Ehrman Redux

Darrel Bock is weighing in on Bart Ehrman's newest hit piece on Jesus and the Bible, Jesus, Interrupted.

Bart Ehrman's Jesus, Interrupted by his own admission says nothing new. It packages what scholars have been saying for two decades. Since he learned the historical critical method in place of the devotional method, he discovered the Bible was full of contradictions and discrepancies, a completely human book with Christianity being a religion that is completely human in its origin and development. That is the core thesis of Bart Ehrman's new book, who has become a one man marching band to make clear what everyone should know about the origins of the Christian faith. We cannot speak of the divine in any of this, he says, because historians cannot handle that kind of data. This represents a convienient limitation on what he can speak about (even as he makes all kinds of pronouncements about what is taking place and who is responsible).

Read Dr. Bock's entire post HERE.

"Ancient Word, Changing Worlds" (2)

The opening words of the introduction of Ancient Word, Changing Worlds is a quote by Mark Twain that, sadly, would be voiced (perhaps more diplomatically) by many so-called evangelicals in our own day.

"It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upward of a thousand lies."

Twain was of course speaking of the Bible. The debate over the truthfulness and reliability of God's Word is once again heating up in evangelical circles. Nichols' and Brandt's book is therefore timely.

The book is structured around three key words that form a doctrine of Scripture: Inspiration, Inerrancy, and Interpretation. The first two chapters deal with the inspiration of Scripture. In chapter one the authors give what may be the clearest and most concise history of the development of the doctrine of inspiriation that I have ever read.

Appropriately Nichols and Brandt pay careful attention to the role that old Princeton, particularly A.A. Hodge, B.B. Warfield and J. Gresham Machen played in the development of a biblical doctrine of inspiration. In the process they address the importance of two words that help explain the nature of the Bible's inspiration: "verbal" and "plenary."

To say that the Bible's inspiration is verbal and plenary is to say that both the words and the ideas of Scripture are given by God. This is in contrast to the idea that only the ideas of Scripture are inspired while the words are fallable. Of course this makes one wonder how an idea can properly be communicated and then relied upon if the words communicating the idea err. In other words, how can we be sure of God's holiness and love, salvation in Christ, and the efficacy of atonement if the words used to describe those truths may and often times are in error?

Errantists object to verbal plenary inspiration because, they reason, words are human products and as such will necessarily err. Interestingly, one area of agreement between errantists and inerrantists is that the biblical writers were not mindless robots possessed by the Holy Spirit as mere means of dictation. Inerrantists however believe that the Holy Spirit was able to carry along fallable human beings in such a way that they were enabled to record accurately the very words God without supressing their own unique personality, gifts, and perspective. Indeed, those attributes were used by God purposefully to produce the Scriptures He intended.

Nichols and Brandt point to an important article by Hodge and Warfield that calls this guiding and guarding in the process of inspiration "superintendence."

"This superintendence attended the entire process of the genesis of Scripture, and particularly the process of the final composition of the record." This superintendence also includes "historic processes and the concurrence of natural and supernatural forces." They conclude that this superintendence results in "the absolute infallibility of the record...in the original autograph." (p. 31)

Music Break, courtesy The Office

Shall we go the way of Europe?

Charles Murray has written a thougtful essay on America's seeming drift toward a European model of social democracy. Murray's contention is that "the European model...drains too much of the life from life."

The stuff of life — the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one’s personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships — occurs within just four institutions: family, community, vocation and faith. Seen in this light, the goal of social policy is to ensure that those institutions are robust and vital. The European model doesn’t do that. It enfeebles every single one of them.

Drive through rural Sweden, as I did a few years ago. In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticulously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government. And the churches are empty. Including on Sundays. The nations of Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their “child-friendly” policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marriage rates. They are countries where jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And with only a few exceptions, they are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.

Call it the Europe Syndrome.

Read the entire article HERE.

Does Satan Exist?

That was the topic of last night's Nightline Face-off.

The discussion included universalist Carlton Pearson, New Age guru Depak Chopra, Evangelical Mark Driscoll, and, yes, a former stripper.

Check out the video teaser HERE.

"The Essential Craft"

Does the Bible fit together?

Dr. Vern Poythress of Westminster Theological Seminary has written as well as anyone on the unity of the Bible. The following is from a recent article:

How does the Bible as a whole fit together? The events recorded in the Bible took place over a span of thousands of years and in several different cultural settings. What is their unifying thread?

One unifying thread in the Bible is its divine authorship. Every book of the Bible is God’s word. The events recorded in the Bible are there because God wanted them recorded, and he had them recorded with his people and their instruction in mind: "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).

The Bible also makes it clear that God has a unified plan for all of history. His ultimate purpose, "a plan for the fullness of time," is "to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph. 1:10), "to the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:12). God had this plan even from the beginning: "remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’ " (Isa. 46:9–10). "When the fullness of time had come," when the moment was appropriate in God’s plan, "God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law" (Gal. 4:4–5).

The work of Christ on earth, and especially his crucifixion and resurrection, is the climax of history; it is the great turning point at which God actually accomplished the salvation toward which history had been moving throughout the OT. The present era looks back on Christ’s completed work but also looks forward to the consummation of his work when Christ will come again and when there will appear "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Pet. 3:13; see Rev. 21:1–22:5).

Read the entire article HERE.

Modern Reformation Reviews "The Shack"

"The shack is William Paul Young's metaphor for the heart housed by hurts, lies, and secrets. His aim in the story is to offer an approachable God of relationality and love through whom his protagonist can make sense of tragedies, failures, and disappointments. However, there is another task threaded throughout the book. Young means to dismantle preconceived notions about God and all religious conditioning (93, 119, 179, 205). In so doing, however, he creates false antitheses between faith and life, belief and practice, doctrine or religiosity and the experience of God, all of which in his view are mutually exclusive.

"The book is useful in that Young makes a number of assertions and arguments that serious Christians should consider. He is an engaging storyteller-even if the plotline is prosaic at times-and the themes tackled (namely, how we think about God) matter a great deal. However, Young has little regard for the way in which God has revealed himself in Scripture, as when Papa tells Mack, "If I choose to appear to you as a man or woman, it's because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning" (93).

"This misses an important point, namely that God reveals himself to us by accommodating our creatureliness. God names himself and describes himself in ways that are graspable to humans; he gives us metaphors and analogies that are readily understandable. Although God is spirit, and thus neither anatomically male nor female, he identifies certain pronouns that conform to the way of redemption itself (God sends his Son, who becomes man in order to make satisfaction for sin, so that we might become children of God, Abba, our Father). It is no small thing to challenge God's self-revelation the way Young frequently does and play fast and loose with the names, titles, and designations we find in Scripture. There is, therefore, a more fundamental issue at stake in The Shack: the act of naming and the authority that goes with it. By renaming God, Young subverts the authority of the One to whom the act of naming belongs in the first place."

Read the entire review HERE.

Read Tim Challies excellent review HERE.

Worship as it should be

Check out this great message by Dr. Art Azurdia.

Calvinist Couture

If you are a fashion minded Calvinist who would like to display your doctrinal distinctives in a way that will make you the envy of all your friends and neighbors then check out THIS SITE.

Collision

Christian philosopher Doug Wilson and atheist Christopher Hitchens have had a lively debate concerning the existence of God. It has been made into a movie called Collision. Check out the website HERE.

Wilson is one of the most helpful apoligists that I have read. Here are two of his titles:
God Is
The Deluded Atheist

"Ancient Word, Changing Worlds" (1)

I have begun reading Stephen Nichols' latest offering: Ancient Word, Changing Worlds. So far it is outstanding. I have a deep appreciation for Dr. Nichols. He is perhaps the most readable church historian I have ever read. In the days ahead I am planning to blog my way through his newest book which is an examination of the doctrine of Scripture and its historical development. I would encourage you to pick up a copy and read along with me.

Phil Ryken offers this impressive endorsement:

The best, clearest, and most reliable historical overview of the doctrine of Scripture for a contemporary audience. As careful historians, Nichols and Brandt show what the church has always believed about the Bible as the Word of God, and also how our understanding of the inspiration, inerrancy, and interpretation of Scripture has grown through the centuries. The authors let scholars and theologians on all sides of the age-old battle for the Bible speak in their own words, giving us the historical context and theological framework we need to accept the Bible's own witness to its beauty, perfection, and divine authority.

Attacks against the reliability of Scripture are heating up again within the ever loosening boundaries of evangelicalism. It is important therefore for God's people to once again assert their confidence is the Bible as God's Word.

The perennially declining denominations (PCUSA, Disciples of Christ, UMC, etc) all have in common a weak doctrine of Scripture. It seems to be inevitable that as your doctrine of Scripture goes so goes your doctrine of God, of Christ, of the atonement, of divine judgment, and the gospel itself.

The Reformation's recovery of both Scripture and the apostolic teaching produced the Reformation solas of sola scriptura (Scripture alone), sola fide and sola gratia (salvation and justification by faith alone and by grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), and soli Deo gloria (for the glory of God alone). And so it is in the modern age. The challenge to supernatural revelation, the challenge to the Bible, has been met with deeper reflection on and clearer expression of the doctrines of Scripture. The doctrines orbit around three words, words that have received a great deal of attention in the nineteenth, twentieth, and now into the twenty-first century. These three words are inspiration, inerrancy, and interpretation. This book tells the story of how these words were developed in these last few centuries. It is the story of how the ancient word of God speaks to and in our changing world.

- From the Introduction

Christ Our Only Righteousness

Challenging the Campus Hook Up Culture

Robert George of Princeton University has written a fine article addressing the troubling "hook up" culture on many university campuses.

Whether it is a private institution such as Yale or a public one such as the University of Delaware, the truth is that things begin going badly for them right off the bat. Princeton is all-too-typical. As part of the freshman orientation program, students are required to attend an event entitled “Sex on a Saturday Night.” It consists of a series of skits ostensibly designed to discourage “date rape.” For years, critics have contended that the play, which features vulgarity and suggestive conduct, does nothing to serve this laudable goal; rather, it reinforces the campus culture of sexual permissiveness, primarily by shaping students’ expectations to include sexual license as normal.

And then there is “Sex Jeopardy” (officially “Safer Sex Jeopardy”), an event that Princeton freshmen are “strongly encouraged” by the University to attend. Modeled on the long running television game show, this activity invites students to show off their knowledge of such topics as anal intercourse, flavored condoms, dental dams, sex toys, and sado-masochism. As described by one female student, Sex Jeopardy is “suffused with sexual bravado and conveys the strong impression that only someone with hang ups would have a moral problem with hook ups.”...

Conspicuously absent, however, are centers or programs offering meaningful support for students who desire to live chastely. “Sexual health” offices do not supply the need because staff members see their roles, not as promoting self-discipline and high moral standards, but as providing “non-judgmental” advice about how to have sex while avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and infections.

So while universities are willing to speak out on the dangers of alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and date-rape, they sometimes treat as privileged—in practice, if not in theory—the moral view that any sexual conduct someone happens to desire is good, healthy, and acceptable, so long as it is consensual and “safe” from the risks of pregnancy and disease.

Read the entire article HERE.

Sunday's Sermon

I finished "The Gospel-Driven Church" series this morning. The seventh message is titled "Mission: Getting the Gospel Out." You can listen to or download it HERE.

The Gospel and the Bible's Grand Story

Thus the gospel is integrally tied to the Bible’s story-line. Indeed, it is incomprehensible without understanding that story-line. God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who has made the universe, including us, his image-bearers. Our misery lies in our rebellion, our alienation from God, which, despite his forbearance, attracts his implacable wrath. But God, precisely because love is of the very essence of his character, takes the initiative and prepared for the coming of his own Son by raising up a people who, by covenantal stipulations, temple worship, systems of sacrifice and of priesthood, by kings and by prophets, are taught something of what God is planning and what he expects. In the fullness of time his Son comes and takes on human nature. He comes not, in the first instance, to judge but to save: he dies the death of his people, rises from the grave and, in returning to his heavenly Father, bequeaths the Holy Spirit as the down payment and guarantee of the ultimate gift he has secured for them—an eternity of bliss in the presence of God himself, in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. The only alternative is to be shut out from the presence of this God forever, in the torments of hell. What men and women must do, before it is too late, is repent and trust Christ; the alternative is to disobey the gospel (Romans 10:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).

D.A. Carson

Mission: Getting the Gospel Out

I am preaching the final message in "The Gospel-Driven Church" series. The title is "Mission: Getting the Gospel Out."

Here is something I found in Chris Wright's book The Mission of God:

· We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?,” when the real question is, “Where does my life fit into this great story of God’s mission?”

· We want to be driven by a purpose that has been tailored just right for our own individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.

· We talk about “applying the Bible to our lives.” What would it mean to apply our lives to the Bible instead, assuming the Bible to be the reality – the real story – to which we are called to conform ourselves?

· We wrestle with “making the gospel relevant to the world.” But in this story, God is about the business of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.

· We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission that God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of church God wants for the whole range of his mission.

· I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should be asking what kind of me God wants for his mission.

Who Will Stand for the Gospel?

This is a portion of a message by Steve Lawson at this year's Shepherd's Conference at Grace Community Church.

How to Criticize

Justin Taylor has posted a link to a very helpful article by Alfred Poirier a PCA pastor and Board Chairman for Peacemakers.

The title of the article is "The Cross and Criticism." It originally appeared ten years ago in the Journal of Biblical Counseling.

I live and pastor in a culture of confident, well-educated high achievers. That is not a bad thing. In fact there are many positive goods to be derived in such a milieu. However, because we are fallen creatures even the good things with which God has blessed us can become occassions for sin.

One example I have noticed is a tendency toward a critical spirit. Certainly this can be said about most people in most places. Nevertheless, in my first visits to the mainline last summer I was prepared (or warned) by some thougtful folks about the active willingness among many to offer direct and frequent criticisms.

While I have been blessed with a wonderful "honeymoon" as pastor in this particular field of ministry I have nevertheless seen glimers of this tendency toward criticism. To be fair, however, I must add that I have not experienced it to be worse than any other place I have been blessed to serve. Also, in the interest of fairness, I am as likely as anyone to grumble and criticize.

We know from God's Word that we have a responsibility to correct and even rebuke our brothers and sisters when they are in error or pursuing a sinful path. The key is to correct or rebuke in a way that is truly redemptive and not merely an excuse to "vent."

The article mentioned above has some wonderful insights on how to offer criticism in a godly way. They are:

• I see my brother/sister as one for whom Christ died (1 Cor. 8:11; Heb. 13:1)
• I come as an equal, who also is a sinner (Rom. 3:9, 23).
• I prepare my heart lest I speak out of wrong motives (Prov. 16:2; 15:28; 16:23).
• I examine my own life and confess my sin first (Matt. 7:3-5).
• I am always patient, in it for the long haul (Eph. 4:2; 1 Cor. 13:4).
• My goal is not to condemn by debating points, but to build up through constructive criticism (Eph. 4:29).
• I correct and rebuke my brother gently, in the hope that God will grant him the grace of repentance even as I myself repent only through His grace (2 Tim. 2:24-25).

"Three Strands to Mission"

The illustration above can be found in the excellent book Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.

Tim has posted three very helpful articles on mission strategy. His thesis is that God, not us, is the ultimate mission strategist. In his third post he reasons that mission is not simply an activity of the church but ought to be the culture of the church.

Read the posts HERE.