Monthly Archives: October 2009

Thoughts on Authors, Texts, Intention, and Canonical Unity

Posted on

Treier writes, “… the more focus placed on the human author (s) as opposed to the text (s), the more potentially problematic diversity one seems to find” (Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture, 113).

Okay. This is right. Dealing with authors primarily individualizes texts and books and therefore blurs the unity of the Bible. There are different languages, styles, concepts. This is an obvious result of the grammatical-historical approach and was counter-acted by the redemptive-historical approach (111).

But what if, in some way, the diversity of the Bible is part of its unity in that it was not absent in the mind of the authors as they penned the individual books? Can we understand inspiration to involve some grasp of the human authors that they were working in the midst of a more holistic project? If you say no, then why not?

The individual biblical authors understood the meaning of the canon as they wrote their individual books. A high view of God, of Scripture, of inspiration could lead to such an assumption, or presupposition.  And it is one that I do not think is careless to affirm.

Hand-Over-Your-Mouth Humility: Job and the Judgement that God is Not So Much Glorified by a Faith that is Perfect, but by a Faith that is Real.

Posted on

In verses 1-6 of chapter 42, Job answers the LORD and he says the right things. The narrator is clear that we get this (v. 7, 8). But the reader has seen that Job hasn’t always been right. Elihu nails Job from chapters 32-37, and then the LORD concludes the rebuke in 38-42. Job needs to be and is dramatically called out and corrected.

So, then, does Satan’s proposal in 1:8 stand? Does Satan prove that Job’s faith–his “fear of God”– is superficial?

No. The narrative goes on to demonstrate that Satan is very wrong. But, as we see, the faith of Job that debunks Satan’s accusation is a faith laden with errors. And yet this imperfect, cracked up faith is what God references and rebukes in order to manifest His glory and Satan’s defeat.

What does this mean? What follows is a judgment, not a summary or simplification: Upon the reality of this narrative, I judge that God is not so much glorified by a faith that is perfect, but by a faith that is real. A faith that He Himself has born, and one that He Himself will perfect.

Philippians 1:6 is true and we’d better base our lives on it.

Reading the Bible and Its Subversion of Arminian Theology

Posted on

John Piper has some very helpful advice here.

This is the ‘bread and butter’ of Bible reading. Droves of people don’t get this. Not to be too emphatic here, but if this principle were understood by all Christians then it would significantly reduce the number of Arminians out there, and the number of legalists.

Read his post and feel the good news.

 

What is a ‘Relationship With Jesus?’

Posted on

In an evangelical culture where phrases like “personal relationship with Jesus” have become common lingo, it is refreshing and intensely edifying to realize that there is no such thing as a relationship with Jesus apart from the Holy Spirit. My seeing and knowing and loving Jesus Christ is the present and continual work of the Holy Spirit in my life. My relationship with Jesus and his residence “in my heart” are just different articulations of the glorious reality that the Spirit makes real! He engineers my present experience of Jesus that is solely rooted in the objective, historical work of Jesus on the cross. It is by the Spirit that the objective work of God outside of me, in election before the world began and in the crucifixion of Jesus, is brought to have its intimate effect inside of me. The Spirit is my feet, my eyes, my tongue—so that I would walk in Christ’s way, see Christ’s majesty, and taste Christ’s glory.

My Plea for You to Live, Part 1: ‘Living it Up’ is Actually ‘Wasting Your Life’

Posted on

Job 14:5 Since his days are determined,

and the number of his months is with you,

and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,

6 look away from him and leave him alone,

that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day.

The days of mankind are numbered. Humans die. I will die. You will die. In the midst of his distress and on the basis of this reality, Job asked that God just leave him alone. “If life is so short,” he ponders, “why don’t you just let people go and enjoy what little time they have here.”

Have you ever thought that before? This is the doctrine of life for many people. You operate everything you do based upon this logic. The problem is that it misses something very important. Humans were created for eternity. However short our physical life on the earth may be, that is not the end. In fact, it must be just the start. The soul of man is nothing temporal. Just consider the depths of the emotions. Consider what it means to be moved by something–a sunset, the beach shore, a light snow fall when it isn’t below 0. We are beings who have been made for forever.

Made for forever and made for God.

To believe anything else is actually to cheapen what it means to be alive. It is the greatest irony invented by humans: “living it up” is actually wasting your life.

Really, You Need To Get Out More

Posted on

We think we’re in charge. We imagine that we just follow our heart, that we decide for ourselves what is true, valuable, and useful. In reality, though, our choices are already shaped by culture of marketing; our preferences have been conditioned by the goods and services, identities and images, possibilities and impossibilities, that have been designed for us in any given moment of this fading age. God’s Word comes to release us from his prison that we have mistaken for a palace, as God introduces himself to us and to his world for the first time. God’s first word is, “You need to get out more”–out of our cocoon that we have spun for ourselves.

The God of the Bible is a strange God–not the kind of God we can manage, manipulate, accommodate, or domesticate to our familiar experience. We cannot find this God by looking within ourselves. His Word is not the same as our inner voice. He cannot be pared down to our size, measured by our speculations, experiences, or felt needs. Rather, he stands over against us, telling us how things actually are. When God actually confronts us, our speculations are exposed as idols, our experience judged as little more than a projection of ourselves, and our felt needs give way to more pressing needs that we did not even realize that we had.

Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life, 23

Old is Passing Away, the New has Come: Get Rid of Your Junk Because of the Eternal Purpose of God in the New Covenant

Posted on

“For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” (2Corinthians 6:16-7:1 ESV)

It is upon this Spirit-born new covenant reality that Paul makes his imperative to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit” (7:1). The flesh is used often in 2 Corinthians in a sneering way as synonymous to that which is being brought to an end (cf. 2 Cor 4:11; 10:2-4). Earlier in 5:17 he has pitted the flesh as the old nature that was brought to an end for those who are in Christ. “In Christ” actualizes the new creation that eclipses the old nature that is passing away. The old nature is passing away and the new creation is coming to a more present reality in the work of sanctification, or said another way, “holiness is being brought to completion in the fear of God” (7:1). This is the essence of Paul’s command. Because of the new covenant reality that is ours by the Spirit, let us cleanse ourselves of that which is of the old nature and therefore bring sanctifying work of God to its full effect. The basis of the Spirit’s empowering work is His already established presence in the actuality of the new covenant.

Radical New in the Regular Old: Gordon Fee on Pauline Theology

Posted on

On the one hand, it seems impossible to understand Paul without beginning with eschatology as the essential framework of all his theological reflection; on the other hand, salvation in Christ is the essential concern within that framework. Salvation is “eschatological” in the sense that final salvation, which still awaits the believer, is already a present reality through Christ and the Spirit. It is “in Christ” in the sense that what originated in God was effected historically by the death and resurrection of Christ, and is appropriated experientially by God’s people through the work of the Holy Spirit–who is also the key to Christian life “between the times,” until the final consummation at Christ’s parousia.

Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 13