John Calvin’s essay “Christ Is the End of the Law” is included in Thy Word Is Still Truth, ed. Peter Lillback and Richard B. Gaffin. Calvin writes, “For this is eternal life, to know the one and only true God, and Him who He sent, Jesus Christ, whom he constituted the beginning, the middle, and the …
Category Archives: Typology
Typology, Biblical Theology, and Theological Interpretation of Scripture
I want to use the topic of Typology to propose a way of thinking about the relationship between Biblical Theology (BT) and Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS). The prompt for this is an excellent review by Nicholas J. Moore of Richard Ounsworth’s book, Joshua Typology in the New Testament. Moore writes: Ounsworth’s attention focusses briefly on …
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The Typology of David’s Rise to Power: Messianic Patterns in the Book of Samuel
What is Typology? How do the biblical authors develop typological connections? Can we read the Bible the way the biblical authors did? These are some of the questions I seek to address in an essay that has just appeared in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. Thanks to the generosity of the editor, Steve Wellum …
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Congrats to Andy Naselli on From Typology to Doxology
My good friend Andy Naselli recently completed his second Phd. The first one was done at Bob Jones in Theology and resulted in an important book entitled Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology. The second one was done at Trinity under D. A. Carson, and it has now been …
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What Makes a Translation Accurate?
What makes a translation accurate? Its ability to preserve the way that later biblical authors evoke earlier Scripture. The Bible was written by at least 40 authors from Moses in the 1400s BC to John around AD 90. Everyone who followed Moses learned from his work, and the later authors made heavy use of what …
What difference does it make if we capitalize son in Psalm 2?
The promises to David from 2 Samuel 7:4–17 are clearly in view in Psalm 2, especially in verses 5–12. In 1 Kings 2:1–4 and several other passages these promises are specifically applied to Solomon. These promises are also significant in the accounts of kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah. There is a sense, then, in …
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God: The Merciful Judge
This past weekend it was my privilege to be in Fayetteville, AR, at University Baptist Church. I spoke on the theme of God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology. These talks seek to summarize the Bible’s big story, highlighting the promises that generate the typological patterns. The talks are now available on UBC’s …
Jeremiah 7: Indictment of Unrepentant Israel (with some temple typology)
As I indicated in a previous post, it seems that Jeremiah 1:18–19 and Jeremiah 6:27–30 are bracketing Jeremiah 2–6 as a unit in which there is a progression from Israel’s sin to Israel’s rejection for their refusal to repent. This would place Jeremiah 7 at a strategic juncture introducing the next section of the book …
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The Best Essay I’ve Ever Read on the Book of Ruth
Peter Leithart, “When Gentile Meets Jew: A Christian Reading of Ruth and the Hebrew Scriptures,” Touchstone, May 2009, 20–24. Some highlights: Christological reading that integrates the detailed studies of Jewish scholars has the potential to address some of the complaints against the historical practice of typology. Taking cues from Luke 24, typological interpretation has traditionally …
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Typology and Political Discourse
People notice patterns. We interpret the world in light of archetypes, repetitions, and symbols. The biblical authors made massive use of typological interpretation as they interpreted earlier Scripture, redemptive history, and the events they were either narrating (in the Gospels, for instance) or addressing (in the letters, for example). Have you noticed how often this …
Is Eve a Type in 1 Timothy 2:15? Some Thoughts on Typology and Biblical Theology
A colleague asked me about Mary Kassian’s post “Women, Typology, and 1 Timothy 2:15,” which has now been reposted at the CBMW blog. My colleague’s concern was whether the appeal to typology was fanciful or legitimate. Here’s my response: Earle Ellis (in the preface to Goppelt’s Typos) states that typology consists of historical correspondence and …
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Ezra 6:22, Darius King of Assyria? Error or Typological Biblical Theology?
Time was slipping away from me yesterday, so some parts of the sermon manuscript got passed over. For instance, in Ezra 6:22, the king of Persia, Darius, is referred to as “the king of Assyria.” Here’s how the part of the manuscript that got skipped read: Ezra isn’t confused here about the identity of the …
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Review of Joel Kennedy’s The Recapitulation of Israel
Joel Kennedy. The Recapitulation of Israel: Use of Israel’s History in Matthew 1:1–4:11. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.257. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. 264pp. 9783161498251. $105.00 (paper). Published in Bulletin for Biblical Research 20.2 (2010): 268-69. This book is a revision of a dissertation supervised by Francis Watson at Aberdeen. The subject of the book …
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And If We Refuse We’re Rebels
Erich Auerbach (Mimesis, 14-15) writes that the intent of biblical stories: “is not to bewitch the senses, and if nevertheless they produce lively sensory effects, it is only because the moral, religious, and psychological phenomena which are their sole concern are made concrete in the sensible matter of life. But their religious intent involves an …
Dr. Mohler’s Typological Interpretation of the SBC in the 20th Century
This morning at SBTS Dr. Mohler gave a riveting presentation on the Future of the Southern Baptist Convention. The focus of the presentation was on how we got to be where we are now, and then Dr. Mohler gave a brief prescription for what needs to happen. Dr. Mohler didn’t use the phrase “typological interpretation” …
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Dale Allison on Jesus as the Embodiment of God’s Will
This is just a plug for anyone interested in typology to go read Dale C. Allison Jr.’s fascinating essay, “The Embodiment of God’s Will: Jesus in Matthew,” in the volume Seeking the Identity of Jesus. This is an essay that will repay careful study, and I expect to cite it a number of times.
Revelation 2:12-17, Repent of Nicolaitan Teaching
Sermon audio from yesterday morning (link fixed) here: Revelation 2:12–17, Repent of Nicolaitan Teaching
Was Joseph a Type of Christ?
I think so, and I try to prove it in this essay: “Was Joseph a Type of the Messiah? Tracing the Typological Identification between Joseph, David, and Jesus,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 12.4 (2008), 52-77. The gist of my article is this: From the reuse of key words and phrases (linguistic connections) and …
Audio of “The Typology of David’s Rise to Power”
Dr. Moore has just posted the links to the text of Graeme Goldsworthy’s addresses on Biblical Theology given this week at SBTS, and he has also linked to the newly posted audio of the Julius Brown Gay Lecture I gave last week, The Typology of David’s Rise to Power: Messianic Patterns in the Book of …
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The Typology of David’s Rise to Power: Messianic Patterns in the Book of Samuel
It was my joy and privilege to present a lecture yesterday at Southern Seminary on the topic in the title of this post. For those interested in the presentation, I will update this post with the audio if/when it appears on the SBTS website. For anyone interested in the bibliography and the sections I had …
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