the consumer items the church has to offer its constituents through Bible study and teaching.
- Church as hospital or spa: A hospital is a place of healing, and a spa offers an opportunity for rejuvenation in a stressful world. The church is a place of spiritual healing and rejuvenation.
- Church as a motivational seminar: In our self-help-oriented world there is no shortage of motivational seminars to help improve various dimensions of our lives. The church can offer these too, from tips on better parenting to ways to improve your marriage.
- Church as social-service office: The social-services arm of the government exists to take care of the weak, the needy, and the poor. The compassionate church concerned for diaconal mercy in its neighborhood may come to resemble this kind of institution in its care for those in need.
- Church as campaign headquarters or social advocacy group: A social-advocacy group or political party promotes its particular brand of political economic, or ecological justice. In this mode, the church assumes this role, organizing pressure for a more Christian society.
Goheen recognizes that some, though not all, of these items contain aspects of church ministry that are essential (e.g., teaching). He identifies the problem: “The problem arises when the biblical story and the nature of the church are forgotten; then these activities are shaped by a different story and lose their authentic ecclesial form.”
Michael Goheen, Light to the Nations
Sola Scriptura and Specific Applications
How does God’s speech in creation relate to his speech in Scripture? In putting such a great emphasis on general revelation, are we not in danger of minimizing special revelation? Do we not thereby compromise the Reformation’s great principle of sola Scriptura?
This is a legitimate concern. . . . The analogy with ‘guidance’ can be helpful. It is certainly true that a preoccupation with ‘the leading of the Spirit’ in determining God’s will for decisions of everyday life can result in an undervaluing of Scripture, but that is not at all a necessary consequence of an emphasis on seeking God’s will in our daily lives. A sound approach to guidance will always stress the primacy and indispensability of Scripture as well as the exercise of ‘sanctified common sense,’ bit it will not thereby downplay the reality of a knowable and specific will of God for our personal lives. In fact, the Scriptures themselves by their insistent teaching of God’s lordship over all of our lives continually drive us to consider questions of guidance. Suppose John, a college senior has to decide whether // to go on to seminary or to pursue graduate studies in philosophy. Scripture does not decide that question for him. Instead it gives him certain indispensable guidelines: he must seek the Lord’s will in all things, he must be a good steward of the gifts God gives him, he must do all to the glory of God, God has a plan for his life and has been guiding him since childhood, he must subordinate his own wishes and desires to God’s, and so on. But these guidelines press him on to a consideration of what God’s will is in this situation, what gifts he has to be a steward of, what is most glorifying to God in this particular case, what God’s plan and guidance have been in his life to this point, what personal preferences must be downplayed, and so on. In considering all these individual questions he must continually check back with Scripture to make sure his bearings are right, but he would be foolish and irresponsible if he let a stray text decide the matter for him without considering available graduate schools, his own talents and temperament, specific historical needs, and so on.
Albert M. Wolters, Creation Regained, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 36-37
John Broadus on Drinking Alcohol
The idea that the word wine in the Bible sometimes means an unintoxicating beverage is without any sufficient foundation. Some men have written to that effect, but no man who is a thorough Hebrew or Greek scholar, as far as I know, at all takes any such position. It seems to me a great pity that advocates of the great cause of total abstinence should take up so utterly untenable a position. The pure wine of Palestine, in our Lord’s time, taken as was the custom with a double quantity of water (a man who ‘drinks unmixed,’ among the Greeks, meant a hard drinker), and used in moderation, was about as stimulating as our tea and coffee, and was used by the Saviour and by others just as we use them. The case is altered now, for such pure and mild wines would be very hard to get, and they are not needed because we have tea and coffee, and their use would tend to encourage the use of distilled liquors, which are so much more powerful and dangerous. Therefore it is better to abstain from the use of wine for our own sake and as an example to to others.
J. A. B. to B. W. N. Simms on Nov. 28, 1894 cited in A. T. Robertson, Life and Letters of John A. Broadus (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1910), 426-427.
What is Theological Interpretation of Scripture?
Kevin Vanhoozer admits that “initially, it is easier to say what theological interpretation is not rather than what it is” (DTIB, 19; cf. Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis, 145f.; Peter Kline, “Prolegomena,” Princeton Theological Review 14.1 (Spring 2008): 5). He specifies some things that it is not: “Theological interpretation of the Bible is not an imposition of a theological system or confessional grid onto the biblical text.” It is not, “an imposition of a general hermeneutic or theory of interpretation onto the biblical text.” And it is not, “a form of merely historical, literary, or sociological criticism preoccupied with “(respectively) the world ‘behind,’ ‘of,’ or ‘in front of’ the biblical text” (DTIB, 19).
Marcus Bockmuehl probes the issue with a question: “Is there perhaps some sense in which the living and lived word of Scripture shapes both exegesis and theology reciprocally, and in which dogmatics articulately engages and in turn illuminates the hearing of that word?” (Bockmuehl, in Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible, 8; cf. Vanhoozer in DTIB, 20).
Theological interpreters answer Bockmuehl in the affirmative: interpreters must refuse to sequester theology from exegesis. This means the text is read as Christian Scripture by those within the Christian church. Furthermore, theological interpreters read the Scripture as addressed to them as Christians (and not merely addressed to communities in the past) for the purpose of spiritual transformation (and not merely as ancient texts to be analyzed) (see Gorman, 146f.).
Thus theological interpretation maintains two key emphases. First, it holds that exegesis should shape doctrine and that doctrine should influence exegesis. Second, it holds that theology is ultimately about faithful living.
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