2009-03-04

Packer endorses John Woodbridge's Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (1982): "With courtesy and restraint Professor Woodbridge administers a series of knock-out blows to the confidently voiced claim that factual inerrancy is no authentic element in the historic Christian view of Scripture." Best Blurb Ever

Turk strongly recommends Bauckham's What He Must Be as a pastoral and convicting book. What He Must Read

Phillips laments the neglect of the public reading of Scripture, something that is to be done by apostolic command. Many others lament the lack of corporate prayer or communion as a footnote, but they seldom consider that Scripture reading is an afterthought in many places. He gives several tips: Always practice reading the passage aloud. Make sure you understand the passage. Don't rush it. Know how to pronounce difficult words or names. Read the psalm titles. (cf. Waltke, the titles and ascriptions (and notations) are as much a part of the text as the rest, and there is no historical reason for rejecting them.) "Is that the great King's word you have in your hands? Are you about to relay His words to His people? Are these words of life and death, of pardon and judgment? Does eternity hang in the balance? Is that what you believe?" Then show us! Bible reading — in church

Russell Moore has a cutting and worthwhile post on how the recession should rearrange our priorities. The church is consuming herself to death. "A time of economic crisis is, therefore, a time for the Church to reconsider—and re-imagine—her priorities. The first step is to recognize that one of the roots of the family crisis all around us—in the pews we sit in or preach to every week—is the wallet in our own back pocket." "Maybe it will teach us to teach our people to live within their means, to stand by their words, to love their families, and to be content with lives of godliness and dignity. As extended families come together, as churches band together to care for those “reduced in force” from their jobs, perhaps we’ll be forced to abandon the illusions of ourselves as self-contained units of production and consumption." Christians get abortions, delay marriage, outsource their parenting, engage in stupid and trivial consumeristic programs, all in the name of the American lifestyle. Life is more than acquisition. http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=22-02-003-e. This Australian couple, by way of contrast, moved to the slums: Australian Family Lives in Slum Dog's Neighbourhood

Bird has an essay coming on Paul as a Jewish evangelist; an evangelist among the Gentiles, not just to them. He provides these quotes from Wright and Bell: "‘Paul’s theology demands a mission to the Jewish people. Provoking Israel to jealousy is no replacement for mission. It is just one possible precursor for mission. The gospel must be preached for it is only the gospel, God’s reconciling word, which can make someone a Christian (Rom. 10.17) … I would maintain that evangelism to Jews is not antisemitism; rather to renounce preaching the liberating gospel to Jewish people is antisemitism’." Paul the Jewish Evangelist

Mohler points to the progression of porn through America. Even The Washington Times sees the moral isssues at stake.  Pornography is indeed a "squalid and perverted industry," and porn at work is surely "a virulent cancer" that demands to be confronted. "The real cost of pornography is measured in broken lives, broken marriages, broken children, and broken dreams.  In reality, the true cost is spiritual, for pornography destroys the soul. This one fact is enough to prove just how immense this problem is -- 70 percent of pornography on the Internet is viewed at work.  That explains why so many employees are distracted.  It also underlines the fact that pornography is truly a spreading cancer.  It will not easily be forced into retreat." http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=3348

"In fact, a recent report by BC Hydro estimates new lighting regulations will increase annual greenhouse gas emissions in British Columbia by 45,000 tonnes annually as consumers use more energy to heat their homes after switching to more energy efficient — but cooler — lighting." Now that is funny. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/03/04/mb-light-bulbs.html

Bird gives some quick reasons why he wonders if Galatians is a better example of Paul's raw and radical theology in many respects. Key Elements of Pauline Theology

Mathis: "Sacrificial service in the church doesn't start with serving. It starts with being served by God. Then as we are satisfied in Him and who He's revealed Himself to be in His crucified Son, we gladly overflow in service of others." God Serves Us So We'll Serve Others

Carolyn Mahaney gives their sixth suggestion for single women for how to best use your years as a single: Prepare to be a wife and mother. "A career as a wife and mother demands considerable expertise, may encompass decades of your life, and has the potential to spread the gospel to your family, church, community, and future generations. Now that’s worth preparing for, wouldn’t you say?" Prepare for an Important Career Here's an anecdote to the same effect: Study to Show Yourself a SAHM

Machen on revival: "Souls will hardly be saved unless the evangelists can say with Paul: "If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which we preached unto you, let him be accursed!" Every true revival is born in controversy, and leads to more controversy." Piper points out that unity leading to revival seems backwards. If the churches had deep unity in the truth and in the Spirit, that would be revival and reformation—amazing reformation! Unity of the kind we need is one of the miracles of God's reviving and reforming work. Must Unity Precede Revival-

Do you have unbelieving family? So did Jesus (John 7:5). It must have been hard for His brothers: Jesus excelled in wisdom. He was sinless, and would have been in stark contrast to them. He was probably given special treatment by His parents because they knew He was different. But he story of Jesus' brothers can actually give us hope for our loved ones. At the time his brothers claimed that Jesus was "out of his mind" (Mark 3:21), it must have appeared very unlikely that they would ever become his disciples. But eventually they did! And not only followers, but leaders and martyrs in the early church. So don't stop praying for your family. Jesus' Unbelieving Brothers

Machen points to the desperate need for competition for the public school system: "The only way in which a state-controlled school can be kept even relatively healthy is through the absolutely free possibility of competition by private schools and church schools; if it once becomes monopolistic, it is the most effective engine of tyranny and intellectual stagnation that has yet been devised." Public Schools Need Competition

Barack Obama has done something interesting. See, in the gender-neutral Bible debate, the defenders of these "programmatic changes" have argued that "the use of the generic masculine language is rapidly fading.... There is an entire generation of young people who don't use it and don't understand its usage." Yet, Obama said, "It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values." Grudem points out: "The pronoun ‘he' referring back to a specific antecedent that is used as an example of a general case continues to be commonly seen in standard English." He asks, "Would the TNIV supporters say that President Obama's words would likely be understood by young hearers to refer only to men who bought houses they could not afford?" Thus, this works against their argument. Barack Obama and the TNIV

Jon Bloom points to the devastation of pride: The Pride of Nazareth, Jesus Himself, was rejected by Nazareth because of pride. Who was this Jesus, they asked? We know Him. We know His parents. Does He think He's something great?.. so they were offended. Familiarity bred the pride of contempt in them. And therefore their pride cut them off from the Messiah. The Pride of Nazareth

Bird points to a quote he found from Hyppolytus "... that is to say, the faith of Jesus Christ, [Iesou Christou pistis] who, in stretching forth His holy hands on the holy tree, unfolded two wings, the right and the left, and called to Him all who believed upon Him ..." of which he says, "it is the clearest reference we have to a subjective genitive of "faith(fulness) of Christ" in relation to Jesus' death on the cross in patristic literature." Hippolytus and the Faith of Jesus Christ

Bird seems to appreciate Seyoon Kim's Christ and Caesar, though he has a few issues with the book, quoting Ramsay's view approvingly: "A universal Paulinism and a universal Empire must either coalesce, or the one must destroy the other." He also recommends Denny Burk's article in JETS (2008): "Is Paul's Gospel Counterimperial? Evaluating the Prospects of the "Fresh Perspective" for Evangelical Theology" for an approach similar to Kim. Book Notice- Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar

Challies comments on the plethora of choice, unnecessary choice, before us today: we are given more to choose from, which gives us all the rationale we need to spend more money. We are upsold on marginal options that we might need. The Times wrote on this, "this isn't good for our happiness. "The huge number of choices that assault us every day makes many of us feel inadequate and in some cases even clinically depressed," says Professor Barry Schwartz, a psychologist from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and the author of The Paradox of Choice. " We feel persistently bad about choices due to their complexity and the fact that we always feel that we've lost an opportunity. Endless choice leads to discontent - rather, let's live with an eye to the future knowing that we can take nothing from here with us. Endless Choice, Endless Discontent

James White's comments on Youtube on Sean Penn's anti-Christians words at the Oscars were removed by Youtube for copyright violation (uh huh). He is reposting them here, without the tiny clip (which incidentally is in some other 48 videos around youtube that weren't censored). He points out the bullying of the left, due to their baseless and illogical positions, their resorting to intimidation for deviating from their norm, especially in persecuting those who voted for Prop. 8. Ironically, they relive the worst mindset of the inquisitions, which they accuse others of - forceful suppression of a different view. There is no way Mr. Penn would say that he wants Islam to disappear while at the Oscars. Reposting My Video Response to Sean Penn After YouTube Censorship

Bayly points to this editorial from 1970: "The traditional Western ethic has always placed great emphasis on the intrinsic worth and equal value of every human life regardless of its stage or condition. This ethic has had the blessing of the Judeo-Christian heritage and has been the basis for most of our laws and much of our social policy. The reverence for each and every human life has also been keystone of Western medicine and is the ethic which has caused physicians to try to preserve, protect, repair, prolong, and enhance every human life which comes under their surveillance. This traditional ethic is still clearly dominant, but there is much to suggest that it is being eroded at its core and may eventually be abandoned. This of course will produce profound changes in Western medicine and Western society." "It will become necessary and acceptable to place relative rather than absolute values on such things as human lives, the use of scarce resources and the various elements which are to make up the quality of life or of living which is to be sought." "The process of eroding the old ethic and substituting the new has already begun. It may be seen most clearly in changing attitudes toward human abortion. In defiance of the long held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status, abortion is becoming accepted by society as moral, right, and even necessary." Snoring in the gap

Hays responds to an attempted justification from a convert from Anglicanism to Romanism. i) In this case there is a close connection between the starting point and destination; i.e. a catholic anglicanism => Romanism. But not everyone begins there. ii) the question of the 'problem' of private judgment isn't resolved with Romanism - you just get liberal Romanists instead of liberal Prots. iii) its absurd to suggest that the books of the bible don't have identifiable genres with precedent. iv) High churchmen like Kimel always employ a top-down methodology. They begin with some abstract category, like “the Church.” They take their definition of “the Church” for granted. They then impose that framework on the subsequent discussion. v) is the 'church' the audience of the Bible? To whom was Exodus written? vi) why assume only one audience? Within narratives there are different audiences (e.g. John 6 has the unbelieving audience and the literary audience of John's readers). Not every audience supplies the hermeneutical frame of reference. vii) people should start from the bottom-up, with the concrete things first. viii) To the suggestion that the solution is "adopting the rules of interpretation that were employed by the same folks who canonized the Old and New Testament books", who canonized it? The Jews originally canonized the OT. The church received the OT from the synagogue. The church then had to decide whether or not it was going to reaffirm the Jewish canon. By Kimel's criteria, we should discount the hermeneutical principles of the church fathers and medieval theologians. We should confine ourselves to the hermeneutical principles of the Tridentine Fathers. But the decrees and canons of Trent didn’t pass by unanimous consent. The church fathers weren't uniform: isn’t there an elementary distinction between the Antiochean school and the Alexandrian school? ix) In Kimel's world, since no allegorical interpretation literally corresponds to the truth, no allegorical interpretation is wrong. And does he apply his hermeneutics to interpreting the papacy? Allegory, etc.? x) To the statement "if we are misguided enough to interpret the Bible in terms of the ‘original meaning’ of the text, that original meaning is often false: there is scientific, historical, moral, and theological falsity in the Bible, if it is so interpreted", should we apply this to the objectors writings? Should we apply this to the church fathers? Why not? xi) "Unlike Kimel, the Jews affirmed the Solomonic authorship of Canticles. And that’s why they would incorporate this book into the canon. Based on Solomon’s reputation as a divinely inspired sage." xii) Another problem with Kimel’s argument is that he’s trying to validate a historical outcome by appealing to the historical outcome itself. But that’s viciously circular. xiii) How does Kimel interpret the Virgin Birth, Crucifixion, and Resurrection? Are those literal events? Or does he interpret those stories allegorically? xiv) Although the OT has an overarching storyline, many verses are simply factual or practical. Everything in the OT isn’t meant to be prophetic or typological. The Bible contains many mundane statements because the Bible is descriptive of life on earth—with all its physical necessities. They don’t always point to something else. xv) We don't get to redefine that which was handed down to us by OT Jews and NT Christians. xvi) Since the Bible was written for the benefit of all believers, what it meant remains perennially relevant to all believers—past, present, and future. One doesn’t need to alter the original meaning to make it relevant.  xvii) Kimel thinks, "The meaning of [a particular book] has been altered precisely by its incorporation into the collection of Holy Scripture." So Paul wouldn't know the meaning of what he wrote. This puts them on a collision course with apostolic and divine authority. If they were to try that line on the Apostles, they would have been excommunicated. Such an attitude would disqualify them from membership in the NT church, which is the paradigmatic church. This hermeneutical relativism is equally applicable to everything else. xviii) Is there a patristic lens? Aren’t there several different patristic lenses? What happens when one church father disagrees with another? Which patristic lens takes precedence? Why must Scripture be interpreted through the lens of the church fathers? It wasn’t written to them. And it wasn’t written for them, in some exclusive sense. xix) Authorial context doesn’t alter authorial meaning. The author intended his statement to be construed in light of the authorial context.  xx) in response to an appeal to govern interpretation by love and the catholic faith, if the original intent of Bible writers can be set aside, then what’s the basis for believing in the love of God and neighbor, or the doctrines of the catholic faith? xxi) "the apparent tension between day 1 and day 4 of Gen 1 is not a scientific discovery. The fact that we already have a diurnal cycle in place on days 1-3 is given in the text. That’s not an extratextual finding. And that, in turn, raises the question of whether days 1-3 are solar days, and how they relate to day 4. These are hermeneutical questions, not scientific questions. The text itself supplies the data for these reflections." xxii) Why is the OT covenant community irrelevant to the interpretation of the OT? Why is the NT covenant community irrelevant to the interpretation of the NT? Why is the interpretive community shunted off to the church fathers or the medieval doctors? xxiii) Kimel criticizes sola scriptura as innovative, yet his version of the hermeneutical circle is self-consciously and defiantly innovative, deliberately disregarding the original intent of the Bible writers. You couldn’t get more innovative than that if you tried. That’s a paradigmatic form of theological innovation. Even the church fathers are innovative in relation to the apostles. xxiv) Kimel fails to draw an elementary distinction between authorial intent and audient understanding. The latter may not be quite accurate, but that doesn't alter intent. It doesn’t change what the author meant to express by the words he used. We also need to distinguish between authorial context and canonical context. Reading another writing by the same writer (authorial context) can sometimes help you understand what he meant. xxv) the role of the audience appears to be primarily to understand a text, not to establish its meaning. xxvi) Kimel unnaturally divorces meaning from intent, and to avoid the promiscuous consequences, he must introduce the makeshift solution of Magisterium to restrain hermeneutical debauchery. there’s no reason we shouldn’t treat Sacred Tradition as metaphorically as we treat Holy Writ. xxvii) Kimel confuses what the author means with what the reader believes. Exegesis doesn't comment on the meaning. It tries to find it, and how the author views himself (e.g. as a prophet?). xxviii) Saying that the death of the authors necessitates an independence of the text because they can't clarify it ignores the rationale for a written record. Bible writers wrote for those occasions when they were unavailable, since they couldn’t be two places at once, and were mindful of their own mortality. The text gives continued access to the author's expression and thought. Through the OT and NT, Jews and Christians are commanded to heed dead Bible writers. Ironically, Kimel goes on to quote Lewis. Who is dead. Ditto with Chesterton. xxix) The authors didn't intend to write in a vacuum (e.g. Genesis is intended to be read as part of a literary unit). Although Bible writers don’t have the entire Bible in view, they’re aware of the fact that they are writing in a literary tradition, with a view to the past as well as the future. Promise and fulfillment. They look backward and forward. We shouldn’t use Paul to interpret James, or vice versa. We should interpret each author on his own terms, then, at the level of systematic theology, discuss their logical interrelationship. xxx) The fact that it’s written for everyone doesn’t mean we’re free to disregard original intent. We should be so egotistical as to think that Bible use personally written for you and me. xxxi) We ascertain the text's meaning, then analogize from the historical situation it was addressing to a comparable situation in our own experience. If the Bible contains timeless norms and perennial situations, there is no chasm between what it meant and how it now applies. xxxii) One of Kimel’s problems is his failure to distinguish between the grammatico-historical method and the historical-critical method. The latter often presupposes methodological naturalism. The former does not. xxxiii) It isn’t a choice between either democratic common sense or ecclesiastical mediation. The grammatico-historical method is distinct from either approach. In a final irony, Kimel finds a document approved by two popes “confusing and unsatisfactory.” It suffers from a “critical weakness.” Some church. Misreading Scripture