The Psalms: yesterday and today

Gordon Wenham discusses the imprecatory psalms in his new book on the Psalter, Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically (Baker 2012). I’m going to quote some passages. My only caveat is that he uses the word “poor” indiscriminately. But Scripture distinguishes between those who are poor through no fault of their own, and those who are poor through imprudent or sinful lifestyle choices

What the psalmist asks of God is the application of the talionic principle. We bridle at the bluntness of the “eye for an eye” formula, but we applaud the principle of proportionate justice (170).

 

This is the so-called lex talionis, which, although it has sometimes been decried, actually spells out a principle of universal justice: the punishment should fit the crime (112).

 

It seems probable that the list of curses in Ps 109:6-20 reflects the actions, or at least the accusations, of the psalmist’s oppressors. In either case, his prayer is that they be punished in the way they have afflicted or intended to afflict him. The psalmist is asking for justice, not revenge. This will demonstrate to others that God hears prayer and intervenes on behalf of the poor and oppressed (171).

 

 “His [the psalmist’s] sole concern is the credibility of God…The truth of this God is at stake. If the speaker of the psalm fails as a witness to these traditions about God, the groups who…orient themselves to him as their ‘model,’ and who join him in opposing the…‘ridiculing of God’ will also be disappointed and ashamed.” Thus, it is not merely his own discomfort that drives the psalmist’s prayer, but the honor of God’s name and the perseverance of those who trust in him (172).

 

The prayer is thus an expression of the lex talionis, in that Yahweh is asked to place back upon the enemies the experiences that they had themselves generated for the psalmist (173).

 

But when his prayers are answered, then God’s goodness and righteousness will be vindicated, and the humble seekers after God will be glad: “For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners” (v33). The psalmist “trusts that in the conflict between the powerful and the weak, the persecutors and the persecuted, the exploiters and the poor, Yahweh will in principle take the part of the victims.” (173).

 

J. Clinton McCann remarks,

 

The psalmist’s request is in accordance with what most persons, then and now, would say is only fair–the punishment should fit the crime…In particular, the enemy deserves no kindness (v12, or “steadfast love”), because he showed no kindness (v16). The enemy deserves to be impoverished (vv8-11), because he mistreated the poor and the needy (v16; see Ps 10:2). The enemy deserves to be cursed because he cursed others (vv17-19,28-29; see Ps 62:4). In short, the enemy deserves to die (v8), because he pursued others to their death (vv16,31)…God’s steadfast love means judgment upon victimizers for the sake of the victims–the poor and the needy (174-75).

 

In this perspective, the imprecations against the psalmist’s enemies are comparable to the oracles against the nations in Isa 13-23; Jer 46-51.

 

First, the psalmists see God’s honor and reputation being at risk if the wicked get away with their misdeeds. Second, the psalmists ask only that justice be done. Third, the psalmists’ persecutors should suffer in the way they have made others suffer. Fourth, in praying for retribution to fall on their enemies the psalmists are surrendering their case to God instead of plotting to take vengeance on their own (175-76).

 

Zenger argues that much criticism of these psalms is essentially Marcionite–that is, the idea that the Old Testament portrays an essentially Jewish God of wrath and judgment, whereas the New Testament reveals the Christian God of love and mercy. Zenger points out that the passion in these psalms is based on a conviction of God’s steadfast love for his people…We note that the idea that God is judge runs through the New Testament, from the parables of Jesus to the book of Revelation. The second coming, when Christ will judge the living and the dead, is the great hope of the early church (176).

 

Within the Psalter, Zenger observes, disbelief in divine judgment is one of the marks that distinguish the wicked from the righteous. The wicked ridicule the idea that God will intervene on behalf of the poor and oppressed (176).

 

“These psalms are expressions of a longing that evil, and evil people, may not have the last word in history, for this world and its history belong to God” (177).

 

And this commitment has at least three ethical implications for those who pray the psalms. First, by praying them, worshipers express deep sympathy with the feelings of those who suffer. “With their concrete expressions of fear and pain, they bring pain to the center of ordinary religious and social life. They are the expression of that sensitivity to suffering that is constitutive for biblical piety, and for any way of life that is shaped by the Bible” (178).

 

“As we pray and reflect upon Psalm 137,” McCann adds, “we remember and are retaught the pain of exile, the horror of war, the terror of despair and death, the loneliness of the cross” (178).

 

Those who pray these psalms today may be taken aback by their directness, but could that reflect our own sheltered existence and the blandness of the piety tha we were raised in and have continued in? These psalms shatter our illusions and make us face life in the raw and make us ask if we really believe in a sovereign, loving God (179).

Preterism

Since my recent comment on preterism occasioned some confusion, I’ll say a bit more.

i) Traditionally, preterism is the view that NT writers thought the end of the world would come in their lifetime. Since it didn’t, they were wrong.

Obviously that entails a liberal view of Scripture. The proverbial prophet who failed.

ii) More recently, N.T. Wright’s mentor, G. B. Caird, construed certain prophecies preterisiticly on the grounds that Scripture sometimes depicts the present in terms of the future. It uses stock, eschatological language to portray historical judgments.

And there’s some truth to this, although the reverse is also true: Scripture sometimes depicts the future in terms of the present.

I’m not entirely clear on what Caird’s own eschatological position amounted to. His commentary on Revelation seems to oscillate between preterism and idealism, universalism and annihilationism.

iii) In any event, his protégé, N. T. Wright, has done much to popularize this type of preteristic hermeneutics.

I’m also not clear on Wright’s eschatology. From what I’ve read, he seems to be rather coy about spelling out his overall position.

iii) The late R. T. France’s interpretation of the Olivet Discourse (and related passages) is also preteristic, based on how he relates the Olivet Discourse to the Ascension of Christ, vis-à-vis Dan 7.

iv) In a different connection, R. C. Sproul has helped to popularized partial preterism.

v) Using the hermeneutical strategies of France, Wright, and Caird, it’s possible to present a more conservative version of preterism. NT writers thought the end of the world would come in their lifetime–and they were right! It’s just that, on this view, the endtime imagery is purely symbolic. It stands for the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

vi) Of course, if you’re a “full” or “consistent” preterist, then you believe that this is as good as it gets. Christ returned, but we still have sin, disease, and death. His return makes no discernible difference. Before and after are indistinguishable. The world is just as evil as it ever was, and ever will be.

vii) Within one strand of theonomy you also have postmillennial preterism. Seems to me that preterism and postmillennialism are diametrically opposed.

Exponents of this view include Greg Bahnsen, as well as popularizers like Gary DeMar and David Chilton. Ken Gentry is their best scholar–although that’s damning by faint praise.

If push came to shove, I prefer historical premillennialism or progressive dispensationalism to the permutations of preterism. 

Dipatiphobia

I’m going to comment on this article:

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/03/4901

For the sake of argument, I will assume in this essay the worst possible case: namely, that the Iranian government is intent on pursuing the creation of nuclear weapons, and that there is a significant likelihood that Iran would either use these weapons directly against the United States or Israel, or give them to hostile terrorist groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah. Since a good end, no matter how important, cannot justify evil means, we must look to the just war theory for guidance in discerning what means for self-defense are permissible.

That begs the question of whether just-war theory should furnish the frame of reference. Just-war theory is a human construct, devised by fallible, shortsighted mortals like you and me. Just-war theorists were born ignorant, like you and me. They had to learn by experience, during their brief, provincial lives. They had to make things up on the fly.

Just-war theorists aren’t prophets. Just-war theory is entitled to a respectful hearing, but it’s not a given.

If the justification for the attack were simply Iran’s imminent possession of nuclear weapons, then clearly neither the United States nor Israel would be in a position of comparative justice, since both have nuclear weapons as well. Even if the cause for war were the likely use of Iranian nuclear weapons against innocent civilians, this situation is a murky one, since the United States is the one nation that has actually used nuclear weapons against an enemy and, in at least one case (Nagasaki), against a civilian population center with no significant military installations. In addition, the United States has never officially apologized for the nuclear attack on Japan nor disavowed the future use of its nuclear weapons in such an indiscriminate fashion. Until both the United States and Israel renounce such unjust use of nuclear weapons and make such institutional reforms as are needed to prevent it, we cannot claim that the comparative justice condition has been met.

i) That begs the question of whether nuking Japan was unjust.

ii) Moreover, the “United States” is just an abstraction. Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that what the Truman administration did was morally wrong, Truman and his advisors are long gone. You can’t facilely assume collective guilt, as if what one generation did automatically implicates a later generation. That requires far more argument.

The application of the last resort and the competent authority conditions are connected. War, even when there is a just cause, must always be the last resort, used only when all just and peaceful attempts to prevent aggression with an appropriate chance of success have failed.

Is the last-resort condition reasonable? In risk assessment you need to draw an elementary distinction between a lesser probability of greater harm and a greater probability of lesser harm.

For instance, even if there’s a high probability of a trivial harm, we might not bother to take any precautions inasmuch as the potential harm is trivial.

Conversely, if there’s a low probability of catastrophic harm, we might take elaborate precautionary measures, even though the worst-case scenario is highly unlikely, because we can’t afford to be wrong. If the cost of being mistaken is too costly, then we must observe extraordinary safeguards even though that’s quite unlikely.

High-risk isn’t equivalent to high-probability. High-risk also includes the potential for serious harm. The potential of a potential risk involves both the potential likelihood as well as the potential harm. Does a lower risk of a greater harm outweigh a higher risk of a lesser harm? The threat-level considers the level of harm as well as the level of likelihood.

Just war theory resolutely opposes any surprise attack, such as that of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, precisely because such an unanticipated action can never be a last resort. Sneak attacks do not provide the prospective enemy with an ultimatum that it can meet and thereby avert the catastrophe of war.

i) Yet the element of surprise can be crucial to the success or failure of the operation. If you tip off the enemy, then enemy can forearm itself against the attack. Ruling out a “sneak attack” may entail much greater loss of life. A successful first strike can win the war at the outset, thereby preventing a long drawn-out conflict.

The condition of last resort does not rule out the permissibility of a preemptive strike against a potential enemy, so long as the enemy is committed in a practically irrevocable way to launching an unjust attack—that is, so long as the unjust attack is “imminent” in this narrow sense. However, it is hard to believe that an attack involving the use of nuclear weapons could truly be imminent before a single one of those weapons has actually been built.

i) Imminence is hard to assess. Iran is a closed society. Moreover, most countries try to shroud their WMD programs in secrecy. That’s generally classified.

iii) Furthermore, if you wait until the threat is imminent, it may be too late. You blew your best options by allowing the enemy to stall for time. Now you're stuck with whatever options are left over. Whatever options the enemy left at your disposal. 

iii) This goes back to the question of risk assessment. What’s your margin for error? What are the consequences if you underestimate the threat? What are the consequences if you’re caught off-guard?

iv) Koons acts as if the rules are ends in themselves rather than means to an end. As if we should follow the rules for the sake of rule-keeping, even if the rules endanger us. We trap ourselves in a set of manmade rules–like a man who’s superstitious about stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. We see danger approaching, danger encroaching, but we’re frozen in place because it would go against the rules to escape.

Just-war theory isn’t the Decalogue. It wasn’t handed down from heaven. It’s just a human construct.

Rules ought to serve a purpose. But rules can outlive their usefulness. Or rules can be useful under ordinary circumstances, but counterproductive under emergency conditions. A general set of rules doesn’t anticipate every conceivable contingency.

Once a set of rules is put in place, folks tend to forget what the rules were for. They blindly follow the rules whether or not the rules make sense. They become gridlocked by a set of arbitrary rules. They can’t adapt to a crisis. They are overtaken by foreseeable disaster because they can’t bring themselves to break the rules–even though these were laws of utility rather than laws or morality.

Why is the condition of last resort so important, given that following this principle brings with it a significant risk of great harm? Last resort matters because when we go to war prematurely, we cannot act with the right intention. If war is something other than our last resort, we reveal our unjust disregard of the humanity of our enemies. The only justification for killing a human being (outside of capital punishment) is to prevent that person’s participation in some unjust killing of another, and to do so only after they have formed the firm intention to kill.

Many participants never form a personal intention to kill. They simply follow orders. Do what they’re told. It’s their superiors, the policymakers, who form the intention to kill.

I cannot legitimately shoot someone now in self-defense, simply because, given his wicked disposition, he will almost certainly intend to kill me at some time in the future.

Given the hypothetical that he just proposed, why can’t you legitimately shoot someone in self-defense under those circumstances? It would be illegal, but we’re discussing morality rather than legality. If he stipulates that you can know the assailant’s criminal intent in advance of the crime, then why not take preemptive measures?

One might also argue that the just war criteria are irrelevant, since we are intending merely to destroy Iran’s facilities (reactors and centrifuges), with the deaths of Iranian workers merely a foreseen but unintended consequence (appealing to the doctrine of “double effect”). However, the doctrine does not apply in this case: the presence of workers and scientists is a normal facet of the operations of these facilities, and so killing them is an integral part of the centers’ destruction, making the killings “intentional” in the relevant sense.

Koons has a habit of assuming what he needs to prove. Isn’t this a case where the distinction between combatant and noncombatant is artificial? Why is the man who drops the bomb fair game while the man who builds the bomb is off-limits?

Any response to this aggression, however, must be proportional to the actual harm suffered and the harm truly imminent (in the strict sense).

Why? What if the objective isn’t simply just reprisal, but eliminating the enemy’s military capacity to fall back, regroup, and fight you another day? 

In this post I’m not making a case for (or against) attacking Iran. We have to take into account the potential consequences of attacking Iran as well as the potential consequences of not attacking Iran.

The God wars

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2012/02/neo-atheism-atheists-dawkins

Is Romney really the more “electable” candidate in November?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/292802/danger-signals-romney-john-fund

Last Supper and Lord's Supper

Many denominations practice closed communion. One traditional rationale for "fencing the table" is 1 Cor 11:29, glossed in terms of the real presence (although that's a dubious interpretation).

Here's another argument for closed communion.

As baptists we're not denying that paedobaptists have a right to their own perspective, we are simply maintaining the integrity of our own convictions. Our consciences will not permit us to welcome into membership and communion those who have not obeyed Jesus at the point of baptism.

This is the whole reason there are Baptist churches at all. This is why baptists don't commune with Presbyterians, though it doesn't close down the possibility of cooperation in gospel efforts that are wider than local church ministry (such as T4G and TGC). If this issue were not big enough to divide over, to deny membership over, then why did the baptists ever separate from the presbyterians?

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/03/04/baptism-and-church-membership/

One question this raises is whether Jesus practiced closed communion:

14  And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it[b] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18  For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19  And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 21  But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. 22 For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” 23 And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. (Lk 22:14-23)

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper.

18  I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ 19  I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

21 After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” 22  The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. 23  One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus' side,[e] 24 so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. 25  So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, “Lord, who is it?” 26 Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor. 30 So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. Jn 13:2-4,18-30.

The Last Supper is the paradigmatic Lord's Supper. The exemplar of the Eucharist. Yet Jesus administers the "sacrament" to Judas, even though Judas is a closet unbeliever–something known to Jesus. On the face of it, Jesus is practicing open communion.

Where to begin? A word about method.

All along, I’ve been hoping to provide a true picture of the earliest church – it’s leadership, it’s worship patterns, how it understood itself in the context of the world. The truest picture we have, with as much detail as we can provide.

In that respect, I’m continuing to work through Larry Hurtado’s work Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, ©2003). What was striking about this earliest church was that “devotion to Jesus as God” was not only characteristic “always, everywhere, and by all” of the earliest Christians. Such devotion  was not only ubiquitous among earliest Christians, but it was “noteworthy phenomenally early”, it appeared with “unparalleled intensity”, and it appeared even in the midst of an “exclusive monotheistic environment”.

Here is a word about his method of pursuing that study.

In any study of earliest Christ-devotion the letters of Paul certainly must loom large, for these invaluable writings reflect an intense religious devotion to Jesus at a remarkably early point in the emergence of the Christian movement. But some readers will perhaps wonder why I commence here with a chapter on Paul, and then turn to an analysis of early Jewish Christianity in Roman Judea (Palestine). In strict chronological order there were, of course, Christians before the apostle Paul, as we learn from Paul himself. In his letter to Rome, for example, Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junia, two members of the Roman church who were fellow Jews and who “were in Christ before me” (Rom 16:7 [see my posts on Andronikos and Junia, Part 1 and Part 2 – JB]), and in his letters to Galatians Paul refers to “those who were apostles before me” in the Jerusalem church (Gal 1:17). By all accounts the first groups in the emergent Christian movement were made up of Jewish adherents in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Roman Judea (Palestine). Once again, among the relevant evidence (indeed the earliest evidence we have) are references by Paul to Christian groups in “Judea” as far back as his own conversion on the early 30’s (79-80).

Hurtado here notes that “it might seem more logical” to begin with a direct analysis of those “pre-Pauline” Christian groups. And in fact, he interacts with John Dominic Crossan, who does so (“The Birth of Christianity, New York: Harper Collins, 1998) while avoiding Paul in this discussion. “But in developing his views of Christian groups of the 30’s and 40’s [Crossan] depends upon, and hypothesizes from and about, material from sources that are in fact much later than Paul” such as the four canonical Gospels; other “Gospels” that are much later (“Gospel of Peter”, “Gospel of Thomas”), and the Didache.

But Paul’s letters are dated in the 50’s and 60’s, and his conversion “is most likely to be dated within a couple years (at most) of Jesus’ execution, that is, within what in terms of social history must be regarded as the “birth” of the Christian movement” (83). In fact, Paul frequently speaks of his interactions with other individuals from earlier dates. In that respect, he provides a reliable eyewitness account of the church in the 30’s and 40’s A.D.

Paul’s acquaintance with Palestinian Jewish Christians and their faith goes back even earlier than his participation in the Christian movement. Prior to his conversion, as a zealous Pharisee, he had become sufficiently acquainted with the beliefs and practices of Jewish Christians to determine that they were so dangerous as to justify his firm efforts to “destroy” the Christian groups and the ideas they promoted (as he testifies in Gal. 1:13-14; 1 Cor. 15:9; and Phil 3:6).

Furthermore, according to autobiographical statements in his letters, following his conversion Paul was active in Christian circles in Arabia, Damascus, and then “the regions of Syria and Cilicia”; and in the first few years he became personally acquainted with Cephas (Peter) and James the Just, leaders of the Jerusalem church (e.g., Gal. 1:13-24; 2 Cor. 11:32-33). The Paul who wrote the letters that we date in the 50s had been for some time prior a very widely and well-connected participant of the Christian movement, acquainted with Jewish Christians of Judean/Palestinian provenance all through the 30s and 40s as well as with Gentile congregations of the 50s (the main period of his Gentile mission). We can put locations of Pauline activity on the map of the Roman world with confidence (e.g., Jersualem, Damascus, Antioch, Thessalonica, Philippi, Corinth), and we have names of people involved with him (e.g., Barnabas, Timothy, Silvanus, Titus, and a rather impressive list of others that we could put together from Paul’s letters).

In other words, in any thorough discussion of Jewish Christians of these early decades, it is not only appropriate to take full account of Paul and the rich evidence in his letters, it is a failure of method not to do so.

Summarizing his own method for looking at Palestinian Jewish Christianity of the 30s and 40s, Hurtado gives these reasons:

1. Pauline Christianity is the earliest form of the Christian movement to which we have direct access from undisputed firsthand sources.

2. Paul’s letters, which are addressed to Christian circles already established and operative in the 50s, also incorporate and reflect emergent Christian traditions of belief and religious practice from still earlier years.

3. Paul’s own associations with Christian circles, which include important Jewish Christian figures such as Peter, James the brother of Jesus, Barnabas, and others, go back to his conversion, which is to be dated approximately 32-34, and so his acquaintance with beliefs and practices of Christian circles is both wide and extremely early.

4. Several of Paul’s letters reflect disagreements between him and other Christians, in particular some Jewish Christians with different views of the terms for full acceptance of Gentile converts, making Paul’s writings our earliest and most unambiguous evidence that there was a certain diversity of beliefs and groups in the earliest decades of Christianity, and also our best indications of the nature of this diversity and whatever commonality linked the groups.

5. The Christ-devotion attested in Paul’s letters amounts to a notable development in the history of religions, especially when set in the context of the Jewish religious tradition and the larger Roman-era religious environment, and his letters exhibit this development as having already taken place at a remarkably early point in the young Christian movement.

6. Finally, the place of Christ in the Pauline letters also anticipates, represents, and likely helped to promote the Christological beliefs and devotional practices that came to be widely characteristic in Christian groups after Paul.

Contrary to those who say that there is a dearth of historical material available about the earliest church, and rather that we ought to rely on what Christians of the 4^th and 5^th centuries said about Christ, Christianity, and “the Church”, beginning with Paul (and the other writings of the New Testament), we have an incredibly rich source of historical the churches life, practices, “τὸ εὐαγγέλιον”, earliest worship, “sacraments”, and more. 

In Israeli military, a growing orthodoxy

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/us-israel-religion-idf-idUSTRE8240G720120305

Santorum and evangelical cobelligerence

When Santorum gets on an issue like contraception, that reminds voters that he’s not merely a social conservative, but a Catholic conservative. That, in turn, raises the question of whether he’ll alienate evangelical voters. I suppose that’s a possibility.

But, paradoxically, it may be more likely that he’ll alienate Catholic voters. I don’t mean Catholic voters who share his viewpoint, but Catholic voters on his left.

Some Catholic voters may feel that his conservative views are implicitly judgmental of their Catholic bona fides. If he’s Catholic, what does that make them?

By contrast, his position doesn’t have the same potential to put evangelical voters on the defensive inasmuch as their religious identity was never pegged to fidelity to the Magisterium.   

Barna Report on the "New Calvinism"

http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2010/11/barna-report-on-new-calvinism.html

Round up on dispensationalism

In this post I’ve collated my impromptu debate over dispensationalism–along with some supplementary material. I don’t normally debate dispensationalism. It’s not one of my theological priorities. If I woke up tomorrow believing what Darrel Bock or S. Lewis Johnson believe, that wouldn’t require a major adjustment in my theology.

The only reason I ending up discussing this recently is because Paul Henebury commented on a post of mine. So that generated some back-and-forth.

As a Protestant, I’m comfortable with a certain amount of theological diversity. In eschatology, the only position I consider to be out-of-bounds is preterism. 


http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/typetoken.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-exodus.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/futures-not-what-it-used-to-be.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/meaning-of-meaning.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/salva-veritate.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/types-shadows.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/back-to-future.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-did-first-hearers-hear.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/signs-of-times.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/hermeneutic-of-suspicion.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/dispensationalist-on-dispensationalism.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/rocinante-to-rescue.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-does-face-value-meaning-mean.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/dispensational-equivocations-and.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/dispensational-hermeneutics.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/perspectives-on-ezekiel.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/double-trouble.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/temple-trebled.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/apotelesmatic-interpretation.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/varieties-of-dispensationalism.html

Snowflake fathers

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2012/03/obama-and-embryo-adoption.php

Is Ron Paul really a small gov't conservative?

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/289163

The Great National Crisis of This Week

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYrCF5jPsVM

Subsidizing promiscuity

I’m going to make a few observations about the Limbaugh kerfuffle.

i) I don’t listen to Limbaugh. I’m only aware of what he says when he’s quoted by a conservative pundit or I see a clip of him on a news outlet.

ii) I did skim through a transcript of what he said, although I didn’t read the whole thing:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/03/01/left_freaks_out_over_my_fluke_remarks

He does come across as a typecast male chauvinist pig in this transcript.

iii) As someone whose life ambition is to advance the conservative cause, Rush needs to avoid expressing himself in ways which are apt to backfire. Which give ammo to the opposition.

By the same token, Rush also needs to avoid fomenting controversies that put conservative candidates on the defensive.

iv) If you talk all the time, sooner or later you’re bound to say something you will regret.

For those reasons I think Rush merits criticism. That said, there’s another side to this issue:

v) He was using an argument from analogy: if somebody wants to have his (or her) sexual promiscuity subsidized by someone else, that’s analogous to prostitution.

Well…isn’t there some truth to that analogy?

Limbaugh also makes the valid point that if a single woman wants to have safe sex, why doesn’t she ask the guy to buy her contraception? Isn’t that between consenting adults?

vi) Is it sexist to single out the coed? To begin with, she singled herself out by speaking before Congress.

vii) More to the point, the reason we’re debating “free” contraception for women is because Obama’s policy is sexist. If women are entitled to “free” contraception, why aren’t men entitled to “free” contraception? Why isn’t the liberal media offended by the blatantly sexist bias of Obama’s policy?

viii) Suppose this had been a discussion about men rather than women? Suppose a male college student complained about how expensive contraception was for men? Suppose Limbaugh had called the male student a “gigolo” or “callboy.” Would there be the same outrage? I doubt it.

ix) I also doubt promiscuous singles are all that sensitive about inappropriate language. We live in a time when many women drop F-bombs right and left. A time when many Americans who can’t name the Attorney General or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court can name every cast member of Jersey Shore.

x) Feminism itself promotes “slutty” behavior by both sexes. What about unisex locker rooms at Ivy League universities? What About "Sex Week" at Yale? What about The Vagina Monologues on many college campuses? Or consider this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/fashion/after-class-skimpy-equality-motherlode.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&hpw=&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1331038981-97jnIbRkWp2Ze9ZuYLc1Ug

x) Finally, one might argue, from a Christian standpoint, that there ought to be some differences in how men treat men, men treat women, women treat men, and women treat women. Men and women are not interchangeable. 

Book Review: “How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens”

Review: How to Read the Bible Through the Jesus Lens (Michael Williams, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan ©2012)

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this work for the purpose of reviewing it. I’m commenting on the portion of the book that deals with the letters of Paul.

Introduction
When I first saw this book, a phrase from Steve Hays’s “Love the Lord with Heart and Mind” came to mind. Steve said: “When I was 16, going on 17, I felt led to read the Bible. I began with the OT, but at that time it was like a thicket. Impenetrable. So I stopped reading the Bible.”

That’s pretty much the thing that the author seems to try to address in this work. And given that the author was Michael Williams, Professor of Old Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary, I thought, who better to take on something like this?

Varieties of Dispensationalism

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/41/41-3/41-3-pp383-398-JETS.pdf

http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj6d.pdf

Apotelesmatic interpretation

I'm grateful that dispensationalism doesn't resort to the convoluted gymnastics of amillennialism or covenant theology:

http://www.raptureready.com/featured/price/13rp.pdf

The temple trebled

Here's an example of how contemporary dispensationalism parses prophecy:

http://www.raptureready.com/featured/price/7rp.html

Double trouble!

I discovered something about myself in my recent exchange with Paul Henebury. To judge by his reaction, there are two of me! There’s a me who’s a loyal foot soldier for covenant theology.  Who marches in lockstep with covenant theology.

But then there’s another me who’s AWOL. Who’s a deserter who abandoned his covenant theological post!

I don’t remember how or when this happened. Perhaps traveled through a wormhole in my sleep and bumped into my counterpart in an alternate universe. Or maybe a transporter mishap split me in two. Or maybe I’m Tuvix. It’s quite disorienting. I don’t even know which “me” is writing this. Am I’m the real me? It’s so confusing! I do hope that Scotty can put my doppelgänger and me back together again.

Me

Steve, like Beale and most CT’s does not hold this view, and therefore expects the New Creation to happen at the Second Advent.

 

But since his view belies all the internal and external evidence I have brought up, and since it so closely resembles the procedures of CT’s who openly profess to read the OT through the New; and since his examples are so unpersuasive as they stand, then I’m sorry but I think he is presupposing his knowledge of the NT and it is driving what he looks for in the OT.

 

But anyone who has even a little familiarity with the writings of covenant theology or Bible typology knows that you cannot keep the NT out of it.  Although I do grant that Steve is trying to champion a typology of the OT only, his reasoning is virtually the same as all those men, from Ball to Beale, who admit the critical role of the NT plays in their understanding of the OT.

 

Hays says we are to call the whole people of God in both Testaments “the covenant community.”  That is what Beale calls the NT church on page 203 of his NT Biblical Theology.

My alter-ego

Moreover, I was and am treating Steve Hays as a representative of CT, while attempting not to put words into his mouth.  I’m finding it a little tough because he hasn’t disclosed enough on what he believes about this matter and I keep coming across points of disagreement between him and many CT’s.  

 

I was going to cite D. Dickson’s Truth’s Victory Over Error, 194 to show that the Westminster Confession disagrees with Hays on restricting the term Church to the NT saints (I know he will play the semantics game but either way, it’s clear he doesn’t jibe with them).

 

Steve doesn’t like it that I think he is presupposing his view of the NT to inform his OT typology.  He thinks I’m placing him within the lot of those who freely admit to doing just that (i.e. covenant theologians generally).  He’s right, and I’m sorry if that irritates him.  Nevertheless, I do concede the uniqueness of Steve’s alleged position.  Indeed, he is a veritable Robinson Crusoe of biblical typology.  I know of no one else who takes his OT-only typology position.  Let us hope a ship full of CT’s will spot him and pick him up and promote his ideas.  But I wouldn’t hold my breath.  You see, though these men might agree with the results of Steve’s interpretation, I seriously doubt they would be so reckless as to pretend to convince academia that the Hays typology makes no assumptions based on the NT witness.

 

And as I’ve had cause to say, Steve’s tendency is to deny what most CT’s are happy to affirm.  Of course, I did not accuse Steve of not believing in shadows.  I assumed he would.  Hays once again puts himself outside the run of current CT’s by differentiating types from shadows. 

 

It begins to appear that Steve is not putting himself forth on behalf of CT’s in general but only on his own behalf.  I have tried not to paint him in foreign colors by accepting his rejection of “reinterpretation” for “recapitulation” and wot not, but I do not intend to turn this discussion down a narrow path.  Steve seems content to place me within the pail of dispensationalists and I had hoped he would, for sake of the discussion, allow me to view him as representative of CT – although noting any dissensions he might have from the CT’s I cite.