Church History

 

I had the pleasure of teaching a church history course for our adult Sunday school last fall. It was a fun time highlighting bite size bits of events in church history.

Devo

While exercising the devotional approach to scripture, it is important to maintain healthy exegesis. Often the devotional method will parcel up scripture into small portions and the interpreter will plunge ahead looking for application without appreciation of the context or authorial intent. Remember the first rule of interpretation is context, context, context!

Bernard Ramm rightly points that we should approach the scriptures devotionally, but there are some dangers:

The devotional and practical emphasis in Bible teaching is absolutely necessary. The purpose of preaching is more than doctrinal communication or exposition of the meaning of Scripture. It must reach over into life and experience, and this is the function of the devotional teaching of Scripture. The vital, personal, and spiritual must be present in all the ministries of the Word.

There are two weaknesses of devotional interpretation:

(i). It/falls prey to allegorization especially in the use of the Old Testament. In the effort to find a spiritual truth or application of a passage of Scripture the literal and therefore primary meaning of the passage is obscured. If it is not a case of bald allegorizing it may be excessive typology. Given enough allegorical and typological rope one may prove a variety of contradictory propositions from the Old Testament. One may prove Calvinistic security (the central board in the wall of the Tabernacle) or Arminian probationalism (the failure of faith at Kadesh-Barnea). A Reformed expositor may prove that the soul feeds on Christ while discussing the sacrificial system, and a Catholic prove his doctrine of the mass. 

All sorts of distortions have been made of the historical records of the Old Testament (and occasionally the New) in order to derive a spiritual blessing or to make a devotional point.

(ii). Devotional interpretation may be a substitute for the requisite exegetical and doctrinal studies of the Bible. Strong doctrinal sinews and solid exegetical bones are necessary for spiritual health. If the emphasis is completely devotional the requisite doctrinal and expository truth of Scripture are denied God’s people.

Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, Mich. Bake Book House, 1970), 62-63.

Lauren Baptism

Biblical Theology of Resurrection

 

Today I preached on the 'Light of life: A biblical theology of resurrection.' It was an opportunity to share some of the learning and research I've done on Biblical resurrection when doing my ThM thesis.

Biblical Theology of Shepherd

 

Had the opportunity to preach on short notice, and I got to deliver a sermon I've been working on for a while. A biblical theology of Shepherd. Was nice to present this.

Biblical Theology of Temple

Recently preached on a Biblical Theology of Temple. You can watch the video here. I was more concerned about accurately presenting Biblical Theology than extemporaneous presentation, so there was much reading. Next time should be on a Biblical Theology of Shepherd.

Sermon starts at 46:00

It is also available for download here.

Nahum Study

Recently completed a study of the book of Nahum:

https://sites.google.com/view/gbc-2022-nahum/

Obadiah Study

 Recently did a Bible Study on Obadiah:

https://sites.google.com/view/gbc-2022-obadiah

Introduction to Bible Study Methods

 Interested in the process of studying the Bible? Want to learn the in's and outs in bible study methods? Check out this site I setup that was from a course I taught several years back:

• https://sites.google.com/view/biblestudymethods/

Acts of the Apostles - Bible Study

This year our small group from church has been working through Acts of the Apostles. We just finished last week. Some of our meetings were virtual through video teleconferencing software so that we could meet during the COVID-19 lock down.

FCBC Life Group Acts 2019-2020

The Scroll of Isaiah - Bible Study

Last year, our church small group studied the Scroll of Isaiah. We worked through the scroll, taking bits at a time every two weeks. Here is a link to the content we went through in our small group:

Small-group-2018/2019-Isaiah

COVID-19 and Stay Home

The world has caught the Corona Virus. The governor of Idaho has issued a state-wide 'Stay at Home' order. So here we are, staying at home. It was nice we hit Disneyland a month ago, as it looks like we are not going to be out much for the next month, or three.

Americans seem to be adverse to wearing breathing masks. Other cultures, such as Korea and Japan are much more culture friendly to wearing masks. From photos of the great pandemic of 1918, it looks like people were more apt to wear masks in the USA a hundred years ago. The CDC reports that wearing masks is more helpful if you are sick, but it seems like there is push back from various physicians about that information.

Information, in the information age, is a precious, but yet also an abundant commodity. Good information is precious, but that it rests in a sea of information that is opinion, misinformation, and ignorance.

On the social media platform Facebook, I saw an article re-posted by the Rockbridge Virginia Historical Society about the 1918 influenza pandemic:

This was encouragement from another time from another pandemic, and I think it is good medicine for the heart. The verses were apt:

• 2 Chronicles 7:13-16 NIV
• 13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

• Joel 2:12-18 NIV
• 12 “Even now,” declares the Lord,
  “return to me with all your heart,
     with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
  13 Rend your heart
     and not your garments.
  Return to the Lord your God,
      for he is gracious and compassionate,
  slow to anger and abounding in love,
      and he relents from sending calamity.
  14 Who knows? He may turn and relent
      and leave behind a blessing—
  grain offerings and drink offerings
      for the Lord your God.
  15 Blow the trumpet in Zion,
      declare a holy fast,
      call a sacred assembly.
  16 Gather the people,
      consecrate the assembly;
  bring together the elders,
      gather the children,
      those nursing at the breast.
  Let the bridegroom leave his room
      and the bride her chamber.
  17 Let the priests, who minister before the Lord,
      weep between the portico and the altar.
  Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord.
      Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
      a byword among the nations.
  Why should they say among the peoples,
     ‘Where is their God?’”
  18 Then the Lord was jealous for his land
      and took pity on his people.

• Psalm 3:5-8 NIV
• 5 I lie down and sleep;
      I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
  6 I will not fear though tens of thousands
      assail me on every side.
  7 Arise, Lord!   
  Deliver me, my God!
  Strike all my enemies on the jaw;   
  break the teeth of the wicked.
  8 From the Lord comes deliverance.   
  May your blessing be on your people.

• Matthew 11:28 NIV
• Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

• 1 John 2:1 NIV
• My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

Addendum (6/17/2020): 

Apparently the government was 'down-playing' mask efficacy to ensure health care workers got the n95 masks first. We've reached stage 4 of the recovery in Idaho, and most people (outside healthcare and job-requirements) are not wearing masks at all.

• "Fauci Confirms Public-Health Experts Downplayed Efficacy of Masks to Ensure They Would Be Available to Health-care Workers"

Rabbinical Influence on New Testament interpretation

I recently was reminded of the immense influence that Jewish culture, thought, and literature has on interpretation of the New Testament. That reminded me of a table I created for a book review on Jesus the Jewish Theologian (4th printing Edition), by Brad H. Young (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishing Paperback, 1995) 308 Pages: ISBN 1-56563-060-2.  The book review looked at some of the strengths and weaknesses of the book, and one weakness that was apparent in the version I had was that there was no a chronological index of Rabbinical influences, which could be helpful in distinguishing anachronistic applications/interpretations.

Anyway, if you have the book, here is the table I created indexing the Rabbinical resources mentioned in the book. The list of Rabbis and associated interpretations/methodologies cut a wide chronological swath, from 400 B.C. to A.D. 1950.

Biblical Theology of Resurrection

In approaching what the Bible says about the resurrection of believers, there are many passages that help build a biblical theology of 'believer' resurrection. In the writing my master of theology thesis, I scoured much academic literature to help build out such a biblical theology...

Good News

📜 Some mostly developed theological thoughts on the good news and associated terms 📜

In the New Testament, there is a wordgroup εὐαγγέλιον, that corresponds to the noun 'good news.'  There is also a verbal form, εὐαγγελίζω, that presents the verbal idea of 'sharing/delivering good news.'  It can take different tenses and voices.

New Dictionary of Biblical Theology

One of the highlights of my studies at Western Seminary has been the course on Biblical Theology. One of the best resources from that course was the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology.

Such a great work! This dictionary has three main sections. The first is composed of several articles and essays on the understanding, use, and place of biblical theology. The second section walks through the various parts/books of the bible, and the content found therein. The third section develops biblical themes.

The themes section is especially helpful in getting some wide angle views on themes presented in scripture. This book is really helpful if you are interested in getting to know the material of the Christian scriptures better. Specifically how the different books relate to each other.

Reformation - Luther 1517-2017 - 500 years

Over a decade ago, I picked up a DVD of docu-drama Luther (2003). I took it to Nigeria with me, and left it with some friends to enjoy there. In celebration of the 500th anniversary of the posting of Luther's 95 theses and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, I picked up another copy. The movie is a decent rendition of a compelling story.

Here I stand, I can do no other.

The Quotable Augustine, Vol. 4: Augustine's The Trinity

Here is an excerpt from Augustine's treatise the Trinity that I profoundly enjoyed.  It was made much more enjoyable after working through several books of analogies, which Augustine fire-hoses in the following excerpt:

But it must needs be, that, when by reading or hearing of them we believe in any corporeal things which we have not seen, the mind frames for itself something under bodily features and forms, just as it may occur to our thoughts; which either is not true, or even if it be true, which can most rarely happen, yet this is of no benefit to us to believe in by faith, but it is useful for some other purpose, which is intimated by means of it. For who is there that reads or hears what the Apostle Paul has written, or what has been written of him, that does not imagine to himself the countenance both of the apostle himself, and of all those whose names are there mentioned? And whereas, among such a multitude of men to whom these books are known, each imagines in a different way those bodily features and forms, it is assuredly uncertain which it is that imagines them more nearly and more like the reality. Nor, indeed, is our faith busied therein with the bodily countenance of those men; but only that by the grace of God they so lived and so acted as that Scripture witnesses: this it is which it is both useful to believe, and which must not be despaired of, and must be sought. For even the countenance of our Lord Himself in the flesh is variously fancied by the diversity of countless imaginations, which yet was one, whatever it was. Nor in our faith which we have of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that wholesome which the mind imagines for itself, perhaps far other than the reality, but that which we think of man according to his kind: for we have a notion of human nature implanted in us, as it were by rule, according to which we know forthwith, that whatever such thing we see is a man or the form of a man. 

Our conception is framed according to this notion, when we believe that God was made man for us, as an example of humility, and to show the love of God towards us. For this it is which it is good for us to believe, and to retain firmly and unshakenly in our heart, that the humility by which God was born of a woman, and was led to death through contumelies so great by mortal men, is the chiefest remedy by which the swelling of our pride may be cured, and the profound mystery by which the bond of sin may be loosed. So also, because we know what omnipotence is, we believe concerning the omnipotent God in the power of His miracles and of His resurrection, and we frame conceptions respecting actions of this kind, according to the species and genera of things that are either ingrafted in us by nature, or gathered by experience, that our faith may not be feigned. For neither do we know the countenance of the Virgin Mary; from whom, untouched by a husband, nor tainted in the birth itself, He was wonderfully born. Neither have we seen what were the lineaments of the body of Lazarus; nor yet Bethany; nor the sepulchre, and that stone which He commanded to be removed when He raised Him from the dead; nor the new tomb cut out in the rock, whence He Himself arose; nor the Mount of Olives, from whence He ascended into heaven. And, in short, whoever of us have not seen these things, know not whether they are as we conceive them to be, nay judge them more probably not to be so. For when the aspect either of a place, or a man, or of any other body, which we happened to imagine before we saw it, turns out to be the same when it occurs to our sight as it was when it occurred to our mind, we are moved with no little wonder. So scarcely and hardly ever does it happen.  

 And yet we believe those things most steadfastly, because we imagine them according to a special and general notion, of which we are certain. For we believe our Lord Jesus Christ to be born of a virgin who was called Mary. But what a virgin is, or what it is to be born, and what is a proper name, we do not believe, but certainly know. And whether that was the countenance of Mary which occurred to the mind in speaking of those things or recollecting them, we neither know at all, nor believe. It is allowable, then, in this case to say without violation of the faith, perhaps she had such or such a countenance, perhaps she had not: but no one could say without violation of the Christian faith, that perhaps Christ was born of a virgin. 

Wherefore, since we desire to understand the eternity, and equality, and unity of the Trinity, as much as is permitted us, but ought to believe before we understand; and since we must watch carefully, that our faith be not feigned; since we must have the fruition of the same Trinity, that we may live blessedly; but if we have believed anything false of it, our hope would be worthless, and our charity not pure: how then can we love, by believing, that Trinity which we do not know? Is it according to the special or general notion, according to which we love the Apostle Paul? In whose case, even if he was not of that countenance which occurs to us when we think of him (and this we do not know at all), yet we know what a man is. For not to go far away, this we are; and it is manifest he, too, was this, and that his soul joined to his body lived after the manner of mortals. Therefore we believe this of him, which we find in ourselves, according to the species or genus under which all human nature alike is comprised.  

What then do we know, whether specially or generally, of that most excellent Trinity, as if there were many such trinities, some of which we had learned by experience, so that we may believe that Trinity, too, to have been such as they, through the rule of similitude, impressed upon us, whether a special or a general notion; and thus love also that thing which we believe and do not yet know, from the parity of the thing which we do know? But this certainly is not so. 

Augustine's The Trinity, Book XIII 4.7-5.8.

The Quotable Augustine, Vol. 3: Augustine and Reason

Been reading a fair bit of philosophical theology of late, and one of the more interesting figures in the historical arena of that area is St. Augustine.  Augustine differentiates strongly between the material and immaterial.  And here is a snippet of Augustine's approach to how God interacts with our reason:

Reason: Thou art moved to good effect. For the Reason which is talking with thee promises so to demonstrate God to thy mind, as the sun demonstrates himself to the eyes. For the senses of the soul are as it were the eyes of the mind; but all the certainties of the sciences are like those things which are brought to light by the sun, that they may be seen, the earth, for instance, and the things upon it: while God is Himself the Illuminator. Now I, Reason, am that in the mind, which the act of looking is in the eyes. For to have eyes is not the same as to look; nor again to look the same as to see. Therefore the soul has need of three distinct things: to have eyes, such as it can use to good advantage, to look, and to see. 

Augustine's Soliloquies Book I.12

Trinitarian Doctrine of Illumination

Recently, I was looking to formulate a doctrine of Trinitarian illumination, and did not run into a plethora of contemporary resources.  I thought I would share an excerpt of what I formulated, and the references.  Though the formulation can still use further definition, and a hefty amount of polish.

     Illumination is the act where God allows for the comprehension/understanding of God, God's will, or God's works.  M.X. Seaman helpfully bifurcates the doctrine of illumination into two sub categories: Initial and Progressive.[1]  He terms the fusion of the two as transformative illumination.  He defines it as such, “transformative illumination is that process whereby the Holy Spirit’s initial illumination enables his ministry of progressive illumination such that his work of transformation results in the life of the believer.”[2]  

      In establishing a Trinitarian doctrine of illumination, it is necessary to appreciate the distinctions in the involvement of the different persons in the work of illuminating.  The Father’s role in illumination is as the One who gives, drawing people to His Son. [3]  The Father also allows for the blinding of mind.[4]  The Son’s role in illumination is as the instrument to creation; the light. [5]  The Son also is the nexus between the Father and the Spirit’s illuminating work.[6]  The role of the Holy Spirit in illumination is of the agent that grants the understanding.[7]  Similar to the previously noted Trinitarian doctrine of inspiration, [8] the involvement of Trinitarian members in illumination may overlap and simultaneously feature distinctions.[9]