Justin Taylor's Blog, page 39
June 19, 2017
The Simple Questions to Ask Every Time You Open Your Bible
I recently sat down with New Testament professor Matthew Harmon to ask him some questions about his new book, Asking the Right Questions: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Applying the Bible (Crossway, 2017)—which is currently on sale for less than $8 at Amazon.
Here is a brief description of the book:
We all know that we should read our Bibles—yet at times we struggle with knowing exactly how, no matter how long we’ve followed Jesus. In this empowering book, Professor Matthew Harmon walks us through two simple sets of questions to ask every time we open our Bibles:
Understanding the Bible:
1. What do we learn about God?
2. What do we learn about people?
3. What do we learn about relating to God?
4. What do we learn about relating to others?
Applying the Bible:
1. What does God want me to understand?
2. What does God want me to believe?
3. What does God want me to desire?
4. What does God want me to do?
Arming you with practical ways to get to the heart of any passage, this book will help position you to experience the joy that results from being transformed by God’s Word.
“I love this book on how to study and apply the Bible. Some books on interpreting Scripture are so complicated and have so many steps that we can become discouraged, but Harmon is simple and clear without being simplistic. He helps us see the big picture in studying the Bible by reminding us of the storyline of Scripture and by emphasizing that the story centers on Jesus himself. At the same time, we are given very practical advice on how to study and apply specific passages. An excellent resource for teachers, students, and all who desire to study the Scriptures.”
—Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation and Professor of Biblical Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky
“Asking good questions is a key to understanding. And asking good questions about the Bible is a key to understanding the most important truths in the world. God can handle all your questions, and he loves to reward those who ask in faith when engaging his very words. This book will help you ask the best of questions on the best of sources—God’s Word—in the best of ways—by faith.”
—David Mathis, executive editor, desiringGod.org; pastor, Cities Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota; author, Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Laying the Foundation
1. The Story We Find Ourselves In
2. The Bible Is God’s Tool to Change Us
Part 2: Reading the Bible
3. Reading the Bible as Jesus Did
4. Written for Us but Not to Us
5. Four Foundational Questions
Part 3: Reading Our Lives
6. The Gospel Pattern of Life
7. The Fallen Condition
8. The Gospel Solution
9. Applying the Bible to Our Whole Lives
10. The Power to Obey
Conclusion
Additional Resources
Resource 1: Tips for Understanding and Applying Different Kinds of Passages
Resource 2: A Word to Pastors, Sunday School Teachers, and Small Group Leaders
Resource 3: At a Glance: Asking the Right Questions
June 17, 2017
When Russell Moore Truly Understood “Abba, Father!” for the Very First Time
Russell Moore, Adopted for Life:
The creepiest sound I have ever heard was nothing at all. My wife, Maria, and I stood in the hallway of an orphanage somewhere in the former Soviet Union, on the first of two trips required for our petition to adopt. Orphanage staff led us down a hallway to greet the two 1-year-olds we hoped would become our sons. The horror wasn’t the squalor and the stench, although we at times stifled the urge to vomit and weep. The horror was the quiet of it all. The place was more silent than a funeral home by night.
I stopped and pulled on Maria’s elbow. “Why is it so quiet? The place is filled with babies.” Both of us compared the stillness with the buzz and punctuated squeals that came from our church nursery back home. Here, if we listened carefully enough, we could hear babies rocking themselves back and forth, the crib slats gently bumping against the walls. These children did not cry, because infants eventually learn to stop crying if no one ever responds to their calls for food, for comfort, for love. No one ever responded to these children. So they stopped.
The silence continued as we entered the boys’ room. Little Sergei (now Timothy) smiled at us, dancing up and down while holding the side of his crib. Little Maxim (now Benjamin) stood straight at attention, regal and czar-like. But neither boy made a sound. We read them books filled with words they couldn’t understand, about saying goodnight to the moon and cows jumping over the same. But there were no cries, no squeals, no groans. Every day we left at the appointed time in the same way we had entered: in silence.
On the last day of the trip, Maria and I arrived at the moment we had dreaded since the minute we received our adoption referral. We had to tell the boys goodbye, as by law we had to return to the United States and wait for the legal paperwork to be completed before returning to pick them up for good. After hugging and kissing them, we walked out into the quiet hallway as Maria shook with tears.
And that’s when we heard the scream.
Little Maxim fell back in his crib and let out a guttural yell. It seemed he knew, maybe for the first time, that he would be heard. On some primal level, he knew he had a father and mother now. I will never forget how the hairs on my arms stood up as I heard the yell. I was struck, maybe for the first time, by the force of the Abba cry passages in the New Testament, ones I had memorized in Vacation Bible School. And I was surprised by how little I had gotten it until now. . . .
Little Maxim’s scream changed everything—more, I think, than did the judge’s verdict and the notarized paperwork. It was the moment, in his recognizing that he would be heard, that he went from being an orphan to being a son. It was also the moment I became a father, in fact if not in law. We both recognized that something was wrong, because suddenly, life as it had been seemed terribly disordered.
Up to that time, I had read the Abba cry passages in Romans and Galatians the same way I had heard them preached: as a gurgle of familiarity, the spiritual equivalent of an infant cooing “Papa” or “Daddy.” Relational intimacy is surely present in the texts—hence Paul’s choice of such a personal word as Abba—but this definitely isn’t sentimental. After all, Scripture tells us that Jesus’ Spirit lets our hearts cry “Abba, Father!” (Gal. 4:6). Jesus cries “Abba, Father” as he screams “with loud cries and tears” for deliverance in the Garden of Gethsemane (Heb. 5:7; Mark 14:36). Similarly, the doctrine of adoption shows us that we “groan” with the creation itself “as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). It is the scream of the crucified.
June 15, 2017
3-2-1: The Story of God, the World, and You (A Simple Gospel Explanation)
Below is a five-minute animated presentation, which is expanded in Glen Scrivener’s book:
If I could sit with an unbeliever today and watch a gospel presentation, we would watch this. http://t.co/QzS7JNEY
— John Piper (@JohnPiper) October 31, 2012
June 14, 2017
How These Four Words Could Keep You From Sin Today
The following excerpt from David Powlison’s forthcoming Making All Things New: Restoring Joy to the Sexually Broken (August 2017) illustrates why he is one of the most helpful, down-to-earth counselors of wisdom for the Christian life:
What one thing about God in Christ speaks directly into today’s trouble?
Just as we don’t change all at once, so we don’t take in all of truth in one massive Bible transfusion. We are simple people. You can’t remember ten things at once. Invariably, if you could remember just one vital truth in the moment of trial and then seek your God, you’d be different. Bible verses aren’t magic. But God’s words are revelations of God from God for our redemption.
When you actually remember God, you do not sin. The only way we ever sin is by suppressing God, by forgetting, by tuning out his voice, switching channels, and listening to other voices.
When you actually remember, you actually change.
In fact, remembering is the first change.
Powlison gives a simple example:
God says many times,
“I am with you.”
Those are his exact words. . . .
What if you are facing a temptation to some immorality?
For starters, nothing is private; no secrets are possible.
“I am with you.”
“I . . . am . . . with . . . you.”
Say it ten different ways.
Say it back to him, the way Psalm 23:4 does:
“You are with me.”
Slow it down.
Speed it up.
Say it out loud.
You’ll probably find that you immediately need to say more:
“You are with me. Help me. Make me know that. Have mercy on me. Don’t forsake me. I need you. Make me understand.”
You will find that the competing, lying, tempting voices become more obvious. They are sly and argumentative. They will try to drown out God’s reality. They will scoff at what God says. They will scoff at you. They will seek to allure you or overpower you to plunge you into a dark parallel universe that has no God.
To the degree that you remember that your Lord is with you and you seek him, then those other voices will sound devious, tawdry, and hostile to your welfare. How did they ever sound so appealing? The contrast, the battle of wills, the conflict between good and evil will be more evident. Your immediate choice—which voice will I listen to?—will become stark.
Remembering what’s true does not chalk up automatic victory. But we do secretive things only when we’re kidding ourselves. Every time you remember that you are out in public, then you live an out-in-public life. “I am with you” means you’re always out in the open.
Even if you sin by high-handed choice, you will still be in broad daylight before God’s searching eyes. He’s still here. You can open your eyes, listen, and turn around in order to find help. He who loves you says, “I am with you” to awaken and encourage you.
What if you face a different struggle today? What if you feel overwhelmed with aloneness and fear, buried under your hurt, abandoned and betrayed by people?
“I am with you.”
“I am with you.”
“I am with you.”
Again, when you really hear that and take it to heart, you know you are not alone. You are safe. Someone’s manipulative and violent lust violated you; the steadfast love of God never betrays you.
Or what if you’re overwhelmed by the grime of past failures? You feel guilty, shameful, unacceptable and ask,
“How could God ever accept me?”
He responds,
“I am with you.”
God is not shocked by the ugliness of your real-time evils. He came to give his life for the “foremost” sinner (as Paul twice calls himself—1 Tim. 1:15-16). Christ truly forgives. Truly.
Whatever your struggle, “I am with you” changes the terrain of battle. You start to see the fork in the road. There is a way of life. Your choices count, and you can choose life. A good road runs uphill toward the light, where previously you only knew to stumble over the edge into the abyss.
June 8, 2017
Bernie Sanders to Traditional Christians: Your Beliefs Are Indefensibly Hateful and Insulting, and Not What This Country Is Supposed to Be About
An exchange between Senator Bernie Sanders and the potential deputy White House budget director, Russell Vought, who is an evangelical Christian.
David French provided a transcript:
Sanders: Let me get to this issue that has bothered me and bothered many other people. And that is in the piece that I referred to that you wrote for the publication called Resurgent. You wrote, “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.” Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?
Vought: Absolutely not, Senator. I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith. That post, as I stated in the questionnaire to this committee, was to defend my alma mater, Wheaton College, a Christian school that has a statement of faith that includes the centrality of Jesus Christ for salvation, and . . .
Sanders: I apologize. Forgive me, we just don’t have a lot of time. Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?
Vought: Again, Senator, I’m a Christian, and I wrote that piece in accordance with the statement of faith at Wheaton College:
Sanders: I understand that. I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America. Maybe a couple million. Are you suggesting that all those people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too? Vought: Senator, I’m a Christian . . .
Sanders: I understand you are a Christian! But this country are made of people who are not just — I understand that Christianity is the majority religion, but there are other people of different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?
Vought: Thank you for probing on that question. As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that’s how I should treat all individuals . . .
Sanders: You think your statement that you put into that publication, they do not know God because they rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned, do you think that’s respectful of other religions?
Vought: Senator, I wrote a post based on being a Christian and attending a Christian school that has a statement of faith that speaks clearly in regard to the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation.
Sanders: I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.
Article VI of the US Constitution forbids what Bernie Sanders is doing, declaring that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Senator Sanders’s spokesman issued a statement that same day:
In a democratic society, founded on the principle of religious freedom, we can all disagree over issues, but racism and bigotry—condemning an entire group of people because of their faith—cannot be part of any public policy.
Russell Moore has commented:
Senator Sanders’ comments are breathtakingly audacious and shockingly ignorant—both of the Constitution and of basic Christian doctrine. Even if one were to excuse Senator Sanders for not realizing that all Christians of every age have insisted that faith in Jesus Christ is the only pathway to salvation, it is inconceivable that Senator Sanders would cite religious beliefs as disqualifying an individual for public office in defiance of the United States Constitution. No religious test shall ever be required of those seeking public office. While no one expects Senator Sanders to be a theologian, we should expect far more from an elected official who has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
For further analysis of the exchange, see Emma Green’s piece.
June 6, 2017
Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry
The new documentary LOOK & SEE is “a beautiful and poignant portrait of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture, as seen through the eye of American novelist, poet, and activist, Wendell Berry.”
The film was produced by Robert Redford, Terrence Malick, and Nick Offerman and directed by Laura Dunn (The Unforeseen).
LOOK & SEE revolves around the divergent stories of several residents of Henry County, Kentucky who each face difficult choices that will dramatically reshape their relationship with the land and their community.
In 1965, Wendell Berry returned home to Henry County, where he bought a small farm house and began a life of farming, writing and teaching. This lifelong relationship with the land and community would come to form the core of his prolific writings. A half century later Henry County, like many rural communities across America, has become a place of quiet ideological struggle. In the span of a generation, the agrarian virtues of simplicity, land stewardship, sustainable farming, local economies and rootedness to place have been replaced by a capital-intensive model of industrial agriculture characterized by machine labor, chemical fertilizers, soil erosion and debt – all of which have frayed the fabric of rural communities. Writing from a long wooden desk beneath a forty-paned window, Berry has watched this struggle unfold, becoming one its most passionate and eloquent voices in defense of agrarian life.
Filmed across four seasons in the farming cycle, LOOK & SEE blends observational scenes of farming life, interviews with farmers and community members with evocative, carefully framed shots of the surrounding landscape. Thus, in the spirit of Berry’s agrarian philosophy, Henry County itself will emerge as a character in the film—a place and a landscape that is deeply interdependent with the people that inhabit it.
Here’s how you can watch and screen the movie yourself.
You can watch the trailer below, and then read the full poem featured in it:
A Timbered Choir
Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.
I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
I came to the city that nobody recognized because it looked like every other city.
I saw the passages worn by the unnumbered
footfalls of those whose eyes were fixed upon the objective.
Their passing had obliterated the graves and the monuments
of those who had died in pursuit of the objective
and who had long ago forever been forgotten, according
to the inevitable rule that those who have forgotten forget
that they have forgotten. Men, women, and children now pursued the objective
as if nobody ever had pursued it before.
The races and the sexes now intermingled perfectly in pursuit of the objective.
the once-enslaved, the once-oppressed were now free
to sell themselves to the highest bidder
and to enter the best paying prisons
in pursuit of the objective, which was the destruction of all enemies,
which was the destruction of all obstacles, which was the destruction of all objects,
which was to clear the way to victory, which was to clear the way to promotion, to salvation, to progress,
to the completed sale, to the signature
on the contract, which was to clear the way
to self-realization, to self-creation, from which nobody who ever wanted to go home
would ever get there now, for every remembered place
had been displaced; the signposts had been bent to the ground and covered over.
Every place had been displaced, every love
unloved, every vow unsworn, every word unmeant
to make way for the passage of the crowd
of the individuated, the autonomous, the self-actuated, the homeless
with their many eyes opened toward the objective
which they did not yet perceive in the far distance,
having never known where they were going,
having never known where they came from.
May 31, 2017
Spoken Word on Martin Luther King Jr.
A meditation-exhortation from Isaac Adams:
On April 4, 2018—the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—many of us will gather at mlk50conference.com to reflect upon his legacy and to dream about the future.
May 30, 2017
A Hamlet That Finally Makes Sense
T.S. Elliot once suggested that Shakespeare’s Hamlet doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and is ultimately “a flop.”
But Edward T. Oakes argues that with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet (first on stage, then on the BBC and PBS, now on DVD/streaming), “here is a Hamlet that finally makes sense.” He says it is “by far the freshest and most arresting interpretation I have ever seen of the play.”
David Tennant stars as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius.
Here are the five attributes of the RSC Hamlet that Oakes believes set it apart from previous attempts.
First of all, each line is so freshly delivered that it sounds new (quite a feat for this play!).
Even minor roles come across with distinctive personalities, including, of all people, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, who are usually played as completely interchangeable for humorous effect (other characters in the play regularly confuse the two). Here Rosenkrantz is the ambitious toady who would do anything to curry favor with the king, while Guildenstern approaches his commission to spy on Hamlet with a reluctance prompted by his affection for his old school chum. One feels guilty and the other doesn’t.
Second (and this is a negative virtue), this production eschews any Freudian interpretation, which by now has become an empty cliché, and even an embarrassment.
Thus, in the famous “closet scene” in Gertrude’s bedroom, her son does not force his mother onto her marriage bed in a pose of feigned rape, and his rage against her is clearly prompted by her betrayal of a marriage that he had been depending on for his psychic health”and Gertrude herself feels so guilty about that betrayal that she too is already near a nervous breakdown. The scene is astonishingly powerful, and all without Freud’s extraneous kibitzing.
Third, the setting of the play is the contemporary national-security state, with CCTV cameras everywhere, and from whose tapes we see some of the action (interestingly, the ghost’s outline does not register on the tapes).
As world literature’s most famous neurotic, Hamlet’s unstable personality is already sufficiently known by almost any audience; but in this production there is an added reason for Hamlet’s incipient madness besides his own volatile temper.
“Even paranoids can have enemies,” goes the old line; and that’s certainly true of Hamlet here: closed-circuit security cameras are everywhere, and he knows it. (At one point, right before he says “Now I am alone,” he rips out a prying apparatus lurking in one of the corners of the throne room.)
Fourth, the soliloquies are not treated as the dramaturgical equivalent of operatic arias, but flow naturally out of the action.
In fact, the “to be or not to be” soliloquy is delivered almost offhandedly in a moment of philosophical reverie, while the other less famous speeches, especially the early ones, are made to reveal Hamlet’s deeply tormented soul.
Which brings me to the fifth and last great merit of this version: here Hamlet truly displays the dilemmas of his personality.
It is one of the great mysteries of this play how Shakespeare manages to get the audience to sympathize with his protagonist.
Even on the surface he really is a quite appalling cad: after killing Polonius, he “lug[s] the guts” from Gertrude’s closet and calls the dead man a “foolish, prating knave”; jilts Ophelia (who clearly loves him) in the harshest manner, driving her to madness and then to her death; arranges for the death of Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern without a pang of remorse (“They are not near my conscience,” he dismissively says, for which even his best friend Horatio upbraids him); and of course leaves the stage littered with corpses in the final scene.
Even Hamlet recognizes how abominable is his soul, as he avows to Ophelia:
I am myself indifferent honest [of middling virtue]; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. (III, i, 121-130)
And yet somehow the audience identifies with him, at least in the sense of seeing things from his point of view, which is due of course primarily to the soliloquies. But also to the acting.
Here, more than in any production I have seen, Hamlet truly suffers . He is caught in some unspecified trap of his own personality that long antecedes news of his father’s murder. (His first soliloquy, “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,” is spoken before he sees the ghost.) In what must be regarded as a tour de force of acting, Tennant forces the audience to identify with him because his suffering is so acutely displayed.
In this version, there are, to be sure, some judicious cuts: the scene with the pirates is omitted (thus Hamlet’s return to Denmark is left unexplained); a few lines from the “to be or not to be” soliloquy are cut (which might seem like sacrilege to the bardolaters, but it does help undermine its over-familiarity); and Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, does not show up at the end to perform the obsequies (it being, presumably, too unlikely for a national-security state like this one to be invaded by any foreign power, let alone super-mild contemporary Norway).
But most of the play is there, yet so well-paced that the action never flags, not least because one cannot take one’s eyes off Hamlet in his suffering. As I say, here is a Hamlet that finally makes sense. Eliot was wrong after all.
You can get the movie here.
May 11, 2017
An Outstanding Introduction to Biblical Theology
Stephen Wellum, professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is the co-author (with Peter Gentry) Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants and its condensed version, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology.
He is also the co-editor (with Brent Parker) of Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies. He will also be writing the chapter on Progressive Covenantalism in IVP’s four views book on the covenants, in dialogue with Michael Horton, Darrell Bock, and Wayne House.
On March 31, 2017, Dr. Wellum gave the opening plenary address at the the annual meeting of the Southwest Region of the Evangelical Theological Society, hosted by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can watch the hour-long lecture below, followed by some notes.
The lecture proceeds in four parts:
Overview of the Progressive Covenantal view
Hermeneutical assumptions of the Progressive Covenantal view
The progression of the covenants (=storyline) from creation to Christ is the location of the main differences among Progressive Covenantalism, Covenant Theology, Progressive Dispesationalism, Dispensationalism, etc— how “whole Bible” fits together
New Testament fulfillment and Systematic Theology implications
Here are a few notes from each section:
Introduction
Wellum argues that all Christians are united on several points:
Covenant is fundamental to the Bible’s story.
God’s redemptive plan is progressive (has occurred over time).
The fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan is in Christ.
There is some form of redemptive epochs or dispensations across history.
The fulfillment of God’s saving purposes in Christ has brought some kind of change or discontinuity from past eras.
Debates today tend to center around the exact relationships between the covenants, and disagreements on:
the newness of what Christ has achieved
the Law application to Christians today
inaugurated eschatology
the Israel-Church relationship and the role of national Israel in God’s plan.
Overarching Summary of Progressive Covenantalism
The Scriptures present a plurality of covenants that progressively reveal our triune God’s one redemptive plan for his one people which reach their fulfillment, telos, and terminus in Christ and the new covenant.
The creation covenant lays a foundation that continues in all the covenants and is fulfilled in Christ and his obedient work. God’s plan, then, moves from creation in Adam to consummation in Christ.
On the relationship of Israel and the church:
(1) God has one people, yet there is a distinction between Israel and the church by their respective covenants—the church is new in a redemptive-historical sense precisely because she is the community of the new covenant.
(2) The Israel-church relationship must be interpreted Christologically: The church is not directly the “new Israel” or her replacement. Rather, in Christ, the church is God’s new creation, comprised of believing Jews and Gentiles, because Jesus is the last Adam and true Israel, the faithful seed of Abraham who inherits the promises by his work. Thus, in union with Christ, the church is God’s new covenant people in continuity with the elect in all ages, but different from Israel in its nature and structure.
Hermeneutical Assumptions: Reading Scripture and Doing Theology
Interpret Scripture according to its own claim to be God’s Word written through the agency of human authors.
Interpret Scripture for what it actually is, a progressive revelation.
Given what Scripture is, interpret it according to three horizons or contexts (textual/immediate context, epochal context, canonical context)
Draw theological conclusions from Scripture by reading the entire canon in context and unpacking the progression of the covenants.
Hermeneutical points about the covenants:
God’s one eternal plan is unveiled through a plurality of covenants
The progression of the covenants is the primary means by which God’s promises and typological patterns unfold and are fulfilled in Christ and his people.
To categorize the covenants as either unconditional/unilateral (royal grant) or conditional/bilateral (suzerain-vassal) is inadequate.
The new covenant is the telos and fulfillment of the biblical covenants.
The Biblical Covenants: From Creation to the Promise of the New Covenant
Covenant of Creation
Noahic Covenant
Abrahamic Covenant
Old Covenant
Davidic Covenant
New Covenant
Biblical Covenants Fulfilled in Messiah Jesus/New Covenant —> Church
Christ is the Fulfillment of the OT Covenants (=see NT Christology).
Fulfillment vis-à-vis Inaugurated Eschatology.
Fulfillment from Christ —> Church.
May 8, 2017
Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth
Here is my endorsement for an important new book:
If I had the power to require every Christian parent, pastor, and professor to read two books on creation and evolution—ideally alongside their mature children, parishioners, and students—it would be 40 Questions about Creation and Evolution (by Kenneth Keathley and Mark Rooker) along with the book you are now holding in your hands, Controversy of the Ages: Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth.
Neither book intends to answer all of the questions definitively, but together they are like maps for Christians in the complex and confusing intersection of the Bible and science.
We cannot bury our head in the sand, or outsource study of these issues to others. Ted Cabal and Peter Rasor help us sort through the issues and the options, modeling for us how to use proportion and perspective in our rhetoric and strategies of disagreement within the body of Christ.
We live in perplexing days, but clear and clarifying books like this are a tremendous gift to the church. If the arguments and tone of this book are taken to heart, we will all be sharper, wiser, and kinder. I pray it is widely read.
Kenneth Keathley, co-author of the other go-to book I mentioned above, had this to say about the Cabal/Rasor book:
When people ask for a good book to read about the age of the earth, I have a new favorite to recommend: Cabal and Rasor’s Controversy of the Ages. With remarkable clarity, this book provides historical and theological context to the young-earth/old-earth controversy. But Cabal and Rasor move beyond mere description and prescribe the way to move forward—the Galileo approach. This is an important book, and it needs to be read by pastors, college and seminary students, and all who care about science and faith issues.
Here are the rest of the endorsements for this book:
“The time is long past when we have needed a very careful, thoroughly documented analysis and response to the claims of young earth creationists. But with this book, I am delighted to say that that time has come. I am very enthusiastic about the scholarship, careful treatment and irenic tone of this book and highly recommend it.”
—J. P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology
“In addition to a well-informed history of evangelical moves for relating Genesis to geology and then to Darwinism, the authors have given us much more. They have provided trenchant evaluation of the argumentative strategies―theological, scientific, and philosophical. They show that of the various groups known to us today―the young earth creationists, the (non-Darwinian) old earth creationists, and the evolutionary creationists―none can be exempted from critique, and none deserves the place of exclusive privilege. This book deserves a wide readership, for it is informative, fair, and incisive. I rejoice that God spared Dr. Cabal from a terminal cancer to help write this!
—C. John Collins, Professor of Old Testament, Covenant Theological Seminary
“Controversy of the Ages is a welcomed addition to the issues swirling around the creation-evolution debate. The book is encyclopedic in scope, and the footnotes alone are a treasure trove of information. I appreciated the argument of the book; I appreciated even more the spirit of the book. I will be recommending this work for a long time.”
—Daniel L. Akin, President, Professor of Preaching and Theology, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
“Controversy of the Ages provides a concise and carefully researched history of the tensions between science and theology through the years. While offering a helpful overview of matters related to Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin, among others, the book focuses on questions related to the age of the earth. With an informed understanding of young earth and old earth theories, as well as BioLogos and Intelligent Design proposals, Cabal and Rasor provide insightful analysis of these various perspectives based on an unapologetic commitment to the truthfulness of scripture. As indicated by the subtitle, pastors, church leaders, and students will find an exemplary model of how to evaluate differing approaches to this important subject, doing so with conviction, kindness, and conciliatory civility. It is a privilege to recommend this rewarding volume.”
—David S. Dockery, President, Trinity International University
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