Michael: The use of the OT in the NT is a facinating study. Many years ago my NT prof G.K. Beale wrote an article in Themelios titled “Did the Apostles Teach the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?” It was, as I recall, superb. Now I see that it has been expanded into a book – The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?: Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New. Sounds like a winner.

Aren’t you going to hear Don Carson on that topic soon, Michael? I look forward to a report!

Michael: A while back – maybe years ago now – I think I pointed out when we were beating one of the original dead horses (dispensationalism) that one of my biggest problems with MacArthur is that he seems to willing to give up basically every tenant of dispensationalism at some point, but he still insists on being called a dispensationalist. It’s noteworthy, though, that he’s more likely to be seen sharing a platform with the likes of R.C. Sproul Sr. than with Chuck Swindoll.

I think this is the “God in his underwear” shot you wanted.

I have been thinking about Ed Babinski’s comment where he said that it was learning how the Gospel writers used and misused Old Testament texts as fulfilled prophecies that finally demolished any confidence he had in the Bible. More »« Less

I addressed some thoughts about John Macarthur to IM readers some weeks ago. I have reposted them in the extended entry.

Dr. Macarthur represents what I have come to call the “New Puritans.” They are best represented by Al Martin and the Reformed Baptist movement. I would characterize them as emphasizing legal obedience to a degree that is beyond the balance that we find in mature Reformed thought. If Luther emphasized grace over Law, the New Puritans emphasize Law as the Christian’s guide in more heavily legal “tones” than many of us are comfortable with. The “New Puritans” seem prone to legalistic abuses in some churches, though in many churches the actual pragmatic balance is healthy.

The problem, as I see it is an over-emphasis on the law as the strict rule of the Christian life. In New Puritanism, Christ re-teaches the law in stricter terms in the New Covenant than in the old, with a tendency to view law keeping as the prime indicator of faith. I think this comes from a tendency to read all the Puritans as having the same mind and views on the Christian life. Puritanism was a diverse movement, ranging from healthy to heretical. The New Puritans have a tendency to latch on to legalistic Puritan models.

Macarthur simply isn’t a careful systematic theologian. As a textual expositor, he is great, but- in my measly opinion- he tends to go with the emphasis of a text at the expense of the whole message of the Bible, a problem I had in mind in some of my recent essays on the Bible. This is especially on display when Christ teaches the law in the Sermon on the Mount, as Macarthur tends to teach that obedience IS faith, an error that has cropped up too frequently in his writings to be coincidental.

I still recommend Macarthur, but I always caution those who are heading into The Gospel According to Jesus or Hard to Believe to please read other Reformed writers, and especially Lutherans, to balance out the heavily legal emphasis in Macarthur. He is arguing hard against the easy believism in guys like Bob George and Zane Hodges, teachers whose antinomian teaching need to be avoided. More »« Less

Tommy: You ask a very broad question when you’re asking about the Law, but I’ll take a stab at making it simple.

Preaching of the Law can fall under any or all of three major categories: Curb, Mirror, or Guide.

Can someone explain some things in this essay at issuesetc.

What does he mean by preaching the Law? I’m not new to TULIP but I’m kind of new to Reformed thought in general. And I come from a legalistic background, so that phrase doesn’t sit well with me (not to mention I’ve listened to the theology of glory for about 8 years now). Other than that I agree with what he’s saying, so I was thinking that I just need it clarified.

Brian ‘Head’ Welch Leaves Korn, Citing Moral Objections To Band’s Music.

I hope he gets a chance to get a foundation before we start trotting him out as the newest poster boy for the Holy Spirit.

So this poor chap just can’t stop eating. So the authorities in his British County locked him up!

I was in a small town. I went to a big church, well, at one point it was big. It now had about 20 people. Fifty-five years ago this church was planted, it grew to 120 people, with zero debt it remains a mostly empty building.

The pastor retired, but was forced back from retirement to take over the pulpit and suffer with the church.

The service was very southern baptist with the commentary directed at my hosts. I was uneasy. Everyone sat with the people they knew, spread out like we were expecting three bus loads of people.

The church has zero debt and with it’s little income it can stay open, barely.
Should the church close it’s doors? I was asked this by my hosts. I didn’t know what to say. Abandon? Greener grass? Loyalty?

Inerrancy: I had a response but never posted it. I agreed with someone and didn’t agree with another but that’s okay.

I was at Best Buy yesterday getting ripped off on printer ink, and I saw Osteen’s book for sale. It was in the section titled “Trends” along with the weight loss and self-help books. Ha.

Dr. Gene Scott is gone. Where are the cigars? Light one up for a man who never paused to doubt his brilliance, or God’s grace. Anyone who had Merle Haggard playing in the Sunday worship service, and wasn’t afraid to use any word that needed to be used in a sermon is worth a toast. Gene Scott was one of a kind, whether it was refusing to preach till hundreds of thousands of dollars came in, or showing videos of himself with actresses, models and horses, or collecting the world’s greatest private Bible collection, this was a guy Jesus would have loved to hang out with. When I first heard him he was lecturing on the Great Pyramid, sitting in a big chair, wearing a captain’s cap and sunglasses, puffing smoke and cussing like a sailor. Nuts? Just enough to keep it fun. A former ORU professor with a real doctorate from Stanford who actually preached more grace than most Osteen Wannabes. I’ll miss him.

Hunter S. Thompson has died, killing himself this morning. He might be a little bit out there for most of the crowd here, but Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is one of my favorite books, and Thompson was a brilliant writer. Let’s all have a toast to him—although beer will be fine, we don’t really need any of the dozens of substances mentioned in his literature in this bar.

Craig Blomberg- world class NT scholar from Denver- endorses the TNIV and says that in 3 out of 4 non-gender related text changes, the TNIV is more literal than the NIV.

Make that two. D.A. Carson endorses it. That’s significant to me. They also are sending me a free copy, and I got a cool screensaver. I can’t be persuaded, but I can be bribed.

Van Til the BHT’s Magic Tail Chasing Dog is recovering nicely from the Inerrancy Debate, and he thanks everyone for the food and cards. He’ll be back in circulation (no pun intended) soon. BTW- he is refusing to endorse the TNIV after it changed Philippians 3:2 to “Watch out for those ferrets, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.”

Wouldn’t it be great if I could post an N.T. Wright link, and we could discuss the SUBJECT of the link and not various objections to Wright?

So here’s a try: An excellent short introduction to the Book of Romans by N.T.W. A keeper if you are a teacher.

Tim Enloe hates his generation of Evangelicals.

A wonderfully good presentation of the uniqueness of Christian origins. The Impossible Faith: How not to start an ancient religion.

A fascinating article on what Video Game culture is turning us into. Excellent and much needed questions and answers.

Evangelicals are eager to use Constantine as an “evangelistic” tool. Of course, a “bible study” has been prepared for this purpose.

>Rejection of inerrancy is a departure from historic Christianity’s view of Scripture.

OK. That brush is broad enough to sweep this conversation off the blog. I’ve had enough of myself and everyone else. Eric’s post was excellent, I’ve said all I have to say, and the place is starting to feel like it did a month ago. So…it’s time.

Inerrancy is a BHT Dead Horse.

Don’t make me have to close off comment threads please. Thanks to all who participated.

I attempted to say something like this yesterday at IM, but Eric’s post makes it clearer.

What is the practical difference- for salvation and the Christian life- between these two statements:

1) “God produced an inerrant Bible.”

2) “The scriptures say exactly what God wanted them to say.”

I absolutely affirm #2, as do all the confessions I know of.

Remember this one from Capon:

“People object to the idea that the Bible is the Word of God just because it is full of oddities, contradictions, and dunderheadedness. Admittedly, there have been theologians who tried to maintain that God literally wrote it all himself – or dictated it to infallible secretaries – and that all the riddles of Scripture were put in just to keep our faith on its toes. Well, if you like that theory, you’re welcome to it; I happen to think it’s rather unflattering to God. What seems more reasonable to me is to assume that God did indeed decide to come up with a bookful of words that would be his Word, but that when he cast about for some word-producing agents, he found that all he had arranged for in his infinite wisdom were human authors. Accordingly, he did whatever he did to inspire the several writers of Scripture and settled for what he got – or, better said, perhaps, he got what he wanted, plus a lot of other sometimes vivid writing that he took as part of the bargain: inflated census figures, rhapsodic reporting of sleazy royal carryings-on, and a fair amount of just plain wrong geography.

Jeff Lee: I heard a bit on NPR about covenant marriage, and I wasn’t impressed. While the concept of taking marriage more seriously sounds like a good one, the practice of the Arkansas law seems to be to make exiting a marriage more difficult, and as Matthew points out, that’s the wrong end of things on which to focus.

I’d rather marriage was more difficult to enter, as that might have more of an effect on how often marriage is exited. Divorce waiting periods and so on seem like a waste of time to me. Mandated pre-marital counseling might be worthwhile, but then most churches I know about require pre-marital counseling anyway, if one wants to be married in a church.

Eric Rodgers: As several people have noted in comments, your statements about God’ inspiration of Scripture seem right-on to me, and not at all in conflict with the traditional Calvinist view of God’s sovereignty. I have no doubt whatsoever that God caused to be written—and preserved all this time—exactly what He wanted written and preserved. I simply dispute that one currently-popular view of God’s Word is the correct one.

Consider it along Lutheran lines: Luther himself said at one point¹ that there is a difference between God’s revealed will in Scripture and His hidden will. As an example, he said that God doesn’t will the death of a sinner (in His Word) while clearly God does will the death of a sinner (in His mysterious “hidden” will).

In other words, the dispute between those who believe in single predestination and those who believe in double predestination seems to hang largely on the first group being willing to go no further than Scripture does, while the second group clings to what they see as the logical conclusion that must follow and don’t understand why the first group won’t take that extra step.

I’m perfectly willing to go as far as Scripture does about the authority of Scripture, but not so excited about going any further, especially having seen the pain and hurt caused by people doing just that.

I believe that we have exactly the Bible God has ordained for us to have, but I don’t see any evidence that it should be considered as authoritative on issues on which it does not claim authority.

¹ Though the translation of Bondage Of The Will I read worded things differently, an online edition translates the paragraph I was remembering this way:

But the Diatribe is deceived by its own ignorance, in not making a distinction between GOD PREACHED and GOD HIDDEN: that is, between the word of God and God Himself. God does many things which He does not make known unto us in His word: He also wills many things which He does not in His word make known unto us that He wills. Thus, He does not ‘will the death of a sinner,’ that is, in His word; but He wills it by that will inscrutable. But in the present case, we are to consider His word only, and to leave that will inscrutable; seeing that, it is by His word, and not by that will inscrutable, that we are to be guided; for who can direct himself according to a will inscrutable and incomprehensible? It is enough to know only, that there is in God a certain will inscrutable: but what, why, and how far that will wills, it is not lawful to inquire, to wish to know, to be concerned about, or to reach unto – it is only to be feared and adored!

I’ve kept my hands clean in the inerrancy discussion for long enough, and after this post, I intend to avoid it the way I have been for the last week or so.

I find it very interesting that most of you will accept a Calvinist view of God’s agency concerning human events like sin and natural disasters like tsunamis, but then you almost seem to make a point to avoid it when it comes to the writing of scripture, as though the precise wording of scripture were out of God’s control.

Let me elaborate using a few examples I can think of right off the top of my head…

When you look at Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest over Jerusalem, most of you will say that he was the one who conquered the city, and yet God did it too. Furthermore, God is responsible for Jerusalem’s fall, not just in a distant way but intimately. When Nebuchadnezzar struck, the hand of God struck as well. However, Nebuchadnezzar was held responsible and even punished for his part in the destruction of Jerusalem.

Judas betrayed Jesus, and Pilate condemned him. No doubt these acts were sinful, but John 13:21-30 would seem to indicate that Jesus chose his betrayer. Acts 4:23-31 says that Herod and Pilate were predestined to do these things. God is 100% “responsible” for what happened to His Son. And yet, these men, who were agents of God, are all 100% held responsible for their own sins in this matter.

You say that men wrote down God’s word as God “inspired” them to do. Why do you not take into account God’s intimate agency in the writing of scriptures? Is it not that hard to believe that God could “breathe” his words (2 Timothy 3:16-17) as He intended them to be written? Does that preclude man’s responsibility or agency in the writing of scriptures? Not remotely!

This is pretty much just a half-formed thought, but I think it’s one that deserves attention. I normally agree with what most of you write, but on this issue, I have to take exception. Thank you for the great discussion. Maybe before long, I’ll weigh in more heavily on the creation debate, but not right now.

Pax!

I almost responded to Jeff in the comments but quickly realized that I had more to say than just a quick comment. I live in the county with the highest divorce rate in Arkansas. I see people every week in the pews whose marriages are screwed up. I would use stonger language to communicate how bad these marriages are, but you get the picture. Most of them do not last. We see people in and out of our offices all the time with marriage problems. My Sr. Pastor preached about marriage a while back and said that by the time folks come to us, it’s too late. Folks wait until it’s too late to come in and they only come to see us so that they can tell people that they at least made an effort. It’s too little too late.

As I’m sure most of you know, marriage is hard. I read Michael’s essay Running Wounded every so often just to remind myself that not only is marriage hard, but that I’m probably the reason it is so hard. I make my marriage harder than it should be. About 15 months after we married, Heather and I went to see a therapist. I know people were talking about us, wondering if we were about to get divorced. We weren’t, but I think we were probably heading down that road. We went to therapy, talked some things out and as a result our marriage was stronger than it ever was. We got in before it was too late but many couples don’t.

I am not in favor of the government making decisions about marriage, but at the same time I know that it sees the benefit of people staying together, the lower crime rates for children with two parents and all that. It benefits society and the government to help maintain happy and productive married people. The covenant marriage act says that two married people can take on an additional state requirement in their marriage. One is that if a couple wants to get a divorce they must go through marriage counseling. The other is that there is a shorter list of reasons that a couple may use for getting a divorce. “Irreconcilable differences” isn’t going to hold up for the covenant marriage. I like the idea of covenant marriage for these reasons. I think it forces people to take responsibility for their own faults and how they contribute to the problem within the marriage. Even if they do wind up getting divorced, one of the two may find healing through the counseling process for a particular problem in his or her life.

Is anybody here familiar with covenant marriage? I came across it last week and wondered if it is really necessary. I also thought it was interesting that it would be on the State of Arkansas’ website.

I know this is a backlash of no-fault divorce laws but in my way of thinking this is similar to the inerrancy discussion. The Bible must be “protected” by inerrancy. Now marriages must be protected by a covenant marriage. Doesn’t this lead to a trivialization of “regular” marriages (viewed as marriage-lite)? Is this the next big wave for evangelicals ala Promise Keepers, True Love Waits, etc.?

I realize divorce rates argue otherwise, but isn’t marriage a covenant anyway?

Noel confesses to an addiction.

Steve Beard summarizes the faith portraits in Because of Winn Dixie.

Mattthew: Your crusade is starting to get through. The ESV on-line site has a new set of options to delete all the verse numbers, section headings, etc.

Galatians 5:2-11 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. ...11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.

I was really struck yesterday with how relevant this passage is to the danger posed by adding anything to the simplicity of the Gospel (which is, after all, the message the Bible is bringing us.) Yes, Paul is discussing how faith in Jesus replaces Jewish ritual as the characteristic mark of God’s people, but he is also warning that any concession to matters extraneous to the person/work of Jesus renders the Gospel null.

This isn’t the way most evangelicals look at it. They see emphasizing issues like inerrancy or election or obedience to be necessary ingredients in the Gospel itself. I’d counsel caution on that one. Vital connections and essential connections are two different things.

Paul even says that we are faced with the possibility of “falling” from grace, and may be making the cross of no real effect by emphasizing something outside of the cross as essential.

Matthew was probably the worst at mis-quoting the O.T., from what I’ve seen so far. That dude was just doing word-association at points, really strange. Definitely not in line with modern scholastic standards!

I read Ed’s comment/post/email/whatever, and I hurt. I see several of my friends there, and parts of myself. While clearly I don’t agree with him on some of the specifics of things (most, though!), I really feel that modern Christianity, especially, has let him down.

You’re right, iMonk, it is what we’ve added to Jesus Christ that drives people away. When it becomes not enough that we believe in Jesus Christ crucified, and that God raised Him from the dead, but that we must also believe in X, Y, and Z, who can possibly keep up? Handling objections to the person of Jesus Christ is easy—as God, He breaks the rules, which places Him conveniently outside the realm of falsifiability. But the rest? Argh! People make my kidneys hurt!

Anyway, it’s convenient for me to realize that my own set of Christian beliefs happen to not encounter a lot of the problems that Ed listed, but I’m sure that there are plenty of people out there on the other side of things who would be just as upset with my pet doctrines. I pray that I am always able to keep separate that which I know from that which I believe, and I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which is more important.

Thanks to Ed for the note. You’re not alone!

Ed Babinski was kind enough to write a great comment, and I am going to post it here. NOT for argumentation, but constructive comments are welcome.

Thanks for replying, Ed. More »« Less

Here is the guy who ruined me. Actually, the single best book on Biblical Interpretation I ever read as a seminarian. Thank God I found it. If anyone wants to get past the literalism thing with Genesis, I recommend Conrad Hyers, The Meaning of Genesis. Read the reviews.

Hyers on Biblical and Scientific Maps
Hyers: What Genesis is all about.
The Narrative Form of Genesis 1
Dinosaur Religion: In Interpreting and Misinterpreting Biblical Texts

Sample:

It may surely be said that the Genesis accounts of creation are not in conflict with scientific and historical knowledge. Yet this is not because they can be shown to be in conformity with this knowledge, but precisely because they have little to do with it. They belong to a different literary genre, type of knowledge, and kind of concern. To take an example from poetry, which is considerably closer to the character of the creation materials than scientific or historical prose: a poetic treatment of an autumn sunset is neither scientifically true nor untrue. It needs no harmonization with scientific theories, and requires no scientific confirmation. It is unrelated to that sort of truth; and it uses language in ways that are peculiar to itself.

For someone to endeavor to defend the integrity and worth of a particular poem by attempting to argue that its “assertions” were “scientifically true,” and that it was reducible to a “factual presentation of simple historical truths—in the original autograph copy-would be no defense at all. It would be a confusion of categories, like trying to defend a client being sued for divorce by introducing the evidence in a traffic court! Any defense of a poem based on such confusions, and any attack on other forms of literature which do not 11 agree” with the poem, no matter how well-meaning and heroic, would be the greatest possible disservice to the poem, the spirit of the words, the intentions of the poet, and poetry in general. In its anxiety to protect the poem from unappreciative critics, it would succeed in opening up the poem to even greater criticism and misunderstanding.

Similarly, a “literal” interpretation of the Genesis accounts is inappropriate, misleading and unworkable. It presupposes and insists upon a kind of literature and intention that is not there. In so doing it misses the symbolic richness and spiritual power of what is there. And it subjects the biblical materials, and the theology of creation, to a completely pointless and futile controversy. The first questions in interpreting any part of Scripture are always, what kind of literature is one dealing with, and what issues are being addressed? One cannot merely assume from the superficial look of the material, as it appears to modern eyes, that the material is of the same order as what we might call history or science. One must first provide strong evidence from within the passage itself, and from a careful study of the theological and cultural context of the passage, as to the specific literary form and religious concern involved. When one does this, the literalist assumptions turn out to be far afield, and to have been brought to the passage as a precondition for its acceptance.

Thanks to Matt Crash for a complimentary post. Much appreciated.

Those of you who know anything about OBI, will get the importance of the following sentence: The pastor resigned.

I never thought this would happen, and it puts all kinds of interesting challenges/opportunities at our door, maybe at my door. It’s a matter worthy of prayer. Decisions will be made.

More than anything, I want my little Presby church to be full. That’s a matter of prayer, too. It would make everything much easier.

On a lesser note, at least one staff member is upset at the talent show, specically one part. I may have to answer to the boss for some of what went on with two groups of African girls doing “interpretative movements” to music. “Dancing” is against the rules, but I allowed it in this talent show. If I get called on the carpet, I will need a mighty wave of good will to deal with it. (Oh…also, apparently a rapper grapped his crotch, too. More trouble.) I have some beliefs that I am not going to cave on, even if it costs me in some silly way.

It was good to have Josh S. in the Chat room tonight.

Read Dave’s second story in this post. I’m hurtin’.

Every time I read a Capon illustration on scripture, I just have to laugh with delight. Thank God for Robert Capon. That’s all I can say. When I read these sourpusses and intellectual bullies, I just thank God for Robert Capon.

Accepting the Bible as inspired is a bit like receiving an entire collection of one’s grandfather’s writings. Suppose, for example, that on opening such a treasure, I found it to contain everything my grandfather ever wrote: letters, poems, recipes, essays, short stories, diaries, family histories. And suppose further that I was fully convinced not only that they were authentically his but that he had sent them for the express purpose of providing me with everything he wanted me to know both about himself and about our relationship. Far from putting an end to my study of his words, those convictions would be the very thing that started me wrestling with them in earnest.

And not just to be able to spout his words or to confirm what I already thought. Indeed, I would be well advised to approach them with as open a mind as possible, always ready to sit loose to what I had decided about him and simply listen to him. It should be only after long study and repeated readings that I would dare to conclude what any particular passage meant, let alone what the entire thrust of his writing was. With such a wildly various collection, there would always be a temptation to let my own sense of what he was up to get in the way of what he himself really had in mind. I might, for example, decide that, while his brief aphorisms lay close to the heart of the man, his longer stories had little to teach me about him. That would be a mistake; all that this conclusion would actually show was that I had a liking for agreeable bits of information served up on small plates but balked at the labor of trying to take his meaning when he expressed himself by putting on a feast of strange fictions. Or I might decide that only his serious metaphysical writings, and not his strictures on the proper way to make gravy, truly revealed the man. In the case of this particular grandfather, that would be an even bigger mistake: if there was ever a place where he disclosed himself as the lover of creation he really was, it was in the kitchen. Without a willingness to wade through his recipes, a reader would miss a good half of his charm.- From somewhere in the parables book.

If you want to see someone who was driven right out of the faith- entirely out- by banking on YEC, visit Ed Babinski. DON’T go there if you don’t want to see this sort of thing. It fires me up. I like my unbelief straight. It’s very clarifying that God isn’t handing us a plate of warmed over human wisdom and tasty facts. He’s blowing up the foundations and invading the world. Once you have incarnation, everything else is called off. YEC kept Ed from grasping that. I’d love to meet him.

IF you read it, go to this post. Notice that once the foundation was dug in YEC, it couldn’t be rescued by the route I’ve gone. And what destroyed the guy? Thomas Paine! And a Jewish writer who said the NT Christians selected the OT passages on purpose. Well DUH! In another place, he says that since Jesus was wrong on the end of the world, he’s not the Son of God. Done in by Schweitzer! (Calvinism is in the mix here, as is a tendency to go from one thing to another, but this is the great failure of the church: YEC ANSWERS don’t always work for SMART PEOPLE. But if you say they do work, wait till they find out you didn’t do your homework.)

This is what happens, and it’s why you better either shelter/indoctrinate your children past the point of no return or deal with it. This will could your daughter’s biology teacher if you don’t keep her in Christian schools straight through. When she finally hears this story, prepare for intellectual earthquake.

If you missed this comment by manasclerk, you missed one of the real gems of this discussion. What a keeper.

This morning, a good brother said that some of the things on my web site made him feel like he was reading the Jesus Seminar. ....

[Ed: Post Removed. We’ve had a peaceful and positive blog lately, and I don’t want to start a fight. So Tom’s comment stands, but the post is gone.]

care to throw Ecclesiastes 9:5,6 in the inerrancy-o-matic and see what comes out?

Ecc 9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
Ecc 9:6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.