A New Ministry: SBTS in the Fall

In God’s great mercy I will be joining the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall. Here’s the story in the Towers Online.

Here’s what I said when I shared this news with our church family at Baptist Church of the Redeemer:

Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Psalm 139:16 tells us that every day of our lives is written in God’s book before they come to pass. God is sovereign over every day of our lives.

Acts 17:26, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place . . .”

Acts 17:26 is describing nations, and it states that God has determined how long a nation will exist and what its boundaries will be. I think the same is true of individuals: God has determined how long we will live on this earth and what the boundaries of our dwelling place will be.

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that God has prepared beforehand good works for us to do.

2 Timothy 2:4, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.”

2 Timothy 2:4 tells us that Christian ministers are like soldiers. Soldiers receive orders, and they obey, seeking to please their superiors.

The circumstances of our lives have made clear that new orders have been given to me.

It has been a high privilege to serve Southwestern Seminary for the past 5 years. The students have been eager to learn, encouraging to me, and what a joy to see them enter the harvest! The administration has been generous to me, always showing a sincere pastoral love, and God blessed me with dear friends in my faculty colleagues.

It has also been an unexpected, unlooked for joy and privilege to serve at Baptist Church of the Redeemer for the last three years. I never intended to get swept up in a church plant, but God blessed us immensely through this group of families who wanted to plant a church. We are so grateful that we were drawn into this endeavor. We have never been happier at a church than we are at Redeemer. We have learned and continue to learn from our brothers and sisters, and I am spurred on by their godliness and devotion. What a privilege to serve such a people!

I would be a fool to choose to leave.

But it has not ultimately come down to my choice. Months of thinking over and praying through this possibility have made me certain that if The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary invited me to join the faculty, it would be the call of God to leave Houston and move to Louisville to labor in a different section of the Lord’s vineyard.

God has opened this door and has called us to this new ministry. We are sad to leave home, family in Texas, and most of all our church, but at the same time we are excited about what the Lord has for us.

Lord willing, I will take up the post of Associate Professor of Biblical Theology at Southern in the Fall of 2008. I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve in this role. May the Lord prosper his Word!

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On a logistical note, if anyone is looking to buy a house in southwest Houston, let’s talk!

Let Athanasius Spur You to Study the Psalms

In his fascinating lecture on “Reading the Psalms Messianically,” Gordon Wenham recommends The Letter of St. Athanasius to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms.

Having followed that recommendation, I am now passing it on, and I would also recommend having a listen (or multiple listens) to Wenham’s lecture. The most striking thing, for me, about Athanasius’s letter is his absolutely thorough knowledge of the Psalms! What a gift to be spurred on to a closer and more comprehensive knowledge of the Psalms!

Enjoy.

By the way, if you have the SVS Press edition of Athanasius’s On the Incarnation (the one with the brilliant introduction by C. S. Lewis), the letter to Marcellinus on the interpretation of the Psalms is included as an appendix.

Biblical, Baptist Ecclesiology

I’ll be speaking on the most biblical form of ecclesiology at Redeemer Community Church in Katy, TX tomorrow night, Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 7pm.

If you’re in the area, I would love to see you. I’ll be arguing that the most biblical form of ecclesiology is the one practiced historically by Baptist churches: elder-led deacon-served congregationalism.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks to Whoever Sent This!

Here at the Hamilton House we’re celebrating the recent birth of a little one, and someone sent us a fitting onesie–fitting, that is, for our family, even though the little baby doesn’t fit in it quite yet. He’ll grow into it!

We don’t know who sent this to us, but we want to thank whoever it was! If you are the giver of this great gift, please do let us know so we can express our enthusiastic appreciation to you more directly.

This is a fitting gift for us because we love Charles Spurgeon, and we consider him one of our forefathers in the faith. In fact, soon after I was accepted into the Ph.D. program at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, we got a dog and named him Spurgeon. It seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate our return to Baptist life. Both my wife and I had grown up in Baptist churches, but during our time at Dallas Theological Seminary we were involved mainly at Northwest Bible Church in Dallas. One of the major factors that brought us back to Baptist life was the encouraging news coming from Southern Seminary, where Dr. Mohler has led a great return to the faith.

How we pray that our children will grow up to love Jesus, the Savior their homeboy, Charles Spurgeon, so faithfully preached!

Responses to Mike Bird’s Questions

My friend Mike Bird posted some questions in response to what is happening at Westminster Seminary with Peter Enns as a result of Enns’s book, Inspiration and Incarnation.

My responses to those questions in the comments section on Bird’s blog became such that I thought it might be useful to post them here.

For the questions, see Mike’s post here. My response was as follows:
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Mike, 

I appreciate Marty’s responses above [the third comment in response to Bird's post], and I want to add that it seems to me that the way you’ve framed the questions doesn’t exactly match the way that the opposition to Enns understands the issues. 

It may be that the way you’re framing the issues is the way that Enns thinks they should be framed, but I don’t think those who think he doesn’t fit at WTS approach the questions the way you do here. So, I’ll briefly add my two cents on your 4 points, which I think will get at the way the Enns-opposers would think about the issues (I can’t speak for them, but being sympathetic with their concerns, I’m giving you the rationale behind my concerns): 

1. My guess is that they would say there isn’t only one orthodox way of dealing with extra-biblical sources. I suspect they would be very sympathetic with Greg Beale’s objection to the way that Enns narrows things down to only one possible explanation–that the biblical authors shared mythological notions reflected in extra biblical lit–then from this Enns concludes that the biblical authors held some mythological ideas that they wrote up in the Bible. Beale lists 4 different ways that evangelicals have explained the kinds of things that lead Enns to think there are mythological notions in the Bible: 1) biblical polemic against these ideas; 2) general revelation shared by biblical and extra-biblical authors; 3) common reflection of ancient tradition; and 4) a productive use of truth found in extra-biblical literature. (I’m referring to the Beale review in JETS, which I think is worth reading carefully).

All this to say, there isn’t one and only one orthodox way of dealing with these kinds of things, there are many orthodox ways of explaining these things. There are also unorthodox ways of explaining them, and the folks at WTS think that saying that the Bible contains myth is on the unorthodox side. I agree. 

2. Couldn’t it simply be that Genesis 1-3 is engaged in polemics against the false notions current in the day? 

3. With Marty’s points above, I would add that Paul would have held that the Bible was totally true and trustworthy (inerrancy), and I think he would have seen enough manuscripts to recognize that God didn’t re-inspire every scribe who decided to copy a manuscript of a biblical text (the point of saying that the autographs are inspired and inerrant). 

As for the kinds of things we see in Paul’s citation of Isa 59:20 in Rom 11:26-27, we have to take these things on a case by case basis. The Greek translator of Isaiah was working with an unpointed Hebrew text–as was Paul if he was looking at the Hebrew rather than the Greek (I don’t need to tell you that the pointings don’t come in until the middle ages, ca. 6th-7th c. AD, but maybe some readers will benefit from that note). Just a cursory glance at this leads me to think that the Greek translator of Isaiah has carried over the subject from the first half of the line (”the redeemer will come”) to the second half of the line, so that whereas the Masoretes pointed the text to read “to those who turn”–taking ulshavey as a masc. pl. ptcpl in construct with the following word, the Greek translator perhaps read the yod as a vav (easy to do if the tail on the yod was a little long–or maybe it was a vav and the Masoretes misread it as a yod) and perhaps the Greek translator, seeing ulshavo, took this as an infinitive construct whose 3ms (the vav) pronominal suffix pointed back to the subject of the first half of the line, resulting in the reading “and he will turn back ungodliness” in the LXX instead of “and for those who repent of sin” in the Masoretic text. I only put this out as a possibility. A definitive explanation would require, among other things, an examination of the translation technique employed by the Isaiah translator. But this possibility should show that we should not draw overly rash conclusions about the kinds of things we see happening in the texts as we move from the Masoretic text to the Greek translations of the OT to the New Testament. Other changes in Paul’s rendering appear to have come in from the influence of Psalm 14:7. On these issues I highly recommend Peter Gentry’s article, “The Septuagint and the Text of the Old Testament,” BBR 16.2 (2006), 193-218. 

Having said all this, I would also say that my presupposition is that Paul has rightly understood the meaning of the OT text–even if that meaning is dependant upon his interpretation of the wider context of not only Isaiah but the whole OT–and so perhaps Paul does introduce changes (maybe as Earle Ellis argues he selects from all the translations/interpretations known to him) and these changes that Paul introduces into his citations are intended to communicate more clearly what he thinks is the true meaning of the OT text in context. So the variations that we see point us to the way that Paul is interpreting the OT. Now the question becomes, has Paul rightly understood the OT? I think he gets it right, and I think it is incumbent upon us to patiently seek to understand him and not too quickly arrive at the conclusion that Paul has done violence to the OT text or assumed some mythological interpretation. 

Even if Paul is alluding to the movable well, as Enns argues, how do we know that by asserting that the rock was Christ he is not opposing what he views as a silly fable? In several texts Paul calls his audiences to reject Jewish myths that promote speculations (e.g., 1 Tim 1:4). Maybe the movable well thing was one of those speculative myths. In my opinion, Enns has taken what is at best a dubious possibility–that Paul believes in the movable well–and from that dubious possibility Enns wants to construct his doctrine of Scripture. I think his critics who have objected that he’s trying to build a doctrine of Scripture from “problem texts” are right on the money, and I think the Beale is right to point out in his Themelios review that when you count up the problem texts that Enns cites, there aren’t more than a dozen! Maybe as few as 8 to 10.

4. Marty’s answer is very helpful. Schreiner rejects the idea that the prophecy was really made by the historical Enoch, and he states, “It is better to conclude that Jude quoted the pseudepigraphical 1 Enoch and that he also believed that the portion he quoted represented God’s truth. Jude’s wording does not demand that he thought we have an authentic oracle from the historical Enoch. We do not need to conclude, however, that the entire book is part of the canon of Scripture . . . Jude probably cited a part of 1 Enoch that he considered to be a genuine prophecy” [Schreiner cites Moo as being in general agreement with him on this point]. Schreiner then suggests that Jude’s opponents might have valued Enoch, so he quoted this unremarkable prophecy against them, concluding, “Jude simply drew from a part of the work that he considered true” (Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 469-70).

I think that Greg Beale’s three reviews of Enns’s book are worthy of careful study, and I hope that what I have written here is helpful. 

So thankful for the reliability of the Bible! 

Jim

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.

D. A. Carson’s new book: Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor

Just out from Crossway and just arrived in my mail, I’m eager to read this new book by D. A. Carson, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson. A few years ago Carson had a short piece on his father in the SBJT Forum that was a powerful reminder that faithfulness, not fame, is our standard.

If you’re looking for a devotional biography, look no further. Buy this little book and enjoy the reminder that all God’s people are ordinary people (even the famous ones).

Old Covenant Believers and the Indwelling Spirit

I just noticed that my essay, “Old Covenant Believers and the Indwelling Spirit: A Survey of the Spectrum of the Opinion,” is one of the “sample articles” made available at present from the Trinity Journal website. I don’t currently have permission to post that essay here, but for the present you can download it from the Trinity Journal site here.

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.