The Big Story of the Bible in Three Minutes

Nice piece of biblical theology here:

Trevin Wax describes it like this:

At the SBC yesterday, we presented a video on The Gospel Project that summarizes the biblical storyline in 3 minutes using famous art.

I don’t use the description “must-see” very often, but this is one of those rare occasions when I think you should take a few minutes to watch (and then share). The video team did an outstanding job putting this together, and I’m excited to see a compelling, artistic account of the Bible’s grand storyline and our mission as gospel story-tellers.

What I Learned in My First Pastorate

A few years ago Towers invited me to reflect on what I learned in my first pastorate at Baptist Church of the Redeemer. I now post what I wrote then in this space.

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A small group of nobodies in a big room seemed really unimpressive, but I confess vanity and pride.

To be honest, I expected a lot of growth, and I expected it fast.

It didn’t happen.

Sunday after Sunday, month after month, the same four families and a few singles gathered for worship at Baptist Church of the Redeemer. As this happened, the Lord slowly disabused me of the notion that the church was going to grow because of me. It hurts to have your pride molded into humility, but it feels good, too, and how liberating! Not to mention the way others prefer humility to pride.

Through this experience, I learned that Jesus keeps His promise to build His church. I learned the power of the Word of God. And I learned – or made progress in learning – to love people.

Jesus keeps His promise His way

Jesus said, “I will build my church.” It’s His church. His glory is at stake in it. He keeps His Word. And he does it His way.

Have you noticed what a bad strategist the Lord seems to be? If you were God, and you wanted to save the world, would you do it by parading your deity or by sending Jesus to take on human flesh? And, if you chose the route of incarnation, would you go somewhere important, say, Rome or Jerusalem, or would you go to a hick town like Nazareth?

Once there, what would you do? Write some books and network with significant people? Or do manual labor for 30 years, then the big time: three more years of ambling around the Galilean countryside with smelly fishermen, preaching to unlearned crowds that happen to gather? To top it all off, would you let a bunch of wicked rebels kill you?

The Lord may seem to be a bad strategist, but His strategy is the best strategy. God accomplished salvation in Christ by the way of the cross, and Jesus calls His followers to take up their crosses, too. Jesus keeps His promise to build His church as His people follow in His steps.

Jesus gets glory when nobodies gather and love each other. Jesus gets glory when nobodies gather in moldy buildings in bad parts of town. Jesus gets glory when pastors forsake the wisdom of the world, set aside attempts to show off, open the Bible and preach it.

The power of the Word of God

David Wells says the mark of the evangelical church in America is superficiality. I am convinced that authenticity comes from the clear exposition of the Scriptures. People encounter God when His Word is read to them, explained to them and applied to them by the power of the Spirit. How do you get past the happy-smiley veneer people wear to church? Preach the Word.

Do you want singles in their late 20s and early 30s confessing anxiety about finding a mate, asking you to pray for them to trust the Lord’s providence in their lives? Do you want guys confessing their struggles with pornography as they seek to join the church? Do you want people with real problems (homosexual urges and the fallout from past sexual sin, whether lingering STD’s or guilt from an abortion) joining the church and coming for counsel in their struggle against sin? Do you want guys coming to you because they’re afraid of the way they’ve been rough with their wives and they don’t want it to go any further, so they’re seeking accountability?

You don’t get this from wearing cool clothes, having a trendy name for your church or learning to preach from comedians. If it comes – and if the authenticity about “big” sins is accompanied by authenticity about “acceptable” sins – it will come by the power of the Spirit through the preaching of the Word. The Bible convinces us to quit playing games. The Bible shows us the beauty of holiness. The Bible convicts us of the worth of this treasure, and we sell all we have – or risk exposing our sin – to buy the field in which the treasure lies.

Loving people

I can remember saying to Denny Burk when we were in school together: “I don’t want to spend time with people, there’s too much to read.” His reply came with a piercing look in tones of prophetic conviction: “Then you’re never going to minister to anybody.”

I also remember the sermon I preached on the absolute sovereignty of God, and there my sweet wife sat in the front row weeping. She wasn’t weeping because of the beauty of what I was saying; she was weeping because I was beating the people of God over the head with the club of truth in good know-it-all, seminary graduate fashion.

The people of God are familiar with us seminary types, and they have their guard up against us. There is only one way to convince them that they can let their guard down, to convince them that they can talk to us: love them. Listen to them. Let them talk. Stop correcting them. Let them explain their views, and if they don’t want your response to what they’ve said, don’t counter them. Ask the Lord to use your preaching to form their thinking. Trust him, and love the people in your care. Don’t back down from speaking the truth in love, but make sure that they sense love as you speak truth.

So did the church ever grow?

Yes, and do you want to know when? When I listened to my wife’s godly suggestion that we start a Wednesday night prayer meeting. We gathered together, sinful beggars clothed by faith with the righteousness of Christ, and we laid hold on the Lord in prayer. Drenched in His mercy, we called on the name of the Lord.

That church didn’t grow because of me. That church grew because Jesus kept His promise, because the Word of God is powerful and because we were all learning to love each other the way Jesus loved us. In spite of our insignificance, the moldy building in the bad part of town, the mediocre music and the non-flashy sermons that sought to explain the Bible, the Lord was adding to our number daily. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy name give glory, because of thy lovingkindness, because of thy truth” (Ps 115:1).

Review of Jongkind, Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus

Dirk Jongkind, Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus, Texts and Studies III.5. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2005. 323. ISBN: 9718-1-59333-422-2. $102.00. Printed Casebound.

Published in Bulletin for Biblical Research 22 (2012): 260–62.

Constantin von Tischendorf first visited St. Catherine’s monastery on Mt. Sinai in 1844. This eventually led to the 1862 publication of a typeset semi-facsimile of Codex Sinaiticus. Helen and Kirsopp Lake published a photographic facsimile of the known text of the manuscript in 1911 and 1922. Milne and Skeat published Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus in 1938, and in the years since new parts of the codex have come to light, high resolution digital images have been made available online at codexsinaiticus.org, and the British Library and Hendrickson Publishers have now made available a full color, life-size facsimile of the codex. David Parker has given us an authorized history of the manuscript in his book, Codex Sinaiticus: The Story of the World’s Oldest Bible [my review here], and both BibleWorks and Accordance Bible Software have made images of the facsimile available within their software, with tagged transcriptions of the Codex that are fully searchable.

Dirk Jongkind completed the dissertation under review here at Cambridge under Peter Head in 2005, prior to the appearance of the full color facsimile from Hendrickson in 2010. Jongkind relates that in most of his work he made use of the Lake facsimile, though he was privileged to use the manuscript itself, even working for the British Library as curator in the project to digitize the manuscript.

Jongkind begins with an admirable summary of the history of research on the Codex and states his intention to carry forward the work of Milne and Skeat. As the title of his book indicates, he is looking mainly at Scribal Habits. The volume’s second chapter examines the distribution of the scribal tasks, the third looks at scribal practices such as the use of nomina sacra, ligatures, spelling, the Eusebian apparatus, and division of paragraphs. Chapter 4 is a close look at the work of two of the scribes who worked on the manuscript, Scribes D and A. In the fifth chapter Jongkind reflects on his findings and engages the issues of where the manuscript was produced and whether the dictation theory can account for the production of the manuscript.

Jongkind finds that “no single, fixed procedure was followed in the production of Sinaiticus. The way in which the writing of the main text was divided up between the three scribes seems to betray a number of ad hoc decisions and attempts to cover up previous mistakes” (57). When he examines the use of nomina sacra, ligatures, itacisms, and text divisions, he finds that each scribe had his own tendencies. There was no consistent application of the use of nomina sacra. The scribes appear to have operated on their own preferences, but it is not clear whether they did entirely what they wanted or simply followed their exemplars  (83). One of the ways scribal hands can be distinguished is by the angle of the downward arm used in the kai-ligature (88). Scribe D was the best speller. It is again difficult to know whether the scribes were introducing new paragraphs or following their exemplars. The Eusebian apparatus was not fully incorporated into the Codex, and if the canon tables were ever present they have not survived. Jongkind concludes that whereas Scribe A does not appear to have interpreted the text by his use of nomina sacra and paragraphing, Scribe D’s sensitive use of these techniques does seem to reflect his understanding of the text (127–28). This kind of evidence indicates that the scribes had some freedom in the execution of their tasks.

Chapter 4 contains a detailed comparison of the work of Scribes D and A in 1 Chronicles, Psalms, Paul, and Luke. For each section Jongkind discusses orthography, nonsense word forms, leaps from same to same, additions and ommissions, harmonizations, editorial readings, substitutions, transpositions, and more. The close attention to detail in this section is remarkable. Many tables aid the reader with helpful summary presentations.

Jongkind has definitely moved our knowledge forward on the shoulders of Milne and Skeat. His particular contribution is in the “detailed profile of each scribe” (249). He points out an important reality to factor into text critical decisions: “there is not homogeneity in the quality of copying; different scribes produce a demonstrably different quality of text. . . the identity of the scribe is important” (249). He observes that from what we can see of the scribes alternating responsibilities, the dictation theory is not the best explanation for how the Codex was copied. There are also indications that the scribes corrected their work as they copied, which would not fit with the dictation theory. Jongkind raises significant considerations against the view that Sinaiticus was produced in Caesarea.

We owe gratitude and congratulations to Dirk Jongkind for producing this most significant study of Codex Sinaiticus to appear since Milne and Skeat’s 1938 Scribes and Correctors.

How to Blow Up a Church in Three Easy Steps

Here are three very easy things you can do if you want to dishonor God, cause a lot of heartache, and probably shorten your tenure as the pastor of a church:

1. Be proud.

Who would go into a church and be proud? All of us in some way or another. But it might not be the kind of pride you recognize. Naturally we’re going to avoid the overt, obvious pride, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the pride that’s there, even if no one sees it immediately on the surface. I’m talking about the kind of pride that leads you to think that you are—or will be soon—as good a preacher as John Piper or David Platt. Go into a church thinking that it won’t be long before you’re invited to be a Gospel Coalition Counsel Member, before John MacArthur invites you to speak at The Shepherds’ Conference, or before people are flocking in droves to hear you preach. This kind of pride leads you to think: these little people at this insignificant church are so blessed to have me and they don’t even realize it.

Christ died for those little people, and that insignificant church is God’s vanguard in the world. Go into it thinking that you’re too big for it, go into it proud, and you’ve got the dynamite in place to blow it up.

2. Make assumptions. 

Assume these people don’t know what they’re doing. Assume none of them know what a wartime lifestyle is, that none of them are willing to suffer for the gospel or the church, and that they all have terrible theology. Assume you’re going to fix them. Assume that you’re as savvy and creative as Mark Dever, as funny and endearing as C. J. Mahaney, as respectable as Lig Duncan, and as likeable as Thabiti Anyabwile. Then assume that you’re going to be as wise and loving and as convincing as these men have been as they have shepherded churches toward greater faithfulness.

Combine your assumptions about the people and the church with your assumptions about your ability to preach and lead, and not only do you have the dynamite in place you have the matches in hand.

3. Don’t act like Jesus.

Ready to light the fuse? Be sure not to act like Jesus. What I mean in particular is this: don’t go into that church to serve but to be served. Wait for them to initiate conversations with you. Wait for them to ask you questions. Wait for them to invite you over to their homes, then complain when they don’t. Wait for them to ask you how they can help. Tell them how they can pray for you, but be sure not to ask them how you might pray for them. Give them the sense that you’re too important to spend time with them. Communicate very clearly that anytime they talk to you, their ignorance and impertinence annoys you. You don’t have to show them directly—you can make it known by the way you talk about them behind their backs, that will get back to them and next time they’ll know better than to approach you.

Wear the pride of knowing you’re the next Piper not on your sleeve but as your undershirt. It will show in ways you don’t expect. Assume that you will be as effective leading the church as Mark Dever. The ways you lack his gifting will soon be obvious. And carry yourself like an aristocrat, not like Jesus. He said the greatest would be the servant, but you’re already the greatest so you needn’t bother serving anyone.

The dynamite is in place. The match is in hand, lit, and you’ve set flame to fuse. The fallout from the explosion will be devastating.

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I wrote this short piece for Towers a couple years ago and now post it here.

In Parker, Colorado This Weekend: The Fulfillment of the OT in Revelation

If you’re in the Denver area, I’d love to see you tomorrow and Sunday.

Lord willing, I’ll be teaching from 9am to 5pm at Faith Baptist Church in Parker, Colorado on Saturday, June 9, 2012 on the Fulfillment of the OT in Revelation.

Then on Sunday I’ll be preaching from Revelation 5.

Would love to see you there!

Do You “Get” Flannery O’Connor? She Writes Like a Biblical Author

Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood left me scratching my head. I think that was part of her technique, honestly. The “meaning” of her stories isn’t right there on the surface as it is in a Dickens novel. Her works really have to be pondered, and you’re best off pondering from the perspective of the biblical authors (by the way, learning the perspective of the biblical authors is the point of biblical theology).

I think the technique of writers like Flannery O’Connor and James Joyce is actually closer to that of the biblical authors than what we find from the likes of Dostoevsky, Dickens, Tolstoy, etc (writers who are easier to enjoy). What I mean is that as in biblical narratives, the plot isn’t always there on the surface, and you have to read carefully for the perspective from which the narrator presents the story. Once you understand the narrator’s perspective, you can tell whether his presentation is meant to be taken positively or negatively (note: if Miss Flannery can use the generic “he” when talking about what authors do, and she does, so I can).

Consider this example: suppose a hard-left abortion-activist is describing the activities of a pro-life person trying to persuade women not to have abortions. If the abortionist says the words: “He was standing outside that clinic distributing literature,” we know that statement is meant as an indictment.

But consider the statement.

It’s only an indictment because we know the abortionist’s opinion of such activity.

The same words could be spoken by a pro-life attorney defending such behavior: “He was standing outside that clinic distributing literature.” When the pro-life attorney says the words, they are a declaration of innocence rather than an indictment.

My point here is that this is how the biblical authors often operate. The authors of Kings and Samuel expect their audience to know Deuteronomy, and they expect their audience to understand that their accounts are written with the Torah as the standard of evaluation. The meta-narrative in which they have couched their plot has also been articulated by Moses in passages like Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 4:25–31, and Deuteronomy 28–32, and this meta-narrative is assumed rather than directly invoked in a passage like Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8.

So to understand these texts, we have to know the perspective of the biblical authors. That is, we have to understand biblical theology. (Want some help?).

All this to say, I think that writers like James Joyce and Flannery O’Connor are imitating the artistry they have seen in the Bible, and I’m grateful for people who have studied the writings of Joyce and O’Connor with the kind of rigor a biblical theologian applies to the Bible.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I’m really grateful that Jonathan Rogers has started The Flannery O’Connor Summer Reading Club, and I think you should get Flannery’s Collected Works, read along with Mr. Rogers, and with his help, let Miss Flannery shock you into sensibility. It will not be like a sweater clad visit to a safe neighborhood. It will be a different kind of beautiful day in the neighborhood.

The first post on “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is up, along with a discussion of the Misfit’s moral clarity, and you can listen to Miss Flannery herself read the story here.

The Best Sermon I’ve Ever Heard on Marriage

Denny Burk preached the best sermon I’ve ever heard on marriage at Kenwood Baptist Church this morning. It was prophetic, powerful, piercing, and poetic.

Denny’s introduction was prophetic:

We all found out last month what the President of the United States thinks about marriage. He sat down for an interview with ABC News and announced to the world [in his own words],

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married…”

He went on,

“[Michelle and I] are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated…”

My reaction to what the President said probably wasn’t that different from yours. I thought that what he said was outrageous. I thought that citing Jesus as if He were in support of sexual immorality was blasphemous. But I also thought, there’s really nothing new here.

The president is a sign of our times not the cause of our times. If you think that the President has caused the massive revolution in our culture on marriage, you are just wrong. The changes have accelerated in the last few years, but the seeds were sown many decades before.

Our culture long ago embraced…

-The sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s …

-The idolatry of sex and the diminishing of marriage…

-The ubiquity of the birth control pill and the severing of human sexuality from its connection to children and family.

-No-fault divorce and the idea that we can change spouses like we change sox.

-That there’s no difference between men and women, gender is just a social construct that we learn from culture, not something given to us by God at creation.

-And closely related to this, the idea that gender shouldn’t matter when it comes to human sexuality. And so we have a whole generation of young people who see nothing at all wrong with homosexuality.

No, our culture’s devolution didn’t begin last month with an announcement from the President. This slide has been a long time coming.

Denny’s exposition of Ephesians 5:21–33 that followed this introduction was powerful and piercing, and funny too–you’ll probably hear me belly laughing when you listen to this.

And Denny’s conclusion was poetic. He had me and many others in tears with these words:

I wrote a poem for Susan on our third anniversary that was a bit of a vision of how I was hoping and praying we might end up. It’s a story that ends with a short prayer.

The old man took her tired hand
to hold for one last time.
The years had fin’lly pressed her to
her final breaths of life.

Their wrinkled hands in warm embrace
brought back the long-gone years,
The memories of their happy times,
and those dissolved in tears.

The old man saw in her ill frame
the girl that stole his heart.
He saw in her that gracious gaze
that filled their home with warmth.

His mind turned back to lighter days
when she did make her mark,
The children her love reared for them,
Her single heart for God.

He also felt the weight of grace
that marked her many years,
How she had borne him patiently
when he did cause the tears.

The old man said, “My love, the time
was cruelly short to me.
I cannot say goodbye to you
and let your passing be.”

“How can I ever say farewell
or ever let you part?
You are my only precious thing,
the joy of my old heart.”

And as his eyes began to well,
she reached to touch his face.
And then her quivering voice began
to give one final grace.

“This is the day the Lord has made,
The one He’s brought to pass.
This day was written in His book
before my first was past.”

“The Lord has granted us to spend
together all these years.
He’s also granted all the joy
and even all our tears.”

“And though this is a bitter day,
we owe Him so much thanks.
Dear, we made it! By Him we did!
Yes, we made it! By grace!”

________________________

Oh Father, grant that we may see
our days as at their end.
Oh let us know the weight of grace
in every year we spend.

We make this prayer unto You,
for there is no one higher.
This testimony of Your grace
we desperately desire!

This sermon is not to be missed. Listen here: Denny Burk, Ephesians 5:21–33, Husbands, Wives, and the Glory of God

Greek Palindromes

Here’s a great post from Rod Decker:

A palindrome is a word or sentence that reads identically forward and backward, e.g., “Do geese see God?” The Greek palindrome inscription:

ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ

is from the Hagia Sophia. (In Greek, Ἁγία Σοφία is short for Ναός τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας, “Church of the Holy Wisdom of God.” This was an Eastern Orthodox church building in Constantinople, constructed in the fourth century. For over a thousand years it was the Patriarchal Basilica of Constantinople. It is now a museum.)

Written in modern orthography the palindrome reads,

Νίψον ἀνόημα μὴ μόναν ὄψιν

and means, “Wash your sin, not only your face.” I first found this palindrome in Bruce Metzger’s Reminiscences of an Octogenarian, 23.

The word palindrome is itself a Greek word, παλίνδρομος, a compound of πάλιν, “again” and δραμεῖν, “to run”/δρόμος, “a race, race course.” There were apparently many Greek palindromes current in the ancient world. Another example that I’ve run across is:

ἀμήσας ἄρδην ὀροφόρον ἥδρασα σῆμα.

“Having reaped I established a lofty-roofed monument.”

(This one I found in Lloyd W. Daly, “A Greek Palindrome in Eighth-Century England,” American Journal of Philology 102 [1982]: 95–97.)

The DOJ Pays $120,000 in Failed Attempt to Bully a Pro-Life Woman

The Department of Justice is doing all it can to hinder the pro-life cause.

I was sent a link to this post by someone whom the DOJ is pursuing a similar action against. Check out this story from the Daily Caller:

For several months now the Obama administration has been abusing our judicial system through a concerted political intimidation campaign via the federal courts. Obama has instructed the Justice Department to sue a number of pro-life counselors and volunteers for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance (FACE) Act.

—-

. . . the Justice Department has just faced an embarrassing smack down on the highest profile of these cases. It has dropped an appeal in Holder v. Pineagainst pro-life sidewalk counselor Mary “Susan” Pine, who is represented by the civil rights firm Liberty Counsel. The DOJ has agreed to pay $120,000 for this frivolous lawsuit which, as the evidence indicated, was intended to intimidate Ms. Pine and send a shot over the bow of pro-lifers around the country.

Mr. Holder unsuccessfully sought thousands of dollars in fines against Ms. Pine, as well as a permanent injunction banning her from counseling women on the public sidewalk outside the Presidential Women’s Center (PWC) abortion mill (or any other “reproductive services” clinic).

After 18 months of litigation, the DOJ’s case was thrown out of federal court, and the department was chastised in a scathing ruling by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp for filing a case with no evidence.

Judge Ryskamp wrote that Holder’s complete failure to present any evidence of wrongdoing, coupled with the DOJ’s cozy relationship with PWC and their apparent joint decision to destroy video surveillance footage of the alleged “obstruction,” caused the court to suspect a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Obama administration. “The Court is at a loss as to why the Government chose to prosecute this particular case in the first place,” wrote Judge Ryskamp. “The Court can only wonder whether this action was the product of a concerted effort between the Government and PWC, which began well before the date of the incident at issue, to quell Ms. Pine’s activities rather than to vindicate the rights of those allegedly aggrieved by Ms. Pine’s conduct.”

Inner-Biblical Allusions

Here’s the body of a post from Charles Halton with a link to what looks to be an interesting article (haven’t gotten to it yet but hope to eventually) and a nice summary of it that resonates with an approach I’ve taken myself:

Jeffery Leonard: Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions: Psalm 78 as a Test Case. It’s quite an interesting and helpful study which he divides into two parts: evaluating evidence for textual links and determining direction of influence. Here are the points that he considers under the two parts.

Evaluating Evidence for Textual Links

  1. Shared language is the single most importantfactor in establishing a textual connection.
  2. Shared language is more important than nonshared language.
  3. Shared language that is rare or distinctive suggests a stronger connection than does language that is widely used.
  4. Shared phrases suggest a stronger connection than do individual shared terms.
  5. The accumulation of shared language suggests a stronger connection than does a single shared term or phrase.
  6. Shared language in similar contexts suggests a stronger connection than does shared language alone.
  7. Shared language need not be accompanied by shared ideology to establish a connection.
  8. Shared language need not be accompanied by shared form to establish a con­nection.

Determining Direction of Influence

  1. Does one text claim to draw upon another?
  2. Are there elements in the texts that help to fix their dates?
  3. Is one text capable of producing the other?
  4. Does one text assume the other?
  5. Does one text show a general pattern of dependence on other text?
  6. Are there rhetorical patterns in the texts that suggest that one text has used the other in an exegetically significant way?

Biblical Theology, Köstenberger’s JETS Editorial, and J. P. Gabler

Andreas Köstenberger’s editorial in the most recent issue of JETS surveys the recent revival of biblical theology among evangelicals (“Editorial,” JETS 55 [2012]: 1–5). I am grateful that he took notice of my work in this area along with that of Greg Beale, Frank Thielman, and a host of others. A lot of good work is being done in biblical theology, and Köstenberger serves us by highlighting some of it.

I do, however, want to take issue with both Köstenberger’s characterization of my approach to biblical theology and his commendation of J. P. Gabler’s.

Köstenberger has this to say of God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology,

. . . it should be noted that Hamilton’s brand of Biblical Theology is in fact a hybrid of Biblical and Systematic Theology—Hamilton calls the two disciplines “equal tools”—and takes its cue from both theologians such as Jonathan Edwards and direct study of biblical texts (3).

A Hybrid?

I would first observe that a “hybrid” is the offspring of two animals or plants of different breeds. Regarding biblical and systematic theology as “equal tools” does not hybridize or merge the two but simply recognizes that they are both used for different things at different times. Observing that an ox and a cart-horse are “equal tools” at the farm does not result in an equi-bovine hybrid of the two animals.

My statement that biblical and systematic theology are equal tools adds to the usual assertion that we use biblical theology as a “bridge” or a “building block” toward systematic theology. I agree with that concept, but I also think that at points biblical theology is an end in itself and is taught directly to the people of God, rather than being merely a step in the process of assembling a full systematic theology. So the statement that biblical and systematic theology are “equal tools” does not hybridize the two, as though my book means somehow to merge them into one thing.

Taking Cues Not from Edwards but the Biblical Authors

Köstenberger then states that my “brand of Biblical Theology . . . takes its cue from both theologians such as Jonathan Edwards and direct study of biblical texts.”

I do quote Jonathan Edwards, and I use his distinction between subordinate and ultimate ends to define the “center” of biblical theology (47–49). What biblical theologians are looking for in the quest for the center of biblical theology is usually left unarticulated, resulting in confusion and uncertainty as to how to evaluate the various proposals.

I define the center of biblical theology as “the ultimate end ascribed to God in the Bible,” noting that it needs to be demonstrated that “the Bible’s description of God’s ultimate end produces, informs, organizes, and is exposited by all the other themes in the Bible” and shown “from the Bible’s own salvation-historical narrative and in its own terms” (48). In sorting through the Bible’s themes to determine which one the biblical authors consider to be ultimate, the distinction Jonathan Edwards makes between subordinate and ultimate ends is very helpful. But quoting Edwards on this point does not mean that my “brand of biblical theology . . . takes its cue” from him, as anyone who has read Edwards and my book will easily discern.

I have learned from and have great respect for Jonathan Edwards, but he did not define biblical theology as I do, nor am I pursuing an interpretive methodology that takes its cues from his way of operating. He was working at a different time with different dialogue partners.

If I am not taking my cues from Edwards, what am I doing? Here’s how I describe what I undertake in GGSTJ:

In this study, I will pursue a biblical theology that highlights the central theme of God’s glory in salvation through judgment by describing the literary contours of individual books in canonical context with sensitivity to the unfolding metanarrative. In my view this metanarrative presents a unified story with a discernible main point, or center. This study will be canonical: I will interpret the Protestant canon, and the Old Testament will be interpreted in light of the ordering of the books in the Hebrew Bible (see further below). It will be literary: I will seek to interpret books and sections of books in light of their inherent literary features and structures as we have them in the canon (44).

It’s not as though that’s the only time I say that sort of thing. A few pages later:

The purpose of biblical theology, then, is to sharpen our understanding of the theology contained in the Bible itself through an inductive, salvation-historical examination of the Bible’s themes and the relationships between those themes in their canonical context and literary form. In this book I am arguing that one theme is central to all others (47).

At this point, borrowing an image from Doug Wilson, imagine me dancing around in a circle waving a handkerchief trying to draw attention to what I’m about to say: My “brand of Biblical Theology” means to “take its cue” from the biblical authors. As I put it in GGSTJ:

We can think of the practice of biblical theology in two ways. On the one hand, we have the practice of the believing community across the ages. On the other hand, we have a label that describes an academic discipline. Regarding the first, I would argue that biblical theology is as old as Moses. That is, Moses presented a biblical-theological interpretation of the traditions he received regarding Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, and his own experience with his kinsmen. Joshua then presented a biblical-theological interpretation of Israel’s history (Joshua 24), and the same can be said of the rest of the authors of the Prophets and the Writings, the Gospels and Acts, the Epistles and the Apocalypse. The biblical authors use biblical theology to interpret the Scriptures available to them and the events they experienced. For the believing community, the goal of biblical theology is simply to learn this practice of interpretation from the biblical authors so that we can interpret the Bible and life in this world the way they did.

It seems to me, then, that the history of biblical interpretation in the church is a history of more and less success in accurately understanding the interpretive strategies used by the biblical authors. Some figures in the history of the church were more adept at this than others. Some failed miserably . . . (41–42).

So I mean for my “brand of Biblical Theology” to take its cue from the biblical authors. I think we should be attempting to trace the contours of their interpretive perspective, reflected in the way they have interpreted earlier Scripture and their own situations, so that we can embrace and apply that perspective as we interpret the Scriptures and our own situations.

Thus, the assertion, “Hamilton’s brand of Biblical Theology is in fact a hybrid of Biblical and Systematic Theology” does not, in fact, reflect either what I say I intend to do in the first chapter or what I then do in the body of the book: tracking through all 66 books of the Bible, making observations on near and canonical context, discussing literary structure and organic thematic development, contending that the glory of God, seen most clearly in his justice and mercy, is the center of biblical theology.

Gabler’s Goal and Mine

Köstenberger writes, “Hamilton’s approach thus differs from ‘The Proper Distinction between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology’ urged by Gabler” (3).

That’s right, it does. Gabler wanted to sift the biblical material to remove the time-bound bits that no longer apply. It seems that he would exclude from “pure biblical theology” statements that the biblical authors make that reflect merely their own time and do not apply to the people of God today. I’m after something different as I pursue biblical theology. I’m not seeking the pure silver amidst the dross (cf. Gabler: “what in the sayings of the Apostles is truly divine, and what perchance merely human”). I’m seeking the perspective from which the biblical authors write, which is not what systematic/dogmatic theologians are doing, either. I’m trying to get at the world-view shared by the biblical authors. That’s what I mean by “biblical theology,” the world-view, or interpretive perspective, reflected in the biblical writings.

We also need to be clear about what kind of “dogmatic theology” we’re after as opposed to what Gabler sought. Again, Gabler wanted to remove the time-bound statements the biblical authors made so that he could get the timeless truths, and the timeless truths would then be used to construct “a dogmatic theology adapted to our own times.” As explained above, I am not interested in Gabler’s program of sifting out the statements in the Bible, where he tried to establish “whether all the opinions of the Apostles, of every type and sort altogether, are truly divine, or rather whether some of them, which have no bearing on salvation, were left to their own ingenuity.” It’s not hard to imagine how this program would handle assertions that “have no bearing on salvation” but are culturally unacceptable—statements about gender or marriage or sexual orientation, for instance. I would not commend Gabler’s enterprise to anyone, as it would seem to enable us to reshape the message of the Bible according to what fits with our culture and its expectations.

I want to teach the people of God to understand how the biblical authors have interpreted earlier Scripture, that is, I want to teach them biblical theology. And my hope is that this will equip the people of God to interpret the Bible and their own lives from the perspective the biblical authors themselves model in their writings.

Check it out for yourself.

Are We Training Parrots or Making Disciples?

In a guest post on the Crossway blog I discuss the relationships between exegesis, biblical theology, and historical theology in the process of disciple-making.

Are your assumptions about the people who hear you preach and teach an affront to the reality that they are made in the image of God?

Here’s the intro:

Solid exegesis, biblical theology, and systematic theology are necessary for preaching and teaching. We don’t exercise these skills merely for our own excellence in sermon delivery, but because the people in the pews have the ability to think, analyze arguments, read the Bible for themselves, and formulate answers to questions that we may never even address from the pulpit.

The whole thing.

How Revelation 19:20 Supports Historic Premillennialism

Is there a chronological progression that unfolds in the book of Revelation? Amillennialists basically say No, there’s an ongoing recapitulation, a retelling of the same story over and over. So they would say that the millennium is happening now, at the same time as Satan is pursuing his war on the church (described, for instance, in Revelation 13).

Does this do justice to the actual details of the texts in question? I don’t think so. Consider Revelation 19:20,

“And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.”

What John says about the beast and the false prophet here is intended to identify the beast and the false prophet as the characters we know from Revelation 13:13–18. Let’s take it phrase by phrase:

Rev 19:20a, “And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs”
Rev 13:13a, 14a, “It [the false prophet] performs great signs . . . and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast”

Rev 19:20b, “by which he deceived”
Rev 13:14b, “it deceives those who dwell on earth”

Rev 19:20c, “those who had received the mark of the beast”
Rev 13:16–18, “…it causes all…to be marked on the right hand or the forehead…the mark…the name of the beast or the number of its name”

Rev 19:20d, “and those who worshiped its image”
Rev 13:14b, 15a, c, “telling them to make an image for the beast . . . allowed to give breath to the image . . . cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain”

John has piled up these phrases from Revelation 13 to identify the beast and the false prophet captured in Revelation 19:20. These phrases from Revelation 13 that are reused in 19:20 refer back to the persecution of Christians seen in chapter 13, and in my view, that persecution refers to the satanic persecution of Christians in all of church history. Jesus ascended into heaven in Revelation 12:5, Satan was cast out of heaven because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus (Rev 12:7–12), and he went off to make war on the woman and the rest of her seed, Christians (12:13–17).

Satan went about making war on Christians by summoning a fake christ from the sea in Revelation 13:1. God has a Lamb standing as though slain, Christ (Rev 5:6). Satan twists this with his knock-off many-headed beast that has a head that seemed to have a mortal wound, but the mortal wound was healed (13:1–3). Satan has faked the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus with his un-lamb-like beast. The world responds to Satan’s parody the way it should respond to Jesus–all but the elect worship Satan and his beast (13:4, 8). Then the beast uses his authority to kill Christians (13:7, 15).

Note that John expressly says that Satan, the beast, and the false prophet (the satanic parody of the holy Trinity, cf. Rev 16:13) deceive those who dwell on earth. In other words, they’re doing throughout church history what they’re not able to do during the millennium.

Jesus comes and puts a stop to that deception by casting the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire in Revelation 19:20, and the angel puts the dragon, Satan, into the pit for a thousand years “so that he might not deceive the nations any longer” in 20:1–3.

So it seems that John has referred back to the persecutions of Revelation 13 in Revelation 19:20 to show how all that has come to an end with the coming of Christ. Then Christ reigns for the thousand years in Revelation 20:1–6.

Some amillennialists think that the end of Satan’s ability to deceive in Revelation 20:3 means that the gospel can now go to the gentiles. That is, they think we’re in the thousand years now, and that Satan’s ability to deceive the nations has been stopped in the sense that he can no longer keep the true knowledge of God from the nations now that Christ has come, done his work, and sent his disciples to make disciples of all nations.

I submit that this explanation does not fit the narrative of the book of Revelation. I’m not imposing this narrative on the book. John himself highlights it by means of the kinds of details I’m pointing out: in the reuse of phrases from Revelation 13 in Revelation 19:20.

How does the narrative go? Satan, the beast, and the false prophet are deceiving the nations to worship the beast, and they’re killing Christians throughout church history (Rev 11–17). Christ comes and ends their deception of the nations (19:20; 20:3), raises the Christians they’ve killed from the dead (20:4–6), and reigns for a thousand years. Then Satan is loosed for the final rebellion (20:7–10) before the great white throne judgment (20:11–15) which is followed by the new heaven and new earth (Rev 21–22).

Note that it is only after the thousand years that Satan is thrown into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet already were. Revelation 20:10 states,

and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Beast and false prophet thrown into the lake of fire at the second coming of Christ (Rev 19:20). Satan bound for a thousand years (20:1–6), released to deceive a last time (20:7–9), then he too is thrown into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet already were (20:10).

There is a chronological progression that unfolds here, and Revelation 19:20 contributes to it. It’s a symbolic chronology, but it is a chronology.

—

See further Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches, Preaching the Word. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Robert Gundry on N. T. Wright’s Translation of the New Testament

Calling it “Tom’s Targum,” Bob Gundry makes some important points about translation theory and much else in an entertaining and spirited review of N. T. Wright’s translation of the New Testament.

Some highlights:

Time was when everybody understood a translation to be a more or less word-for-word transfer of meaning from one language to another—”or less” because grammatical constructions differ in languages foreign to each other and therefore sometimes require renderings looser than word-for-word. On the other hand, everybody understood a paraphrase to be recognizably freer: more thought-for-thought than word-for-word. But translation of the Bible increasingly into languages featuring grammatical structures far different from those of biblical Hebrew and Greek, and carrying cultural freight far different from that of the Bible, made word-for-word transfer a lot less feasible.

Along came the dynamic (or functional) equivalence theory of translation. For the sake of languages and cultures exotic to those of the Bible, this theory incorporated paraphrase into translation, so that even in English versions of the Bible the boundary between translation and paraphrase became as porous as the border between the USA and Mexico. You can even hear Eugene Peterson’s The message, a paraphrase if there ever was one and self-identified as such, quoted as a “translation.” The incorporation of paraphrase into translation may best be illustrated by the shift from the marketing of Kenneth Taylor’s The Living Bible originally as “a paraphrase” to its being marketed now as The New Living Translation, though those who revised it (I was one of them) were told at the start to keep it recognizable as a paraphrase by Taylor.

In the wake of this development arrives The Kingdom New Testament (from here on KNT) by N. T. Wright, identified effusively in its back ad as “the world’s leading New Testament scholar (Newsweek)” and accurately in its gatefold as “one of the world’s leading Bible scholars.” Duly distinguishing between translation and paraphrase, Wright asks, “Is this new version really a translation or a paraphrase?” and answers, “It’s a translation, not a paraphrase.” Why a new translation? Because language is constantly changing, so that “translating the New Testament is something that, in fact, each generation ought to be doing.” (I leave aside the question whether for the present generation enough new translations have already been produced.)

KNT originally appeared in Wright’s series of popular commentaries on the New Testament—Matthew for Everyone et al.—and therefore sports a colloquial style. I’ll call Everyone “Joe the plumber” and “Jane the hairdresser.” Or to suit today’s American culture, should I say “Jane the plumber” and “Joe the hairdresser”? Either way, “J&J.” And since Wright calls me “Bob,” I’ll call him “Tom.” Colloquialism all around, then, so that KNT is to be evaluated at the level of J&J’s everyday speech.

—

“She will, however, be kept safe through the process of childbirth” adopts one of several possible interpretations of 1 Timothy 2:15 by translating “She will be saved” as “She will … be kept safe” and by injecting “the process of” into “through childbirth.” Perhaps the most obvious example of a translation slanted by interpretation appears earlier in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, which Tom renders as follows: “They [godly women] must study undisturbed, in full submission to God. I’m not saying that women should teach men, or try to dictate to them; rather, that they should be left undisturbed.” Tom first replaces learning (from men) in quietness with studying undisturbed (by men). Then he imports “to God,” with no support in the Greek text, to make God rather than men the object of women’s submission—against the making of men, especially husbands, the objects of women’s submission according to Tom’s own translations of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35; Ephesians 5:22-24; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1, 5. Finally, he changes Paul’s “I don’t permit [a woman to teach men or dictate to them]” into a wishy-washy “I’m not saying that ….”

—

Does KNT work, then, as a translation in the sense taken for granted by J&J when reading both KNT’s subtitle, “A Contemporary Translation,” the back ad’s description of KNT as “modern prose that stays true to the character of the ancient Greek text … conveying the most accurate rendering possible,” and Tom’s own statement of having “tried to stick closely to the original”? No, not even by the standards of dynamic/functional equivalence, of which J&J are ignorant anyway. Too much unnecessary paraphrase. Too many insertions uncalled for. Too many inconsistencies of translation. Too many changes of meaning. Too many (and overly) slanted interpretations. Too many errant renderings of the base language.

But there is a body of religious literature characterized by all those traits, viz., the ancient Jewish targums, which rendered the Hebrew Old Testament into the Aramaic language. So KNT’s similar combination of translation, paraphrase, insertions, semantic changes, slanted interpretations, and errant renderings—all well-intentioned—works beautifully as a targum. Which apart from the question of truth in advertising isn’t to disparage KNT. For the New Testament itself exhibits targumizing, as when, for example, Mark 4:12 has “lest … it be forgiven them” in agreement with the targum of Isaiah 6:10 rather than “lest … one heals them” (so the Hebrew), and as when 2 Timothy 3:8 has “Jannes and Jambres” in agreement with a targum of Exodus 7:11-8:19, which in the Hebrew original leaves Pharaoh’s magicians unnamed. Hence, Tom’s Targum. Trouble is, J&J won’t know they’re reading a targum.

Read the whole thing.

HT: Bobby Jamieson

“The Rolling English Road,” by G. K. Chesterton

The Rolling English Road

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

A 600 Page Book in 500 Words

Crossway had me fill out an Author Questionnaire on God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology, and one of the things they asked me do was summarize the book in 500 words. I thought back to this today as I wrote up a 500 word summary of another book for another Author Questionnaire for Crossway.

God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment weighed in around 280,000 words. This next one is a short synthesis of the Bible’s big story, the symbolism used to summarize and interpret that story, and the patterns that emerge across it. It’s provisionally entitled What Is Biblical Theology?, and it weighs less that 25,000 words.

So here’s my attempt to summarize God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment, a 280,000 word book that came to about 600 pages, in about 500 words:

Exodus 34:6–7 is determinative for the thesis of this book. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God proclaimed his name and declared himself to be merciful and just. This experience of the glory of God profoundly shaped the first biblical author on record, establishing God’s glory in justice and mercy as the center of his theology, with justice highlighting mercy. Subsequent biblical authors learned and embraced this from Moses.

The wide angle story of the Old Testament is one of salvation through judgment. Adam sinned and was judged with exile from the garden and God’s presence, but the words of judgment brought a glimmer of hope: the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. Like Adam, Israel (having been saved through the judgment of Egypt) sinned and was exiled from the land and God’s presence. The judgment at the exile had been preceded by promises of the salvation that would come through and after judgment, as the prophets pointed to a new exodus and return from exile. God acted for the sake of his own name. He showed justice, making his mercy precious, displaying his goodness and showing his glory. Israel experienced a partial, physical return from exile, but they had not yet returned from the exile from Eden.

The wide angle story of the New Testament presents the death of Jesus as the deepest, darkest moment of the exile—when the temple was destroyed and he became the curse. Here the justice of God was displayed, as the one who had redone the history of Israel right came under the full weight of God’s justice on behalf of his people. Jesus died as the Passover lamb, and his resurrection inaugurated the return from exile. This is no mere physical return. No, this is the return that will take those sojourning through the wilderness to the new and better Eden, the new heaven and new earth, where the dwelling of God will be with men.

When Jesus comes to consummate the story, he will come with judgment for his enemies, and through that judgment he will save his people. God will be glorified in salvation through judgment. Thus, the glory of God in salvation through judgment encapsulates the plot of the meta-narrative set forth in the Bible.

God’s glory in salvation through judgment is the plot of the Bible’s narrative, and it also informs the Wisdom of the Old Testament. The simple are urged to behold God’s justice against the wicked, turn from folly, and experience salvation through the announcement of God’s certain justice. Individuals who believe unto salvation are embracing this very message: they become convinced that God will judge their sin, and feeling the crushing weight of God’s judgment they flee to him for mercy, trust in what he has accomplished in Christ on the cross, and are saved by faith. The redeemed, saved through judgment, respond by glorifying God.

The glory of God in salvation through judgment is the center of biblical theology.

If you’ve read this book, what do you think of my attempt to summarize it? Would you leave anything out that I put in, add, or change anything?

If you’ll be at ETS this fall, watch for info on the Biblical Theology Session that will discuss God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment and Gentry and Wellum’s Kingdom through Covenant. There’s time between now and November to read both!