Hermeneutics | Green Baggins

Hebrew Roots Movement, Part 3

December 30, 2022 at 11:46 am (Hebrew Roots Movement, Heresy, Hermeneutics, Law, Mosaic Law)

The law of God is at the heart of the HRM and the debates surrounding it. The traditional understanding of God’s law is that there are three parts of the law and three uses of the law. Reformed understanding would also include three main principles for understanding the Ten Commandments (though I will not go through those principles in this post). As far as I can tell, the HRM rejects all or most of these distinctions.

The three parts of the law are the moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral law is the Ten Commandments. The civil laws are those laws given to Israel as a political entity for the Old Testament time. They were given to Israel for the time when they were in the land (Deuteronomy 5-6, note the recurring phrase “in the land”). They taught the Israelites about holiness, being distinct from the rest of the world. they included laws such as not sowing the land with two different kinds of seeds, or weaving cloth with two different kinds of thread. The dietary laws are also usually reckoned to be in this category. The ceremonial law is the sacrificial system, the worship laws, the feasts and festivals. Of course, there has always been some debate about whether a particular law belongs in one or the other of these three basic categories. However, the vast majority of the church has held to this distinction for most of its history.

The HRM believes the church invented this distinction without any biblical basis whatsoever. The HRM erases category distinctions between sets of laws, thus (at least potentially) putting the law of two different kinds of threads on the same footing as “Do not murder.” Jesus says, in Matthew 23:23 that there are weightier and less weighty matters of the law. Tithing mint and cumin is less weighty than justice and mercy. He says none of them should be neglected by the Pharisees, but the Pharisees lacked a sense of proportion. For a far larger and exegetical position defending the biblical position of the three parts of the law, see this excellent tome.

The three uses of the law are equally important in this discussion. The first use of the law, the pedagogical use, is outlined in Galatians 3:19ff. In this use, the law shows people how badly they fail to measure up to the law’s demands. What goes along with that is the equally important truth that the law shows us how perfectly Jesus Christ did measure up to the law’s demands. In this use, the gospel is set in contrast (not opposition) to the law. As Michael Horton would put it, the law says “Do this;” the gospel says “done.” Now, of course, there needs to be nuance applied to Horton’s statement, as he himself does. The nuance is quite adequately found in the other uses of the law.

The second use of the law is to restrain evil in the world, the civil use of the law. Romans 1-2 provide the foundation for this understanding of the law. The moral law is written on every person’s conscience. There is no particular need to dwell on this use of the law, as it probably would not be controversial among HRM proponents.

The third use of the law is as a guide to the Christian life. HRM proponents would probably agree partially. Reformed folk believe that the law is not to be obeyed to obtain or retain God’s saving favor. God’s fatherly pleasure is distinct, of course. Obeying the moral law is our thanksgiving and gratitude to God for the salvation He has given us as a free gift. In the video linked in the last post, Anne Elliott says that she circumcised her boy on the eighth day. Apparently, she has not properly understood Galatians 5:1-6. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. If one accepts circumcision, then he is obligated to keep the entire law. This is the state of having fallen away from grace (towards works!). This is being severed from Christ. This is one of the main reasons I call the HRM heresy: it is the exact same heresy as Paul was fighting in the letter to Galatians. Next up, I will start exegeting individual texts that are at issue, grouping them around dietary laws, the feasts, circumcision, and show how the HRM twists Scripture to fit its grid, even while they accuse the church of doing so.

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Hebrew Roots Movement, Part 2

December 29, 2022 at 10:27 am (Hebrew Roots Movement, Heresy, Hermeneutics)

Up next is hermeneutics, or how people interpret the Bible. It is not certain that there is any one particular method that holds true for all HRM proponents. What does appear to be common among HRM proponents, however, is the initially plausible-sounding cry “Put aside all lenses and biases and interpret the Scripture as if reading it for the first time.” This has much in common with many other hermeneutical approaches. There is a grain of truth here, in that biases can distort our picture of the biblical text. They don’t always do that, however. The naivete of the approach can be made quite plain by a few simple points: 1. Is it actually possible to lay aside all bias? You see, what “Put aside all lenses and biases and interpret the Scripture as if reading it for the first time” actually means, practically speaking, is “ignore anything and everything the church has said about Scripture for two thousand years.” Don’t expect the Holy Spirit to have given gifts of teaching to the church over that period. Far better to believe that the gates of Hell have actually prevailed against the church, and for most of its history. 2. Therefore, saying “lay aside all bias” actually puts in place a far more insidious bias that always goes unacknowledged and unchallenged: the church is always wrong. As Ken Ham often says, “The question is not whether you’re biased, but whether the bias that you’re biased with is the right bias to be biased with in the first place.” Everyone has a bias in the sense that they have a point of view. Or, to adapt Ligon Duncan’s statement on confessions of faith, everyone has a bias, but some simply won’t tell you what it is. Those who have creeds and confessions can simply point you to them, and say, “This is what we believe Scripture says as a whole, and therefore any interpretation which contradicts what we believe Scripture as a whole to be saying will not be countenanced.”

If a person desires to go with the whole “lay aside all bias and lenses” thing, what they usually do is introduce a new lens without telling you that they are doing so. Take the example of Lex Meyer, for example. Lex is the founder of Unlearn. He says in a video (his talk starts around the 30:30 mark) that we need to take off all the lenses that distort our understanding of Scripture and focus only on what Scripture itself says. His website is “Unlearn the lies.” Unfortunately for him, he then proceeds to introduce a grid for interpreting Scripture that is the Medieval quadriga! This is as churchly biased as it gets, ironically enough. He just doesn’t like modern churchly interpretation, but is quite willing to go back to the allegorical ways of the Medieval church. It is not surprising to me that this surfaced in the HRM, as the Medieval quadriga pretty much allows the reader to make the Scripture say anything he wants it to say.

If this is not the right way to go about things (and it is not!), then what is the right way? Firstly, we have to recognize that Scripture itself tells us that there is a pattern of sound teaching (2 Timothy 1:13-14), a faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). It is right and proper, therefore, to summarize that teaching in creeds and confessions. What some have helpfully called a hermeneutical spiral then begins to form: we form a grid that is always correctable, but which also forms a boundary beyond which lies heresy. This is not only informed by Scripture, but also informs our reading of Scripture. Up next, the biblical understanding of the law of God as contrasted with HRM.

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Hebrew Roots Movement, Part 1

December 28, 2022 at 1:03 pm (Hebrew Roots Movement, Hermeneutics)

The Hebrew Roots Movement (HRM) has not only been around a while, but it has gained steam. There are many blogs, video conferences, and even now a seminary to train pastors in the HRM. Why has this movement gained so much headway? In part, I think it is because the church has failed to preach the true gospel, and has transitioned to moral therapeutic deism. Also, with the rise of progressivism, Christians believe that there needs to be something in place to stem the tide. They think to find that in obedience to Old Testament civil and ceremonial laws. To build on R. Scott Clark’s categories for a moment, it is a quest for illegitimate religious certainty (QIRC). It comes from a desire to live by sight and not by faith, especially in opposition to the shifting sands of progressivism. I dare say many HRM proponents would not agree with this assessment of the situation. They just want to be obedient. Of course, in desiring to answer these points of the HRM, we must be very careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The moral law of the 10 Commandments still applies today, not in order to obtain or keep salvation, but as our expression of gratitude for the salvation we have received.

Previous treatments of the subject on this blog have been somewhat piece-meal, though there are some excellent contributions (especially those by Reed). See here, here, here, and here. I would encourage readers to go back through those, as they are helpful. Today I want to address one particular issue, the name of Jesus. HRM proponents almost always call Him “Jeshua.” They believe that when the NT became Greek (they think it was originally written in Hebrew), that Hellenism took over and distorted the message of the NT. While there have been a fair number of scholars who have believed the NT was originally written in Aramaic (read Isaiah 36-39 to see that Aramaic and Hebrew are not the same language, despite being about half cognate), very few reputable NT scholars of which I am aware believe the NT was originally written in Hebrew. For one thing, there are absolutely zero Hebrew manuscripts of the New Testament that have any antiquity, whereas we have Greek manuscripts that date to the second century A.D.

One of the main problems here for the HRM on this point is Pentecost. At the very least, the Cretans of Acts 2:11 would have spoken Greek. The Holy Spirit didn’t have any problems with translating the gospel into all of these languages. Why would Greek only be the problematic language? It was the lingua franca of the day. HRM proponents use many languages today. Why are modern languages any better than the supposedly devilish Greek language? Iesous is a direct transliteration of “Yeshua.” The two names mean exactly the same thing: “The Lord saves.” Matthew 1:21 explicitly ties Jesus’ Greek name with the salvation God brings. One thing the HRM proponents have never done is explain how the meaning of the Hebrew name and Greek name is supposedly so vastly different that it is somehow almost heretical to call Jesus “Iesous.” I am thinking James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language has escaped their attention. If Pentecost proves that the gospel may and should be translated into all languages, then Greek cannot be the exception. I don’t believe for one second, incidentally, that the New Testament was originally written in anything other than Greek.

Most importantly for this point, there is no biblical text whatsoever that would even support the idea that Hebrew is a holier language than Greek. They cannot argue this from Scripture. Instead, they base everything off a highly questionable assumption that the NT was written originally in Hebrew, even though there is next to no evidence for it.

They typically argue that the disciples could not possibly have known Greek. This is almost universally rejected in the scholarly world today. For example, Karen Jobes’s excellent commentary on 1 Peter shows how Greek was the original language of writing the letter, and by someone for whom Greek was a second language (she measures Semitic interference). If Greek was the lingua franca, why would anyone make the preposterous claim that the disciples (and Jesus, for that matter!) could not possibly have known the language? Yet many HRM proponents make that precise claim.

Why is this important? Is calling Jesus “Yeshua” really all that bad? Of course it isn’t bad at all, in and of itself. Modern Hebrew speakers call Jesus “Yeshua.” It is all the baggage that comes with it in the HRM movement that introduces the problems. HRM proponents want to make the OT more important than the NT. This is part and parcel of their claim that Jesus really doesn’t change anything with regard to OT law. The fact is simple: believing that Jesus’ name cannot be translated from one language to another is pure superstition. There is no difference in meaning AT ALL between “Yeshua,” “Iesous,” and “Jesus.” They all mean “Yahweh saves.”

Speaking on a more personal note, most HRM proponents I have come into contact with tend to look down their noses at people who say “Jesus,” because they are somehow being less holy by translating the name. This is part of the larger attempt to make people feel like they are missing out on something if they do not obey the entire OT law. Galatians and Hebrews would beg to differ, despite the exegetical gymnastics the HRM tries to pull to make those texts say something different than what they actually say. Up next is hermeneutics.

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Thoughts on Sermon Prep for Narrative

April 26, 2022 at 10:00 am (Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Preaching)

Posted by R. Fowler White

Whenever I’m preaching or teaching regularly, one thing I do is to reflect on what I’m doing (or not doing) in preparation and trying to figure out how to prepare better. This is particularly the case when I’m surveying a major narrative division within the canon (such as the five books of Moses) or expounding the pericopes in a specific narrative document (such as the Gospel according to Mark).

In seminary I was taught exegesis and homiletics, first in the NT letters and later in Ruth and the Psalms, with basic references to the literary dimensions of the text. As you can see from that synopsis, the instruction I received was customary but light on narrative. Understandably, the emphasis, as I remember it, was consistently on details of the original text, with a view to expounding the text verse by verse (sentence by sentence). Missing was instruction on expounding the text scene by scene. Over time, I’ve found that, though there is some overlap between the two, the work on each is a different, sometimes very different, skill set. As a result, I’ve reflected more on my approach to narrative in particular. Here, then, are some thoughts on what I’ve found expounding OT and NT narrative.

The approach I’ve settled on over time seems to revolve around four sequential steps. First, I identify the discreet component scenes of a narrative section. Second, the most challenging step: I summarize “the story/plot/drama developments” from scene to scene, trying to avoid simply retelling the details unless they were crucial. Third, with that summary in mind, I seek to discern the (biblical- and systematic-) theological point(s) being made in each scene. Last, I answer the question, what does the Holy Spirit speaking through the text want readers or hearers to know, or be, or do in light of this passage?

I’m sure that the preceding comes off as fairly basic and commonplace advice. Then again, the more I’ve dealt with narrative, the more I’m pushed to see that responsible exposition, particularly in a survey narrative series, necessitates giving folks the macrostructures and major storylines of the Bible tethered to the theology being develop in the text. This is usually the case because folks don’t generally know the Bible as well as they must to hear an exposition of its narratives, especially in the OT, with profit. For example, in general, I’ve found that, when it comes to the OT narratives, their theology seems to keep coming back to the ways in which they expose transgressions, on the one hand, and to evangelize transgressors, on the other. As the actors in the text keep failing, the Lord keeps calling them to repent and trust Him alone as their Redeemer or to face Him as their Judge, especially once Jesus, the Son of Abraham and David, appears in history.

To fill out the picture even more fully, maybe it would help to combine the points above with a grid of questions and tasks for exposition that I’ve found myself using. That grid includes the following questions: what does the text indicate that God wants readers (or hearers) to know, to be, or to do? What are the topic and the purpose of the text? What are the doctrine and the duty in the text? With answers to the preceding questions in mind, my focus turns to more specific tasks. Here’s what I have in mind. Develop an outline and fill in its details so that it lays out the argument of the text. Wherever there are connections between the teaching of the text and the teaching of the Reformed confessions and catechisms, bring out those connections in your outline or exposition. When it comes to expounding an OT or NT narrative, make conscious reference to the Apostle’s instruction in 2 Tim 3:15-17, highlighting in the text the person and work of Christ, the offers of grace, and the warnings of judgment. When it comes to expounding an OT text, keep before yourself the Letter to the Hebrews and Christ’s example in Luke 24:25-27, 44-46. Regardless of the narrative’s place in redemptive history, present God’s gospel, His law, and His Christ in His sufferings and glory.

I’m sure that there are readers who can identify and provide more and better thoughts than those above.

Eschatology Outlines: No. 6A Israel and the Church

October 18, 2021 at 9:00 am (Church, Eschatology, Hermeneutics, Typology)

Posted by R. Fowler White

The Typological Significance of Israel:
From Having a Temple to Being a Temple

Summary: God has one program in the history of redemption, and its unity and focus are found in Christ and the church, the Last Adam and His bride (Gen 3:15; Eph 1:10; 3:11). God does not have two (or more) programs, one for Israel, one for the Church (nor does he have a third program for the nations). In other words, the Bible is Christ-centered, not Israel-centered, and Israel, not the church, is God’s “parenthesis” in history.

I. In the beginning, God gave Adam and his bride Eve the commission to rule and fill the earth under God’s blessing, to God’s glory, and according to God’s word (Gen 1:28; 2:15-17). Since the first Adam failed (Gen 3), God in His grace promised to send a second man—the Last Adam—to succeed where the first Adam had failed (Gen 3:15; 1 Cor 15:21-28, 45-49). God promised, in effect, that Christ and His bride would succeed where Adam and his bride had failed. God has carried out His promise in history through a succession of covenants.

II. 1 Cor 10:6, 11—Now these things took place as examples for [i.e., types of] us, that we might not desire evil as they did. … Now these things happened to them as an example [i.e., a type], but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Certain parallels between Israel and the church get our attention.

A. Exodus, first and new: Israel under Moses offered the Passover Lamb, a lamb without physical spot or blemish, for their deliverance from Egypt. Christ is the greater and true Passover Lamb sacrificed for His people, Heb 2:10-13, a lamb without moral spot or blemish, 1 Cor 5:7; 1 Pet 1:19; John 1:29; Rev 5:6-9. His death brings about the New Exodus, Luke 9:31.

B. Baptism into Moses and into Christ, Meal with Moses and with Christ: Israel was baptized into Moses; the church has been baptized into Christ. Israel fed on the manna from heaven and drank the water from the Rock in the wilderness. Likewise, the church feeds on Christ the true bread of life (the true manna) and drinks the true water of life, the Holy Spirit, from Christ the living Rock.

C. Warning of wrath, past and present: Israel’s exodus generation in the wilderness set a bad example for the church. They fell away from the living God into unbelief, and God denied them entry into Canaan (Heb 3:10-19; 1 Cor 10:5-6). The church, now also in the wilderness, should therefore take a warning that, if any in the church should fall away as Israel did, God will also deny them entry into New Canaan.

D. Faith and apostasy, past and present: It was said of Israel’s exodus generation that they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses (Exod 14:31). Moreover, to them Moses preached God’s promise of rest in earthly Canaan. Nevertheless, the faith of most of them (1 Cor 10:5; aka all those whose bodies fell in the wilderness, Heb 3:16-17) failed when temptation and trial came in the wilderness. The promise of rest preached to them did not profit them (Heb 4:2, 6). The faith they expressed at the beginning of the exodus proved to be temporary. Despite the faith they confessed at first and the blessings they had in common with all who belonged to that community, most proved in the end to have an evil, unbelieving heart when they fell away from the living God in the wilderness.

E. Rest promised in the first Canaan and in the New Canaan: Israel’s exodus generation had God’s promise of rest in earthly Canaan preached to them. So the church has had God’s promise of rest in the New Canaan (new earth) preached to them. See Heb 4:1-13; 12:26-28.

Eschatology Outlines: No. 6B Israel and the Church (conc.)

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Aimee Byrd’s Book, Chapter 1

October 19, 2020 at 2:52 pm (Feminism, Hermeneutics, OT-Kings, Women)

Byrd’s book is divided into three main parts. The first main part is called “Recovering the Way We Read Scripture.” This part deals primarily with hermeneutical issues. As someone who claims the Reformed tradition as her own, it is a question why she should feel the need to recover the way we read Scripture. Does she believe that we have lost something earlier generations had? It is not entirely clear what she means by this, but we will simply note this and move on.

Chapter 1 is entitled “Why Men and Women Don’t Read Separate Bibles.” I agree with much of what is in this chapter, starting with her rejection of the idea that men and women need separate Bibles. Her scathing denunciation of reading the Bible “in pink and blue” culminates in this zinger: “If the aesthetics are good, then our sanctification must be on point” (33). Against many feminist scholars, she rejects the idea that the Bible is patriarchal (42). There are many important female voices in the Bible, some of which she points out (Huldah in this chapter, Ruth in the next), and others exist like Hannah and Mary. Whether all the conclusions she draws from them are justified is another question. At the moment, however, I am listing the areas of agreement. Also, and I agree with her, she laments the poor state of theological education for women. The “Bible” studies that are on offer for women are generally hideous. Maybe publishers think that women can’t handle theology. But why would any great theologian of all church history be inaccessible or irrelevant to women? Byrd elsewhere acknowledges her debt to the great theologians, and that they continue to inform her.

There are several points that need to be examined closely for their implications. Not all of these implications have been mentioned before. First, she says that “the books written before the establishment of Christian trade publishers had an androcentric, or male-centered, perspective” (34). She immediately qualifies this statement by suggesting that this does not mean an inherently wrong perspective, but rather an incomplete perspective. This raises a question in my mind, one which I am not sure Byrd ever answers. Firstly, what does she mean by “androcentric” in this context? Does Byrd see linguistic markers like generic “he” as evidence of androcentrism? Does she see something like covenantal headship, via Ephesians 5, as androcentric? Her words here appear to be a critique, but then she pulls her punch a bit.

Next, the historical situation of Anne Hutchinson is fraught with complications. On Byrd’s reading, she was not taken seriously by her pastors/elders (36). Byrd seems to believe that if the church had invested time and energy into teaching her, the story might have been different. That is possible. However, she was given a rather good education back in England (including religious education), being taught by her learned father, Francis Marbury. It is not clear in the record how much of her theology was already in place before she came over to the colonies. Byrd seems to be claiming that the supposed neglect of Hutchinson was the main contributing factor to her later problems. It is possible that such neglect could be a contributing factor. But Byrd seems to be hinting that no blame for the situation accrues to Hutchinson herself. Any pastor, however, would be disturbed by a group meeting in someone’s house for the express purpose of critiquing the pastor’s sermon. That has “clique” written all over it! Byrd might reply by saying that Hutchinson had no other options available to her. I find that difficult to believe. She didn’t have to form a group. She could discuss the sermon informally with other people. If she had any differences with the pastor, she had a responsibility to bring those to the pastor, and him only, not spread discord by critiquing him behind his back. That is on her.

The most disturbing part of the chapter is the section entitled “Revealing a Woman’s Work” (45-6). If her conclusions are correct, and women formed part of the authenticating of Scripture, then there can be no theological objection to female ministers. If they have the greater, they can have the lesser. She describes Huldah as “authenticating the Word of God largely accepted as the heart of the book of Deuteronomy” (46, referencing Christa McKirkland). She quotes with obvious agreement McKirkland’s claim that Huldah might have been “The first person to authenticate the written Word.” Authenticating the Word of God is not how the Bible describes what she did. All the text says is that she passed on the word of the Lord that came to her, which included this statement from the Lord: “all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read.” It is not at all clear that Josiah wanted it confirmed as to whether the book that was found was the Word of God. His words in 2 Kings 22:13 refer rather to his fear that the things written in the book would come true. Huldah confirms that they would, but with qualifications mentioned in 19-20. Huldah was a true prophetess. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to doubt this, nor for Deborah, whose words came true. Some opponents of feminism have tried to argue that the consulting of Deborah and Huldah indicate the failure of male leadership. At least in Huldah’s case, this is not so, since Jeremiah started his prophecies about five years before the consultation with Huldah (thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, putting the beginning of his prophecy around 626 B.C., and the consultation of Huldah about 621 B.C.). The objection could work with Deborah’s case, but not with Huldah. Most scholars I consulted on this passage addressed the question of why Josiah did not consult with Jeremiah by answering that Jeremiah was probably in Anathoth, whereas Huldah was right there in Jerusalem. In any case, there is no indication that Huldah authenticated God’s Word (who does that anyway? The Reformers always said we receive God’s Word, not authenticate it. God’s Word is self-authenticating). In addition, Josiah’s response to the word even before the consultation indicates that he believed it was already authoritative. What he did in consulting Huldah was to ask how the curses would work out (a point I owe to Fowler). Huldah’s gifts of prophecy are certainly genuine but she does not appear in Scripture as one who had the same public ministry of speaking and writing that her contemporaries Jeremiah or Zephaniah had. Rather, she appears as one who delivered oracles in a private consultation with five members of the royal court. Our conclusions about the exact nature of her ministry or that of other men or women have to depend on other passages and considerations. For more, see Thomas Schreiner’s essay in RBMW. I would need to do more research to see what I thought about this claim, though it seems to have at least some initial plausibility.

The Nature of the Surprise

June 1, 2020 at 10:16 am (Hermeneutics)

There is no doubt that the disciples were surprised to learn that Jesus’ death and resurrection was the point of the Old Testament. In Matthew 26:54-56, it was immediately after Jesus says THIS (His arrest and death) was to fulfill Scriptures that the disciples left Him. Let no one therefore think the interpretation of the Old Testament to be a matter of indifference.

It is commonly debated today, however, why the disciples were surprised. If one compares this passage in Matthew with Luke 24, for example, we come across a bit of a puzzle. How can Jesus reproach the two disciples for being slow to believe all that the prophets had spoken? And in 1 Peter, why did the Old Testament writers search so eagerly in their own writings? It must be because they knew that there was something more in what they wrote than what they themselves had thought. They understood that they had written the Word of God and that God had further things to say than they, the authors, had intended.

How then, can we account for these two clear things: 1. the disciples were surprised; and 2. Jesus says they shouldn’t have been surprised? It has been a commonplace in scholarship to deny that the Old Testament has anything intrinsic to say about Jesus Christ. It is only the rabbinic, Midrashic exegesis of the New Testament that reads into the Old Testament something that wasn’t originally there. One has to achieve this on a supposed second reading.

I propose a different solution to this problem. The surprise is due to sin and a corresponding veil over the eyes of readers, not to a supposed intrinsic absence of Jesus from the Old Testament. Paul talks about this veil in 2 Corinthians 3:14. The problem is in the reader, not the text. In John 5, Jesus very clearly claims Moses wrote about Him. This suggests that even in the intention of Moses, there is something there about the promised one. There is more in the text than the intention of the human author, contrary to what many scholars think today.

So why were the disciples surprised? They were surprised because they had a veil over their eyes that was suddenly and unpleasantly ripped away. Matthew 26 is not telling us that the Old Testament is inherently Christless. It is telling us that the disciples did not understand. They didn’t really understand until Pentecost. That is when God took away their veil entirely. We need to pray that God takes away our veils so that we can understand the Old Testament and God fulfills all His promises in the New Testament.

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On Interpretive Grids

April 15, 2020 at 1:01 pm (Hermeneutics, Theological Encyclopedia)

I have addressed this question before, but I have some further thoughts on the matter I would like to share. In particular, I would like to address this question: what kind of grid do people have who claim to have no grid at all?

My own grid should be evident to long-time readers of the blog: I hold that the Westminster Standards are a wonderful summary of Scripture’s teaching. The church I serve believes that these standards function as the limits of biblical orthodoxy on the central issues. Within this field, there are variations of interpretation, just as there are many issues the Bible talks about that the Westminster Standards don’t address. The grid is not set in stone for eternity, either. It can be changed if sufficient evidence accrues for it to be incorrect on a particular point. It does not possess infallibility. It is correct insofar as it correctly summarizes Scripture. In this regard, it has the same character as preaching. There should therefore be reciprocity between the Scriptures and the Westminster Standards. Most people who hate the Westminster Standards seek to impose a barrier between Scripture and the Westminster Standards, as if it were the case that believing the Westminster Standards are a true summary of the Bible is a certain proof that such a person does not believe the Bible, or that such a person’s views of interpretation are naively limited.

This attitude (which is so widespread among biblical scholars as to be the clear majority position) helps us get at the point I am trying to make. Those who reject churchly summaries of the Bible’s teaching have a grid of their own. That grid, at the very least, involves putting up a wall between Scripture and churchly confessions of Scripture. The implicit assumption is that the church has completely misread the Bible. Therefore, any interpretation of Scripture that even overlaps with a churchly confession must be automatically wrong. This is a grid! Let me repeat that: this idea is itself a grid! To put it more accurately and precisely, it is an anti-grid which functions in the exact same way as a churchly grid does, only as its opposite. The biggest problem with this grid is its nearly complete invisibility. Those who hold to this grid believe that they have no grid at all.

So here is the truth: everyone has a grid by which they judge which interpretations of Scripture have more plausibility than other interpretations. Those who say they don’t are actually the most naive and least self-aware interpreters who are blind to their own assumptions and prejudices. The church, in general, recognizes all of this, which is why churches make confessions of faith. They want to have an agreed upon interpretation of the central issues so that the church can have a recognizable identity. The challenge for biblical scholars is this: why do so many of you despise the church for which Christ died? Why do so many of you assume that the church always has it wrong? Is it because you idolize being able to say something new and different so that people will stroke your ego and remark how brilliant you are? Is it because of the Enlightenment’s rejection of churchly authority? Is it because you have been hurt in the past by overly authoritarian churches? Is it a combination of factors? There is healing for all of these problems in Jesus Christ. But it requires a hefty dose of humility and self-abasement to come to this realization.

What Is Practical?

April 14, 2020 at 11:58 am (Bible, Hermeneutics)

2 Timothy 3:16 says this: “All Scripture is breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.” Most people focus on the meaning of the first part of the verse, and expound in very helpful and true ways the Warfieldian sense of “breathe out.” However, what I want to focus on in this post is the whole last part of the verse, which gives us various categories (not necessarily exhaustive!) for answering the question of what is practical.

The reason I want to address this issue is that most people’s views on what is practical are much too narrow. They want to know only what is going to help them right that moment, or the next day at the latest. They want to know what is going to help them at Monday morning at 9 AM. What is practical in Scripture is so much broader than this narrow view. The problem is that those with overly narrow views will tend to “practically” cut out of Scripture any passage that doesn’t meet their definition of what is practical. That is, they won’t read that text, meditate upon it, or talk about it. As a result, they cut themselves off from well over half the Bible’s message. Furthermore, it shows that such people are, in fact, rejecting 2 Timothy 3:16. They don’t believe that all Scripture is profitable. They only believe that some Scripture is profitable. We have to expand our categories of practicality if we are going to appreciate all of Scripture and what the entirety of Scripture can do. If we do not do this, then we are omitting Scripture from our walk with God. This is very dangerous territory!

“Profitable” is another way of saying “useful.” The four words that follow (teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training) are four sub-categories of “profitable.” Teaching is profitable. Let that sink in for a moment. Simply teaching the truth is in itself profitable, even if its immediate practical value is not immediately apparent. Let’s contemplate an example of this: teaching the truth about the Trinity may not seem immediately practical in dealing with real-life crises. However, teaching the truth about the Trinity leads to worship, when done and received properly. Since worship is what we were made to do, that should surely count as practical, should it not? Rebuking is more easily seen as practical, though in individual cases, people often reject it, since they do not like to be told they are wrong about anything they do (rebuke is about incorrect behavior, and correcting is about incorrect doctrine). We need to be rebuked when we are straying off the path. Here, simple arrogance is often what gets in the way. We can’t possibly be wrong in anything we do, can we? Well, maybe we’re wrong about that. And maybe one of the reasons we’re wrong about that is that we have cut off over half of Scripture from actually applying itself to us. Training is a word that has as its analogy the world of sports. One doesn’t just try to run a marathon after being a desk jockey for years. That’s a recipe for heart failure and other serious medical problems. One trains. One gradually increases one’s endurance to the point where a marathon is possible. This is similar to the way we are supposed to ingest Scripture. We train. We are patient. We recognize that Scripture is for the long haul, not just for isolated helps here and there.

In addition to the four categories Paul mentions here, there are other ways in which Scripture can be practical. Here is a list: 1. changing our overall perspective on life and the world (this causes us to react better to life’s circumstances instead of being overwhelmed by them). This may not seem like something practical, at first, since it is not usually immediately applicable to immediate circumstances. However, our overall worldview determines how we react to anything, and our reactions most definitely are within the realm of the practical; 2. a delayed reaction application. Again, this can seem like something impractical, since it doesn’t refer to something happening right then and there. However, haven’t almost all Christians found that something they learned many years ago comes back at exactly the right time to help them? Hiding God’s Word in one’s heart does this kind of thing all the time. This is very practical, though it may not seem like it at the time when that Scripture is learned or memorized. 3. an intermittent application. This is a sort of “on again, off again” idea, wherein something may recur with irregularity (and sometimes with regularity!) and the Scriptures may address this recurring-but-not-always-active type of situation. 4. reference to others. This kind of situation occurs often with the marriage texts in Scripture seen by those who are single. The temptation is for the single person to think that such a text does not apply to them. On the contrary! Ephesians 5 tells us that the church’s relationship with Christ is intimately (!) bound up with the marriage relationship of a man to a woman. All the marriage texts have applications for the church and Christ, and hence, also for the single person. In addition, how are single people supposed to know what to pray for, in terms of their married friends, if they don’t know what the Scripture says about marriage? Another example is of believers and unbelievers. If a text of Scripture addresses unbelievers, the believer can be tempted to think it doesn’t apply to them. Usually, however, there is an altered version of the same idea that does apply to the believer. In the parable of the four soils, for example, three of them are of unbelievers. However, a modified version of those soils can be true of the believer’s heart, too.

So, let’s take the hardest kind of literature in the Bible imaginable, in terms of its practicality, the genealogy. How in the world does one read 1 Chronicles 1-9, for example? It is chock full of names, many of which we don’t see in Scripture in other places. Genealogies do several things. Firstly, they provide continuity in the narrative of Scripture. The same God is at work, and He is doing the same types of things. Genealogies point to the faithfulness of God. Secondly, the people of God in the Old Testament are the people of God, our own spiritual ancestors. This is a list of names connected to our story, not detached from us. Thirdly, any time you see a name you recognize, you’re supposed to remember that person’s story. It is a way of reminding us of many, many stories all at once. Given that genealogies are reminders, that fact in itself shows us the practicality of bringing things to our mind that we already know. We are prone to forget, and genealogies help us remember, when read properly. Fourthly, they point us, through that genealogical continuity, to the line of the seed of the woman, which is Christ Jesus, our Lord. That is where the narrative heads. Fifthly, genealogies remind us that there are no unimportant people in God’s eyes. Everyone is important, even the person who is only mentioned once in the Bible. Surely that means for us that we are not so small that God will not listen to us when we pray. Is that not a great encouragement to prayer?

So we must greatly broaden our view of what is practical. It must fit the entire content of the Bible, or it is too narrow. It must fit the entire content of the Bible, or else we are living in denial of 2 Timothy 3:16. It is amazing to me, frankly, how often I have heard, even from ministers who ought to know better, that such and such passage from the Bible just isn’t practical to preach. What nonsense! Every passage from the Scriptures is practical, as long as that practicality is 1. grounded in the meaning of the text first (if it is not, then we are probably mis-applying Scripture); 2. flows out of our understanding of Jesus Christ being the ultimate content of Scripture, via Luke 24 and John 5; and 3. sees the church as the bride of Christ such that application flows from the meaning of the text to the meta meaning of the text (Jesus Christ) to His bride, the church, and to us as members of that church.

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A Response to Tom Hicks on the Question of the Proper Subjects of Baptism, Part 3

February 15, 2020 at 11:22 am (Baptism, Hermeneutics)

Part 1, Part 2.

In part 3, I will address the section of Tom Hick’s piece entitled “Hermeneutics.” In this section, Hick’s main point is that he believes paedobaptists are inconsistent in their application of hermeneutics. If the New Testament is the key to understanding the Old Testament, then Reformed Baptists apply the principle consistently, whereas paedobaptists do not. I am not sure he understands the Reformed paedo hermeneutic on this, however. It is not the case that we say “The NT is the key to understanding the OT” with that being understood as basically everything we would want to say about it. The entire biblical revelation is an organic, unfolding whole, which means that each part of the Bible mutually informs every other part, directly or indirectly. The key to understanding the symbolism of Revelation, for instance, consists in tracking down the given symbol in the Old Testament. While it is true that the New Testament gives us the ultimate key in Jesus Christ (via Luke 24 and John 5), there is a lot more to it than that.

Additionally, I am not sure that positing huge disagreement among paedos by citing the theonomy debate is a very fair charge. Theonomy was a thing in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but there are very few of them left. Generally speaking, the majority of the Reformed world has rejected theonomic views.

Hicks’s third point in this section is that he holds paedos to have rejected “NT priority” when it comes to Galatians 3. Hicks is misleading in describing the paedo position at this point. He says, “Paedobaptists, like Dispensationalists, believe that the promise of a physical seed in the OT ought to govern our exegesis of the NT, rather than the other way around.” This over-simplifies the paedo position. One does not have to be a child of Abraham to be in Christ. Nor do we believe in two peoples of God, contra dispensationalists. It is most unhelpful to lump paedos with dispies at this point, since this is precisely where the greatest area of disagreement between paedos and dispies lies. A dispy will say that God’s people is Israel, and the church is a parenthesis. The paedos believe there is only one family of God. The problem with Hicks’s statement is that it implies paedos believe that Abrahamic descent is the key to understanding the way that covenant applies to believers today. The principle is covenantal continuity, which works in families, not in Abrahamic descent. Now, Hicks did not say “Abrahamic descent” in painting the paedo position. However, by lumping paedos with dispies, he creates a highly misleading situation. He seemingly implies that the hermeneutic of paedos and dispies are similar on this point.

On the point of circumcision, Hicks again caricatures the paedo position. He says, “Paedobaptists, on the other hand, hold that the meaning of the sign of circumcision is determinative of the meaning of the sign of baptism, rather than allowing the NT to determine the meaning of baptism and the fulfillment of circumcision.” Not only is this not how paedos argue, he also creates a false dichotomy that assumes the discontinuity between OT and NT. Why is it “either” circumcision “or” the NT that determines the meaning of baptism? Does not Romans 4 join the two together? In addition, the actual paedo position is that circumcision points to salvation in Christ. Baptism points to salvation in Christ. They point to the same thing: Christ’s work on the cross. Paedos believe that the whole Bible, understood in an organic, unfolding way determines what both mean. Hicks is going to have a really hard time with 1 Corinthians 10, isn’t he, that posits baptism in the OT, a baptism that included infants, incidentally.

The governing basis for the Reformed hermeneutic is Christ in all of the Scriptures. Christ is portrayed from vague shadowy forms to a clearer and clearer light. But Hicks’s hermeneutic is that the OT has absolutely nothing to say about how we understand the NT. There is no reciprocity whatsoever between OT and NT hermeneutically. This is “hermeneutical dispensationalism.”

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