Deborah and Barak go out to fight, and the people of Meroz refuse to join them. In Deborah’s song (Judges 5), Yahweh’s angel curses Meroz in staggering terms: “Curse you bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” American ministers of the Revolutionary era knew the curse well, and deployed it liberally. As Eran Shalev (American Zion) points out, it had already been used by... Read more
During the discussion at Biola Tuesday evening, Carl Trueman expressed the worry that Reformational Catholicism was at odds with the word-centeredness of the Reformation. This post is intended as reassurance. First a bit of apologia pro vita mea, and for mea friends, inevitably mixed with a dash of Barnumesque self-promotion. I have written about 30 books. Of those seven have been directly on biblical and hermeneutical topics: House for My Name; 1 & 2 Kings; The Four; From Behind the Veil; The Promise of His... Read more
Eran Shalev (American Zion) puts the Scriptural debate over slavery in the context of a shift from a predominantly Old Testament orientation to a predominantly New Testament one. But the lines were not as neat as one might think: Anti-slavery writers drew on Old Testament laws on slavery, and pro-slavery polemicists found help from Paul’s letter to Philemon. Shalev writes: “One of the key scriptural texts . . . was the Epistle to Philemon, a canonized letter written by Paul... Read more
To state my biases: Of all the superheroes, I’ve always been partial Spider-Man. Flash was a close second. I have nothing against Peter Parker or his alter ego. I wish them the best. I haven’t seen the latest Spidey flick, but Isaac Chotiner’s analysis at the New Republic discourages me from trying. Contrary to what many claim, Hollywood is not out of ideas, Chotiner says. It’s a hedgehog with one big idea, which aims to make bucketloads of money. Spider-Man 2... Read more
Protestants confess sola scriptura, the Scriptures as the final rule of faith and practice. “Reformation by the word of God” is the watchword of Protestantism. The Scriptures that are our final rule teach us that the church is one, that she ought to be in reality what God has declared her to be, and that this unity must take the visible form of love. Here is one of the primary areas where Protestantism has to be reformed by the word of... Read more
In a post yesterday, I urged Protestant churches to move toward a consensus that can be characterized as “classical Protestantism.” That phrase needs some clarification. The Reformation was not, as I argued at Biola, simply a doctrinal movement. It certainly was that, but it also involved liturgical Reformation. And this liturgical Reformation was not a rejection of liturgy. It was an affirmation of liturgy. Prior to the Reformation, the liturgy was not leitourgia; it was only minimally the “work of the... Read more
There has been a great deal of debate about what Paul means in his various references to ta stoicheia tou kosmou (the elementary principles of the world). Are the stoichea they teachings, practices, beings, stars? This line of reflection might help to resolve that debate: Whatever stoicheia refers to, it is something that people are “under” (hupo, Galatians 4:3). Stoicheia establishes a hierarchy, where the stoicheia are on top and people are on bottom. If Paul uses stoicheia to refer... Read more
Jesus says, “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42). We immediately qualify. We soften and ease the command. “It’s an exhortation to develop an instinct for generosity. We may have good reasons not to give, but we should give whenever we can.” As I did recently. Then hated myself. Jesus means what he says, and we should understand it in the light of the Father’s generosity... Read more
Inevitably, after an event like the Biola panel on the future of Protestantism, one wakes up thinking of the things one should have said. Here are a few. 1) One thing I did say that I need to reiterate: It seems that the three participants meant different things when we used the words “Protestant” and “Protestantism.” For Fred Sanders and Carl Trueman, Protestantism seems to be primarily about doctrinal affirmations – summarized by the solas. What I mean by “Protestantism”... Read more
Barth famously condemned infant baptism as a wound in the body of Christ, and that resounding Nein has been taken as a natural application of Barth’s theology as a whole. Some have seen it as a stark choice: Barth or infant baptism. W. Travis McMaken thinks there’s more to say, and in his revised doctoral dissertation, The Sign of the Gospel, he attempts to build a defense of infant baptism using Barthian materials and technology. In the first several chapters, McMaken... Read more
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