That the glory of the Lord might cover the dry land as the waters cover the sea
We love Ross King’s music at the Hamilton house.
And we’ve recently started Latin at the Hamilton home-school.
Imagine our delight, then, to find that Ross King is on a similar path, which has given him occasion to put John 1:1–7 to music in English and in Latin.
You can find it here – it’s worth $2!
Between Mark and Jeremiah, I felt led to preach three sermons on biblical theology at Kenwood. The goal was to have the Bible’s big story give us perspective for our plunge into Jeremiah’s jeremiads.
I’ve noted the first two sermons, one on the Bible’s story, another on the use the biblical authors make of symbol, and the third asserts that the Bible’s story and symbolism teach the church to understand who we are, what we face, and how we should live as we wait for the coming of our King and Lord.
What is the church’s identity, setting, and role?
Given all that God has done for the church, how can the plot have any tension?
Do Christians only experience tension because they are not thinking about life correctly or have somehow lost perspective?
Is that why the Psalmists felt such tension?
Is that why Jesus wept in the garden?
Or is life really dangerous?
The Bible’s story and symbolism teach the church to understand who she is, what she faces, and how she should live as she longs for the coming of her King and Lord. We are to follow Jesus, faithful unto death, loving God and neighbor, laying down our lives for others as he laid down his for us.
What will it be like when God finally redeems his people?
It will be like the wedding day.
The bride will have made herself ready with righteous deeds, which are the fine white linen bridal gown.
And the bridegroom like no other will come.
Battle won.
War over.
Victory complete.
Suffering fulfilled.
Woes accomplished.
Promises kept.
Lovers faithful.
Joy eternal.
Hope realized.
Faith sight.
Kingdom come.
Name hallowed.
Here’s a link to this third of three sermons on biblical theology: “A Song for the Lady in Waiting”
I love reading reviews written by Thomas R. Schreiner. He is patient, charitable, and insightful. Here are two paragraphs from his review of William Webb’s book on corporal punishment in the Bible:
“The key question, however, is whether Webb is right about corporal punishment. The answer is no. First, Webb doesn’t understand redemptive history, even though he calls his hermeneutic “redemptive-movement.” He never discusses the relationship of the OT to the NT in order to help readers understand that believers are no longer under the Mosaic covenant or the Mosaic law. Such a discussion is fundamental to the issues Webb addresses, and they deserve concentrated attention if one wants to think about how to apply the OT today. But one looks in vain for a careful discussion of this matter in Webb’s book or in his previous work. For instance, he rightly says that Christians reject stoning rebellious children, seizing “hot-looking women,” or cutting off the hand of a woman who grabs someone testicles. And he helpfully notes the cultural differences between the OT laws and the ancient Near Eastern cultures of the day. But there is no reflection on the covenantal difference between the Mosaic covenant under which Israel lived and the new covenant which applies to the church of Jesus Christ. Christians have long recognized that the laws of Torah are not binding on believers today. Jesus himself indicated that some of the laws were given because people have hard hearts (Deut. 24:1-4; Matt. 19:3-12). Some of what Webb advocates, therefore, is not new at all, but his hermeneutical program lacks the exegetical and theological foundation established in the history of interpretation.
That leads to a second objection. Finding the same words for the punishment of slaves, criminals, fools, and children does not justify lumping the texts together in an indiscriminate manner. Despite Webb’s protests, he fails to perceive the genre differences between regulations in the Torah and proverbial statements. As already noted, he does not clearly recognize the redemptive historical nature of the Torah. And he merges and mashes together different genres of literature in drawing his conclusions. Proverbial statements are of a different nature than legal material, requiring insight and reflection in terms of application. They shouldn’t be equated with punishments in legal contexts, for it seems rather heavy-handed and hermeneutically lead-footed to conclude that since physical punishments are mentioned in the same texts they must have been understood in the same way. Webb seems to think if one recognizes that proverbs require discernment in application, then one will endorse his view. But how does that follow? I would argue that such a principle means that wisdom and prudence should be applied in understanding Proverbs, which means corporal punishment for children is not administered in the same way it is applied to law-breakers and adults. Nor is it evident, just because both fools and children are flogged, that the punishments would be of the same nature and to the same extent. Again, such readings are mechanical and forced, failing to see what anyone with wisdom in ancient Israel would see: There is massive difference between adult fools and children. Using the same word for children and fools does not mean they are in the same category! It seems to me that the wise application of what we find in Proverbs is well represented by those Webb criticizes: Dobson, Mohler, Wegner, Grudem, and Köstenberger.
Read the whole thing.
Through flame and flood, with plague and blood
The gospel is proclaimed
The Spirit flows, the church it grows
The beast he is enraged
Measuring rod and line outstretched
The Father knows his own
As martyrs die the saints will sigh
And they cry out, How long?
And then at last, the trumpet blast
And Christ will reign as King
Creation sings, the praises ring
For this the world was made.
—–
Composed while preparing to preach on Revelation 11:1–19 in March 2009.
Sermon audio here.
Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches available for pre-order now.
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 happens in political discourse? Just this morning Victor Davis Hanson blogged on “Our New Cold War.” He’s comparing the War on Terror to the Cold War between the United States and Russia.
It happens all the time. Those who like President Obama might regard him as the “new FDR,” while those who don’t like him might refer to him as the “new Jimmy Carter.”
Have you heard anyone refer to a current war as a “new Vietnam quagmire”?
Consider the “Tea-Party” movement. These people are identifying with early Americans who protested against what they thought was tyranny. Do you see the implications of their claims? They’re claiming to be on the side of freedom and American patriotism, and they’re identifying their political opponents with tyrants who practice taxation without representation.
My point here is not to engage these political issues.
The point I’m trying to make is that typological thinking is not some far-fetched, outlandish, bizarre activity that is foreign to the way people think today.
Why do I say that?
Because in biblical interpretation some people avoid typology as though it’s a gateway to allegory. Typology and allegory are not the same thing. People use allegory today, too, but for it to work the allegorical connections have to be understood.
Anyway, listen to the way people talk and you’ll hear typology all the time, though they might not use that word to describe what they’re doing.
If we want to understand the Bible, we have to understand typology.
In the preface to The Message of Jeremiah: Against Wind and Tide in the series of books edited by Stott and Motyer called The Bible Speaks Today, Derek Kidner writes,
“. . . a preface also gives me room to put the subtitle, ‘Against wind and tide’, into its context. It comes, of course, from The Pilgrim’s Progress, at the point where Christian overtakes Mr By-ends. That easygoing character admits his difference ‘in two small points’ from ‘those of the stricter sort’ — those who ‘are for hazarding all for God at a clap’. ‘First’, he says, ‘we never strive against wind and tide. Secondly, we are always most zealous when Religion goes in his silver slippers . . .’ To this, Christian replies, ‘If you will go with us, you must go against wind and tide; . . . You must also own Religion in his rags, as well as when in his silver slippers; and stand by him, too, when bound in irons . . .
Such — initially under bitter protest, but with no turning back — was the hard pilgrimmage that Jeremiah accepted, lending its own depth to his message. To study that life and message we can well be invited in John Bunyan’s words:Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither.
One here will constant be,
Come wind, Come weather.
Find them here.
May the word of Christ dwell richly in us.
Did you read A Separate Peace by John Knowles? Two friends, Gene and Phineas (nicknamed Finny), in a tree. Gene shakes a branch, Finny falls, breaks his leg, and the halcyon innocence of the summer ends. Previously a great athlete, Finny will never play sports again. When he finally returns to school, the other students set up a mock trial to determine whether or not Gene caused Finny’s fall. As it becomes evident that he did, Finny leaves in a huff, falls down a set of marble stairs, and breaks his leg again. Finny dies during the operation to set his leg. Finny’s death gives Gene a certain peace.
I mention this book because it is so full of symbolism. A period of innocence that ends with a fall at a significant tree. This is just like the Garden of Eden. Then the death of the one sinned against gives peace to the one who caused the fall. I can remember my English teacher in High School talking about how Finny was a Christ figure.
Finny is called a “Christ figure” because of the way what happens to him corresponds to what happened to Jesus both in terms of the events that took place and in the significance of those events for others. The tree becomes a symbol as it plays into the enmity between Gene and Finny, the trips to the tree provoke Gene against Finny, then it’s the scene of the crime, where the fall from the tree eventually led to Finny’s death. And to this tree Gene returns, resulting in him telling us his story.
If we don’t understand the symbolism of the book, we won’t understand the author’s message. This is true for A Separate Peace, and it’s also true for the Bible.
The Bible’s symbolism summarizes and interprets the Bible’s big story.
On Sunday, August 28, 2011, it was my privilege to preach the second of three sermons on biblical theology at Kenwood. We focused on the images, types, and patterns that the biblical authors use to build the Bible’s symbolic universe: A Set of Symbols: Images, Types, and Patterns.
We looked at two images: the tree and the temple; three kinds of types: people, events, and institutions; and two patterns: Israel’s feasts and the righteous sufferer. Summarizing and interpreting the narrative, the symbolism the biblical authors employ adds texture and deepens our ability to enter into the story they tell.
Not literally in the Pastor’s Study, but on the radio program by that name. We had a good discussion of this recent book on biblical theology.
Interested?
Enjoy. And love to hear what you think.
Thanks to Jon Osburn and Tom Brock for having me on!
Before we launch into Jeremiah, Lord willing, I’m doing three sermons on Biblical Theology at Kenwood. This past Sunday, August 21, 2011, it was my privilege to preach “A Story of Stories: The Bible’s Sprawling, Ramshackle Narrative.” The title of the sermon comes from a phrase used by David Steinmetz in an essay about the Bible, which Stephen Dempster brought back to my attention.
We looked at the building blocks of the Bible’s narrative: its setting, characters, plot (with its conflict and episodes), and only one sentence on its theme. But the theme is pervasive.
Then we looked at the unsolved mystery that you have when you get to the end of the Old Testament, a mystery solved in Christ.
Probably the most exciting thing about this sermon was what my 7 year old son wrote while I was preaching. Here’s an image of his notebook, and the transcription follows below:
The Seed [by Jake Hamilton, age 7]
Once upon a time there was a king and his arch enemy. The kings name was Zavior. His arch enemy’s name was Serpen. King Zavior was everything you could name. Serpen seemed good, but he was evil. Serpen was secretly gathering an army made of demons. King Zavior had an army made of angels. One day Serpen was sitting in his lair when one of his spies came in and said that King Zavior was having a party – a perfect time to attack! When the party came and it was time to attack the bad guys heard a war cry! It was King Zaviors army! Well unlike other books you’ve read where there’s the soldiers run away well this was diffrent. The soldiers fought and fought but Zaviors army won! [Crossed out sentence] The soldiers were killed and Serpen was bound in a pit for a thousand years and then [crossed out phrase] be let go to gather an army but they failed. Then he was judged and thrown in the lake of fire. After that, King Zavior reigned forever in peace. The End.
Hallelujah! And I wasn’t even talking about the millennium in this sermon!
May “The Story of Stories: The Bible’s Sprawling Ramshackle Narrative” continue to inspire artistic hearts to imitate the great Creator.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is hosting an event on Gender in the 21st Century in Heritage Hall on the SBTS campus tomorrow, Monday, August 22, 2011.
They’re giving away iPads and such to entice people to come.
The event begins at 9am with Lig Duncan – you won’t want to miss him.
Then at 10am I’ll be speaking on “A Biblical Theology of Gender and Marriage.”
If you’re in the Louisville, I’d love to see you.
In his crisp book, Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God, Timothy Ward points out that the suggestion that “Christians are not those who believe in the Bible, but those who believe in Christ” (so saith John Barton) forces “a false dichotomy on us. We do not have to choose between ‘believing in the Bible and ‘believing in Christ. As Christians we are called on to do both” (Ward, Words of Life, 11).
Ward seeks “to articulate, explain and defend what we are really saying when we proclaim, as we must, that the Bible is God’s Word.” He is “attempting to describe the nature of the relationship between God and Scripture” (11), and explains that:
“the kind of doctrine of Scripture this book will outline is one that aims to demonstrate that its every aspect is shaped from the bottom up by the character and actions of God, and is integrally related to God’s being and action, yet without the inert book coming to eclipse the living Saviour” (17).
I had a great time getting to know Tim Ward in the Grand Canyon, and I’m really enjoying hearing his voice in my head as I read his book. I wish I had read it earlier so I could have put it on my hermeneutics syllabus for this fall. I commend it to you.
Technology is amazing.
A couple Saturdays ago I did a lecture for the Academy of Biblical and Theological Studies at Randolph Street Baptist Church in Charleston, WV. I never left my home in Louisville, KY. They beamed me in via Skype from my basement.
Here’s the lecture:
Jim Hamilton – Overview of the Bible – Final Class from Randolph Street Church on Vimeo.
I have mentioned before how much I’ve learned from Prof. G. K. Beale. In November of 2010 he delivered the Sizemore Lectures at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The lectures have now been published in the Midwestern Journal of Theology, and I was honored to receive an invitation to respond to Beale’s lectures. Prof. Beale asked that my response be written in light of his forthcoming New Testament Biblical Theology, and I was grateful for an advanced look at the book.
The Spring 2011 issue of the Midwestern Journal of Theology has now appeared, and the editor has kindly granted me permission to post my response to Beale here:
James M. Hamilton, “Appreciation, Agreement, and a Few Minor Quibbles: A Response to G. K. Beale,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 10 (2011), 58–70.
Beale also gave the Gheens Lectures at Southern Seminary in the Spring of 2011, audio and video of which are available here.
There is no book like the Bible. There is no one like Jesus. It’s a mercy to have the Bible in English, a mercy to be drawn to Jesus, to worship him, to trust him, to follow him with brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. Since January we’ve been in the Gospel according to Mark at Kenwood, and here are the 20 sermons on Mark’s Gospel it was my privilege to preach:
Mark 1:1-13, The Baptist and the Christ, January 16, 2011
Mark 1:14-45, A Day in the Life of Jesus, January 30, 2011
Mark 2:1-3:6, Five Controversies, February 6, 2011
Mark 3:7-35, Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit, February 20, 2011
Mark 4:1-34, Why Isn’t Everyone Celebrating Jesus?, February 27, 2011
Mark 4:35-5:43, Jesus Controls Nature, Demons, Disease, and Death, March 6, 2011
Mark 6:1-56, The Difference Between Jesus and Herod, March 13, 2011
Mark 7:1-37, To the Jew First and Also the Greek, March 20, 2011
Mark 8:1-38, The Turn to Jerusalem, April 3, 2011
Mark 9, Motivation to Take Up the Cross, April 24, 2011
Mark 10:1-31, Divorce and Discipleship, May 1, 2011
Mark 10:32-52, Discipleship, May 8, 2011
Mark 11:1-33, No Fruit on the Fig Tree or in the Temple, May 15, 2011
Mark 12, Tenants, Traps, and Teaching, June 5, 2011
Mark 13, Be on Guard, June 12, 2011
Mark 14:1-25, Justice and Mercy Planned by Jesus and the Count of Monte Cristo, June 26, 2011
Mark 14:26-52, Jesus Stands Alone, July 3, 2011
Mark 14:53-72, Accused, Blasphemed, Denied, July 24, 2011
Mark 15:1-39, Crucified, July 31, 2011
Mark 15:40-16:8, The Empty Tomb and the Fearful Witnesses, August 7, 2011
Previous series:
Next series:
Three sermons on biblical theology, Lord willing, then into Jeremiah.
On Sunday, July 17, 2011, Denny Burk preached a powerful, timely sermon at Kenwood Baptist Church: “How Do We Speak about Homosexuality?”
If you haven’t heard it, you need to give it a listen. Denny had three points:
Speak the truth.
Speak the gospel.
Speak humility.
In the introduction Denny tells the tragic story of a homosexual boy who committed suicide, and then he takes on the false choice the culture gives us to be either those who condone homosexual behavior or bigots. We have to speak the truth in love, to speak the gospel, and to speak humbly.
Download this sermon, listen closely, and pray the Lord to make his name great, to spread wide his mercy, and to make us strong for the persecution we’re likely facing on this issue.
Here’s the link again: How Do We Speak about Homosexuality?
Dan Phillips’ book, The World-Tilting Gospel, like N. D. Wilson’s Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, brings to mind the first line of the refrain in “Fireflies” by Adam Young of Owl City:
“I’d like to make myself believe
That planet earth turns slowly . . .”
Though we don’t perceive its rapid progress, the earth isn’t moving slowly, and even if we don’t realize it, the gospel turns the world upside down.
Here’s the blurb I wrote for The World-Tilting Gospel:
“Who would have thought that tilting the world would set it right? With humor, creativity, and insightful surprises, Dan Phillips captures all the beauty and freshness of the gospel. The gospel turns us rightside up, and this book uses sound teaching to cure worldly vertigo.”
Dan Phillips is a great writer. You can get a taste of his prose on his blog and at Pyromaniacs. He once described a drummer as having
“a slinky, sharp, creative groove that was all his own. It was impossible to hear and not respond, not to nod or tap or move. It was worth listening to the songs just to pick out his beat and catch his fills.”
He also has what could be the best self-description in all of blogdom:
People that write like this are worth reading; how much more when the theology is sound, the backbone strong, and the word of truth rightly divided?
I commend The World-Tilting Gospel to you. Straight gospel truth, and I think it would serve well in book club groups or in one on one discipleship settings. Buy it. Read it. Give it to someone who needs it.
The gospel is God’s power for salvation (Rom 1:16). We all need to be tilted by it till we’re rightside up.
Wayne Grudem and others hold that the earth is old, but I’m unconvinced by their arguments for that position. Most prominent for me are two observations on textual details from Genesis and the way I want to interpret science and archeology from the biblical text rather than re-interpreting the biblical text in light of science and archeology.
1) Whereas the descriptions of days 2–7 in Genesis 1–2 employ Hebrew ordinal numbers (forms ending in hireq-yod), the description of day one employs a cardinal number. Thus, Gen 1:5 can be read, “And there was evening and there was morning, day one.” Taking it this way sets the expectation in the reader’s mind that the “days” referred to in the passage are the kinds of days the readers themselves experience: the kinds that have an evening and a morning (the kinds with 24 hours in them). See further this essay by Andrew Steinmann.
2) I think that the genealogies in Genesis 5 & 11 are interlocked. That is, we’re told how long Adam lived before he begot Seth (Gen 5:3), then how long he lived after he begot Seth (5:4), then how many years Adam had lived when he died (5:5). Then the genealogy doesn’t skip a generation but picks up with the son named, Seth (5:6). This pattern is followed throughout the genealogies in chs. 5 & 11. Following Eugene Merrill’s dates (one day I went through and worked out all the numbers, writing years of birth and death in the margin of my Bible), if Abraham died in 1991 BC, we can work back through the numbers from there. Methuselah and Lamech both died in the year the flood began, 2458, Adam woud beget Seth in year 130 of his life, 3984, and this would seem to indicate that his life began (i.e., he was created) in 4114 BC. Incidentally, according to this chronology, Abraham would be born in 2166 BC, and Noah would be alive until 2108, with Shem outliving Abraham–Abraham dies in 1991 BC, Shem in 1958.
3) These two points that arise from the text lead me to think that the text itself provides this chronology. I’m hesitant to move away from a conclusion that the text leads me to because of conflicting data from science or archeology. William Webb has claimed that if Paul knew what we know about biology, Paul would not say what he says in 1 Cor 11. The archeologists have proposed a different date for the conquest, causing some to attempt reinterpretations of 1 Kings 6:1. And I view the age of the earth as moving in the same stream as these other examples, where information from science and archeology would send us back to the text to reinterpret it to fit what we know from the other disciplines.
So I am skeptical about conclusions derived from science and archeology, and I recognize that I don’t know everything there is to know about Genesis 1, 5, and 11. I grant that I may be misreading the texts, or that something out of the ordinary may be happening with the days and with the long lives, but it looks to me the way I’ve laid it out above. On the basis of what I understand the texts to be saying, I’m happy to be a young-earther.
We don’t see many movies, but we hit the dollar theater today for Legends of the Guardians. Here’s the trailer:
We loved it! Mend the broken, make strong the weak, and vanquish evil!
This is another story that owes its existence to the true story of the world, the one told in the Bible.
I opened my sermon this past Sunday with this quote from Mike Wittmer’s book Christ Alone:
Critiquing Rob Bell’s Love Wins, Mike Wittmer writes,
A real rescue beats an imaginary rescue every day of the week, because it involves actual risk. . . . It’s one thing to pretend that we’re drowning or being chased by bad guys; it’s entirely different to actually be lost at sea or dodging bullets. Real-life rescues always have the most at stake (142–43).
Wittmer continues by explaining that Bell’s view
Makes an exceptionally bland story. There is no drama. No deep conflict requiring resolution. No compelling need for a satisfying denouement. Where is the insurmountable problem that must be overcome? Where’s the cliff we might fall off? Where’s the foreshadowed death that can be avoided only by intervention from the outside? Nothing is ever really at stake in Bell’s tale of limitless happy endings. It has even less suspense than a child’s bedtime story. . . .
I appreciate that the looming threat of hell can make us uncomfortable, but if we eliminate this from the Scriptures we deflate the true and even more astonishing biblical story. A world without the real possibility of hell, of eternal death, would increasingly resemble the contrived world of the film The Truman Show, comically and tragically unrealistic. If the cross teaches us anything, it’s that this is a wild, dangerous world. If the Son of God can be crucified, then anything is possible here. A world which killed Jesus may well have a large number of murderers headed for hell. The stakes are that hight (145–46).
Need
We need to see that we have the real story. We need to feel what G. K. Chesterton writes when he says, “In a thrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he might be eaten by cannibals” (Orthodoxy, 206).
Main Point
When the world was at stake the Father gave the Son that the world might be redeemed. Chesterton again, “Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point—and does not break” (Orthodoxy, 209).
Chesterton says that Christianity’s “main advantage is that it is the most adventurous and manly of all theologies” (Orthodoxy, 201).
To read of the manliness of Christ and the courage of God in putting everything on the line by not sparing his own Son, see Mark 15:1–39. Here’s my attempt to exposit the passage: Mark 15:1–39, “Crucified, Dead, and Buried.”