An Introduction to Biblical Theology

Saturday night, November 19, I had the privilege of doing an introduction and overview of biblical theology at Providence Baptist Church in Pasadena, TX (Houston area).

It was an honor to be at the church pastored by Tommy Dahn, who with Bruce Stoney ordained me to gospel ministry back in January of 2004.

You can hear the Intro to Biblical Theology, focusing on story, symbol, and pattern, here: An Introduction to Biblical Theology.

From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology by Andrew E. Steinmann

As I’ve noted before, Andrew Steinmann has been remarkably prolific in recent years:

2008 – a 600 page commentary on Daniel

2009 – a 700 page commentary on Proverbs

2010 – a 600 page commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah

And now this year, 2011, he has brought out a 400 page book on biblical chronology. There is a lot of great stuff here, but what I want to highlight is what Steinmann says about the date of the exodus. I won’t repeat his whole argument, but in my view his discussion is a great summary of the reasons the late date of the exodus (1200’s BC) should be retired altogether.

Steinmann observes that the late date for the exodus:

“was popularized by William F. Albright in the 1930s. The primary motive for Albright’s theory was to harmonize the Exodus with archeological evidence from Palestine. In the decades since Albright’s death in 1971 most Palestinian archeologists and most critical scholars have abandoned this theory in favor of denying the historicity of the Exodus and conquest. Virtually all of the remaining adherents of a thirteenth century Exodus are evangelical scholars” (54).

Steinmann demonstrates how the late-date theory is unconvincing on 1 Kings 6:1 and Exodus 1:11, and, though the main impetus for the theory is archeological, even the archeological evidence for it is disputed.

The early date for the exodus, meanwhile, based on 1 Kings 6:1, fits naturally with Judges 11:26 and is confirmed by traditions from Jewish sources that shed light on the calculation of Jubilee years and Sabbatical cycles. Steinmann’s discussion of these matters is a great introduction to the Sabbatical cycles and the Jubilee years, and along the way it becomes apparent that the most natural explanation for this evidence is that the priests faithfully counted the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles on the basis of Leviticus 25–27, texts that must have been in existence from “the late fifteenth century BC” (52–53).

There is, of course, a lot of other valuable chronological information in this volume, and I expect to return to it often.

Steinmann’s approach at point after point confirms the veracity, historicity, and accuracy of what is recorded in the biblical text. He comes to the texts sympathetically and patiently sifts the evidence, seeking explanations that account for all the evidence. This is evangelical scholarship at its best.

My only regret about this book is its price! I don’t understand why this volume costs twice as much as comparable books do, and I hope the price does not prove prohibitive. From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology is a faithful, up to date discussion of what we can know about when these events in the Bible took place.

Do You Want To Master the Biblical Languages?

Here’s some encouragement – it’ll only take 3 hours a day for about 7 years:

In his amazing book, The Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell develops a challenge for us all.  To become an absolute master at any skill, you must be willing to invest 10,000 hours. I call this the “10,000 rule”. Here’s the bad news.  That’s 3 hours a day for the next 7 years.  Every time I hear a master of any skill tell the story of his or her journey to excellence, 3 hours keeps coming up.  Olympians train for 3 hours a day.  Endurance athletes train for 3 hours a day.  Master teachers obviously spend time in their subjects for at least 3 hours a day.  Of course, this type of dedication is only necessary if your goal is mastery.

The Word of God is worth it, and the power of the Spirit is sufficient. Go for it by grace through faith in Christ.

Watch Your Life and Doctrine

Need proof that liberal theology is not morally neutral?

Check out this post. Here’s an excerpt from an evangelical describing his time at Princeton Theological Seminary:

My Outsider status became clear to me — if not for the first time, at least in a new way — when I sat with friends on the seminary field, stretching before a game of ultimate frisbee.  It was still my first semester, and I was getting to know the people and the place.  We were talking about the sins that were emphasized in the churches that brought us up.  I said that pre- or extra-marital sex was the grave sin against which we, in my youth group and Sunday School classes, were most gravely and constantly warned.  And, I said, I appreciated that, as it had helped me maintain my commitment to abstain from sex until marriage.

I might as well have said that I believe in eating toddlers with chipotle sauce and a side order of puppies.  My friends’ and fellow seminarians’ expressions had gone, suddenly, from benign conversational interest to something that looked like rats and skunks had deposited themselves deep in their nostrils, where they were scratching and relieving themselves and spreading their odors.  This, I saw, was the last thing my friends wanted to talk about.  And such a “backwards” and “judgmental” attitude (as it would later be described to me) really had no place at an enlightened seminary.

The point here is not really about sex.  Yes, intramural sex was distressingly common amongst the people I knew at Princeton Seminary.  So were drinking and at least recreational drug use.  There were many times – many – when we would watch one of our friends, drunken or cussing or talking profanely about women, and we would say: “Can you believe he’s going to be pastoring a church in a year?”

Where are Hodge, Warfield, Vos, and the rest?

The Two Exiles: From Eden and Land

Reviewing Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor’s Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel C. Timmer writes:

The Judean exile to Babylon was an event of the highest importance for nearly every biblical book that touches upon it. But the biblical witness is not monochromatic: Jeremiah and Chronicles see the exile as having a definite chronological end in 538 b.c. while Ezra 9:8–9 sees at least some of its elements continuing roughly a century after the return. Also, since Ezra opens by describing the return just as Chronicles does, Ezra seems to view exile as both ended and ongoing. Enduring Exile, originally submitted as a dissertation under Jon Levenson at Harvard University, accepts this complexity and uses it to explain why the majority of Jewish literature written after the completion of the ot developed the motif of “enduring exile” (e.g., Jubilees 1:15–18 and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; notable exceptions are the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch, the Damascus Document, and Dan 9, which the author dates to the years immediately before the Maccabean revolt). Halvorson-taylor argues that in these later works exile “became a metaphor for political disenfranchisement, social inequality, and alienation from God,” and sees this process of metaphorization as an “extension of exile’s meaning” (p. 8).

Here’s my attempt to address this issue in the introduction to the section on the Gospels and Acts in God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment (p. 357):

At this point we must note that when Israel’s prophets announced the new exodus and the return from exile, they were not merely dealing with the exile from the land connected to the destruction of the temple in 586 BC. At a deeper level they were prophesying the end of the exile from Eden narrated in Genesis 3. This is significant because God kept promises to Israel when the decree was issued in 539 BC, allowing exiles to return to the land. The promises kept included the seventy years for Babylon (cf. Jer. 25:12; Zech. 1:12; Dan. 9:2) and the fulfilling of Yahweh’s purpose by Cyrus, his servant who did not know him (Isa. 44:28–45:4). These promises were kept when a remnant of the nation physically returned from exile, but other new-exodus and return-from-exile promises were yet to be fulfilled. So Israel was back in the land, but the desert was yet to bloom like the garden of Eden; the enemies of God and his people were yet to be defeated once and for all; the child was yet to play by the hole of the cobra; the Spirit was yet to be poured out on all flesh; the new and greater David was yet to sit on the throne of his father; and the new heavens and new earth were yet to be filled with the glory of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea.

From a footnote accompanying this paragraph:

For the notion that expulsion from Eden was the first “exile,” I am indebted to Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible, NSBT (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 67. I think this way of formulating the issues clarifies what N. T. Wright has argued (e.g., The New Testament and the People of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God 1 [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 268–72), and I believe it stands up against the critique of Wright’s argument for the ongoing exile in Steven M. Bryan, Jesus and Israel’s Traditions of Judgment and Restoration, SNTSMS (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 12–20. For Dempster’s take on Wright and Bryan, see Dominion and Dynasty, 219 n. 7. To be clear, I am arguing that the end of the exile, the restoration prophesied by the Old Testament prophets, points to the return to the land as a return to Eden. Return to the land was realized. Return to Eden was not. Thus, the New Testament claims that the new exodus and return from exile were inaugurated in Jesus, to be consummated when he returns. See also the discussion of Old Testament “inaugurated eschatology” in chap. 4, §4.

Carl Trueman Signs Off at Themelios

I share D. A. Carson’s admiration and appreciation of Carl Trueman, which Carson expresses at the end of his Themelios editorial published today:

Long-time readers of Themelios will remember that the final years of the paper version of this journal were among its best. Carl Trueman was then Themelios’s capable editor. When the journal became exclusively digital under the auspices of The Gospel Coalition, Carl graciously stayed on to write a column each issue—doubtless among the first thing that readers turned to. We announce with regret that Carl is stepping down and acknowledge with gratitude his singular contribution. Soli Deo gloria.

May the redirection of Trueman’s energies bear much fruit.

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 of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah cycles through a call to repentance, an indictment of sin, and an announcement of judgment three times in chapter 7:

7:1–15

7:16–20

7:21–8:3

7:1–7, Israel Called to Repentance: You Trust in the Temple but Deny It with Your Actions7:16, Don’t Pray for Them (Repent!)7:21­–24, Repent of Your Worthless Worship: Your Deeds Nullify Your Sacrifices
7:8–11, Judah Breaks the Ten Commandments7:17–18, Judah Worships Other gods7:25–28, Israel Rejects the Prophets and Jeremiah
7:12–15, God Will Judge the Temple as He Judged Shiloh7:19­–20, The Temple Will Be Judged and All Creatures Will Suffer7:29–8:3, Judgment on the Generation of God’s Wrath

The first two statements of judgment (Jer 7:12–15 and 7:19–20) speak directly of the destruction of the temple.

The third description of judgment uses the imagery of the visitation of wrath enacted by Josiah in 2 Kings 23 to describe a future visitation of wrath. From the context, this visitation of wrath also pertains to the coming destruction of the temple, but imagery is used in Jeremiah 7:33 that will be used by John to describe the judgment Jesus will bring at his return in Revelation 19:17–19.

So a past visitation of wrath, what Josiah visited in 2 Kings 23, is being used to point forward to the future visitation of God’s wrath that Jeremiah is describing, which in part is the destruction of the temple that will happen in 586 BC. I say “in part” because another destruction of the temple will fulfill what Jeremiah is describing, the one Jesus spoke of in John 2:19–22, and both of these point also to the visitation of wrath Jesus will bring when he returns in Revelation 19.

Jeremiah is preaching in the temple (Jer 7:2), he indicts Israel for making the temple a den of robbers (7:11), and then he warns of the destruction of the temple (7:14). Jesus quotes Jeremiah’s “den of robbers” line when he cleanses the temple (e.g., Mark 11:17) because the wicked in Jesus’ day are like the wicked of Jeremiah’s day and because the judgment visited on the temple in 586 is a type of the judgment to be visited when Jesus, the replacement of the temple (John 2:19–22), dies on the cross.

In the midst of the third description of judgment, Jeremiah speaks of “the generation of his wrath” in 7:29. This is an interesting use of the word “generation,” and it supports the typological understanding of what Jesus says in Mark 13:30, “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”

The judgment Josiah enacted in 2 Kings 23 is used by Jeremiah when Jeremiah describes the “type” of thing God will do when he enacts judgment and destroys the temple. The judgment of God that will fall on the temple is also a type of the judgment of God that will be fulfilled when Christ dies on the cross, and Jesus will fulfill the pattern of Josiah when he visits judgment on the cosmic temple at his return.

In keeping with all this, the word “generation” does not refer to a group of people alive at a specific point in time but to “the sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:3), the “crooked and depraved generation” (Phil 2:15), the “scoffers” (2 Pet 3:3) of all generations who gather together against the LORD and his anointed.

On Sunday, November 6, 2011, it was my privilege to preach Jeremiah 7: The Temple Sermon – Indictment of Unrepentant Israel at Kenwood Baptist Church.

Jeremiah 6: Refined in Vain and Rejected

Adolph Schlatter said of Friedrich Nietzsche:

The chief impression that I internalized from his lectures arose from his offensive haughtiness. He treated his listeners like despicable peons. He convinced me of the principle that to throw out love is to despoil the business of teaching—only genuine love can really educate.[1]

Nietzsche believed in the superman, made by energy, intellect, and pride (Durant, The Story of Philosophy, 425–27). No energy can propel perfect righteousness, and no amount of energy will enable one to escape God. No intellect can recreate the universe, and no intellect will devise a way to avoid judgment. No pride fails to offend, and no pride will go un-humbled.

We will not be delivered by energy, intellect, and pride. We will be delivered if we repent of our sin and trust in Jesus.

God rejects those who will not repent.

Jeremiah 1 presents the calling of Jeremiah as a prophet like Moses. He indicted Israel’s spiritual adultery in chapter 2, called them to repent and be restored in 3:1–4:4, summoned them to wash their hearts from evil in 4:5–31, only to see Israel refuse to repent in chapter 5, which results in the verdict that Israel has been refined in vain and rejected in chapter 6.

The “Thus says the LORD” statements and the changes in theme structure this passage.

6:1–5, Looming Disaster
6:6–15, The Lord Announces Israel’s Punishment

6:6–8, Hearts That Keep Evil Fresh
6:9–15, Uncircumcised Ears

6:16–21, Israel Rejected Ancient Paths and Watchmen
6:22–26, The Lord Describes the Coming Enemy
6:27–30, Jeremiah the Tester of Metals

There are a number of similarities of language and thought between Jeremiah 1:18–19 and 6:27–30. In both places the LORD says to Jeremiah, “I have made you . . .” and the term rendered “tester of metals” in 6:27 in the ESV has the same consonants as the term rendered “fortified” in 1:18, and then in both places there are references to iron, bronze, and conflict between Jeremiah and the people.

All this leads me to think that after the introductory chapter that presents Jeremiah’s call (Jer 1), 1:18–6:30 is the first major section of Jeremiah’s book, a section bracketed by 1:18–19 and 6:27–30.

Sometimes people talk and write as though the book of Jeremiah is a sort of loose collection of sermon notes or transcriptions. I’m inclined to think, rather, that Jeremiah is a carefully arranged, carefully structured, finished literary product.

On October 30, 2011, it was my privilege to preach Jeremiah 6: Refined in Vain and Rejected at Kenwood Baptist Church.


[1] Werner Neuer, Adolf Schlatter: A Biography of Germany’s Premier Biblical Theologian, 1st ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 1996), 44.

Jeremiah 5: The Refusal to Repent

In an earlier post I suggested some ways to determine how Jeremiah has structured his message:

repeated words and phrases, changes in content or theme, and changes in point of view (for instance, from first person to second or third) are all indicators of turning points in Jeremiah’s presentation.

In Jeremiah 5 it seems to me that a repeated grammatical form, the imperative, serves as the structural marker for Jeremiah 5:1–31. The LORD gives commands to Jeremiah in 5:1, 5:10, and 5:20, and each command is followed by a change in content, so that the flow of thought in the chapter falls out like this:

Jeremiah 5:1–9, Israel Unrepentant

Jeremiah 5:10–19, Israel Under Judgment

Jeremiah 5:20–31, Israel’s Under Isaiah’s Hardening

There is also a flow of thought moving through these early chapters of Jeremiah: Jeremiah is called as a prophet like Moses in chapter 1, he indicts Israel for her spiritual adultery in chapter 2, calls them to repent and be restored in 3:1–4:4, instructs them to wash their hearts from evil in 4:5–31, and then the nation refuses to repent in chapter 5.

On Sunday, October 23, 2011, it was my privilege to preach Jeremiah 5: The Refusal to Repent at Kenwood Baptist Church. May the Lord give us repentant hearts.