It’s a funny thing about blogs – just when you think a thread is dead, a single comment (or commenter) can appear and liven things up.
A post on Rob Bell from back in May, entitled Rob Bell’s Allegory: An Interpretational Method to Avoid, has gotten some play in the past week. What’s cool is that it fits right in with the current month’s topic. (What’s even cooler is that I got to it before anyone else did!)
Years ago, John MacArthur preached a sermon where he discussed different types of Biblical interpretation, including allegory. Interestingly, his message includes, among other things, an allegorical reference to John 11.
Here’s Dr. MacArthur to tell the story:
Patricia and I were at a Bible conference back in Lake Geneva and I was there with another speaker, another preacher. I’ll never forget the occasion because he was preaching, and then I was preaching and we were alternating and having a good time doing that. And I said to him, we were having some lunch or a snack in this little cafe place there at this conference center, George Williams College on Lake Geneva. And I said, “What are you going to preach on tonight?”
And he said, “I’m going to preach on the Rapture of the church.”
I said, “Oh, that’s great, that will be wonderful, I’m sure and folks will be encouraged.” I said, “What’s going to be your text?”
He said, “John 11.”
And I said to myself, John 11? The Rapture is John 14, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15…what is John 11? I said, “John 11 is the resurrection of Lazarus. It’s all about Lazarus being raised from the dead, Mary and Martha and…” I said, “How is it that you’re going to preach on the Rapture from John 11?”
He said, “Oh, you’ll have to come tonight.”
I said, “I guess I will.” So he preached on the Rapture from John 11. Now I can’t remember, it was really clever and people were saying, “Deep, deep, wow,” you know, they don’t know, it just…. And Lazarus was the church and him coming forth was the dead saints being raised and I think Martha was the Old Testament saints, and Mary was the living New Testament saints. And the thing went on for an hour and it was very cleverly done. It just wasn’t there. And when it was over we met again and he said to me, he said, “Had you ever seen that in John 11?” And I said, “No one has ever seen that in John 11.”
You might think it would end there. But instead, the other speaker’s reaction was: “You know, I got a wonderful compliment yesterday. John MacArthur said no one before me had ever seen that in John 11.”
MacArthur goes on to say this: “Now I believe in the Rapture of the church. It’s not in John 11. There are things in John 11 that ought to be preached. But once you tell me what it says is not what it means, then you can tell me it means anything. Because if I can’t get the meaning out of the normal use of the language, how in the world can I get the meaning?”
Ultimately, that is the issue. If we can’t get the meaning from a plain reading of the text, or if a text can have any meaning we want it to have, then it really has no meaning at all.
Later on in the same sermon, MacArthur makes another point worth mentioning here: if this is your interpretive method, you really don’t need Scripture at all to practice it.
Now, you see, if you’re going to do that with the Bible you can’t get that from the text. It’s pure fantasy. But it goes on all the time and I’ve often said…sometimes I say to our pastors, “You don’t need the Bible for that, if you’re going to do that you can use anything…you can use anything.” You can preach Little Bo Peep, you could…you could start off by saying…Little Bo Peep, oh she was only little but God can use the little ones. And her name was…her name was Bo Peep…what a name of insignificance, what a name of ridicule, but God uses those who have been ridiculed. Little Bo Peep, she lost her sheep, all over this world sheep are lost. Doesn’t know where to find them. The only part I couldn’t figure out was what you do with wagging their tails behind them.
It’s a very dangerous thing to allegorize or spiritualize Scripture. What it means is what it says when rightly understood in its historic context. …
The transcript of this sermon is available here. It is part of a group of 5 sermons that I believe were the basis for the book How to Study the Bible. Those sermons and lots of other great stuff are available at the Bible Bulletin Board website.
Bonus: here is the audio soundbyte of MacArthur “exegeting” Little Bo Peep.
When the big one finds you, let this song remind you that they don’t serve breakfast in Hell.
- Newsboys
We as Christians sometimes have a somewhat cavalier attitude to Hell.
John Piper wrote a brief piece recently addressing how willingly people go to Hell. It was a good piece – a reminder that Hell isn’t just a not-nice place – it is worse than the worst thing we could imagine, and no one will want to be there.
Here are a couple of excerpts:
…when a person chooses against God and, therefore, de facto chooses hell—or when he jokes about preferring hell with his friends over heaven with boring religious people—he does not know what he is doing. What he rejects is not the real heaven (nobody will be boring in heaven), and what he “wants” is not the real hell, but the tolerable hell of his imagination.
…What sinners want is not hell but sin. That hell is the inevitable consequence of unforgiven sin does not make the consequence desirable. It is not what people want—certainly not what they “most want.” Wanting sin is no more equal to wanting hell than wanting chocolate is equal to wanting obesity. Or wanting cigarettes is equal to wanting cancer.
Helpful reminder for believers of the absolute necessity and urgency of preaching the Gospel to those who are perishing. The same ones Jesus described as being “condemned already” (John 3:18).
Also in the John Piper vein, the audiobook for Desiring God is available at Christian Audio for free this month. Several of his other audiobooks are on sale for $5 each through Nov. 21. Here’s the link for all this good stuff.
In the preface to the 2nd edition of his massive hermeneutics introduction The Hermeneutical Spiral, Grant R. Osborne writes,
There is no greater privilege or joy than studying the Word of God. When we realize that God loved us enough not only to send his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, but also cared enough for us to give us his revealed truths to challenge and guide our lives, we are amazed at how little we deserve and yet how much he has done for us! There is only one set of final truths in this world, not mathematics or science (for all physical laws are invalid in a quasar or a black hole), but only the Word of God. In this the eternal principles intended to direct us through this life are truly found. Therefore it is both a privilege and a responsibility to study God’s Word as carefully as possible. To fail as a Christian to study God’s inspired revelation is tantamount to refusing to know the laws of the country we live in and breaking those laws with impunity. It is a failure that can and will have catastrophic results, for it means we do not care about the rules we have promised to obey by virtue of being citizens of our country – whether that be the USA or Britain or heaven (cf. Phil 3:21).
There is much to learn from in this quotation. However, the main thing I wish to emphasize is that it is “a responsibility to study God’s Word as carefully as possible“ (emphasis mine). I believe the last phrase is a reference to hermeneutics, as the rest of Osborne’s massive book is about hermeneutics. In other words, if we take the study of God’s Word seriously then we should be as careful as possible when it comes to how we study God’s Word.
The topic for the month of November is hermeneutics. As the editor of this blog I hope to see posts about some of the new trends in this field such as Biblical Theology (BT), theological interpretation, etc., and also some reviews of various hermeneutics books focusing on the best things in the book that we have found beneficial or those things which need improvement.
I apologize for the delay of this post; we were experiencing some technical difficulties at EV which delayed things a few days. I had intended to post a Heroes of the Faith post on Martin Luther for Reformation Day but was prevented from doing so, sadly. Nevertheless, this month’s topic is another one of my personal interests so I look forward to the upcoming posts.
From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of ‘helpfulness’. Accordingly, the themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for his sheep are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not ‘helpful’; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. (The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered: it is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem.) However this may be (and we shall say more about it later), the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. Thus, we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of his redeeming work as if he had make it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God’s love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence ‘at the door of our hearts’ for us to let them in.
J. I. Packer’s Introduction to The Death of Death in the Death of Christ by John Owen, printed in Chapter 8 of A QUEST FOR GODLINESS, The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life by J. I. Packer.
If you’ve missed it so far, Tim Keller is now blogging here. His second post was fantastic and timely for those of us that are seminary students. You can read the whole post here, but here’s a summary in 5 sentences…
Many Reformed evangelicals think of sound, expository preaching as something of a ‘magic bullet.’ We may think that as long as we are preaching the Word–preaching the law and the gospel rightly–that everything else in congregational life will somehow take care of itself… Pastors in many of our Reformed churches do not seem to be as energized to learn to be great leaders and shepherds, but rather have more of an eye to being great teachers and preachers… If you put in too much time in your study on your sermon you put in too little time being out with people as a shepherd and a leader. Ironically, this will make you a poorer preacher.
This has been my personal experience and led to the nearly complete failure of my first ministry position. In fact, I’m still learning to balance my emphasis on preaching, leadership, and shepherding… and failing forward.
One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.
-John Piper
Can we include blogging into that as well?
I first read Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor in February, 2009, and I was amazed by the story of this “ordinary” pastor who is truly anything but. Learning about this man who, ultimately, never realized how far his influence reached (and I suspect wouldn’t really care)… He is a true hero of mine. I hope this review helps to explain why.
“Ordinary” pastors don’t usually get press. They don’t speak at conferences. They don’t write books. Their ministries are on the whole fairly average. They work hard, they faithfully serve the flock God has entrusted to them, and generally go unnoticed.
Tom Carson was, by all accounts, an ordinary pastor. Yet, he was a most extraordinary man.
Tom worked in the most difficult missions field in Canada (Quebec), striving to make in-roads for the Gospel with its Francophone population. Roman Catholicism has long been entrenched in Quebec, and is at the heart of many of the great divides between the French and English in our country (this subject is far too long to get into here, but there is an excellent primer on many of the cultural issues in Chapter 1 of the book; Canadian History books at your local library or bookstore will also be helpful in fleshing out the conflict). Protestant Christians in the 1930s through the 1950s faced a great deal of persecution, including the possibility of imprisonment for being a Protestant minister. Missionaries often gave up because they saw so little fruit and so much opposition. Yet these were the people to whom God chose Tom Carson to minister. read more…
***this is a repost from my personal blog- Rantings of a Young Evangelical.
I decided to do this when a friend of mine, Bryan Lilly, via Twitter told me he’d be interested in hearing my thoughts on this discussion and due to me having Swine Flu, I have the time and I love talking Eschatology so here we go…
If you have a couple of hours you need to watch this discussion. This was an absolutely great discussion and I can say that I love Jesus more for watching the discussion. I long for his glorious return for He is our Blessed Hope.
On September 27, 2009, Desiring God and Bethlehem College & Seminary hosted “An Evening on Eschatology” at the Downtown Campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. It was attended by about 800 people who sat in the darkened sanctuary while six cameras were trained on the brightly lit roundtable where the four participants sat in a circle.
For two hours I moderated, more or less, a discussion among Jim Hamilton (professor of New Testament at Southern Seminary in Louisville), Sam Storms (pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City), and Doug Wilson (pastor of Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho).
The discussion was intended to focus on the relationship between the thousand-year reign of Christ mentioned in Revelation 20 and the return of Christ to this earth visibly and physically to reign. This thousand years is usually called “the millennium.” Revelation 20 is the only place in the Bible where the length of this period is mentioned.
Sam Storms represents Amillennialism
Jim Hamilton represents Historic Premillennialism
Douglas Wilson represents Postmillennialism
John Piper narrates/moderates the discussion.
My initial thoughts from the discussion:
1) All three of the men discussing this issue are much smarter than I am. I greatly appreciate watching these intelligent, humble men discuss this issue. Some people think discussing the End Times is a waste of time. My thought is that God is not about wasting our time and yet he chose to give us the book of Revelation and knowledge of the End Times throughout all of Scripture. God gave us his word for a reason. We are to study it and come to the best conclusions that we can on all areas that Scripture addresses, including End Times.
2) This discussion starts off right by defining the essentials. It is hard to have a productive conversation on the End Times without first defining Gospel, Eschatology, Age/Age to Come, and Millennium.
3) While I have always discounted Postmillennialism as an unlegitmate option I will no longer do so. Douglas Wilson did a good job in representing his view and I do see some legitimacy in his interpretations of specific passages. While I still think Historic Premillennialism and Amillennialism are the most legitimate options I am not going to be so quick to disregard Postmillennialism.
4) One reason why I have been fond of Amillennialism is because I think it best defines and understands the usage of “this Age and the Age to come” in the New Testament. The two Ages are important in shaping ones Eschatology. Historic Premillennialism and Amillennialism I think best deal with the Kingdom theology of the Kingdom being a present reality and a future hope. For me, dispensationalism’s interpretation of “age/age to come” and rejection of the present reality of the Kingdom of God is more than enough reason to reject dispensationalism.
5) In hearing this discussion it furthers my conviction that there should not be division between Evangelicals if they hold to one of these three positions: Amillennialism, Premillennialism, and Postmillennialism. As long as you hold to the Second Coming of Jesus, Resurrection of all humanity, Judgement of all humanity, and the ushering in of the New Heavens and the New Earth then you are within orthodoxy and we should be able to enjoy the most intimate of Christian fellowship with those whom we disagree with on the 3 positions. All three positions are within orthodoxy and there should not be division among churches, denominations, etc…
6) Historic Premillennialism does seem to have the most straightforward reading/understanding of the two resurrections, which is very important in understanding how Revelation chronologically plays out after Christ’s return.
7) You cannot base your Eschatological opinion purely off when you think Revelation was written. There is to much debate on when Revelation was written and it would be unwise to write off positions purely based on your thoughts on the date. Example- Do not completely write off Post or Amillennialism purely because you think Revelation was written after AD 70. The dating of Revelation is not what is inerrant, the Bible is, therefore, come to your Eschatological conclusions based off of your exegesis of the text, period. These men did right in debating exegesis and not “external evidence” of when Revelation was written.
Historic Premillennialism seems to best represent the literary structure of Revelation, while Amillennialism seems to best account for the different genres in Revelation. What does this mean? That Revelation is very difficult and we should be humble in our interactions with those who disagree with us. We must be sure and account for the literary structure and the different genres found in Revelation in order to properly interpret it.
9) Dr. Sam Storm’s argument of how “thrones” is used in Revelation was very strong. He noted that the word “thrones”, which is used 47 times in Revelation, was always used in speaking of heavenly thrones and was never used as if the throne was on earth, which hurts the Premillennial argument that Jesus reigns on his throne on the earth with his saints throughout the Millennium.
10) It should be noted that Sam Storms position of Amillennialism is a little different than what I believe to be most Amillennialists. His take is that the Millennium is Jesus reigning in heaven with saints who are in the intermediate state. I believe, most Amillennialists believe the Millennium to be Christ reigning from heaven through his church who are on the earth.
11) I have always seen the fact that the 1,000 year Millennial reign is only mentioned one time in the whole Bible to be a strong weakness for Premillennialists. While I still feel it can be a weakness I think Hamilton did an extraordinary job in showing why he felt it wasn’t. He noted that the New Covenant was only mentioned one time in the entire Old Testament and that only one text in the Old Testament refer to the seed of the woman crushing the head of the seed of the serpent. Clearly, there are instances where we accept major theological principles based off one specific passage.
12) One of the strongest points for Amillennialists reading of Revelation 19-20, as Storms argued, is that after Jesus’ Second Coming it says the nations were judged, destroyed, etc., but yet Premillennialists argue that 1,000 years after that already happened Satan is released to deceive the nations… What nations? The passage already tells us they were judged and destroyed at the Second Coming. Dr. Hamilton, pretty much admitted the weakness of the Premillennial view on this point by replying, “Obviously, it’s not comprehensive…. laughter.”
My conclusions:
I might not be the person you want to ask about Eschatology. I will come right out and say I have flip flopped a lot between Historic Premillennialism and Amillennialism.
If I had to break down the positions in order of which ones I thought had the most biblical evidence my list would go like this:
T-1) Historic Premillennialism
T-1) Amillennialism
3) Partial Preterism
4) Postmillennialism
5) Dispensational Premillennialism (if someone wants me to lay out in the comment thread why I have Historic Premillennialism tied for 1st and yet Dispensational Premillennialism down at the bottom I will be happy to… Or maybe I will write a whole different post for it)
Why the tie? Amillennialism and Historic Premillennialism both have the right New Testament Eschatology before getting to Revelation. What I mean in saying that is both views appropriately understand the New Testament language of “this age and the age to come.” In my humble opinion, if anything is crystal clear when it comes to Eschatology is that the Kingdom of God is a present reality and a future hope. Any view(Dispensationalism), that denies this, in my opinion, cannot even rightly approach the book of Revelation because they aren’t standing on the right basis in which to interpret Revelation. That basis is that the Kingdom of God is a present reality as well as a future hope. “This age and the age to come”/Kingdom theology are inseparable and of absolute necessity in interpreting Revelation. You have to develop a New Testament Eschatology before you even touch Revelation: Meaning- you should have some sense of the End Times because of the whole New Testament before you even get to Revelation 1.
Of that list above I dare say only the first 4 are legitimate options. This might sound arrogant, but I assure you that it isn’t out of an arrogant heart as much as it is out of my humble attempt to try and understand the Bible.
I hope everyone gets to listen to the audio above and I hope my post was somewhat helpful/insightful to the discussion.
If you are wondering why I haven’t stated my position I did this on purpose. I am only going to say that Historic Premillennialism and Amillennialism, in my opinion, tie in regards to which one is the most legitimate based on biblical evidence. As I said before, I have flip flopped a lot between the two and in this post I would prefer to keep the discussion on the 12 points I noted from the panel and my concluding thoughts…
Something which the last editor, Matt Svoboda, started with this blog is a monthly topic. As the new editor, I think it should continue because it provides all the contributors on here a general topic for their blogs.
Topic for the Month for October: Heroes of the Faith
This month’s topic will be “Heroes of the Faith.” I think this topic is important for at least three reasons. The first one can be seen from the writings of Jonathan Edwards. In The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards Edwards set forth resolutions he intended to keep. If you have not read these resolutions by all means do because they are challenging and edifying. Anywho, one in particular that comes to mind is resolution #54: ”Whenever I hear anything spoken in conversation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, Resolved to endeavor to imitate it. July 8, 1723“ (emphasis mine). Here Edwards resolved to imitate the praiseworthy aspects of others about which he heard. This is one reason why I chose this topic. Often when I have heard of others in the past or present spoken of favorably I have admired certain characteristics. It is my hope that everyone who reads the characteristics mentioned in those who will be mentioned in these blogs that they too will see things in believers that they will want to imitate.
Second, this topic is also important for the sake of endurance. The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 11 provides us with the well known “Hall of Faith” of believers who demonstrated true faith and thus endurance throughout their lives. In the beginning of Hebrews 12 the writer of Hebrews provides an exhortation based on Hebrews 11,
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [Hebrews 11] , let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
In these verses the writer of Hebrews exhorts his readers to endure to the end in light of the examples set forth in Hebrews 11. My second reason I picked this topic is so that all of us will have greater impetus for endurance. Endurance is necessary if we are to be saved in the future. I believe firmly in the eternal security of the believer, but, only those who endure to the end are eternally secure.
Third, I picked this topic with the hope that all of us would praise God even more because of the past grace shown in the lives of other believers. When we look to those that will be mentioned in the following month my hope and prayer is that each of us will be lead to further praise of God the Father through Jesus Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit and thus to further holiness.
What to Expect
I have asked each contributor of this blog to present a believer, whether past or present, whether well-known or not, that they consider a “Hero of the Faith.” I look forward to the coming blogs and hope that God is glorified and we are all sanctified further.
A Book Review of a Book on the Atonement: Death by Love by Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears
Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Death by Love: Letters from the Cross (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008). 272 pp.
Upon finishing this book I said to myself, “We need more books like this one.” In this book Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears apply the various themes of the atonement – penal substitution, Christus Victor, etc. – to actual counseling situations. The reason more books like this need to be written is because it serves as an example that systematic theology is indeed applicable to real life. Almost every time the term “systematic theology” is mentioned, either in sermons or other books, it is in a negative light. You know the line, “You are supposed to love Jesus, not doctrine (=systematic theology).” The problem with this kind of statement is that it bifurcates what is inextricably bound together. For example, this kind of reasoning can be exposed faulty by merely asking, “Who is Jesus?” The answer given to this question reveals a person’s Christology, that is, part of their systematic theology. By endorsing this book I am not saying I or any one else on this blog endorses fully Mark Driscoll. Regardless of your opinion about Driscoll, this book is worthy to be read.
