December Update at beginningwithmoses.org

NOT BY SPEAR OR SWORD: REFLECTIONS ON DAVID & GOLIATH IN BIBLICAL THEOLOGY (DAVID MCDONALD)

ADAM IN THE ARGUMENT OF ROMANS(JONATHAN GIBSON)

NEW BOOK REVIEWS:

Mere Theology

Our review of Gospel & Kingdom, added this month comes from Brian G. Hedges' Blog: Mere Theology

November Update at beginningwithmoses.org

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY BRIEFING ON MATTHEW 6v13 (LIONEL WINDSOR)

EZRA - A NEW MOSES?(JONATHAN GIBSON) PDF 167KB

Legalism & its Antidotes

LEGALISM & IT'S ANTIDOTES

In the November issue of The Briefing, Marty Sweeney reveals that he's been reading beginningwithmoses.org:

"Legalism is a terrible aberration of true Christianity. It leads more to religiosity than a relationship with the true and living God. I was heavily influenced by legalistic teachings as a young Christian, and as a result constantly doubted my salvation. By the grace of God, however, I have since been brought under more faithful biblical teaching.

However, one of the hangovers from my legalistic past hasbeen my response to sin. I was always taught that sin is best dealt with by setting up guidelines, rules and structures in order to purge sin from one's life.

One of the most popular examples of this is to seek out an accountability partner. I oftened wondered, though, if this was really adding another dose of legalism into my life. Surely, if God's law can't bring about obedience of faith (2 Cor 3), how could Bill, John or Ted.

I have recently been greatly helped by Dominic Smart's little article on the matter (Legalism and its Antidotes at www.beginningwithmoses.org). In it he discusses how legalism still rears its head even in those of us who are thoroughly evangelical. He discusses how our normal responses to sin may actually be a cover-up for the real issue - our passionate love for Christ.

I am not suggesting that accountability partners should be abandoned. If they are structured correctly and given proper attention, they foster wonderful partnerships in living out the Christian life and are the furtherst things from legalism (as Smart implies). But where is it that we put our hope, trust and confidence when it comes to our batle with sin? Human structures are never the final answer.

The real answer seems cliched but is nonetheless true. Waging war on sin comes from being truly ensconced in living for the glory of God. There can be no false-piety in that lifestyle. No-one can motivate us quite like our loving Lord and Saviour.
Smart concludes: "There is nothing like th upwardly-mobile life (a life mobvbing heavenward) to make the legalism of church life clearly apparent and transparently fulse. It's not real holiness; it never produces the largeness of heart that Christ produces; it has no glory; it gives no delight to the soul it is so obviously not what you were made for; no-one would have died to save you into that. Live for the glory of God. Therein lies your point and purpose in life; therein lies your true freedom and therein lies your own true glory"

Duckbilled Platypus

Top stuff over at Rawson Street from Dave Kirkman....
The Allure of Australian Biblical Theology

The Cross

Reformation 21 Blog reports:

In 2006 InterVarsity Press will publish a book containing Four Views on the Atonement, edited by James Beilby and Paul Eddy (both of Bethel College in St. Paul). The contributors will be Greg Boyd ("Christus Victor" view), Bruce Reichenbach ("Therapeutic" view), Joel Green (all views are equally true), and Thomas Schreiner ("Penal Substitutionary" view).

Professor Schreiner recently gave his paper at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can listen to it online: Penal Substitution as the Heart of the Gospel.

His talk can be outlined as follows:

Introduction
The Sinfulness of Humanity
The Holiness of God
The Sacrifice of Christ
Concluding Reflections
And here is how his rich, exegetical address begins:

The theory of penal substitution is the heart and soul of an evangelical view of the atonement. I am not claiming that it is the only truth about the atonement taught in the scriptures. Nor am I claiming that penal substitution is emphasized in every piece of literature, or that every author articulates clearly penal substitution. I am claiming that penal substitution functions as the anchor and foundation for all other dimensions of the atonement when the scriptures are considered as a canonical whole. I define penal substitution as follows: The Father, because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself willingly and gladly) to satisfy his justice, so that Christ took the place of sinners. The punishment and penalty we deserved was laid on Jesus Christ instead of us, so that in the cross both God’s holiness and love are manifested.

The riches of what God has accomplished in Christ for his people are not exhausted by penal substitution. The multifaceted character of the atonement must be recognized to do justice the canonical witness. God’s people are impoverished if Christ’s triumph over evil powers at the cross is slighted, or Christ’s exemplarly love is shoved to the side, or the healing bestowed on believers by Christ’s cross and resurrection is downplayed. While not denying the wide-ranging character of Christ’s atonement, I am arguing that penal substitution is foundational and the heart of the atonement.

"If he didn't have the Bible he'd have nothing to say"

Tim Challies reflects on the Desiring God Conference. I don't quote this to exalt John Piper, but because it really challenges me about my preaching:

"When Piper preaches he seems to do little more than bridge one Bible verse to the next, building to a deeply biblical conclusion. With some preachers you begin to feel that they could get along just fine without the Bible, but with Piper you feel that if he didn't have the Bible he'd have nothing to say."

We love Tech Support

Our tech support people are wonderful and I managed to get into the server. Fault at my end of things! Anyways, October's updates are now online for your browsing pleasure. BIG THANKS to Kris!

Technical Problem

October's updates are coming as soon as possible.
For reasons unknown I can't login to our server at the moment.
Everything is there waiting to go....

"I love you... doesn't mean I have to like you..."

Mike, on dealing with theological differences: Don't Take it Personally

Expository Preaching and the Recovery of Worship

Al Mohler, blogged on the place of preaching in the church...
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

"Lacking reverence for the word of God, many congregations are caught in a frantic quest for significance in worship. Christians leave worship services asking each other, "Did you get anything out of that?" Churches produce surveys to measure expectations for worship. Would you like more music? What kind? How about drama? Is our preacher sufficiently creative?

Expository preaching demands a very different set of questions. Will I obey the word of God? How must my thinking be realigned by Scripture? How must I change my behavior to be fully obedient to the word? These questions reveal submission to the authority of God and reverence for the Bible as his word."

Did you ever wonder...

Peter Bogert wonders...

Systematic Theology vs Biblical Theology?

Kevin Bauder shares his thoughts

I recall thinking about this a while back in relation to Peter Jensen's The Revelation of God... concluding that it is a great example of Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology.

On another note, we're making some good progress behind the scenes to database the site and make the whole thing much easier to use. In honesty it'll be a few months before you can feel the benefit of that but we're on the case.

On the gospel...

Milton Stanley highlights Adrian Warnock's thoughts on what the gospel is...

"1. Someone can be saved on the merest snippet of truth then spend a lifetime making sense of it.
2. The gospel actually includes the entire teaching of the bible and thus cannot be adequately contained in any system."

Criticism

The Cross and Criticism (HT: Dan Cruver)

"“In light of God’s judgment and justification of the sinner in the cross of Christ, we can begin to discover how to deal with any and all criticism. By agreeing with God’s criticism of me in Christ’s cross, I can face any criticism man may lay against me. In other words, no one can criticize me more than the cross has. And the most devastating criticism turns out to be the finest mercy. If you thus know yourself as having been crucified with Christ, then you can respond to any criticism, even mistaken or hostile criticism, without bitterness, defensiveness, or blame shifting. Such responses typically exacerbate and intensify conflict, and lead to the rupture of relationships. You can learn to hear criticism as constructive and not condemnatory because God has justified you.”

God is the Gospel

Read John Piper's new book God is the Gospel online.

School of Preaching: Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

"Professor Sidney Greidanus, at Oak Hill on Wednesday 28th September 2005



Professor Greidanus argues the need both to preach Christ in every sermon and to preach regularly from the Old Testament. In this day conference, he will demonstrate and apply a Christocentric method that helps preachers to do both simultaneously. The four sessions during the day are as follows:

1. The Christocentric Method
2. Preaching Christ from Old Testament Narrative (Genesis 12:1-9)
3. Preaching Christ from Old Testament Law (Leviticus 17:10-14)
4. Preaching Christ from Old Testament Wisdom (Ecclesiastes 12:1-8)

Sidney Greidanus is Professor of Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the author of Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method, and The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature. Both are published by Eerdmans."

Book Online, £25 per person.

BeginningWithMoses.org Returns!!

We're back from our summer break. Come and explore our new Briefing from Simon Manchester... new articles... new reviews... and look forward to further exciting developments on site. Oh, and October will be our Fourth Birthday!

NEW THIS MONTH AT BEGINNINGWITHMOSES.ORG

In bt briefings

ROLE-ING FORWARDS A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY BRIEFING ON 1 TIMOTHY 2 (SIMON MANCHESTER)

In bt articles

THE ONTOLOGICAL AND SYSTEMATIC ROOTS OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY (GRAEME GOLDSWORTHY)

New in Books

FAR AS THE CURSE IS FOUND (MICHAEL WILLIAMS)

REVIEWED BY PETER SANLON ACCORDING TO PLAN (GRAEME GOLDSWORTHY)

REVIEWED BY OSVALDO PADILLA HEAVEN ON EARTH (S.GATHERCOLE & T.D. ALEXANDER)

REVIEWED BY GORDON KENNEDY HEARING GOD'S WORDS (PETER ADAM)

REVIEWED BY DAVID GIBSON STORY OF ISRAEL & FAR AS THE CURSE IS FOUND

Penal Substitution

Evangelical Alliance Symposium on Atonement. Read the papers online.
(HT: Ref21).

BeginningWithMoses Advisor, Simon Gathercole on Romans 3:25-26
Garry Williams on Justice, Law & Guilt

Through this I found Dan Strange's lecture on The Cross, which we blogged a while back... The Many-Splendoured Cross: Atonement, Controversy and Victory

Bio: Andy Grundy

Andy's interest in biblical theology was stimulated by a degree in Theology at Nottingham University, and after a year out buffing floors, dusting shelves, and cleaning toilets, he received a scholarship to do postgraduate research at Nottingham. He is working on the narratives which concern Elijah, Elisha, and Jehu in 1 and 2 Kings, and is particularly interested in the important relationship between historical, literary and theological approaches to Holy Scripture. Excursions from the ivory tower include seeking to serve Christ in the Christian Union, the Religious & Theological Studies Fellowship, and married life with Jude. She, at least, thinks that he still looks just as cute.

Andy joins Dave on the UCCF Staff in Autumn 2005.

Back soon...

BeginningWithMoses.org will be alive again soon. Everything is there for your browsing and encouragement. When we return - on September 1st - there should be a selection of new articles and reviews. Soon after that, October 2005 will mark our third birthday!

Behind the scenes we're working on databasing the site, this will make minimal visible difference but will massively improve the usability of the site for you! Essentially it'll help you to search for what you want to find. An added bonus is that it'll help us to update things more easily! This might not be live in September but it'll be with you sometime in the autumn, we hope!

Keep exploring, and do comment your feedback.
What do you find helpful on site?
Which is the most useful article? (and why?)
How can we improve?
What would you like to see us provide?

Just a Moment

Mo at The Lepreblog is worth checking out. Sharp insights and Irish wit.

Food for Life

Scott writes on Biblical Theology for New Zealand's Younger Generation. And puts it into practice Rehoboam's Folly - 1 Kings 12v1-15. The big question I had when I'd finished Goldsworthy's defining book - Gospel & Kingdom was HOW? WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE IN A SERMON? HOW DO I DO THIS IN MY OWN BIBLE STUDY? Emailing him with that question landed me on the BeginningWithMoses.org Team.... Gotta keep asking the questions though. This stuff is simply too important not to.

"But the thing that broke my heart, is that although these students were thirsty for more I realised that their churches don’t offer this type of food....How will we respond? What will we do to make the message of the Bible known to the next generation? Surely the church today has an amazing opportunity to further God’s kingdom in this way. But what is needed for the task?" (Scott Mackay)

Preaching Group

First Book Groups... now welcome to the Preaching Group - run by a few ex-UCCF Staff by the look of it. See also Steve Palframan's Sermons
Time for you guys to do us some Biblical Theology Briefings methinks.

Globetrotting in the Summer Time

David Gibson is globetrotting doing research for his PhD.
Dave Bish is also quite busy at the moment.
Hence this blog has gone a bit quiet. We will return!

Meanwhile - be reminded - BeginningWithMoses.org is not updated in July or August. But we will be back with avengance in September 2005. Still there are vast quantities of articles to there to keep you busy for now! Get yourself up to date!

New Blogger and Belgium-bound missionary Etrangere is linking to us!

Graeme Goldsworthy on Biblical Theology

9Marks are flagging up this article: What is the discipline of Biblical Theology by one of our site advisors, Graeme Goldsworthy.

On site we also have these from Goldsworthy:
In Articles:
The Kingdom of God and the Old Testament
Hermeneutics and Christ

In Books:
Andrew Evans reviews
Graeme Goldsworthy's
Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture
Graeme Goldsworthy reviews
Michael Goheen & Craig Batholemew's
The Drama of Scripture

(anyone got a better photo of Graeme Goldsworthy?)

Get Married

Carl Trueman writes in The Wages of Spin (see blog for Saturday 11 June: Singing the sorrow) about the divorce that has occurred between the church and the academy (theology). It's basically about how the church needs to be more theologically informed and the academy more church oriented.

I think Trueman is right that there is a breach. It is so common for the pew punter to separate knowledge and experience ('Professors at universities and seminaries may have lots of fancy words, but I just have simple faith in Jesus'), while it is just as common for academic theologians to relegate gospel experience and prioritise competence and respectability.

Trueman's book is a great read. The first part is called 'Evangelical Essays' with chapters including:

- Reckoning with the Past in an Anti-Historical Age
- The Undoing of the Reformation?
- The Princeton Trajectory on Scripture
- Warfield on the Glory of Christ.

Part Two is called 'Short, Sharp Shocks' with chapters including:

- The Importance of Evangelical Beliefs
- What can miserable Christians sing?
- The Marcions Have Landed!
- Boring Ourselves to Life
- Why you shouldn't buy the big issue
- Evangelicalism through the looking Glass

Bookshop?

Paul muses about Christian Bookshops. Where do you get your books? What future for Christian bookshops?

Daniel Strange

Daniel Strange, now pictured in full colour. See his article The Theology of the End and the End of Theology. Dan is the RTSF Co-ordinator, soon to join the staff at Oak Hill College.

Paul at My Fallible Thoughts attended Dan's recent lecture: 'Creation, Conquest and the Cross: the doctrine of the atonement for today'

The Loveliness of Orthodoxy

Sheeesh! That's big

One outstanding book on Open Theism that isn't particularly well known on this side of the pond is the Canon Press volume Bound Only Once: The Failure of Open Theism. It includes a great essay by Phil Johnson of Pyromaniac fame and one not to be missed by Douglas Jones called 'Metaphor in Exile'.

Doug Wilson also has a superb essay in here the title of which is the title of this blog, and which, characteristically, plows an interesting and amusing furrow on the whole topic of language and imagination: 'The inability of those in the Openness of God camp to see how their portrayal of God clanks, is, at bottom a failure of the imagination'.

He provides an insightful consideration of Isaiah 40:

'Only the most profound kind of spiritual blindness can keep a man from seeing what Isaiah is doing here. "To whom then will ye liken God?" Isaiah has been comparing God to all kinds of things throughout this chapter, and therefore the point of every comparison must be to show that all of them collapse under the weight of eternal glory. They are holy metaphors that make us look up to that which transcends them all. And, as we are glorying in this scriptural language, along come some very pedestrian exegetes, with a poetic ear comparable to about three feet of tin foil, who want us to acknowledge that the text compares God here to a shepherd and every shepherd they have ever met didn't know the future ...'

'To what may we liken God? The answer, friends, is nothing. And we show that we may compare Him to nothing by comparing Him to everything that is worthy of Him, and, of course, nothing completely is. In Him we live, and move, and have our being. This is not zen Christianity; it is the recognition that the Bible does not give us a tiny schematic version of the attributes of God, carefully drawn to scale. Rather, the Bible points, sings, shouts, eats, alliterates, teaches, glorifies, compares, and exults. Do you not see? Lift your eyes on high, Isaiah says'.

Down and out

Paul Hayward writes in today's Daily Telegraph about the sorry demise of former world heavyweight boxing champion 'Iron' Mike Tyson, which culminated in his defeat at the weekend to journeyman Kevin McBride.

It's a sad tale. Hayward provides some very quotable material in the saga of power, wealth and fame, all gone very wrong:

"Boxing's cool, but I've got some serious, serious demons I'm fighting," Tyson said, when asked whether he would be chasing Lewis for revenge. "I don't know if I can love anyone. And I definitely don't believe anyone can love me. I've been doing this for probably 23 or 25 years. I haven't received any dignity from it. I've received a lot of pain from it. It's made me not like Mike Tyson very much."

"Who am I? What am I? I don't even know. I'm just a dumb child who's been abused and robbed by lawyers. I'm just a fool who thinks he's someone."

However, Hayward comments at the end:

"With his many outrages, Tyson forced on us an important distinction: between that which is barbaric, and he who is a barbarian. There is a difference. Much of his life has been a losing struggle to escape what the poet Philip Larkin called, in another context, "a wrong beginning" '.

This is the sad verdict of comparative moralism. In reality, we're all with Tyson on the ropes from the start, all born with a 'wrong beginning', and it really is a losing struggle to escape - on our own. 'For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous' (Romans 5:19).

Dominic Smart

Just updated our picture of Dominic Smart, seems like an opportune moment to flag up his article: Legalism & its antidotes. Dominic is pastor of Gilcomston South Church, Aberdeen and author of Grace, Faith & Glory

Look at Jesus before you choose

We began a series in Hebrews at church this morning and got off to a wonderful start.

Hebrews is a letter written to arrest drift. There are plenty of warnings and reminders throughout that Jesus is better - so don't drift off to embrace alternatives. But we saw this morning how the letter does not open with a warning (that waits until 2:1), but rather opens with showing us Jesus first - hence the sermon title. We had three great teaching points that showed us Jesus as prophet, priest and king in the flow of the text.

1. 'In the past' ... Jesus the final prophet

2. 'He sat down' ... Jesus the perfect priest

3. 'He also says' ... Jesus the reigning King

If Jesus is God's final word, if he carried out his work perfectly and if he executes God's rule supremely, why look elsewhere?

Singing the sorrow

What can miserable Christians sing?



This was the title of a Themelios editorial by Carl R. Trueman and the article is now part of a superb collection of his essays: The Wages of Spin: Critical Writings on Historic and Contemporary Evangelicalism (Christian Focus, 2004). Carl teaches Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. One cover blurb says that Carl writes with the wit of an evangelical Chesteron, the prophetic insight of a Francis Schaeffer and the accessibility of a John Stott. Highly recommended for a great summer read!

This particular piece laments the absence of the Psalter from most of contemporary evangelicalism's song sheets and comments on the one-dimensional emotional immaturity this leaves us with in worship. A large amount of Psalms are taken up with lamentation, with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented and broken, so is there not a place for this kind of language in corporate worship?

Trueman writes:

'Now, one would not expect the world to have much time for the weakness of the psalmist's cries. It is very disturbing, however, when these cries of lamentation disappear from the language and worship of the church. Perhaps the Western church feels no need to lament - but then it is sadly deluded about how healthy it really is in terms of numbers, influence and spiritual maturity. Perhaps - and this is more likely - it has drunk so deeply at the well of modern Western materialism that it simply does not know what to do with such cries and regards them as little short of embarrassing. Yet the human condition is a poor one - and Christians who are aware of the deceitfulness of the human heart and are looking for a better country should know this. A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one triumphalist street party - a theologically incorrect and pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is - or at least should be - all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship?' (Spin, 159).

Paul Helm on Openness

Paul Helm, formerly Professor of Philosophy of Religion at King's College London, has a helpful article here responding to Greg Boyd on Open Theism.

This paper is a longer version of Helm's response to Boyd. Both Professor Boyd's paper and the shorter response are to be found in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views (eds) James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press 2001. )

Helm's paper is housed on The Evangelical Library website which also contains some other good articles and lectures (see for instance Carl Trueman on B. B. Warfield and Garry Williams on Jonathan Edwards).

Tobacco Touché

Adrian Warnock has blogged about Christians and tobacco. Wilbur posted in a famous (apocryphal?) story about C. H. Spurgeon.

On one occasion Spurgeon was standing outside his church, The Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, happily smoking his pipe.

"Sir", a concerned passer-by remarked, "don't you know that's the devil's weed?'

"Sir", replied Spurgeon, "don't you know that's why I'm burning it?"

Singing the Judgment

When was the last time you sang about hell?

One area where I think evangelical theology will increasingly sell the shop in the coming years is the concept of God’s judgment and the corresponding doctrine of hell. Already there are signs that the important exegetical and theological discussions about eternal punishment vs conditional immortality/annihilation have moved towards a status quo of general evangelical uncertainty about what to think in these areas. In some places the postmodern fog has descended to such an extent that what generations ago would have been classed as theological liberalism now count as ‘honest’, ‘thoughtful’ and ‘courageous’ expositions within evangelical theology.

It seems too that a certain emotiveness about the horrors of hell now govern the conversation, so that how we feel about judgment slips in as an implicit hermeneutical lens through which the biblical material is filtered. An oft repeated maxim here is that ‘No-one should ever talk about judgment or hell without tears in their eyes’. I think this rightly captures a strand of the biblical material: witness Jesus mourning for Jerusalem or listen as Paul agonizes in Rom 9 about those of his people who are cut off from Christ. Judgment cannot but generate the strongest of emotions and where we speak about hell easily or without broken compassion we do not understand what we are talking about, and it would probably be best all round if we kept quiet. But there is a danger here in absolutising maxims like this, so that instead of expressing one aspect of the emotional truth about hell it becomes instead an emotive argument against the traditional conceptuality of God’s judgment. Absolutise a slogan like this across one generation’s lifetime and the next generation will not easily stomach a God who engenders emotions like this in the first place.

The fact is that the Bible has a place for shouting with joy at the judgments of God. The range of emotional responses to judgment are multi-faceted and startling. The Scripture sets judgment to music.

Take Exodus 15 and the song of Moses which follows after ‘Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore’:

I will sing to the LORD, for he has
triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into
the sea …

In the greatness of your majesty you
overthrew your adversaries;
you sent out your fury, it consumed
them like stubble.
At the blast of your nostrils the waters
piled up

Psalm 98 or Psalm 96 (also sung in 1 Chronicles 16 after David has defeated his enemies and entered Jerusalem as God’s victorious King):

Let the heavens be glad, and let the
earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest
sing for joy
before the LORD; for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with
righteousness,
and the peoples with his truth.

Revelation 19

After this, I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting:

Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power
to our God,
for his judgments are true
and just;
He has judged the great whore
who corrupted the earth with her
fornication,
and he has avenged on her the blood
of his servants.

And again they shouted:

Hallelujah!
The smoke goes up from her for ever
and ever.

This is shocking. Oceans, alpine meadows and Amazon forests bursting with delight as the LORD executes his righteous judgment on the earth. Songs of triumph in the enemy's graveyard? What tune goes with wrath? Hallelujahs for vengeance? Would we know how or why to sing like this, and would we even want to?

Part of our discomfort is due to our historical and geographical location. In terms of history, we live in the age of absolute tolerance coupled with immense biblical illiteracy so that we are prone to think about God sentimentally and appropriate Scripture selectively. In terms of geography, we observe how most of the evangelical boundary-broadening on this topic is occurring in the rarefied atmosphere of white, affluent, western academia where our comforts are so numbing that it is hard to see what there is for God to judge. In some corners of this ivory tower there are flirtations with universalism; in others explicit endorsements of it; in others, cautious claims about God’s freedom so that eventually percolated down to popular theologians is a kind of cherished vagueness about the future and about what God has promised he will do. And it is all expertly packaged in the form of shiny ‘fresh’ arguments. This kind of thinking is, theologically, a million miles away from the searing traumas facing the persecuted people of God in some corners of the globe and where passages like 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12 are a God-given means of sustaining faith under fire.

Where the church seeks to evaluate its location in time and space from the viewpoint of Scripture, and where congregations are lovingly taught to meditate on the whole of Scripture, then what we sing on Sundays will perhaps sound a little different. Believers who gladly sing God’s judgments grasp that God’s love is always displayed in perfect harmony with his glory and his holiness and all his other perfections, they hold tear-stained compassion for the lost together with joy-filled hope at future vindication and, above all, they treasure Calvary not as a sign of divine sympathy but as the pledge of eternal immunity.

Singing the Story

Dave Bish has been blogging some helpful thoughts recently about theology in our songs. It reminded me of one good biblical theology song I came across by Graham Kendrick called O What a Mystery I See. Kendrick has penned some shockers over the years as well as some really excellent songs like Come and See. I think this one goes in the latter category and captures some of the Bible’s great story lines.

What are the great biblical theology hymns and songs?

O What A Mystery I See

O what a mystery I see
What marvellous design
That God should come as one of us
A Son in David's line.
Flesh of our flesh, of woman born
Our human-ness he owns
And for a world of wickedness
His guiltless blood atones

This perfect Man, incarnate God
By selfless sacrifice
Destroys our sinful history
All fallen Adam's curse.
In him the curse to blessing turns
My barren spirit flowers
As o'er the shattered power of sin
The cross of Jesus towers

(women)
By faith a child of his I stand
An heir in David's line
Royal descendant by his blood
Destined by Love's design
(men)
Fathers of faith, my fathers now!
Because in Christ I am
(all)
And all God's promises in Him
To me are 'Yes, Amen'!

No more then as a child of earth
Must I my lifetime spend -
His history, His destiny
are mine to apprehend.
Oh what a Saviour, what a Lord
O Master, Brother, Friend!
What miracle has joined me to
This life that never ends!

(1988 Makeway music, Graham Kendrick)

New in Books for June 2005

New in Books

GOD'S BIG DESIGN (VAUGHAN ROBERTS)

THE WORD OF HIS GRACE (CHRIS GREEN)

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD (D.A. CARSON)

THE GOD OF COVENANT (JAMIE GRANT & ALISTAIR WILSON (EDS))

OUT OF EGYPT (CRAIG BARTHOLOMEW, MARY HEALY, KARL MÖLLER, ROBIN PARRY (EDS))

New in Preaching for June 2005

In preaching

GOD, THEOLOGY AND THE PULPIT (MARTIN DOWNES)

New in Book Reviews for June 2005

New in Books

REVIEWED BY GRAEME GOLDSWORTHY: THE DRAMA OF SCRIPTURE (MICHAEL GOHEEN & CRAIG BARTHOLEMEW)

REVIEWED BY ALISTAIR WILSON: THE TEMPLE AND THE CHURCH'S MISSION (G.K. BEALE)

REVIEWED BY ERIC ORTLUND: LOOK TO THE ROCK (ALEC MOTYER)

REVIEWED BY ERIC ORTLUND: FIVE FESTAL GARMENTS (NSBT) (BARRY WEBB)

Linking to us!

Rob Wilkerson says we're his 7th most favourite blog.
Tim Caird is linking to us as is Dave at Rawson Street... are you?

On the grammatical realities of marriage

Doug Wilson's excellent book Reforming Marriage (the one with Jan Steen's 1658 painting 'The Sleeping Couple' on the cover) has some strong things to say about husbands needing to know their imperatives from their indicatives. Indicatives are statements of fact ('This is a blog'; 'You are reading it') and imperatives are commands ('Read the book instead!').

Wilson points out that headship is not an imperative in the Bible, it is an indicative: 'For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church' (Eph. 5:23). Paul is not commanding husbands to be the head of their wives or stating how marriages ought to function - he is stating what husbands are and what the relationship between husband and wife is. It is not something for egalitarians and complementarians to debate. It's a statement of fact.

This has massive implications for the Christian husband. The issue facing him is not whether to be the head, but what kind of head he will be. Wilson writes:

'Meditating on this is a very valuable thing for husbands to do. Because the husband is the head of the wife, he finds himself in a position of inescapable leadership. He cannot successfully refuse to lead. If he attempts to abdicate in some way, he may, through his rebellion, lead poorly. But no matter what he does, or where he goes, he does so as the head of his wife. This is how God designed marriage. He has created us as male and female in such a way as to ensure that men will always be dominant in marriage. If the husband is godly, then that dominance will not be harsh; it will be characterized by the same self-sacrificial love demonstrated by our Lord - Dominus - at the cross. If a husband tries to run away from his headship, that abdication will dominate the home. If he catches a plane to the other side of the country, and stays there, he will dominate in and by his absence. How many children have grown up in a home dominated by the empty chair at the table?' (p.24).

Response to Critics of Emergent

Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Spencer Burke, Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Andrew Jones and Chris Seay have co-authored a response to recent criticisms of the emerging church.

The Purpose-Driven® Cheese

If you've got a strong enough stomach for some sharp satirical shards, then head over to Brendan O'Donnell's review of Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life. This featured in the previous issue of Credenda Agenda which, by the way, was devoted entirely to cheese (yes, real cheese, not metaphorical cheese). Credenda Agenda is a religiously and philosophically Trinitarian cultural journal and tests show that it puts hairs on your chest.

Simple Sarcasm

Armando Iannucci writes in today's Daily Telegraph:

'... an eminent philologist was giving a seminar to some linguistics graduates outlining the results of his last five years' research. After an exhaustive examination of all the major world languages, he could find many instances of double negatives producing the same effect as a positive (as in "I found the lecture not uninteresting") but that amazingly, after years of searching, he was unable to come up with an example in any language of two positives meaning a negative. At the end, he asked the students if there were any questions and there was silence apart from one person at the back who just went: "Yeah, yeah." I don't know if the philologist is in work. I hope the student is.'

The World We All Want

I'm sure we'll include this within beginninngwithmoses.org properly soon, but I just got my copy of Steve Timmis' & Tim Chester's The World We All Want a seven part introduction to Christianity - marked by telling the Bible story, looking at Community, and connecting with people. Look excellent.

More from The Crowded House
Get it from Amazon UK

Storms on Carson

Sam Storms begins his series of reviews on Don Carson, on Emerging Church. Watch for the rest of the series and many other great articles at Enjoying God Ministries... Storms is, as you'll see, very influenced by John Piper, but writing from a more charismatic perspective.

Strange Happenings

What evangelicals do but shouldn't and don't but should believe about the atonement has been the topic of quite a bit of debate within British evangelicalism recently.

If you live in and around the London area then on Monday 6th June 2005 you might want to get yourself to The Evangelical Library Annual Lecture where Dr Daniel Strange will speak on: Creation, Conquest and the Cross: the doctrine of the atonement for today. Dan's lecture will deal with issues like the relationship between penal substitution and the Christus Victor model of the atonement, one of the questions that has been on the table in the recent debates. Dan's a great speaker so this is sure to be a very worthwhile evening.

It's at 6.30pm and will be held at the Swiss Church, 79 Endell Street, London WC2H 9DY (nearest tube is Covent Garden).

Wilson on Chalke

Doug Wilson has posted a (brief) 'review' of Steve Chalke's book The Lost Message of Jesus.

By your pastor's bed

What's your pastor reading at the minute? And what difference does it make on a Sunday morning? George Barna has surveyed the reading habits of 614 pastors. We are a UK based site and this survey was done in the USA so perhaps it's not too relevant to us ... yet. Rather than wade through all the details I recommend Tim Challies' recap.

The Institutes, chicken-houses and the soul

John Calvin became a theologian in order to be a better pastor. So says Jean-Daniel Benoit in Calvin in His Letters. It's a study of Calvin's pastoral counselling and Benoit's method is interesting: he seeks to explain Calvin's letters in the light of his Institutes, regarding these as the doctrinal foundation for care of souls. This might surprise some.

"Is it not presumptuous to open the Institutes in order to see the portrait of Calvin as director of souls? ... what does the Institutes have to do with the heart, with the needs of the soul, and with that sacred science of tact and solicitude which spiritual counselling demands? And yet, perhaps even more than a doctrinal treatise, the Institutes is a religious book and in certain respects a book of piety. It gave nourishment to the spiritual life of many generations whose taste had not been corrupted by heretical delicacy and who had no fear of solid food. The Bible, the Psalter, the Institutes and the book of martyrs ... these were the great books of the French Reformation, the hearths in men's inner beings where the flames of the spiritual life were fed. This is why in times of persecution people hid the Institutes just as they hid their bibles. Copies were found in stables and chicken-houses, where they had been concealed to avoid the inquisitions."

Technical Problem

Due to a incomprehensible technical problem, in which my PC (from which I do our monthly uploads) will not connect to the internet... June's update will probably be a bit delayed. Really sorry about that... some really good stuff to come for your summer reading.

Dave

9 resources on Emerging Church

Well, here we go, my first attempt at blogging. It's been no mean feat getting me to this point: thanks Dave Bish!

I've no idea how long I'll keep this up for or how often but I thought I'd push the boat out here a bit wider than our usual focus on biblical theology. I've been reading a bit recently about the 'emerging church' and so wondered if it might help to post some resources here for folks to find out more about it and also find some resources for responding. My guess is that it is going to get bigger and bigger in the UK and rest of the world.

A huge amount of emerging church material exists in blogging cyberspace although there are also numerous books as well. Here are just a smattering of things (and it's important to realise how quickly, given the nature of blogging and emerging conversation, some of these links will go out of date) ... but they might get you into the picture:

1. This link from a critical perspective provides an orientation to the emerging church (although it seems to operate with an unfortunate blurring of the distinctions between emergent and emerging. The former arguably refers specifically to Brian McLaren's movement and the latter more generally to emerging churches. I am not sure it's straightforwardly correct to refer generically to 'emergent churches', although I myself could be wrong here and am open to correction! At the very least, caveat emptor)!
Emergent Movement

This site also lists a good blog called "Emerging No" - I have seen one key emerging leader refer to it as one of the best anti-emerging blogs.

2. D. A. Carson's new book on it is a must read: "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and its Implications" (Zondervan, 2005). This book is an expanded version of lectures Carson gave in the USA.
Amazon.co.uk

3. David Mills wrote an online response to Carson's lectures:
David Mills

Carson responds in his book to some of Mills' critique.

4. Andrew Jones (tallskinnykiwi) is a well respected figure in emerging circles and listened to Carson's lectures. He then wrote an open letter to Carson which you can read here:

Andrew Jones & Don Carson

5. Justin Taylor, who has recently co-edited some books with John Piper, has responded to Andrew Jones' open letter to Carson. He charges Jones with both misrepresenting Carson and not really understanding him; he even calls on Jones to issue a public aplogy to Carson! Although Jones does reply in Taylor's blog he is not able to respond to his charges and as far as I am aware has yet to do so. Read Taylor's blog here and be sure to follow the link in this blog to "my blog post":

Justin Taylor

6. If you'd like more Justin Tyalor, you can listen to him being interviewed about the emerging church at the website I listed under point 1). He has important things to say.

7. Taylor is also one of the editors of a great book called: "Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times". I mention this book because it contains D. A. Carson's review article of the late Stanley Grenz's book "Renewing the Center." Grenz's work scores highly for many in the emerging movement and they look to him for more academic support of their views. In Carson's new book he has a few references to his critique of Grenz so these books (Grenz/Taylor) are probably a must read if you really want to dig deep into this.

8. Andrew Jones has had some dialogue with Michael Horton, a prominent and well-respected Reformed theologian. Horton models courteous and clear disagreement and there are some parallels with Carson's critique. You can read some of that here:

Andrew Jones & Michael Horton

9. Scot McKnight who used to teach at TEDS with Carson and who has some broad sympathy with the emerging church has provided one of the first online analyses of Carson's book going through it chapter by chapter. You can get to this here:

Scot McKnight & Don Carson

McKnight seems to take seriously Carson's criticisms of Brian McClaren but broadly falls into the camp of those who think Carson has fallen short of his usual high standards by focusing on a) epistemology generally and b) Brian McLaren in particular. (McKnight says Carson's book is really about becoming conversant with McLaren's epistemology!!).

This is wrong. The book does say a lot about McLaren - a huge amount, in fact - but the title of Carson's book is not misleading. Read it and digest it and you will be able to converse intelligently with emerging folks, including ones who Carson does not deal with and who adopt different views from McLaren. Carson's book is simply looking at one prominent exponent in a way which gives concerned Christians a framework to adopt, questions to ask and things to think about in relation to the emerging church. In all my web browsing I haven't yet come across anything new or different in non-McLarenite emerging church leaders that Carson's book didn't give me something to converse with them about.

It also misses the point to suggest that Carson focuses too much on epistemology when emerging is either not really about that or is about so much more. Carson's point is not that emerging is all about epistemology but that key leaders adopt a faulty one in a way which skews a lot of the things that emerging is about. To respond properly to Carson someone needs to argue not that emerging is not about epistemology but that its epistemology is correct and does not skew its stance on other issues. That would count as an actual engagment with Carson. So long as there remains no response to Carson on this particular issue emerging theology will actually go some way to proving his argument about emerging epistemology (i.e. a reluctance to address truth claims head on)!!

Further, apart from some of McKnight's sympathy for Carson's critique of McClaren (and McKnight himself is not an emerging leader), I have not yet come across any emerging leaders who formally distance themselves from McLaren's theology in any of its key areas or lovingly call him to change his mind and stop propagating extremely misleading teaching. It makes little difference to plead that there are so many other emerging leaders out there who Carson does not deal with when just about everyone involved in emerging is raving about Brian McLaren in some form or other. By focusing on him, Carson gives us some vital bearings to take in conversing with other emerging proponents. The book delivers what the title promises: it will help you become conversant with emerging, not be an expert in emerging.

I might post in any new sites of note if I come across them.

David.

New Link: Lionel's Bible Resources

Jonny's down at Moore and he dug this site up from a student there.

Lionel's Bible Resources
A website for theological students, particularly helpful resources for learning Greek and Hebrew.

Nigel Beynon

Managed to get a new picture of Nigel Beynon, who was speaking at Reading University Christian Union. The old picture was terrible.
Read Nigel's Biblical Theology Briefing on Hosea: The Adultery

Bio: Dave Bish

AKA, "THEBLUEFISH"

Dave has spent most of his time since 1997 on campus as a student or student worker. Currently he works for UCCF as a Christian Union Staff Worker. In between he's tried his hand at web design and retail banking... Dave edits the site and is also it's webmaster. His interest in Biblical Theology came whilst on the UCCF Relay Discipleship Training programme via the books of Graeme Goldsworthy amongst others. He's married to Emmalee.

Dave also blogs at thebluefish.blogspot.com

Bio: David Gibson

AKA "DAVID"

After recovering from premature tie-wearing, David studied Theology at Nottingham University and King's College London. He has worked for the Religious & Theological Studies Fellowship, part of UCCF, and is married to Angela. They currently live in Aberdeen, which is very far away from anywhere else in the world, where he is studying for a PhD in historical hermeneutics under Francis Watson.

May 2005 Updates

New articles for May 2005.

In BT Articles

The God of Promise: Christian Scripture as Covenantal Revelation (David Gibson)

In Other Articles

The Authority and Understanding of the Bible (Melvin Tinker)

In Book Reviews
Derek Biggs: In Pursuit of the Truth (Reviewed by Paul Fernandez)

Biblical Theology Blogging

This is team blog for beginningwithmoses.org. A place for the editors to post their current musings about Biblical Theology and site news. A bit like the forum but in a blog. Lets see how this works!