The Bible: Literature’s Gold Standard

/ davidsschrock

The Bible is inspired, inerrant, sufficient, necessary, and authoritative, just to name a few of its divine qualities. It is also different than every other book ever written. Not just by degrees, either. It is categorically different.

In his insightful book about reading, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books, Tony Reinke makes that case. In one category are the myriads of books written by human authors, and in the other category—with only one book checking in—is the Bible.

Concluding his chapter on the Bible’s uniqueness, he cites the ‘Prince of Preachers,’ Charles H. Spurgeon, who said of the Bible,

All other books might be heaped together in one pile and burned with less loss to the world than would be occasioned by the obliteration of a single page of the sacred volume [Scripture]. At their best, all other books are but as gold leaf, requiring acres to find one ounce of the precious metal. But the Bible is solid gold. It contains blocks of gold, mines, and whole caverns of priceless treasure. In the mental wealth of the wisest men there are no jewels like the truths of revelation. The thoughts of men are vanity, low, and groveling at their best. But he who has given us this book has said, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9). Let it be to you and to me a settled matter that the word of the Lord shall be honored in our minds and enshrined in our hearts. Let others speak as they may. We could sooner part with all that is sublime and beautiful, or cheering and profitable, in human literature than lose a single syllable from the mouth of God (1881; repr., Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 27 [Pasadena, TX: Pilgrims, 1984], 124; citation from Reinke, Lit!, 27-28).

Amen!

As we read, may we remember that Scripture is in a class by itself. May that reality press us to put it at the top of our reading list, and to judge all other books by the gold standard of God’s Word.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Gospel Perfectly and Proportionately Humbles and Exalts

/ davidsschrock / 2 Comments

Why is the Gospel of Jesus Christ so vital to the restoration of mankind?

Simply put, there is no other message or medium, person or power that is able to elevate a man without making him an arrogant ogre. The gospel humbles a man to dust, and raises him to glory. Through its life-giving message of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, sinners are forgiven and given the very life of God.

This balanced work of the gospel was observed centuries ago by Blaise Pascal (1623-62).  In his Pensées (208), he observes.

Without this divine knowledge, how could we help feeling either exalted or dejected? The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these twin vices, not by using the one to expel the other according to worldly wisdom, but by expelling both through the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the righteous that they still bear the source of all corruption which exposes them throughout their lives to error, misery, death, and sin; and [yet] it cries out to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of the Redeemer. Thus, making those whom it justifies to tremble, yet consoling those whom it condemns, it so nicely tempers fear with hope through this dual capacity…. Grace and sin! It causes infinitely more dejection than mere reason—but without despair, and infinitely more exaltation than natural pride—but without puffing us up! (cited by Tim Keller in his foreword to J. D. Greear’s book Gospel).

Pascal was followed by Charles Hodge (1797-1878), who said of the finer points of the gospel, “the doctrines of grace humble man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him.” Indeed, this is the reason why Christians must never leave the gospel behind; it simultaneously humbles and exalts.

The gospel restores men wrecked by the Fall to reflect the glorious image of God, but it also forces them to confront the ugliness of their sin and the immensity of God’s holiness. The result? Men are most glorious when they fall face down before the King of Glory. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can effect that.

May we endlessly delight ourselves in the perfect, proportionate gospel of Jesus Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Beholding the Christ of Creation (Genesis 1:1)

/ davidsschrock

Genesis 1:1

“God’s act of creation is the foundation for the entire biblical history. A considerable number of passages refer back to creation (e.g., Pss 8; 104; 148; John 1:1–3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:15–17; Heb. 1:2; 11:3; 1 John 1:5–7). All the rest of the Bible depends indirectly on it” (“History of Salvation in the Old Testament: Preparing the Way for Christ,” in the ESV Study Bible, p. 2635).

In his illuminating book, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutic Method, Sidney Greidanus suggests seven ways of ‘finding’ Christ in the Old Testament.  These include (1) progress of redemption, (2) promise-fulfillment, (3) typology, (4) analogy, (5) longitudinal themes, (6) direct quotation, and (7) way of contrast.  Throughout our reading of the OT, we  see all of these at work.  Strikingly, in the opening verse of the Bible–“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” we see all of them at work. Let’s consider these in turn.

First, without creation, there would be no new creation.  There would be nothing–but God.  Everything in the Bible presupposes a creation, and even though the Bible speaks about a time before creation, it begins with the beginning.  The Fall, the history of redemption, and the hope of new creation are all predicated on the reality of creation. Therefore, progress of redemption begins with this grand fact—God created the world with his all-powerful Word (Ps 33:6; John 1:1-3).

Second, with creation comes the promise of God working in the world.  All the world is his, and from the (unfinished) beginning, there is the promise and the need for fulfillment.  In other words, there is as much eschatology in Genesis 1 as there is Revelation 21-22, only eschatology in Genesis 1 is all promise, whereas Revelation 21-22 is all fulfillment.

Third, in creation there is a wealth of typology.  God speaking the world into existence typifies the way in which God is going to speak light into the darkness of dead sinners (2 Cor 4:4). Most significantly, the creation of the imago dei is the preeminent type.  All other types (people, events, insitutions) depend on this original man—a man who is himself made in the image of God. This man serves as the father of humanity, but he also functions as a type of the last Adam, Jesus Christ (Rom 5:12-210. Therefore, the rest of human history and the salvation of mankind is patterned after the original man.

Fourth, the history of redemption hangs on an analogy between creation and new creation. Just as God made the world, he will recreate the heavens and the earth.  Matthew 19:28 reads in red letters, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world (lit., ‘in the regeneration,’ palingenesis), when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”  Truly, the hope of heaven and earth is the new creation of the heavens and the earth (Isa 65:17-25; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21-22).

Fifth, creation and its renewal (i.e., new creation) run as a theme throughout the Bible. When God delivers Israel from Egypt, the Bible uses creation language to speak of Israel’s exodus (Isa 43:1-7).  In the Psalms, exodus imagery is often conflated with creation imagery (Ps 74:12-17; 89:5-13).  In the Prophets, the judgment of God results in the degeneration of the created world (Jer 4:23-28; Hos 4:3; cf. Isa 24:1-23; Joel 1:10).  This is true in the New Testament as well (see Rom 8:18-22).  Moreover, in the New Testament, personal salvation is described as a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), as is the cosmic regeneration of all created things (Matt 19:28; Rev 21-22).  Therefore, creation, de-creation, and new creation run as themes throughout the Bible.

Sixth, the NT often quotes and/or alludes to Genesis 1:1.  John begins his gospel using similar words, “In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”  In three verses, John repeats and expands the first verse in the Bible.  He is not alone, the whole Bible stands on the fact that God created the world and everything in it (cf. Pss 8, 104, 148; 1 Cor 8:6; Col 1:15-17; Heb 1:2; 11:3; 1 John 1:5-7; etc.).

Seventh, Scripture frequently uses death, darkness, and the degeneration of creation as visible expressions of God’s judgment.  It was God’s goodness and love that prompted creation; in creation his glory is revealed (Ps 19:1; cf. Rom 1:18-20).  Therefore, when Scripture speaks of God’s curse upon sin, it frequently comes with effects that stand against creation–death is the cessation of life which God created; darkness is the effect of sin upon a persons mind (Eph 4:18) and the destiny of all those who reject God (2 Pet 2:12); and the destruction of heaven and earth is the necessary consequence of those who spurn the Creator and worship created things (Rom 1:21-32).

To deny the fact of creation in Genesis 1:1 as some Christians are doing today (and have done for years)—or to extract from it the existential reality of a creation from nothing—is to present to the world a different God and a different gospel.  History, Scripture, and salvation hang on the reality of God’s creation. Thus it is not surprising that we find in Genesis 1:1 all seven ways of uniting creation (in the OT) to the new creation (expressed most clearly in the NT). Indeed, since the universe came into existence through the Son and for the Son (Col 1:15-16), it is clear that all of creation depends on him (Col 1:17) and declares that something about him (cf. Ps. 19:1). With eyes trained by the Word, we can see Christ in history and creation, and thus we should (labor to) see how all things hold together in him (Eph 1:10).

May God give us such Christ-besotted vision.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Gospel is God’s Power to Save (Romans 1:16-17)

/ davidsschrock

Last Sunday, I began a series on the gospel—what it is, what it isn’t. Much has been written about ‘the gospel’ in the last few years. This sermon series is my attempt to help our church fall in love with the gospel all over again.

Over the course of the next two months, I hope to tackle a number facets about the gospel and to help our church to stand firm in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If the subject of the gospel interests you—as it does the angels in heaven (1 Pet 1:12)—please check back to hear the audio and/or leave a note. I’d love to keep up the conversation with you.

Here is a rough outline of what we will cover in the days ahead.

1. The Power of the Gospel (Romans 1:16-17)

The Good News in Time and Eternity

2. The Eternal Gospel (Revelation 14:6; cf. Genesis 3:15; Revelation 21-22)

3. The Gospel Beforehand (Galatians 3:8; Genesis 22)

4. The Gospel Fulfilled (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)

The Good News of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

5. The Triune Gospel of the Kingdom (Mark 1:1-15)

6. The Gospel of God (Romans 1:7; cf. 2:16; 10:16; 11:28; 1 Corinthians 4:15)

7.The Gospel of God’s Glory (1 Timothy 1:8-11; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4)

8. The Gospel of Christ’s Cross (2 Thessalonians 1:8; cf. Romans 1:9; 15:19; 1 Corinthians 9:12; 2 Corinthians 2:12; 9:13; 10:14; Galatians 1:7; Philippians 1:27; 1 Thessalonians 3:2)

9. The Gospel of Christ’s Resurrection (Preaching in Acts)

10. The Gospel of the Spirit’s Grace (Acts 20:24)

11. The Gospel of the Spirit’s Gospel of Truth (Colossians 1:5; Ephesians 1:13; cf. Galatians 2:14)

The Good News in the Church

12. The Preached Gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:1-20)

13. The Church’s Gospel (Ephesians 3:6-7; 1 Timothy 3:15)

14. The Fruit of the Gospel (Philippians 1:27)

15. The Passion of the Gospel (Colossians 1:24ff.; cf. Philippians 1:12; Philemon 13; Ephesians 3:1; cf. 1 Corinthians 9:12; 23)

16. ‘My’ gospel (Romans 2:16; 16:25; Galatians 1:8, 9; 2 Timothy 2:8; cf. Galatians 1:6; 2 Corinthians 11:4)

If you are interested in keeping up, here is the first message: “The Gospel: God’s Power to Save.”

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Encouraged by the Convention’s Consensus: Highlights from the SBC

/ davidsschrock

For two days earlier this week (June 11-12), 5,100 Southern Baptist messengers filled the halls of the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.  For those two days, plus the preceding days of the Pastor’s Conference, pastors, convention leaders, and other missions-minded Baptists heard reports and discussed numerous issues ranging from the Boy Scouts, to church planting, to finding ways to work together to reach the lost with the message of the gospel.

As Dave Miller, Second Vice President of this year’s SBC, has observed there was a sweet, unified Spirit.  Few were the public disagreements; plenty were the calls for prayer, Great Commission advancement, strategic use of finances, and the willingness to work together for the sake of the lost.

As always, it was a joy to visit with old friends and to meet new ones.  Still the thing that was most outstanding during these days was the unified spirit expressed by Calvinism Advisory Committee. Leading up to the convention much speculation was offered concerning what this nineteen-person committee  would report to the SBC. It is with great joy to see the consensus statement,  Truth, Trust, Testimony in a Time of Tension, issued a few weeks ago. At the convention, this optimism was furthered by watching the way that these “alpha males” (Frank Page’s words, not mine) and one lady worked together with charity and passion for the gospel.

Therefore, as I lay out some of the highlights from the convention, please excuse the focus on this report and its effects. It was to me, and others I spoke with, a great source of encouragement. To see Eric Hankins and Paige Patterson working with Mark Dever and Albert Mohler is a model for the rest of us. I pray that the effect of their statement and Houston’s convention may bear lasting fruit for the sake of the gospel.  Accordingly, we list their Q & A first and follow with the other highlights.

  • Just before lunch on Monday, twelve of the nineteen members of the Calvinism Advisory Team met for a Q & A. During this time, the audience was invited to ask questions, and over the course of an hour, it was evident that the very diverse group had a genuine care for each other and desire to see soteriological Calvinists and Traditionalists (non-Calvinists) work together for the advancement of the gospel. To date there is not an audio of that event, but there is a Baptist Press article that nicely summarizes a number of the key responses.
  • Contrast this diversified but unified group with the Baptist Twenty-One interview conducted with President of Louisana College (LC), Joe Aguillard. At the request of this embroiled President, John Akin spent close to an hour asking some hard-hitting questions about the hiring practices and firing decisions at LC. He discussed the sufficiency of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, who has the right to determine its interpretation, and the nature of hyper-Calvinism. If you are looking for clear answers to each question, you will be disappointed. However, if you are looking to find out why the school is experiencing such trouble with Calvinism,  the interview will make it plain. Fortunately, the negative and often unintelligible sentiments expressed by President Aguillard were drowned out by the clearer and more charitable sentiments of men like Eric Hankins and Albert Mohler.
  • Another point of great cooperation and consensus was found in the Baptist 21 luncheon. In this panel discussion between R. Albert Mohler, Russell Moore, Danny Akin, David Platt, and Matt Carter, my friend Jedidiah Coppenger asked questions ranging from the challenges of ‘gay marriage’ and the recent decision of the Boy Scouts to disciple-making in the local church. He also handled the subject of Calvinism in the SBC, where Dr. Mohler gave an impassioned articulation that hyper-Calvinism has no place in the SBC. He clarified that hyper-Calvinism is not the same an over-zealous brand of Calvinism (‘hyper’ Calvinism). Rather, hyper-Calvinism, historical defined, is a person who refuses to make a universal offer of the gospel. As Danny Akin would later say in his SBC sermon, unwillingness to share the gospel is the result of aberrant theology—regardless if it is Calvinistic or Traditionalist. Therefore, in this panel discussion there was real engagement with some challenges facing Baptists, and a unanimous commitment to sharing the gospel. (Baptist 21 hopes to have the video of this luncheon up next week; stay tuned here).
  • This spirit of cooperation was evidenced in the convention, but it was also evidenced by individuals who signed the statement. For instance, Tom Ascol gives four reasons why he is encouraged by the statement. Likewise, Albert Mohler penned this reflections and hope for this statement.  In the convention itself, President Fred Luter was extremely gracious (just remember how he handled an impassioned mega-church pastor from Arkansas), and Frank Page’s posture towards the Calvinism discussion was exemplary.  Truth be told, I am so encouraged by the way that he has led this group. His desire for a unity and cooperation was evident in the discussion on Monday and on the platform when he announced the results of the Advisory Committee (to see that presentation go the SBC Convention page, select Tuesday Afternoon, look for Frank Page’s session, scroll to 13:13-21:00). Southern Baptists have great reason to give thanks for our “Chief Encouragement Officer.”
  • Still, the top report—in my opinion—was that of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee (ERLC). The report came in two parts. First, retiring ERLC president, Richard Land, reflected on his years of service. This was followed by a video montage that wonderfully captured the effect of this man’s twenty-five year service. This was only exceeded by Russell Moore’s opening report as the newly-appointed president of the ERLC. This message, coupled with his Q & A on Tuesday night, gives me great hope for the cultural engagement that Southern Baptists will embark upon in the next twenty-five years.  As an aside, you can witness Moore’s even-handed approach to religious liberty and the doctrines of divine sovereignty and human responsibility in his article, “Why Calvinists and Arminians (and those in between) Can Unite for Religious Liberty.”
  • Finally, Danny Akin’s message, “Six Marks of a Great Commission People,” reinforced the week’s theme: We must be unified in our passion for the gospel and the communication of this gospel to all people—especially those with no access to the gospel. This message closed the convention, and fittingly it gave all the messengers a clear call to go and make disciples of all nations. As always, this is why Southern Baptists unite. We are a Great Commission people, and I pray that the meetings, messages, and appointments that filled this week will serve to advance the gospel in the next 365 days.

All in all, the week was filled with highlights. I am sure I left some out. Next year’s convention is in Baltimore, and it is already on my calendar. I hope you will check out some of these highlights listed above and plan to join us next June.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Ten Words: Words of Life by Timothy Ward

/ davidsschrock

I just finished Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God by Timothy Ward, Team Vicar at Holy Trinity Church and doctoral understudy of Kevin Vanhoozer.  Ward’s book is filled with wisdom and clarity.  In it he shows how the doctrine of Scripture arises from the story of redemptive history itself and must be understood as a vital component of God’s covenantal relationship with his redeemed people.

In what follows, I have included “ten words” from the book.  These quotes provide a taste of Words of Life. Hopefully, they encourage some to pick up and read the whole thing, and others will get glimpses of why the doctrine of Scripture must be tethered to God’s self-presentation in Scripture.

God and His Word. There is, then, a complex but real relationship between God and his actions, expressed and performed, as they are, through God’s words. In philosophical terms, there is an ontological relationship between God and his words. It seems that God’s actions, including his verbal actions, are a kind of extension of him (31).

Communication from and communion with God. More mystically minded people sometimes suppose that words by their very nature are an obstruction to the goal of a deep communion with God, but that is just not so. Instead words are necessary medium of a relationship with God. To put your trust in the words of the covenant promise God makes to you is itself to put your trust in God: the two are the same thing. Communication from God is therefore communion with God, when met with a response of trust from us (31-32).

Scripture is by its nature particular. At root, the rejection of Scripture as divine special revelation is often a side effect of the greater rejection of the particularity of Christ as God’s ultimate self-revelation in the world (41).

Particularism and universalism. Of course, the particularity of revelation in Christ leads directly to a universal offer of new life in him. The Old Testament is the story both of the expansion of God’s people, and also of the narrowing of God’s redemptive purposes, as the southern kingdom of Judah stays centre stage while the northern kingdom of Israel disappears; as the ‘faithful remnant’ emerges as more significant in God’s purposes for salvation than the nation as a whole; and as Israel’s hopes for the future become focused on the emergence of a single Messiah figure. This narrowing reaches a climax with the arrival of Christ.  He is the new Moses proclaiming a new law, and the new David establishing God’s reign on earth. Yet he is also representative of the nation of Israel as a whole, tempted by Satan in the desert, just as they were. And he is representative of the whole of the new humanity to which God is giving spiritual birth, a point Paul expounds in Romans 5 and 6 (41).

Form is the problem, not content. Evangelicals may at times have expressed and formulated their doctrine of Scripture in a form and with a content that owes too much to post-Enlightenment patterns of thought. However, it is not correct to conclude that they stumbled into their doctrine while following the siren voice of Renaissance humanism away from orthodoxy, hand in hand with liberalism (63).

God’s Word as divine action. Scripture is related to the Son in the same way the covenant promise is related to the person of the Father, as a means of his action in the world, and thereby also a kind of extension of himself into the world in relation to us (72).

Scripture and speech-acts. Our progress in this theological outline thus far might be summarized in this way. To speak of ‘Scripture’ is to speak of the speech acts performed by means of the words of Scripture. Scripture is the covenant promise of the Father in written form. Because of the unity of the Father and the Son in revelation and redemption, Scripture is at the same time the word by which the incarnate and ascended Word, the one in whom all God’s covenant promises are fulfilled, continues to act and to present himself semantically so that he may be known in the world over which he has all authority. This begins to express what we have meant by describing Scripture as an act of the triune God (78).

Scripture’s sufficiency and God’s covenant promise. Scripture is sufficient as the means by which God continues to present himself to us such that we can know him, repeating through Scripture the covenant promise he has brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ (113).

A clear (perspicuous) Bible still needs interpretation. Moreover the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture does not claim that Scripture automatically has a power to explain itself whenever a part of it is read. A key function of good expository preaching is to explain the meaning and force of a passage when properly interpreted in the light of its different contexts: (1) the immediate literary context, (2) its context within the unfolding history of God’s revelation, and (3) the context of the Bible as a whole. Such preaching, again, assumes that doctrine of the clarity of Scripture applies primarily to Scripture as a whole, rather than to each individual paragraph. The preacher is not doing something with Scripture that the hearer by definition cannot do, which would be the case if the preacher were appealing primarily to special spiritual anointing or to his holding of an office in the church. He is doing something any Christian reader of Scripture could in principle do, if he or she had sufficient time and knowledge of Scripture (122).

Scripture and tradition. Scripture is the only source of revelation needed for Christian faith and life, but it is not the only thing needed for Christian faith and life. We need the Rule of Faith, as well as the historic creeds of the church, which are a fuller form of the Rule. We need the traditions and practices of the church’s interpretation of Scripture in order to help us to walk faithfully in our understanding of and obedience to Scripture. The Reformers’ conviction of sola scriptura is the conviction that Scripture is the only infallible authority, the only supreme authority. Yet it is not the only authority, for the creeds and the church’s teaching function as important subordinate authorities, under the authority of Scripture (147).

Now that you have heard some of the highlights, let me encourage you to pick up Timothy Ward’s Words of Life.  It will strengthen your confidence in the power and perfection of God’s word and give you a great place to understand how the classical attributes of God (necessity, sufficiency, authority, inerrancy, etc.) fit into the larger redemptive purpose of God, in making covenant with fallen humanity.  It engages church history (esp. Calvin, Turretin, Bavinck, and Warfield) and provides an accessible defense the orthodox doctrine of Scripture.  Tolle Lege.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss 

 

Fifteen Years of Manual Labor: How Much Is Your Bible Worth?

/ davidsschrock

In Genesis, Moses records the way that Jacob spent fourteen years winning (read: paying for) the love of his life, Rachel.  In those days, it cost men a pretty penny to win the hand of their brides.  Yet, because of his love for Rachel, Genesis 29:20 says that the first seven years “seemed to him but a few days.” Likewise, Jacob agreed to the next seven years of manual labor, even after they were deceptively thrown upon him.

How long would you be willing to serve for the love of your life?  Or to turn the question from marriage to God’s mercy, how long would you work in order to have in your hands a copy of God’s word?

The Inestimable Value of God’s Word

This is a question that the English-speaking world cannot even begin to understand.  We pawn off Bibles at Goodwill’s and have no fear or remorse when a Bible is lost or left in the rain.  I know that the Bible in its inscripturated form is not sacrosanct, but I do think the commonality of the Bible blinds us to the ravishing truth of Psalm 19:10-11.

More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

God’s word is priceless.  It is more valuable than the crown jewels; it is an infinite investment whose value never plummets and always promises to deliver. Yet, existentially, we still struggle to feel this value because the pages of God’s word are everywhere. Where can we go for help?

How Missionary History Reappraises Our Value of the Bible

One place we can find help for properly valuing the Bible is church history and the stories of missionaries bringing the Bible into foreign lands who do not have the priceless word of God.  This week I came across such a story in John Paton’s autobiography, John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides.

I hope you will take the time to read the following anecdote and marvel at the how the people of Aneityum (in the South Pacific) labored fifteen years to raise the necessary funds for the Bible.  Surely, these earnest men and women were spurred on by the same joy and anticipation that gripped Jacob.  In that time, many who endeavored to see the Bible printed in their languaged perished in the pursuit, but oh the joy for those who labored for a decade and a half to get the Bible in their own hands.

These poor Aneityumese, having glimpses of this Word of God, determined to have a Holy Bible in their own mother tongue, wherein before no book or page ever had been written in the history of their race. The consecrated brain and hand of the Missionaries kept toiling day and night in translating the book of God; and the willing hands and feet of the Natives kept toiling through fifteen long but unwearying years, planting and preparing arrowroot to pay the £1,200 required to be laid out in the printing and publishing of the book.

Year after year the arrowroot, too sacred to be used for their daily food, was set apart as the Lord’s portion; the Missionaries sent it to Australia and Scotland, where it was sold by private friends, and the whole proceeds consecrated to this purpose. On the completion of the great undertaking by the Bible Society, it was found that the Natives had earned so much as to pay every penny of the outlay; and their first Bibles went out to them, purchased with the consecrated toils of fifteen years!

Some of our friends may think that the sum was large; but I know, from experience, that if such a difficult job had been carried through the press and so bound by any other printing establishment, the expense would have been greater far. One book of Scripture, printed by me in Melbourne for the Aniwans at a later day, under the auspices of the Bible Society too, cost eight shillings per leaf, and that was the cheapest style; and this the Aniwans also paid for by dedicating their arrowroot to God.

Fifteen years.  Utterly astounding.  It should inspire us to reconsider the value of our Bibles.  Here is Paton’s pastoral charge:

Let those who lightly esteem their Bibles think on those things. Eight shillings for every leaf, or the labour and proceeds of fifteen years for the Bible entire, did not appear to these poor converted Savages too much to pay for that Word of God, which had sent to them the Missionaries, which had revealed to them the grace of God in Christ, and which had opened their eyes to the wonders and glories of redeeming love! (77-78)

Father, may we who are surrounded by your word never forget how priceless each page is.  May we invest our lives in the Scriptures and labor to make them know to the ends of the earth, so that those who do not have them would not have to wait decades before receiving them.  God gives us heart that love your word more than life itself (Ps 63:3).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Exodus-to-Temple Pattern

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Jeffrey J. Niehaus argues convincingly in his Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology that a regular and repeating pattern of salvation occurs in the Ancient Near East (ANE).  He writes, “The basic structure of the idea is this:”

A god works through a man (a royal or prophetic figure, often styled a shepherd) to wage war against the god’s enemies and thereby advance his kingdom.  The royal or prophetic protagonist is in a covenant with the god, as are the god’s people.  The god establishes a temple among his people, either before or after the warfare, because he wants to dwell among them.  This can mean the founding (or choice) of a city, as well as a temple location.  The ultimate purpose is to bring into the god’s kingdom those who are not part of it (Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2008], 30).

Developing this basic schema, Niehaus demonstrates how the Old Testament and New Testament recapitulate this eschatological temple-building motif.   This pattern can be witnessed in the life of Moses, when YHWH calls the reluctant shepherd to defeat Pharaoh and liberate Israel, with the ultimate goal of tabernacle worship with God’s covenant people.  Moreover, in the life of David, YHWH summons a shepherd to crush the head of the enemy, to free the people of Israel, and to establish his covenant people in the land—a land where YHWH has set his name.  The culminating act of temple-building in 1 Kings is the high point of the OT, and sets the stage for a greater Spirit-anointed, Divine warrior/savior, who will construct the final dwelling place for God in the NT.

The same kind of pattern can be found in a variety of New Testament passages. Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, Paul’s preaching in Acts 13, 17, and passages like Ephesians 2:11-22, and the whole book of Revelation show the exodus-to-temple pattern outlined by Niehaus.  In fact, in regards to the work of Christ, Niehaus writes,

God wages war through his Son and prophet, the Good Shepherd, Jesus, against the powers of darkness.  He liberates people from those powers and establishes them as his people by a new covenant.  He establishes a temple presence, not only among them but in them (the church and individually its members) (ibid., 31).

They look forward to a heavenly city (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 11:10; Rev. 21:2).  Theologically, it is important to remember that these people were God’s enemies…until he waged warfare, set them free from their vassaldom to sin, and established his covenant with them, making them his own vassals…Christ is also Creator or Co-creator.  He creates a “new heaven and a new earth,” with a temple presence that recalls Eden with its river and tree of life” (ibid, 31-32).

Reading the Bible along these lines, it is becomes apparent that the God of the Bible works in a regular and repeating way throughout redemptive history, and that the NT writers were conscious of these biblical-theological structures and interweaved them into the very fabric of their thinking, preaching, and writing.

For a short list of resources that observe this phenomenon, see See David Pao, Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002); Rikki Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1997);  the articles found in Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Simon J. Gathercole (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2004).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

May We Boast in the Cross

/ davidsschrock

The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 6:14, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  The apostle’s earnest desire is to make his life a living ‘boast’ in the cross of Christ.

We ought to do the same.  Any and all things that deny the cross should be confessed and crucified—for that is why Christ died, to atone for our cross-denying sins.  Yet, the sins which may deny Christ most may not be the easiest to spot.

Today, Scotty Smith points out five ways that we deny Christ in his prayer for fresh grace.  He writes,

When I mute my heart to the insult of grace—minimizing my need of the gospel, I deny your cross.

When I think, even for one moment, that my obedience merits anything, or makes you love me more than you already do, I deny your cross.

When I put others under the microscope and measure of performance-based living—copping a critical spirit and judgmental attitude, I deny your cross.

When I wallow in self-contempt and shame—disbelieving and dismissing your great love lavished upon us in the gospel, I deny your cross.

When I’d rather do penance than repent and collapse upon the riches of grace, once again, I deny your cross. 

May we learn to spot our cross-denying tendencies and run back to the hill where grace flows freely–the hill of Calvary.  In this way, the cross itself empowers us to deny our denials, and it reminds us of the sinfulness of our ever present self-sufficiency.

May we boast in the cross today by confessing our denials.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Evangelicals Redeeming St. Patrick from Rome

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Maybe it is just me, but I don’t remember a year where Saint Patty’s Day has elicited such a response by evangelicals.

Previous years have collected a few blog posts.  See Russell Moore’s “What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick” and Kevin DeYoung’s “Who was Saint Patrick?”  But this year evangelicals have sought to deliver Patrick from the clutches of the Catholic Church, and have produced dozens of blog posts. (Okay, maybe not dozens, but in the spirit of exaggerated legends, like those of St. Patrick, we’ll say dozens).

Why?  Maybe it is the coordination of St. Patrick’s Day and the Lord’s Day; maybe it is the recent election of Pope Francis I; or maybe it is the fact that the paganization of America and (Western Europe) has stimulated evangelicals to find a new hero.  For all those reasons, Patrick is worthy of our consideration and imitation.  The following posts will give you a good introduction to Patrick and will spur you on to tell the lost about Christ.

David Mathis, “The Mission of Saint Patrick“

Mark Driscoll, “Get to Know Saint Patrick“

John Downey, “Get to know the REAL ‘Saint’ Patrick“

Philip Jenson, “Saint Patrick the Irish Evangelist“

Timothy Paul Jones, Church History Made Easy DVD

If you know of other evangelical blogs highlighting Patrick, let me know and I will update.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, dss