Did Jesus Have a Belly Button? A Silly Question with a Seriously Encouraging Answer
Someone asked me this question. Here’s my long answer.
The other day I received an email asking, what might feel like to some, a silly question. But the question came with sincerity. The question asked whether Jesus had a belly button.
I said yes. Here’s my longer answer.
Before I responded, I chuckled at the question because typically when people wonder whether someone from the Bible had a belly button, they usually wonder about Adam and Eve, since our first parents were not born by ordinary means; God created one from a pile of dust and the other from a rib. In one of my seminary classes, I remember a student asking the professor about Adam and Eve and whether they had belly buttons. The student asked C. John Collins, one of our Old Testament professors and an expert on the creation account in Genesis. I just wish I could remember the answer Dr. Collins gave. Knowing him he probably made a dismissive joke.
Coming back to the question at hand, I presume behind the question of whether Jesus had a belly button, lurks the suspicion that if Jesus experienced that intimate of a connection to his mother Mary, a relationship where they shared blood through her placenta and umbilical cord, then the blood of our Savior would have somehow been corrupted. This concern over the purity of Christ’s blood has led Catholic theologians to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is often assumed in popular culture to refer to the extraordinary, virgin birth of Christ. But the Immaculate Conception, in Catholic theology, refers to Mary’s birth, that she was born without the stain of original sin. In this way of thinking, if Mary had been born without original sin, then Jesus could have been in her womb with a belly button and an umbilical cord and could have shared her blood—and yet Christ would not have shared her original sin because she didn’t have original sin to share.
“While I affirm the impulse to see Christ as special as he really is, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary finds no basis in Scripture. ”
While I affirm the impulse to see Christ as special as he really is, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary finds no basis in Scripture. Perhaps there is a splinter of the Protestant church that, while rejecting the Immaculate Conception, has suggested that Christ did not have a belly button as a way to keep him from inheriting original sin through Mary. I have never heard any Protestants talk like this before, but there are many things I’ve never heard before. On the crowdsourcing website Quora, the question and answers about Jesus’s belly button seem to have more interest than I expected it would—although, to be fair, I hadn’t expected any interest.
As I start to answer this question, let’s acknowledge that when a baby lives in a mother’s womb, the line between blood and nutrients and cells becomes blurred. A child in a womb is dependent on the mother for all of these—the nutrients, the blood, and more. What a mother eats, in a way, her baby eats. Consider, for example, the tragic situation of fetal alcohol syndrome. So, yes, if Jesus was in his mother’s womb and had a belly button, then he would have shared Mary’s blood.
And certainly we should consider the blood of Christ special. The New Testament authors saw his blood this way. In the letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul writes of Jesus “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood” (3:25). That phrase—as a propitiation by his blood—means that the sacrifice of Jesus absorbed God’s wrath against sin. This is the meaning of the rather obscure word propitiation. Later in the same letter Paul writes of Christians being “justified by his blood” (5:9). In both of these passages, as is often the case, speaking of the blood of Christ is a shorthand for speaking of his death. One dies when one loses one’s blood (cf. Lev. 17:11). Still, this shorthand way of speaking does not nullify the specialness of Christ’s blood.
The New Testament has many similar examples of talking about Christ’s blood the way Paul does in Romans and elsewhere (Eph. 2:13; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5; 5:9). The apostle Peter even speaks of the “precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:19). A key passage from the author of Hebrews is worth quoting at length:
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself [Jesus] likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (2:14–15)
The author of Hebrews picks up this theme again later in his letter, including an extended section in Hebrews 9:11–28 where he describes the importance of blood in Old Testament sacrifices and how these Old Testament sacrifices were really a pointer to the final, better sacrifice that would come through the blood of Christ.
“The emphasis in the Bible on the purity of the blood of Jesus is not so much on chemical purity but moral purity.”
But to say that the blood of Christ was pure could be misunderstood. It was pure, but in what sense? We misunderstand the purity of the blood of Christ when we understand it merely as chemical or biological purity, as though Christ’s blood must be his blood and his blood alone. The emphasis in the Bible on the purity of Jesus and his blood is not so much an emphasis on chemical purity but moral purity. Jesus was morally pure and without blemish, and therefore the true and greater spotless lamb who could take away the sins of the world. We see this, albeit in a different context, when Jesus touches lepers and remains clean.
While I waited for my kids to finish riding a roller coaster at an amusement park, I texted with my friend John Biegel about this question. (Yes, this really happened.) John is a super-smart theologian and pastor. John said—and I quote—“there’s nothing inherently sinful about a belly button, I think.” The “I think” made me laugh. But I agree. John also pointed out that the “be fruitful and multiply” command is a pre-fall mandate, which is repeated after Noah and his family get off the ark (Gen. 9:1), and “unless God changed the means of procreation post-fall, we should expect belly buttons to be a part of God’s very good design for humanity.”
Additionally, think how weird it would have been if, in the Father’s plan of redemption, the first witnesses to Jesus were supposed to recognize how special Jesus was by noticing that he did not have a belly button. Instead, it seems to me that the Father intends the witnesses to the Son to esteem his character, his majesty, his power, his love. They were not supposed to conclude that Jesus was the God-man, as theologians call him, after sneaking a peek behind his robe. As Jesus hung naked on the cross, people were not supposed to notice a missing a belly button. That’s just weird.
This is all a way to explain my answer that Jesus did have a belly button. The doctrine of Christ’s sinlessness requires that his blood was morally pure, a purity that emanates from his character and essence. As my friend John also texted me, “I don’t think the idea of human corruption is one that is considered in simply biological terms as if there were a sin gene that got passed through blood or tissue.”
If you’ve made it this far, I applaud you. From time to time, I write blog posts that I suspect no one will ever read but were helpful and edifying for me to write nonetheless. But maybe to a few of you this conversation about belly buttons still feels goofy, even bringing to mind the Veggie Tales silly song about belly buttons done as a Backstreet Boys parody (YouTube). It did for me.
However, encouragement flows to Christians willing to contemplate the full humanity of Jesus because faith should always seek understanding as far as faith can go. Christians should not retreat to “mystery” or “miracle” sooner than we must, even though the doctrine of the virgin birth and the nature of Christ, as with all theology, will inevitably lead us to both mystery and miracle.
And as we ponder the Christ anew, we see that in his incarnation the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, really did become flesh: he was born, increased in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52), ate (Matt. 9:10–11), slept (Mark 4:38), got tired (John 4:6), felt sadness and wept (John 11:35), and experienced great pain and died (Mark 15:37). Which is to say Jesus really was like me. And like you. That is encouraging.
“Jesus really was like me. And like you. That is encouraging.”
We might rightly assume that this means when Jesus ate spicy Jewish food, sometimes he got indigestion and gas, even diarrhea. If the Coronavirus had swept through ancient Israel, as surely other viruses did, Christ was just as susceptible to sickness and, perhaps, being out of work without pay for an extended period of time. Now, in the sovereignty of God, Jesus couldn’t have died until, as we read about in John’s gospel, that his “hour had come” (John 7:30; 8:20; 13:1; 17:1). But still, Jesus was made like us in every way, as the author of Hebrews says (2:14). The Son of Man who saved the world from our sins had no place to lay his head (Matt. 8:20), and as he grew in favor and wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52), during puberty likely his voice cracked and his face had pimples. He was like me. And like you. He got lint in his belly button. That is encouraging.
Of course, he was also more than us. He was, as the Bible teaches, also fully God. So, not like us, which is encouraging too.
And it’s this dual nature—fully God and fully man—that allows him to be our Savior: in his humanity he identifies with us, and in his divinity he is a worthy sacrifice in a way no human could be.
Therefore, when we, with the eyes of faith, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, we behold someone more special and more wonderful and more real than our imaginations could have ever created—a Savior who lives and loves with purity and power that is both heavenly and earthly at once.
* Painting: “The Lamentation” by Ludovico Carracci, ca. 1582
When My Little Boy Got the Swine Flu: Learning to Lament
In his goodness, God often gives his people more than an academic understanding of the Scriptures.
On Wednesday of last week, I put on Twitter that I experienced a “Lenten miracle.”
“What was that miracle?” you say.
I finished my sermon early. That might not feel so miraculous to you, but I’ve struggled to complete a sermon before Saturday most weeks over the last year because we’ve been short-staffed, and pastoral attention is spread thin.
But I had to finish early because I traveled to Philadelphia at the end of the week for a conference with other pastors. The conference was before everything was being canceled because of the pandemic—or I should say during when everything was being canceled. I say this because as announcements were made nationally and at the state level by our governor, you could see and feel the attention of all the pastors in the room shift to our vibrating phones.
The Fear of Being Helpless
Our church, like all churches, has members with different levels of fear on the one end and skepticism on the other. I’m sympathetic to both. But I keep thinking about November of 2009. I got the swine flu, and so did my eighteen-month-old son. I was a fulltime seminary student, and I worked nearly fulltime in the construction industry too. We didn’t have a ton of money. I was afraid. The news told me people were dying, especially children and the elderly. A classmate was a former physician. I begged him to write a prescription for Tamiflu which was being rationed. I couldn’t focus on lectures or work, always thinking about what would happen to my little boy and fearing the worst.
I don’t feel that same fear now, but I pastor some who do.
Because I finished the sermon early on Wednesday, when it came time to preach it to a video camera on Saturday afternoon so we could share it on Sunday morning (another first for us), looking over my message felt odd. I wrestled with whether to set everything written aside and start a new sermon from scratch or to simply preach it as written. The world had changed so much in just a few days. In the end, I chose something of a middle road. We continued our sermon series: “How Long, O Lord? Learning the Language of Lament.” As our church journeys toward Good Friday and Easter, we are preaching through several of what are called Psalms of Lament. We couldn’t have planned it better.
I Find the Psalms Difficult to Read
I wonder if there are parts of the Bible that you read with more ease. Perhaps when you read certain parts of the Bible, twenty or thirty minutes go by without difficulty. Maybe the passionate gospel logic from the book of Romans captivates you. Or perhaps the parables of Jesus arrest your attention. Or maybe you love the Old Testament narratives, as in the book of Esther. You love reading about the hidden hand of divine providence that orchestrates events, turning the heart of the king toward his wife and the good of God’s people, which, by the way, is a helpful reminder for right now: God’s hiddenness does not indicate the absence of his power.
Some of you feel this way about the Psalms. I hear you talk about them this way. “When things are wonderful,” you say, “I read the Psalms.” “When things are hard,” you say, “I read the Psalms.” That’s good. I admire those of you who feel this way. I confess that I find the Psalms the most difficult of all portions of Scripture for me to read and enjoy. I’ve tried to think about why. I have a few ideas.
I think I’ve struggled to read and enjoy the Psalms because my method of Bible reading does not cooperate well with the genre of the Psalms. Reading four chapters every day as I make my yearly revolution from Genesis to Revelation, doesn’t allow enough time to go deep with each Psalm.
I’ll put it like this. You can drive your car to church on the highway in sixth gear. But if you want to back up out of your driveway, sixth gear is not so helpful. You need reverse. You need to gently tap the brake pedal as you cycle your eyes through your mirrors and glance over your shoulder, constantly adjusting the steering wheel. The Psalms are like reverse. The Psalms demand individual attention. They demand time. They demand a lingering and contemplative approach. This is true of the whole Bible, but especially when reading the Psalms because each new chapter of the Psalms is like beginning a new short story with a new author, new plot, new characters, new struggles.
When the Academic and Theoretical Becomes Experiential
In Psalm 38, which was our passage last week, the author says in verse 2, “For your arrows have sunk into me, / and your hand has come down on me.” In our piety, we would likely be inclined to say, “For it seems like your arrows have sunk into me, / and it seems like your hand has come down on me.” But the Psalms encourage us not to be so tidy with language. Psalms of Lament come from the gut. We shout Psalms of Lament with vocal cords warn raw from groaning. In this way, the Psalms of Lament are best studied not under a microscope while we wear a white lab coat, but rather in sackcloth with dust and ash on our heads. Biblical laments are learned by fathers with an open Bible and a toddler who can’t stop vomiting.
I am not thankful that some in our congregation feel helpless and afraid. But given where we are, I am thankful that this Lent season we have a chance to slow down, a chance to linger over just one Psalm each week. When we began planning a sermon series called “Learning the Language of Lament,” I never expected that our “learning” would be so experiential. God knew better.
* Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash
Who Was Luke? The Beloved Physician
If Luke could tell his own story, what would he say?
If I asked you who made the most significant contribution to the New Testament, you’d likely say Paul or Peter or John. If you were cheeky, you’d say Jesus. Of course, the cheeky answer is correct.
But what if I narrowed the question? Who made the most significant contribution in terms of the total number of verses? And who was the only non-Jewish author of any book or letter in the New Testament? And who, of the gospel writers, never met Jesus while he was alive?
The answer to all of these questions is Luke. The two-volume contribution of Luke-Acts is the largest contribution by any single author, making up a quarter of the New Testament. Luke was the only non-Jewish author of any New Testament book. And Luke never, as best as we can tell, met Jesus while he was alive. He learned everything through eyewitness interviews and meticulous research, perhaps via a research grant by the wealthy patron, Theophilus, to whom Luke dedicates each volume (Luke 1:1–4; Acts 1:1–3).
Our church recently began studying through the book of Acts on Sunday mornings. It got me thinking about how Luke, the “beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14), would have introduced himself to us if he could come to our church and share his story.
It’s impossible to know precisely what he would say, but when we piece together the details about Luke in the New Testament, a beautiful story emerges that perhaps would go something like this . . .
* * *
Luke, The Beloved Physician
My name is Loukas. I am a physician, or I was a physician. I suppose I’m known better as a historian these days, but you might just know me as Luke.[1]
The year was AD 67. In AD 67, Nero—Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus—had been Emperor for thirteen years, and winter was coming soon.[2] I was in prison in Rome with the Apostle Paul before the end of his life, just weeks before they would remove his head simply because he followed Christ and encouraged others to do the same.[3]
Now, I suppose it would be more accurate to say Paul was actually the one in prison, and I was there to care for him and help with his letters.[4] Together in that jail we wrote to a young pastor named Timothy as he pastored a church in Ephesus. Timothy’s father wasn’t Jewish, just like my mother and father.[5]
Speaking of letters, even in the early years of Paul’s ministry when he wrote to the church in Galatia, he said that his body bore “the marks of Jesus.”[6] By this, Paul meant that his body showed the physical scars of suffering for Christ. As a physician, let me assure you that this was an understatement.
Paul’s wounds were frequent and severe. Near the end, he could not even stand fully erect. That’s what happens when you’ve been beaten repeatedly to the point where your back becomes one giant open sore, and you’ve been thrown into the dust and dirt. Then you hobble away, or more likely you are carried away, to a friend’s house that has no antibiotics, no hydrogen peroxide, no Neosporin, and you spend the next week drifting in and out of consciousness as your body fights off infection and fever. As Paul’s personal physician,[7] let me assure you, when Paul said he bore on his body the marks of Jesus, it was an understatement.
Trained as a Doctor
But let me back up. My profession trained me to make observations—how to look, how to interpret, and how to record, then how to re-look, re-interpret, and re-record. As I worked with suffering people, I saw something universally true. I saw that people almost always avoid suffering.
I lived in the early middle period of what was called the Pax Romana, The Peace of Rome. The ideal, although only few could achieve it, was to avoid suffering at all costs. If suffering was necessary, well, then others should do it. Better to direct the common laborers than to labor; better to direct the armies than to fight in them. That’s why, at various times, more than half of the Roman Empire were slaves; we outsourced our own suffering.
It was a decadent and indulgent culture. In these respects, we were not far from your culture where “the good life” drives cars that don’t break, owns computers that never malfunction, has bodies that don’t decay, and treasures stuff that shines. Ah, the good life.
Introduced to Paul
When I first met Paul, it was twenty years or so out from the resurrection of Christ, so roughly AD 52.[8] I met Paul in the city of Troas in what you call Asia, perhaps one hundred miles north of Ephesus.
When I met Paul, he was just traveling through Troas in the middle of his second missionary journey. But, to be clear, Paul never really just traveled through a city. In fact, when I met him, he had recently come from Lystra, where he was stoned and left for dead.[9] Anyway, Paul and I sailed the same ship back across Samothrace to Macedonia.[10] While there, I cared for him; I treated his wounds, which had healed but poorly.
What was odd about Paul—very odd—was how he seemed to move toward suffering.[11]
Introduced to the Gospel
As we traveled and I attended to him, Paul told me how he had been raised in the Scriptures; he studied under the best Jewish teachers.[12] He explained to me how he had originally persecuted those who followed “the Way,” as it was called,[13] those who followed Jesus. He also told me that while en route to the city of Damascus, Jesus appeared to him in bright, stunning light.[14] The light blinded him. But then the lights came on, so to speak. Paul came to understand what he called the gospel, the good news of Jesus: God, in past times, had overlooked sin and not fully punished it, instead choosing to take the full weight of sin and crush the Messiah with it. That’s what he said happened when Jesus was crucified.[15]
To my culture, this was all so strange—foolishness really. At the time, I didn’t know much about messiahs, but I knew they didn’t die; messiahs don’t suffer.[16]
Travels with Paul
I watched Paul minister in Neapolis and then Philippi. I watched this rugged man speak so gently with women. A businesswoman of some notoriety named Lydia even became a follower of Jesus.[17]
After that, I didn’t see him again for five years.[18] When I saw Paul the next time, well . . . he hadn’t gotten any younger. His injuries were worse. Paul was traveling through Philippi on his final missionary journey. He was visiting all the places and churches he had been to before.[19] This time, I would stay with him until the end.[20]
In the interest of saving space, I’m leaving out many details, but eventually we made it back to Jerusalem. By this time, there was no small commotion about Paul. The word was out that Paul defied the Jewish customs and faith. These were only half-truths, of course.[21]
A great chain of events was put in motion over a controversy about who Paul did or didn’t take into the temple grounds.[22] Paul, many times over, could have broken the chain. He could have ended the suffering. Humiliation. Beatings. Imprisonment. Hunger. A shipwreck and snakebite. But he didn’t avoid the suffering; he pressed on.
Paul appeared before governors and kings sharing how the light of God had touched him, appealing even to Caesar himself.[23] When I ended my second volume, Acts, this is where Paul was, waiting in Rome under house arrest.
The Final Days with Paul
Eventually he got out, but not for long. The persecution under Nero intensified. There was a fire in Rome, and the question arose of who to blame it on. Nero chose Christians. So he killed them—he killed us. He burned us as torches at parties, dressed us in animal skins, and fed us to wild animals.[24]
Paul was sent back to prison. Paul, a man who had lived for others, was alone. Well, not exactly. I was there. But his body was failing. His ability to see clearly was gone. He could not stand properly. Each movement caused pain. Sleep was sporadic. In short, suffering abounded. But so did the certainty of Paul’s hope in Jesus.[25]
Together from prison, he wrote to Timothy:
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel . . . [for Jesus] abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel . . . which is why I suffer as I do.[26]
Not only did Paul not avoid suffering, but he actually moved toward it. He didn’t do this for the sake of seeking suffering in and of itself. For the superior joy of knowing Christ and making him known, Paul followed God wherever it lead him, which often entailed suffering. And as Paul did this, he had a certainty about his life and mission. He had a certainty about the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that certainty freed him to love even when it was costly.[27]
I think he felt free because he was certain Jesus had moved toward suffering for him and for the whole world, which is what I wanted Theophilus to know. And this is what I want you to know with certainty: Christ moved toward suffering to save sinners.
[1] This has been adapted from a sermon I preached at Community Evangelical Free Church, “Without Hindrance,” October 6, 2019.
[2] Cf. 2 Timothy 4, especially vv. 11 and 21.
[3] This is church tradition.
[4] This was how Paul wrote many of his letters, and it’s likely, based on the end of 2 Timothy, that this was how that letter was written.
[5] Acts 16:1; Colossians 4:10–14.
[6] Galatians 6:17, which is likely the first letter Paul wrote and likely before AD 50 when the Jerusalem Council took place (recorded in Acts 15).
[7] Many commentators say this was likely based on Colossians 4:14.
[8] Acts 16:10ff.
[9] Acts 14:19; 2 Corinthians 11:25.
[10] Acts 16:10ff.
[11] This seems consistent with his character and his explicit statements in the epistles.
[12] Galatians 1:14; Philippians 3:5; Acts 8–9; 22:3ff.
[13] Acts 9:2; 19:23; 22:4; 24:14.
[14] Acts 9.
[15] Acts 17:30; Romans 3:25–26.
[16] Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18–25.
[17] Acts 16:11–15.
[18] Five years is roughly the time between the “we” passages in Acts 16:10–17 and 20:5.
[19] Acts 20:5ff.
[20] Although the “we” passages cut in and out, it seems that Luke, more or less, is with Paul until the end of Acts.
[21] Acts 21:17–36; 23:17–36 (and beyond).
[22] Acts 21:226–29.
[23] We don’t know whether Paul actually got to see Caesar, but he certainly appealed to him (Acts 25:10–12). And it seems that this request was going to be granted.
[24] This is piecing together the possible timelines of 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus as well as common statements about Nero’s persecution of Christians near the end of his reign (AD 54–68).
[25] I’m extrapolating here from the details in 2 Timothy 4, as well as some of his aside comments in other letters.
[26] 2 Timothy 1:8–12.
[27] I’m stressing certainty to highlight Luke’s aim stated in Luke 1:1–4.
* Photo: Saint Luke. Woodcut. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY
The Doctrine of the Bible: EFCA Ordination (Part 2 of 11)
What does the Bible say about itself? And why does it matter?
I’ve been preparing for my ordination exam in the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA). Speaking in broad strokes, the process of ordination in the EFCA involves 3 steps:
Step 1: Write a 20-page paper that engages with the EFCA Statement of Faith, and then defend your theology in a 2-hour oral examination conducted by the credentialing council, which is composed of a dozen or so ordained local pastors.
Step 2: Complete at least 3 years of healthy pastoral ministry in a local EFCA church.
Step 3: Do “Step 1” again—except this round, everything is doubled: it’s now a 40-page paper (not 20) and a 4-hour oral exam (not 2).
This fall, I’ve reached the final step. At 9:00 AM on October 8, 2019, I will undergo the oral examination.
For the next few months, I’ll be sharing some of my ordination paper on the blog. Please know this writing is denser than anything I typically share on my blog, so don’t be discouraged if you find some of it jargon-filled. Each section has 1,000-1,800 words of condensed theology to meet the required space guidelines. And after each section, I’m including a list of discussion questions provided by the EFCA that ordination candidates are encouraged to address in their papers.
I welcome your prayers and feedback during this process; both will sharpen my thinking before the exam and make me a better pastor.
Thank you,
Benjamin
{Previous posts in this series: God}
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Article 2: The Doctrine of The Bible
2. We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.
Knowledge of God comes to humans in two primary ways: in general revelation to all humans through God’s creation, including a person’s conscience (Ps 19:1–6; Rm 2:14–15), and in special revelation through the Bible and the person of Christ, who is the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14). Although general revelation can be misinterpreted and even suppressed (Rm 1:18ff; 1 Tim 4:2), from it we learn of God’s creative power and gain a sense of right and wrong. General revelation, however, does not communicate the explicit content of the gospel, whereas special revelation does. The Bible is sufficient to reveal who God is and how we must relate to him; clear enough to be understood; authoritative on all matters to which it speaks; and necessary for people to know God, his gospel, and how to live a life pleasing to him.
The relationship between God’s authorship and human authorship is best understood in this way: God inspired human authors to communicate in a way that is consistent with their humanness (e.g., education and linguistic ability, temperament and passion, life and work experience) but also in a way that elevates the human author’s words far beyond natural ability (Dt 18:18; Lk 1:1–4; Heb 1:1–2). I see this view of biblical inspiration displayed, for example, when Jesus interchangeably refers to Old Testament passages in Mark 7:9–13 with the phrases “the commandment of God,” “for Moses said,” and “the word of God” (cf. Ex 20:12; 21:17). In other words, what Moses said can also be described as what God said. The Bible also takes direct quotes from the mouth of God and says that Scripture is speaking, as when Paul writes, “the Scripture . . . preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Gal 3:8; cf. Gn. 12:3).
Additionally, it is not merely the overarching biblical story and related concepts that are inspired but the individual words themselves that are purposely selected by human authors under the superintendence of God. This is called verbal plenary inspiration (Mt 5:18; 2 Pet 1:20–21). Therefore, it is right to speak of the Bible as infallible and inerrant in the original manuscripts, because God himself is absolutely truthful and without error (Mt 5:18; Titus 1:1–2). Because it is God who inspired the words of human authors, it is impossible for his inspired prophets and apostles to err in what they wrote (2 Pet 1:21), which is to say, the Bible is infallible. Moreover, because God’s prophets and apostles could not err, the Bible—like God—is truthful and without error (i.e., inerrant) concerning all matters to which it speaks.
The 66 books of the Old and New Testaments (hereafter, OT and NT) are complete, meaning that they can never be added to. It can sound odd to ask the question “How does the Bible speak about itself?” because the Bible has many different human authors. But asking this question is helpful. I see the Bible speak about its completeness and canonicity in several ways.
First, the Bible repeatedly intimates its own inscripturation (Dt 31:24–26; Jos 24:26; 2 Chr 34:14; Jer 30:2; Rev 22:18–19).
Second, the meaning of the “last days” implies a closed canon. Biblically speaking, the last days are the entire period of time between the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and Jesus’s second coming (Acts 2:17; Joel 2; Jam 5:3). The way the phrase the last days is used in Hebrews 1:1–2 (cf. Acts 2:17 and Jam 5:3), and the concept of finality is used in Jude 1:3 indicates there is a definitive and final speaking of God through Jesus and, by extension, the first-century apostles who were Jesus’s authorized messengers (1 Cor 2:13; Eph 2:19–20; 2 Pet 1:21).
Third, the intertestamental books were not considered canonical to Jesus and the early church, but the OT and NT most certainly were. For example, 1 Maccabees, which is not canonical, acknowledges that there is no word from an authorized messenger of God, a touchstone of canonicity (1 Mac 4:45–45; 9:27; 14:41; cf. Am 8:11). It seems Jesus acknowledges this by snubbing the intertestamental martyrs when he mentions OT martyrs in Luke 11:45–52 but does not mention the martyrs mentioned in the Apocrypha. However, the NT authors seamlessly use the Greek word graphé (Scripture) when placing OT quotations alongside the NT in 1 Timothy 5:18 and 2 Peter 3:16, showing that the writings of both the OT and NT were considered graphé, that is, canonical Scripture.
Fourth, there is an internal coherence among the books in the canon. The individual parts see themselves as just that—individual parts of the one, greater story.
Finally, the early church fathers recognized the Bible as having a self-authenticating purity and power not evident in later writings (e.g., early church councils, the correspondence of church fathers, and the continued written testimony of Christians). A letter from Athanasius in ad 367 contained a list of all 27 books we affirm as the NT canon, which is also the same list affirmed at the Council of Carthage in 397.
To come at canonicity in another way and to use the common shorthand, the fourfold test for canonicity is apostolic origin, universal acceptance, liturgical use, and consistent message. It’s unlikely that the church will discover an ancient letter that could be convincingly shown to be written by an apostle, say one of Paul’s additional letters to the church in Corinth alluded to in 1 Corinthians 5:9 and 16:3. But even if this newly discovered letter passed the tests of apostolic origin and consistent message, a long-hidden letter could hardly be said to have received universal acceptance.
While we do not have the original autographs, there are so many extant copies of the original manuscripts that we can be assured modern Bible translations, which come from these, are very reliable. For this reason, I do not think we are misleading people when at our church a preaching pastor, upon reading his sermon text for the morning, says, “This is God’s Word; thanks be to God.”
Before leaving the topic of inspiration and canonicity, it might be helpful to comment on the longer ending of Mark and the passage in John about the woman caught in adultery. It seems best to conclude neither passage was original, though both passages when rightly interpreted in the light of the rest of the Bible do not contradict any doctrine. A careful reading of Mark 16:18 sees not the command to pick up snakes and drink poison but a promise of protection, something Paul experienced in Acts 28. And the story in John’s gospel is consistent with the actions of Jesus in the rest of the Gospels and likely a real event, just one not originally included by John (cf. Jn 21:25). Modern Bible translations rightly inform readers that these passages were not included in the earliest manuscripts.
“Red-letter Christians,” who purport to take the commands of Jesus seriously, commit a modern canonical error worth discussing. Their emphasis on loving our neighbors and our enemies as well as serving fellow believers and the least of these are themes less often preached and practiced in affluent, majority-culture Christianity. But to pit the direct quotes of Jesus—the so-called red-letter parts of the Bible—against the rest of the Bible is foolish. Jesus trained and commissioned his apostles to be his authorized spokesmen empowered by the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:12–15; Acts 1:8); therefore, the content that Peter wrote in his letters or that John wrote in his gospel, even the non-red parts, is no less authoritative than, say, the sermon on the mount. The error of red-letter Christianity is not unlike breaking light bulbs on a Christmas tree: if you take away lights, the whole strand stops working properly. The complete 66 books of the Bible work in concert, not in isolation or opposition to each other. To take Jesus at his word is to take his authorized spokesmen at their words because he is the one who sent them; and not only that but listening to Jesus well is to acknowledge that the OT testifies to him (Jn 5:39).
In light of everything written above, it is right to speak of the Bible as the “ultimate authority,” meaning no person or book stands over the Bible to judge, interpret, or critique it (Jn 17:17; 2 Tim 3:16–17). Scripture is sufficient to provide everything we need for life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3). This should not be misunderstood to say every part of the Bible is equally clear to all people, but it is to affirm that everything required for an ordinary Christian to be faithful to God can be clearly understood in the Bible. Therefore we must be those who “[believe] all that it teaches, [obey] all that it requires, and [trust] all that it promises,” and invite others to do the same. Holding fast to this view of Scripture leads to the blessing of God’s people and the advancement of his kingdom, as well as energizing my own labors in preaching and teaching.
Discussion Questions
Old and New Testaments, Canon
1. Explain your understanding of the development of the canon of Scripture.
2. What are the canonical issues involved with Mark 16:9-20? John 7:53-8:11?
3. Describe one modern day canonical dispute. How would you respond to it?
Inspiration
4. How do you understand the process of inspiration and its result? What implications does this doctrine have on your life and ministry?
5. What do the words “verbally inspired” mean?
Inerrancy
6. What is “inerrancy,” and why is it important? What does it mean that this concept is applied to “the original writings”? How do inerrancy and infallibility relate?
7. Are modern translations of the Bible inerrant? How are they reliable?
Complete Revelation
8. What is the difference between general and special revelation?
9. How helpful is general revelation when it comes to knowing God, viz. is it salvific?
10. What does the clarity of Scripture mean and what are its implications?
11. What does it mean, both doctrinally and practically, that the Scriptures are sufficient?
Ultimate Authority
12. In relation to how and what we know, why is it important to state that the Scripture, God’s Word, is “the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged?”
Believed, Obeyed, Trusted
13. Regarding the truth of God’s Word, what is to be your response? What is the implication for your life and ministry?
* Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Making the Faith Your Own Is not the Same as Making Up Your Own Faith
There’s a big difference.
A pastor told me how encouraging it is when, years later, former students return to tell him how they’ve made the “faith their own.” It’s a phrase he used to encourage students with, especially those near graduation.
But he also told me how discouraging it was when one particular student returned to tell how he had made the faith his own. As the former student described this thing he considered “the faith,” it became clear he had not made the faith his own but rather made up his own faith. There’s a big difference.
Over the Easter weekend, the New York Times ran an interview with Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary. In the first few paragraphs you realize she’s done the same thing. In the short interview, she uses the phrase “for me” five times, as well as several other similar statements, such as “I don’t believe” and “seems to me,” as in the sentence, “For Christians for whom the physical resurrection becomes a sort of obsession, that seems to me to be a pretty wobbly faith” (emphasis added).
In addition to rejecting the bodily resurrection of Christ, Jones also dismisses the reliability of the Bible, human depravity, the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross, and eternal bliss in the new heavens and new earth and eternal torment in hell.
When my friend retweeted the article, he said, “I have more in common with Islam than I do with the religion described as ‘Christianity’ in this interview.” That’s probably not hyperbole. Readers get the sense that if the interview kept going, no remaining doctrine of historic Christianity would have been left un-denounced.
At one point, Nicholas Kristof, who conducted the interview, asks, “For someone like myself who is drawn to Jesus’ teaching but doesn’t believe in the virgin birth or the physical resurrection, what am I? Am I a Christian?” Jones responds, “Well, you sound an awful lot like me, and I’m a Christian minister.”
That’s a fascinating response, to say the least. In what sense can people call themselves Christian ministers—or Christians for that matter—while holding no beliefs of the historic Christian faith?
In the New Testament, Jude wrote, “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3). Did you catch that? He speaks of “common salvation” and contending “for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” Jude’s statement becomes meaningless if Christianity is infinitely malleable.
Words have meaning, and authors have intent. And Jones knows this. In one sentence she says, “At the heart of faith is mystery. God is beyond our knowing . . .” But she ends the paragraph saying, “I don’t worship an all-powerful, all-controlling omnipotent, omniscient being . . . That’s not the God of Easter.” So does the faith mean something or is it too mysterious to mean anything? Which is it?
When asked about what happens when we die, Jones responds, “I don’t know! There may be something, there may be nothing. My faith is not tied to some divine promise about the afterlife.” Did you notice another one of those “my faith” phrases? It all sounds so humble.
In his book Taking God at His Word, Kevin DeYoung writes about the infamous elephant metaphor for faith, the one where each person holds one part of the elephant, but because each is blindfolded, they don’t realize each holds the same thing. People often trot out the metaphor to explain how all religions are basically the same: some touch the elephant’s tail, others the side, and some the trunk. But if they all could only see, then they’d know that all religions are the same.
DeYoung disarms the faux-humility of religious pluralism that so often retreats to claims of mystery when there is no mystery. It isn’t actually humble, he notes, to profess agnosticism about what one is holding if the object you’re holding is shouting, “I’m an elephant.” That type of humility is better known as disobedience.
To be sure, there are aspects of mystery in the Christian faith, but the Christian faith cannot be all mystery or else there would be nothing to call “the Christian faith.” Moses wrote that “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). There are secret things, and there are revealed things, but the faith once for all delivered is not a secret thing.
It was Eugene Peterson who described Christian faithfulness as a long obedience in the same direction. Serene Jones and Union Theological Seminary’s departure from the faith, however, are the result of a long disobedience in the same direction.
* Photo by Sutirta Budiman on Unsplash
Did God Make the iPhone?
God aims to get all of the glory for all that he does.
The Evangelical Free Church of America (my church denomination) recently posted an excerpt from my book Don’t Just Send a Resume. The excerpt offers advice to pastors as they navigate the dicey conversation about compensation when interviewing with a church. In the post (and book), I make the statement:
The private nature and the potential misuse of money doesn’t negate its proper use. God made money, and though we tend to abuse it (just like sex, food, and exercise), God is not uncomfortable with the material world. He made it and called it good. So don’t shy away from talking about money in the final stages of a job search. Godly people can talk about money in godly ways.
In the comment section under the blog post, a man named Jay wrote:
Thanks for writing, Benjamin, and for publishing your work here for our benefit. I was surprised at your statement that “God made money.” Would you also ascribe cars, light bulbs, credit cards and other examples of human technology to God’s creative power?
My response to Jay was probably too long for a comment under a blog, but by itself it was a smidge too short to use as a blog post. So, I took my reply to Jay and expanded it here for us. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I wrote. Have you ever thought about whether God made money and technology? Here’s what I think . . .
Great question, Jay. Thanks for asking it. I’m actually pondering my own sentence in deeper ways now that you’ve asked about it. I tend to think the answer to the question, Did God make technology? is both yes and no.
If there is a way to positively affirm that God “makes” technology, then I’m sure we’d both agree that God doesn’t make technology the same way he made Adam (and trees and stars and so on). The Bible has no “Let us make an iPhone.” And neither does God work at a Ford plant or in a cubical at Visa’s headquarters. Cars and credit cards—and I guess everything else—are made by people.
But in another sense, I do think the Scriptures teach that God is behind all human ingenuity. Every good and perfect gift, writes James, comes down from God (1:17). How many lives are saved through advances in medical technology? I know that every time I use Neosporin or get an MRI, I’m thankful to God for these good gifts. I recently went on a field trip with my daughter to the Civil War Museum here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I’m certainly thankful God has caused medical practices to improve from those days of ghastly limb amputation.
A verse that has also been helpful to me is Deuteronomy 8:18. Moses instructs God’s people, “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth...” Moses wants us to see God as the one behind our ability to make money. Another way to say this would be to say that God wants us to remember he is behind all “human” ingenuity and all “human” industry.
Here’s one other idea that I think is helpful. When Adam and Eve were in the garden before the fall, they were charged with caring for it. Have dominion over paradise and subdue it, God told them. Adam and Eve were to cultivate the raw, unformed aspects of Eden, in a comparable way to how God created and cultivated his creation in Genesis 1. But as soon as Adam and Eve used any tool other than their hands and fingernails to plant crops, or as soon as they made a knife to cut their food, couldn’t we call these tools, crude as they were, technologies?
I’m not saying that everything people make is good or that when good things are made, they are always made in ways that honor God. They are not. When certain people attempted to build a skyscraper to heaven so that they could make a name for themselves, God confused their languages as a judgment against them (Genesis 11). They “weaponized” their God-giving ingenuity and used it against their Creator.
We should look up at the night sky and say, “Look how awesome God is” because the heavens are his handiwork (Psalm 19). But we can also stand on the roof of the Empire State Building overlooking the sea of skyscrapers and say, “Look how awesome God is.” This is precisely what King Nebuchadnezzar did not do when he scanned the majesty of his kingdom. While his boastful words were still in his mouth, God judged Nebuchadnezzar for his refusal to see God’s sovereign hand behind the pomp of the kingdom (Daniel 4:28ff).
God aims to get all of his glory for all that he has done, which is why it’s important for us to see God’s role in “making” things he doesn’t directly make. “For from him and through him and to him,” the Apostle Paul writes, “are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36).
* Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash
Prophetic Foreshortening: Advent According to Isaiah
Merry Christmas from the prophet Isaiah.
Advent means coming or arrival. It’s the time Christians throughout the world focus on the arrival of the Messiah: his arrival as a baby, his arrival into our hearts by faith, and his future, glorious second arrival.
This Advent our church feasted on passages from the Old Testament book of Isaiah that speak of the Messiah. As I studied and preached through prophecies of Isaiah about the Messiah, I noticed more than ever before the interconnectedness of the various advents of the Messiah.
What I mean is that in many passages where Isaiah speaks of the coming Messiah, he does not specify the timeline of when the Messiah will accomplish what is being described. Which thing the Messiah does during which advent is rarely differentiated. The three advents—the first advent of the Messiah as a baby to save his people; the second advent into the hearts of followers by faith; and the third, future advent in his physical and bodily return to judge the quick and the dead—are often presented as a single “mission-accomplished” message.
So, for example, one verse in Isaiah might describe something primarily true of the Incarnation, and then the next verse might speak of something true primarily in the Second Coming. This is like me telling my wife at breakfast on a Monday morning that I’m going to get to the office early to start on my sermon and then take a nap after I preach it. I left out the detail that the time between when I begin writing my sermon, and when I preach it and take my nap, is six days!
We see this in a passage like Isaiah 11. In verse 2 we read that “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon [the Messiah].” And in Luke 4:21, we read of Jesus saying that the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him “today,” that is, in his first advent. Just two verses later in Isaiah 11, however, Isaiah says the Messiah “shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked” (11:4). The destruction of the wicked did not happen in the first advent of the Messiah, but it will happen in his second. We read about this destruction in 2 Thessalonians 2, where Paul writes that “the Lord Jesus will kill [the evil one] with the breath of his mouth and bring [him] to nothing by the appearance of his coming” (v. 8). So, in v. 2, Isaiah is speaking of the Incarnation and in v. 4 the Second Coming. To say it another way, in one breath he’s talking about writing a sermon on a Monday morning and, in the next breath, he’s already resting on a Sunday afternoon.
In a sermon on Isaiah 11, pastor and author John Piper said, “So repeatedly in the prophetic books you read of an imminent attack or deliverance from an enemy, and the next moment you read about an event in the distant future, with no indication of how much time is in between.” Piper continues:
[According to 1 Peter 1:10–11] when the Spirit moved the prophets to write, he did not answer all their questions about how the pieces fit together. Which means as we read the prophets, not all our questions may be answered either.
Piper is saying that the chronology of the distinct works of the Messiah (as well as the chronology of other events) often appear braided together, which is one of the things that makes Isaiah so glorious to read and, at the same time, so difficult.
The Catalina Mountains in Tucson, Arizona.
When I studied the prophets in seminary, my professors had a fancy phrase to describe this. They called it “prophetic foreshortening.” Foreshorten doesn’t even sound like a real word, but it is. It means to portray something as closer than it is or as having less depth or distance than it really does. You might never remember the phrase prophetic foreshortening or it’s definition, but you might remember the image often used to explain it: mountain ranges.
There was a good example of foreshortening where I used to live. When you land at the Tucson airport, you’re in the south part of the city. If you look to the north from the airport, you’ll see the Catalina Mountains. And if you get on I-10 and begin driving north to Phoenix, after about 45 minutes, you’ll notice something. You’ll notice that what looked like one giant mountain, is actually a whole range of mountains, with the highest mountain in the back. From the south—and from 45 miles away—we might say that the Catalina Mountains look foreshortened, that is, they look like a single mountain with several peaks. From another perspective, however, you see them for what they are: many mountains.
What does this have to do with Isaiah and Christmas? From where Isaiah stood in history—south of the Messiah, so to speak—his prophecies about the coming Messiah often appear as one giant, “mission-accomplished” mountain, but in reality, they are several mountains.
When we celebrate Christmas, we typically have only the first advent in mind. But this Christmas Day, I write to encourage you that when you eat a Christmas feast looking back on the advent of “the babe, the son of Mary,” also feast in anticipation of the next advent. Feast in anticipation of the great wedding supper at the end of time when the bride of Christ, the church, will enjoy the fullness of the groom in a world recreated to be as it should be, indeed, as it will be forever (Revelation 19:6–9).
In other words, may the joy of your Christmas feast be a prophetically foreshortened feast, that is, a feast that braids together all the joy and all the hope we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Give a toast to the one who once came to earth as a child, dwells now in your heart by faith, and also promises, “Behold, I am coming quickly” (Revelation 22:7).
* Photo by Dan Kiefer on Unsplash
THE JOY PROJECT by Tony Reinke: Updated and Expanded
A new edition of The Joy Project by Tony Reinke is now available.
Last fall I wrote about how much I liked Tony Reinke’s book The Joy Project. The book tells the story of what God has done to bring us joy—forever.
The Joy Project was recently re-released. Tony Reinke, Desiring God, and Cruciform Press teamed up to improve the book. It now has a new subtitle (“An Introduction to Calvinism”), a foreword by John Piper, expanded and clarified content, and a new study guide.
And because The Joy Project now has its own study guide, I retired the study guide that I wrote for the book. It’s no longer available for purchase. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy and found it helpful.
I feel prividgled that Reinke included my endorsement with the new print version, which goes like this:
The Joy Project is a celebration of reformed theology, and in this way it’s more in keeping with the Bible’s treatment of the subject—behold the beauty before bemoaning the controversies. We cover this topic briefly in our church membership class, and for those who want to pursue it further, this book, for its accessibility and warmth, is the one I’ll recommend first.
If you’d like to pick up the book, you can do so on Amazon.
RELATED POSTS
What Was Jesus Doing Each Day of Holy Week?
It’s sometimes confusing to figure out what happened in the days leading up to the death of Jesus.
We call the week leading up to Jesus’s death “Holy Week” or “Passion Week.” When Christians read the gospel accounts, however, sometimes we get confused sorting out what Jesus was doing each day of this special week.
But we are not the first to be confused, nor are we the first to attempt to harmonize the gospels stories; there are excellent resources available to us.
This week, I commend to you a series of videos from the publisher Crossway that explain what happened each day of the week. You can watch them here. They are fantastic. Also, below I’ve included a table I adapted from the ESV Study Bible (also produced by Crossway). If you don't have one of these study Bibles, you should. I give them away often.
May God richly bless you this week as you—along with millions of Christians throughout the world—savor the glory of the passion of Jesus Christ: his virtuous life, his sacrificial death, his victorious resurrection, and the promise of his glorious second coming.
Click to enlarge.
TULIP: Quick Reference Q&A
When theologians talk about a famous Dutch flower (TULIP), here’s what we mean and do not mean, as well as why it is precious to us.
A few weeks ago I posted a short introduction to what is called Reformed theology. In that post, I mentioned I would come back with a longer post about what are often called “the five points of Calvinism” or “the doctrines of grace.”
These doctrines are a way to talk about the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, especially in salvation. These points are frequently explained using the acronym TULIP, which stands for:
Total depravity
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints
No one knows when the acronym was first used, but the grouping of these ideas first occurred in the early 1600s. The story goes like this. A group of ministers heavily influenced by the teachings of Jacob Arminius drafted a theological document called the Remonstrance, which had five points. (It’s from Jacob Arminius that we get the name Arminian, just as we get Calvinist from the name John Calvin.) The five points of the Remonstrance were actually a critique of Calvinistic teachings. Several years later, another group of ministers drafted a Calvinistic response to the Remonstrance, which also had five points. This Calvinistic response is known as The Canons of Dort. For the most part, TULIP uses different vocabulary than the five points of The Canons of Dort, but the ideas are the same.
What follows in the rest of this post is a “quick reference” guide to each of the five points. My intention is to bring clarity to the topic, without being laborious.
(Note: all sentences in the second question labeled “Piper & Reinke” come from page 6 of the first edition of The Joy Project by Tony Reinke.)
T in TULIP
What does “T” stand for?
Total Depravity.Other helpful names?
Pervasive or radical depravity; affectional atheism (per Piper).What does total depravity mean?
Everything about us has been touched by, indeed corrupted by, the fall. When the Bible speaks of us as being spiritually dead, it means we are unable to come to God on our own and that nothing we do can earn his love.
Piper & Reinke: “Total depravity is not just badness, but blindness to beauty and deadness to joy.”What does it not mean?
Total depravity does not mean we are as “bad” as we possibly could be. “Total” doesn’t mean we do every evil we could.Why is it controversial?
It’s controversial because the concept of deadness seems too radical. By asserting our inability to perfect ourselves and earn God’s love, total depravity assaults our pride. It’s also controversial because people sometimes misunderstand the doctrine to mean that people cannot do anything good.Why is it precious to us?
If apart from Christ we are really, truly spiritually dead and unable to come to God on our own, then it means when God does make us alive—when he does save us—our salvation is a free gift! In short, if salvation depends upon God, not man, then that’s a good place to rest our hopes. Also, a robust view of human depravity allows us to not be perpetually frustrated by the failures of humans to perfect ourselves. We do bad things because we are sinners.Key verses?
Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; John 3:20–21; Romans 3:9–18, 14:23; and Ephesians 2:1–3.
U in TULIP
What does “U” stand for?
Unconditional election.Other helpful names?
God’s predestination or choosing of his people.What does it mean?
Before birth, God chose people to be his children, regardless of anything they would do for him.
Piper & Reinke: “Unconditional election is how God planned, before we existed, to complete our joy in Christ.”What does it not mean?
Unconditional election doesn’t mean we should give up all hopes of sharing the gospel with people because everything has already been decided.Why is it controversial?
Unconditional election is controversial because it leads some people to believe that our actions in this life do not matter. This is a wrong understanding, however, and not at all what the Bible teaches.Why is it precious to us?
It’s good news that my eternal happiness was planned before I was born and doesn’t depend on me. Additionally, rather than the doctrine of election undercutting our evangelistic zeal, it should give us hope that many will embrace the gospel.Key verses?
Deuteronomy 10:14–15; John 6:35–45, 17:24–26; Romans 9:1–29; Ephesians 1:3–23; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4–5; and 2 Thessalonians 2:13.
L in TULIP
What does “L” stand for?
Limited atonement.Other helpful names?
Particular atonement or definite atonement.What does it mean?
When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the punishment for the sins of all who trust him. As well, Jesus purchases for them the power that makes their salvation not just possible, but actual.
Piper & Reinke: “Limited atonement is the assurance that indestructible joy in God is infallibly secured for us by the blood of Jesus.”What does it not mean?
Limited atonement does not mean that God doesn’t love all people or that the benefits of the cross cannot legitimately be offered to non-Christians in an evangelistic way.Why is it controversial?
Limited atonement is controversial because, to be blunt, there are a number of verses that seem to indicate “Christ died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:19; 1 Timothy 2:6; Hebrews 2:9; 10:29; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 2:2). Many people understand these verses to teach that Jesus took the punishment for sins for all people, regardless of whether they trust him or not.Why is it precious to us?
It’s a joy to know that Jesus has done something special for his bride.Key verses?
John 6:37–39, 10:11, 17:9; Acts 20:28; Romans 5:8, 10, 8:32–34; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 1:4, 3:13; Ephesians 1:3–4, 7, 2:8, 5:25; 1 Peter 2:24; and Revelation 5:9.
I in TULIP
What does “I” stand for?
Irresistible grace.Other helpful names?
Effectual grace and inward call. Also, closely associated with the cluster of synonyms of new birth, regeneration, and born again.What does it mean?
God’s power to overcome all of our resistance to his love.
Piper & Reinke: “Irresistible grace is the sovereign commitment of God to make sure we hold on to superior delights instead of the false pleasures that will ultimately destroy us.”What does it not mean?
Sometimes people take this to mean that we cannot resist God and his grace. We can do this. We all do it. But what irresistible grace actually means is that God can overcome all of our resistance.Why is it controversial?
Irresistible grace is controversial because it means our wills are not free in an absolute sense. It means, to quote the famous poem “Invictus,” I am not the ultimate “master of my fate . . . the captain of my soul.”Why is it precious to us?
Irresistible grace is precious because it means God can overcome all of my resistance and deadness to true joy.Key verses?
Hosea 2:14; John 6:44, 10:27–29; 12:32; Romans 9:1–29, esp. v. 25; and 1 John 4:19.
P in TULIP
What does “P” stand for?
Perseverance of the saints.Other helpful names?
Preservation of the saints (note the word preservation looks similar to perseverance, but preservation emphasizes God’s sovereign work).What does it mean?
All those who have been genuinely saved will continue believing the gospel until they die.
Piper & Reinke: “Perseverance of the saints is the almighty work of God to keep us, through all affliction and suffering, for an inheritance of pleasures at God’s right hand forever.”What does it not mean?
Some misunderstand the doctrine to mean that whether we keep believing or not, and whether we keep living the Christian life or not, is irrelevant to our final standing before God. This is not what “perseverance of the saints” means. The saying, “once saved, always saved,” doesn’t mean you can “get saved,” but then live a morally bankrupt life, one that is indifferent to God, and then still go to heaven. If they did fall away, perhaps they were never really saved.Why is it controversial?
Perseverance of the saints is controversial because some passages seem to indicate that people can lose their salvation. Plus, we all know people who seemed to have once loved Jesus, but now they don’t.Why is it precious to us?
Is it possible to have legitimate assurance that you’ll wake up a Christian tomorrow morning? Yes it is. God undertakes within Christians everything needed to keep us trusting him.Key verses?
Matthew 13:1–24; Romans 8:18–27; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24; Hebrews 12:14; 1 Peter 1:3–9; 1 John 2:19; Jude 24–25; and Revelation 2:7.
* Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
What is Reformed Theology? A Short Introduction
If you've ever wondered what "Reformed Theology" is about, this is a short introduction.
When I was in college a guest speaker from Reformed University Fellowship came to speak to our Bible study in the athletic department. After he had been introduced by our leader, someone in the study asked the speaker what it meant to be reformed. It seemed like a good question to ask. His campus ministry, after all, was called Reformed University Fellowship. The pastor looked over at the person who introduced him, shrugged, and then looked back at us. He said something like, “I’d love to explain it, but I’m not sure this is the place to do that well.” At the time, I thought this was a bit odd. Now I understand why he did this. He was nervous that giving a sound-bite answer could do more harm than good. I am too.
What is Reformed Theology?
In his book Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, author John Piper claims that he loves Reformed theology the way he might love a picture of his wife. The point Piper makes is that he does not love the picture of his wife in and of itself. He doesn’t love ink on paper or pixels on a screen. Rather, he loves the picture because it is an accurate portrayal of the woman he does love. Similarly, when he says, “I love Reformed theology,” Piper means that it reveals God in that “It’s the best composite, Bible-distilled picture of God that [he] has” (p. 130). In short, he doesn’t love doctrines on paper but the God these doctrines describe.
I think this is a helpful way to talk about any doctrine, but especially the doctrines of Reformed theology. Yet here comes that question again.
What is Reformed theology? What is this “Bible-distilled picture of God” Piper is talking about?
I love to answer this question and yet struggle to answer this question. Explaining Reformed theology takes only a few pages, but it can also take libraries. It can take me 15 minutes to introduce in a Sunday school class, but it might take 15 years for someone to embrace. Part of the reason Reformed theology can be so difficult to grasp is because it’s a topic that requires us to have both a broad understanding of redemptive history as well as familiarity with key Bible passages. Without each of these, it’s hard to make much headway.
Regardless, I still love to try to answer this question because I believe a good understanding of Reformed theology can deepen our joy in God. Even as I say this, I’m aware that the study of Reformed theology can cause a good bit of consternation, especially at first. It sure did for me. Though I didn’t know Reformed theology by its name, when I was first considering what it teaches, I once threw John Piper’s book Future Grace at my bedroom wall in frustration.
So, I won’t attempt to explain Reformed theology exhaustively here, but let me try to introduce it to you under four headings.
1. Appreciative Heirs of the Reformation
Those who embrace Reformed theology see themselves as heirs of church reforms that took place around the 1500s (and beyond). The Reformation began with the growing desire to show the Roman Catholic Church its errors and make it healthier. In fact, as I write this, many Protestants around the world are commemorating the 500th anniversary of The Reformation, which is marked by the date October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany.
Eventually, however, what began as an attempt mainly to reform the existing church led to breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church altogether. This split away from the Roman Catholic Church was the birth of Protestant denominations, a split that has resulted in many splinters. And while the proliferation of Christian denominations is in some ways undesirable, those who embrace Reformed theology deeply appreciate the faithful women and men who lived during the Reformation and who worked to reform the church, often at great personal cost. Martin Luther, like every believer, had deep flaws (see this article), but God used him and many others in a mighty way.
2. The Five Solas
Reformed theology is committed to the five great solas that came out of The Reformation (sola is Latin for “alone”). The five solas are:
Sola Scriptura Scripture Alone
Solus Christus Christ Alone
Sola Gratia Grace Alone
Sola Fide Faith Alone
Soli Deo Gloria To the Glory of God Alone
In the book Bloodlines, Piper weaves the underlying meaning of these individual phrases into one unified meaning with the statement: “God’s justification of sinners is by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, on the authority of Scripture alone” (p. 131).
Not everyone, however, gives a hearty “amen” to this statement. The Reformation solas came over and against what we might call “anti-solas.” These anti-solas were the common teaching of the church before the Reformation, and sadly in many places they are still taught, whether directly or indirectly. The anti-solas might go something like this:
Scripture plus church dogma
Christ plus his mother, priests, and saints
Grace plus the sacraments
Faith plus doing good deeds
To God’s glory plus human ability
Similar to Piper’s statement, let me try to weave together these anti-solas into one unifying sentence: “When we seek God through Scripture and church dogma, we can be made right with God only through Christ, his mother, priests, and saints, by trusting in God’s grace and the sacraments, as long as we do enough good works alongside our faith.”
I hope it’s clear that these anti-solas amount to what Paul calls a “different gospel” (Galatians 1:6ff). The anti-solas don’t offer us the good news of the finished work of Christ for our salvation. Instead they tell us to try hard and do our best, while strapping on ankle weights. The gospel alone makes us right with God.
3. The Doctrines of Grace
Those who embrace Reformed theology see Scripture teaching what is often called “the five points of Calvinism” or “the doctrines of grace.” These doctrines are a way to talk about the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, especially in salvation.
These points are frequently explained using the acronym TULIP, which stands for:
Total depravity
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints
No one knows when the acronym was first used, but the grouping of these ideas first occurred in the early 1600s. The story goes like this. A group of ministers heavily influenced by the teachings of Jacob Arminius drafted a theological document called the Remonstrance, which had five points. (It’s from Jacob Arminius that we get the name Arminian, just as we get Calvinist from the name John Calvin.) The five points of the Remonstrance were actually a critique of Calvinistic teachings. Several years later, another group of ministers drafted a Calvinistic response to the Remonstrance, which also had five points. This Calvinistic response is known as The Canons of Dort. For the most part, TULIP uses different vocabulary than the five points of The Canons of Dort, but the ideas are the same.
In a few weeks, I’ll do a longer post on how TULIP should be understood (here), but I thought it would be helpful in this brief introduction to Reformed theology to simply mention what the acronym stands for and some of its history.
4. Substantial Continuity between the Old and New Testaments?
Timothy Keller and D.A. Carson are the co-founders of The Gospel Coalition, a ministry committed to helping churches faithfully communicate the gospel and train Christian leaders. The ministry considers itself to be “broadly reformed.” In saying they are “broadly reformed,” they are hinting at the differences represented between these two founders, with one being baptistic in his convictions (Carson) and the other Presbyterian (Keller). The same differences are seen in Charles Spurgeon (Baptist) and Jonathan Edwards (Presbyterian). These differences among the broadly reformed illustrate why I put a question mark after the heading for this section; some see a substantial continuity between the Old and New Testaments, and others do not. Let me back up to explain.
Perhaps we could call Christians who embrace Reformed theology in its fullness, “fully Reformed”—that is, those who are Reformed with a capital “R” (Presbyterians might fit into this category). Conversely, we could call those who are not fully reformed, reformed with a lower case “r” (reformed Baptists).
The difference between these two groups has to do with the amount of continuity or discontinuity each group sees between the Old and New Testaments. Presbyterian theology tends to see greater continuity between the testaments (though of course not complete continuity), while reformed Baptist theology tends to see more discontinuity between the testaments (though of course not complete discontinuity).
One specific area in which this plays out is how much continuity each group sees between the people of God in the Old Testament (Israel) and the people of God in the New Testament (the Church). The slight differences here lead each group to have a different understanding of baptism. You were probably aware of the differences between Baptists and Presbyterians over baptism—Presbyterians practice infant baptism and Baptists baptize only adult believers—but you might not have been aware of some of the background that leads to this difference.
The Joy Project
There are many helpful books you can read to learn more about Reformed theology. My personal favorite, especially if you're going to focus on TULIP is The Joy Project by Tony Reinke. I like to start people with Reinke's book because of his emphasis on joy. It’s not simply a dry lecture about Reformed theology, but rather a celebration of it, which is more in keeping with the way the biblical authors write about how we are saved—beholding the beauty before bemoaning the controversies.
Reformed theology helps us understand God’s solution to our spiritual deadness (total depravity); that God’s plan for our salvation does not depend upon me and my good works (unconditional election); that on the cross Jesus purchases for me everything I need to be right with him (limited atonement); that God’s grace is so powerful it can overcome all of my rebellion (irresistible grace); and that life with God is worth fighting for every day of our lives, as well as something to which God himself is committed (perseverance of the saints).
In short, Reformed theology shows us how we get increasing and expanding joy—forever.
* Photo by Alessandro Valenzano at Unsplash
Books by Benjamin Vrbicek
Are you struggling with pron? I’d love to help you win the war.
This Changed My Attitude towards the Bible
It is important to observe a passage carefully before we interpret and apply a passage. Timothy Keller, in his book Hidden Christmas, speaks about this importance, sharing a powerful story about it.
Those words—“[this] changed my attitude towards the Bible”—are from pastor and author Timothy Keller in his most recent book Hidden Christmas. The event he’s speaking about was a time of observing one Bible verse for an extended period of time.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of observing the Bible carefully before we come to conclusions about what a passage means and before we figure out how we are supposed to obey a passage. In short, we must observe a passage carefully before we interpret and apply it.
Talking about this importance, Keller writes:
[In the Bible, what] looks like a simple statement, when pondered, can be discovered to have multiple dimensions of meaning and endless personal applications—far more than could ever be discovered with a cursory glance.
At [a formative] Christian conference [for me] . . . there was a session on how to read the Bible. The speaker, Barbara Boyd, said to us, “Sit down for thirty minutes and write down at least thirty things you can learn from Mark 1:17,” which reads, “’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’” Then she instructed us, “Don’t think after 10 minutes and four or five things written down that you’ve figured it out. Take the whole thirty minutes and try to get to thirty things observed.” So we sat silently and did as told. And indeed, after about ten minutes I was pretty sure that I’d seen everything there was to see in these fifteen words. I put my pen down and wanted to spend the rest of the time daydreaming but everybody else looked like they were still working, so I picked up the pen and started pondering some more. Then I began to notice new things. If I imagined what the sentence would mean without one of its words, it was easier to assess what unique meaning it brought to the sentence. That gave me ability to get another two or three insights around each term. Then I tried to paraphrase the whole verse, putting it into my own words. That showed me more levels of meaning and implication that I had missed.
At the end of the thirty minutes, the teacher asked us to circle on our papers the best insight or the most life changing thing we had gotten out of the text. Then she said, “Okay, how many of you found this most incredible, life-changing thing in the first five minutes?” Nobody raised their hand. “Ten minutes?” Nobody raised their hand. “Fifteen minutes?” A few hands. “Twenty minutes?” A few more. “Twenty-five minutes?” Even more. That session changed my attitude toward the Bible and, indeed, my life.
Timothy Keller, Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ (New York, NY: Viking, 2016), 105–106 (emphasis original).
[Picture by Freddy Marschall / Unsplash]
THE WHOLE MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE IN 16 WORDS by Chris Bruno (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words by Chris Bruno is a great book to familiarize you with the most important themes and the overarching story of the Bible.
Chris Bruno, The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017. 160 pp.
Today, my favorite publisher (Crossway) released a new book. It’s The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words by Chris Bruno. He serves as the Director of Advancement at Trinity Christian School in Kailua, Hawaii. He is also the author of a book with a similar name.
The goal of Bruno’s book is to take some of the most important concepts of the Bible (to be exact, 16 of them), and then trace how these ideas are developed from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible. This process of tracing themes is called “biblical theology.” Biblical theology is related to but different from “systematic theology.” Bruno explains it like this:
The task of systematic theology is to gather everything the Bible says about a particular topic into one place. The goal of biblical theology is to trace the progressive development of a theme or cluster of themes in the Bible. (12)
Two weeks ago, I posted my review of Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel by Ray Ortlund. That book is an attempt to do biblical theology on the topic of marriage. Bruno’s task—and it’s a tall order—does this for 16 different themes, and all in one book!
I found the chapters on “The End,” “Temple, and “Land” to be particularly insightful. Perhaps, though, as you glance at the table of contents, it’s possible you might have selected a few different words.
Nevertheless, I feel about this selection the same way I feel about “chronological Bibles.” I love the idea of a chronological Bible, that is, a Bible arranged in the order of when events occurred. However, I would never want to be the one who decided what order to place some of the books. Sure, to a pastor who is familiar with things, a few choices are obvious. The book of Exodus comes before Ezra, and both of these come before Ephesians. But where do you place Joel within the Old Testament? And how do you arrange the gospel passages, especially when they are of parallel accounts? Not easy decisions.
And now, coming back to which 16 words to choose, I love that this book exists, but I’m also glad I did not have to choose which words to use! But Chris did a really good job of it.
This is a perfect book for those who are first beginning to grapple with theology and the overarching story of the Bible. As well, it would be helpful to those who have been around the Bible for a long time but perhaps have been overwhelmed by all the individual parts and thus have not grasped the coherence of the whole.
Without being simplistic, the book is very accessible. When Bruno uses words like “eschatology” (the study of the end times) and “ex nihilo” (creation made “out of nothing”) and concepts such as “already-and-not-yet,” he makes sure they are always well-defined. He also uses many helpful illustrations to dive into the topics. And for the most part, the book is not specific to any one theological viewpoint. Rather, to use the words of C.S. Lewis, the book is “mere Christianity,” or “mere biblical theology,” in the best sense of the phrases.
Again, The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words releases today. Love for you to pick it up here.
A Few Favorite Quotes
“The return of Christ and the new creation is obviously a big part of what we mean by eschatology. But I have something bigger in mind. When I talk about eschatology, it starts with God keeping his promises, forgiving sin, sending his Spirit, and reigning as King.” (19)
“As we take the gospel to the ends of the earth, we are actually doing what Adam and Eve failed to do—expand the boundaries of God’s temple so that it fills the earth. As the church is built, God’s presence fills the earth.” (68)
“But I think the community of the Trinity also helps us understand what it means to be made in God’s image. At the very least, we have to say that God has existed in an eternal community; when God says in Genesis 2 that man should not be alone, his desire is for his people to experience something like the community of the Trinity.” (81)
“At the cross, God doesn’t only judge sin. He doesn’t only save his people. Instead, at the cross, God judges sin in order to save his people. His justice is the instrument that he uses to display his mercy!” (105)
[Picture by Ben White / Unsplash]
The Girl Who Kneaded Bread
What would it have been like to hear Jesus preach? A fictional account of a girl who heard Jesus and how he satisfies our needs. [Guest Post by Erin Bruker.]
The Girl Who Kneaded Bread
Guest Post by Erin Bruker
What would it have been like to hear Jesus preach? A fictional account of a girl who heard Jesus and how he satisfies our needs.
* * *
Like most women in Capernaum, it seems like I’m always kneading bread. Or mixing the dough . . . or waiting for it to rise . . . or shaping the loaves . . . It never goes away. That’s why I was excited when my father stepped into the kitchen and asked me, “Want to go along to market?”
I glanced at my mother with a pleading look.
“Did you finish your chores?” she asked.
“I just have to finish kneading this loaf,” I answered.
She gave a slight nod of approval and a smile spread across my face.
As father and I neared the market, we met a friend of his who was headed for the synagogue to hear the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth and invited us to come along, adding “Did you hear? He claims to be the son of God.” Apparently Jesus had fed 5,000 people in Galilee the day before with two fish and five loaves.
Father looked at me with a face full of intrigue. “Let’s go along; the market can wait.”
People packed the synagogue, so we stood in the back. Everyone was anxious to hear Jesus; they coaxed him to stand up front and give a speech. Jesus was just a carpenter but spoke with authority. And he was mesmerizing, though he used many analogies which I did not understand: “my Father gives you the true bread from heaven”; “the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”; “I am the bread of life” “I am the living bread that came down from heaven”; “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”; “for my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink”; “he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” What did he mean by these?
When he finished, people slowly went back to their business. On our way home from the market, father and I talked. “How could Jesus claim to be God?”
“He certainly had power from somewhere to do miracles,” I answered. “What do you think he meant when he said ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’? Or that he had the ‘bread of life’?”
“I don’t know,” my father answered, “but we aren’t about to become cannibals!”
“And he said doing this was supposed to make us live forever? I’m not sure,” I added.
We concluded Jesus was crazy.
The next morning I was in the kitchen kneading bread (again). The chore never stopped. I thought about what Jesus said. “Boy,” I thought, “it’d be nice to have some of his bread of life and no longer have to knead!”
There had been some people in the synagogue who did not think Jesus was crazy. I heard one man tell a friend, “Jesus healed my daughter right before my eyes! He is God as he claims—there is no other way my daughter would be alive today.”
I decided I needed to talk to my father.
I found him carving wood on our porch. “Maybe Jesus did have a point yesterday when he said he was the bread of life,” I began. “He spoke with much more knowledge than the other rabbis. If he is God, then he actually would know what someone has to do to get to heaven.”
“I have been thinking about it too,” my father replied. “If he is the bread of life, then we need him to get to heaven. We certainly don’t deserve to enter heaven on our own with all the wrongs we have done.”
I agreed. “It seems the bread he’s offering is a gift, the gift of himself. Wow—what a gift! Now, we get to follow God’s commands out of love instead of guilt. Though I cannot live up to God’s standard, Jesus has given me hope. I feel like I have been freed from a big burden!”
“I feel the same way,” he smiled. “I am so glad you came along with me yesterday.”
I returned to the kitchen with a happy heart, knowing that I had found the bread of life.
* * *
ERIN BRUKER belongs to Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, PA.
[Picture by Gaelle Marcel / Unsplash]
Do you really need to know how to teach the Bible?
Backstage passes are great. You get to see all of the cool stuff that goes into the final product. Although not near as cool as meeting your favorite music band before a show, this post is part of a series to take you “backstage of the pulpit.”
Today I’m starting a new blog series. It’s something of a primer on how to study a Bible passage, as well as how to then teach that passage in a way that is clear and compelling.
I’m calling the series “Backstage Pass” because I’ll be taking you “backstage of the pulpit” to see what goes into writing a sermon. Pretty exciting, huh?
I know, it’s not near as cool as meeting Bono before a U2 concert or going to the locker room before a Philadelphia Eagles football game. Still, every few weeks or so during this winter I’ll do my best to share something helpful about how I go about studying a passage of the Bible and how I craft a message around that passage.
Let me also mention what the series won’t be. This will not be a series about how to study all the different kinds of passages in the Bible. This means I won’t cover the issues involved with interpreting a proverb versus a prophecy, and a pastoral epistle versus an apocalyptic vision. I’m leaving aside these genre- and Testament-specific questions. If you’d like to study these types of questions, check out How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart.
Instead, what I’m going to focus on in this series are the general tools for studying any one passage and how to teach that same passage.
But before I begin this series, though, let’s tackle the obvious question. Do you really need to know how to teach the Bible?
Well, yes and no. I realize that not everyone will become a vocational teacher of the Bible. In fact, few people do. Moreover, James told the early church “not many of you should be teachers” (3:1a).
However, all Christians will spend their life studying the Bible; it’s what we do. So we might as well spend some time talking about how to do it well.
Additionally, many Christians will occasionally find themselves in a situation where they have to understand one specific passage and say something helpful about it. In short, they have to teach the Bible. Perhaps this teaching will occur at a friend’s wedding, an adult Sunday school class, or a children’s devotional before a sporting event. Or maybe you’ll have to teach when a Jehovah’s Witness comes to your door to talk about John 1:1 or when your child asks you at the dinner table, “What does it mean that ‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23)?”
You can, of course, make something up on the spot, but what if you need to study more? What will you do? That’s what this series will be about.
And even if any of those teaching situations never happens—which I find unlikely in the course of thirty or forty years of following Jesus—still, we are to be those who teach and preach to ourselves. What we learn in the Bible, we need to apply to our own lives.
For all these reasons, I thought it might be helpful to share some of the strategies that I use so that you can use them too.
Though I won’t post about this every week so as to not burn you out on the topic, stay tuned for several more posts in the next few months.
[Picture by Todd Poirier / Unsplash]
RELATED POSTS
Husbands, Praise and Praise Again
Husbands, keep praising your wife. Do it again and again. It matters.
Rise and rise again
until lambs become lions.
That’s a line from the movie Robin Hood (2010) with Russell Crowe. It means you must do something over and over until change happens; in this case, you must repeatedly summon the courage for battle until the fearful become fighters.
Recently, while teaching through the book and video series, The Mingling of Souls: God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption by Matthew Chandler and Jared Wilson, I came across something I wrote almost twelve years ago. It’s a reflection on the way King Solomon repeatedly praises his bride in the Old Testament book the Song of Solomon (also sometimes called, the Song of Songs).
I wrote it for my then fiancée, now wife, Brooke. But I also wrote it for myself. I hoped it would shape the type of husband I would become, even as it (hopefully and subsequently) would shape my wife. Perhaps I could summarize what I wrote in this way:
Praise and praise again
until brambles become lilies.
The point is that a husband is to praise his wife, so constantly, so faithfully, that it changes her.
I don’t think the poetry in my line is as strong as the original from Robin Hood; I’m missing the alliteration of “l” (lambs, lions). But my line does have an allusion to Song of Solomon and the way he praises his bride. In 2:2, he says, “As a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women.”
All of this to say, I gave the below reflection on the Song of Solomon some fresh polish, as well as making it more generic so that I could share it with you. May God use it as a helpful reminder—for me and husbands everywhere.
* * *
Right in the middle of the Old Testament, there is a Hebrew love poem written about King Solomon and his bride. In the book, she is not named, though she is referred to once as the “Shulammite” (6:13).
There are a number of different ways to interpret the book. One popular and, I believe, helpful approach is the “chronological” view. (This, by the way, is the view taken in The Mingling of Souls). In this approach, the eight chapters are understood to follow the couple’s relationship from their initial attraction, to their dating, to courting, to wedding, to honeymoon, and finally through married life.
But one thing is for sure: Solomon’s bride is not a rock of security and self-confidence, or at least not originally. In 1:5-6, she says to her friends,
I am very dark, but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.
Do not gaze at me because I am dark,
because the sun has looked upon me.
My mother's sons were angry with me;
they made me keeper of the vineyards,
but my own vineyard I have not kept!
Can you hear her insecurities? “Do not look at me.”
Apparently, she was not from a wealthy family; her brothers made her work all day outside in a hot vineyard while her “own vineyard,” that is her body and personal appearance, she didn’t “keep.”
If you only read the beginning of their love song, however, you would not expect the Shulammite woman ever to say, “Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits” (4:16b). Yet this is precisely what she whispers to Solomon on her wedding night. She almost sounds like a different woman. And in many ways she is. Something changes, something massive changes.
Brooke and me after our wedding, May 29, 2005.
Throughout the book, Solomon devotes himself to praising and prizing “[his] sister and [his] bride” (4:9). In fact, of all the twenty-one verses that Solomon speaks before chapter five (the consummation of the marriage), not a single verse is missing a praise of her physical beauty, strength of character, or an expression of his desire for her to come away with him.
Solomon praises her eyes three times; her cheeks, fragrance, and lips twice; and her neck, teeth, lips, mouth, breasts, tongue, and her chastity are all admired once. And he pronounces her beautiful six times (1:8, 15 [twice]; 4:1 [twice], 7).
The amazing thing to ponder is that this practice doesn’t cease after the honeymoon. It doesn’t even appear to slow down. He’s like the Energizer Bunny of Praise. Four times, he calls her beautiful (6:4, 10, 7:1, 6). In fact, in the sixteen verses that Solomon speaks after 5:1, only his closing verse (8:13) does not contain overt praise of his wife. Yet even in this line, he expresses his desire to hear her voice.
And this, as I understand it, changes everything.
Husbands, praise and praise again until brambles become lilies.
[Picture by Rachael Crowe / Unsplash]
A Response to "Why Men Should Not Be Pastors"
Last week, Sojourners released a short video that explains “7 Reasons Men Should Not Be Pastors.” Perhaps you are one of the millions of people who watched the video in your Facebook feed, maybe even one of the 32k people who shared the post or the 16k who hit “like.” This is my response to the video.
Last week, Sojourners released a short video that explains “7 Reasons Men Should Not Be Pastors" (watch here). Perhaps you are one of the millions of people who watched the video in your Facebook feed, maybe even one of the 32k people who shared the post or the 16k who hit “like.”
I didn’t hit “like,” but I did watch it a dozen times.
Here are the seven reasons, according to Sojourners, why men shouldn’t be pastors.
- Men don’t need to be ordained to help in the church; they can always help in children’s ministry.
- (Some) men are too handsome to be pastors; their good looks will distract.
- Men are too emotional—have you seen March Madness!?
- Men who have children will be sidetracked from pastoring by their family responsibilities.
- Men can’t be trusted to lead because Jesus was betrayed by a man.
- Men, about once a month, get really cranky.
- Men, again, don’t have to be pastors to help in the church; they can help in other stereotypical male ways, such as leading worship on Father’s Day and fixing the church roof.
You see what they are doing, right? The video isn’t about why men shouldn’t be pastors. It’s about all the silly and sexist reasons that people tell women that they shouldn’t be pastors.
And with this, I agree. It’s wrong, even sinful, to fabricate arbitrary and sexist reasons why women shouldn’t be pastors. It’s been done, and I hate it. I’m sure all thoughtful Christians, especially ministry-minded women, must hate it, too. God hates it.
But who are we kidding? This isn’t the only message, nor even the main message of the video. The main message is not that women shouldn’t be excluded from the pastorate for silly and sexist reasons, but rather that women shouldn’t be excluded from the pastorate for any reason—come on, it’s 2016, people! Moreover, anyone who has any reasons for excluding women—including reasons based in Scripture—is likewise silly . . . or something worse (insert words here like “social dinosaur” or “patriarchal misogynist.”)
Complementarism v. Egalitarianism
In the history of the church, there are two main theological positions on men’s and women’s roles. They go by the names of “complementarianism” and “egalitarianism.” It will be helpful to briefly explain these views, specifically what both of these views affirm, and then mention how they differ.
Both views affirm that men and women are created equally in the image of God, and consequently have equal dignity, value, and worth. Also, both views believe that women and men can, and should, participate significantly in Christian ministry.
And yet, there are differences in the two positions. Egalitarians believe that there should be no distinctions in roles in the home and the church that are based upon the innate qualities of gender. Rather, egalitarians believe that any and all roles should be decided only on the basis of competency. In other words, if you are good at something, regardless of your gender, then you should be able to do it. If you can preach—preach it, sister.
Complementarians don’t believe this. They believe that manhood, in distinction from womanhood, means something—something beautiful. And complementarians believe that womanhood, in distinction from manhood, means something—something beautiful. Complementarians believe that roles are not determined only by competency but also, even mainly, by the good, enduring design of the Creator. In short, maleness and femaleness has meaning beyond “plumbing”; at our soul-level we are not androgynous but irrevocably and invaluably gendered.
Are There Bible-Reasons Why Pastors Should Only Be Men?
I don’t think I am a patriarchal misogynist, but I’m sure I sound that way to some. Regardless, I do think there are biblical reasons that men, and only men, should be elders in a local church. [1]
Because this is such a controversial point, allow me to mention seven of the biblical reasons for this view.
First, God gives Adam responsibilities of leadership before the fall, that is, Adam’s responsibility to lead is not a result of sin after Genesis 3. For example, before the fall, God creates Adam first and then Eve as a “helper fit for him” (2:18). Also, God gives Adam the responsibility of naming the animals, and then later Eve (2:19-20; 3:20). Additionally, God instructs Adam regarding which tree he should and should not eat from (2:15-17). This instruction took place before Eve was created. The expectation, then, is that Adam was to teach God’s moral instruction to Eve, thus implying a role of spiritual leadership.
Second, although Eve also sinned (even sinned first), God does not charge Eve with the responsibility of plunging the human race into sin and enmity with God. Rather, this is Adam’s responsibility, as taught in places like Romans 5:12-21.
Third, the way that Satan chooses to approach the woman in Genesis 3, also hints that Satan knew that God had placed Adam in a leadership role, and he deliberately chose to assault it. To use an analogy, if two nations are at war and one side chooses to deliberately bypass the President during negotiations, instead choosing to speak only with the Vice President, an insult is delivered. Satan insults the created order in bypassing Adam to speak with Eve.
Fourth, throughout both the Old Testament and New Testament there is a pattern of spiritual leadership being placed mainly among men (e.g., priests in the OT and the apostles and 12 disciples in the NT). This is not to say that at times women didn’t lead, but the primary pattern of male leadership is undeniable.
Fifth, there are many parallels between male leadership in the church and the headship of men in the home. This is taught in places like Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and Titus 2.
Sixth, there is no explicit mention of women pastor-elders in the New Testament. If Jesus or his authorized representatives in the early church had desired women to be pastors, they didn’t make it clear. [3]
Finally, it would seem that specific passages, like 1 Timothy 2:8-3:7 and Titus 1:5-9, actually require elders to be males.
Why is This So Hard to Accept?
There are probably many reasons this view is unpopular. For one, the abuses of sinful men who treat headship like a right and privilege. This should not be the case, but sadly, it happens. Spiritual leadership is not a right or privilege, but a responsibility to be carried out humbly and sacrificially, the way Jesus carried it out (Ephesians 5:2, 25).
But there is likely another reason we chafe against this, one often not mentioned, namely, that complementarism assaults a certain cultural idol. It’s commonly held today that you can’t have differing roles without also having differing intrinsic worth. If someone does a different role, even especially if one is prevented from doing a role, then they must, according to the culture, be inferior. Thus, if women shouldn’t be pastors then women are by extension inferior.
But this is not what the Bible teaches, most especially demonstrated in the Triune relations between the Father, Son, and Spirit. Is the Son of God less than God the Father because the Son does his Father’s will (John 6:38)? Is the Holy Spirit less than God because he is called “helper” (John 14:26)? Orthodox Christianity has always said, no. Differing roles among the members of the Trinity do not necessitate a difference in value. Actually, quite the opposite is true.
At our church, as you might have guessed by now, we do not have women pastors. But we do, however, try our best to not over apply this.
For example, last Sunday at our worship services a woman read the closing benediction of Scripture. As well as, several women led songs during the worship service—and no, it wasn’t Mother’s Day. And at our church, the current head of the Finance Team is a woman (and the whole team, by the way, is made up of two women and two men). Just yesterday, in fact, I sent her an email asking if she could help direct me and the other elders about how to use certain funds—not a small or insignificant role. Of course, there are many other important ways women lead at our church; these are just a few. [4]
Making a distinction between men’s and women’s roles is especially controversial in our day. But this is nothing new. Throughout history, it’s often been the case. We see this even in New Testament times. We shouldn’t have a romantic view of the early church. They too needed to work through the issues, just as we do. Thankfully, God did not leave the early church to fend for themselves. Even though some considered it foolishness, God gave them his wisdom, just as he has given it to us (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 2:14-16).
The final line in the Soujourners’ video asks viewers to “support women in the church.” I couldn’t agree more. I, however, think we do this best by not asking women to fill a role that God didn’t intend them to fill. “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
* * *
[1] Of course, not just “any man” can be an elder, but only those men who fit the qualifications for elders as described in places like 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, and 1 Peter 5:1-5. Also, throughout this post I’m using pastor and elder interchangeably because the Bible does.
[2] The decision we interpreters must make is whether this pattern is merely a product of their cultural norms or something with trans-cultural purpose (i.e., a God-given design for all time). I favor the latter. Male spiritual leadership existed in 116 AD and continues to exist in 2016, not because of cultural norms (sinful or otherwise) but divine design.
[3] And no, I don’t think Galatians 3:26-28 actually flattens all distinctions, though it does reinforce what is taught in many places, namely, that neither ethnicity nor gender can keep people from full status as children of God.
[4] And on a personal level, just this last week, I’ve been reading a detailed history of the prosperity gospel, which is written by a very gifted historian who also happens to be a woman. I thank God for her scholarship and I’m praying her book benefits many people.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
How Did People in the Old Testament Live So Long?
How did people in the Old Testament live so long? I’m not sure, but I’ve always wondered this. Perhaps you have, too. I was recently reading Perelandra by C. S. Lewis and he offered an interesting answer.
We are in our second year of a church book club. Last year and this year, we picked eight novels to discuss, focusing conversation on the themes of dignity and depravity, ruin and redemption, as well as the craft of writing. (You can see the list of books below.)
On Saturday, we discussed Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which is Book II in the Lewis Space Trilogy. One person described Perelandra as a “theological treatise in a sci-fi context.” I think that’s probably a helpful way to look at it. The discussion leader for this particular book did a fantastic job; as you can see from the picture above (click to enlarge), his notes were very thorough!
I don’t want to give away any of the book, but I do want to quote a section from the very end. It’s just one example of the many, many places where Lewis invites readers to consider biblical ideas afresh.
In this section, the main character (Ransom), is discussing an injury that he suffered and what will happen to his injury upon his subsequent return to earth. Because Perelandra is paradise-like, the king (named Tor), essentially says to a third character (named Tinidril), “I think Ransom will be okay because when someone has been here [the planet Perelandra], it takes a while for ‘paradise’ to get out of his or her system, even when one returns to a fallen planet.”
The connection is then made to the “long livers” in the book of Genesis, and the way that, after the fall, it took a while for paradise to get out of our system.
I don’t know whether this is the best way to answer the question of “how did people live so long?” but I like it. And I thought you might, too.
* * *
Ransom looked down and saw that his heel was still bleeding. “Yes,” he said, “it is where the Evil One bit me. The redness is of [blood].”
“Sit down, friend,” said Tor, “and let me wash your foot in this pool.” Ransom hesitated but the King compelled him. So presently he sat on the little bank and the King kneeled before him in the shallow water and took the injured foot in his hand. He paused as he looked at it.
“So this is [blood],” he said at last. “I have never seen such a fluid before. And this is the substance wherewith Maleldil [the God-like character] remade the worlds before any world was made.”
He washed the foot for a long time but the bleeding did not stop. “Does it mean that [Ransom] will die?” said Tinidril at last.
“I do not think so,” said Tor. “I think that any of his race who has breathed the air that he has breathed and drunk the waters that he has drunk since he came to the Holy Mountain will not find it easy to die. Tell me. Friend, was it not so in your world that after they had lost their paradise the men of your race did not learn to die quickly?”
“I had heard,” said Ransom, “that those first generations were long livers, but most take it for only a Story or a Poetry and I had not thought of the cause.”
* * *
Book Club List, 2015
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Peace Like a Rive by Leif Enger
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Book Club List, 2016
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Perelandra by C. S. Lewis
Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Some Favorite C.S. Lewis Books
TAKING GOD AT HIS WORD by Kevin DeYoung (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
A book review of TAKING GOD AT HIS WORD by Kevin DeYoung. As the subtitle suggests, it’s a great book to remind us that God’s Word is knowable, necessary, and enough—and practically why all of this matters.
Kevin DeYoung. Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2014. 144 pp. $17.99.
You Had Me at Hello
I once heard John Piper say, “Books don’t change people, paragraphs do—sometimes sentences.”
I loved all of Kevin DeYoung’s book, Taking God At His Word, but one paragraph was especially lovable. As I begin this review, I’ll start with it.
The paragraph comes from the introduction. I had actually read a portion of the paragraph on a blog around a year ago when the book was first published. I loved it then, but now even more after seeing it in context, i.e. the context of DeYoung’s discussion of the longest chapter in the Bible—Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem that gives one stanza to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet creating 176 verses. And what’s the topic of this Psalm? The Bible.
Here is the paragraph that so moved me:
Think of this chapter [the Introduction] as application and the remaining seven chapters of this book as the necessary building blocks so that the conclusions of Psalm 119 are warranted.
Or, if I can use a more memorable metaphor, think of [chapters] 2 through 8 as seven different vials poured into a bubbling cauldron and this chapter as the catalytic result.
Psalm 119 shows us what to believe about the word of God, what to feel about the word of God, and what to do with the word of God. That’s the application. That’s the chemical reaction produced in God’s people when we pour into our heads and hearts the sufficiency of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture, and everything else we will encounter in the remaining seven chapters.
Psalm 119 is the explosion of praise made possible by an orthodox and evangelical doctrine of Scripture. When we embrace everything the Bible says about itself, then—and only then—will we believe what we should believe about the word of God, feel what we should feel, and do with the word of God what we ought to do. (14, emphasis added)
There are several things in particular which stand out to me in this paragraph, but I’ll just mention two.
1. The Author of Psalm 119 was Orthodox and Evangelical
First, I’ll start with my favorite line: “Psalm 119 is the explosion of praise made possible by an orthodox and evangelical doctrine of Scripture.” I love this anachronism because it’s not really an anachronism at all.
We often (wrongly) think of our particular hermeneutical approach to Scripture as something we created, rather than the attempt to have the same hermeneutical approach to Scripture that Scripture has to itself. What I mean is this: I love that this quote reminds me that an “orthodox and evangelical doctrine of Scripture” is not something fabricated by moderns, but rather is the very view of the original authors. What a great reminder that when we, as evangelicals, put supreme confidence in Scripture, we are not putting more confidence in Scripture than the Psalmist had… or for that matter, more confidence than the apostle Peter had (see pg. 34)… or Jesus had (see pg. 110ff).
Scoffers and cynics would not write Psalm 119. The indifferent, ho-hum, and lukewarm would not either. But those with an orthodox, evangelical, and high view of Scripture would—indeed, did. Those who love the Bible’s sufficiency, clarity, authority, and necessity experience a chemical reaction in the heart which tends to produce an “explosion of praise.”
2. How Then Shall We Feel?
In Taking God At His Word, I also appreciated DeYoung’s challenge that the Bible does not merely provide us with what we are “to believe” and “to do”—albeit very important things. DeYoung, both in the above paragraph and the rest of the chapters, also puts stress, as does the Bible, on how we are “to feel” about the Word.
And it’s here that we find an often underrepresented emphasis in books about Scripture—but certainly not in Psalm 119. The author of Psalm 119 does not feel neutral about Scripture. He feels passionately about it. He loves God’s Word (vv. 48, 97, 119, 127, 140), he delights in God’s Word (vv. 14, 24, 70, 143, 174), and he longs to keep God’s Word (vv. 5, 10, 17, 20, 40, 131); he even expresses anger when people don’t (vv. 48, 97, 119, 127, 140). And the Psalmist urges us to feel this same passion.
Engagement with Dissenters
Before wrapping up my review, I want to give space to one of the book’s chief strengths. DeYoung has a wonderful, skillful way of articulating and then critiquing opposing views of the Bible—views which tend to bleed the Bible of its life giving power, rather than transfuse it to us.
For example, although he avoids the technical name, he aptly engages the “documentary hypothesis” (104-5). Contra the evangelical view, the documentary hypothesis is the view that Moses did not write the Pentateuch to the Israelites while in the wilderness, with, of course, a few small editorial updates that came later (like the one about Moses’s death). Rather, the documentary hypothesis teaches that whole teams of people wrote these books over several centuries and often from divergent theological convictions.
DeYoung notes, “This [complicated, cynical questioning of authorship] is part and parcel of what seems plain to so much modern scholarship, but it isn’t even remotely connected to anything we see from Jesus in the way he handled the Old Testament” (105).
This is a great example of DeYoung’s ability to both articulate and critique opposing views. Here’s another. On pages 65ff, he analyzes the false humility of those who say:
We can’t put God in a box. We can’t define him with human language. If we could define him with our words, then he wouldn’t be God anymore. Scripture simply gives us one inspired record of human beings trying to describe mysteries that are beyond mere words and language. (65)
This sounds “nice, even noble,” but it smuggles in all sorts of false assumptions about the Bible. And besides, as DeYoung notes, the doctrines of the clarity of Scripture and Christian epistemology, are not only related to the Bible but our view of God.
When we say that we believe the word of God is clear (with all the necessary nuances, of course), we are saying something about God, namely, that he is able to communicate with clarity. And when Christians say that we can actually know God through his Word (our epistemology), we are really saying something about God, namely, that God is able to make himself known through his Word.
Recommendation
Throughout the rest of the book, DeYoung covers the four main, historical doctrines about the Word (it’s sufficiency, clarity, authority, and necessity), as well as fitting in a few other related chapters.
As I hope you have already sensed, far from being merely academic and aloof, the book remains warm and doxological, that is to say, the book stirs an “explosion of praise” in readers, at least this reader. Moreover, for those who want to pursue other books about the Bible but feel unsure of where to start, at the end of the book, DeYoung provides an annotated bibliography of what he calls, “30 of the best books on the Good Book.”
If you are presently unfamiliar with DeYoung, he is a young, prolific, and impacting author. He writes a popular blog hosted on The Gospel Coalition. Yet, DeYoung’s greatest strength is that he’s a master at taking difficult theological concepts and presenting them in ways that are clear, compelling, and faithful to Scripture. Time and again DeYoung brings clarity to the topics he engages. In so doing, he hits his stated target, “My aim is to be simple, uncluttered, straightforward, and manifestly biblical.”
And, in Taking God at His Word, he is. I highly recommend it.
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Emotional Support for the Canaanites
A punchy quote from commentator Dale Ralph Davis about the conquest of Canaan.
At our church, we are beginning a preaching series through the Book of Judges. My co-pastor suggested we brand the sermon series, “With heroes like these, who needs villains.” If you’re familiar with Judges, then you get it. But we are preaching through this book because we don’t want to forget that God’s grace often shines brightest against the darkest of backdrops. While doing preliminary research, I came across the below quote from Dale Ralph Davis in his Judges’ commentary, Judges: Such a Great Salvation. The quote comes in the context of Davis’ treatment of one of the main objections secular people (and others) raise against the Book of Judges, namely, the morality of the conquest of the land of Canaan by the Israelites, especially because the Lord commanded the disposition. Or, in short, the objection says, “holy wars” were always—and are always—wrong.
This objection is not unique to The Book of Judges but it is prominent here, as it is in Joshua. Consequently, commentators typically address it, but often, it feels, they do so reluctantly and only out of necessity. Thus to readers, it often feels as though the author would have preferred to tiptoe around the topic, or perhaps that he was sent unwillingly by an editor on a mission to rescue God from bad PR.
Regardless, I can understand why. In a day when theists strap bombs to themselves and others murder abortion doctors in the foyers of churches, God’s OT land acquisition program needs a careful explanation. Yet being careful is not the same as tiptoeing. And Davis won’t be found guilty of the latter; he approaches the objection with his typically fresh, unapologetic, and punchy style—a style I first experienced in his book on preaching Old Testament narrative texts, The Word Became Fresh (which I intend to post a full book review of later this summer).
To be sure, Davis’ comments are not the final word on the subject of holy war in the OT, but they certainly are a good first word.
For many readers Judges 1 raises once more the so-called moral problem of the conquest. How horrid that Israel butcher innocent Canaanites, wreak havoc and misery, grab their land – and all, allegedly, at Yahweh’s command!
If only the Canaanites could know how much emotional support they received from modern western readers. And the conquest was frightful. But people who bemoan the fate of the poor Canaanites don’t view the conquest from the Bible’s own perspective. They forget one vital fact: the Canaanites were not innocent.
Moses was emphatic about that; he humbled the Israelites by insisting that Yahweh was not giving them Canaan because they were such godly folk but because the Canaanites were so grossly wicked (Deut. 9:4-6). If you want all the glory details, see Leviticus 18:6-30 and Deuteronomy 18:9-14. These tests show that the conquest was an act of just judgment upon a corrupt and perverted people. The Bible, of course, does not claim the conquest will be palatable; but it does insist it was just.
Anyway, contemporary western church members who vicariously and avidly gorge themselves on violence via television and cinema have forfeited any right to throw the first stone. (16, emphasis original)
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A reminder that Christian ministry must always be about Christ.