“Narrow” on Wednesday Night in Beaumont

Lord willing, this Wednesday night - May 7, 2008 - I’ll be speaking at “Narrow,” which meets at Westgate Memorial Baptist Church in Beaumont, TX (6220 Westgate Dr, Beaumont, TX, 77706). The event is a weekly Bible Study aimed at college students, and it begins at 9pm. If you’re in the area, it would be great to see you there.

Twelve Challenges Churches Face, by Mark Dever

The Bible is clear, but that doesn’t mean that it is easy to rightly interpret it. Interpreting the Bible rightly is one of the hardest things in the world to do. And if interpretation is difficult, proclamation is even harder. We move beyond the meaning of the points made in the text to questions like: What is the best way to proclaim the gospel from this text? What are relevant contemporary illustrations of this text?

One of the most helpful things to have when thinking about preaching a text is a sermon done by someone you trust to get the message of the text right, to surprise you with applications or illustrations that stimulate your thinking, and to show you strategies for undermining unbelief you haven’t thought of yourself. Because reading this kind of thing is so helpful, I am very thankful that Crossway is publishing Mark Dever’s sermons.

Anyone trying to get their head around how to do expository preaching should read Twelve Challenges Churches Face. Anyone preaching through 1 Corinthians will want to add this book to the things used in preparation to preach. Anyone teaching a Sunday School class on 1 Corinthians could study this book along with their “teacher’s curriculum.” Anyone leading a Bible Study on 1 Corinthians will gain from this book. Anyone who has decided to study 1 Corinthians over the course of a month or a semester or for the whole year will be helped by this book.

Have I mentioned that I like this book and am glad to recommend it?

David Hamilton on “Tragic Political Correctness”

My brother has a great post here that is a powerful reminder of the urgent and desperate condition of the lost.

May it spur your soul to spread the news of the death and resurrection of the Lord Christ in view of the certainty of the coming judgment.

I also recommend the poetry in the previous posts (scroll down on the home page).

Interview with Justin Hardin on Paul and the Roman Imperial Cult

I met Justin Hardin a few summers ago when I visited Tyndale House, Cambridge. Justin was there doing his Ph.D., and I feel blessed to call him a friend. His dissertation explored the question of whether Paul is engaging the Imperial Cult in Galatians, and he now teaches at Oklahoma Baptist University, but in September he takes up the post recently vacated by David Wenham at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. For a recent “get to know you” interview, see Matthew Montonini’s post here.

Thanks for taking the time for this interview, Justin! It seems to me that many conservative American students of the New Testament are suspicious of the recent interest in the Roman Imperial Cult because it is often accompanied by what is perceived as an anti-American political agenda (and these conservative NT students would be the first to say that this world is not our home and that our citizenship is in heaven). Because of this liberal-conservative political division, I’d like to start with some questions that deal with these kinds of issues (modern politics), then move to questions that deal more directly with our understanding of the New Testament (historical backgrounds and exegesis). My questions are in bold, and Justin’s replies to my questions will be prefaced by his initials, JKH.

The Church: Not Another Interest Group

How can evangelicals best influence the United States of America?

I submit that there is a better answer than the one that would be given by either Chris Matthews or Rush Limbaugh.

The greatest influence evangelical Christians can have upon American society and politics will not come by lobbying Washington, getting out the vote, or doing anything overtly political. The greatest influence evangelical Christians can have upon American society and politics will come through investing themselves in a local church where the gospel is proclaimed, where the Scriptures are faithfully taught, where people understand what regeneration is, and where church discipline draws a clear line between those who live as though they have been born again and those who do not (and when people don’t repent of sin, they live as though they are unregenerate).

At the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2006, I presented a paper entitled “The Church Militant and Her Warfare: We Are Not Another Interest Group.” That piece has now appeared in the latest issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.

My article can be accessed here, and the table of contents of the current issue, on the theme of “Church and State” can be accessed here.

Dr. Russell D. Moore writes:

The SBJT, edited by Southern Baptist theologian Stephen J. Wellum, is an excellent resource for pastors and church leaders. . . . You can (and should!) subscribe here.

You can read Dr. Moore’s essay here.

Review of Guy Waters, The End of Deuteronomy in the Epistles of Paul

Guy Waters, The End of Deuteronomy in the Epistles of Paul, WUNT 2/221. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. 302pp. ISBN: 3-16-148891-1. $99.50. Paper.

This volume is the published version of a dissertation written under the supervision of Richard B. Hays at Duke University. Guy Waters, who now teaches at RTS in Jackson, MS, is also the author of books and articles related to recent controversies over justification, the New Perspective, and Federal Vision theology. The volume under review here is a technical interaction with one of the foundational assumptions of much scholarship sympathetic with the New Perspective(s).

Waters explores Paul’s “engagements” with Deuteronomy 27–30 and 32 (leaving out ch. 31 because Paul never cites it), defining an “engagement” as “what conceivably might be proposed as either ‘citation’ or ‘reference.’” Waters treats texts attended by a citation formula as “citations” and recognizable verbal correspondence between Pauline and OT texts as “references,” limiting the study to the texts listed in NA²⁷.

The volume opens with an introductory chapter on Paul’s interaction with Deuteronomy where Waters summarizes past scholarship on the question and sets out the methodology for his study. Chapter 2 deals with the treatment of Deut 27–30 and 32 in Second Temple Jewish literature, and the rest of the book treats Paul’s engagements of these chapters from Deuteronomy: chapter 3, Galatians (and an excursus on 1 Cor 14:21); chapter 4, 1 Corinthians and Philippians; chapter 5, Romans; and the conclusions are presented in chapter 6.

Rejecting Harnack’s view of the incompatibility of the OT with the gospel, Waters follows Hays in method and in the view that Deuteronomy 32 “contains Romans in nuce.” This has been challenged by J. C. Beker, who argues it says too much, and James M. Scott, who thinks it says too little. Waters argues against the position of Odil Hannes Steck, popularized in English by Scott and carried forward by N. T. Wright. Scott and Wright take the view that the sin-exile-restoration schema is behind Paul’s statements when he cites texts from Deuteronomy 27–32, but Wright often argues that Paul taps into this tradition even when such texts are not explicitly cited. Waters holds that importing this framework into one’s understanding of Paul when he does or does not cite these texts is insufficiently nuanced in that it does not allow for the possibility of development in Paul’s thinking and assumes that Paul regards Deuteronomy 27–32 as a sin-exile-restoration narrative.

Waters argues that the complexity of the evidence renders the theses of Steck and Scott “fundamentally incorrect.” He objects to Steck’s reliance upon the idea that the “Levites conducted Deuteronomic tradition during the exilic period,” and he argues that if Diaspora Judaism did not read history this way, it cannot be said that this model was dominant. If anything, it was one competing historical model among others. Waters objects to Scott’s suggestion that while some Jews thought the return from exile had happened with the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple, others looked for a glorious eschatological future. Registering these objections, Waters sets aside the theses of Steck and Scott and concludes that “It is impossible to speak of a single pattern or mode of reading Deut 27, 28, 29, 30, 32 that all Second Temple Jewish writers share” (77).

It seems to me that Waters could strengthen his case against Steck and Scott with a discussion of Deuteronomy 27–32. A chapter summarizing the major themes and flow of thought in this portion of Deuteronomy would be interesting. Waters might conclude that the basic sin-exile-restoration schema put forward by Steck and Scott is really there in Deuteronomy, or it might be that he is averse to all such macro-level descriptions of broad patterns in biblical texts. We may indeed dispute Steck’s views of how this schema was formulated and maintained, recognize that not all Jews read the text this way, quibble over whether the exile was thought to be ongoing, and reject the importation of the schema into every Pauline text as a controlling framework. All this does not change the fact that Deuteronomy seems to state that Israel will break the covenant, be sent into exile under God’s curse, and then be re-gathered to the land (see esp. Deut 4:25–31; 29:18–30:10). This schema is arguably present in Deuteronomy 32 as well (see sin in 32:15–18, exile in 32:19–33, and the restoration of Israel through the judgment of their enemies in 32:34–43), and these themes, especially the jealousy motif, have heavily influenced Paul’s statements in Romans 11. Waters himself argues that Deuteronomy 32 is a lens through which Paul reads Deuteronomy 27–30. It is not clear to me how this fits with the idea that the views of Steck and Scott are “fundamentally incorrect.” Perhaps they are in need of revision, even significant revision at points, but it seems to me that the basic thrust, the idea that the latter chapters of Deuteronomy prophesy Israel’s sin, exile, and restoration, can be maintained (see the essay by Roy Ciampa on “The History of Redemption” in Central Themes in Biblical Theology ed. Scott J. Hafemann and Paul R. House).

Waters’s interaction with scholarship is impressively thorough, and his comments on the text of Scripture are painstakingly precise. This is very valuable, as are his detailed conclusions on Paul’s interaction with Deuteronomy that close each chapter (6 enumerated points end chapter 3, 11 end chapter 4, and 11 end chapter 5). Not all volumes with justified margins have this problem, but for some reason this volume is afflicted with strange and distracting spacings, making a technical volume even more difficult to read. Waters has given us a careful and thorough study of Paul’s understanding of Deuteronomy that will be of benefit to anyone interested in these questions.

Danny Akin Tells the Story of Bill Wallace

To hear the story of the missionary Doctor, Bill Wallace, who was martyred in China in 1951, go to the SEBTS chapel webpage and download the sermon “Jesus Is Everything to Me” on Philippians 1:21 preached by Dr. Danny Akin on October 30, 2007.

Highly recommended.

Don’t waste your life.

Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God: Salvation History in Song

Have you ever wondered if there’s a Christmas album that presents salvation history in song?

If that’s what you’re looking for, look no further. Last Christmas a friend gave us Andrew Peterson’s album, Behold the Lamb of God. This CD is practically a biblical theology in verse. The contents of the album are as follows:

“Behold the Lamb of God” (2004)

 

1. “Gather ‘Round, Ye Children, Come” lyrics

 

This tune echoes the biblical call to parents to pass the mighty deeds of the Lord on to the coming generations. You can see a video of it being done live here.

 

2. “Passover Us” lyrics

 

This song recounts the conflict between Moses and Pharaoh and celebrate’s the Lord’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt.

 

3. “So Long, Moses” lyrics

 

This psalm walks the listener through the story if Israel taking the land and looking for a king. Joshua, Judges, Saul, David, and then the longing for another David.

 

4. “Deliver Us ” lyrics

 

Derek Webb sings this mournful lament of the bondage of sin from the perspective of a member of the old covenant remnant, longing for the coming of the Messiah. Watch a live performance here.

 

5. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”

 

Watch a live performance of this one here.

 

6. “Matthew’s Begats ” lyrics

 

This is one of the most clever songs I’ve ever heard. The lyrics are, no kidding, Matthew’s genealogy! This one has an upbeat, lively sound, so much so that when we were first listening to it, our 3 year old son referred to it as “the fun song,” and he wanted to hear it over and over again. You can see it live here.

 

7. “It Came to Pass” lyrics

 

At long last, the king came. And in such an unexpected way! This one sings the birth of the babe in Bethlehem. Watch a live performance here.

 

8. “Labor of Love” lyrics

 

This was no sanitized birth, and this song captures both the agony of the curse on childbirth and the joy of the deliverer come at last. You can here it here.

 

9. “The Holly and the Ivy”

 

10. “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks” lyrics

 

11. “Behold the Lamb of God” lyrics

 

12. “The Theme Of My Song/Reprise”

You can check out Andrew Peterson’s blog, where he has many of these videos linked. Enjoy!

John Barclay’s Response to N. T. Wright and the Paul and Empire Coalition

Anyone interested in Pauline Theology will want to read Lee Irons’s notes on John Barclay’s presentation at SBL.

Barclay presents a searching response to Wright’s argument that Paul is speaking directly against the Roman Imperial Cult.

Those interested in these discussions will also want to watch for Denny Burk’s forthcoming essay in JETS.

Lee Irons presents a summary of Barclay’s presentation in three parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

And you can download the audio from both presentations, as well as the response and brief rejoinders, here:

Part 1

Part 2

HT: Justin Taylor

A Trophy of Grace Proclaims the Gospel

In the mercy and providence of God, my younger brother, David, became a Christian in March of this year. He has an insightful account of what happened in his brain as the Lord drew him, and there’s a lot of other good stuff on his blog, too.

By the way, note that I referred to him as my “younger” brother not my “little” brother. Since he grew to be almost 6 feet 7 inches tall, he’s bigger than I am! Thus explaining his blog address, http://bigham.wordpress.com, as well.

I Praise God for his mercy to our family!